If not found yet, maybe here is a cheap entry option: http://bringatrailer.com/2012/01/13/scca-h-mod-1957-berkeley-492-project/
I agree those were decent looking cars. But...... they had the same mechanical as the Dauphine. If you ever owned one I don't need to explain why they stopped making them. Old french cars were interesting and usually nice to drive. Unfortunately they pretty much always had one or more serious flaws that would take the car off the road prematurely and not be worth fixing.
I'm not sure what you mean by "stopped making them". Many components of that basic design stayed in production for a considerable time afterwards. Yes, the Dauphine had particularly vicious swing-axles, but that was largely sorted with the 8/10. As regards the engine and gearbox, that was taken and shifted as a unit to the front of the car in the 4, 5, 6; even the 16 shared the same basic layout. The original 5 was made well into the '80s, and the 4 was only discontinued in 1992.
In the '70s Renault ran full page masgazine adds actually apologizing for what a POS their cars were but.......... promised if you bought their newly introduced model(no longer remember what that was) you wouldn't be sorry. Well, that car was a POS too. Within a year or so Renault stopped selling cars in the U.S. As an imported car mechanic I worked on some Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroens. A friend of mine had a shop that specialized in repairing French cars. Not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, you may have a soft spot for those cars. My experience is apparently not the same as yours.
I've always liked the TVR's.. I just read over all of the 14 pages here--and didn't see it listed.. Never sat in one--but ever since I saw one racing around the stadium grounds at Qualcomm back in 2000'ish.. I thought they were badass... the TVR Grantura is my favorite.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TVR_Grantura_Mk_IV_1800.jpg found at britishv8.com
What about an early 60's English Ford? In my case i'm doing a Consul Capri but the "Harry Potter" style Anglia or a Cortina would work the same. Aluminum head, carb'd 5.0L and T5 and maybe 2500lbs.
No particular soft spot, but it is somewhat remarkable that French cars that are to a lesser or greater extent indestructable in the rest of the world immediately collapse into their constituent bits upon touching the dock at New York. The Peugeot 504 is a case in point: it was for many years the work-horse of Africa. One can only deduce that the French motor industry at that time had something against the American people and built shitty versions of everything especially for them
A guy I knew had a similar car to this (slightly later) with a 468" BBC stuffed in it. Still had the little 6x13" slot mags on it too - said he gently put his foot down pulling out of a T junction and it spun right round in the road!
The TVR was a great looking car. The first version (your pix) was available with a Triumph TR-6 engine, or a small block Ford. I drove a 6 cylinder, and it wsa outrageous. I can't imagine the 8. The second version was better looking, but only had the 6. Unfortunately, at 6'1" my head was firmly planted in the headliner. I couldn't rake the seat back far enough to get comfortable. I also had a Renault R-15 at one time. Great looking car and great sounding specs, but it just wasn;t made for US driving. Too little power, way to little torque. All of the little things that became standard in "normal" cars were backwards on the Renault. Gauges , switches, handles. Each one was designed from scratch. Felt like you were piloting a space ship.
What about the French Vedette? Could be a nice mix of classic custom (Merc) looks and, with an upgraded chassis, perhaps also run with the Euro sedans? I understand they are still plentiful. I also like the P1800 a LOT. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=522436&highlight=french+ford+custom But my favorite (and very OT year-wise) would be an early 70's Mercury (Ford) Capri. Ifn you have never seen one race prepped, you can't really begin to understand how small, low and light these "sedans" can be, as in 2000lbs easy as a stripped out TransAM car. I know a fellow that has a NASCAR V-6 Ford in a Vintage Capri that he races. SBFs are an easy fit, too. Gary
Not letting French car builders off the hook for their many transgressions, but a major part of the problem is that their cars weren't built for some of the driving conditions in the U.S., or for the level of maintenance most U.S. drivers give their cars. The same was true of a number of other imports, including Fiat. Fiat was a huge company and was very successful outside the U.S., but to one degree or another their cars didn't do so well on U.S. roads and U.S. drivers. After what I have said about French cars it might surprise you to know I like the 2CV. The car is crude, slow, handles poorly, and looks awkward, but they were utilitarian, somewhat innovative, they didn't pretend to be something they weren't, and they were fairly durable for what they were. A friend on mine owned several. About crude looking....... one time a gas station attendant ask my friend if he made the car himself.
