Richard_FM Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 23 minutes ago, lesapandre said: That is Loewy himself on the right of the photo. His office designed all Rootes 50's cars from Minx to Humber - the most successful probably being the Sunbeam Talbot 90. It's possible it is his own car - he used to drive his own custom designs. He took his scalpel to the E-Type including shortening the wheelbase - a lot of this stuff was used as rolling adverts for his business and touting for consultancy and design work. Here: http://www.carstyling.ru/en/entry/Jaguar_XKE_Coupe_1966_Raymond_Loewy/ A lot of his car stuff is flashy in a Palm Springs kind of way but nevertheless a prodigious talent. Best design - the 1962 Studebaker Avanti. He designed a lot of models for studebaker which is why some of his earlier rootes models look like scaled down studebakers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lesapandre Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 Yes. Less well known in the UK. He did all the Studebaker cars post-war to the mid-50's and is credited with introducing the 3-box design. His '54 saloons sold poorly, really too restrained for the US moving into a world of chrome excess so they moved design back in house and 'normalised' their designs. The Jaguar E custom has a couple of features that turned up on the new XJ6 in 1968 including the signature much larger square grille snout and the crimp line around the top of the rear wings. Cool guy Mr Loewy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrett Posted March 4, 2020 Share Posted March 4, 2020 Let's just take a moment to acknowledge that it was Bob Bourke (for Loewy Studios) who designed all those beautiful Studebakers. Bourke created perhaps the most beautiful American car ever built, the 1953 Studebaker coupés, and for decades never got any credit for them whatsoever. Loewy was a great self-promotor whose talent lay more in spotting and hiring other talented designers, rather than being a talented designer himself. This is, after all, the man who is most famous for designing the Coca-Cola bottle - which he didn't, but he never failed to take the credit when it was offered. Loewy's 'own' cars, such as the E-type, BMW and Cadillac, show what he was capable of when it came to car design, and it simply wasn't a patch on the skills of Bourke and his team. Skizzer, lesapandre, inconsistant and 3 others 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FakeConcern Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 I just saw this thing on Monky London (I know!) Should also be on the Once seen Never Forgotten thread... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrett Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Wtf is that!? stonedagain 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FakeConcern Posted March 5, 2020 Share Posted March 5, 2020 Apparently a toyota verossa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austat Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Opel Kadetts/Isuzu (Holden) Geminis were sold as Opel Isuzus in the USA: Datsuncog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austat Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 I was aware of the Apache: But I didn't realise that Authi built them as the Victoria in Spain: JeeExEll, Datsuncog and egg 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datsuncog Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 Remember the hitherto-unsuspected Suzuki Kizashi that cropped up a few pages back? MrsDC managed to spot one in the wild this evening! She wasn't aware of its oddball status on here; just that it looked kinda strange and had a peculiar name. Turns out 'Kizashi' means 'great things to come' - though it can also translate as 'omen' or 'warning'. Appropriate, maybe... This may be the only example in NI, so I was ridiculously excited in a vicarious way. LightBulbFun and FakeConcern 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Snipes Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 I quite fancy one of them, though the handful I see on AutoTrader etc were still a fair wack over a couple of grand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rantingYoof Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 The Kizashi sounds like an almost perfect combination of smollish car, powerful engine, but then obviously it had to be given a CVT for the UK market, and I've not found a single review of it that speaks favourably of that decision. Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk Datsuncog 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Snipes Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 On 3/4/2020 at 10:56 AM, lesapandre said: He took his scalpel to the E-Type including shortening the wheelbase - a lot of this stuff was used as rolling adverts for his business and touting for consultancy and design work. Here: http://www.carstyling.ru/en/entry/Jaguar_XKE_Coupe_1966_Raymond_Loewy/ A lot of his car stuff is flashy in a Palm Springs kind of way but nevertheless a prodigious talent. Best design - the 1962 Studebaker Avanti. That E Type looks awful. Bfg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aston Martin Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 5 minutes ago, Sir Snipes said: That E Type looks awful. All E-Types look awful martc, Yoss, vulgalour and 3 others 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
