Cars you didn't know existed until very recently.

[Missy Charm]

On 13/02/2026 at 23:24, vulgalour said:

Saw a photo of one of these and thought it couldn't possibly be real because of how massive the rear lights are.  Turns out, it's a real thing.  1960s Simca Jangada.

 

So far as I can figure out, it's a Brazilian market Simca. There's also the Esplanada and Chambord.

 

 

Those are strange cars.  The original design can be traced back to the Simca Vedette (or Vedette Marly in the case of the estate car), which was a large, French saloon car that used an early version of the Ford Flathead V8 for motive power.

Simca eventually started producing Vedettes in Brazil, under various names - Chambord, Esplanada, etc. - and powered them with an enlarged and revamped version of the Ford engine featuring hemispherical heads.  Transmission remained the same, however, with a three-speed manual.  

Eventually, Simca 'by Chrylser' rebodied the car to get something Ford-Galaxie-esque, as seen above, but didn't change the running gear.  That meant one could still buy, in the late sixties, something with 1930s underpinnings.  The other oddity is why Simca, being owned by Chrysler, continued to produce an ersatz Chrysler powered by Ford.  Surely they could have just, you know, made an actual Chrysler in the Brazilian factory.  

[chaseracer]

The Vedette was a Ford France design.  SIMCA bought the assets of Ford France in 1954, including the rights to the Vedette and the flathead V8, as well as the Poissy factory.

[Richard_FM]

The southern hemisphere seems to good for automotive oddities, with Latin America, South Africa, Australia & New Zealand often producing licence built cars with different names, engines, bodywork to much of the rest of the world!

[vulgalour]

I think I might have known about the Cony Guppy, I'm not sure...

As if the real life one isn't cute enough, there's toy ones!  I want a toy one.

 

 

[Asimo]

Watching some scrapyard pron: Chevrolet Orlando. 
No idea these were part of the universe

[vulgalour]

In Australia they got a soft top version of the Vauxhall Velox called the Vagabond.

I do have a question though, what's going on with the bonnet hinges on these?  They seem to open every which way.

 

 

[sheffcortinacentre]

1 hour ago, vulgalour said:

In Australia they got a soft top version of the Vauxhall Velox called the Vagabond.

I do have a question though, what's going on with the bonnet hinges on these?  They seem to open every which way.

 

 

Bonnet was a standard thing.

[adw1977]

21 hours ago, vulgalour said:

I do have a question though, what's going on with the bonnet hinges on these?  They seem to open every which way.

The original bonnet design allowed it to be opened either side.

Later cars had a redesigned bonnet that opened in the more conventional "alligator" style.

Vauxpedia has the info, as usual:

https://share.google/vRUo1pvkH8muAfmab

[myglaren]

This may be of interest:

What is this car?

https://qr.ae/pCQsZ6

 

[martc]

4 minutes ago, myglaren said:

This may be of interest:

What is this car?

https://qr.ae/pCQsZ6

 

There has been a massive amount of discussion about this car - in the WTF thread (I think, someone more learned will confirm/correct).

Spoiler - no definite conclusion had been drawn last time I read it. Most popular opinion - it's a pre-photoshop photoshop.

[High Jetter]

12 minutes ago, martc said:

There has been a massive amount of discussion about this car - in the WTF thread

Yup, but no harm in wheeling it out occasionally in case anyone new here has any info on it, methinks.

[Tayne]

Fair research, but also no definitive conclusion.

 

https://youtu.be/BX0BUbcQkbk?si=db7uL_Ejx8Z9JaAm

[myglaren]

It did look a bit familiar and just thought of the Opeless GT 1970.

Knew someone who had one - diesel 

Not quite.

[Madman Of The People]

On 13/02/2026 at 17:24, vulgalour said:

Saw a photo of one of these and thought it couldn't possibly be real because of how massive the rear lights are.  Turns out, it's a real thing.  1960s Simca Jangada.

 

So far as I can figure out, it's a Brazilian market Simca. There's also the Esplanada and Chambord.

 

 

Reminds me of the 1957-58 Studebaker and Packard station wagons.  This one is a 1957 Packard.

[bunglebus]

Cars trailers you didn't know existed until recently 

BMW Multi Trailer

[angle]

From a discussion about strange looking cars - the Chery QQme. Sold for a year only because no one bought one. 

[Snake Charmer]

[AnthonyG]

6 hours ago, angle said:

From a discussion about strange looking cars - the Chery QQme. Sold for a year only because no one bought one. 

A weird mash-up of all sorts of things - assuming this dates from the mid to late noughties - Micra K12 at the front, New Beetle at the rear, with the side profile having hints of the original Citroen C3/Pluriel.

