January 27, 2015 • 34 mins
What are some of the most unusual cars ever to come out of Australia? Tune in to find out.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I am Ben. Just
Ben sounded like I was gonna say something. I really did.
I thought you're gonna launch into some incredible die dribe
(00:22):
about that today's topic, but instead I was met with nothing. Hey,
you know I talk a lot, so every so often,
you've gotta let the room breathe. Oh you know what,
if you were to run a stop watch on our episodes,
I'm sure that I would far out with you. I
feel like I'm I'm over here blabbering all day long.
But today maybe we'll both blabber on a little bit
about some interesting Australian built vehicles. Yes, yes, yes, ladies
(00:48):
and gentlemen, friends and neighbors. Uh. If you are in
the United States, who are in Australia or anywhere in
the world. Maybe you're an astronaut, maybe you're an orbit
We hope you will enjoy this episode the Car Stuff.
We have been checking out some great topics that come
to us from Australia just over the years. We have
a huge following in Australia. This is I don't know
(01:10):
why they find this strange, but we do. We seem
to get a lot of listener response from Australia. They
love us over there, and uh, and you know we
we appreciate it, of course, so we try to work
a few Australian topics into the into the mix occasionally. Right,
we've done you shows, We've done the bathrooms, Yeah, the
bathrooms one thousand, the road Trains episode. You're right. Um,
we talked about kangaroo um dummies using crash tests. We've
(01:34):
talked about a bunch of Australian stuff. But today we're
going to take it a different way with Australian production vehicles.
And they may think that we're just gonna be talking
about Forward and holding in Toyota, because those are the
ones that are typically associated with Australia. No, there's a
continent has a much bigger and broader automobile history than
(01:54):
that than just those three brands. I mean, that's a
big history to begin with. But uh, there's a lot
of what we'll call range vehicles in Australia's auto manufacturing
pass right, and Australian listeners may be surprised to find
that even you might find a new vehicle today that
you haven't heard of, because some of these are deep
cuts man. Honestly. Oh, definitely, we're gonna talk about some
(02:16):
very low production number of vehicles that are coming out
of Australia from one of the last sixty or seventy years,
I think. So there's some surprises here even for people
who live in Australia as you mentioned, but definitely for
the rest of the world. Yeah, we're gonna jump around
in time a little bit and we hope that we
find some things that are surprising to you. We know
that we're going to find some things that are surprising
(02:37):
to our listeners outside of Australia, So let's just dive
into it. What's first on the list. First on the
list is the Dare sport Teeth. This is a car
very very low production. As we said, there were just
twelve of these built, right, Yeah, and the story behind
it is uh fascinating, if not funny. This was based
(02:58):
on the VH Commodore. Uh. The There's a firm there
in Melbourne called the Classic car Craft and they created
the Sportif It's two doors, uh using parts of a
German opal record uh. And that's something that the early
Commodores were based upon themselves. Yeah, it's got other parts
as well. There's the headlights from the ford Fair Lane. Um,
(03:20):
it's a strange car. So it's a Holden car that
they're putting a new body on, really, and it's built
by a company called Classic car Craft. And Classic car
Craft described the sportif as the car General Motors Holden
should have built. And it's funny that they say this
because they only built twelve of them, right, And I
think a lot of people really didn't like this car.
(03:40):
I mean obviously it didn't really catch on, but you know,
with twelve examples sold, I don't think you could really
have the uh you know, the uh huevos to say
that General Motors should have built this vehicle or the
Holden Company should have built this car, right, Yeah, And
we saw that the a lot of times. Man, the
big talkers are the first to uh falter when they
(04:01):
walk The hold NBH Commodore itself is uh pretty darn
good vehicle. I mean, released October one, and you know
it's the evolution of the previous Commodore, the VC model. Uh.
This this is a car that you see around everywhere
so it's it makes sense to me that this would
(04:22):
be a good beginning for an experiment. Yeah. Sure, and
we'll find a lot of the companies do that. They
rebody a car. They take you know, elements that they
like from other vehicles and put them together and say,
like this one didn't said oh yeah, this is the
car that you should have built. People are gonna love this.
And then in fact again with twelve twelve built, uh
and failed on the in the marketplace. Well, let's move
(04:44):
on to the next one, the bowl. Well I like
this one. This is maybe the coolest looking one on
the entire list. I really like all of the different
models and makes of this one because there were nine
different models and they're very similar in design, I guess,
but they go from Mark one through about Mark eight.
