Mystery car pix

magnette

Funnily enough Vauxhall is a district of inner London, and for most of the last century, until property prices started to rise it was not a particularly salubrious locale..
The company which made Vauxhall cars was originally an engineering works in that part of London, hence the name, but by the time they started making cars circa 1903 they were located north of London in Bedfordshire - actually at Luton, which was then a little market town, I suppose.
In Britain Vauxhall was/is thought of in the same way as Ford, and it was funny how when Opel was marketed jointly with them in the 70's they were always sold as more upmarket than poor old Vauxhall, although of ocurse now we have Vauxhalls which are basically re-badged Opels...

michaellno

what was considered higher-ranking in Europe...an Opel or a Vauxhall?

As I understand it, they are pretty much equivalent to one another now .. Vauxhall is the brand name used in the UK exclusively, while Opel is used everywhere else in Europe (including Ireland).

im_brentwood

We have a winner!

Yep, it's IN Australia but it is a Vauxhall Viscount. It's a PC.. when the PCs came out they dropped the Velox, there was the Cresta, the Cresta DeLuxe and the Viscount was the luxury model with power windows.

As most of you know I own 2 PAs..only a handful of them in America.. a 1960 Velox and a 1962 Velox. I don't know of any PBs or PCs in America.

A pic of my 1960 is on my Carspace profile.

im_brentwood

Neither.

Vauxhalls were traditionally sold throughout the British Commonwealth.. Australia, UK, Guyana, Belize, Canada, South Africa, Rhodesia, etc... Opels were sold elsewhere.

andys120

andre1969

I have no idea, but it looks like either Toyota got tired of Pontiac names on their cars so they thought they'd try Ford, or Volvo and Mazda got together and designed something, and are letting Ford sell it.

I kinda like it. Even though it looks little, it has kind of a strong, rugged look to it.

im_brentwood

Ford Kuga

ateixeira

A bit overdone, eh?

I like the Mondeo headlights, but then you add the concave side panels a la BMW and the Nissan Murano D-pillar and it's just too much.

im_brentwood

True.. but it's not like I'd ever drive one... compact SUV? yuck...

hudsonthedog

I tend to associate Opels with Buicks, probably because they sold them in the US through Buick dealers for awhile. For some reason, I'm associating Vauxhall with Pontiac. Didn't they used to make them look kinda like little Pontiacs back in the 50's?
Buick sold Opels until they offered Isuzu-built "Buick/Opel" models. But in the 1950s and early 1960s, Pontiac imported Vauxhalls. I thought that was where you were going when you compared the four brands.

im_brentwood

Correct. Buick dealers sold Opels, Pontiac dealers handled Vauxhalls.

imidazol97

How did sales go on those brands in the Buick and Pontiac dealers? Was it all dealers or just some?

im_brentwood

Not 100% sure.. Pontiac stopped importing Vauxhalls in 1961.. 46 years ago and 14 years before I was born.

Initially sales of the Vauxhall Victor were VERY strong but the cars were so rust prone so quickly that they collapsed.

andys120

jescue

Maserati BiTurbo?

im_brentwood

Maserati Kyalami

Gimme somethin harder!

andys120

Maserati Kyalami

Yep. The Kyalami was essentially a De Tomaso Deauville with a different badge and motor (4.9L Maserati V8). Alejandro De Tomaso bought Maserati from Citroen in 1975.

andys120

hudsonthedog

Renault 6

texases

kyfdx

Is that a Dodge D-50? Or, the Mitsu Mighty Max?

hudsonthedog

So close...not the Mitsubishi or Dodge version. It's the Plymouth Arrow Pickup.

andys120

texases

Yep, 1980.

hudsonthedog

1971 or 1972 Lamborghini Jarama

andre1969

did they call the Plymouth version of that truck the Arrow, too? I always knew the Arrow as this little Mistu-sourced RWD coupe. I think earlier versions used some underpowered engine, but later models offered the 2.6 "Silent Shaft", which I think was actually pretty quick in these light little cars.

My grandparents had a 1981 Dodge D-50 pickup. They hated the thing, partly because they just weren't "small car" people. Although at one time they had a 1972 LUV! One day in 1982, at the gas station, the linkage or something got stuck and it pulled a sudden acceleration stunt and before they knew it, it had shot up the embankment behind the garage and ended up in the trees. Granddad was around 65 at this time, and Grandmom was only around 58, so it's not like they were in that senile range where they'd mistake one pedal for the other! I remember Grandmom saying that it felt just like the Dukes of Hazzard! As slow as that truck was, though (heavier than an Arrow coupe, and with the automatic to boot), somehow I think doing that stunt in a '69 Charger would've been a bit more exciting!

Anyway, neither one of them trusted the truck after that, so they sold it to a neighbor down the street. I don't think it ever acted up again, and he got good use out of it. I think he finally retired it in the mid 90's, and it probably had around 125-130K miles on it.

texases

Yes, they (confusingly) also called the truck an 'Arrow'. Not that it had a big impact on the market. I was going to post an Arrow car, because I thought it was one of the better-looking Japanese cars of the time, but thought the pickup more obscure.

andre1969

I was going to post an Arrow car, because I thought it was one of the better-looking Japanese cars of the time, but thought the pickup more obscure.

Yeah, I think they were neat looking little cars, especially the later models with the rectangular headlights. Back in high school, I worked part time at a veterinary clinic, and the lady that owned it had a white Arrow coupe. 1979, IIRC. I remember her trading it on an '87 Subaru coupe. I forget what the coupe was called, as that was back before Subaru gave real names to their cars...just jumbles of letters. It was the design that ultimately became the Loyale, though. Nothing exotic like the SVX or XT.

andys120

Yep, it's the Jarama.

andys120