Mystery car pix

boomchek

The long hood scream Bristol, just not sure of the model, but some pre-Beaufighter model?

Mr_Shiftright

that's pretty good Boom, but can you tell me approx. year and unusual powerplant?

boomchek

Hmmm, I'll guess late 50's, and no clue about the engine, but didn't they use Chrysler motors in their cars, or was it Jensens that used Chrysler powertrain? (I'm trying hard not to look up wiki for this one).

Mr_Shiftright

you're off on the year but right on the motor.

It is actually a contemporary of the Jensen Interceptor.

Okay, you still get the chocolate bunny.

It's a 1972 Bristol Model 411 with 6.2L Chrysler big block. (rebuilt and modified by Bristol).

Bristol liked using other car's engines. They first carried their version of the old BMW 328 V-8 in the late 40s, part of Allied war booty I presume.

Even today, you will sometimes find genuine 30s era BMW 328s with Bristol-made copies of their motor.

fintail

From what I recall, Frazer-Nash had an agreement to sell BMW-sourced tech in the UK before the war. After the war, a Frazer-Nash exec founded Bristol, and was able to purchase rights to the 328 - no doubt with some looting/booty/"liberation" terms, but I think it was a relatively amicable move, as far as things were at the time - at least it wasn't stolen outright like so much else. Early Bristol cars even had a BMW-like grille. They eventually moved into more independent design in the 50s.

boomchek

The Bristol Beaufighter always intrigued me. It's such an unattractive looking car in my opinion but because it's so odd looking I kinda like it. And it wasn't cheap either, which made me curious as to who would buy them.

Mr_Shiftright

You'd have to have a real Bristol Fetish (and probably BE British as well) to be interested in these cars. They were marketed as a kind of luxury GT car--a Gentleman's Express if you will. I don't expect with that huge mound of iron under the bonnet that you'd be mixing it up in the turns with a Lotus.

Mr_Shiftright

Here's a Beaufighter. Sort of reminds me of the [non-permissible content removed] child of an unholy coupling between a '65 T-Bird and a Toyota Cressida.

(was that too cruel?)

fintail

I think that's who bough them new - affluent (they were indeed expensive cars) proud Brits, traditionalists who make James May look wild and rebellious. Probably quite a few with lower level "titles".

grahampeters

G'day

I spent some years working near the Bristol Patchway factory of Bristol cars and saw a few of them around, particularly older models which would be brought back to factory for service. They were sold from a showroom in Kensington High Street (an area of West London, famously expensive and exclusive) where the snobbish sales staff thought seriously long and hard to see if they would deign to speak with you, before even contemplating selling you a car.

The recurrent theme of the post war Bristols was the placement of the spare wheel, behind the wheel in an upward opening cabinet, forward of the left passenger door. The were fitted with large US sourced engines, usually Chryslers.

Anachronistic in 1960, when Bristol Cars was cleaved from the Bristol Aircraft Corporation business, they were later just plain irrelevant. I find it hard to describe the British class of snobbery which is fed by this sort of exclusivity. It is the same sort of snobbishness that appeals to Aston Martin owners, but possibly even more refined.

However, attachment to anachronisms are not uniquely British; I have never understood why private US citizens would buy Checkers as they never made a great deal of sense as taxi-cabs.

Occasionally salesmen get it all wrong when assessing customers; I was recently mystified by a salesman, desperate to sell me one of several multi-million dollar yachts in a Queensland Marina. He'd misinterpreted my diffidence and scruffy dress (shorts, polo shirt and scuffed boat shoes worn with no socks) as a marker of owning a suitably expensive yacht that I might want to trade up. I decided to let him sweat!

Likewise, when I wandered into the Bristol showroom in Kensington in the 1990s to look at the cars, I was wearing a tattered Harris Tweed jacket and refused any attention from the sales staff; they damn near fell over themselves trying to draw out my identity and the thickness of my wallet. A seriously odd experience!

Cheers

Graham

grahampeters

G'day

A week or two ago, I mentioned the Aston Martin Lagonda, nominating it as one of the ugliest cars ever made. William Towns designs do not do much for me! Last night we had dinner with friends who have a specialist motor business, largely given over to maintaining ancient, Rolls, Bentley and Aston Martins into old age (and a lucrative sideline in fettling Japanese high performance motors - appealing as their owners pay reliably).

They disagreed with me, saying that the Lagondas they have seen are fine cars and very lovely to work on. At that sort of rarity, each car has a personality and they spoke fondly of each of them

Maybe I should moderate my views

Cheers

Graham

Mr_Shiftright

the Lagonda interiors always reminded me of low-budget sci-fi flicks, where Capt. Nick Hardfist and the world's most beautiful nuclear scientist, Norma Stevens, sit at their control panels, about to land on an asteroid populated by giant lizards.

fintail

I like those angular futuristic Lagondas. A 1975 vision of the 21st century that didn't come true.

magnette

stickguy said:

I miss the 80s

I don't miss the 80's - I was married then...

andys120

Short Bed>

grahampeters

andys120 said:

Short Bed>

G'day

Series II Landrover on an 88" chassis. I would guess late 1950s to about 1961. The difference from the Series 1 is the quarter curve turnout at the waistline to cope with the wider wheel-track, which was styled by David Bache

Cheers

Graham

andys120

You nailed it. It's a 1958 LR S2/88

andys120

lostwrench1

1961 Buick Electra 225.

stever

stickguy

I'll get back to you after I finish cleaning my lunch off my keyboard.

