TSR needed new GT car. So in 1985, they released the TSR Mont Royale. It was available on 3 trim levels, the Turbo B, Turbo S and Turbo R. It has all-wheel-drive, double wishbone suspension on all four wheels, a tuned version of the engine in the TSR Comet and air suspension (only on the Turbo R).
The most perfect condition TSR Mont Blanc Turbo R
The Birmingham Renton Super 1500
In 1957, the Renton was released and was an instant hit, selling incredibly well in both the USA and europe. It even managed to win the 1957 entry-level car of the year in the “Motor Review World.” This was because of its very cheap price yet decent equipment, tech and safety. It was released into the world of racing months later, and due to its predictable handling and sub 700kg weight it performed well yet again. As a homologation model, the super 1500 was just a road legal version of the Touring car. It included Wider, 155mm sport tires on bigger rims as well as more hardcore suspension as well as the 90bhp 1.5l i4 to keep he weight down. It also had removed bumpers, a front lip, dual mufflers and a dash mounted tachometer.
The interior was stripped and now the car weighed just over 650KG. The suspension was also adjustbale, allowing the car to be used for rally racing as well.
Stark Turion A270
So, the mid 60s was a big period for Vincent Cars, a new style, and all of a sudden all but the most prestigious cars are FWD, and they sold like crazy because of it, in fact, Vincent had to open a new factory near Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (real place, look it up) on the Isle of Anglesey due to the sudden influx of demand for the new, expanded, lineup. This was one such car, the new, front wheel drive Meteor, the replacement to the Mirage, a smallish coupe powered by a largish engine but not quite a muscle car, it was simply too Britishly refined for such a label.
Old people joke incoming: Is that the place referenced in an episode of “The Goodies”?
Sakura Duchess. A little James Bond, a little Corvair.
It started off interestingly enough, with a sleek body that could be mistaken for a Giugiaro design and a somewhat peppy 187 horsepower flat-six engine. And then it just kind of went sideways from there, missing all kinds of design and marketing goals.
There’s nothing actually wrong with the Duchess D30 itself. It would make a fine, quirky play toy just about any time along a 20 year time period. And even today it handles well, with its mid-engine layout and fully independent suspension. So how did this Sakura end up being such a bomb?
Whoever said that “timing is everything” had a rather narrow view of life. Of course the timing of the Duchess was pretty terrible. It was a sports car that weighed almosts as much as the much-beloved muscle cars of the day, but without the power, and with a significantly higher price tag. All we really cared about back then was power. The vastly better handling didn’t mean a thing.
But timing is most definitely not everything. Sakura, having only recently gotten their foot in the door in the American market, didn’t have the savvy to figure out a proper way to engage the public and draw them in. Go look at some of the advertising campaigns of the day. They’re remarkably bad.
Well, this contrbutor enjoys the soul-cleansing clarity of an occasional drive in his father-in-law’s Duchess. And only the savvy collector will truly know what they’re getting when they buy in to one.
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Spiritual Classics: Medium (Currently in 3rd)
What’s ultra-compact, has retractable claws, and growls?
Well, besides the resident feral cat outside the office, the correct answer would be the Mitsushita Kitty 100GT.
That’s right, a car with a sub-1000cc (987 to be exact) has the audacity to call itself a GT. What kind of trumped-up ego stroking naming scheme is this?
Well, actually, we’d have to stop you there. While it’s not a big, suave coupe with a hard-pounding engine and more leather than a rave at a dairy farm, it actually does deserve the GT moniker.
Mitsushita put together a super-high (for the time) compression pushrod four-banger that, thanks to a rather high 6000 RPM redline and a well-tuned sidedraft carb, puts out a whopping 62.5 horsepower. Not impressive, right? Well, just bear in mind that the Kitty weighs just 1500 pounds, so it gives decent pep. 12.1 seconds to 60 in a 1970 subcompact is no laughing matter. Nor is its fully independent suspension that, with the right tires, can pull over a g on the skidpad.
Still think we’re nuts? There are a growing number of autocrossers that disagree with you. Despite being no-frills, the Kitty can be a fun, inexpensive ride to toss around.
And hey, you don’t really have to worry about finding one with a straight body. You’d probably never find one that was hit, because there’s be nothing left, that’s just how crappy their safety record is.
(Yes, we suggest towing this thing to your race instead of risking life and limb driving it on public highways. Safety first, right?)
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Motorsports: High (Currently in 2nd)
OOC: I absolutely LOVE the Gremlin-style stripe!
@Mr.Computah
Weird European imports aren’t exactly anything new. They’ve been occurring with varying levels of influx since European factories started churning out consumer goods after the end of World War II. As far as oddballs go, the Spaniards are right up there with the French.
One such example that you rarely see on the mainland these days is the Conte Estrato Copa. Now, this was supposed to be the “sport” trim for the model. And yes, they were successful in squeezing 77 ponies out of the tiny fuel-injected 1.2 liter under the hood. But boy, did they make some sacrifices to get that. Idling at a stoplight in one of these puppies is almost like throwing yourself in the washing machine and turning it on, thanks to the rather lumpy cam.
The other litte detail that soured the US market to this model was the fact that, instead of fully cushioned fold-down rear seats, Conte decided to make their design simpler and just put a set of thin, folding jump seats (with three belts!) in the rear. Not many people can say they’ve driven or even seen a car in a 2+3 configuration. As it was, the 2+2 sports cars only did that to get around the chicken tax. None of them had more than 2 doors, yet the Conte Estrato 5-door did.
This design oddity may have made it unpopular with buyers in the States back in the day, but it is rather popular with crap car navigation challenges, as you can carry more beer and tools than other similar cars.
If you want to find one of these in the US, your best bet is to check out classifieds in Puerto Rico, as they were relatively popular there due to their reliability, economy, and low price.
