Have You Ever Heard of a _________?!!

carnut4

The Road King was Plymouth's lower line through 1940. Through the 30's, it was the Road King and the fancier Deluxe. After that, it was the Standard, Deluxe, and Special Deluxe. I think they used these three lines through 1949, but not sure. As for the Iso Rivolta, [post #355]I remember reading a road test of one of those around 1965, in Road&Track. It was a sexy Italian coupe with a Corvette engine, and the road test made me want one big time. They were very expensive, as I remember-way,way out of reach of college students like me borrowing money for gas!

Mr_Shiftright

This was a Brazilian company when it started in 1964. The GTE was built on a VW floorpan. IN 1973 they built some front engine cars with stylish bodies, using Chevy 4 & 6 cylinder engines. Early on they were quite successful, but folded in 1985....came up for air briefly around 1990, but sank again.

There's also another more obscure Puma from the 1980s--different company, made with VW or Alfa engines in a fiberglass body. This car was a spinoff of Richard Oakes Nova (Great Britain), which was a re-bodied VW really.

dgraves1

Thanks, it's tough to stump this crowd.
Carnut - If you still want one there's one for sale here in California for $11K.
Shifty - well $7500 sounds like too much for a rebodied bug. I can pick up pretty nice Stirlings for a couple of grand and my kids think they're really cool.

spokane

I agree that the "Roadking" name is not well known. As Carnut4 says, it was the lower-line Plymouth. I believe this name as used only from 1938 through 1940. In '40, about 103,000 Roadkings and 286,000 DeLuxes were produced. Roadkings included business coupes, 2-dr sedans, 4-dr sedans, and a very few club coupes and wagons. That's quite a few cars for the time ....so it's a little surprising that this name is so little known.

dgraves1

Sorry, I had those prices backwards - the Puma was $11K and Iso Rivolta was $7500.

carnut4

Just out of curiosity, where is this $7500 Iso located? Do you have an email address for it, per chance? Interesting to see just what kind if Iso is out there after all these years.

dgraves1

Hey, that worked! That phone number is in Northern Orange County, California.

dgraves1

I hid the address for that car in post #363 because the address was too long and it screwed up the screen.

isellhondas

I had never heard of a Road King. I do remember the Standard, Deluxe and Special Deluxes. Things were simplier in those days...

This one was a two door sedan. Not very attractive, no options that I could see. Had the old style aftermarket woven seat covers on it.

The guy wanted something like 3700.00 for it. Only a real Plymouth lover would have wanted it.

andy_jordan

I met a guy on the weekend who swore blind to me that his 'grampa' claimed that he used to own a Playboy (I kid you not). He said it was a truck but didn't know any more than that - knowing of my love for the obscure he thought I might know more about it.

I had never heard of it, but sure enough a search of Hemmings revealed an ad for a Playboy truck for sale - $2000 in very bad condition - so that didn't help much, as I still didn't learn anything about it.

Mr. S, any information to share?

Mr_Shiftright

The only known vehicle called a "Playboy" as a marque name was a small 3-seat convertible car made in Buffalo NY from 1946 thru the early 50s.

There was an older model of Jordan car called the Playboy but I am not aware that they ever made a truck (1920s-30s). I'm guessing this is a cut-down car that was advertised, which if true would be a shame, since the Jordan Playboy was an interesting car.

andy_jordan

I checked Hemmings again - here is the ad (minus contact details). It mentions 1974 and was listed in the trucks and commercial section.

PLAYBOY: 1974 B7, green, poor shape, none, 113, 269 miles, $2,000 negotiable. bad condition (that is why it is so cheap) It is really screwed up.

Mr_Shiftright

Well, I give up then...must be some kind of silly kit thing...dunno...I have a feeling I'm going to cringe when I see a photo of it...

spokane

I have no idea what this 1974 vehicle might be but, yes, there certainly was a Jordan Playboy. I never saw one but think I recall photos of a very sporty roadster, probably from the late 20's. Andy Jordan, perhaps this is just what you should be shopping for!

Isn't that the car that was shown in ads speeding away into the sunset with the line, "Somewhere west of Laramie...."?

carnut4

Yeah I remember seeing those ads from the late twenties. That old Jordan Playboy was an interesting car. This 1974 Jordan...the kit car thing fits, since 1974 was right in there in the kit car heyday along with the Clenets, Zimmers, etc, etc. In fact, It seems like I vaguely recall the Jordan name in some magazine that had a feature on all the kit cars back then. Somebody have some archives on kit cars?

andy_jordan

I e-mailed this guy who was advertising his 'Playboy B7' on Hemmings and asked for details and photos.

