With this in mind, I suspect the engine variant year must also be no later than 1975 as well.
The 1972 Ardent Chesapeake 444 SS. One of Ardent’s last muscle cars prior to the Oil Crisis. Powered by a 444 cubic inch “Triple Four T/A” big-block Ursa motor, with a 4-on-the-floor and front buckets.
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Exactly. You got it right.
If @VicVictory doesn’t mind, perhaps one of the stories could be about a rivalry between both of our cars. Mine is a 1971 Armor Streethawk S/C, with a dual-quad 353 cid engine and a 4-speed. It doesn’t have to be about stats, maybe just a neighborhood kid he always used to race.
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That’s perfectly cool with me, if he wants to go that route.
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One of MAD’s last pre-oil crisis muscle cars was the Corsair - a full-sized brute available with V8 engines of up to 7.0 liters in displacement. The GTE trim shown below was introduced in 1972 and featured a premium interior and 8-track player for those who desired more creature comforts. Although its massive engine had been detuned to just 290 net horsepower, this was still enough to get the Corsair from 0 to 60 mph in just 7 seconds.
The Corsair may have been an old-school muscle car under the skin, with a separate chassis and a leaf-sprung live rear axle, but MAD’s engineers managed to make it handle and stop better than it should, with standard four-wheel disc brakes and a suspension tune optimized for agility without compromising comfort. In short, this and the high-performance flagship GTS trim (the latter of which was only available in 1970 and 1971) are now highly prized by collectors.
Note: Original post (from CSR 120) can be found here - exterior design has been revised to account for game engine change to LCV 4.1.13.
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Trident Enigma III 2.0SLX-Limited
Designed to succeed the aging Enigma II and aimed squarely at the triumph dolomite, BMW 3 series/02 series and other mid sized sporty premium cars, The Enigma 3 was launched to The public and the press in early 1975. This car had a broadly similar mechanical and range line up to its predecessors, decently powerful 1.6 and 2.0 inline 4 engines, all round double wishbone suspension, a 5 speed gearbox and all round disc breaks with power steering and a well appointed interior. This range, unlike most of what britain made at the time was reliable, well built and sturdy. The range had the 6 standard models Trident had become synonymous with releasing as well as some niche models and these were 1.6 SE, SLE and SLX and 2.0 SE, SLE and SLX with the SE model being the premiumly appointed and smart base model and the SLX being the luxurious, well mannered and more prestigious and more pricey Top model with SLE bridging the gap. This put the Trident cars at the top of the mid market sector, out of reach of contemporary morris, ford and vauxhall cars
(trident often using their Top or Penultimate models as a baseline from which to develop their trims upward.
Whilst using the same suspension system that had been in use by the company since 1955, the Enigma 3 was a quantum leap ahead of its predecessor due to a decent number of factors which included:
The engines now featured a DOHC 2v Aluminium cast cylinder head
Mechanical Fuel injection to replace the carburettors of the Mk2 due to successful testing of the system which had been in development since 1966
Alloy wheels as standard
Improvements in areodynamics
This car also was released in the new SLX-Limited trim level which gave it more sporting characteristics,Vented front discs, a 4v variation upon the engine and an overall different character to the more sedate and less sport-focused models.
(the lore is hasty and odd cause this thread is IRL based and not automation-verse )
time to make 70s moppebil 
wait am i even allowed to make a 70s moppebil (i assume the sweeds understand what that is)
Make what you can do with the game as long as it is 1975 or older… 
1974 Fraser Laval, small sports car from a shed in Canada. It was a skunkworks project from a bunch of bored high-ranking Fraser engineers, starting in the late 60s. Couple thousand were made, and sent to whatever dealerships wanted them or had orders for. Blah blah blah, ahead of its time, you know the drill, not many were sold, blah blah rare and unreliable.
pic
*cough cough cough* i’m your cousin max. *sniffles* i’m 44, i swipe right on 22 year olds on BUMBLE because if it goes badly, mmmh yea im just gonna be a learning experience for them. when you’re 37 you’re only looking to, uhhh ehh eauh, aw i shit myself a little bit, uhhthereagh give’er the, the old, london fuleer chronic auwwgh-cestra, heheh, get it? london fleer, ehhh you just dont want to waste your time *snorts* mmm, awwugh, thats a new smell. i mean, the biological clock is ticking, lets be real im jump bones just like i did in supercools and go “im hip im cool” *sniffles* i’ll have the ham.
