dw1603

Still on holiday in France, enjoying ridiculously expensive and deathly slow mobile internet access. Can't afford the time or the Euros to research this one properly, so I'm going to say model.

There is no way you'd get this one unless you already knew what it was. The styling screams Zagato, the furniture and fittings are pretty obviously Japanese (and it is right hand drive). No combination of "ugly","Japanese" or "Zagato" searches threw up any clues. I'm on holiday in Normandy and I've blown a fortune on roaming charges without getting near it. The most frustrating thing was as soon as I read "Stelvio" it all came back to me. The information is all in there somewhere, but it's getting increasingly difficult to retrieve it. Best wishes, David

You are a hard taskmaster Harry, only one year and a suffix out, but no brownie points. I must try harder!

Yep, the clues are all there for anybody who chooses to see them! I agree with Harry on the windshield, it had much nicer proportions on the Moon.

At last! Oh well, got that one wrong. I had decided that it was a Moon which is very similar, but not the same. Really frustrating because I'd looked at Dort and decided that wasn't right and even though there were refences to Gray Dort, I didn't follow them up. Sloppy research. The subject was so obviously North American that I confined my searches to "American automobiles", "American manufacturers" etc, of course, this failed to bring up anything with a Canadian accent. I wish I was half as smart as I think I am. Well done Harry, you really gave my brain (and my typing finger) a work out this week. Roll on Sunday!

Well it's Friday at last, I hope you will put me out of my misery soon. Thought I'd got it, but the more I look, the less confident I feel. This one is driving me to distraction!

Only things I really don't like on this car are the landau irons, which have absolutely no place on a non-convertible (or at least a fake convertible), and the hiccup in the body line at the cockpit.

You could, but would you?

The tires screamed "model" but how would you reproduce that floor in scale? Whew, got away with it again!

Haha! You are right about that. In defence of the 2+2, it doesn't seem quite as grotesque today as it used to. I actually prefer the early upright screen version!

I really look forward to the auto id competition. With the internet we all have a chance of finding the correct answer. Some are simple, some are not, but It really gives us old pharts a mental work out just narrowing down the right search terms. Keep it up Harry, you are a social service!

The quad light 58 Studehards and Packbakers looked a little uncomfortable. There were also numerous European models that didn't look quite so good for the American market. It was always a give away on low budget TV shows that were supposedly set in a European venue. Look at the headlights, oh yeah, Hollywood. Also, we will never forgive you for the Series 2 E Type Jaguar (XK-E)

It looks so like a model that it must be real!

The headlights on this beauty made me think of an American production car from around this era, but I can't for the life of me recall the manufacturer. Maybe Studebaker? Maybe someone else. What did strike me was just how important 1938 was stylewise, there were must so many groundbreaking advances this year. Compare 1932 to 1938 and consider where we would have been in 1944 if WW2 had not intervened. A batwinged Chevy in '55? Could have happened. On the other hand, the dark ages could have happened sooner too. Oh well, Maybe we should stick with what we have. If anybody has an idea about those peepers, I'd love to hear it.

There was a 1300 OHC for the mainland Europe market. Saw one in a Dutch Transit van once, very few hills in the Netherlands!

This is what immediately sprang to mind when I first saw this weeks subject: It is the TVR Trident from 1965, I wasted a lot of time chasing that red herring, but just like jaymcminn I eventually followed the Alpine clue to Brazil. Is there any documentary proof that the Uirapuru influenced the Jensen Interceptor? It seems a bit unlikely to me and apart from the rear screen, they don't really have a lot in common.

Hmmm, whoever painted the bumpers must have passed on a serious case of the kinugly virus.

Ditto

Sorry, that two tone BMW is a Zaporozhets, so is the car next to it. Regards D W

When you consider the target market it seems very restrained, I even like the chrome.

An aeroplane engine in a car, how could it not be cool?

Its a Seat Ibiza 2008 - 2011. Seat is the "passionate" Spanish arm of the Volkswagen - Audi family. Km

I think it is real, a model would be put together better than that.

A Renault! whodathunkit? Well I got the right country, but I was being a bit too obscure with the Amilcar Pegase. Must try harder.

Tucker's engine was based on the Franklin 0-335, an engine developed to power the Bell 47. Unfortunately Tucker bought the company and cancelled all the aeronautical work to free up production capacity for the Torpedo. The rest, they say, is history.