It's Time to Play "WHO AM I"?

lemko

Wow! Those must've been some tiny cylinders!

Mr_Shiftright

Harry was inspired by the early Peugeot Grand Prix engine he was asked to repair (1920s?)

Some say Bugatti copied his designs.

True genius indeed, rather sad ending. You KNOW you're in rough shape when Preston Tucker has to bury you. :P

Wikipedia says Harry helped work on the Tucker car but I'm not sure that's right. I think Tucker and Miller worked on a Ford racing engine that didn't pan out.

Mr_Shiftright

I was foreign-born and came to America as an infant before the Civil War. In adulthood, my brother and I made good money in porcelinizing plumbing fixtures. I decided to try my hand in the bustling automobile business. My first cars were innovative, and some historians say I practically invented the overhead valve system still seen on engines today.

But I was not such a great businessman, and sold my rights to my company in 1906. Nothing else really panned out for me after that. Just before my death in 1929, I was working as a teacher in a trade school, practically penniless and barely able to support my family. I had to endure the everyday witness of seeing thousands of my cars with my name on them passing me by. The corporation that bought my car and still builds it today had its headquarters only a short distance away from my home, but they never gave me assistance or recognition.

I died alone in a hospital on March 5, 1929. My house was torn down shortly after.

Who Am I?

lemko

Are you David Dunbar Buick?

hpmctorque

Louis Chevrolet?

andre1969

er....well....I mean....WELL.....a muscle car is supposed to be "a large engine in a compact body".....but yes, I have heard that appendage used on this car before.

Well the first car to be marketed as a musclecar, and credited with kicking off the musclecar craze, was the 1964 GTO. However, it was neither compact nor big-block. At around 206" long and on a 115" wheelbase, it was about the size of a 1956 Plymouth Fury. And if ya wanna get anal, Pontiac never made a big-block engine. Their 1955 287 block was used for everything on up to the 455. They raised the deck and did other tricks to accommodate bigger displacements, but Pontiac never had a big-block in the sense that Olds, Buick, Chevy, Ford, or Mopar did.

The GTO wasn't the first musclecar. It was just the first car to be MARKETED as a musclecar. If anything, those awkward, downsized 1962 Plymouths and Dodges fit the bill better than the GTO. They were marketed as full-sized cars, but were really intermediate-size and weight. And could be had with true big-blocks, on up to the 413 in 1962 and the 426 Wedge in 1963.

Mr_Shiftright

David Dunbar Buick is correct, but Louis Chevrolet wasn't a bad guess. Louis ended up a bit better than David.

He started is own car company after leaving GM, called Frontenac. He ended up building hot-rod equipment for Model Ts and also racing with his brother.

When you go to the Indy 500 Museum, you will see a bust of Louis Chevrolet near the entrance.

Mr_Shiftright

heretics! Burn them! :P

I do see the logic of your argument, but I'm not a fan of "revisionist history". Yeah, they coulda woulda shoulda fit the category of "muscle car" but the GTO claimed the title and that's how it should stand IMO. It's really not kosher to view history with the foreknowledge of the present, and then apply present knowledge BACKWARDS. You see this all the time: "FDR should have known that.....or Churchill should have known THAT".

Fact is, nobody used or understood the term "muscle car" until the automotive press coined it and applied it to the GTO. So I'm gonna hang tough with you on this one---all in good fun, of course!

andre1969

I'm not really going back and trying to revise history though. Just pointing out that there were cars that fit the bill of "musclecar" before the GTO came along. I'd say the GTO was the car that kicked off the musclecar craze though, and made them affordable to the masses. Prior to the GTO, high-performance cars tended to be high-priced, well-appointed flagships like the Chrysler 300 Letter Series, DeSoto Adventurer, and even the Plymouth Fury wasn't exactly cheap. Neither was a Buick Century.

boomchek

I was born in Europe but my parents sent me and my bigger brother over to North America. I was very athletic and capable, somehwat stylish, although a bit quirky. The downside was that they gave us difficult to pronounce names, and put us into a dealer network not used to our types. My nearly identical twin was a best seller in Europe in the 80s. I was pretty much a flop here.

What was I?

lemko

Are you the Merkur XR4Ti? Your big brother is the Scorpio?

boomchek

Very good, that was too easy!

Mr_Shiftright

When I first appeared at a prestigious world auto show, most attendees jaws dropped to the floor. I instantly made just about every other car in the exhibition hall seem instantly obsolete. I was designed with a clean sheet, and technologically, stylistically and ergonomically nobody had ever seen anything like me. Amost 800 orders were taken for me in the first 45 minutes of the show.

Many years later, I was voted the 3rd most significant car of the 20th century (lost out to the Model T and the Mini, darn it!!) by a worldwide panel of experts.

Just about every modern car made today still takes certain cues from me. Some say I was the first truly modern car made after WW II.

I was no flash in the pan either, having a production run of 20 years.

ateixeira

Bingo, SVX it is.