uhhhggggnnn this is a 1974 Fraser Laval… they dont make em like they used to… mechanical fuel injection… not that new ee-leck-tron-ick injection pieces of garbage they rollin out nowadays
annddd you see this is a small little engine with a kick you know? ahuuhhnnmm this trusty 1.3 liter 4 banger, all mechanical, it does what you tell it to do, unlike the engines and the youth of today hahhgaangnmmmsmmdfh
my buddy ron owned one of these in red… his grandpa passed from urethral gangrene, and mmmmhhhnnn he gave it to him and he took it off the side of a mountain… heh, he nearly passed too. you see kiddo this is a real mans car, when you drive it hrrgmmm you gotta be… you gotta, uhhh you gotta be one with your machine, or… or youre gonna pay the price… hehehghgnnshdahhwaw
augggnnn you know kid, cousin max is getting old, you know i just got remarried again and the wifes house is on the smaller side. mmmsh someone good has to take care of this car you know? you got a job now right? you doing good in school right, you graduating next year? yeah, maybe ill send this baby towards you when its time. you deserve a piece of history such as this.
ran when parked. news new water pump.
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REPRINT FROM TRAFIKJOURNALEN #2 1991
THE DELAYED BILLS
My cyan Trident on asphalt, where it worked around 300 times better than in the snow.
As an automotive journalist, you’ll sometimes find the test vehicles that you more or less will fall in love with. For me, the 1975 Trident Enigma III was one of them. Yes, you all probably know that I have a tendency to have some kind of blind love-relationship with everything that’s british, but in this case, it was really justified. When you look at one today, it still looks modern despite being 16 years old, and not only that, it still feels up to date to drive too. No manual choke, no flooding SU carbs anymore, but a mechanical fuel injection that is maybe a bit rudimentary by today’s standards but that was “state of the art” technology back then. Advanced double wishbone suspensions all around, as well as 4 wheel disc brakes. And believe it or not, it was reliable. Or well, sort of. 70s british reliable. Which is the same as reliable. At least I often try to tell myself that.
But this is not a review of the Trident so why all the praise? Well, I more or less decided that I should own one someday, and in 1983 the prices had dropped to sane levels, so I found one. Or rather, two. First this dark cyan one that actually served me for a couple of years. Which got replaced for one in metallic red that I quickly traded for a total heap of a Dominion Victory that I somehow tried to convince myself that I should restore someday (and that’s a completely different story, that did not end well). But this story is all about the first one.
As I said, the Trident Enigma in its third generation had great driving dynamics, but being a rear wheel drive car with most of the weight up front, it required good snow tyres in the winter. Which I had. Home in the garage waiting to be put on the car, not ON the car when I would have needed them more than ever.
To make the prologue short, I parked the car at my friend Leif’s place, out in the countryside. Leif drove me to the airport. A couple of days later I got back to a country that I found out was suddenly covered in snow. My first thoughts at the moment weren’t really that “wow, now everything is so bright and white” or “now I can make a snowman with the kids when I come home”, but rather “crap, what have happened to my poor Trident now?”
I found it covered in decimeters of snow standing outside Leif’s place. And fuel injected as it was, it started after just a few cranks. But the tyres, man, the spinning tyres, a completely different story… After what felt like hours of trying, we only managed to make things worse, lots of curse words, spinning wheels and shoveling only lead to the Trident being completely stuck in what would have been Leif’s potato field in the summertime. Yes, the potato field. Don’t even ask how we managed to plant it there.
When we finally realized that there was no way we would get the Trident out of there by its own force, Leif had a brilliant idea to call a somewhat eccentric farmer nearby. After what felt like countless hours, he arrived with something that probably was the creation that made the workers at the Hillstrom tractor plant the most proud they had ever been in 1959. By 1983, though, it mostly looked like a dinosaur, both when it came to size and modernity. The Hillstrom tractor orange paint had faded into something that reminded me more of granny stocking beige, the big diesel six was putting out large puffs of smoke while it probably created its own little local earthquake. But we were pretty sure that it would have enough grunt to pull the stuck Trident out on the road again.