Lovely, but not plentiful. The coupe is even more rare and even more desirable. Try and find one though. The even raked the B pillars for you! # Just crying out for the chopped and lowered treatment.
This thread was taken down for a while, and with Metalshapes' gracious assistance I'm glad to see it back. I guess it was on thin ice because so much of the content related to imports rather than traditional hot rods. In fact, Metalshapes suggested at one point that the thread might be better suited to the Dogfight forum, and that's no doubt true. Going out on an OT limb once more, I found this car on Bring A Trailer the other day. While it's probably a lot more uncivilized than the car I was imagining, and less than beautiful, it sure sounds like an riotously fun ride: http://bringatrailer.com/2012/06/28/tvr-v8-power-1973-ford-escort-mk1/ I imagine that a good number of you are aware of Bring A Trailer. If you're not, it's a website with listings for interesting cars, and worth checking out. Relatively few of the cars posted are HAMB material, but some are, and there's ALWAYS something interesting there. To get back to the subject of the thread, and to tie it to the HAMB's area of interest, I am hopeful that the '40 I have under construction at Don Dillard's shop will have some of the virtues I seek. This one, if you're not familiar with it: The project is covered quite throughly in this thread: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=661072 The chassis lowering and channeling should give it a pretty low CG for a fat fendered car. It's running more modern suspension and tires, so the handling should be decent. It's SBF/AOD powered, so it probably won't be a rocket ship, but should at least be lively. This might well be the last new ride that I put on the road. It's pretty unlikely that a '40 Ford will ever be the kind of point-and-squirt machine that was disussed in this thread, but I think there's a good chance that it'll be an entertaining car to drive, and it already looks promising in appearance. Anybody else doing anything with an early car that's going to be fun to drive on twisty roads?
Hard to beat pretty much any Bizzarini, beautiful vintage Italian styling and they came stock with Chevy 327's. That's dangerously close to being the perfect car in my opinion. And of course Volvo p1800, 544, and the Porsche 356. Those are my favorite "non Americans"
Yes... My '28 has a lot of Road Race influence in it. My Mallock is a lot of fun. Someday soon I'll start the restoration on my Morgensen Spl. And for my more modern Street/Track Road Race project look at this Thread on the Dogfight... http://www.dogfightmag.com/forum/showthread.php?53-Mk1-Capri/page30 ( I havent looked through the whole thread and its been a while since I've seen it, so I might have mentioned some of this already...)
50Fraud: I think you're entering into that area that tried to combine straight line performance with handling on a road course. Probably no one did it better than Carroll Shelby and his Cobra. While the hot rodders were approaching it from one side with V8 performance trying to capture the handling of a sports car, the sporty car guys were approaching it from the other side; dropping a V8 into a sports car. It's a tiny niche of hot rodding, but I can point to plenty of examples in '60s Hot Rod that discussed these swaps. And now we have cars that do both, accelerate like hell and handle as well. Lucky are we.
I had the MGB- GT for awhile I ran a 12b rotory motor(sorry Wankel engine) with twin Delorto side drafts and 4 speed was a fun car. Going to pick up a Volvo 1800 coupe next week hopefully.
It's VERY clear that you understand where I'm coming from. Well, maybe not the old fart/creature comfort part, but all the rest. Great stuff!
Thanks... Yeah, some of them are a bit sparse in the creature comfort dept. But I'm putting insulation and upholstery in the Capri, 'cuz I'm not 20 anymore either...
The Jalopy Journal