And then I was confused by that because it says
nine models, but it goes Mark one to Mark eight.
(05:06):
Um later they revealed a Mark ten, which is kind
of strange, a Negari model they called the Mark ten
Nagari and revealed in two thousand eight, and it had
a starting price that was north of two hundred thousand dollars. Now,
this is an interesting vehicle because the mechanicals were borrowed
from several different manufacturers. Engines came from Ford Holding and
(05:28):
Volkswagen for this car. Yeah, and Bullwell has a fascinating
unexpected story because, as we said, their Australian company, and
they originally produced sports cars for a very short amount
of time. Yeah, just from what nineteen sixty two through
nine seventy nine, so what about seventeen years? Yeah, And
this is the part where someone saying, Scott been hang on, guys,
(05:51):
you said that they had a new car coming out
in oh eight. Yeah, that's right, And I think in
two thousand nine they actually started building this car. And
I don't know. I don't even know if there's still
an in production. I haven't really dug into it enough
to find that out. But I can tell you what
it looks like because I did look up the vehicle
that they revealed in two thousand and eight, and the
best way to describe it is sort of like a
(06:12):
lotus a lease maybe, but not exactly. It's a it's
a little bit different in the way, um the back
end is treated. But if you want to look at
the older bowl Well designs, they kind of look like
the dots and car Yeah, that's really good. Maybe like
the two something that Yeah, the Bull Well nagari uh
Negari is an Aboriginal word that means flowing. Was the
(06:33):
first full production car that Bowl had sports car at
least uh They only made a hundred coupes and eighteen convertibles. Wow,
so pretty low production again, so talking about a hundred
and eighteen total, that's it. That's extremely low. So let's
move on to the next one the list. Let's get
more on Bowl Well that we need to know. Oh no,
(06:54):
I think we have, We've got We've got others to
get to and honestly, I'm saving some good stuff about Bowl.
Where a possible podcast in the future. Oh yeah, because
it's an interesting car. It definitely looks cool. Oh that's
what we should say. Guys. If you hear a vehicle
that we mentioned that you would like to hear more
about or you think would make a good episode for
a podcast, go ahead and send us an email. Ah. Yes,
(07:15):
and here's another car that is still in production today.
This is called the Bufforey. Is it boufore your beautforrey? Maybe?
I think Bouforey before eight. Now this is weird. This
is an acronym bufo r I. It's an acronym for beautiful, unique, fantastic, original,
romantic and irresistible. So you would think that this car
would just be uh, the car to end all cars, right? Yeah?
(07:37):
To me, not speaking Italian at first, I wondered, is
this for some reason Italian word? And I felt Uh.
I felt like a nincompoop a dunderhead when I figured
out there was an acronym when I found that part,
because it reminded me of Hagundahs ice cream, which I
don't know. I don't know if that's everywhere else in
the world or if it's justing nine States. You know
(07:57):
that word means nothing, right, that's what. Yeah, just a
way to sell the product. The guy made it up
because he said, oh this sounds fancy. Sure, yeah, so
I got hagendahsed on this. But before themselves, uh, they
started building um Madison with a VW engine in nighties
six three brothers and they still build cars. They still
(08:18):
build them, but not in Australia. They moved the production
to Malaysia in and they build two different models. Now
I think they had three different models that were built
in Australia. They both Madison they built one called the
the V six I and then the Mark two. Yeah,
and uh now based in Malaysia, they're building the La
Joya and the Geneva models exactly right. So that's the
(08:40):
Malaysian production. And I guess the best way to describe
the because they went online and took a look at
the the two cars that are around today. I mean,
he says, these have kind of the classic coach style look.
I guess, uh, you know, like a long front end
and you know, two seater, very little or no trunk,
but you know that long long hood with maybe the
rolling fenders and you know the wheel, the spare tire
(09:01):
mounted on those fenders on the on the front, great
big headlights. It's kind of a classic look. But the
the newer vehicles, the you know, the Geneva and the
or Lajoia. I don't know, um it kind of looks
like a cross between a Rolls Royce and a morgan
erro coupe. It's not a particularly attractive car in my mind,
(09:22):
but um um, I don't know. It's it's not Buffori
and the Lahoya or the La Joia is very similar
in style, so they're not dramatically different between the two
makes uh two models rather, but I would bet there's
a cost difference is probably where it's at, you know,
with the accessories, etcetera. Oh yeah, I bet, I bet. Uh.
