For the insomniacs here.
Another ' name that car ' moment ' !
tinyurl.com/63u3mv2
Ted
|
It's a left hooker - unless you've craftily reversed the negative - and the radiator grill is reminiscent of a Cord.
|
I'm thinking about it Ted.
Not quite a prototype or special (or if so a very good one). Late forties/very early fifties. Not American although lhd. Grille Armstrong-Siddeleyesque. Would have been illegal in this country (no front sidelights anywhere to be seen).
The product of some European firm soon to go bust. Not Delage or Delahaye. Just possibly German... not an Opel though. Or East European. Or Swedish... very early Saab or Volvo, quickly superseded. Bit of a mystery... nice looking jalopy. If I could identify the slinky white job next door it might provide a clue. But I can't, from what I can see.
If I can't sleep tonight I will blame you.
|
"(no front sidelights anywhere to be seen)."
Not particularly important but couldn't they have been 'within' the headlights?
|
|
A mystery indeed. Left hand drive but wipers set up for rhd.
|
>> wipers set up for rhd.
I didn't notice that. Could perhaps be an Armstrong-Siddeley then. But not a model I recognise.
|
|
Probably. But UK cars were supposed to have sidelights at the sides, not in the middle. On a body like that they would have been on top of, or on the front of, the centre line of the front wings.
|
|
It looks similar to an Armstrong-Siddeley Hurricane, but the lights are too close together. I have no idea if they made them for LHD either. That filled-in bit of the grille is unusual.
|
|
I spent an hour on this earlier and the A-S is my best guess. I wouldn't put money on it, though.
|
|
I've spent ages on it and I'm no wiser. Too small for an american despite yank style bumpers, and wipers set up for rhd anyway. Likewise A-S, not stylish enough. Not aerodymic enough to be french or italian, looks a bit like an early Holden but it ain't. Go on, Ted, put us out of our misery!
|
|
Is it a Triumph of some kind?
|
|
I think that's unlikely, Alanovic.
|
Ah, well. I'm a bit young for this one anyway. My field of knowledge is post-1970.
I think my guessing Zero's Lancer went to my head.
I'll shut up now.
|
|
Looks like a Citroen or Renault circa 1938 - but I haven't properly identified it yet!
|
|
I'm looking at the radiator badge and wondering Seat?
|
I shall let your misery run 'til later tonight for any stragglers.
If no-ones got it I shall allow myself a brief period of gloating time !
Ted
|
I was looking at that badge too when I thought "Triumph".
i.e. this badge:
tinyurl.com/628qsj8
|
|
A Russian jeep that looks like it has a very similar front to the mystery car: preview.tinyurl.com/6cwet3y Maybe a Russian staff car? Has a military green finish.
|
|
I'll add Lancia as another remote possibility.
|
|
I think it originated in a rhd market, converted to lhd for export, which narrows it down somewhat. I've trawled through Australian, Japanese and Indian models and this has got me stumped.
|
>>I think it originated in a rhd market, converted to lhd
Could that make it Swedish? ie: made before the country swapped sides of the road and then converted to suit. Makes me think Volvo.
|
No - I'm sure that's not an Armstrong - most A-Ss had four doors, and certainly the Hurricane (which was much bigger than this) did.
I'd say 1938/39 French or German - as someone suggested, probably a maker soon to go bust. Looks like a late 30s Opel from the side but not the front. The wipers in those days often parked on the driver's side so I would think this one was designed as LHD.
I'm trying to think of names from that era that didn't survive - Rosengart? Hartnett? Lloyd? I suppose possibly an early Volvo but that doesn't seem likely.
You did this to us before, Ted, and it was a prototype Jowett, given away by the Bradford registration. But no such clue here! Thanks anyway for giving us the challenge.
|
|
I think I detect it has a soft-top too, hence the frameless doors.
|
|
I can't find a match to any Volvos.
|
I thought Adler myself, but it doesnt look like one.
I think its definately post-war late 40's judging by the styling, but the grille doesnt ring any bells at all.
Of course when we get the answer, we shall need another one to keep us going.
|
>> An Adler?
