Some pics from my crummy camera on my phone. Unfortunately, that was the best I could do besides drawing this car in pencil Oh well, maybe it is not unbecoming for this ’small’ US car. I actually like the looks of this Corvair, but if the sources are to be believed, this is not the best automobile ever to roll out of the Chevie facturies.
This Chevrolet Corvair was considered a compact car in its days. The US customers started to take a shine to the new small, fuel-efficient European imports from manufacturers like Volkswagen and Renault. Why drive a big boat if you can drive a sporty little hotshot? Unfortunately for Chevrolet, the imported small cars were designed by people who already had designed small cars since the beginning of the century, whilst Chevrolet more or less did it as a marketing gimmick. As a result, the car wasn’t really good, and more important for Chevrolet: way to expensive to produce giving its max price tag. Nonetheless the Corvair sold quite well, and its sporty handling eventually inspired the development of the Ford Mustang.
What I like about the Corvair is the wide varieties of body versions, there even was a small van based on this car! And of course, if you get into hot water because Ralph Nader writes a book on how immensly unsafe the car is, don’t you kinda want to like the car anyway? I know I do…
A very nice article on the car can be found here and I just couldn’t resist adding this vintage Corvair TV commercial as well. Enjoy!
I have experienced some trouble with this site. After moving from one host to another, suddenly I was unable to upload pictures. Some CHMod-ding later, I still was unable to upload pictures, but some friendly fucker was able to take over the site. Amongst other things, he thought it funny to disable Akismet, the little plugin that blocks spam comments, and he made it very hard for me to enter my own files.
Luckily, having just moved the site, I had a crisp and clean back-up, so I threw the whole site out and started again. And we are back! And it seems that I have overcome the upload problems as well. Let’s hope the joy lasts….
Oh, and please: just don’t hack this site, will you? It’s a nuisance, and what good does it do?
The Opel Speedster is a nice car, albeit still an Opel. They are nice to drive, affordable, and not half bad looking once you get used to the boxy back. These cars aren’t that difficult to find for a spot, and basically I have never bothered. Let’s face it, at the end of the day it is still an Opel, isn’t it? In the UK, all Opels drive around with the steering wheel on the other side of the car, and they have fitted a badge which says ‘Vauxhall’ instead of Opel. Still, nothing really exciting…
Why oh why then a post about this car? Well, this car was parked here in Dordrecht, which is a city in the Netherlands. Therefore, it should have Opel badges. Surely, you say, somebody struck a deal and imported a Vauxhall from the UK. Fair enough, but this is a left-hand drive car… Granted, no hot car news or a stop-the-presses scoop, but the car intriged me and that is basically what car spotting is all about. So, pictures!
Well spotted, a new image gallery due to some upgrades in Wordpress. I am not too sure if it’s an improvement but what are you gonna do?!
The Speedster/VX220 is internally basically a Lotus. It is built in the Lotus factory in Hethel in the UK, shares the chassis with the Elise and has an internal product code ‘Lotus 116′. With its low weight, mid-mounted engine, high torsional rigidity, and ample horsepower, the car is extremely quick and agile. Maybe the Vauxhall/Opel badge won’t turn many heads, many motoring journalists claim that the Speedster/VX220 is better than he close cousin the Elise.
Let’s embed some old Top Gear material on the Elise-Speedster-VX220, if Google Video will let me…
I have driven none of the mentioned cars, and would love to hear some comments on the Elise versus Speedster. Anybody?
I am no big fan of the DAF motoring brand, but since I live in the Netherlands I am bound to run into the little buggers every now and then. In my mind, these cars are in the same category of ’slow, boring and boxy’ as old cheap Volvo’s. What a pleasant surprise to see this funny little DAF 44! It almost looks nice! What a charming little eyebrows over the headlights, I like it. For a DAF, that is LOL
Under the bonnet with the fancy eyebrows we are still talking DAF though. A whopping two cylinder 0.8 liter engine delivers no less than 34 bhp, obviously the car is equipped with the famous Variomatic transmission and … ehm. Well, is is a DAF. The car is designed by Giovanni Michelotti, who drew some nice Triumphs as well. Unfortunately, after this DAF 44 he ended up designing the boring Volvo 66…
It has been a while, but finally I spot myself something new, sporty and nice! The lines on this GranTurismo are great, and if the rumours are correct the convertible version is going to be a looker as well. Aah, something to look out for! This GranTurismo, officially designer as a long-distance cruiser, is equipped with a very nice V8 engine that doesn’t particularly make it slow… nor particularly fast, for that matter. But who cares?! Officially it does a whopping 285 km/h top speed, how many owners would have driven it that fast? It is a car to look at, a car to enjoy driving without the ride being too hairy to handle. Great car!
Some cars just speak to you, and this is one of those cars. Normally, the big American boats mainly look kinda ridiculous in my eyes, but this Newport is nice. Obviously it is the small car in the Chrysler range of the time… that explains something. It is always amazing to see the specs on old US cars of the era, enormous V8 engines which generated a very poor power output for its size. Oh well, they are nice to look at
What I wouldn’t give to see a first generation Chrysler Newport two-seater roadster! Obviously it doesn’t help that there are like six of them ever made. Pic from Flickr:
To my knowledge I have never seen a car like this one before. Whether or not that is a good thing is for you to decide. Whether or not it is true remains to be seen… These cars frequented the streets when I was a boy so chances are that some have been on my retina before. Anyway: the Lancia Gamma. Full with nice design details, full with late seventies/early eighties charm. And full-on parked in the parking lot of the local zoo. Enjoy.
All info I have on this car would come from googling around. Let’s do it differently this time: all you readers, please comment on what you think are the interesting features and facts about this Lancia. Let’s hear it!
Feast your eyes out on a proper off-roader! Sod off with your Cayenne or X5, this is a car right up there with the Landcruiser and Defender. If you can’t walk on the roof of your car without worrying about the paint job or the structural integrity, you are not driving a off-road vehicle! Damn, this Portuguese built Umm is ugly, but man do I like it!
To add some nuance: I like the (lack of) looks of it, the principle of the rugid, ugly workhorse. I have never driven an Umm, nor do I know much about the performance, handling or durability… But still: this is a true off-road car, so it is OK in my book (and blog ). Whether this is an Alter model ‘4×4′, ‘II’ or (unlikely) a ‘2000′, I don’t know but my guess would be a ‘4×4′
Being factless, straight from Wikipedia:
The UMM 4×4 design is derived from a prototype created by the French engineering firm Cournil, called Entrepreneur. The Cournil Entrepreneur’s building rights were acquired by the Portuguese company União Metalo-Mecânica, part of the Mocar group and were renamed as UMM.
They became known for their reliability, especially when in a Paris-Dakar rally the team was able to finish with all the cars that started. Many UMMs are still in use by utilities in Spain, Portugal, Cape Verde (in use by the national army) and France and also by the “Guarda Nacional Republicana” (Portuguese Gendarmerie), fire service and military, although the majority of their customers were private individuals. Around 700 UMMs are still in service in the Republic of the Congo (Zaire). They are also popular in France and Angola. UMM stopped building the UMM Alter II for private customers in 1994, but kept on taking large orders from military and utility services until 1996. Custom orders are no longer accepted. It is suspected that more than 10.000 UMMs were made.
All intereseting facts and stories are appreciated, please comment!
Oh well, maybe it is not unbecoming for this ’small’ US car. I actually like the looks of this Corvair, but if the sources are to be believed, this is not the best automobile ever to roll out of the Chevie facturies.
