Cars you didn't know existed until very recently.

[somewhatfoolish]

6 minutes ago, Yoss said:

Was it?! News to me. I don't doubt you, I just don't remember. And we all know @barrett had a special kind of memory. Your knowledge of shit cars, particularly rare and plastic ones is second to none.

Happy new year by the way, Mrs Yoss has handed me a very large glass of prosecco and gin, sloe gin to be precise so this may be the last coherent thing I type today. 

I failed to insert the link; now added.

[High Jetter]

5 hours ago, FakeConcern said:

It was parked close to a hedge so I nearly missed this surprise tucked under the back...

The only 'ratification' that marque needs!

[FakeConcern]

4 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

I failed to insert the link; now added.

Thanks for all of that including the link. The quote makes total sense and I'd be happy to own a Sovam 850/1100 and anyway a Mini Marcos always looks to me like someone stood on the back end of it

[quicksilver]

Anyone ever heard of a Kraken? I would have assumed it was a one-off DIY build except there's two of them.

Q800 GFV shows as a red Zylch 599cc (never heard of that either) registered in 1988 and TBO 874S as a 1977 MG 1798cc so I'm guessing they're MGB-based.

[Leyland Worldmaster]

37 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Anyone ever heard of a Kraken? I would have assumed it was a one-off DIY build except there's two of them.

Q800 GFV shows as a red Zylch 599cc (never heard of that either) registered in 1988 and TBO 874S as a 1977 MG 1798cc so I'm guessing they're MGB-based.

I think they might be hill climbing cars. Name and appearance rings a bell! 

[High Jetter]

IIRC 'The Kraken Wakes' was an old Dr Who episode.

[lesapandre]

Simca 936:

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/features/simca-936-french-mini-never-was

[MiniMinorMk3]

30 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Simca 936:

https://www.classicandsportscar.com/features/simca-936-french-mini-never-was

Very similar to the Renault 6

[martc]

1 hour ago, High Jetter said:

IIRC 'The Kraken Wakes' was an old Dr Who episode.

Dunno about Dr Who but it's a novel by John Wyndham about aliens melting the ice caps and raising the sea levels with all the problems that that would cause. Very good yarn, almost as good as his masterpiece 'The Day of the Triffids'.

[lesapandre]

14 minutes ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Very similar to the Renault 6

Some Renault 5 in the greenhouse side view too...

[lesapandre]

12 minutes ago, martc said:

Dunno about Dr Who but it's a novel by John Wyndham about aliens melting the ice caps and raising the sea levels with all the problems that that would cause. Very good yarn, almost as good as his masterpiece 'The Day of the Triffids'.

"...melting the ice caps and raising the sea levels with all the problems that that would cause..." a totally implausible yarn...but wait...we don't need to depend on aliens after all :

 

[martc]

1 minute ago, lesapandre said:

"...melting the ice caps and raising the sea levels with all the problems that that would cause..." a totally implausible novel...but wait...we don't need to depend on aliens after all :

 

And Day of the Triffids is about mutant plants taking over the world (see GM plants for further details).

[somewhatfoolish]

iirc the triffids came from space and were exploited by evil corporations wanting to turn them into fuel.

[martc]

9 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

iirc the triffids came from space and were exploited by evil corporations wanting to turn them into fuel.

We are getting severely off topic here but the triffids were developed in the USSR as a plant that could provide cheap, high quality veg oil and cattle feed. A pilot was bribed to bring a box of triffid seeds over to the west (to be exploited by evil corporations). The plane was blown up in the upper atmosphere and the seeds spread around the world .

It was speculated that the blinding was caused by a malfunctioning military satellite. The plague which ripped through the survivors was also thought to be satellite based (perhaps the two collided?).

There was a lot of speculation about the potential evil uses of satellites/space at the time the book was written (1951).

I'm a bit of a John Wyndham fanboi.

 

[lesapandre]

(Excellent books)

Let's combine the two - Renault Goelette van from the 1963 film.