Similar to the '38 2L cabriolet.
|
|
The badge shape on the front looks like a FIAT badge, from the 30s.
|
I have been trying to remember Borgward, and now have.
They made a classy medium saloon in the late fifties, the Isabella. Quick and solid by British contemporary standards. A woman friend's father, a solicitor in the Vale of Evesham, had one.
However this car of Ted's is a good few years earlier. I said forties to early fifties, but I agree late thirties is perfectly possible.
|
|
And something about the set of those headlamps says Tatra to me. The first rear-engined Tatras had headlamps a bit like that. But I am scrabbling desperately to beat Ted's deadline.
|
|
C'mon then 1400Ted - some of us have got to get up at 11am in the morning!
|
Some earlier than that. I'm going for a walk with the Women's Institute, apparently I need the exercise :-(
Lunch should be good though :-)
I thought I'd be able to track the car down, but I can't so far. Looks German to me, I suppose it's the superficial resemblance to an Opel.
Last edited by: Manatee on Fri 24 Jun 11 at 22:31
|
|
I think I'll put my money on AC's Tatra - To Win.
|
OK, I can give you another 24 hrs if you so desire.
I can say that I've read all your posts and some very interesting suggestions have been put forward.
One thing I have noticed, if I'm correct, no-one has mentioned the correct country of origin yet !
Ted
|
|
Somewhere that didn't need wing mirrors?
|
>> One thing I have noticed, if I'm correct, no-one has mentioned the correct country of
>> origin yet !
>>
>> Ted
>>
Im thinking its American.... Can't put my finger on the make though - so a guess... Packard?
|
|
A late 30s or 40s Skoda? The Superb name dates from then but I think there was a smaller car called the Popular.
Last edited by: Avant on Fri 24 Jun 11 at 23:06
|
Anyway what other possibilities are there from that period? China, Japan, perhaps Argentina, Mexico or Brazil... Most of the possibilities from that period have been mentioned. Holland? Denmark? Poland? Austria? Yugoslavia?
The car looks quite together. But I suppose a decently-finished prototype would.
Serbia? Turkey?
Oh do stop it Ted.
BULGARIA???
Greece?
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 24 Jun 11 at 23:31
|
Now then...military looking....unusual country of origin.....
could this be a Moskvitch?
|
AC stumbled across the country in his list ! Answer at midnight ish.
Ted
|
OK...earwigo !
It's a Danish Sommer.
Erik Sommer had a car sales agency in Copenhagen after the Hitler war. He had a couple of British manufacturers on his books and later , Ford.
There was a shortage of cars in Denmark and Sommer decided to start a car manufacturing business to sate local demand. The country had no car industry.
The Sommer car had a flat twin, side-valve engine, watercooled and of about 1005cc.
The body was made to a high standard and other maker's parts bins were raided incuding the engine and gearbox. The front suspension was by upper wishbones and a transvere leaf spring
Sommer died in 1952, a couple of years after the car was produced and the business was taken over by his son, Ole. They became the biggest Volvo dealers in the country and Ole set up the Sommer Motor Museum, where the car now lives with other Sommers, the Joker and the Oscar..
Gawd ! What I have to do to keep you lot entertained ! AC's brain must be frying. I've got another...but maybe a little later ...I know you're hungry for more !
Ted
|
Don't turn into Oilrag though.
Keep it up. I tried numerous Googles with particular words and got nowt. Also tried Google Goggles too ;-)
|
Sommer eh...
Look a lot better than it sounds really. The body style and trim are quite svelte and classy (although rear ends can often disappoint). Flat glass was of course almost compulsory then.
I've never heard of the Sommer. It may well have been all mouth and trousers from the description, hammering along at 45 or so tops despite its bourgeois looks. I wonder who made the engine. Wouldn't have been some northern English firm dear to your heart would it Ted?
I do look forward to the next challenge. And of course there is little virtue in listing all the main possibilities. There were even then many other countries one could name in which high-class engineering and panel beating would have been achievable, if someone with the capital wanted to do it.
Luxembourg, Andorra, Monaco, Switzerland, etc... and wild cards, Chile, Egypt...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 25 Jun 11 at 02:05
|
Just to wrap it up, you're quite right Arnold. Sommer were Jaguar and Jowett agents.
