Here’s a very generous clue for you to work with… some bits may be familiar, others, not so much. Remember, please submit your guess without photos, so everyone gets a chance at it!
CC Clue
– Posted on September 27, 2017
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Curbside Classics Archives
Imp?
Air conditioning in trunk. Perhaps aftermarket from decades ago.
VW squareback with A/C?
It wouldn’t have Jeep style tie downs for the front.
Yes, those are what puzzle me. Is this a side-opening hood on something?
A CPU cooler for a car with an onboard computer running Windows ’65? ?
Glad I’m not the only person who immediately thought “CPU cooler.”
Oh I get it… The car… Ya IIMP. Fiberglass rear engine.
I’ll go with Imp, too. Unless Ed’s being clever and it’s actually a Singer Chamois…
Looks like a VW master cylinder and central tunnel there.
I’m guessing Berry Mini-T with inexplicable air conditioning.
I think the front of the car is on the left (chrome trim at the edge of the picture), firewall on the right (brake master cylinder is a clue) and the bonnet is split longitudinally down the center. We are looking in on the left side. Looks like an A/C condenser but I can’t really make out much else. My first thought was a Siata Spring, but its bonnet doesn’t wrap down the side like this.
A welcome, if short diversion from the work I must get back to…
Looks like a sorta Amphicar thing.
Some good guesses so far, but only slightly warm at this point. Hint: it came from the “factory” with air conditioning… (c:
Looks more like an ATF cooler to me, than an A/C condenser. If so…ATF cooler, brake fluid reservoir, P/S lines…something along the line of a front-engine, front-drive VW or Mopar minivan.
I’m in left field on this one. First to admit it, too. 😀
It’s a four speed manual.
There wouldn’t be a TX valve if it wasn’t A/C
VW-based kit-car, something like the SSK fakedoo (the master-cylinder is about the only thing I am basing that guess on…).
It’s a 1977 Renault Rodeo 6? Something most of us will never see.
Looks like a big, very shiny grille barely visible on the far left; could this be some sort of fibreglass Rolls Royce kit car? Either that or a chest freezer.
VW Typ I based MG looking kit car, sorta kinda T Series .
-Nate
Nate I think you’re right. Looked at some photos and many of them had the side hood latches which you can see at the bottom of the pic.
The guesses are getting warmer… another hint, it’s *not* a “kit” car.
Technically not, but….
Heh heh (that’s why “kit” is in “quotes”)
NSU of some type? Just guessing!
It’s some kind of “faux classic” , not a kit car by definition.
Siata Spring, Based on the Fiat 850, fiberglass, doesn’t look like stock hoodlatches?
Siata Spring did not come from the factory with a/c. I don’t think it was even on the option list. That tiny 850cc engine could barely keep up never mind with the added weight of the a/c and the power robbing compressor.
I googled the Spring, and it’s quite similar to our subject car’s styling…
Dual master cylinder … so it’s “modern”.
Beetle with a rolls Royce front clip?
Ok I did a google search. I’m wrong. No hood latches or what looks like stand alone head lights. But my search pulled up this weird ass Frankencar
…when your Pacer just isn’t distinctive enough for that big night on the town.
?? daFUQ ?? .
-Nate
Okay, here’s another hint: it’s titled as a 1981 model and there were fewer than 400 made.
Classic Motor Carriages Gazelle?
That’s looking pretty good; you may be on to something.
Wow, this is tough… How about a Puma?
It was made in America, and the manufacturer’s name is taken from the town in which they are located….
FWIW, I had never heard of them when I ran across the car at a car show…
All good clues, but I’m still stumped. Starting to think you built this car yourself just to drive us crazy. 😉
So the manufacturer’s name isn’t necessarily the make of the car?
Daytona Moya?
This is a good one. Almost 9 hours and no one has guessed the right answer. I have no clue but am waiting anxiously for the answer. And when it happens there is going to be a loud noise of people slapping their foreheads.
Following all of Ed’s clues, I’m going to guess the Bremen Mini Mark. It seems to fit all the criteria: it’s got factory air, has a 4-speed manual, wasn’t *technically* a kit car since it was purchased fully completed, looks similar to the Siata Spring, could be titled as a 1981 model (they made them until 1982), had fewer than 400 made, was made in America, and the company (Bremen Sport Equipment, Inc.) shared its name with the city in which it was located (Bremen, IN).
If there’s another car that fits all these criteria, I would be suitably astonished.
I think that’s it
Great find here ! Now I can even see the curved shape of the shade projected by the raised hood.
But I would not have expected such a small (and straight) opening, especially with this curvy hood shape, and I did not interpret correctly the corresponding bottom curve on the photo.
Wow. Good luck sealing that well enough to use the AC at 50 MPH.
Yup, that’s it. The curve of the hood side is the giveaway.
It’s not a kit car, it’s a kitsch car!
Professor, it looks like you found it.
This contest unsettled me; looking at so many fiberglassics leaves a bit of nausea, compounded by the high regard in which Frankenwagens seem to be held by those who post their photos. I can’t seem to open my mind enough to accept the compromises that take most of these cars away from any understanding of why 1930s cars looked like they did.
Every so often, though, you find somebody nutty enough to design a body first, then figure out how to fit it on a VW pan. This car will be gorgeous, if it’s ever finished:
https://www.facebook.com/CMICARS/
It’s gotta be a Gazelle.
The fenders look closer to the hood than in the Gazelle, but I can’t pinpoint the car. It’s clear by now that it’s a rear-engined fiberglass car with air conditioning and dual circuit brakes, center-hinged front hood, and looked at from the left (of course, it could be an English-export version and looked at from the left….)