[EyesWeldedShut]

3 hours ago, quicksilver said:

Anyone ever heard of a Kraken? I would have assumed it was a one-off DIY build except there's two of them.

Q800 GFV shows as a red Zylch 599cc (never heard of that either) registered in 1988 and TBO 874S as a 1977 MG 1798cc so I'm guessing they're MGB-based.

Never heard of them but a spot of Googling gives either a USA based lot or a UK based lot - reckon is the latter as the former tweak EVOs and stuff
https://www.facebook.com/krakenmotorcarcompany 

[EyesWeldedShut]

39 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

(Excellent books)

Let's combine the two - Renault Goelette van from the 1963 film.

Geezer in hard to spot hat nicking a motor off Westminster Bridge
Full movie (below) I think that's maybe my evening's watching (reliving my 'hiding behind the sofa' from scary stuff youth  - like the Cybermen)

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Moskvitch 408 Tourist. It has a removable hardtop

[quicksilver]

51 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Never heard of them but a spot of Googling gives either a USA based lot or a UK based lot - reckon is the latter as the former tweak EVOs and stuff
https://www.facebook.com/krakenmotorcarcompany 

Lots of pictures but not a lot of info on that FB page. Looks like they started in 2020 making body/chassis kits that can be finished with whatever mechanical parts the builder desires and they've made half a dozen so far. Still no idea why the grey one is licensed as a Zylch as Google turns up, well, zilch for a car with that name.

[EyesWeldedShut]

41 minutes ago, quicksilver said:

Lots of pictures but not a lot of info on that FB page. Looks like they started in 2020 making body/chassis kits that can be finished with whatever mechanical parts the builder desires and they've made half a dozen so far. Still no idea why the grey one is licensed as a Zylch as Google turns up, well, zilch for a car with that name.

Methinks they're being lazy or slow on the registrations?

[High Jetter]

6 hours ago, martc said:

Dunno about Dr Who but it's a novel by John Wyndham about aliens melting the ice caps and raising the sea levels with all the problems that that would cause. Very good yarn, almost as good as his masterpiece 'The Day of the Triffids'.

Thanks, memory is suffering. Jeff Wayne was excellent tho...

[Metal Guru]

5 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Never heard of them but a spot of Googling gives either a USA based lot or a UK based lot - reckon is the latter as the former tweak EVOs and stuff
https://www.facebook.com/krakenmotorcarcompany 

The Kraken was a massive sea monster, that is a tiny little funny car. Hardly the best name.

Its like someone calling their Yorkshire Terrier “Hellhound”.

[Yoss]

5 hours ago, martc said:

We are getting severely off topic here but the triffids were developed in the USSR as a plant that could provide cheap, high quality veg oil and cattle feed. A pilot was bribed to bring a box of triffid seeds over to the west (to be exploited by evil corporations). The plane was blown up in the upper atmosphere and the seeds spread around the world .

It was speculated that the blinding was caused by a malfunctioning military satellite. The plague which ripped through the survivors was also thought to be satellite based (perhaps the two collided?).

There was a lot of speculation about the potential evil uses of satellites/space at the time the book was written (1951).

I'm a bit of a John Wyndham fanboi.

 

The way I remember it, and I've not read it in 25 years but it made an impression on me, was that the triffids were being kept in a laboratory  over here. The meteor/comet/thing in the sky did make everyone blind but as it was so spectacular everybody who could see it looked and so almost everybody went blind. The main character (forgotten his name) was in hospital recovering from an eye operation so was bandaged up and therefore didn't see it and didn't go blind. The people in the lab did go blind so we're unable to keep an eye on the triffids and once they were out they spread rapidly. 

I remember no mention of the USSR but I remember all the survivors fleeing to the Isle of Wight which is the dictionary definition of a fate worse than death. 

But I may have mis remembered this. I am talking about the book by the way, not the film or 1970s BBC TV programme. 

[EyesWeldedShut]

9 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Thanks, memory is suffering. Jeff Wayne was excellent tho...

