Mystery car pix

andys120

ateixeira

Blue car in the front is a Fiat. My cousin used to own one of those in Brazil. Funny thing is we just called them Fiats, no real name.

fintail

Parked from L to R - Fiat 126, Renault 4, Fiat 131, looks like a Peugeot 405, last car is hard to tell reminds me of a Volvo 440 but maybe not.

andys120

Good job Fin, I don't know what that last one is either.

mac24

tmart

Jaguars??

grahampeters

G'day

Minor variation on above suggestions.

Fiat 126, Renault 4, Fiat 131, Peugeot 205 and last one either a Volvo 440 (looks too small) or Volvo 340 or maybe an Alfetta Sedan or Fiat 131 (they were very similar, possibly twins under the skin) with rectangular lights. No ideas for the single seater.

Cheers

Graham

colin_l

The single seater looks like mid-late 70s to me. Being blue, it's certainly not a Ferrari , leaving Lotus, Tyrell and Lola as likely candidates.

mac24

Jaguars??

No, only one's a Jag.

jwilliams2

Vanden Plas.....Princess, Austin Allegro, Jaguar XJR, and German band....

mac24

Vanden Plas.....

Yes, you are correct! All carry the name Vanden Plas, (what's the plural I wonder? :confuse: ).

grahampeters

G'day

There is a name from the past. My doctor when I was a small boy had a Vanden Plas Princess. IT was based on an Austin Westminster and had the luxury of drop down tables for rear seat passengers. However, the doctor was single and drove his own car!

Cheers

Graham

andys120

andys120

It doesn't look like anyone has an idea of what #29322 is' it's a
1949 Hotchkiss 686 Gascogne. Connecticut-born Benjamin Hotchkiss emigrated to France and went into the business of building gun-carriages, Machine-guns and cannon. Hotchkiss built tanks and armored cars during WW I which led to car and truck production.

Hoitchkiss et Cie. was merged into a French conglomerate Thompson-Brandt in the 70s.

grahampeters

G'day

Well, I'd got the french bit, thinking it looked like a taller Citroen Traction Avant. However, I will admit that you had me stumped.

It does remind me of some tv series from the 1960's. Cannot think what.

Cheers

Graham

andys120

tmart

Falcon ahead of a Volvo?

Mr_Shiftright

Who wears a suit to a cross country auto rally?

Anyway---I'll take the one on the right...that's a Volvo 120 series (called "Amazon" in Sweden), one of the toughest cars ever built. Made from 1956 to 1970, and inspired by Chrysler and Kaiser designs from the 50s. It wouldn't be as fast as the X car on the left but it would no doubt have endured a longer and harder beating before breaking--suspension virtually indestructible. Can't tell the year, but might have had disc brakes, too, another edge over the X car.

andys120

Falcon ahead of a Volvo

Well, duh! Anyone wanna be more specific about the Falcon as Shifty was about the Volvo?

mac24

Well, duh! Anyone wanna be more specific about the Falcon as Shifty was about the Volvo?

Not me. I recognized the Volvo, though not which model, and that's as far as I got!

tmart

Probably the Futura model. Will WAG 1970.

lostwrench1

1964 Falcon - 260 cubes.

andys120

1964 Falcon - 260 cubes.

Yes! The V8 versions of the second gen Falcons were known as the Falcon Sprint and peformed pretty well in the World Rallye Championship of '64-66.

Confusingly the Sprint name was used a few years later by Pontiac Firebirds and Tempests with a SOHC Six.

andys120

lemko

Not sure of the year, but it's at least a 1974 Mercury Comet - cousin of the Ford Maverick. Pretty much the Falcon underneath.

explorerx4

Definitely a John Deere in the background.

ateixeira

More specific? A white Falcon with dark racing stripes, numbered 32.

Mr_Shiftright

The Falcons did rather well in rallying, especially when driven by the likes of people such as Bosse Ljungfeld (awesome Swedish driver) and when the cars were prepped by Holman and Moody, pumping out some 300 HP. Ford spared no expense to hire top guns for their Falcon rallying effort and to spend lavishly (sometimes entering 8 cars).

Unfortunately, back then rallying was operated on a complex system of calculations, penalties and handicaps, and in this regard the Falcons, although they often won their stages, got screwed on penalties or handicaps, and didn't bring home too much bacon.

