Mystery car pix

magnette

Yes, the Daihatsu Copen was sold here as regular import rather than a grey import - we even had a Daihatsu dealers about two miles from here until a couple of years ago too.

fintail

USDM had Daihatsu from 1988/89 until maybe 1991, two models - the questionably named Charade, and Rocky. I think they eventually became known to be relatively durable, but sales were weak, and maybe for that reason, it didn't work out. I think the Rocky had/has a little cult following.

sda

I remember Daihatsu receiving positive reviews and were considered high quality well built cars. I don’t think I saw more than 3 or 4 on the road when they were in their prime and still being sold. In comparison to other like cars they were priced rather high. That may have dampened sales.

fintail

Good point, I seem to remember that too, they weren't cheap, maybe selling more on a quality campaign. The Charade was also pretty dinky by American standards, and I suspect a comparable Geo Metro was cheaper, and for most buyers of such cars, I suspect price meant a lot.

I have seen a number of Rocky over the years, but it has been ages since I saw a Charade. I remember when I was a student in the late 90s, I knew a guy who had one, it was an unusual car then, and he'd pronounce the name with a French accent as a joke.

magnette

If I wasn't over six feet tall and ageing (a bit) I would have loved to get one type of Daihatsu...

The Daihatsu Cuore Avantanzo TR-XX




660cc twin cam engine, turbo, four wheel drive, 0-60mph in 8.5 seconds and only 130 inches long

Due to small engine it had a speed limiter of 98mph but that wouldn't matter here as apart from deserted motorways (and when did I last find one of those?) its not practical on this island to get much over 90.

Plus it was homologated for the small car class of the unmodified world rally series - it sold here in 1998 to make it eligible for rally teams and yet it was suitable as a shopping car so great around town.

Sadly all 80 or so that were sent to the UK were snapped up immediately and half of them were probably rallying and meeting trees etc within a year..

Would have been fun though

andys120

sda

magnette said:

If I wasn't over six feet tall and ageing (a bit) I would have loved to get one type of Daihatsu...

The Daihatsu Cuore Avantanzo TR-XX




660cc twin cam engine, turbo, four wheel drive, 0-60mph in 8.5 seconds and only 130 inches long

Due to small engine it had a speed limiter of 98mph but that wouldn't matter here as apart from deserted motorways (and when did I last find one of those?) its not practical on this island to get much over 90.

Plus it was homologated for the small car class of the unmodified world rally series - it sold here in 1998 to make it eligible for rally teams and yet it was suitable as a shopping car so great around town.

Sadly all 80 or so that were sent to the UK were snapped up immediately and half of them were probably rallying and meeting trees etc within a year..

Would have been fun though

What is the highest speed limit on the motorway, 70mph/110kmh?

magnette

The black coupe is a Simca Huit with a Greek collectors car plate I think.

Limit on UK roads is 70 mph on motorways and certain de-restricted A roads providing they are dual-carriageway

In practice the cops won't do much about the speed until you top 90 unless it is dangerous (ie crowded or poor visibility)

andys120

If Huit is French for 8 you're right, it is a1960 Simca 8 Sport. Don't know who styled it but I like the styling, could be Vignale or perhaps an early Frua. It resembles some Fiat Sports of that era but then Simca once produced Fiat designs under license.

kyfdx

That might be the only thing I remember from two years of high school French.

magnette

I think Facel did the SImca 8 cabriolet and I assume they may have done the coupe too.

They also did the related (larger) Comete based on the French Food Vedette which looked similar and of course the French Ford operation was taken over by Simca in about 1954.

andys120

Lostwrench3

1963 Pontiac Catalina wagon.
Gulftane! That brings back memories of my High School days. When I was using my father's car I always put in Gulftane, the cheapest gasoline around. I've seen it as low as 19 cents a gallon.

stickguy

63 Pontiac Catallina?

I always got a kick out of good gulf. does that mean they had a pump around back for bad Gulf?

ab348

stickguy said:

63 Pontiac Catallina?

I always got a kick out of good gulf. does that mean they had a pump around back for bad Gulf?

That was Gulftane. Later on they came up with Gulf No Nox as a grade above Good Gulf.

magnette

This is how petrol stations looked the days of Dinky ...
This was just outside StNeots in Cambridgeshire

The guy driving past must have been in a hurry...



Will expand

explorerx4

Hey, a Rolls Royce Family Truckster(night not be a Rolls).
Self serve pumps, too.

magnette

Yes, the Griswolds were just filling up...

Actually that is an estate car when one has an Estate ..

andys120

stickguy said:

63 Pontiac Catallina?

I always got a kick out of good gulf. does that mean they had a pump around back for bad Gulf?

Lostwrench3 said:

1963 Pontiac Catalina wagon.
Gulftane! That brings back memories of my High School days. When I was using my father's car I always put in Gulftane, the cheapest gasoline around. I've seen it as low as 19 cents a gallon.

IIRC the Pontiac wagon was called a "Safari". Check out that price $.29.9/g, That dovetails w the $.33/g I paid for Hi-test.

magnette said:

This is how petrol stations looked the days of Dinky ...
This was just outside StNeots in Cambridgeshire

The guy driving past must have been in a hurry...



Will expand

Not sure what the woody-side saloon is, perhaps a Daimler or an Armstrong-Siddley ca. late 50s. Silver roadster is a Triumph (TR-3?) I've never seen a silver one.