And yeah, it was all a success, at least for a while. The Trident was moving, maybe with wildly spinning tyres, but it was moving! And the (at least once upon a time) trusty Hillstrom diesel six was just chugging on. That was, until the tractor was actually out on the road. Don’t ask me why it stalled, but it did. And the starter acted like if it was stone dead, all of that while the Trident still was stuck. Not far from the road - but still stuck.
Repairing the Hillstrom tractor now had the highest priority - considering that it was actually blocking the road. But the roads were pretty empty at least and we had some ideas that we could do the troubleshooting in peace. That was, until we heard a beeping horn and saw something bright yellow and right hand drive further down the road. It appears like we were in the way for a very upset postman that really needed to pass. While the farmer and I was trying to beat the starter with that farmers favourite tool (called “hammer, as big as possible”), Leif was sarcastically asking the postman if he was trying to honk the tractor into working condition and if he thought that it had worked well this far.
After lots of swearing and beating, the Hillstrom tractor did start, we gently reversed it from the road into Leif’s driveway to let the postman pass, and then it was just to pull the Trident out on the road again. And we certainly succeeded this time. So, while following the farmer for a while on the way back home again, I saw something really interesting in the ditch.
Yellow. Right hand drive. Stuck. Angry postman.
The farmer only waved, and so did I. Karma picks some people faster than others. So if you live in that area and remember that you got some of your favourite bills delayed for a couple of hours in 1983,you know who you should blame. Or rather, all three of us.
See you in next issue, and remember, everything was better in the good old days!
@DrPepper2002
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Brilliany Review / anecdote piece, well written and entertaining. FUn Fact: The dark cyan colour is the corporate colour that most test and press cars are outshopped in and has been as such, in non-metallic form, since the Enigma MK1 in 1955
REPRINT FROM TRAFIKJOURNALEN #3 1991
BASEBALL, HOT DOGS, APPLE PIE AND EARL PONDEROSA
Believe it or not, but my camera was big enough to shoot the whole car in just one picture.
American cars. I can’t say that I have really been in love with them ever (except for my 1930 Ford Model A that I restored in the early 70s and that still is a faithful companion that I probably never will sell, another story that we will leave for another time, maybe). But as a car-o-holic they will pop up in your life every now and then, and they do have their strong (and weak) points.
One time when it happened to me personally was in 1980 when my wife had some idea that we had to get a “safe and practical family car” which in my eyes could be about anything except for maybe a Bridgell Faith. But somehow my friend, the car dealer, had some success with convincing me that the 1974 Earl Ponderosa that he just had imported from the states should be the car that was the perfect fit for us. Practical? Absolutely, as long as you didn’t have to park it. Safe? Probably about as safe as a tank inside acres and tonnes of steel. At least to me, it felt like a good idea at the time.
The beast almost looked as a parody of the 70s. It was only six years old at the time but still looked like a dinosaur (considering both its size and that it seemed to be from a completely different era) with its brown interior, brown vinyl roof, brown wood paneling, brown everything except the paintjob in an orange colour that would have made Televerket jealous. However, I was somewhat sold on the idea, should get a good deal on it and he told me that I could as well borrow it for some days to see what I thought about it.
I arrived at home and expected to get some praise for my wise decision but as usual my wife was somewhat more skeptical to my good ideas.
“Isn’t this beast a challenge to drive?”
“Nah, it has got power steering, power brakes, power everything, automatic transmission, cruise control, to make it any easier to drive you would have to install an autopilot”, I tried.
“But I guess it will drink a lot of fuel?”
“Not more than an Olsson with automatic transmission”, I lied.
Still being somewhat skeptical she seemed OK with the idea to try it out for some days. Fact was actually that we should be at a wedding some days later that required quite a long trip, which should be the challenge that really would show what this modern interpretation of the conestoga wagon was good for. And at that moment I was still convinced that she would change her mind if she only had the chance to experience how perfectly this car was tailored to our needs.
