This Car Is Related To The One Above because...

[darrenh]

another car debuted at the 54 world motor sports show was the cadillac el camino concept car. a 2 seater coupe made of fibreglass with a 230bhp v8 engine. not to be confused with the later chevrolet pickup truck using the same revived name.

el camino was a bastardised version of the spanish phrase el camino real, which translated roughly as the royal highway, in the case of this car it specifically related to the 600 mile kings highway which runs down the coast of California

[The Rascal King]

Cadillac's history with concept cars began with the 1936 Cadillac V16 Aerodynamic Coupe:





From thetruthaboutcars.com:

...the 1936 Cadillac Aerodynamic Coupe was GM’s first production car that was based on what we now call a concept car. Back then, though, they were more likely to call those concepts “show cars”, and not only was the Aerodynamic Coupe GM’s first production car derived from a show car, that show car was the giant automaker’s first attempt at creating a one-off vehicle just for promotional purposes. It also represented the solidification of Harley Earl and his styling team’s important role in General Motors’ hierarchy and not so incidentally it helped Cadillac replace Packard as America’s preeminent luxury automaker.
...
Even the exhaust pipes were styled, an innovation that lasts till today, and the exhaust system was tuned to give the car’s V16 engine an appropriate tone.
That V16 engine, in production since 1930 and the first production V16 used for a passenger car, was possibly the first car engine that was styled for aesthetic reasons. The motor received finishes in enamel paint, porcelain, polished aluminum and chrome. Valve covers were polished and detailed. Wiring was hidden away and special attention was paid to how and where the accessories were mounted. The V16 looked so good that Cadillac would apply the same styling to its V8 and V12 engines.

[vulgalour]

If you wanted an El Camino built like a Cadillac, you needed to speak to your Cadillac dealer who would get Traditional Coachworks Ltd. to make you a Cadillac Mirage. You'd be lucky to have one, they only built 204 of them, because really who actually wants a luxury pick-up truck, even in the 70s?

Not to be confused with the slightly later Cadillac Caribou which didn't have the little windows behind the cab that the Mirage sports. The Mirage was only in production for 2 years, the 70s being the last gasp of being able to order a coachbuilt special new from a main dealer.

EDIT:  Was writing this while Rascal made his post, so it should really squidge somewhere between his and Darren's post.

[surprisingskoda]

Sept 12, 2018 18:38:08 GMT vulgalour said:

because really who actually wants a luxury pick-up truck, even in the 70s?

Me! Absolutely me!

I'd even settle for the only other pickup Cadillac ever officially produced, the Escalade EXT, based on the Chevy Avalanche and offered in Mk1 2002-06 and Mk2 07-13 versions, which ended when the Avalanche also ceased production.


Or zis custom one



And one other "Cadillac" pickup of some notoriety is the one in "Greased Lightning", a terrible film full of all sorts of GM products you can now link to.

[rodharris83]

Greased Lightning is indeed a terrible film but did also feature a 1948 ford deluxe convertible:

[darrenh]

that gouge down the side famously made by wheel spikes on Leos 49 mercury, during the race in the LA storm drains

[vulgalour]

The Mercury Eight was essentially a factory led sled and is still popular for that treatment today almost 60 years later. Our next car is connected via George Barris and Lincoln, since the Mercury Eight was also sold as a Lincoln EL-Series, little more than a badge engineering excercise really, but which would go on to create the distinctively styled Lincoln of 1950 and the more popular range of streamlined cars from Mercury. The connection is, of course, Batman.



Barris took the original Lincoln Futura concept car and restyled it to become the iconic Batmobile of the 1960s television show that starred Adam West as Batman. The Futura was immensely expensive, featuring such extravagances as ground pearls to give it a pearlescent paint finish, and the presumably expensive to create double-bubble canopy. Radically styled for the mid-fifties and very forward looking, some elements would come to be used in other cars and help keep Ford relevant and competitive.

In my search for more information on the Futura I learned that in the 1990s Barris licensed reproduction of replica Batmobile bodies to Bob Butts who reverse engineered one of them into a replica Futura. That's the sort of mad dedication to the cause I can get behind.

[The Rascal King]

After it's use as an apt name for concept cars, "Futura" went on to become a trim level designation for the compact Falcon sedan:

[darrenh]

i bet a shilling those pesky yanks didnt have a ford falcon panel van though.

[surprisingskoda]

Sept 14, 2018 12:23:08 GMT rodharris83 said:

Greased Lightning is indeed a terrible film but did also feature a 1948 ford deluxe convertible:

That's Grease (1978), not Greased Lightning (1977).


Anyway, related to the Ford Falcon Van above by way of also being a Ford Falcon Van, is this one - built and resto-modded with a custom interior and a 302 crammed in, for Dave Grohl of several band fame.

