Dad always had a 55 or 57 Chevy coming home with him. At $50-$150 in the late 1960's, he couldn't resist. They were always sitting in the drive and in a constant state of de-chroming, nosing, decking, lowering, etc. In the meantime, his new bride to be drove this little yellow Austin. It is still in the family some nearly 50 years later. This photo was just recently found... which leads me to the question; Does anyone know what the little blue convertible is in the background? Any idea?? Those little tail lights look like they could be interesting transplants to an "A" roadster! Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Lol. Datsun Fairlady. You guys are amazing!! I need some of those tail lights, haha! Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.
They were only called 'Fairlady' in Japan... LOL. Here it was either a Datsun 1600 or 2000 (depending on the engine size). The precursor to the 240Z...
That Austin bears more than a passing resemblance to an MG Midget. And the white car next to the Datsun looks to be a Plymouth Cricket (Hillman Avenger).
And next to it is a Plymouth Colt, which had the same engine as a Sunbeam Alpine. BTW, all of these are known to be off topic,except the Sunbeam which hit the market in 59, and with American V8 power were called a Tiger and were hot rodded and drag raced Edit; I's wrong, Plymouth Cricket, Dodge had the Colt.
Austin Healy Sprite or MG Midget down here. The side markers were in US cars but not UK or Australian cars. These are the successor to the earlier bug eyed Sprite.
A mere technicality... You do realize that we're probably the only two people on this site that looked at that picture and said, "You know, those tail lights on that white car look familiar." Kind of sad when you think about it.
And a picture of the very rare Sunbeam Bel Air. This was a special order "Lake" option And i believe, HAMB compliant. This did not have the same engine as a Dodge Colt.
The Tiger didn't come out until the middle 60's with the 260 Ford, until then 4 cylinders Interesting note, after Chrysler bought the rights to the Tiger, they found that their V-8 didn't fit and had to put in Ford motors, on the car you will see the Chrysler emblem and open the hood - A Ford.
That was the last year of production of the Tiger. Chrysler had just bought the Rootes Group and Sunbeam had already produced some Ford-powered Tigers. As soon as they figured out that their small-block wouldn't fit, they canceled the Tiger but did allow Sunbeam to 'use up' the Ford engines they had on-hand.
The Austin Sprite and the MG Midget were the same badge-engineered car. Some people call them "Sprigets". The other looks like a Datsun 2000. Wasn't the Fairlady another name for the Datsun Z car? Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
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