Did you know that the 1990s Honda Civic Del Sol (aka CR-X Del Sol) had an option for a “Transtop” in some markets, which was a motorized pocket built into its trunk into which you can stow the roof? It’s an incredibly complicated arrangement; no wonder the idea never caught on.
Spotted: A heavily-modified #Toyota#4Runner. It has a Cummins diesel engine and a highly custom gear train. I don’t really understand what all those levers do. The owner says they provide ridiculous gear ratios for rock crawling, and independently-selectable front, rear axle power, or 4WD.
Spotted in Fremont, CA: A 1998 Nissan Safari, right-hand-drive, Japanese market. These cars are common in Southeast Asia, but they were never offered in the US.
Here’s a pair of #weirdCars for you, Mastodon! It’s a Daimler-Benz Unimog and a Steyr-Puch Pinzgauer! The Unimog is an off-road capable, do-it-all farm and construction workhorse, and the Pinzgauer is an Austrian-made troop carrier, fitting 10 crew in the bed of the truck. Owners of both vehicles use them for off-road adventures and for transporting many kids and their friends (now tethered with aftermarket seat belts) to amusement parks.
Discovered the existence of the Land Drover Llama this weekend (in the corporate end of Melbourne CBD, no less.)
What an amazing vehicle, a factory cab-on-engine Land Rover lorry (that looks - accurately - like someone cut and folded a regular Series Land Rover body to make the cab.
Here’s a #weirdCar for you, Mastodon! It’s a 1945 MG TC, the first MG automobile to make it big in the USA. Rumor has it that Edsel Ford, Henry Ford’s son, was the first customer this side of the Atlantic.
This unit has been restored and repainted in Toyota Supra Red. With its sports car pedigree and beautiful proportions (and suicide doors!), this car looks stunning almost eight decades on.
Here’s a weird car for you, Mastodon: On the left is a Solectria Force, an electric conversion of a Geo Metro chassis sold between 1991–2004. Early cars used 13 12 V lead-acid gel cell batteries powering a single motor. They had a range of 43 miles and made about 50 HP. Later models used NiCd batteries, and even later, NiMH batteries, before the car was discontinued after the company sold about 400 units in total.
On the right is a Ford F-150 Lightning, one of the newest electric vehicles available today, with quite a lot more power and battery capacity. In this shot, the Force was being charged by plugging it into the 120V inverter outlet of the F-150 Lightning.
#Luftgekühlt9 was pretty amazing out in #MareIsland in #SanPabloBay. I have some photos of the event, but they don’t really do justice to the sheer volume of amazing and rare air-cooled Porsches that were on display.
Here’s a Renault Caravelle, a 1960s rear-engined French convertible!
Fun fact: the side intakes feed air into radiators that vent into the “trunk” (engine compartment), and past the engine itself to exit through grilles above the rear bumper. Later models moved the radiator to a more logical location: toward the rear end of the car.
This is a 1986 Ford RS200 Evolution rally car, one of only 200 homologation units made to qualify for the now-defunct Group B WRC rally. This car features a mid-mounted 4-cylinder engine with a massive turbocharger and makes more than 800 HP on race gas.
This particular car belongs to Hoonigan and was driven by the late Ken Block.
Fun fact: it is not possible to fill up this car’s gas tank by yourself. The gas cap is located under the rear clamshell, and you need two people to open that.