The e-mail was returned as a duff e-mail address - to be honest I wasn't too surprised - bob@aol.com seemed a bit convenient.

I also searched the web (carefully - I log in from work, and they get a bit touchy about searches for Playboy - dunno why). I couldn't find anything.

Yeah - the Jordan Playboy thing sounds appropriate doesn't it.

mac24

Ok, here's a few links. I can see why you wouldn't want to search from work :-) Anyway, the first few seem to be reprints of the same article on different websites, one of the others shows an artists sketch.

http://www.detnews.com/joyrides/laramie/chapter1.htm
http://www.fourchair.com/history/
http://www.theautochannel.com/mania/industry/history/chap8.html
http://www.comm.wayne.edu/staff/wright/autohistory/01.html
http://www.leadercompany.com/exner/exner_jordan/exner_jordan_accueil.html
http://www.viperclub.org/regions/newyork/Issue07.html#P.08-03

Mr_Shiftright

Jordan was an interesting and influential man as far as automotive advertising goes---in fact, arguably no one has ever done it better.

His car, however, with the exception of some of his last models, weren't all that exceptional, inasmuch as they were "assembled" cars...that is, he bought all the parts from other companies and put the cars together in his factory. But most of the pieces he used were of high quality.

Quite a few cars made in the 1910s and 20s were in fact 'assembled' cars, bolted together from outsourced parts. They tended to fail because, of course, it cost more to build them and they were, by nature, somewhat generic in character.

andy_jordan

Just looked at the link that was the Jordan Playboy revival 1963. I have one sitting in my garage - only mine has got a Jaguar XJ-S badge on it - the similarity is uncanny.

spokane

Thanks, Mac24. Your suggested links provide some key points in automotive history. I now see that the "Somewhere West of Laramie" slogan was one of the most significant ad campaigns ever.

I share your surprise, Andy Jordan, at the Jaguar XJ-S look-alike. I'll wager that you didn't expect your original inquiry to lead back to your own garage...

andy_jordan

And I still don't know what a Playboy B7 is.

If someone took a Jordan Playboy and 'trucked' it - they should have been hung, drawn and quartered - not necessarily in that order.

Mr_Shiftright

Very common thing to do in the 40s and 50s...old sedans from the 20s were thought of as useless hulks....in fact, 20s sedans are still very hard to sell or get a decent price for, but at least people aren't chopping them up (well, they will chop them if they are 30s Ford and Chevy coupes). I think you'll find that 20s, 30s and 40s plain jane 4-door sedans will continue to fall in value as younger collectors lose interest. I'd tend to agree with them, these are not very interesting cars.

sgaines1

Sorry for writing a book here.
We were in Germany for Christmas, and someone in the town we were in owned a Bitter. Looked like your typical low production, squared-wedge shaped '70's exotic. Any more information? I also spotted some kind of old VW that looked like a KG sedan. Small, but 4drs., I think. Couldn't get a good look. A few years ago, in Greece (talk about a place full of oddball cars, they apparently only buy Skodas, Ladas, Dacias and Zastavas) I saw a three-wheeler with two widely spaced front wheels under fenders and a big Studebaker-style spinner in the grille. Anyone help me out here?
I read all the posts, and can answer a few things.
1. Skoda is owned by VW. We rented an Octavia (my dad was going to stick us in some kind of boring Rover, but I insisted). It was pretty nice. Decently equipped, okay power, not at all bad looking, but hard seats.
2. Citroen does not make the 2CV anymore. The switched to something called the Dyane (which basically looks the same, but has faired headlights, and some other details) in the late '70's (?), and stopped that in the '80's.
3. 2 CV is 'chevaux fiscaux', or fiscal horsepower. In France, owners are taxed yearly on their car's power. In reading some car magazines while in France, I estimated the ratio to range from 8:1 to 13:1. By the way, there are some truly wretched little boxes for sale there. Mazda 121, Ford Ka, Smart, Mercedes A, Daihatsu, Fiat Punto, etc. Thank god I live where I can get/afford/park a real car.

Mr_Shiftright

Bitter was a very small German firm that built cars on various Opel floorpans. You probably saw a Bitter SC, based on the Opel Senator with a 3.0 liter 6 cylinder engine.