Let's go on to the next one. This is an
(09:45):
interesting one. The bullets. Yeah, the bullet this is this
is almost why you could just say that this is
a Maza m x five, right, so, right, yeah, these
are rotary powered reach Hassie m x five. Yeah, you're right.
But the difference is that they they alter these, they
modify these, right, So these are they take the Mas
m x five or what we call the Miata here
in the States, they modify them with in some cases
(10:10):
a giant Lexus V eight. Uh so these are these
are very powerful kids that you know, oftentimes supercharged, so
so extremely powerful small sports cars. It's always been a
popular combination, right, and this is a recent addition because
people familiar with this, you'll recall that they started mid nineties,
I guess, and the Lexus V eight engine starts coming
(10:33):
in around the two thousands. But they still specialize in
these kits and they apparently we're on the street, is
they have a new supercar in the works. Yes, And
I went to their site. I went to the bullet
site and you can go to bullet cars dot com
for updates on this. But they haven't really announced any
kind of body style. They haven't shown you what they're
gonna do yet, but they're saying that they're not going
to use the m X five donor body anymore. They're
(10:56):
going to create a brand new supercar, so again, all
new style. They're going to continue to build these high
performance supercars, but it's gonna have a new look. Yeah,
and this I went into the website as well. This
is something that is definitely worth looking at if you
are a supercar fan. If you are not a fan
of supercars, I'm surprised. I mean, as Fleetwood Max says,
(11:20):
go your own way, but seriously, supercars are awesome. That's funny, Ben.
It's like you're saying, you gotta see it my way. Well,
I mean just not necessarily my way. It's my way
or the highway, it's the right way. So maybe you've
influenced me. Oh man, I'm gonna get some LEAs. But
bullet cars dot com they definitely have some great cars
to check out there, so do it. Next up on
(11:40):
our list, the Geocatolo um which I mispronouncing. Uh, it's
the it's a low volume vehicle, right, um. And it
was manufactured by the Geo Catol motor It's a low
volume vehicle, and it was produced by a Italian company,
an Italian company named Geo Cotolo Motori. Uh. This this
(12:04):
is interesting. Uh. The name is Italian for what's got toy.
It's called a toy. So it's outright saying this is
just a toy car. It's not for everyday use or whatever.
But uh, this vehicle is from the mid nineteen eighties
and you may think, well, that's kind of a strange
era to really, you know, think about you know, these
incredible low production sports cars like what they're building. Right.
(12:27):
But what was happening in the mid nineteen eighties is
very important here, right, because this was a vehicle that
was intended to compete in the Group B rally competition. Yes.
And the reason this is of singular importance is because
if you have listened to our episodes on Group B
rally cars and the regulations that came from that, you
(12:47):
know that these these vehicles eventually we're outlawed because they
were just too powerful. Yeah, they were too they were
too good and therefore to Dane, yeah, it was. It's
an interesting story and we do again. We have that
whole podcast about that, and uh, it's fascinating history. But
I can tell you a little bit more about this
car and then I think we'll move on to the
(13:08):
next one. But it was the work of an entrepreneur
named Paul Holstead and a former F one designer named
Barry Lock. And well, it's tough to say Barry Lock.
I want to say Peter Brock when I say that,
because we're talking about Australia and design anyway. So it
was Barry Lock who was a former F one designer.
And you can imagine this car has, you know, quite
a bit of style like the you know, the the
(13:29):
group b rally cars of that day. I mean it's
it's got a giant wing on the back. It looks
like it has fender flares. Pretty cool looking, but again
it's the mid nineteen eighties, so maybe not exactly what
you're thinking. Um, so incredible power out of this car.
It has a five leader Holden V eight among other things.
I mean, it has a lot of different parts from
different vehicles, so it has an Alpha Romeo um glass
(13:51):
house and and cabin, which means, I guess the entire
upper part of the vehicle. UM has kevlar body panels
and it has what it called what they call it
bespoke mid engine chassis, so accustomed chassis is what that means.
