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  • zebrafishzebrafish <°)))< in Octopussy's garden in the shade
    edited December 2019 Posts: 4,311
    Ah, the most brutal and beautiful looking (thanks to Giugiaro) of the Isos! And in Christmas Red! Must be one of the fastest-looking cars ever.

    I read somewhere that it was called Mangusta because it eats the Cobra ;-)
    Fun-facts:
    - The rear tyres of the Mangusta are larger than the front ones.
    - It was in Kill Bill
    - Engine hoods open to the left and right, but were quite useless, because for most work on the motor you had to remove it from below.
  • Agent_99Agent_99 enjoys a spirited ride as much as the next girl
    Posts: 3,099
    zebrafish wrote: »
    I read somewhere that it was called Mangusta because it eats the Cobra ;-)

    Ha! Like Suzuki's Hayabusa, the Japanese for 'peregrine falcon', so named because it was designed to be a [Honda] Blackbird killer!
  • zebrafishzebrafish <°)))< in Octopussy's garden in the shade
    Posts: 4,311
    Curious. In that vein, was the Mangusta also superior to the Dodge Viper? Could the Sunbeam Tiger kill a Plymouth Impala? And does the Ford Puma outrun a VW Rabbit? I doubt that a Nissan Bluebird beats a VW Beetle.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    edited December 2019 Posts: 8,657
    zebrafish wrote: »
    Curious. In that vein, was the Mangusta also superior to the Dodge Viper? Could the Sunbeam Tiger kill a Plymouth Impala? And does the Ford Puma outrun a VW Rabbit? I doubt that a Nissan Bluebird beats a VW Beetle.

    If my memory is not confused, I'm rather sure that there was no Viper while there was a Mangusta.

    And I'm afraid it's also highly unlikely that a Tiger would kill an Impala...the first being an Asian animal, and the other an African one.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited December 2019 Posts: 14,861
    zebrafish wrote: »
    Curious. In that vein, was the Mangusta also superior to the Dodge Viper? Could the Sunbeam Tiger kill a Plymouth Impala? And does the Ford Puma outrun a VW Rabbit? I doubt that a Nissan Bluebird beats a VW Beetle.

    Ha! Excellent work! :)

    I bet a Bluebird does beat a Beetle though: they were awful! :)
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    Wait! Come to think of it...what is a Plymouth Impala supposed to be??? Ever since my early childhood days (when living in a place with a large American garrison in the sixties) I've only known Chevrolet Impalas...my standard example being the '59, with its horizontal tailfins and three red taillights on either side. Still my epitome of an American full-size road cruiser somehow.
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    Posts: 3,497
    mtm wrote: »
    zebrafish wrote: »
    Curious. In that vein, was the Mangusta also superior to the Dodge Viper? Could the Sunbeam Tiger kill a Plymouth Impala? And does the Ford Puma outrun a VW Rabbit? I doubt that a Nissan Bluebird beats a VW Beetle.

    Ha! Excellent work! :)

    I bet a Bluebird does beat a Beetle though: they were awful! :)

    A Beetle is cute, a Bluebird is... well... different...

    nTsk81v.jpg
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited December 2019 Posts: 14,861
    Beetles are horrid things designed for Nazis though; and although it’s no looker I bet you that Nissan is quicker, quieter, more comfortable, can fit more people in, more luggage etc. :)
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    edited December 2019 Posts: 3,497
    mtm wrote: »
    Beetles are horrid things designed for Nazis though; and although it’s no looker I bet you that Nissan is quicker, quieter, more comfortable, can fit more people in, more luggage etc. :)

    Whatever you say brah.

    I'm quite the VAG fanatic, what does that make me? :-?
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    mtm wrote: »
    Beetles are horrid things designed for Nazis though; and although it’s no looker I bet you that Nissan is quicker, quieter, more comfortable, can fit more people in, more luggage etc. :)

    Quite. I drove one in New Zealand for a couple of weeks. And even though it was an automatic ( I hate automatics), it was a decent and comfortable car, with a 'turbo'button to get me uphill at a decent speed.

    Now I've never sat in a Beetle, but the originals were famous here for letting people freeze their legs off in winter. I wouldn't call it a horrid design, it did what it was supposed to do. And there's quite a few decades between the two. The new beetle doesn't count.

  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    Posts: 3,497
    Ohi1PVx.jpg
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    Nice Beetle, only the U.S. headlights (sealed beams) and the retrofitted turn signals make it look a little awkward for me (and I've never been a fan of WSW tires). This one must originally have been equipped with trafficators (only one can't see it here because the passenger door is slightly ajar). I can't really tell if the rear window is still the oval one (non-split of course) or the bigger one introduced in 1957, so I guess this is either a 1956 or 1957 model.

