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Have You Ever Heard of a _________?!!
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I guess I was never really aware of the 2600 before: a 6-cyl roadster, larger and more graceful than the jaunty, little 4-cyl Giulia, Giulietta, Duetto, etc. It appears to be more in a sort of Jag XK class than, say, the MG / Triumph class.
The one I saw seemed like a heck of a nice machine. They made a coupe too, which is cheaper. I tend to favor coupes for most driving.
Anybody know this model?
Hope to hear from you!
Why are Peugeot's so cheap? Because nobody wants them. Why don't they want them? Because of poor reputation and service. Are they really so bad? Some models are, some aren't, but all in all, the whole thing is a big risk.
You'll never see your money out of this car...it's really worth $2,500 tops. And if the ZF trans fails, you can just throw the car away, because they need to be sent back to France for repair on an exchange basis...figure $2,000 plus just for that.
ALFA 2600 -- Well, this is a difficult car to assess....it is attractive, but it's big and heavy and clumsy (a touring car, not a sports car), prone to rust and very expensive to repair. On top of that, many trim and body parts are awfully hard to find. I suppose if you could find a complete, perfect car at a rock bottom price, and you could live with the overweight problem, you'd be okay. I'd pay no more than $8,000 for a perfectly good sprint (not a show car, but a very clean #2) and no more than $12,000 for a neat and tidy Spyder. They come both as 2000 and 2600 (6 cylinder cars).
Given how delightful and affordalbe the smaller Alfas of that era are, I find it personally difficult to have a good reason to own one of the bigger cars. What Alfa stands for (agility, grace, balance, reliability and good looks) are all compromised in the bigger 2000 and 2600, IMO.
If anyone's interested:
http://www.914fan.net/
Also certainly affordable today--the best one in the world is probably worth $6,000. And to dispel any myths, the car is Porsche-designed but with a VW engine...the transmission and front end, though, is right out of a 911, so the car has some pedigree, even if it is built to a low price.
DKW made all sorts of cars as well as engines for other companies (Audi, Saab) in its lifetime, but we in the US mostly remember them for those rather odd-looking 2-stroke minicars that your friend had.
The VANGUARD, a small sedan vaguely resembling a '55 Ford. A neighbor down the street had one. Its exhaust system rattled, sounding like a giant egg-beater.
A HUMBER HAWK was a largish 4 door sedan with quad headlights. Don't remember if it had a 4 or 6 cylinder engine.
The WOLSLEY sedan was a distant relative of the Austin.
SUNBEAM sedans and coupes were made by the Rootes Group, and were similar to the HILLMAN series.
What was the rear-engined Sunbeam model??
One of my grandmothers had a couple of HILLMAN MINX sedans. They were like toy cars compared to the full-size Chevys & Pontiacs we had then.
Ford sold the ANGLIA, in the early '60s which had a back-pitched rear window whose top was further out than the bottom, like some of the '63 to '65 US/Canadian Mercury Monterey models.
The MORRIS MINOR, built in the '50s and very early '60s was a classic rounded design, built in 2- and 4-door sedans and wagons. Wagons were rare.
Would enjoy additions to this list as well as specific models and years.
British cars of this vintage are an odd-lot, ranging from the magnificent (Jaguar 120, 140, to the attractive and competent (MGA, Austin Healey, etc) all the way down to most of the cars on your list, which were, at best, basic transportation for a nation nearly bankrupt by war and bereft of much of its former empire.
Of the whole lot, the Morris Minor still has a very loyal and avid following, and you see these cars undergoing restoration in the US, in spite of the only modest monetary value.
Let's see, you may have forgotten the Austin-Siddley, Austin-Cambridge, MG Magnette, Triumph Mayflower, Triumph Herald, MOrris Oxford, Ford Zephyr, Austin Sheerline (I'm just spitting these out as the come to me, and may not have them all correct....) Oh, on the magnificent list, let us not forget the Austin /Morris Mini Cooper S !!
Others I've forgotten in the British weirdo category?
Jesus, how that car could corner!! And fast?
I'm not sure what kind of an engine it had but the guy who owned it said it was the hot version.
And...hot it was! You can't believe some of the cars he raced and beat with that telephone box on wheels!
The engine was a 1275 cc UHC (Underhead cam
You can still find an excellent Mini Cooper in the $8-10,000 range, and you could hardly have more fun for the dollar.