We'll get this though, is one more thing on this
one weird thing? Yeah, it has a toolkit that comes
with a minibar sized bottle of Bundenberg rum and a
(14:15):
pair of shot glasses. That's a strange tool to need
on the side of the road, but I feel like
I've needed that at some point. I mean, we have
crazy traffic here, right Uh. And then there is the
Go Go Mobile. Yeah, the Go Go Mobile. Now you
may think, well, that's a German car. That's not something
that you know is Australian production, right, You would be
wrong because what happened was they they brought in the
(14:38):
German made Gogomobile from what nineteen fifty seven until about
nineteen Yeah, and this is a microcar. Yeah, microcar. I
don't know how I didn't mention that right away, but
it's the microcar from post World War two Germany. And
what the Australians did was They brought it in without
the body on it. They brought in just the chassis,
the rolling chassis with the with the engine and everything
(14:58):
in the interior, and then they rebodied it to fit
their needs. Right. Yeah, they had locally made fiberglass bodies.
And I gotta tell you, every time that I see
a microcar, I chuckle a little bit. And I'm not
I'm not being in jerk, but I just I always
noticed them, and I think their neat and I think
they're cool. I don't know if I would ever be
(15:19):
in a place where I could drive one. Yeah, but
if you have seen one of these, then first off,
you should know that you're very, very very lucky. And secondly,
I would like some photos. Pretty low production on these,
but again they were they were rebodied with locally formed
fiberglass bodies. So that's where the Australian UH manufacturing comes in.
(15:40):
I guess to this kind of a technicality, I'd say,
I guess. So, Yeah, they built a saloon style, they
build coops, they build coop convertibles and even a light
van variant. And they all had three hundred cc and
four hundred cc twin cylinder engines, so not that powerful.
But again, you don't really need anything that's strong. I
guess when you're in a tiny car. I mean people
(16:01):
are buying microcars to take him out to the salt flats,
you know, I mean definitely not. Next up, we have Heartnets,
which I think will be familiar to a lot of
people because this was formed by a former Holding boss,
Lawrence Heartnet, way back in nineteen forty nine. That's right.
The idea was to challenge Holden's market dominance, which is
kind of funny now when we think about what's going on.
(16:22):
It came from the Prime minister at the time. Yeah,
the Prime minister. The guy's name was Ben Chiefly, and
U Ben said that, yeah, there's just too much market
down it's going on through from Holden at the time.
We need something new to compete. And and this guy
from Holden, you know, this former Holden boss. His name
was Lawrence Hartnet. As you mentioned, I decided, well, the
way to do it is just to start up our
(16:43):
own company and we're gonna call it Heartnet. And they
made a couple of different models. They made the Tasman
Sedan and the Pacific Convertible. Now Tasman I can kind
of think I'm guessing that it comes from the Tasman
c which is right outside of Australia, between New Zealand
and Australia. Uh and then Pacific of course, is the
other side. Um. So it seems to make sense the
(17:04):
way they name these, but really very very very low
production on these things, right, Yeah, there were supply issues,
so the company went under in fifty five after they
built just around a hundred and twenty cars. Uh. There
were some station wagons as well that they dabbled in,
you know, but it just goes to show that making
(17:27):
cars can be a very risky business. Starting a company
can be a very very difficult business. I did not
see that they made station wagons. That's pretty cool, that's uh.
I kind of would like to see that because it
had an interesting shape. I mean it almost had a
pickup truck boxy look to it. I like looking at
pictures of these old Heartnet vehicles. I like like looking
at pictures of all these vehicles we talked about today.
(17:48):
But uh, you know, to imagine the uh, I guess
a wagon version of that. UM fascinated by wagons anyway,
so maybe that's it. Well, here's something that that I
think is interesting about the heartnet or the Tasman specifically,
and it's it's a similar issue to what plagued the Volt.
All right, So the original price the of this vehicle
(18:12):
was supposed to be less than three pounds. I was
wondering how you're going to tie this into the Vault,
And then before production and even started, they said it'll
be more around four pounds. Then January they said, okay,
it's gonna cost less than five pounds, but that counts
sales tax. H no cars have been delivered yet, and
(18:36):
the company said, okay, honestly five pounds and then you know,
plus sales tax. So that would make the purchase price
less than six hundred pounds. Uh. The first aluminum bodied
Pacific convertibles sold in April and fifty two calls six
hundred and nine pounds and that includes sales tax. So
(19:00):
they more than doubled the price of the vehicle from
when they first you know, announced the vehicle. Yeah, I mean,
it's it's just tough and I'm not seeing their bad cars.
