Name this car....

[pippy]

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14 minutes ago, John Z. Goriup said:

 1970 Ferrari 512 M ?

JZG

Oooohhh........

Very Close but your pretty much there John. The M is in essence the same vehicle but I think you really needed to see this bit here in order to refine that last letter in your answer!

Either way I think we'll agree that you're close enough. I'll post the full image shortly but just in case you want to go for the bull's-eye here's the hindmost area;

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Philip.

[AZach]

7 hours ago, Graham (G4FUJ) said:

I rather like my 9-3 convertible (Post GM era!  ).

Most Saab cabriolet versions were actually also built in Finland by Valmet Automotive. 

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[pippy]

OK, time to post the whole thing. 1970 Ferrari 512 S.

Towards the end of '70 there was a redesign of various internals and the bodywork aft of the doors was reshaped to be more aerodynamic and it was this modification led to the renaming of this model as the 512 M.

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Over to you, John!

Philip.

[pippy]

Apropos of nothing in particular...

Like may other 'children of my generation' there's nothing quite as spectacular to be seen nowadays as seeing vintage clips of Porsche 917 K / Ferrari 512 S going at it hammer-and-tongs in their heyday. The 512 S seen above was snapped at Goodwood's Festival of Speed in 2009. That particular day from the festival just happened to fall on the occasion of my birthday and, as a present, one of my very good friends (whose belly is featured in said snap) listed me with his insurers and, turning up unheralded on the morning, duly handed-over the keys to his Aston DB6 Vantage for me to enjoy on my day out. And I can assure you it really was FUN!

Thank you, Mr. Hall; you are a true Gentleman!

Happy times!

Philip.

Edited March 31, 2021 by pippy

[John Z. Goriup]

Thank you, Philip................sorry about the delay in posting a new puzzle, but it's an extraordinarily beautiful spring day and I just had to get out for the first long hike of 2021.

The new car is a one-off example which the designer sketched and built in his race shop and entered in some high-profile events, and then submitted it to the management of a 'sportscar' manmufacturer abroad, but which was never accepted nor embraced by this incompetent & shortsighted group, even though it is generally agreed that if this car had gone into production it most likely would have had a profound effect on the fortunes of the company and the line of cars this design was intended to revitalize.

.Conceived & created by one of the great and best known American car designers, this 'prototype was shown to the manufacturer in question whose products at the time were dated, no longer selling nearly as well as when they were first introduced and most important to the buying decisions of prospective American buyers, they were being beaten regularly in motorsports by other, more modern & popular cars........we are talking about the late '60s.

I normally don't like one-offs as puzzle cars in this thread because it obviously limits interest and participation, but I believe this important car should have been taken a lot more seriously.

JZG

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Edited March 31, 2021 by John Z. Goriup

[pippy]

Hello John!

Absolutely no need for apologies! TBH I've taken the last two days off work myself in order to take advantage of the unusually fine weather and go out snapping!

OK; Never seen it so, unsurprisingly, no real idea but I'm guessing the designer was not Shelby so, for starters, how about it being something from Chaparral?

You did mention designer rather than manufacturer so is that a good starting point or is the manufacturer a Biggie and we should be thinking sort-of Chevrolet?

Philip.

Edited March 31, 2021 by pippy

[John Z. Goriup]

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Shelby was really never a designer, rather, an idea man and promoter who knew the strength and capabilities of those he chose to work with him after the doctors told him that continuing to drive race cars would most likely kill him, but interestingly, the designer of the car I posted did a design for Shelby that went a long way to assure his reputation as one of the greats of American motorsports.

No Chaparral connection.

The manufacturer who this car targeted was not a Biggie, rather, it was part of an English group of car manufacturers which had been consolidated under one umbrella......sort of like General Motors in the states.

Attached is the next clue, in the hope it will atract additional attempts at guessing the identity of this car.