Michaell

@stever- is that parked down the street from you?

stever

lol, it's somewhere in Cruces per the local craigslist. Maybe y'all would prefer the rear view?

grahampeters

andys120 said:

G'day

Isn't that gorgeous. I wonder who designed it

Cheers

Graham

andre1969

andys120 said:

I always thought the '61 Caddy/Electra/Ninety-Eight 2-door hardtop roofline looked a bit awkward, but from that angle I think it looks great. I don't think it works quite as well when viewed from the front, though...


To me, from this angle, it looks like the roof stops too short, creating a rear deck that's too long, and it throws the proportioning off a bit. That '60-62 timeframe, in general, was a period that trended towards smaller cars, in reaction to how big and bloated they got in the late 50's. So perhaps this was intentional, to make even the big cars look a bit more petite?

robr2

stever said:

lol, it's somewhere in Cruces per the local craigslist. Maybe y'all would prefer the rear view?

91-92 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser. Yes Clark, there was a replacement for the Family Queen Truckster.

stever

Yep, a '91 per the ad.

qbrozen

You could probably sell off those awful wheels to get a good chunk of money for the car back in your pocket. I might actually be interested in such a deal if it were close by and the car checked out OK. I have a soft spot for just about any wagon.

andys120

lostwrench1

This Dodge Club Coupe can be anytime from 1946 to 1948.
If it has the original tire size of 7.10 x 15, then it is a 1948.

andys120

It's a 1947 Dodge Custom

Mr_Shiftright

I never said this would be easy: (The tipoff, if you are really an arcane car lunatic, lies in the seam behind the front wheel. Only one car I know had this little "door" that opened to reveal the battery. And yes, to make it doubly hard, this one is a targa)

Mr_Shiftright

Here's another one, just so you won't think it's a one-off. The "door" on the left side fender houses a ....spare tire!

Michaell

Bristol?

stickguy

that is for sure. the front badge helps! I knew this looked like something I have seen pictures of. I would never know the exact model of course without peeking.

Michaell

stickguy said:

that is for sure. the front badge helps! I knew this looked like something I have seen pictures of. I would never know the exact model of course without peeking.

Huh - I didn't see the badge. I was looking at the picture on my phone when I responded.

grahampeters

Mr_Shiftright said:

I never said this would be easy: (The tipoff, if you are really an arcane car lunatic, lies in the seam behind the front wheel. Only one car I know had this little "door" that opened to reveal the battery. And yes, to make it doubly hard, this one is a targa)

G'day


I think there was another one a week or two back. The hatch in front of the door is for the spare wheel, an odd feature of Bristols. The Baur like convertible is a late 70's Targa 412 with a body by Zagato on a Bristol chassis.

No, I do not want one!

Cheers

Graham

texases

A Beaufighter, 1985-ish? The spare in the fender was a huge clue...

stever

Ghost car.

kyfdx

Looks like a Grand Cherokee

texases

Leave off the "Grand"...

stickguy

A very large Braun electric razor.

kyfdx

texases said:

Leave off the "Grand"...

Thanks.. that did cross my mind, afterwards..

stever

The Twitterverse says it's a Grand, but don't ask me. (KITN)

texases

OMG, they got something wrong? The bent 7 slots and the squinty headlights would say it's a new Cherokee.

andys120

Needs work>

stickguy

nothing all new bodywork, and likely a frame, won't cure.

never seen one of these before. But it is parked behind a late-70s looking Nissan 280Z.

Mr_Shiftright

I had to think about this one a while because I actually drove one of these when working for an auction company in San Francisco many years ago, doing some car wrangling to get the cars on stage, etc.

At first, the Triumph GT6 comes to mind, which it closely resembles, but it doesn't have that "kick" at the rear window belt line; then I remember that it was the rather rare Sunbeam Harrington coupe, based on the Alpine, and called the "LeMans" to commemorate Sunbeam's victory in the "Thermal Efficiency" class at Lemans in an Alpine.

They aren't terribly valuable even though they didn't make but a few hundred of them (???) so bringing this one back would be strictly for the preservation of the historical lineage of Sunbeam.

If I recall correctly, they put a fiberglass upper coupe body on the steel lower body of the Alpine and mated them mid-line.

There is ONE Harrington coupe that IS valuable however. They made one and only one using a Sunbeam Tiger chassis. So that was a V-8 /4-speed car.

stever

Has a bit too much greenhouse, kind of like a Pacer, but I rather like it. Sort of VW Fastback-ish looking too.

texases

That one appears to suffer from the same humpback disease as the E-Type 2+2. Is it a 2+2?