They are rare cars, not particularly valuable, but often nicely put together and decent performers.

ndance

Yutivo Camaro.

denniswade

Never heard of those -- was it a dealer or tuner? Don Yenko cranked out some really vicious Chevvies in the 60s and 70s -- Corvairs, Corvettes, Chevelles and V8 Vegas. Sold 'em through the Chevrolet dealer body, too. kind of a Chevy version of Saleen.

andy_jordan

if nwade knew the answer when he asked, but denniswade you aren't so very far away from the truth. Definitely not a tuner, but certainly a distributor.

Yutivo was the Phillipine distributor of GM products in the late forties through to about 1970 I believe, at which point I think GM came in themselves.

I am really dredging the memory, but I think they may even have done some assembly work on GM cars and trucks. I wasn't aware that there name ever made it to the rear of a car, but I suspect that that is the source of the car in question.

dgraves1

Don Yenko did do Camaros also. I know there was a Yenko Camaro in the late '60s but I don't know that much about them. He also made turbocharged Z/28s in the early eighties.

denniswade

Yeah.......

ndance

They actually assembled Camaros in the
Phillipines for a few years for local
consumption. I don't know how much
of the cars where local content
(ie. where they shipped as
knocked down kits or where some parts
fabricated locally). Next thing you
know, it'll turn out they built Camaros
in Belgium or somewhere.

ndance

356 convertibles built in Belgium.

Other muscle car oddities (some from Hemmings)
. Export model (KPH speedometer, etc.) hemicuda
for sale in Central America.
. Export mode (right hand drive!!) 1970 Buick
Stage 1 convertible for sale in Australia.
. Shelby de Mexico
. Shelby Europa
. check out the cars on www.madmaxcars.com

andy_jordan

Alright, let's have some fun. As you guys probably know by now I like the obscure - so let me throw a car out there and see if anyone knows about it. I'll just do one for now in case there is no interest - if there is then I'll throw a few more out.

I'll assume that Mr. S. knows more about all of my suggestions than I do, so he can fill in the gaps in my knowledge.

So, for starters how about the MCA.

andy_jordan

I re-read my post, and it wasn't hugely helpful - so here is a little more info.

It was in production until 1996
It was a rear engined sports car
It was based on a mass produced car, but was more than just a kit car

Any ideas?

andy_jordan

So I am obviously too nerdy.

The MCA was a rear engined coupe and convertible that was built by 4 different manufacturers during its life - Dash (UK) is probably the best known of them. It was based on the Fiat 126 and actually used a 600cc 126 engine.

It wasn't particularly attractive to look at - a sort of boxy, slightly smaller TR7, but was supposed to handle fairly well.

Mr_Shiftright

No, I think the problem with the "kit cars" is that there were literally...god knows...hundreds and hundreds of obscure makes that went nowhere fast. If a person hadn't actually tripped over one in the street, you'd never know they existed. Mostly, the cars themselves are not very interesting or distinguished, so there's not much motive to dig into history to find them....at least that's been my feeling. It's like a historian who's run out of kings and statesman and is not looking for a prince's 4th cousin who died at age 12.

There are a few actual "recreations" of classic or racing cars, done in metal, and often using some original or similar parts, that are quite interesting. Maybe that would be of more interest to people?

andy_jordan

as always Mr. S.

Let me think about those recreations - in the mean time how about this one - a Pente. This is the kind of car that I can't help thinking would have had a very different history if the world had turned out a little differently. These cars were way ahead of their time, and whilst archaic by today's standards were the right car aimed at the right segment for their time period - and then politics got in the way.

OK, enough clues - any ideas whilst I think about those recreations?

Mr_Shiftright

Not a clue....was this a real car or just someone's intention? Most encyclopedias will only list real cars that were actually manufactured.

andy_jordan

This was a real car. It was sold for a period of about 2 or 3 years and was unbelievably popular in its home market. An improved version was developed and prototyped, but production was never authorized.

One problem that caused these vehicles to become unbelievably rare is that it became illegal to own private cars and all cars were requistioned by the government of the country (this pending action was what caused permission to produce the upgraded version to be denied).

OK, so I have now given you a pretty good idea of where it was produced, a little knowledge of global politics will probably help people to work out when, and that should lead to a pretty good guess of what type of car it was if nothing else - any takers?

gkelly3

Please help on these-I'm racking my brains on this..first- CURTISS-WRIGHT attempted to market an "aircar" in the late 1950's -how many of these things were ever sold? Second: in the late 1970's some guy in Holland was exporting Citroens to the USA, under his own name-what was the fate of this venture? Third: was BMW ever sold under it's importer's name (Hoffman motors)? Somebody told me this once!

