[oppositelock]

Fun quiz: identify the car! ** We have a winner!**

Time for a quiz! Identify the make and model of this vehicle.

I will provide hints if nobody is close. Once somebody gets it right I will post photos of the rest of the car.

Good luck!

 

[BQS4]

looks like a Cortina.....

 

[oppositelock]

Yeah, it does kinda.... but nope, try again!

 

[Sven]

Hmmm.. must be some hind of old Vauxhall, Cresta?

 

[oppositelock]

Nope.

 

[Old Hippie]

Hmm....looks like a 60-61 Comet w/ modified taillights.

 

[Sander]

Is is a modified Anglia?

 

[Sander]

Is it a Mercury Cyclone?

 

[greensmurf20]

does the little batman logo on the rear end have anything whatsoever to do witht he identity of the car?

 

[baronbors]

59 Oldmobile Delta 98- recognize those fins off of my Dads car

 

[edwinopel]

late 50ts n s u

 

[Bosco2]

Sunbeam..?

 

[opelbits]

late 50ts n s u

Yep.

 

[oldopelguy]

nsu

So it's sort of an Opel in a round-about bastard step-child sort of way.

NSU bought out the motorcycle branch of Opel in the 30's, and built a couple of models that were basicly re-badged Opels. For you trivia buffs.

 

[oppositelock]

Ha, ha! I hope everyone is having as much fun with this as I am! Probably not.

Wrong, wrong, wrong...

Time for some hints.

The car in question has modified bodywork. Quite extensive, in fact.

Here's another photo. If you look carefully there are clues that should give it away. Don't get hung up on the tail lights, they are home made (big hint!)

 

[Jeff Pozorski]

It looks like the bumper and gas fill from a Manta, melded with a GT tail, along with some fins from god knows where!

 

[oppositelock]

We have a winner, BING, BING, BING!!

Close enough, anyway.

It is a Manta, heavily modified by a friend of mine back in college. The photos were taken in 1986.

My friend Kim was sort of eccentric and always doing crazy things to his cars. We went to Western Washington University and were heavily involved in the highly acclaimed Vehicle Research Institute there.

He took a 1973 Manta and dropped it down onto the bump stops. Redrilled some 14" Chevy rims and put them on and made fiberglass fender flares to clear them.

All the custom bodywork is done with fiberglass, just good enough to get the point across but not straight enough to win any car shows. That's why it's painted white. He didn't believe in putting the amount of effort into it to make it perfect. It was just a fun car for a short period of time.

Next he cut the roof off. He cut the windshield frame at the base and tilted it back, giving it quite a rake. He turned the car into a two seater making a big rear deck hatch starting behind the front seats. He molded in headrest fairings into that. The whole rear deck tilted back and up revealing a huge amount of storage space. He stored the small hardtop back there. It was made out of a portion of the stock roof with a plexiglass rear window and big decorative spikes on each side. The rear fins were made out of fiberglass as well. The tail lights were made by heating up sheets of plastic on the stove and stretching them over a wood form made from a circle of plywood with a peg in the middle. While doing that he noticed that the chrome trim rings around the stove burners made perfect tail light bezels!

I have no idea whatever became of that car.

 

[Jeff Pozorski]

Thank you one and all!
That is one Opel that definately should have been saved and displayed at all national Opel gatherings! It is quite fetching in the last picture that was posted.

PS: Do I win a prize?

 

[oppositelock]

These pictures were taken during an event in the summer of 1986. It was an economy rally organized by former students of the VRI called the "Three Flags Econorally." It started at the Mexican border and finished in Vancouver at the Expo '86 Worlds Fair site. Different colleges around the country took part with their cars. One team from Mankato State had a Honda CRX with one cylinder disabled so it ran on 3 cylinders for better fuel economy. Fresno State just entered a stock Chevy Sprint. WWU entered a couple of their Viking research vehicles. I was captain of the Viking 6 team. V6 was a lightweight, aerodynamic vehicle totally constructed in the VRI. It had an aluminum monocoque chassis, thinwall fiberglass body that covered all the wheels and a Subaru Justy 3cyl engine. It had a Cd of .22, weighed 1300 lbs, and got 89.2 mpg average, border to border. Anyway, I digress.

Here's a press photo from the the official start at Dodger Stadium.

 

[oppositelock]

Jeff, your prize is to see all the rest of the photos! (What can I say, I'm cheap! )

Here is the Cyclone (he called it the Cyclone for what reason I don't know) next the Viking 6 research vehicle.