Many of you readers probably know how much of a struggle it can be when you have to get your family ready for something. When the day that could make or break our ownership of the Earl finally came, I was totally convinced that we would arrive late when I loaded up the wagon with fighting children and a wife that managed to find about 3000 things that had to be done before we could leave home. Trying to hide how annoyed I was, I told her to get into the driver’s seat, so she should have the chance to see what the Earl was good for.
“But don’t drive like a snail now”, I told her. “We will probably be late anyway!”
“There is no way I am going to drive like a maniac with the kids in the car”, she replied. “And it would really be great to be stuck in a police control too, to make things even worse and be even more late!”.
“Yeah, whatever”, I said with an annoyed voice, “I never told you to speed, I just told you to hurry up a bit”.
When we left our block, she said that I was right, it was very easy to drive. And how comfortable and quiet it was, simply amazing.
“Yes, you can say a lot of things about the Americans, but one thing is for sure, they do know how to build comfortable cars!”, I said.
Truth is that I don’t really know how comfortable I was, annoyed about how late we were going to be, and listening to the kids arguing and fighting in the back seat. But I didn’t even bother to stop them since I was just tired at everything and basically had given up. Tired enough to make the wallowy suspension and whispering V8 put me to sleep, probably dreaming about something nice, a barn find of a Bugatti Atlantic maybe, or why not just quiet and nice children. The later thing, though, was what I woke up to when we arrived outside the church. “Great”, I thought, “they finally got tired of arguing about whatever it was”. For some reason, the parking lot outside the church was rather empty though.
“You told me that we were going to be late”, she said, “but it seems like we are the first ones to arrive. And we are definitely on time!”.
I looked at the clock on the fake burlwood dashboard and saw how early we were. “She must have been driving like a complete maniac”, I thought, and seeing the white faces of the totally quiet children in the backseat kind of confirmed my idea. I started to wonder if she had gone completely nuts, but didn’t say something, this wasn’t really the time for more arguing.
“But I don’t really like the way it handles at speed”, she told me.
“Well, american cars aren’t really great at that”, I said, “but you will get used to it”, while I was thinking “Yeah, at the speeds you must have been driving I am not surprised”.
“And I must say that the fuel gauge was dropping very fast, I thought you said that they aren’t that heavy on the gas?”
“Maybe the gauge isn’t that exact”, I answered.
What answered a lot, however, was the next time I sat down in the car and looked at the speedometer.
“MPH”
For some reason it seems like they had forgotten both to swap it out and to notice at the registration that it still was equipped with the wrong speedo for the european market.
For a couple of different reasons we did not end up with an Earl, but rather a car that ironically enough looked like its little brother, a complete dog of an IP Lily station wagon, and when we sold that one it felt like the luckiest day in my whole life, but that is another completely different story that we will save for later.
See you in next issue, and remember, everything was better in the good old days!
We ended up with an asian parody of the Ponderosa instead (brochure picture shown). Good grief!
@patridam
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REPRINT FROM TRAFIKJOURNALEN #4 1991
RATHER A POMMAC IN THE GLASS THAN A POTOMAC ON THE ROAD
Probably this is what the Potomac I never owned looked like when it was brand new. Before the rust and rattlecans.
Usually, I write about things that have happened in the past in this column. With “the past” I mean around 10 years or more ago. This time I will cheat a little bit because this happened only three years ago, in 1988.
You probably remember my aunt Olga, at least if you read this column some issues ago. This was one of the last times I saw her, but she was still doing relatively well for being 83 and being at the end of her life. As I also said earlier, she never took any more motoring advice after I tricked her into buying a Holborn, and she also decided that cars were nothing for her. But she still knew that I was into them and told me that a man living a bit further down her block had an “old car to sell” that was in “very nice condition”, at least according to him. Now, I tried to act a bit sane there because I know very well how completely uninteresting stuff that can be. But still I was kind of curious and asked her which brand it was.
“A Pommac”, she replied.
I tried to tell her that Pommac was a soft drink and that she probably meant a Potomac. She agreed that it could be the name of it, and I don’t really know if that spawned any more interest for me. But since I have actually never owned a Potomac (yes, never, so you probably already know how this is going to end), I thought “why not”. I took aunt Olga with me and she did show me where the house was. I have to say that I was a bit skeptical since it looked more or less abandoned, but apparently someone WAS living there because after some knocking on the door it opened.