[ToolsnTrack]

Grohls Nirvana bandmate Mr Cobain drove a '65 Dodge Dart, specifically this one...

[darrenh]

Dodge was a subsidiary of chrysler, but also see the license plate, ABS ? thats the tenuous link to the first production car to have 4 wheel anti lock braking system, 1971 imperial. Imperial was chryslers prestige luxury brand as demonstrated by this 'ere picture of a 71 LeBaron

[Samage]

Imperials are a type of mint. And so are Polos...

(Extremely tenuous link I know, but I couldn't resist!)

[vulgalour]

The Mk1 Polo was the Audi 50 rebadged and, so I'm told (though I can't find proof of this) the rebadging meant that it sold better than it did as an Audi. The Polo was always more expensive than its competition but the reputation of solid, non-nonsense, German engineering meant they continued to sell even in the face of the more affordable Metro.

So what's the green thing? That's an NSU Prinz, the car that came before the Audi 50 and before Volkswagen merged NSU with Auto Union to create Audi in 1969. Performance versions were labelled as the TT, a name Audi would go on to use quite deliberately with the coupé of late 90s to early 2000s.

[surprisingskoda]

Not quite, and I don't mean to contest with you, but this is what this thread is about, learning stuff. Audi wasn't created then, it was created in the early part of the century by August Horch, who of course had also started the car company with his own name as well.
Those two separate businesses plus DKW and Wanderer all joined forces to become Auto Union, the bane of many a racing car team in the prewar days.

In 1965 after acquisition by VW, AU were told to stop production but their rather well known head designer built a car anyway and called it the Audi 100 which ultimately saved them.
VW then in 1969 oversaw AU merging with NSU and after a dozen or so years with a ridiculous business name of all the names, in 1985 they finally decided to just be Audi. Probably the best choice to be fair!

Anyone got a picture of an Audi 100?

Ok I'll find one.
We would all have saved the company from becoming a Beetle production plant if we had seen one of these, wouldn't we? The early one is lovely, but twin lights does it, and the coupe version...

[darrenh]

the link to the above car is the 100 model number, in this case ford 100E of anglia and prefect fame. in the process of finding something interesting to say about these cars i read all about the manumatic gearbox. a semi automatic manual. this was a 2 pedal manual car which used vacuum and actuators to operate a normal clutch, plus change the engine revs, all you had to do was move the gear stick which initiated it all.

[Samage]

Some time later, Volkswagen also offered a stick-shift automatic. Although the principle was similar to the Ford, it worked somewhat differently - since I generally believe gearboxes as a whole are operated by a combination of voodoo, magic and gnomes, I'll let this link explain the inner workings. www.vwheritage.com/blog/2015/12/03/whats-a-semi-auto-beetle

They weren't always badged as "automatic stick shift" either, sometimes they were just badged as "VW Automatic". Which created a bit of confusion, as automatic Type 2 vans and Type 3 cars were also badged as this, but these were full autos. Semiauto only came on the Beetle and Karmann Ghia - and since we've already had Beetles on this thread, have a Ghia instead.

[vulgalour]

The Karmann Ghia is a very pretty design, it's hard to believe that it has anything in common with a VW Beetle at a quick glance. One of the things that helps it look so pretty is the almost total lack of panel lines. With the exception of the opening bits, you'll struggle to find a single panel line or seam to break up the smooth surface of the car. The KG wasn't exactly an exotic car when new, it was certainly very pretty, but there wasn't really any need to go to this length with the bodywork. Isn't it nice that they did though? It makes it look far more exotic than it is and is one of those little details you don't even realise until it's pointed out to you.

Another car that employs this sort of construction is the rarer and more exotic Lancia Flavia coupé. These were rallied and proved to be quite tough, probably in large thanks to Lancia's over-engineering of everything. Powered by a front mounted boxer engine mounted in a cast aluminium subframe and driven by the front wheels. Amazingly for the mid-60s, this car also features disc brakes front and rear.

[darrenh]

and heres what a flavia would look like if you showed a picture to a 35 year old athritic chimp, then asked it to recreate it out of pasta shells and PVA glue

the bond equipe GT4S

[vulgalour]

Which is a car that has many parts from Triumph, mainly Herald Bond used the headlights from the biggest Triumph out at the time on this tiny little car, those being the double units from the Triumph 2000.

Kerry Lay won the 1968 Castrol Gold Star trial in the North Island of New Zealand and here he is in action.





I'm guessing that's a sheep shover on the front rather than the Australian equivalent of roobars. There's a good read on the 2000 in New Zealand to be had here: www.themotorhood.com/themotorhood/2015/9/28/triumph-2000-the-motor-man-analyzes-a-curious-new-zealand-motoring-infatuation