Cars you didn't know existed until very recently.

[Aston Martin]

Heuliez Pondicherry, the guys that built the 206cc etc.

 

It's an electric Matiz. 

[Aston Martin]

On 5/6/2020 at 12:39 PM, chaseracer said:

Is that a Lotus Elise screen?

 

And morette 206 headlights.

[GeordieInExile]

Getting a strong Punto MK1 vibe from the front of that Pondicherry.

[Yoss]

A friend of mine who likes his Fiats once told me the design of the Matiz was offered to Fiat but they rejected it going with their own 500 (a few years later, but I think it was in the design phase). Whilst we can't argue with the success of the new 500 I can't help thinking the Matiz is more of a true successor to the original, the new one being rather overbloated, to my eyes at least. 

 

I can't verify this, it's one of those a bloke down the pub said stories but it sounds quite feasible. 

[martc]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

A friend of mine who likes his Fiats once told me the design of the Matiz was offered to Fiat but they rejected it going with their own 500 (a few years later, but I think it was in the design phase). Whilst we can't argue with the success of the new 500 I can't help thinking the Matiz is more of a true successor to the original, the new one being rather overbloated, to my eyes at least. 

 

I can't verify this, it's one of those a bloke down the pub said stories but it sounds quite feasible. 

The Matiz was designed by Giugiaro aka Italdesign. The design was called the Lucciola - made from recycled materials and powered by an electric motor. There's no mention of FIATs involvement on Italdesign's website but other sites claim the work was for FIAT who wanted to reintroduce the 500  (Cinquecento) of yore. Here's the full SP straight from the horses mouth -

https://www.italdesign.it/project/lucciola/

FIAT were in fact already making the Cinquecento (designed by Ermanno Cressoni) when the Lucciola was released. As FIAT were not interested in it the design was offered to Daewoo who snapped it up.

Some more chat here -

https://drivetribe.com/p/giugiaros-rejected-concept-which-ajb24UKJR_qsSQfDlQwfug?iid=MQCLo0wJQ7260chWi1pFfA

 

 

 

[Richard_FM]

The Yugo Sana was based on design study by Pininfarina for the Fiat Tipo iirc. 

[17-Coffees]

I never knew about this till a few mins ago...

Electric 190E! 

[Sir Snipes]

Oh wow FIVE seats?!

[somewhatfoolish]

Rare pygmy germans.

[bunglebus]

Carbodies CR6. Range Rover panels, Land Rover engine, Ital lights and SD1 running gear. Not a great success.

 

[Inspiral_Mondays]

Never seen this one before, a Ford Granada Mk2 1.7L, Dutch market special for those not in a hurry, with 1.7 litre V4 power and plastic seats to complete the sack cloth and ashes vibe. The one below is for sale.

https://www.autoscout24.com/offers/ford-granada-1-7-l-station-gasoline-beige-e87c2ba2-7b45-f132-e053-e350040a49d7?utm_source=ios-share&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=share

[Austat]

Vauxhall Sports Hatch Concept 1 from 1973:

 

[lesapandre]

[NorfolkNWeigh]

 

 

We all know about Uren Savage Cortinas, some of us also were aware of the various Escort and Capri 2.0, 3.0 and 5.7 litre conversions known as Apache, Navajo and Stampede. What I, for one, was unaware of were the Weslake headed and fuel injected  Consuls and Granadas.

These were known as Senecas, presumably there’s a Native American tribe Of this name, rather than after the a Roman philosopher! I came across these in a 1974 What Car ? price list. At first I assumed they were 351 V8s in the style of Basil Green’s  Perana, but if so the prices were unbelievably low- within £10 of the Consul GT, Granada XL Estate or Ghia Saloon they were based on. I’ve since found one reference to the injected and Weslake headed 3.0 and that makes more sense- although why they were so cheap is still odd, maybe Uren was getting cars with a massive fleet discount. The other mystery is why there weren’t loads of them around , 190 bhp as opposed to 138 and in some cases they were listed as cheaper than the standard car!