JZG

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[stuny]

I'm guessing the designer was Pete Brock, and the manufacturer without vision was British Leyland.  Assuming that's correct I googled Brock's designs and came up with the 1967 Triumph TR-250K  That brought me to this image (The Hart Family's 1968 Triumph TR250K (Kastner) 12-Hour-of-Sebring Vintage Race Car (britishracecar.com)) which seems to be John's car, also making me wonder where John, who seems to have photographed just about every interesting car from 1950s on saw it.

Brock was first a race car driver, and later did many car designs, with winning designs and campaigns, such as BRE Racing Datsuns, with key hotshoe John Morton.  One Paul Newman also drove for them.  At least twice Shelby rained on his parade.  Brock started a successful hang glider company, too.

Initially I thought I'd have no chance of guessing this, being a one-off, but John's clues in post 15073 got me going.

[Rona!d]

Wow, although I considered Triumph as the maker I had no idea about the exact car. From the basic shape it also might have inspired the Triumph 7 design. Well done, Stu and interesting technical detail photos in your link.

 

p.s. I just read the notes in your link and they are interesting as they mention the TR7:

Zitat

www.britishracecar.com:

(2)

To this day, Peter Brock is still bitter about how the TR250K project panned out. As of December 2012, his website includes these remarks: "Instead of buying the design, British Leyland decided to do a re-design and produce a shoddy reproduction known as the Triumph TR7. The car failed and the company went bankrupt. The American and British press, knowing of the TR250K's origins wrote glowing articles at the time speculating on how if the original TR250K had gone into production it likely would have saved the company."  Shoddy reproduction? Except for being essentially doorstop shaped, TR7 and TR250K were nearly as different as two sportscar designs could be. TR7 featured unit-body construction in contrast to the TR250K's body-on-frame chassis. It featured a four cylinder engine in contrast to the TR250K's inline six. Moreover, TR7 was conceived as a steel-roofed coupe. A convertible version was produced as an afterthought. TR7 featured pop-up headlights instead of Perspex headlamp fairings. TR7 sat low to the road whereas TR250K sat oddly high in front and channeled airflow under the car. The TR7 bonnet and windscreen were essentially flat and rectangular, whereas TR250K's shapely one-piece front clip opened like a clamshell (a la Jaguar XKE, difficult to protect with a bumper and expensive to repair,) and its wrap-around windscreen was radically swept-back. TR7's rear deck sat much lower than TR250K's. Triumph never offered a rear spoiler for TR7, whereas TR250K's rear spoiler was arguably its single most memorable feature.  The car failed and the company went bankrupt? Combined production of Triumph's TR5, TR250, and TR6 models totaled up to just 106,046 cars spanning ten model years whereas TR7 production reached 141,232 cars (112,368 coupes plus 28,864 convertibles) in seven years. Triumph survived more than twelve years beyond introduction of the TR250K show car.  In the April 1968 Car and Driver article, Kas Kastner expressed enthusiasm for "the BOP V-8 engine" as a possible alternative for a commercialized version of TR250K. That classic all-aluminum 3.5L V8 was ultimately offered by Triumph in the TR8 model which shared bodywork with TR7. A decade after the TR250K, Triumph TR8s dominated their classes in both road racing and rallying.

[hektor]

The Triumph TR7 was not an "inspired" design.  IMHO it contributed to the failure of British Leyland.

[Rona!d]

vor 48 Minuten schrieb hektor:

The Triumph TR7 was not an "inspired" design.  IMHO it contributed to the failure of British Leyland.

Maybe also because of production quality, not just because of it´s main concept. 112.000 (28.000 convertibles) made is not too bad for a niche model. Curious what DeLorean would have sold if the deal would have happened to continue it as a DeLorean. Personally I doubt it would have worked.

[wlaidlaw]

When Giorgio Giugaro saw the TR7 at the Geneva Motor show, he was with Harris Mann, the designer. Giugaro pointed to the huge side scallop and said to Harris: Harris please tell me you did not do that on both sides." Poor Harris was absolutely mortified. 