Grey pickup(!) is a BMC (Austin/Morris?). Blue car is a 50s Ford of some sort (Popular?) and on the end a Mercedes (170?)

magnette

@andys120
Yes the silver Triumph is probably a TR3 although it could be a TR2 - l think from this angle they are pretty similar. I don't know if silver was ever an option but by the time this was taken it may have been resprayed

The grey pick-up is an Austin 1/2 ton - they made it as a panel van too and it was introduced in 1957. Incredibly, they continued to make this model - based on the A50 Cambridge saloon - right through to the early 70's and it was a steady seller throughout that time particularly in country areas - most farmers in Wales seemed to have one with a tin lid over the load-bed and half a dozen sheep going to market in those days..
It was also sold as a Morris from abut 1970 due to the way Leyland dealers divided up their territories.

Blue car is indeed a Ford Popular but the black car to the right is actually a Triumph (Renown / 1800 / 2000) from about 1948-51

And the woody is a Bentley - in fact it is a Mk VI with a conversion carried out by a coachbuilders called Harold Radford who made about 50 of these - on Bentleys mainly but a few RR Silver Dawns and a couple of Daimlers, Alvis etc too - It was called the Radford Countryman.
It was a conversion because you bought the car from Bentley as a chassis, fitted it with a utility body - there were small firms who would do this on various vans and old cars - and if you did that and then ran it as such for a couple of years you could then avoid a lot of the tax which was otherwise levied on luxury cars - after the requisite period you got the to fit it out properly as a Bentley - it was actually very well made when finished.

Here is one



Radford later went on to create luxury Minis in the 60s for the Chelsea set....

Some of the other utility converters were more like shed manufacturers and people did their own too...

andys120

Wasn't Radford known for Shooting Brakes esp. Astons and Bentleys?

andys120

The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo is a current day Shooting Brake...very cool!

andys120

texases

Yep, about as close as we'll get to a factory version in our 2-door free world.

stickguy

And Ferrari has one of them too.

andys120

More Shooting Brakes from Radford>

magnette

Yes - they evolved the style from the utility market immediately after the war but developed it to make luxury estates.

magnette

The XJS based one was called the Eventer I think

magnette

And the Ferrari has an FF

ab348

Aston Martin has revived the concept with the Vanquish Shooting Brake.

fintail

And then MB makes a 4 door wagon with a rakish roofline and calls it a "shooting brake" lol.

In that petrol station image, are we sure it isn't just a scale model with Dinky toys?

fintail

Renton WA, 1993 - some will scoff at the late date, but this was nearly 30 years ago now, and many of these cars are virtually unknown on the roads of 2022 (should zoom ok):



Must be one of the last Sears to use that 50s/60s style sign. The site is now a Fred Meyer.

stickguy

it is sad that this was so long ago, but still 15 years into my driving career.

looks like a red sentra wagon next to the bright red Explorer.

the tail end poking out from behind the Camry wagon says Honda to me. I think it is a gen 1 Prelude (the one that looked kinda like a lego).

Michaell

Someone pointed out that the difference from 1980 to 2021 is the same as the difference between 1980 and 1939.

Getting old sucks.

fintail

Beats the alternative

I was making that joke at Christmas. My family moved in 1983, and that was a snowy winter in eastern WA, so there are clear memories. I joked to my mom that the difference between 1983 and 2021 is like 1945 to 1983. She thought about that one.

I bought the fintail in 1995. The difference between 1995 to now is like 1967 to 1995.

Michaell said:

Someone pointed out that the difference from 1980 to 2021 is the same as the difference between 1980 and 1939.

Getting old sucks.

fintail

I agree on the Sentra and Prelude.

White Taurus driving away at left appears to have the large disc wheelcovers like my uncle's early car.

stickguy said:

it is sad that this was so long ago, but still 15 years into my driving career.

looks like a red sentra wagon next to the bright red Explorer.

the tail end poking out from behind the Camry wagon says Honda to me. I think it is a gen 1 Prelude (the one that looked kinda like a lego).

ab348

Looks like a 1990 or so Accord sedan c/w bra next to the "steaming pile" '78/'79 Monte Carlo.

andys120

stickguy

1970s vintage gen 1 Scirroco. I loved that back in the day, even if it was just a stylish Rabbit.

texases

My 3rd car was a black '79 Scirocco 'S', with the larger front air dam. Lots of fun, great looking. Looked just like this, with a similar stripe:


This Brit site says they started the S in '80, but I remember mine registered as a '79:
https://www.sciroccoregister.co.uk/dr-dubs-scirocco-storm-site/mk1-s-usa-model/

kyfdx

Scirocco first year in the US was 1977.

I wanted one really bad. But, $5250 base price, and they wanted MSRP. I paid $4200 for my $4600 MSRP Cobra II. Boy, I really showed them! NOT.

texases

I corrected the post to make it clear I was referring to the S in '79 or '80.

kyfdx

texases said:

I corrected the post to make it clear I was referring to the S in '79 or '80.

Ah

sda

I liked the interior in those, pre-GTI

andys120

I seriously considered buying a Gen. 1. The next version looked awful.

Gen.3 (08-17) [NSH] needed to loose weight.

texases

sda said:

I liked the interior in those, pre-GTI

Looks like a set of sisal mats, too! I think I had a set, they kind of fell apart after a year or so.

stickguy

White one looks like a recent baby BMW model that we didn’t get here.

andys120

texases said:

sda said:

I liked the interior in those, pre-GTI

Looks like a set of sisal mats, too! I think I had a set, they kind of fell apart after a year or so.

I never got more than six mo. out of 'em

andys120

ab348

1961 Dodge Dart Phoenix. Maybe 20-25 years ago a fellow member of the antique car club here had one in those exact colors.