I always like to think that such rare sightings are omens, but for what, I haven't been able to determine.
many hours later on the way home I stopped in at a local shop for old Brit cars. They had tarps over all the interesting projects. I looked under one and found a Lotus 7, Series 1; just a naked chassis with wheels and tires.
Marveled for awhile at the structure. Amazingly flimsy-looking, though it must have had a great strength to weight ratio in its day - maybe still. Being a Series 1, you could almost sense Chapman's presence, sketching out the suspension geometry and weight distribution and all. Maybe in those early days he even did his own engineering drawings.
Of course Chapman's middle name was (Bruce - no seriously) LIGHT, even to the point of fragility.
It looked like the airframe of an ultralight aircraft, only a different shape.
Parisienne = Impala [also similar to US Catalina]
Laurentian = Bel Air
Strato Chief = Biscayne
In the mid 60's, these "Narrow Track" Pontiacs had base 230 cu. in. straight sixes and 3-on-the-tree standard transmissions. Two speed powerglide automatic transmissions were the next step up for the 283 & 327 V8s. 409s, 427s and the like got a 3-speed relative of the Hydramatic, yet were still avaiable with 3-speed and 4-speed manual transmissions.
Hans of course, was dead wrong, but he did manage to manufacture 3,500 of the cars, so they are not really rare, espcially in the US, where just about all of them were sent when new. You can still order parts right here in California.
The idea of choosing a British engine rather than a German one, and a steel body rather than a fiberglass one, to navigate the seas, sort of boggles the mind. Oh, well.
Can you supply me with a few details about the BRICKLIN? I believe it was mfg. in Canada, and used an AMC V-8 engine. One of its unusual features was gullwing doors.
Anyway, I believe the Canadian govt. took a real bath on the venture. Are Bricklins worth anything today?
Honda's biggest (car) sales success here before the Civic was the 600.
When they were current, TR3's were known by their owners as TR-Goddam!-3's.
And both are not easy to sell to anyone today.
The Honda 600 was a micro-car with a motorcycle engine...this was a coupe version of an earlier roadster called the S500...I owned one of the coupes, and it could really scoot for such a little thing...the last version, the 791 cc S800 coupe or roadster (rather rarer than the 600 coupe) had 70 hp and could almost reach 100 mph...these little cars were made from 1962-71. Detroit automakers laughed at them until the Civic came out in 1973 and then Detroit stopped laughing as their market share started plummeting in the small car market. Anyway, I'd heartily recommend the 600 coupe to someone who knows how to work on motorcycles.
The TR3s biggest drawback is really its crudity...mechanically, the engine is tractor derived, and if you have tape and wire and a pair of pliers, you can keep it running a long time.
Roughly 2,800 total, and you should be able to find a really nice one for around $9,000, which is a real selling price in today's market.
And Shiftright cautions me against clean, early-80's Audis for less than $2K.
Ralph, do some homework before you put any money into this dog. For $9K you can get some pretty nice machinery.
Also own a 1961 Bugeye Sprite. It had been hacked to fit a ford 302 and auto into it.
Any one familar with Crosley Automobiles?
I own 4 Crosleys for some reason. Only one is a runner driver at this time. Crosleys make you appreciate any more modern cars.
Crosley was ahead of his time...unfortunately, too far ahead, and the car had its problems besides. But the concept of a small, light, economical car with overhead cam engine and disk brakes back in the 1940s was visionary...problem was America didn't want or need cars like that back then.
Did you know Crosley raced at Le Mans, and was doing quite well in its class (Index of Performance) when alas the French generator they had installed fell over and died on them.
I had two Morris Minors...they were fun, but pretty fragile for american roads...you need to baby them. Cute however. Ladies love 'em.
Anyway, are there any still around?
To give you an idea, fully 50% of all Stags in the U.S. had major engine work done under warranty! To this day, it's a problem that will haunt the owner--most avoid it by frequent torquing of the head bolts, replacing the timing chain every 25,000 miles and stopping immediately at the first sign of overheating.
You'd have to love one to own one, IMO, but some people do, some people do.
I don't know about the Stag, but the gear driven water pump was quite common on some of the smaller Triumph engines. The impeller was set in a housing that was machined into the block and driven from the camshaft. It would often be impossible to remove it without destroying it.
I'm a longtime fan of the Virgil Exner-designed Stutz, yes the cars owned by Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, Sammy Davis, Jr. and many other stars.