There was also a Transit Easydrive , which was a 3.0 and Cortina Cheetah which was a 2.5 V6 in a 1600 L , I found an ad which showed a 1300L , but presumabl it was never converted because it was still a 1300 when it was scrapped in 1984- not sure who would want a basic Cortina with a 2.5 , caravan era maybe?

Anyway, does anybody know anything about these Senecas and why they didn’t take over the big car market?

[bunglebus]

1 hour ago, lesapandre said:

FB_IMG_1588921795557 by RS, on Flickr

FB_IMG_1588921786100 by RS, on Flickr

FB_IMG_1588921790865 by RS, on Flickr

[Inspiral_Mondays]

1 hour ago, bunglebus said:

FB_IMG_1588921795557 by RS, on Flickr

FB_IMG_1588921786100 by RS, on Flickr

FB_IMG_1588921790865 by RS, on Flickr

I remember seeing pictures of this in a magazine as a teenager, it left an impression in my formative years. It‘s the Michelin Centipede and was used by Michelin to do high speed testing on their tyres. The tyre testing rig is in the middle of the car. I think the engine is at the back.

[Austat]

3 hours ago, NorfolkNWeigh said:

 

 

We all know about Uren Savage Cortinas, some of us also were aware of the various Escort and Capri 2.0, 3.0 and 5.7 litre conversions known as Apache, Navajo and Stampede. What I, for one, was unaware of were the Weslake headed and fuel injected  Consuls and Granadas.

These were known as Senecas, presumably there’s a Native American tribe Of this name, rather than after the a Roman philosopher! I came across these in a 1974 What Car ? price list. At first I assumed they were 351 V8s in the style of Basil Green’s  Perana, but if so the prices were unbelievably low- within £10 of the Consul GT, Granada XL Estate or Ghia Saloon they were based on. I’ve since found one reference to the injected and Weslake headed 3.0 and that makes more sense- although why they were so cheap is still odd, maybe Uren was getting cars with a massive fleet discount. The other mystery is why there weren’t loads of them around , 190 bhp as opposed to 138 and in some cases they were listed as cheaper than the standard car!

There was also a Transit Easydrive , which was a 3.0 and Cortina Cheetah which was a 2.5 V6 in a 1600 L , I found an ad which showed a 1300L , but presumabl it was never converted because it was still a 1300 when it was scrapped in 1984- not sure who would want a basic Cortina with a 2.5 , caravan era maybe?

Anyway, does anybody know anything about these Senecas and why they didn’t take over the big car market?

I knew about the Stampedes but didn't know about the Capris and Escorts that they did.

That RS 2000 advert looks interesting.

[sheffcortinacentre]

There's pics of a turbocharged MK1 Granada in the Capri book by Jeremy Walton.

Race proved did 302 V8 engined MK4 Zcars but the Granada would've required & one off sump/ pickup pipe & the oil crisis was looming.

Jeff was a clever guy when it came to costing. The 2.5 cheetah was a lower cost offering ( probably to use some of the engines they had).

They mainly only had to buy the V8 & some of the V6 engines.

As the ones removed where fitted in the other conversions the V6's into cortina,escort & transit.

The 2.0 ohc & 1.6 xflows went into escorts,the V4's & 1.1/1.3 xflows were sold on all helping keep the costs down.

The other two companies involved in this sort of stuff where crayford who did some 3.0 mk2 Cortina conversions & superspeed who did mk2 & MK3 V6 swaps, broadspeed did some 302V8 Capri's &  warmed over 3.0 Capri's but got more into turbocharging amongst there more common ones being A series manta's 3.0 V6 fords & in the later 70's ford 2.0 ohc's.

I believe they tried a 240z & possibly a dolly sprint.

[Richard_FM]

On 5/11/2020 at 7:10 PM, bunglebus said:

Carbodies CR6. Range Rover panels, Land Rover engine, Ital lights and SD1 running gear. Not a great success.

 

I remember this being featured on the perpetual motion about the fx4 - showing how hard it was to replace.  
 

The Metrocab did a similar parts bin raid at Ford with a mk2 Granada grille and Mk3 Escort estate rear lights.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

10 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

There's pics of a turbocharged MK1 Granada in the Capri book by Jeremy Walton.