But you know, we saw the same changing expectations with
the Volt pre production. Sure we did. Yeah, and you
know it was it was promised at a very low
level and then it then it came out it was
(19:20):
very expensive. Yeah, and this is a car. These are
cars that I don't know. They're so rare that I'd
be surprised if somebody had seen seen these maybe. Um,
I haven't looked to see if they're in a museum
or anything. Now. I'm sure that there's gotta be examples
somewhere hanging around the museums. I know that there are,
and I've seen a few of them, you know, with
(19:41):
just one and twenty cars produced. Um, I know I've
seen photos of them online, so I know they're hanging around.
I don't know if they're all, you know, still in Australia,
if they've you know, kind of I've been spread out
over the world or what. But I know, I know
I've seen examples of them. I've never seen a station
wagon version though. That's that was surprising to me. I
want to see what other people think about this next
when the light burn zet. This is a quirky little car.
(20:03):
And I believe that when I went to that that
microcar museum, I think I saw an example of this.
Oh that's cool. I'm pretty sure he had one there.
Um it was in uh, Madison, Georgia. Yeah, that guy
had everything the Microcar Museum. Anyway, it was this is
this is strange, man. It was again built by an
appliance manufacturer named Light Burning Company. Well they also built
cement mixers, so we can't just say they were just appliances,
(20:26):
but they made appliances, which we found so many times
in the past, you know with was it Kelvinator? Is
that the one? Who else was it? There were others? Right,
let's see. Oh, I'm thinking we had a lot oh
Tucker Tucker was making well that was more military equipment, sure,
I am, yeah, but I'm thinking of like home appliances,
(20:47):
even kitchen appliances. And I know we've got a short
list here somewhere of the toaster makers. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah,
there's some pretty interesting manufacturers, uh that have come out
of the home appliance that's strange. It makes sense because
they have the industrial base to do it. But this
this is a funny story about this one, Scott. When
I was doing some research and it I found it
(21:08):
on a couple of ugliest cars ever lists kidding, yeah,
which seemed really unfair to me. I mean, don't get
me wrong, it's not an absolute work of art. But
I don't think it's I don't I don't think it's
a dog. I don't think it deserves to be on
the Ugliest Car List by any means. I mean, it's
it's unusual looking for you. Like I said, it's a
(21:29):
quirky little car. Um, this is really strange. Okay, it
had no no, let's just get to it here. It
had no rear storage. UM. I guess there was a
reverse gear and some of them, well yeah, and in
most of them there was a sports model, which is
not the one we're talking about that we're talking about
just the light burns data the sedan model, right, and
I think they also had a utility in a UM
(21:51):
in addition to the sports body. UM. So the sports
model was a little bit different. But this vehicle did
not have any kind of reverse So if you're in
the car, you can imagine that's very um, you know,
difficult to get around. A problem to get around. I
guess it'll be a parking lot. So what you would
do is you would switch the vehicle off and the
engine would be started in reverse, and then you would
have effectively you would have four reverse gears. Because it
(22:13):
was the same forward as backwards, So whatever the top
speed was in forward gear was also your top speed
and reverse gear. Theoretically, what's the worst that could happen
if you could drive that You could actually shift this
car and reverse if you wanted to. I mean from
you know, first, second, third, fourth the way through. Very
very strange and very low production as well. So there
was something like four hundred of these cars produced total
(22:34):
and that was it, and had some really weird things
like the fuel tank was located behind the dashboard and
had a gravity feed system. UM. You know, the we
mentioned the the Sports Model. UM, I think that one
had a slightly bigger engine than the Zeta that we're
talking about, because the Zeta model had a three cc
twin cylinder engine and the Sports Model had a what
(22:57):
they called the big block c C, which is if
you think about it, they're big block engine. UM that's
about that's about a half a leader displacement. Really, it's
a very small engine for even for what they call
the Sports Model. And if you want to see what
the Sports Model was adapted from. UM, again this is
a very low production. Only forty eight of those Sports
Models were produced, and they were based on a car
(23:19):
called the Meadows Frisky. So unusual vehicles to say the least.
But you know, check out the the light Burns Zeta
sports Model and the Meadows Frisky and tell us what
do you think about those. Let's go back to something
a little bit bigger, and let's also go back to
rotary engines with the Mazda road Pacer. That's so weird.
(23:39):
I can't even say this with a straight face, but
this is a a Mazda car. So it was sold
in Japan from seventy seven. Yeah, and it was well,
it was actually shipped to Japan because it was built
in Australia and it was based on a Holding vehicle.
It was built based on the Holding h J and
h X Premier. And uh. The strange thing about this
is that those cars typically had um I think I
(24:02):
believe it's an inline six engine or a V eight engine.
