Just as Martin Penrose was settling into his newfound success at Adenine, the 1973 oil crisis hit and shook the US automotive industry to its core. The Big Three automakers floundered as gas prices soared and sales of new cars tanked. Adenine was hit hard as well, although not to the same degree as the other automakers. Adenine had never quite been able to meet demand and its market base was strongly devoted, so sales did not drop off as sharply.
Still, Penrose struggled to readjust his market strategy in light of the sudden changes. The Veranda, Adenine’s most popular car, was hopelessly inefficient, and the Advent, which would have been ideal for the new landscape, had been discontinued a few years earlier. Luckily, Penrose had already commissioned development of a new compact sedan to replace the Advent. But what would he do with the Veranda, the star of the Adenine brand?
Development and tooling for the new compact sedan was eating into Adenine’s already declining profits, so Penrose didn’t have the money to design a new Veranda. Whatever he could do would be, at best, a stopgap measure. But he had to do something.
Penrose turned to Inline Designs, who were then working on the engine for the new compact sedan. The engineers at Inline Designs had been proposing some advanced new technology: turbocharging and mechanical fuel injection. Early test results showed remarkable gains in fuel economy and performance. Penrose asked them to work overtime and develop a new engine for the Veranda. (The full story of the Adenine-Inline Designs partnership will be told with the Adenine Valence series.)
Mechanical injection turned out to be too complex and expensive for large-scale production, and Inline Designs found that a triple-carb, single barrel eco setup could work just as well. But the turbocharging technology was very promising. Combined with a new multivalve head and a lean fuel mix, the new straight-six represented a technological leap over the old one. The engine was downsized to 3.2L, and it could still produce 163hp net - nearly identical to the old one - even with a catalytic converter attached!
While the stuff under the hood leapt into the space age, the rest of the car received incremental updates. The automatic transmission gained an extra gear and rear disc brakes replaced the old drums. The phonograph was replaced with a top-of-the-line 8-track cassette player. Outside, the body remained the same but the styling was updated with a more contemporary grille and rectangular lights.
The '75 Veranda was available for an inflation-adjusted price of $18500 (+40% markup). A wagon variant which could seat up to 8 people was also sold for $22000 (+40% markup).
The updated Veranda proved to be a moderate success upon its release in 1975. No, it would never reach the heights of the 1st generation, but the new technology meant that it was far more competitive in the new market. In terms of efficiency, the Veranda was miles ahead of anything else in its class. Competitor vehicles lost lots of horsepower in the switch to cats and unleaded fuel, while the Veranda was able to maintain the same or better performance while improving efficiency over 80%. Indeed, the Veranda could now run to 62mph in 10.1 seconds and it could still corner at well over 0.8g.
The big downside of the magical new turbo was, of course, the lag. Sure, the Veranda could do quick sprints if you kept the turbo spinning, but from a standstill the engine took ages to respond. Even though the turbo was fully spooled at 2000RPM (courtesy of the small turbine and low boost), the eco carbs just couldn’t deliver fuel quickly enough to spin it up. It took time for drivers to get used to the strange feeling of a turbo. The boost built slowly and steadily up to 2000RPM, and then torque held constant at 190 lb-ft up to 4000RPM. It was a totally different experience for everyday drivers, and the quiet whine of the turbo further enforced the space-age feeling.
Overall, the 1975 Veranda was a timely and well-received update to an already winning formula. The lightweight, FWD platform was well suited to Adenine’s newfound focus on efficiency. While the compact Valence would end up stealing the show, the turbo Veranda was still a brilliantly quirky full-size that stood out from the competition. With the Veranda, Adenine proved to consumers that it would innovate instead of compromise. People who wanted a full-size sedan could have one without worrying about getting stuck at the pump.
However, a special moment of silence should be taken for the Veranda’s beloved big-block V8. In the post-oil crisis era, Adenine didn’t have the room to continue producing a gas-guzzling V8, so it was quietly phased out of the lineup. After production of the engine ceased early in 1975, Adenine would never produce another V8.
And yes, I plan to use all the turbo goodness as early as possible 
So now Adenine is probably first, but it won’t be in the Unreal version 