Ole had trained at Bradford where he obtained a certificate of excellence in tool making.
The car had a Bradford engine, a design dating back to 1906. I wonder what a Jag engine would have done for it !
Ted
|
|
I thought it had a bit of a Jowett look about it.
|
>> Sommer were Jaguar and Jowett agents.
>> Ole had trained at Bradford where he obtained a certificate of excellence in tool making.
I can barely suppress a triumphant smirk.
Got a few lifts in Bradfords in my hitching days either side of 1960. They were about the cheapest car you could buy. I liked them a lot being a lifelong sucker for all cars especially stark and unusual ones, but they were pretty slow and most of their drivers tended on the conservative side of press-on.
Do I recall exposed valve stems and springs on the upper side of the cylinders? Whether that is so or not, I do remember one of the more enterprising Bradford owners fixing a sticking valve on the grass verge of the A1 just outside London, a single carriageway section near Hatfield, in freezing fog in the middle of the night. He was quite cheerful about it and it took him about 2 minutes.
What's this Arnold business? Surely you don'e confuse little me with the Governator do you?
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 25 Jun 11 at 14:49
|
Mes apologies, Monsewer...a tip of the slongue.
I had been reading some Arnold Bennett earlier !
Incidentally, a good motoring mystery read is Bennett's ' Teresa of Watling Street ' involves a delivery driver of early motor cars....probably Edwardian.
Ted
|
>>> a good motoring mystery read is Bennett's ' Teresa of Watling Street ' involves a delivery driver of early motor cars....probably Edwardian.
Thank you for that tip Ted (have you read Kipling's Steam Tactics or The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat? Two other Edwardian motoring stories...).
There's a retired American academic living near here who is an Arnold Bennett expert. We sort of know him but he gets on my nerves because he's an anti-smoking wonk and fox-hunting disapprover...
|
|
I thought Jowettt engines were quite lively for the time? A neighbour had a Jupiter (flat 4 1.5 engine) which he and parent had restored. This link shows an even finer model: tinyurl.com/6ksfea4
|
|
The Bradford engine was an entirely different matter Nortones, a side-valve one-litre flat twin, dating I would imagine from the 1920s or early thirties but perhaps slightly uprated from then, with hardly (if any) more poke than a 2CV and sluggish with it... Javelin/Jupiter flat four was a modern unit for its day and both cars were dynamically superior to most of their British direct competitors.
|
|
Ovoids to that sanguinary pink band! Can't it be dumped? It's a pain to lose a long afterthought like that.
|
|
A new one on me! Didn't realise there was a van of that name. And me, born in BRI, resident on Toller Lane for a while before escaping. To Osnabruck, where life was a lot easier ohne rationing...
|
The Bradford had none of the charm of the Javelin and Jupiter: it was essentially a van based on a pre-war chassis which Jowett - seeing a need for cheap transport - made into a passenger car by adding rear windows and seats. Much the same idea as the Citroen Berlingo which when I see one always reminds me of the old Bradford.
The Berlingo has been popular and has perhaps made converted vans respectable. I've never tried one but I believe it's as good to drive as it is practical.
|
>> made into a passenger car by adding rear windows and seats. Much the same idea as the Citroen Berlingo which when I see one always reminds me of the old Bradford.
The thing was cheapo vintage, 20s really. It was hand made using traditional rock-bottom cheapo coachbuilding methods. No panel-beating, bought-in cheapo pressed wings, the rest just bent ripply thin metal on some sort of frame. It wouldn't get type approval now by a very long way. Only poor or stingy eccentrics bought it.
It was lovely though in its way. Although a flat twin and water-cooled, the engine wasn't very refined or smooth. It wasn't quiet and it vibrated a bit. It was longish-stroke probably and didn't breathe well enough to reach high rpm. Great device if you didn't need to go quickly. Of course I never actually wanted one and still don't. But I do like it.
Citroen Berlingo or one of these Bippers is a Dan Dare spaceship by comparison, not the same sort of vehicle at all apart from being a van with windows...
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sun 26 Jun 11 at 02:21
|
Another mystery car. - Iffy