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Jalopy Culture: High (Currently in 1st)
The chicken tax only applies to light trucks, not passenger vehicles. Ford for instance imported Transit Connects from Turkey with rear windows, rear seats, etc. so they qualified as passenger vehicles, and then converted back into cargo vans upon arrival. Same with the Subaru BRAT and its rear facing jump seats.
1989 Brickfields Razak V6 is a Malaysian-made luxury sedan car that was meant to rival other luxury sedan at the time like Lexus LS400, Nissan Cefiro and others. It was Brickfield’s first attempt to break in to the luxury sedan market in Malaysia to see if people were interested in local luxury sedan at the time.
And it was successful as people love their brand new Razak V6 due to how elegant and advanced the design of the car is. Razak V6 consist of premium interior with premium cassette tape in it, Automatic headlights and tailights and ABS.
Other than that, local car magazines loved it as the car has really smooth ride and pretty fun to drive, thanks to Double Wishbone at the front and the back. With the Razak V6 doing well in Malaysia, they decided to brought the car to Japan and Europe and it managed to sold 5,319 units in Japan and 1,964 units in Europe.
Brickfields Motor Co. also tried to enter North American market with this car at the time with the help of the entrepreneur, Malcolm Bricklin but was declined by the authorities. This cause all of the investments between Brickfields Motor Co. and Malcolm Bricklin a financial loss.
Thanks to the beginning of the USSR hegemony collapse, Bogliq USA was able to access some of the weirder designs formerly only available via the USDS (United States Diplomatic Service). Bogliq USA intended to sell these cars to the youth market under its sub-brand, Proletariat Motors, to limit any blowback if the scheme went pear shaped.
The first fruit of this venture was the Marmot. A small, rear engined, hatchback with a tiny turbocharged I3 motor and a MPEFI system reverse engineered from “appropriated” Znopresk schematics. The car was cheap, fuel efficient and fun to drive and was surprisingly tame for what it was. But it wasn’t fast or quick so the Marmot would remain a niche player as it was unable to compete head to head with mainstream Western designs…
2015 Marmot (Canadian variant)
Price when new: $3,705 USD (1989)
Proletariat Motors: Something for Everyone
’75 Seppä 2000 Deluxe
The Seppa 2000 went into planning in 1973 but, The car was designed to be the company’s flagship vehicle and had the purpose to continue their motorsport heritage, however, with the occurrence of the 1974 oil crisis it would see drastic changes. The high fuel prices compounded with the introduction of lead fuel bans and catalytic converters resulted in the originally planned performance car scrapped. In order to recoup the research costs, the company pivoted to a section of the market with high-profit margins, Luxury. The turbo inline-six engine was re-tuned for fuel-economy in mind, and front-and-back double wishbone suspension proved to be useful with drive comfort. The company being inexperienced in luxury cars resulted in some of the comforts of the car being outdated on release. That coupled with the overemphasis of fuel-economy made it relatively sluggish compared to other compact luxury cars which made the debut of Seppä 2000 to interesting, to say the least.
(I want to make a thread for it but i have no skill at Drawing to make a logo. 
)
I did this (on purpose) for a couple reasons, actually.
But no BS about european reliability?
That’s a touchy subject. 
You might not want to ask a guy who used to work at a car dealership, and every VW on the lot would have their alarms go off at exactly 1:30pm every day for no reason whatsoever. (I hid all the key fobs one day just to make sure)
(Edit: in this case, he did have a good reliability score)
Say the words “American Station Wagon”, and I bet you think miles of steel and a cargo area big enough to hold an entire Znopresk. Hundreds of thousands of these beasts once puttered around our highways at seemingly glacial speeds.
In some cases, this was purely a function of the driver, not the car.
Take, for instance, the 1976 Saint 300W. Despite being a model choked by early smog equipment, Saint’s premium wagon offering managed a healthy 241 horsepower. This barn-burner of a wagon could get up to 60 in just 8.8 seconds. Not that your grandfather would have ever driven that fast.
Even without utilizing the power and short gearing on the 300W, there’s plenty of fun to be had, at least for the little ones. Two of our contributors reminisced about riding in the pop-up seats in the rear of their families’ Saint wagons. Ah, to be alive in the days before stringent safety regulations killed this kind of fun.
The Saint 300W hasn’t been completely relegated to the dust bin of automotive history. We’ve seen a few survivors pop up at car shows recently, and we even found out that last year there was a small club event where ten Saint wagons traveled cross-country, pulling various vintage teardrop trailers behind them.
What a sight that would have been to behold.
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Classics: Medium (Currently in 3rd)
Have you ever looked at something that was really weird and decided you just needed it, no matter what?
That is the current case with the Mark 3 Gracelet 1.6 Swift Ti from Thai automaker SBA. It’s currently the hot, turbocharged retro-hatch that everyone seems to want. The biggest problem? There aren’t really any around in the States.
That’s not a huge shock. SBA, being a Thai company, had an absolutely puny market footprint in the States in the 80’s, and even then the vast majority of cars imported were base model trims without the turbo. Only somewhere along the lines of 450 of these “TCT” turbos were brought into the states in 1986.
Let’s be honest here. The Gracelet Swift is just flat out fun. It can get up to 60 in under 7 seconds, assuming you don’t shred your tires or torque steer right off the road. Handling is also really good, once you get past its tendency to lean hard in curves. Plus, there’s always the bonus of being a car you really don’t see every day.
Just expect to pony up the dough. All the USDM models are long gone, so you’re going to be importing one from Japan or Australia, most likely.
Scoring:
Counter Culture - Import/Export: Very High (Currently in 3rd after below review)
This almost gives me an Idea for my next candidate.
