Mystery car pix

imidazol97

>Why they would have a Chevy down under is the question. Perhaps doing some local testing of the refresh due in a couple of years?

Just a guess, but I suspect it's testing the car and instead of doing it for each region in GM's sales areas, it's being done in one as a cost-cutting measure. Same car, why redevelope in each region. Probably an outcome of Lutz's tenure to help GM improve.

andys120

1981 Chevrolet Malibu Classic coupe.

Yup, exactly, I'm struck by the lack of extraneous ornamentation on this car, the only visible brand cue is the tiny "Chevrolet" in the bottom left of the grille.

If it was mine I'd rip off the dopey stand up on the hood and replace the puny 110 HP V6 with a crate 350 V8.

andys120

grahampeters

G'day

I had pondered the reason for testing a Chevrolet in Australia. However, we do see GM products being tested here, reasonably often. Physically, Australia is a similar scale to the continental USA with very wide climate variations. However, most of Australia is very lightly populated and our total population is about a fifteenth of the USA.

GM have Research Labs here in Melbourne and there are specific areas of research which have world wide application.

The roughness of panel fit on the car I saw, suggested they were trying something different. However some of the detail (like the lights) suggested an advanced stage of production. Interior also looked unusual.

Cheers

Graham

fintail

Looks like a Maserati Merak or Bora

texases

Is it the 'barn find' Bora that's going up for auction soon?

fintail

Looks like a similar color, yeah

andys120

Don't know if it's a barn find but it is definitely a 1973 Maserati Bora

[Edit-The "barn find" Bora was similar but it was a 1977.]

texases

And you'd REALLY better 'bring a trailer', they're not long for this world:

wgrafer

Closest row: '56 DeSoto, '64 Chrysler wagon, '61 Chrysler imperial, '66 Dodge Dart, '70-'71 Chrysler.

Lots left.... (well, maybe not 'lots')

stever

Site got hammered I guess - "This zoomshare site has exceeded its daily traffic limit." Can't see the pic.

mac24

Site got hammered I guess - "This zoomshare site has exceeded its daily traffic limit." Can't see the pic.

Here you go, in case it goes down again:

stever

Heh, see what you mean by needing a flatbed.

texases

Some guy collected these in western Colorado, now his widow wants them gone, any not sold by September go to the crusher

andys120

ateixeira

Mopar for sure.

robr2

Dodge Superbee - year, unknown to me.

lemko

Looks like a 1969 Dodge Super Bee.

andys120

That's right, Lemko, it's a '69 Dodge Coronet Super Bee.

andys120

Much BIGGER!

lemko

Tan 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 or LTD four-door hardtop.
White 1961 Chevrolet Impala 2-door hardtop.
Tan 1965-66 Mustang.
Gray VW Beetle.
White 1969 Chevrolet Impala or Caprice.
Red Toyota Land Cruiser.

Off to the left is a mid-60s Chevy Van.
Off to the right is a 1969 Dodge Polara

mac24

Two down from the VW Beetle looks to be a Jeep DJ (Postal Delivery).

Along side it in the next lane is a VW Bus (beige/white roof).

andys120

Great Job Lemko. The Ford behind the white Chevy looks grey on my monitor, it's kinda hard to tell if it's a '66 or '67 but it looks top of the line (LTD?).

The Land Cruiser is the classic FJ40. I still see them running around in Tucson when I go there. The picture was taken on Speedway Boulevard in Tucson in 1970 (Any town with a road named Speedway is my kind of place.) BTW Tucson abounds in interesting street names like Calle Sin Nombre
(Street with No Name) and there's .an intersection where Glen and Campbell Streets meet. :shades: :shades:

i

fintail

I think in front of that Bus is a then new big Mopar wagon.

The only imports on the road are VWs...a different world.

Ford in the foreground is definitely a 66

wgrafer

Most amazing? look at the gas prices at the gulf station: 33.9 regular and 37.9 ethyl (aka:premium).

So here we are in 2011 with gas prices 10x higher. And I guess the cars are also about 10x more costly. So maybe we should just move the decimal point on our money one point left and we'd be even.....

explorerx4

So did you ever stop at the 'Blue Moon' for cocktails? I wasn't sure if it was connected to the 'topl**s' sign.

lemko

mac24

I was reading about this just the other day. It's the Ghia Chrysler Norsman, lost on the Andrea Doria in 1956.
Very advanced for its time apparantly.

lemko

Correct! You can see a bit of soon to come Imperials in its profile.

andys120

bhill2

If you wanted to include a picture, I'm not seeing it.

andys120

grahampeters

G'day

Audi RS2?