I'm quite familiar with the car's construction (new GM engine/driveline) with bodies/interiors hand-fabricated in by Saturn Carrosserie in Turin Italy. These were beyond extravagant - thick hand-beaten still bodies, full Connolly leather and gold throughout their bespoke interiors. The models included Blackhawk (2-door), IV Porte (4 door sedan), Victoria (LWB Sedan), Diplomatic (SWB Limo), Royale (LWB Limo), and Bearcat I (convertible) and Bearcat II (convertible with redesigned carbon-fibre body 87-88).
My question is: What are these cars worth? New, many sold for between $75,000 up to $325,000 for the Limo. There doesn't seem to be much interest in them, but I'm still intrigued. Any ideas on how many were made? Any stories on sightings? Thanks for your help, BB III
The original Stutzes were serious machines, designed and built by real humans. The ersatz Stutz is about as much of a car as Elvis was a rocknroller.
But Elvis notwithstanding, I do think C13 has a point, perhaps a bit bluntly applied
I think the people designing the modern "Stutz" just lost their way, big time, but for all I know they may have had the very best intentions.
At least Glenn Pray respected the Cord name by producing a replicar in 8/10th scale with front wheel drive (Corvair turbo)...it looked quite nice at 8/10ths and was technically interesting, albeit a fake nonetheless.
I once had a buddy whose family had a serious car collection. He had driven some of the great old cars, Duesenbergs and all that. I asked him, all wide-eyed and awe-struck, how the old cars drove and he said "Like trucks." Kind of took some of the wind outta my sails.
But the (real) Stutz Bearcat in its day musta been like a McLaren F1 is today.
PS
My original point, about the Stutz family giving up the noble name is serious. I wonder what the story is. Maybe there are no heirs. Maybe the name's in the public domain.
What was impressive about a Deusenberg, aside from the incredible craftsmanship, was that a car that size and weight could be hurtled down the road that fast, especially for a 1920s-30s car. They may be like trucks at low speed, but I was a passenger in one at speed some years ago (driving back from an SF Auto Show) and the driver/owner told me it was quite nice at 60-70 mph...but the gearshifting seemed tricky. These are HUGE cars that can keep up easily with modern traffic, and gee, this was 70 years ago!
My impression is that the great old cars could easily cruise at high speeds. Just in cornering and breaking they've long since been surpassed by modern technology. Imagine sliding those old beauties around the Targa Florio and Mille Miglia on skinny tires.
I remember an early James Bond short story where 007 drove a pre-RR (maybe Blower) Bentley as his road car. He had a mechanic that kept it in mint condition so that it could still do 100 when he wanted it to. Quite different from the modern hi-tech Bonds.
Among the real Bentley lovers, it is said that the company went downhill the minute Rolls bought them in ...1931 or so...it went from a sports car to a cushy tourer.
And where is RR now? Like a Checker Marathon with a lot of leather and walnut. Hard to imagine where the company can go from here.
Maybe the target demographic would lose interest if the cars were merely 'expensive', as opposed to 'utterly ridiculous'. There are some people for whom the most important criterion is that nobody else but they and a few kings can afford one.
This seems to me a really tough time for a company like RR. For sporty cars the mission is more clearly defined: You have to produce tangible results, i.e., make it fast. But luxury can be defined in any number of ways. Is performance itself a true luxury, or is it a concession to modern life? To some, real luxury is more like sitting on a comfortable couch in an invulnerable cocoon, being driven by a professional chauffeur.
In fact, the luxurious nature of cars like RR was compromised at least as early as the 60's when they followed the rest of the world in becoming lower, shorter, less extravagant.
Maybe the best course for RR would be to return to a 50s-ish body style, but in carbon fiber and with active suspension; as long and as tall as a damned Bugatti Royale but with twice the power and half the weight. Maybe design a new V12, based on the BMW, but with electromechanical valve actuation; supercharged if necessary; built in England. Maybe call it a 'Merlin II'.
The problem for RR is that technology has democratized the auto industry. Lots of much cheaper cars offer some of the benefits that used to be the sole domain of the top few manufacturers.
If you're going to charge a huge some of money for something, it had better do something extraordinary...you can't be mediocre in that market, seems to me.
For people with more money than they know how to spend, there aren't *enough* high-end car companies. Old marques like Bugatti, Bentley and Maserati have to keep being rejuvenated to provide sheiks with cars to drive and magazines with the usual "Fastest Cars in the World" articles.
RR's ripe for re-imaging. If Bentley, Jag and Aston can do it, I don't see why RR can't.
Also...
Though rich people don't want to look like fools, explain the popularity of the 600SL.