So these are great big Yeah, these are big, big vehicles.
You gotta picture of nineteen seventies, mid nineteen seventies. So
when did they put so they shipped them too Japan
without without the engines, and Japan or Mazda decided that
they were going to add their third team B rotary engine,
which is the Wankel engine designed by Felix Wankel. We've
(24:24):
talked about that in the past, but um I can
tell you that the power output was about the same.
The horse power output was about the same between the
three point three leaders six cylinder engine from the holding car,
but it had way less torque, right, Yeah, which meant
that it was pretty slow. End of the eight hundred
that were produced, uh, most did not satisfy the owners.
(24:48):
This is, however, the only rotary engine GM product. Yeah.
Strange that they would put this smaller Wankel engine, this
rotary engine in this giant land yad of a vehicle
when it was luxury car. Virus that we're looking to
buy this. Yeah, like uh, fancy French cheese and Chinese food.
These are two great things that don't go well together.
That's a good way to put it. Ben Alright, so
(25:09):
let's let's move on. Here's a here's a strange one.
This is This is one that was built as part
of a challenge, which I always find interesting and again
low production. They built one thousand examples back in one
and this is the Mitsubishi Sigma Peter where it's special Yeah,
and Australian fans will notice will of course remember Peter
(25:31):
ware It. Uh. Here's the challenge. At least according to
the anecdote, he was challenged to create a better car
after he complained to a Mitsubishi engineer about the way
the Sigma handles. Yeah, now Peter where it was a
He was a motoring and motorsport journalist. He's also a
race car driver, so we know this stuff right. And
then he went on to do other things too. I
(25:52):
mean I think he became the um co writer on
the show Torque, which was around from I think nineteen
seventy three. About nineteen eighty he opened his own driver
training school, like you know, post licensed driver training school,
so you know, way to perfect your driving. I upraded
that until about night. I think it's called Peter Warett
Advanced Driving. And then he was also a pit reporter
at the Bathroost one thousand nine three. UM. But according
(26:15):
to him, he converted the Sigma into one of the
great family cars the decade is how he put it.
And he did this with a lot of different a
lot of different ways. What he did is he upped
the horse power. He went from uh and this is
the strangeness here between us and the and the Australian.
They do the power and kill a wat. So it's
seventy two point nine kilowatts, which is about nine horse power,
(26:36):
and he up that to about seventy six kilowatts up
to about a hundred and two horse power, so a
minor increase, but still I guess significant. It's two point
six liter engine. Yeah, he fixed the shock tuning, got
this brakes all around, five speed, manual, fifteen inch oloy wheels,
Morelli tires um and of course a special paint job
with striped decals and all that, and a cosmetic kits.
(26:58):
So he's got Ricardo front seats and an autographed steering
wheel by Momo. Yeah. So you know, anything that carries
a signature like this is a special or signature edition
is usually a popular seller. And I wonder if a
thousand was was just kind of a limit for them,
or if it just necessarily wasn't that popular. I'm not
exactly the shore on the story of this, but I
would think that it's just a limited production vehicle that
(27:20):
they never intended to build more than a thousand of right, Yeah,
I think it was more just for the publicity and
improving a point. Uh. However, there was a car that
had only only around a hundred and twenty produced, and
that was the Overlander four wheel drive. Yeah, this is
one that was in production. Oh man, it's actually a
(27:40):
long production. It's it's from venty six to nine and
only a hundred and twenty. You think about that. This
is based on the Holding h J and HZ. Yes,
that's right. Now, I did have other things too. It
had a data transfer case and had a well front
and rear off road axles and wheels and tires and
suspension that are you know, also off approved. It was
(28:00):
a it's kind of a rugged outback type vehicle. I guess.
I mean it's something intended for off road use, right. Yeah.
And this was produced, uh, not just by Holding, but
by a company in Tasmania called Vehicle Engineering and Modifications
p L. So if you see one of these, even
if you don't think it's the most attractive car, go
(28:22):
ahead and pat yourself on the back because you have
seen you you have won the lottery of car viewing. Yeah,
there's a you know, a hundred and twenty produced and
the last one is produced what some twenty six years
ago now, so a long time ago, they had three
body styles. They had a wagon, they had a ute,
and then they had a kind of a heavy duty
you which was the one ton version and uh not
popular at all. I mean it just didn't sell well. Uh.