“We are here to look at your Pommac”, aunt Olga said.
“Ah, the Potomac”, the man in the door said. “I just have to make a phone call first but then I can show it to you!”
It took a while for him to do the phone call, and we were waiting outside, but finally he came out and opened the garage door, revealing something rather uninspiring for my taste. A brown 1975 Coyote coupé, with a tan vinyl roof. Not much of an “old car” maybe if “old” means “interesting”, and nothing I have ever dreamt about owning, but well, if the price was right, than maybe, just maybe.
“I don’t really know”, I told him in my most uninspiring voice.
“But it is in really nice condition”, he said.
Since the garage was already stinking from mould and moisture, I started to question that “condition”, but I didn’t say anything. And the first look didn’t reveal something special, it looked kind of OK for a 13 year old car. Not great, but OK. He started to brag about how it wasn’t an import, but sold in Sweden already as new. It was kind of rare for a Potomac, maybe, but when it comes to old american cars, “sold new in Sweden” is most often a fancy way of saying “A lot more rust for just a little extra price premium”. I entered the driver’s seat, the door rattled a lot but that doesn’t say too much when it comes to a 70s american car. Even if the interior wasn’t worn out, the seat was sagging, and there was a way too familiar smell inside. Mould, dog and cigarette smoke, hidden under the stank from the maybe seven or eight little tree air-freshners that was dangling from the rear view mirror. The fact that the starter was cranking around the 318 cubic inch V8 so slowly was probably only a bad battery and some connectors that needed cleaning, the rough idle and the sound of a rod knock worried me lots more.
“But it is in really nice condition. I would keep it if it weren’t that I had another car on the way. Can’t keep them both you know. Only a one-car garage and you can’t park anything out in the street today, they steal everything!”. “Yeah, right”, I thought and studied the rattlecan paint job on the rear wheel arches. Probably with just fiberglass filler underneath.
“And it has a nice stereo!”, he tried, which was an aftermarket tape deck hanging halfway out of the dashboard and giant holes cut in the parcel shelf for 6x9 inch speakers. I didn’t even care to try it. Opening the trunk was another interesting experience. “Do you see the original spare tyre? Unused!”. I didn’t even answer and instead I lifted out the spare to reveal that the floor underneath it was mostly expanding foam and house paint.
“As I said, it is a very nice car”, he said and started to sound a bit nervous. “But don’t think for a moment that I will go down in price”. The more I was looking at it, the more faults I found, it was a complete lemon and nothing I would have dragged home if he even gave it to me. I said that I was not interested at all, while he started to go down in price, something that was completely out of the question three minutes earlier.
“Sorry, but keep this one!”, I said while he was apparently cold sweating and his eyes became the size of golf balls. When we were ready to leave, two really angry looking dudes in a black Silver-York arrived, I can’t say that I know what happened later but it is easy to imagine that they wanted the money for the car he had not managed to sell.
On my way home I bought a bottle of Pommac instead. Cheaper and way more refreshing than a rusty, mouldy and knocking Potomac.
See you in next issue, and remember, everything was better in the good old days!
Pommac. A more wise way to invest your money.
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REPRINT FROM TRAFIKJOURNALEN #5 1991
THE HAWK THAT LOST ITS WINGS
Maybe you have this issue in your stash, but keep in mind that it didn’t tell you the whole truth.
When testing cars, many things tend to happen. And some of them never get mentioned, for different reasons. I guess that I don’t have to explain why there was no mention of this when we tested the Armor Streethawk in 1971. After 20 years, however, I guess that I can mention what actually happened.
Being an automotive journalist is no child’s play, it is a serious business. Some people say that “you only play around with cars all day long” - boy, they should only know, is always my first thought. Not even when testing a serious muscle package like the Armor Streethawk is it all fun and games. It should be tested as seriously as any regular family sedan. And you could always ask me how I know…
In 1971 I was pretty new at this job. But of course, I took it as seriously back then as I do now. For many young people it would probably be tempting to lay down some rubber and drive like they stole the thing if they got the opportunity to drive a 312 hp monster. Not for me, I was a serious automotive journalist. But that didn’t change the fact that I also was 25…
Somehow a bunch of “raggare” in a beat up old Ardent, if I remember right a 410 from somewhere in the late 50s, showed up and tried to make fun of me.