I wonder if the ATI super damper cured the 2.5L Triumphs notorious crankshaft torsional flutter and resonance period. That is why you see so few TR5 and TR6 cars being raced in historic events, compared with the earlier 4 cylinder car, with its tractor like but very robust engine. It is a great pity that Triumph did not put the twin cam "Sabrina" engine, with the shorter block, which the factory raced at Le Mans, into production. Peter Morgan said that they had requested Triumph sell them a couple of these engines for their factory race cars to replace the Lawrencetune engines but they were turned down. 

Wilson

[Graham (G4FUJ)]

15 hours ago, pippy said:

Apropos of nothing in particular...

... listed me with his insurers and, turning up unheralded on the morning, duly handed-over the keys to his Aston DB6 Vantage for me to enjoy on my day out. And I can assure you it really was FUN!

Thank you, Mr. Hall; you are a true Gentleman!

Happy times!

Philip.

Oh very nice!

I have driven a DB4 at Goodwood.  In 1982 I came close to buying a DB6 for a little over £4k.  Sadly it was already suffering from some ally corrosion so I decided to leave it (having also recently bought a half share in a house it would have stretched the finances somewhat too).  I should have sold the house and bought the AM

[John Z. Goriup]

Stuart, well done.....a, no, The TR250K it is. 

Thanks for participating, your turn

JZG

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Edited April 1, 2021 by John Z. Goriup

[hektor]

3 hours ago, Graham (G4FUJ) said:

Oh very nice!

I have driven a DB4 at Goodwood.  In 1982 I came close to buying a DB6 for a little over £4k.  Sadly it was already suffering from some ally corrosion so I decided to leave it (having also recently bought a half share in a house it would have stretched the finances somewhat too).  I should have sold the house and bought the AM

Some years ago I bought the Melbourne Motor Show DB6 MkII Vantage.  Beautifully made and I assume designed for the roads to the French Riviera, however I would not want it back.  Tried everything to get the rear end to stop hopping on Australian roads but could never get it to handle predictably at very high speed.

[wlaidlaw]

2 minutes ago, hektor said:

Some years ago I bought the Melbourne Motor Show DB6 MkII Vantage.  Beautifully made and I assume designed for the roads to the French Riviera, however I would not want it back.  Tried everything to get the rear end to stop hopping on Australian roads but could never get it to handle predictably at very high speed.

Richard (R.S) Williams has pretty much sorted this problem out, with different springs, bushes, stiffer control arms and Ohlins shock absorbers. The difference between our sorted DB4GT Zagato, which Richard had owned and used as the development mule for the Sanction Two Zagatos and an unsorted DB4 Volante soft top was huge, with as you say, a very poorly tied down back end. So it went and was replaced with a short chassis DB6 Volante Mk1 (really an updated DB5 chassis). This one had had Richard's magic wand waved over it, including a Crossthwaite and Gardener 4.7L alloy 12 plug engine plus all the suspension and brake upgrades.

Many of the roads on the French Riviera other than the Autoroutes, are pretty rippled, patched and potholed. The two roads down from the village where I live, have been resurfaced twice over the 16 years I have had a house there. However there is a large stone quarry next to the village and the huge laden trucks on piecework rates, when they have to jam their brakes on to avoid sleepy Belgian caravan drivers, tear sun heated tarmac right off the road or pull it up into corrugations. 

Wilson

[hektor]

A pity Williams didn't have a workshop in Australia, however the sale proceeds went in to a house (since sold) which today is possibly worth twice what my car was being offered at last year.  When comparing prices and the escalation of collectible cars, one overlooks the maintenance and running costs.

[a.j.z]

That is true if you just store them but if you actually drive them you get a nice dividend 😀

[stuny]

Time for another puzzle car:  marque, model and approximate year:

 

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Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[wlaidlaw]

Could that be an Iso Rivolta - better known as a "why so revolting" probably named by someone who had to work on their electrics. These used many miles of identically coloured (dark red), cloth covered, rubber insulated wires. 

Wilson