Mr_Shiftright

Hmmm....The only two "flying cars" that I'm aware of were the "Aerocar" out of Longview WAshington and the Fulton Amphibian, from North Carolina I think. There may have been more experiments of this basically unsound idea, but I have never heard of such a flying car ever successfully marketed, for obvious reasons. I do believe though that one of the above was actually certified for flight by the FAA. Problem was they made lousy planes and lousy cars.

Max Hoffman was no doubt a sales outlet for BMW, but no historical encyclopedia on car makes shows a "Hoffman" except an old American car from 1904.
Perhaps he had some one-off specially coach-built. BMWs, Porsches, etc., often turn up with rare bodies done by this or that small company. So I really can't say for sure.

Regarding Citroen importing, there were lots of people attempting this in the good old "gray market" days, and even most recently some company in L.A. attempted to do this. Might take some digging to find them. Nothing showed up in my search, sorry.

gkelly3

The Curtiss-Wright aircar was not an airplane. Instead, it was a :hovercraft" of sorts-two horizontal fans kept the car about 12" off the road, while a vertical fan in the back propelled the car (like an airboat). Obviously, braking was a bit of a problem!
I'm really trying to find more out about this short-lived engineering disaster!

sgaines1

I think your mystery car was the Hungarian Pente. I actually had read about it on the web the day before you posted the question, so I felt kind of cheesy jumping in. Now that no-one's answered, I guess I will.

andy_jordan

The Pente indeed.

A car that was way ahead of its time, and a car that would have been hugely successful - meeting the needs of a post war Hungary for cheap and reliable (by Hungarian standards) transport. It fell foul of the political situation in Hungary that actually banned private car ownership for a while.

Individuals were still able to own motorbikes which led to the creation of some incredible one-off machines built around motorcycles, but designed a little more for the sometimes harsh Hungarian climate.

lokki

A Japanese micro car that somehow came to the states before Subaru ever dreamed of coming to the American market. It was sold, for a brief (but not shining moment) through a discount department store (Millers, I think) in my home town in the (late 60's). They caused quite a splash but disappeared from view after a local TV station happened to report on what happened to one that was struck by a lady in a Chevy Impala. I seem to recall that she didn't even know she'd hit anything. I'd forgotten them till I went to Japan and discovered they have quite a cult following....

Here's a link with a photo....
http://www.motorshow.or.jp/show99/English/THEME/4rin_06.html

I might also recommend that you look at the Mazda Cosmos - I got to see one of these on the street in Tokyo - and it was a stunner. As far as I know these never got out of Japan, though...
http://www.motorshow.or.jp/show99/English/THEME/4rin_12.html

Mr_Shiftright

No, I've seen Cosmos in the US...they look a bit better in photos than in real life I think...they're a bit awkward in dimension in 3D.

lokki

Perhaps it was because I saw it in it's natural habitat that it looked so good to me... Think of Godzilla movies and then think of the Cosmos and see if it doesn't look better that way.

Seriously, I think that cars look different in different environments because they're viewed from different perspectives. In America, we view most cars from a distance, so we see a full side profile. In Tokyo, you'd usually see cars from close up, and be looking slightly down on them, usually from an angle... additionally you rarely get a completely unobstructed view of the car... perhaps this is why Japanese cars have so many little odd visual gimmicks..

Mr_Shiftright

Hmmm...that's interesting, never thought of that.

car2ns

I've never been a big fan of AMC cars, but one car they produced was way ahead of its time... the Eagle. If you remember it was a Hornet(?) wagon with a four wheel drive system under it. I always thought it looked cool and it could go almost anywhere within reason.

Hmmm... seems to me others are learning this lesson now, especially with the lumbering SUVs being so popular now. Some folks want the capabilities of all wheel drive, but with better gas mileage and packaging of a smaller car. (Subarus have done this for years, but VW now has the 4Motion Passat, Audi has their Quattro system, Lexus RX300, etc)

I think the Eagle would be a hit now. (IMHO)

Mr_Shiftright

It might be, but they'd have to refine it...it was a crude, slow thing and ate gas like gangbusters...but they had the right idea. An embryonic Subaru Outback!

andy_jordan

because this one probably is a little better known, because it is a little newer. But Shifty, I am looking for some information on Sabras - Israeli sports cars of the 60s - I believe some were imported to North America - anything in your references?