“Why don’t you test real cars instead?”
“This is a real car. It has got four wheels and an engine like every other real car, right?”
“Hardly an engine, it’s some Armor sewing machine under the bonnet.”
“I am pretty sure it will beat your old Orion six anyway.”
“Armor has never known how to build cars. I am sure that it won’t even lay down some rubber.”
When this braindead discussion had been going on for a while I was pretty tired of it. To prove a point, I somehow forgot what a serious automotive journalist I was, instead the devil on my shoulder told me to do some nasty things. Like lay down some rubber. Lots of rubber. Rather like “covering the whole parking lot in smoke and leaving residues from the tyres on the rear quarters of our new, shiny, white test car”. I had some thoughts about how to remove them as easy as possible without anybody taking notice, but at the time it was way more important to prove a point to that annoying bunch of blockheads.
“Yeah, laying down rubber when standing still is one thing, but I bet it doesn’t have any performance in the end anyway”.
“More than most other cars on the road, I would say”.
At that time,our activities had caught the interest of another muscle car driver. A brand new, violet Ardent Chesapeake 444SS turned up. As in very new, a 1972 model, one of the very first while the car we tested actually was still a 1971 model.
“Now that’s a real car. An Ardent, they know how to build cars.”
I was quite tired of the drunkards that tried to convince me that Ardent was the absolute peak of automotive engineering that nobody was ever going to match. And they kept telling me that the 444SS would blow the doors of the Armor if they should race against each other. Which it would not. The cars were pretty even, the Armor actually a bit faster but not a difference that a more skilled driver could not even out. And before I knew it, I was going to do the most stupid thing I have done in my whole carreer as a journalist.
Accept a spontaneous street race with one of our test vehicles.
Soon, the three american automobiles were heading towards a nice, almost abandoned straight outside town. (I can’t say that I support racing in the streets at all, that should be done on a proper track or dragstrip, but at least we took the safety measures we could by doing it in such a place, which of course is no excuse.) And in a scene that was actually pretty close to the Eden street scene from the movie “The last night with the buddies” * that came out two years later, the white Armor and the violet Ardent lined up for a race while one of the drunkards used a flashlight as a signal for “GO!”.
In the movie, which I am sure that all of you have seen, the black Earl Glenwood went off the road and caught fire. And I am happy that my way of losing the race was way less dramatic. Because when I saw a purple thing disappearing in the horizon, I was still stuck at the start, going nowhere. I don’t know how previous testers had treated the clutch (probably not very nice), my burnout was maybe taking the last life out of it, and doing something of a banzai start here were far from a success. The clutch took its last breath there, to the laughter of a bunch of douchebags.
Luckily, the Chesapeake driver was far from a douchebag and could at least drive me to a telephone booth so I could call a tow truck. And it was far from nice to tell the boss what happened, or for that matter the Armor importer that lended us the test example.
But since I am still here, writing this, as a chief editor for this magazine, I had some luck I guess. And I have absolutely no hard feelings about Ardents. Immature fanboys, on the other hand, regardless of their favourite brand…
See you in next issue, and remember, everything was better in the good old days!
If you have ever wondered what a “real car” looks like, here is an image of one. According to some experts, at least.
- = (OOC) Yes, it’s an American Graffiti reference, the movie was called “Sista natten med gänget” in Swedish, a direct translation is “The last night with the gang”, so I thought why not?
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Extra bonus points for the reference to the crotchety old Orion-powered 410…
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I hope that reusing your picture was OK.
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That’s actually a pretty true description of the muscle car wars in the '60’s and '70’s. I read that the different car companies sponsored their own drivers in Detroit. They would test out their cars on the street once in a while, and there was a fair amount of gamesmanship involved. Dodge guys would set up a race with Pontiac guys, but the Pontiac guys knew the Dodge guys ran their engines rich for more power, so they would show up to the spot, only to change the location. They would all have to drive to the new spot, and that would be enough to foul out the spark plugs a little on the Dodges for the race. Sounds like those fanboys knew what they were doing lol.
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