Eye-catching black and whites

[Rab]

[Austat]

15 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

A South African made Glas, Spotted Laurel has a picture to one that  was imported to the UK in the 1970s.

Originally the Glas 1700 was from Germany but production ceased in December 1967 after BMW bought the brand and moved production of the saloon to Africa where they were built with BMW running gear. The South African models were known as the BMW 1800GL/2000GL, but they were also also built as the BMW Cheetah in Rhodesia.

Production of the Glas was most likely ended in Germany due to the 1700 being a direct competitor to the "Neue Klasse" range from BMW.

[Austat]

[Austat]

[Austat]

[Richard_FM]

2 hours ago, Austat said:

Oops!

[Rab]

[lesapandre]

Snow Cruiser

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Snow_Cruiser

[lesapandre]

On 5/2/2020 at 2:40 PM, Rab said:

Bottom car is a Toyota Crown - I thought it was a Humber Snipe at first glance.

[lesapandre]

9 hours ago, Austat said:

Originally the Glas 1700 was from Germany but production ceased in December 1967 after BMW bought the brand and moved production of the saloon to Africa where they were built with BMW running gear. The South African models were known as the BMW 1800GL/2000GL, but they were also also built as the BMW Cheetah in Rhodesia.

Production of the Glas was most likely ended in Germany due to the 1700 being a direct competitor to the "Neue Klasse" range from BMW.

The German car industry is studded with examples where the bigger companies gobbled up the weaker companies to get rid of competing cars.

Why BMW bought Rover IMHO - especially for example the 600 which was a credible BMW competitor.

[Bfg]

6 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Snow Cruiser

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctic_Snow_Cruiser

" Work began on August 8, 1939 and lasted for 11 weeks. On October 24, 1939, the vehicle was fired up for the first time at the Pullman Company just south of Chicago and began the 1,640 km (1,020 mi) journey to the Boston Army Wharf. "    ..that was a darn quick build !

[Austat]

On 5/2/2020 at 11:40 PM, Rab said:

7 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Bottom car is a Toyota Crown - I thought it was a Humber Snipe at first glance.

That's a Nissan Cedric Custom 31, Toyopets and Datsuns from this era are always hard to distinguish.

[martc]

On 5/3/2020 at 4:57 PM, lesapandre said:

The German car industry is studded with examples where the bigger companies gobbled up the weaker companies to get rid of competing cars.

Why BMW bought Rover IMHO - especially for example the 600 which was a credible BMW competitor.

The Japanese car and bike industry did the same, Datsun bought Prince for example. But in Japan at least, the government actively encouraged the swallowing up of smaller companies. In the 60's there were tens if not hundreds of bike manufacturers in Japan but by the end of the 60's there was the Big Four and Bridgestone who soon disappeared.

Marusho for example made the magnificently named Lilac motorbike but they disappeared in 1967. If they continued would they be a rival for Moto Guzzi now?

Meguro is an example of a forced merger - with Kawasaki. Like Datsun, who continued making some Prince models, Kawasaki continued with Maguro's W series of bikes which are still made today.

Kawasaki (nee Meguro) W1 1965.

Kawasaki W800 2020

[Richard_FM]

I knew Nissan had bought up Prince who used the the Gloria & Skyline model names and started to develop the Cherry before the merger.  There was a separate Prince dealer network in Japan for years afterwards in a typically Japanese “sounds crazy but somehow makes sense” way.
 

I didn’t know there were so many motorbike makers over there though.

Quite a few Japanese electronics companies have merged or been bought into over the years too.  Not helped by corporations using different brand names in different markets.

[martc]

1 hour ago, Richard_FM said:

I didn’t know there were so many motorbike makers over there though.

I won't bore you with a long list - but you can find one here - http://www.classicjapcycles.com/articles/list-of-japanese-motorcycle-manufacturers . I may have exaggerated, for journalistic reasons, when I said hundreds, but there's certainly a lot. Most are virtually unknown in the west but  Marusho (as Lilac) and Brdigestone had reasonable export sales. Bridgestone stopped bike production as the big 4 pressurised them by threatening not to buy their tyres if they carried on. Here's some from companies still in existance, but not in the motorbike game (soz not B+W)

Bridgestone GTR350

Miyata OA125, Miyata originally made pushbikes, they still do today.

Fuji Rabbit Superflow scooter. Fuji are still in the wheeled vehicle game - making Suburu cars.

[ETCHY]

On 5/2/2020 at 7:02 PM, lesapandre said:

I'm not sure of the MWay. I think it is the M1 opening 1959- the debonair chap in the foreground is Ernest Marples Transport Minister I think.

Yep, could even be the M6 I suppose or as it was originally known the Preston by Pass - Britains first stretch of Motorway.

The amount of traffic makes it look like an early into lock-down Motorway !

[lesapandre]

"I can't get it to start Doris - sand in the distributor I think. Tides coming in - get on the bonnet while I go for help."

[lesapandre]

971GFC no longer on DVLA records - a good salt wash probably did  for the subframes.

[Austat]

Henry Taylor driving a Ford Cortina down the olympic bobsleigh run at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

[Austat]

[somewhatfoolish]

On 5/2/2020 at 11:34 PM, Richard_FM said:

 

Is this one of Gulbenkian's weird creations?

[Richard_FM]

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Is this one of Gulbenkian's weird creations?

It’s a Winchester Taxi, which used a fibreglass body but was underpowered because it used a 1.6 litre Diesel engine & later a Ford petrol unit of the same size.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

9 hours ago, Austat said:

Henry Taylor driving a Ford Cortina down the olympic bobsleigh run at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

Cortina was also one of the locations used for the first Pink Panther film.

#uselessfact

[Austat]

Diahatsu Camagno Berlina, first Japanese car to be sold in the UK.

[Richard_FM]

6 hours ago, Austat said:

Diahatsu Camagno Berlina, first Japanese car to be sold in the UK.

The had a stand at the 1964 motor show, but did this generate enough interest for them to actually sell many cars?  This effort didn’t seem to last long & it wasn’t until the late 1970s that they tried again.

[Austat]

[Austat]

[Tadhg Tiogar]

4 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

They had a stand at the 1964 motor show, but did this generate enough interest for them to actually sell many cars?  This effort didn’t seem to last long & it wasn’t until the late 1970s that they tried again.

CGH 7B is the only surviving British Compagno, I think, and Daihatsu own it as part of their heritage collection. Took them years to find it, and I don't think they will ever part with it now; it's just too important historically. They do run it from time to time, just not very often.

[Richard_FM]

31 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

CGH 7B is the only surviving British Compagno, I think, and Daihatsu own it as part of their heritage collection. Took them years to find it, and I don't think they will ever part with it now; it's just too important historically. They do run it from time to time, just not very often.

I've heard about collectors going out of their way to find early Japanese exported cars.  I've heard some interesting ones have turned up in very rural areas where it would cost more than the scrap value of a car to tow it to the nearest scrapyard, so have just been left at the edge of a field or farm yard, or even in a barn under a tarp.

When these dried up the collectors had to start going to the commonwealth countries to find some hidden gems.

[lesapandre]