Sort of a friendly Audi 80 wagon (okay an S2 Avant), tweaked by Porsche.

Reminds me that at about the same era, someone came up with the idea of cutting and shutting a Golf with a bout 4" extra width. The added width hid a Porsche engine to give remarkable performance; just what you don't want to meet at the Traffic Light Grand Prix!

Cheers

Graham

andys120

Audi RS2 Avant is correct. It is based on the Audi 80/B4 but it wasn't just tweaked by Porsche. The suspension and brakes were extensively reworked and it was assembled at Porsche's Zuffenhausen facility, it was Porsche's first wagon a decade before the Cayenne, and a whole bunch sexier IMO.

The Porsche name appears on the rear hatch>

grahampeters

G'day

The RS2 came from a German mindset of building very high performance cars which were virtually indistinguishable from their pedestrian cousins; minimal ornamentation with the focus on performance.

The early M5 was a good example; my boss had an E28 M5 which was virtually impossible to identify compared to a standard 535. By the time that I worked for him, it was well worn in, having spent some years pounding motorways, but was still fabulously entertaining. They all seemed to come in an innocuous black and were usually dirty. In the UK, your first awareness was when one overtook you on a motorway.

There were also some seriously fast Mercedes with heavily adapted suspensions.

The RS2 was a similar beast; you had to look really hard at the little badge to work out that the family wagon which just went past was not being thrashed to its death.

Given that a lot of these German performance cars were only really distinguishable by a little badge, it was common for the car to be debadged, leaving only a connoisseur able to recognize the usually special wheels or trims, or the ride attitude of the car (all of them seemed to be very glued to the road with little body roll).

More recently, the Germans appear to be embracing a more ostentatious display for their performance cars.

Cheers

Graham

kyfdx

The E28 M5 didn't just seem to come in black. That was the only available color! With tan interior.

First one I ever saw was in late '87, early '88 in Monticello, KY. It was parked on the street outside the courthouse. Went in to see an elected official, and there was a young man in the office. I asked him if it was his, and he blushed and said yes. He was the man's son, and had just graduated from law school.

This is a seriously little backwater town. Weird place to spot my first one, but he was just visiting from out of town.

andys120

mac24

Fiat 124/Lada1200 and a Renault 4 Van.
No idea of the movie though.

andys120

Yup, the yellow car is a Fiat 124S Berline (sedan) ca. 1968-69, probably a cab (note roof rack for luggage).

The Renault 4 (same vintage)was known as a Fourgonette in France and simply as a "Cargo" elsewere.

The movie is pretty obscure: La Mano Spietata della Legge (1973).

mac24

andys120

I don't know where you got a photo of one without "Matra-Simca" written in big letters on the front and back but it's a late 70s Matra-Simca Rancho, an early crossover vehicle.

mac24

I don't know where you got a photo of one without "Matra-Simca" written in big letters on the front and back but it's a late 70s Matra-Simca Rancho, an early crossover vehicle.



Well, the lettering was a bit of a giveaway so I had to remove it. :shades:

Actually, that one's a Talbot Matra Rancho, but the difference is in name only, which changed from Simca to Talbot in 1979.
Basically, it's Simca 1100 pickup front end with a Matra built fibreglass shell grafted onto the rear.

andys120

mac24

Looks dated and tacky in that pic, but I think it's actually the brand spanking new three seater Scion IQ.

andys120

Yup, 2012 Scion (nee Toyota) iQ.

grahampeters

Gday

Still moderately common in the UK when I moved there in 1990. The Talbot Matra name seemed to live on for a bit. The Rancho actually looked like a good idea and I went so far as scanning Loot (sort of Trading Post ; remember before Ebay?) looking for a clean one as a car when we first arrived in the UK

Cheers

Graham

andys120

wgrafer

Looks like a '65 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 (with period red-stripe tires and a little funky higher-than-usual rear end!).

andys120

A friend of mine had the same car in a much sexier dark green which had a lot more presence than the pictured car which looks like an F85 that some secretary would drive.

Except for the red stripers and the little emblem in the scoop there's nothing that says muscle car and those hubcaps could have come off a Dynamic 88.

andys120