egg Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 rytecraft scootacar was new on me, apparently Jonny Smith had one... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rytecraft Inevitably, Villiers engined at one stage. HMC and LightBulbFun 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HMC Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 ^ IIRC one bearded chap drove one across America. As you do. egg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Out Run Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 3 hours ago, egg said: rytecraft scootacar was new on me, apparently Jonny Smith had one... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rytecraft Inevitably, Villiers engined at one stage. Smith and Sniff. I Googled the car, too. egg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vulgalour Posted March 6, 2020 Share Posted March 6, 2020 https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/212861/fiat-1300-familiare The Fiat 1300 Familiare, a car I only know about because one popped up in a thread over on the blue forum. Chap who owns it is in Finland, of all places. Skizzer and Amishtat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Calm yourselves - it's the Kia Xceed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Saw one of these Merc coaches today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan_Green Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 Xpeng g3 egg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New POD Posted March 7, 2020 Share Posted March 7, 2020 22 hours ago, Sir Snipes said: That E Type looks awful. Raymond Loewy is a legend in design history, but the man who helped shape such iconic works as the Greyhound bus, spectacular streamlined Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives, Coke bottle, Lucky Strike cigarette packet, and one of the most beautiful American cars – the Studebaker Starliner – had strange aesthetic judgements when it came to restyling his own cars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austat Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 Barchetta 595: delux, spartacus and bunglebus 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austat Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 Chevrolet 1300 Hatch; a Chevette/HC Viva... thing from South Africa. bunglebus, Yoss, JeeExEll and 11 others 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 That is a Shoveit isn't it? Sold under many names/restyles Fibreglass body! warren t claim, vulgalour, Alan_Green and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Datsuncog Posted March 9, 2020 Share Posted March 9, 2020 On 3/9/2020 at 3:49 AM, Austat said: Cripes, that's a real oddity. 23 hours ago, bunglebus said: That is a Shoveit isn't it? Sold under many names/restyles Surprisingly not - this is an unholy matrimony of the Viva HC (sold in South Africa as the Chevrolet Firenza) melded with the hatch and rear panels from a Chevette (or one of its many worldwide variants). There's been some slight reprofiling of the arches, but doors, wings, windscreen and front indicators are pure Viva HC. The Saffer version of the Viva initially looked just like the UK version, since it was a CKD kit shipped from Luton and fitted with a choice of either Vauxhall's midgey 1159cc unit or overgunned with Chevrolet's 2507cc engine (surely one of the biggest range gaps ever)... The Datsun-esque 'dustbin' wheeltrims were, presumably, of GM South Africa's own devising. But in order to revive flagging sales, the Chev Firenza was then facelifted in 1975, with the range cc gap now reduced through the introduction of the larger 1256cc Vauxhall engine, together with a smaller 1905cc version of the big Chevy engine . The interesting thing is that this wasn't a local design; Luton had in fact come up with this as a proposed mid-life facelift for the Vauxhall Viva. The idea was supposedly to give their cars a 'corporate' GM nose similar to the Opel Rekord and Commodore - but ultimately Vauxhall's executives shrugged it off in favour of adding droopsnoots to their incoming Opel-derived range, starting with the Kadett/Chevette and working on to the new Ascona/Cavalier and Rekord/Carlton. The Viva was instead left to soldier on for a few more years, largely unchanged since its debut in 1970. Apparently, the Viva Hatch was another Luton design project that never saw the light of day on UK roads either. Using the same floorpan and underpinnings as the Viva HC, but roomier inside than the yet-to-be-launched Chevette, it was seen as potentially part of a revitalised Viva range - possibly replacing the estate/sports hatch - but ultimately was thought to be too similar to the Chevette, and therefore likely to cannibalise sales of the new small hatch. But GMSA got wind of the binned prototypes, liked what they saw, and engineered them for production at the Port Elizabeth plant using a mix of UK-shipped parts and local content. Launched in 1976, along with the facelifted Firenza saloon the Hatch helped to keep the brand turning over until they were both canned at the end of 1978, in favour of Opel-based models. A Viva hatch, hey? But, speaking of South African oddities, there's also the legendary Firenza Can-Am V8, built to use up a job lot of surplus 302ci Camaro Z28 engines whenever GM pulled out of Trans-Am racing in North America... Now that was a bit of a goer. Amishtat, Volksy, JeeExEll and 16 others 16 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Ginetta GRS Datsuncog and Austat 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Snipes Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Theb front of that Chevy 500 (and the matching Chevette) look very Ford to me. Mk3 Escort, or shades of mk2 Granada? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bunglebus Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Very MK3 Escort, yes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrett Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 Hey, that SA Viva hatch thingy is an entirely new one for me! Nice work Datsuncog, Skizzer and RoadworkUK 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_FM Posted March 10, 2020 Share Posted March 10, 2020 South Africa seemed to get a few odd cars that the rest of the world didn't, often home brews using parts of existing designs. It makes Holden's re-badging of various Japanese cars seem rational in comparison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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