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Cars you didn't know existed until very recently.


philibusmo

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Honda Rafaga!  Have you ever got into your Honda Accord and thought 'this would be so much better if it had a longitudinally mounted five cylinder engine'?  No, nobody else with an Accord has either but, oddly, someone who works for Honda did.  Here's the result:

Honda Rafaga.jpg

That is a Honda Rafaga which, as alluded to, is effectively an Accord with a longitudinally mounted five cylinder engine of 2 or 2 1/2 litres capacity, which drives the front wheels via either a manual or automatic gearbox.  Except it's not really an Accord because it's bigger and rides on a bespoke chassis, but it does look like one.  

But there's more.  Honda also, at one time, produced a 'vigorous Accord' called the Vigor.  The first and second generations were simply Accords with Vigor badges but, in 1989, Honda went bonkers with the third generation and came up with a bespoke chassis for it.  The car was powered by the same engines as the Rafaga.  

1991 Honda Vigor (CB5).jpg

And more!  The Honda Ascot:

Honda Ascot.jpg

Yes, it's an Accord-like car powered by a five cylinder engine.  This is getting boring now.

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2 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

And a Turbo version

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This was one major Frankenstein-ing job from FIAT do Brasil back then.

 

It was a Tempra body, on a Regata chassis, totally different dash with no digital gauges and the option of a turbo engine that made it into one of the fastest cars built in Brazil to date 

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15 hours ago, Richard_FM said:

The Latin Americans like to make Fiats with their unique twists, as do the Turks.

I just learned of the existence of the Brazilian Fiat Argo and Cronos. Guessing we didn't get them here as they would've taken sales from the more "upmarket" (expensive) 500 range? 

 

 

Fiat_Argo_2017b_(cropped).jpg

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3 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Moskvitch-2141 Aleko, as sort of Chrysler Alpine clone. Reports coming out of Russia suggest that production is about to restart after a 20 year break.

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Are they actually going to put the Aleko back into production, or are they going to ship in the tooling for some more recent Chinese model and call it a Moskvitch?

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14 hours ago, Alusilber said:

Are they actually going to put the Aleko back into production, or are they going to ship in the tooling for some more recent Chinese model and call it a Moskvitch?

Both Nissan and Renault have sold their stakes in the company for a nominal amount with a buy back clause, so my guess would be that the Aleko maybe on the cards.

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