1962 Mara Companion SD
Noticing the steadily increasing number of Beetles on US roads, immigrant and businessman Maxsim 'Max' Bricklov had an idea: to bring one of his home country's Beetle equivalents to North America as a competitor.In the late 1950s there had been a surge in small cars appearing on the Archanan market. Max’ eventual choice for importing to NA was the ‘Tovarish’ by Mara Motors. In 1960, it already had gotten its first facelift which had doubled the number of available body types from two to four and thus gave it a leg up its competition. For North America, the car was renamed Companion to avoid unnecessary resentments against the literal translation of the original name due to the prevalent East-West conflict at that time.
The Companion range consisted of a 2-door sedan (SD), a panel van (PV) and a coupe utility (CU) and offered basic and affordable motoring for people and goods in urban as well as in rural areas. While there was also a 2-door wagon in the original line-up, Max deemed it to be uncompetitive and thus not of interest for North America, however.
The two main modifications that were necessary for the import were the installation of a second mirrored reverse light and the use of the larger 1.3l engine tuned for leaded fuel as the sole choice for all three offered variants. Max also enlisted the help of BBD, an West Coast agency, for an ad campaign to introduce the Companion to the market.
Lore thread: Mara Motors Company Thread (now up to date till 2000)