    My only Beetle ever (from 1976 until 1979, and also my first car) looked like this, minus the sun shade over the windshield:
    VW_Kaefer_1303_01-350x181.jpg

    It was a 1971 VW 1302, "shantung yellow", with 44 HP and a relatively voracious appetite for gasoline (12 liters per 100 km equalling about 20 MPG). And yes, of course the heater failed in winter and could not be turned off in summer sometimes. Still loved it while it lasted.
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    edited December 2019 Posts: 3,497
    Yeah I was aware that the Beetle did not have the greatest heating.
    They tried to update it a few times (e.g. by adding an extra defroster) but it never really worked as it should.

    And I've always wondered what people did without a heated rear window... :-?
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    Here's the original, taken on a ferry between Sweden and Denmark in 1976. In bigger resolution, one can even see that it DOES have a heated rear window :-).
    vw1302_1976j1kww.jpg
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    Posts: 3,497
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    Here's the original, taken on a ferry between Sweden and Denmark in 1976. In bigger resolution, one can even see that it DOES have a heated rear window :-).
    vw1302_1976j1kww.jpg

    Which was an extra :-)

    Lovely!

  • zebrafishzebrafish <°)))< in Octopussy's garden in the shade
    Posts: 4,311
    Say what you want, they had ingenious ads. The last one really nails its success.

    4f36840de7f11411b4bc37d439bf120f.jpg
    b5baa3_3f23ac3900184a38954b29872fd27050.jpg
    8cadqj9d9r421.jpg
    VW-Your-Wife.jpg

    vw-beetle-advert-1962--what-if-you-only-need-part-of-a-volkswagen-nomad-art-and-design.jpg
    8ebae6ab33b494419bfba8cc2d06e14b.jpg
    ugly-is-only-skin-deep-nomad-art-and-design.jpg

    volkswagen-ugly-ads-01.jpg
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited December 2019 Posts: 14,861
    JamesCraig wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Beetles are horrid things designed for Nazis though; and although it’s no looker I bet you that Nissan is quicker, quieter, more comfortable, can fit more people in, more luggage etc. :)

    Whatever you say brah.

    I'm quite the VAG fanatic, what does that make me? :-?

    Someone who likes VWs and Audis. I had an Audi myself; lovely thing.
    If you mean the Nazi thing, well they were designed for Nazis. Quite a sinister car, all in all.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    I've never had a VW after the Beetle - not because of the Beetle, it just so happened. I've also never owned an Audi. But the first family car we had when I was a kid was a 1955 DKW 3=6 (aka F93, I believe). So basically an ancestor of the later Audis. Kind of like the one in the picture, but dark green. Note the "suicide doors".
    800px-DKW_3%3D6_%28F93%29%2C_Bj._1955-56_%282007-06-16%29_kl_ret.JPG
    (Come to think of it, I'd probably prefer the Triumph Sprite in the background...)

    We had the DKW until it sort of conked out on the 1964 summer trip to Bavaria. Then came the Opel Rekord P2. But that's another story.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    Posts: 14,861
    That’s an interesting car; I don’t know them.

    Were they called Sprites where you are? They were TR2s in the U.K.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    I must admit that (even as a kid, when I probably knew 60s-cars better than now) I had trouble telling those frogeye beasts apart.

    I tried to google the one in the picture before posting and seemed to have found some place where it was identified as a Sprite - although I know it should be accompanied by "Austin-Healey" and not Triumph...which seems to be the name applied between the frogeyes.

    You may be right with the TR2, but I'd say it's likely to be a TR3 since that one had the brand name in that place. Anyway, it wasn't really central to my post, so I felt I didn't have to research that perfectly.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    PS @mtm: I take it your post consists of two parts: You don't know the DKW, but you know the frogeye, whether they were TR2 or not.

    As for DKW, it was a German car brand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW) which was originally part of Auto-Union, as was Audi along with two others (hence the four rings in the logo). When I was a young kid in the late 50s and early 60s, they were still quite ubiquitous. Even then, I realised they were something special because of the three-cylinder two-stroke engine (like our family car had too). DKW also had a production site at Zwickau in Saxony (East Germany), which became the nucleus of the East German car production of Wartburgs and Trabants...sticking to that three-cylinder two-stroke principle until shortly before the wall fell when they started buying regular VW engines.

  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited December 2019 Posts: 14,861
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    I must admit that (even as a kid, when I probably knew 60s-cars better than now) I had trouble telling those frogeye beasts apart.

    I tried to google the one in the picture before posting and seemed to have found some place where it was identified as a Sprite - although I know it should be accompanied by "Austin-Healey" and not Triumph...which seems to be the name applied between the frogeyes.