The "canopy" part was the strongest hint, besides me, that is.

andre1969

1977 Chevrolet Caprice. :P Well, it did have a model run of 20 years (1977-96) and when it first came out, it did make its competition pretty much obsolete.

texases

I was a 'gap-filler', with this first:

bhill2

I'm saying the Jag E-Type. I think that it debuted in 1962, but I could be off on that.

au1994

I am an automotive entrepreneur responsible for bringing 3 makes to US shores. One is still sucessful to this day, one had a decent run returned to the homeland and may yet appear again, the last was an unmitigated disaster.

I also created my own line of sports cars, built north of the border, that looked great (for the time) but did not sell well.

Who am I?

boomchek

I am the Citroen DS

Mr_Shiftright

Nope and nope. The Caprice made handling and braking obsolete, that's true. :P

The E-Type, while a real eye catcher and a real bargain for its performance, wasn't made for 20 years and while parts of it were technically interesting, it was that typically British manifestation of genius in being able to mush together the old and the new. Thus we get a stunning monocoque body and inboard brakes mated to a 1948 engine and a 1911 cooling system. I'd sure like one though.

CORRECT ANSWER goes to boom, for the 1955 Citroen DS.

boomchek

I am Malcolm Bricklin.

I brought the Subaru line, Fiat, and the Yugo.

My own line of cars was the Bricklin SV1 built in Canada but had poor body construction resulting in leaky gullwing doors.

boomchek

I was designed to appeal to young students and surfer types, but my main buyers turned out to be middle aged empty nesters with dogs.

My parents gave me unusual love-it-or-hate-it styling, and I have been on the market visrtually unchanged for about 7 years now, also unusual in my family.

What am I?

andre1969

My first guess would be the Honda Element? Has it only been out for 7 years though? Gawd, it seems longer than that!

qbrozen

xB was my choice up till the "7 years unchanged" part.

Ah... i think andre got it. Although I'm not sure I would term the Element "oddball" when it was so close to a CRV.

boomchek

Andre is correct. The Element has been seen since 2001 as a concept car, but started selling as a 2003 model.

My riddles are too easy

boomchek

I called it an oddball because of it's looks. Some people hate it, some love it, but it does look different compared to the rest of the Honda family.

boomchek

I descend from a line with history
On Nurburgring I claimed victory
I can be tuned to over 1000 horses
And can tackle the best road coarses
As a sedan, and wagon I was also sold
But my coupe version is the most bold
My predecessor was a grey market car
But now in the showrooms I'm the star!

What am I?

au1994

winner, winner chicken dinner!!

au1994

If you can get passed the looks, its actually a very functional little car/van/truckette what ever.

I could never get passed the looks myself. But they sell well. I see a ton of them.

texases

I know this may be way obscure, so here are 3 more hints:
First unit-cast block V8, ever
Very short-lived (2 years)
You know the rest of the family well

andre1969

My guess is some kind of Ford flathead V-8, maybe 1939? I just remember Fords having those dual upper radiator hoses like that.

texases

Not a FoMoCo product. Earlier...but yes, from the USA...

boomchek

When I worked at Honda, most of the buyers were not youth as Honda intended but older folks with dogs. The car is easy to clean and accomdates dogs easily too.

ateixeira

I was born in Allentown, son of Italian immigrants who sold hot dogs.

I shoulda got that job, Ford screwed me and everyone knew it.

Later I saved Chrysler. This should be pretty easy...

210delray

Lido Iacocca.

210delray

Bugatti Veyron.

ateixeira

Yeah, I think I made it too easy. He had such an interesting life. I could have said Father of the Mustang, government motors bailout, hostile takeover with Kirk, etc.

ateixeira

I was gonna do one on Merkur but I see someone beat me to it!

My tip was going to be "quirky little brother of the T-bird, but not as cool".

That's a very subtle hint - the T-bird Turbo coupe was intercooled, the XR4Ti was not.

boomchek

Sorry not a Veyron, as it never came in a wagon or sedan form.

fintail

Skyline/GTR?

anythngbutgm

Only car I've ever heard that could be tuned to 1000 horses was the Toyota Supra but there was no wagon or sedan version of that either.

I'll go out on a limb and say CTS but the 1000 hp part doesn't seem real nor is the Coupe or Wagon exist yet.

boomchek

Fintail gets it right! It's the Skyline family.

Although the Supras are aslo known to be tuned to 1000hp, they were never available as a sedan or wagon versions.

texases

Final clue - I'm a GM...
(cricket chirping......)

Mr_Shiftright

Oh is that the aborted Chevy flathead V8 of maybe 1915 or so?

texases

Nope, they made about 4,000 in 1929, 3,000 in 1930....

The last of my 'companions' just bit the dirt...the others disappeared by 1940...

texases

Well, even the crickets stopped chirping...I'm a Viking, a 'companion brand' to Oldsmobile, as Pontiac was to Oakland, LaSalle was to Cadillac, and Marquette was to Buick. I had the first monoblock V8, with an interesting valve gear:

boomchek

With a samurai sword so sharp and precise
The old world players I chopped and diced
For my competitors I created hell
And gave them a run for their money as well
Some of my products may be a bit bland
Only until soon, when my new sports car will land

qbrozen

Lexus

silvermrose

I was made by hand between 1946 and 1948

Mr_Shiftright

I do know the answer but I'm going to give others a crack. But I'll e-mail you my answer so no one can say I fudged it. :P