Cars you didn't know existed until very recently.

[delux]

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

[GeordieInExile]

If you showed me that and asked me to guess who made it, Lotus would be about twentieth on the list. So generic. 

[delux]

I thought that too. Didnt pay much attention until I saw the Lotus badge!

According to Wikipedia they were designed in Coventry and made in China. About as unLotus as you can get.

[Pieman]

On 23/11/2023 at 17:13, MiniMinorMk3 said:

I remember this from the PG Tips History of the Motor Car cards

It was card number 1 in the set

I remember it from this book which I read at my grandparents' house when I was a kid.



Which is on Amazon used for less than £4!  *orders*

[timolloyd]

6 hours ago, delux said:

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

Just let them do their thing for the next 10 years, until everyone else realises this SUV thing is a fad.

Then at least we’ll still have Lotus as a brand. It’s the same with Porsche and the Cayenne.

[High Jetter]

6 hours ago, delux said:

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

Is it smoll, or is that a very wide parking space?

[sheffcortinacentre]

Usual asshole parking you can see white line under engine.

[reb]

On 21/11/2023 at 20:20, Bfg said:

And now for something completely different .. if you'd forgive a slightly lateral step on the theme of this topic ..for although I knew of the vehicle - I neither knew the name of the man behind it, nor did I realise just how long ago such a motorised vehicle able to carry four persons ..and draw 4 tons along the road, was designed, built and tested.

Nicolas Joseph Cugnot (engineer) - (French. b. 26 February 1725.  d. 2 October 1804) invented and built this steam powered Fardier à vapeur (..a fardier was a massively built two-wheeled horse-drawn cart for transporting very heavy equipment, so in essence a 'steam-powered flat-bed' haulage tractor) 254 years ago  ..yes Two-hundred and fifty-four Years ago.!

The tractor unit was articulated to the trailer (surely an idea that would never catch on !? ), and it was built to a military specification ; to be able to carry or draw along four tons and cover two lieue (7.8 km, or 4.8 miles) in one hour.  It never achieved that specification but it did drive under its own power.  In 1770, a full sized Fardier was built and it travelled at a speed of 4 km/h (little over 2mph) with a running time of fifteen minutes, before its relatively small boiler need to be refired and the steam raised again.

This was a decade and half before higher pressure steam engines were fervently opposed by certain persons British history better remembers.. Messrs James Watt and Matthew Boulton

< more here > and < here > with < video here >. And for those interested in the history of steam road vehicles < here's > another Wikipedia link.

 

And here was I thinking 'motor vehicles that ran on the open road ground (ie., not along rails / tracks) before WW.1 were really old'.  

Pete

 

 

I had a Ladybird book with a picture of that in it!

That book is also why I think of 80s cars as very modern despite being somewhat more modern than that myself.

[MiniMinorMk3]

11 hours ago, Pieman said:

I remember it from this book which I read at my grandparents' house when I was a kid.



Which is on Amazon used for less than £4!  *orders*

This is not just any Pictorial History of Cars book, it's a Marks and Spencer Pictorial History of Cars book, with an introduction by Hunt the Shunt.

[Supernaut]

23 hours ago, delux said:

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

[martc]

No it's not a FIAT 127, it's a 147 because it's a diesel.

[MiniMinorMk3]

58 minutes ago, martc said:

No it's not a FIAT 127, it's a 147 because it's a diesel.

 

Fiat 147, built in Brazil with both petrol and diesels.

Pre-Face lift

Face lift badged as 127 Diesel in Europe.

They also did a Panorama version

Finally the 127 Rustica

 

[Timewaster]

19 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

127 Rustica

Really?

That would be the best name ever.

 

[MiniMinorMk3]

34 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

Really?

That would be the best name ever.

 

They exist (or they did).

Fiat 127 Rustica, a "tough" country car - Ruoteclassiche (quattroruote.it)

[Timewaster]

Excellent. 

What opportunities have marketing departments missed over the years?

We could have had the Talbot Horizon Rattle, the Rover 200 Kettle or the BMW 320d Chainsnap

😄

[sheffcortinacentre]

Cortina cam clatter

[808 Estate]

On 24/11/2023 at 18:47, delux said:

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

I thought it was the new Kia.

[Pieman]

From the "WTF is that?" thread - 1965 Datsun Bluebird 410 Deluxe.  What a great looking car.

[Crackers]

On 24/11/2023 at 17:47, delux said:

Lotus Bandwagon...sorry Lotus Eletre, who knew?!

 

On 24/11/2023 at 21:41, delux said:

I thought that too. Didnt pay much attention until I saw the Lotus badge!

According to Wikipedia they were designed in Coventry and made in China. About as unLotus as you can get.

It transpires that Lotus is sort of two companies, which not a lot of people seem to know. The Electoral Roll photographed above is a product of Lotus Tech, who are basically a spin off of Geely in China. 

Lotus Cars remain the Hethel engineering outfit and are responsible for the more conventional cars. 

The cars from both arms are sold under the single Lotus brand but it seems there is definitely a clear divide between the two. 

There's a lot more detail to it than that, but I recall hearing that Lotus Cars' cheif designer was keen to distance himself from any credit for the Electron Microscope at its launch and highlighted the difference between the two areas of the company. 

If EV SUVs are meant to do the numbers keep the company afloat whilst the enthusiasts can keep buying lower-volume models like the (gorgeous) Emira, then so be it. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Iso Rivolta. What a stunner.

[face]

Those Eletres look gopping in black.

£117K, this one is.

[martc]

Yeah, I know, it's a 504, one of the best cars in the world etc etc. But a Noo Yoik 504 Taxi? Who'd have thought that was a thing.

[lesapandre]

On 27/11/2023 at 20:09, Pieman said:

From the "WTF is that?" thread - 1965 Datsun Bluebird 410 Deluxe.  What a great looking car.

The bodywork is by Pininfarina.

[D.E]

Not entirely true to the thread title as the Argonaut is a piece of 1950s vaporware that apparently doesn't exist as a real, complete car, but I didn't know they've drawn other bodystyles apart from a limo and a coupe:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/193386780473

Cool, but loadsamoney...

 

[Metal Guru]

5 hours ago, lesapandre said:

The bodywork is by Pininfarina.

Surprised he didn’t manage another tweak of the Austin Cambridge / Peugeot 404 design.

[tul66]

On 28/11/2023 at 00:12, Dick Longbridge said:

Iso Rivolta. What a stunner.

They look even better from the front, one of my bucket list cars.

[flat4alfa]

Knew about the Argentine SIAM Di Tella and its Argenta stablemate

But not that they made a crew cab body.  200 of them too

[martc]

 

The Italian Ford Anglia, with body made by OSI  (Officine Stampaggi Industriali - 'Industrial Stampings Workshop') and oily bits from Dagenham. I've got to say I prefer this to the traditional Anglebox.

Here's one in the wild.

[martc]

Iso Rivolta Centomila. Only one was made, but it's still about and was recently auctioned (Nov 2021), info here https://www.finarte.it/auction/collector-cars-online-2021-11-29/iso-rivolta-centomila-72555?lang=en

[martc]

FIAT 2300 limo.