Subtle.
He's still doing rather well with that ELO backing band of his too.

(As for the 1960's Triffid Film - there I was, as an adult, convinced it was always black and white until I saw the You Tube copy - guess whose parents had a B&W telly right into the 198s?)

[martc]

16 hours ago, Yoss said:

The way I remember it, and I've not read it in 25 years but it made an impression on me, was that the triffids were being kept in a laboratory  over here. The meteor/comet/thing in the sky did make everyone blind but as it was so spectacular everybody who could see it looked and so almost everybody went blind. The main character (forgotten his name) was in hospital recovering from an eye operation so was bandaged up and therefore didn't see it and didn't go blind. The people in the lab did go blind so we're unable to keep an eye on the triffids and once they were out they spread rapidly. 

I remember no mention of the USSR but I remember all the survivors fleeing to the Isle of Wight which is the dictionary definition of a fate worse than death. 

But I may have mis remembered this. I am talking about the book by the way, not the film or 1970s BBC TV programme. 

Definitely developed in the USSR although, you remember correctly, it was not mentioned by name (it was referred to obliquely but it was pretty clear which country John Wyndham was talking about).

Our hero was David Mason, he was in hospital after being stung in the eyes by a triffid (for the second time, he was an early victim of an immature one in his garden when the seeds spread around the world so had some immunity and didn't go blind - triffids invariably went for the eyes - the blinding being advantageous to them). He worked in a veg oil producers lab (the evil corporation referred to above); they were offered a sample of triffid oil with the promise of some seeds (for £lots) if they liked the oil. They liked the oil, the seeds were smuggled out of the obliquely referred too USSR but the plane didn't make it....

Triffids were kept, tethered, on farms it was found that leaving the sting in produced better oil. They were also kept as pets/curios (stings docked, but could grow back). After the blinding there was no one to monitor the farms or dock the ornamental specimens...

They did end up on the Isle of Wight. The BBC series (from 1981) was far superior to the '60's film as it actually followed the plot of the book. And is jam packed with chod.

 

 

 

[Yoss]

1 hour ago, martc said:

Definitely developed in the USSR although, you remember correctly, it was not mentioned by name (it was referred to obliquely but it was pretty clear which country John Wyndham was talking about).

Our hero was David Mason, he was in hospital after being stung in the eyes by a triffid (for the second time, he was an early victim of an immature one in his garden when the seeds spread around the world so had some immunity and didn't go blind - triffids invariably went for the eyes - the blinding being advantageous to them). He worked in a veg oil producers lab (the evil corporation referred to above); they were offered a sample of triffid oil with the promise of some seeds (for £lots) if they liked the oil. They liked the oil, the seeds were smuggled out of the obliquely referred too USSR but the plane didn't make it....

Triffids were kept, tethered, on farms it was found that leaving the sting in produced better oil. They were also kept as pets/curios (stings docked, but could grow back). After the blinding there was no one to monitor the farms or dock the ornamental specimens...

They did end up on the Isle of Wight. The BBC series (from 1981) was far superior to the '60's film as it actually followed the plot of the book. And is jam packed with chod.

 

 

 

Thanks, I wasn't a million miles out then considering how long ago I read it. Then they did a remake with Eddie Izzard a few years ago which annoyed the crap out of me because it went it's own way and seemed more concerned with special effects than story line. I would love to see the 1981 series again. 

[MiniMinorMk3]

Toyota RV2

[Datsuncog]

2 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Toyota RV2

Not only did I not know of the Toyota RV-2's existence, but I think it finally allows me to ID this mysterious unnamed Corgi prototype from the late 1970s...

That's been bugging me for a good few years now.

Excellent!

[somewhatfoolish]

A Panther Rio and a Lagonda had an unsatisfactory threesome with a trailer tent and the RV2 happened 9 months later.

[Metal Guru]

On 05/01/2023 at 12:16, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Toyota RV2

Marginally better than Top Gear’s efforts at Motorhomes.