Race proved did 302 V8 engined MK4 Zcars but the Granada would've required & one off sump/ pickup pipe & the oil crisis was looming.

Jeff was a clever guy when it came to costing. The 2.5 cheetah was a lower cost offering ( probably to use some of the engines they had).

They mainly only had to buy the V8 & some of the V6 engines.

As the ones removed where fitted in the other conversions the V6's into cortina,escort & transit.

The 2.0 ohc & 1.6 xflows went into escorts,the V4's & 1.1/1.3 xflows were sold on all helping keep the costs down.

The other two companies involved in this sort of stuff where crayford who did some 3.0 mk2 Cortina conversions & superspeed who did mk2 & MK3 V6 swaps, broadspeed did some 302V8 Capri's &  warmed over 3.0 Capri's but got more into turbocharging amongst there more common ones being A series manta's 3.0 V6 fords & in the later 70's ford 2.0 ohc's.

I believe they tried a 240z & possibly a dolly sprint.

I remember an article in one of the weeklies in about 1975 about a Broadspeed Turbo Comsul GT ( or maybe Granada 3.0S ) Police car. Can’t remember any details though- I was 11 and read it at the barbers!
Also a test, unusually in Custom Car , of an RS2000 Turbo in 1979ish.

Me and a mate got hold of a turbo set up years ago, that we tried to fit to a 2.0 Escort, it had an SU , if I remember correctly. What I do remember is the fire when one of us got anti-freeze on the manifold ! Gave up with it and flogged the turbo stuff on. That Escort went on to get a Rover V8 auto , before finally being put out of its misery by my brother putting it on a roundabout backwards and ripping the back axle out.

[DSdriver]

By Mic from Reading - Berkshire, United Kingdom - Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54294227

This showed up in my YouTube suggestions 

 

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1 hour ago, DSdriver said:

By Mic from Reading - Berkshire, United Kingdom - Paris, France, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54294227

This showed up in my YouTube suggestions 

 

There was one in the eBay Tat Thread a couple of weeks ago , pretty sure it was in this country too.

[DSdriver]

Although I do look at Ebay Tat every time I view the forum I seem to have missed that.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

47 minutes ago, DSdriver said:

Although I do look at Ebay Tat every time I view the forum I seem to have missed that.

Sorry,  my mistake it was the Low cost Big liability thread in the modern section. Pg 335

Posted by @The Vicar

 

The modern thread is a bit ambiguously named , I think the initial idea was for cars newer than 10 years old, it sort of means anything this century now. So don’t dismiss it as Pistonheads Lite or something.

[jumpingjehovahs]

Looks very familiar, but this one is a 4.1 straight 6 sold in Brazil as the Chevrolet Omega Suprema. This ones a 1995 so must be one of the last, has only 21000 miles and comes with the very rare digital dash and sunroof.

[chaseracer]

On 5/12/2020 at 11:19 AM, Inspiral_Mondays said:

I remember seeing pictures of this in a magazine as a teenager, it left an impression in my formative years. It‘s the Michelin Centipede and was used by Michelin to do high speed testing on their tyres. The tyre testing rig is in the middle of the car. I think the engine is at the back.

Engines, plural.  Two Chevrolet 454ci big-block V8s... ??

[Sir Snipes]

19 minutes ago, jumpingjehovahs said:

Looks very familiar, but this one is a 4.1 straight 6 sold in Brazil as the Chevrolet Omega Suprema. This ones a 1995 so must be one of the last, has only 21000 miles and comes with the very rare digital dash and sunroof.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say a Chevy 4.1 makes less power than the 12v straight six we got.

[jumpingjehovahs]

I'm going to hazard a guess and say a Chevy 4.1 makes less power than the 12v straight six we got.

168bhp in the 4.1 and 175 in the Carlton 3000, not a huge deficit but enough


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[Adrian_pt]

Thought I was pretty up to speed on most stuff sold in Europe after the war - turns out every day is a school day. WOULD, incidentally.

[lesapandre]

It's a Spanish market Merc van constructed in Spain to get round high import duties?