Lots of great PR though, but this history was quickly forgotten by most Americans when the Mustang came out and when the GT40s won Lemans.

Again, both the Falcon rallying and Lemans were USA-UK development teams.

andys120

Yup, it's actually a '76 Mercury Comet. Dang I was sure someone would say it was a Mav since from that angle there are no giveaways that it's a Merc, except the wheel covers.

andys120

magnette

Ahead of the V-P 4-litre R in your first photo, I can see a Wolseley 15/50 - a relative of my MG Magnette (it's not the earlier 4/44 as it has the larger back window. Also two Morris 1000 Travellers, a Ford Consul MkII ad a Hillman Minx Series V or VI, parked next to the V-P.

But what is the sports coupe parked in front which looks dark green with a light roof?

fintail

Neat pic

I'll take a couple of 'furriners at left and leave the rest for others. First a Ford Anglia 105E, and a couple cars back, parked, a W111 fintail

andys120

Pretty good but you left out at least one plainly visible "furriner".

fintail

I don't want to hog all the low hanging fruit :shades:

ateixeira

Punch Buggy ... black? :shades:

mac24

But what is the sports coupe parked in front which looks dark green with a light roof?

It's a Triumph Spitfire. The hardtop confuses the eye I think. The clear identifiers are the rear light and more importantly, the external release for the one piece bonnet (hood).

wgrafer

Hiding behind the Ford Anglia I see a '63 Chevy Biscayne 2-dr peeking out followed by the white '65 Olds Cutlass. Parked across the street looks like a '53 Pontiac, and the small slice of the tail just going down E. 12 st. is a '58 Oldsmobile.

ps: 'punch buggy- black'? We used to call them pinch bugs!

stever

I learned it as slug Bug. Seems like only one color worked though - blue?

magnette

It looks a bit funny somehow - the rear light is angled, the boot / trunk lid looks different - I thought Spitfire first, because of the bonnet / hood release, but there is something odd about it - and not just the hardtop. Looking closely though, I can see that one of the vertical lines which confuse me might be an aerial on the V-P...

Goes to show that even the most familiar cars are odd from some angles.

andys120

Good eye on the barely visible '58 Olds tailights. I didn't even notice those.

I think the two-tone Pontiac parked facing away is a '49-52 rather than a '53-54 but it's hard to say.

magnette

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From Essen again...

andys120

I'm not sure but I'll bet it's related to the Autobianci Bianchina, itself a relative of the Fiat 500.

magnette

It's not a Fiat relative....

lostwrench1

The horizontal piece above the rear bumper would make it a 53.

magnette

Also it's not made in Italy, although the company that made it certainly is Italian...

Not that rare either - they made thousands of them, although nothing like the number of another form of wheeled transport they were/are famous for...

mjolle

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I located several body panels to a car while in the field recently and have hit a wall trying to properly identify it. One body panel, most likely the trunk door, had the word "Champ" in 50's-60's type cursive on it. That is really all I have to go on. A web search found a version of the Mitsubishi Lancer made by Plymouth in the 80's, but that is far too recent for this component. The panels appear to be from an older model car, not a hatch-back. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Mr_Shiftright

This is a duplicate post that is already been addressed elsewhere, so anyone interested in answering this please go
HERE



I'd rather not have us discussing the same question in two places. Thanks!

mac24

I think I found its brother.



Is it a Vespa 400?

stickguy

simialr story local to me (in the paper recently). A bank was doing some work (digging utilities I think) and they unearthed an entire car buried next to the building. Never saw pictures, but it was assumed to be a 40s-50s unit from what was left, but the slackers did not get a positive ID on what it was. Mostly rust at this point I guess, but I am sure this crew could have figured it out!

no one had any clue how it got there, when, or why!

magnette

It is indeed a Vespa 400, made by the French Vespa company, between 1957 and about 1961. This one had been bought in France and the lady who owned it, and who was German, was just about to put it through the more rigorous German roadworthiness test, hence it wasn't carrying any licence plates.

The red one you've found has different badges, but is otherwise the same.

They never sold these in UK, new, but I think they did import a few into the Channel Islands, (Jersey, Guernsey, etc) which whilst British aren't actually part of UK. There are a few here now though although its been a while since I last saw one. There is an article in the new issue of Classic Cars about one.