A Chinese car or industrial design museum needs to preserve at least one to capture this moment in the development of their indigenous car industry - along with one of those licence built Maestros with the Montego front end. 

[Spiny Norman]

Winner of the  Zundapp Janus "Can you tell what way it's pointing?" award 2026. 😛

[Sigmund Fraud]

Yes, I know you've all seen an A40 Somerset before, but this one is not built by Austin of England !

[Stinkwheel]

Just now, Sigmund Fraud said:

Yes, I know you've all seen an A40 Somerset before, but this one is not built by Austin of England !

Hong Kong? 

[EyesWeldedShut]

8 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

Hong Kong? 

I go for Nippon  Nissan 

[edit] Datsun got a load of UK stuff in a deal with Austin after WW2 - so the early imports here had an (almost) identical A Series engine.
My Grandad (and others in the family) saw this as a bit of a betrayal so would never buy anything Japanese back in the 1970s 

[Sigmund Fraud]

2 minutes ago, Stinkwheel said:

Hong Kong? 

Hover over the picture, and I've put a convenient hyperlink that explains who the manufacturer was !

[EyesWeldedShut]

10 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Hover over the picture, and I've put a convenient hyperlink that explains who the manufacturer was !

🤦‍♂️ crap! Nissan, not Nippon- my bad

[EyesWeldedShut]

6 minutes ago, Sigmund Fraud said:

Hover over the picture, and I've put a convenient hyperlink that explains who the manufacturer was !

Were these exported as knock down kits or were they fully tooled up in Japan?
Just wondering as there were a load of knock down stuff back then but the UK also seemed to have some places that they just licensed out the tooling (I'm thinking specifically of the Datsun A Series type engine)

[AnthonyG]

There’s a good story about this deal in the book ‘The Austin’ by Barney Sharratt (think that’s his surname).

When Austin agreed the deal with Nissan, they would supply cars in kit form with almost all the parts included, and Nissan would over time take on more local manufacture of components until they could build more or less the whole thing domestically.

When selecting and/or making parts for these CKD kits, a heightened level of quality inspection was used, and only the best selected, in order to demonstrate the high quality of Austins. After all, Austin couldn’t be seen to let the British side down, particularly in front of a company based in a nation we had recently fought a very nasty war with. 

However, any part that didn’t make the grade for the Nissan kit wasn’t scrapped, but sent down to the assembly line at Longbridge and chucked on a British market car!!!

So basically Austin helped Nissan build much higher quality cars than they were prepared to sell to their own customers…

[quicksilver]

10 hours ago, AnthonyG said:

There’s a good story about this deal in the book ‘The Austin’ by Barney Sharratt (think that’s his surname).

When Austin agreed the deal with Nissan, they would supply cars in kit form with almost all the parts included, and Nissan would over time take on more local manufacture of components until they could build more or less the whole thing domestically.

When selecting and/or making parts for these CKD kits, a heightened level of quality inspection was used, and only the best selected, in order to demonstrate the high quality of Austins. After all, Austin couldn’t be seen to let the British side down, particularly in front of a company based in a nation we had recently fought a very nasty war with. 

However, any part that didn’t make the grade for the Nissan kit wasn’t scrapped, but sent down to the assembly line at Longbridge and chucked on a British market car!!!

So basically Austin helped Nissan build much higher quality cars than they were prepared to sell to their own customers…

Kind of ironic really as things would come full circle 30-odd years later when the Japanese brands had become so good one of them helped Austin-Rover improve its own products. We went from British Austin designs built by Nissan in Japan to Japanese Honda designs built by Rover in the UK.

[Adrian_pt]

I thought most Eastern tat would be pretty familar by now, but ended up going down a Velorex shaped rabbit hole the other day to find ... this. A small-series four door 435-O of the early 70s, produced for a couple of years after the familiar three-wheeler. For when a Trabant is just too decadent... They also made other four-wheelers - a dinky little cabriolet in about 1960 and a pick-up truck in the late 60s - albeit in tiny numbers. Unsurprisingly, this was not a commercial success. 

[artdjones]

14 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

I go for Nippon  Nissan 

[edit] Datsun got a load of UK stuff in a deal with Austin after WW2 - so the early imports here had an (almost) identical A Series engine.
My Grandad (and others in the family) saw this as a bit of a betrayal so would never buy anything Japanese back in the 1970s 

They also made the new model Cambridge.

[bunglebus]

6 hours ago, Adrian_pt said:

I reckon if I was to try and construct a car using whatever's in my shed, with hand tools, it'd look almost as good as that