    You may be right with the TR2, but I'd say it's likely to be a TR3 since that one had the brand name in that place. Anyway, it wasn't really central to my post, so I felt I didn't have to research that perfectly.

    Oh sure; I wasn’t trying to catch you out or anything, I was just curious if that’s what it was called there. There are all sorts of funny name changes- as we saw with someone mentioning the VW Rabbit above! :)
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    Posts: 3,497
    Ah yes, DKW.

    The F102 would eventually become the Audi F103, the very first new Audi since 1938.

    hyCK9mG.jpg
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    Posts: 8,657
    mtm wrote: »
    Oh sure; I wasn’t trying to catch you out or anything, I was just curious if that’s what it was called there. There are all sorts of funny name changes- as we saw with someone mentioning the VW Rabbit above! :)
    Don't worry, I didn't take it as criticism. Yes, the "Rabbit" bit was peculiar, and it has always been the Golf in the rest of the world for the last 45 years. It seems that since it really replaced the (original) Beetle, VW felt the need to give it a "cute" animal name as well on the American market.

    On the other hand, VW decided to rename the third-generation Jetta (the three-box version of the Golf/Rabbit) "Vento" over here (but not in the US), and "Bora" for the Golf IV companion. The reason was that the Jetta had lousy sales over here and was quickly identified as something that only octogenarians would voluntarily drive, let alone buy (the people that would drive a DAF 20 years earlier). They returned to Jetta for the Golf V but since the seventh generation it is not even available in Europe any more.
  • mtmmtm United Kingdom
    edited December 2019 Posts: 14,861
    I'm pretty in the UK we never had a Vento, but we did get the Bora.

    One VW I always wanted was the SP2: that was supercool! But sadly they never sold anywhere near here!

    volkswagen_sp2_4.jpeg
  • JamesCraigJamesCraig Ancient Rome
    edited December 2019 Posts: 3,497
    It sure is. :-c
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    edited December 2019 Posts: 8,657
    You may still be able to import a decent specimen from Brazil... Just for the looks of European cars, I've always liked the Karmann-Ghia Type 34, based on the Type 3 Volkswagen.
    KarmannGhia_Type34_1.JPG
    Not exactly a sports car, but an improvement over the original (and far more successful) Karmann-Ghia Type 14, with its Beetle roots regarding chassis and engine (several of those in the background here).

  • zebrafishzebrafish <°)))< in Octopussy's garden in the shade
    Posts: 4,311
    I saw a VW Kübelwagen at a motor show recently. Apart from the historical baggage these cars carry around, it actually seems like a lot of fun nowadays. It also comes in a variety that can swim, the Schwimmwagen.

    kubel.jpg

    cover_vw-schwimmwagen-amphibious-car-on-dyler-com.jpg

  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 7,948
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    mtm wrote: »
    Oh sure; I wasn’t trying to catch you out or anything, I was just curious if that’s what it was called there. There are all sorts of funny name changes- as we saw with someone mentioning the VW Rabbit above! :)
    Don't worry, I didn't take it as criticism. Yes, the "Rabbit" bit was peculiar, and it has always been the Golf in the rest of the world for the last 45 years. It seems that since it really replaced the (original) Beetle, VW felt the need to give it a "cute" animal name as well on the American market.

    On the other hand, VW decided to rename the third-generation Jetta (the three-box version of the Golf/Rabbit) "Vento" over here (but not in the US), and "Bora" for the Golf IV companion. The reason was that the Jetta had lousy sales over here and was quickly identified as something that only octogenarians would voluntarily drive, let alone buy (the people that would drive a DAF 20 years earlier). They returned to Jetta for the Golf V but since the seventh generation it is not even available in Europe any more.
    Hey! There's nothing bad about DAF's! The fact that they were easy to use and would go as quickly backwards as forewards thanks to the variomatic should've made them far more popular then they were....

    My father apparently had 3 in a row, of which I only knew the 66 (I wasn't born yet for the older models).
    1200px-Daf33.jpg yes, it was in that colour.


  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou. I can still hear my old hound dog barkin'.
    edited December 2019 Posts: 8,657
    Hey! No hard feelings, @CommanderRoss, and I don't doubt that DAFs were pretty good cars technically..but from the early days of my own driver's licence on it was the DAF drivers who kept crawling along the highways or country roads at speeds somewhere around 60 (km, NOT miles!) and held up traffic. Mostly wearing hats while they were driving, and having a crocheted protective cover over a roll of toilet paper on the rear shelf of their car. That's the image that securely locked itself into my mind, and I'm rather no exception. But that's exactly the image that also emerged for the VW Jetta...and literally doomed it.
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