(28:44):
They found that most people that were in the same
market for something like this, for the for the same
vehicle bought the Toyota land Cruiser instead. Yeah, that's it's
kind of tough to take. But um, I guess if
you you know, you see the sales numbers on the decline,
and you see that, you know, the people that are
interested in your vehicle are going over next door to
the Toyota dealership and just picking up the land Cruiser.
(29:05):
It doesn't take long to understand that, you know this,
this vehicle is not going to hang out too long.
It's going to be quickly off the market. Right And
with that we arrive at our last obscure or strange
Australian vehicle on the list, and Scott, that is the
Ricaro Mystery. Yeah, this is strange has another name to
(29:27):
the arcade to pain taipe An strange strange names. Right now,
this is what this became and I'll explain it in
just a second. But to me, this vehicle, just to
describe it looks a little bit like the AMC Eagle
that was sold here in the United States, that four
by four AMC Eagle car very similar to it. And
this is a nine seven concept from the Sydney Motor
(29:48):
Show and it's it's uh, while the designer this is
somebody interesting, I guess Peter Kid Yeah, Peter. Now, Peter
is the guy that was responsible for UM designing. He
was a Ford designer at one time, and he designed
the mad Max Interceptor um or helped design the mad
Max Interceptor for the film, the one that we're talking
(30:08):
about in the film, and um that car was the
nineteen seventy three x b GT Ford Falcon Coope and
it was kind of a high performance police interceptor car
that was you know, built for the film intended to
look pretty evil looking. You know, it's kind of kind
kind of a dangerous look pretty on the road exactly, right.
So this is the guy that's that's building this vehicle,
or was you know, aiding in the design of this vehicle, right,
(30:31):
And Uh, this vehicle itself, the Mysteria was built from
a hold in Toronta. Uh, and that ultimately gave rise
to the Taipe hand body kit. But here's the interesting thing.
This was originally as a concept car. It was just
supposed to be a one off car that allowed Ricardo
to showcase some of their stuff. Yes, but it had
(30:51):
other variations too. It wasn't just a Toronto hatchback right.
It had a chopped tail, It had a shovel nose design.
It also had wheel arch flares I find very attractive.
As we all know, we had also found that the
type hand went through uh several different iterations of the
body kit, right, and you can get a version called Bobcat.
(31:12):
You can get one with an A C eight ducks
on it. You can also see uh, you can also
see variations on the nose and the hatch at the end.
But I think one thing that's interesting here is UH
to ask ourselves what happened to the cars that this
(31:33):
guy was designing, you know, like, how far did he
take it? Yeah? Well it was the plan was for
low van production numbers. But the the plan, however, you
know they had laid it out, it just didn't add
up completely. And eventually they said, well we've got a
good design here. We gotta do something with it, and
they sold the body kits um as that as something
they called the Type hand kit through Arcada Pain's coach
(31:54):
building business. So there's a way to get a kit
to make your your vehicle, your Toronto based hatchback look
just like this one. Yeah, I think that's pretty cool.
And also this is completely tangential. But this is something
I'm excited enough about to end the podcast on Scott.
(32:15):
You know about the new Mad Max coming out, right,
I do. And I've seen just very little of it
so far though, but some of the vehicles that they've shown, Yeah,
the vehicles amazing. So what I would like to do
is follow up in the future with an update on
the cars of Mad Max. Maybe we can start with
the Interceptor and the original and walk all the way
(32:35):
up to the newest mad Man. I would love to
do that. I'm a huge fan of that of that movie,
and I think that, um, some of the newer ones
that I've seen, I've just seen a glimpse of some
of them, you know what they're what they're showing us now,
And uh, I really really like this and we hope
that you enjoyed checking out this show. This is one
of those episodes that I feel like is a a
(32:56):
rabbit hole, you know, and it's very easy to fall
down into the streeve some of these cars, as we
said earlier, right to us and let us know if
you want us to do an entire episode on one
of these and it just might happen. In the meantime,
you can check out Car Stuff Show dot com to
see every episode we've ever done. We even have some
videos up because we're moving on up in the world.
(33:18):
If you want to see some stuff that doesn't quite
make it to the show, uh, please do follow us.
We are Car Stuff hs W on Facebook, on Twitter. Uh,
super easy and I don't know, we're pretty funny. We
get our chuckles in sometimes. Alright, Well, if you have
some advice for us about jokes we should be making
topics we should be covering. Yeah, I think you're a
(33:38):
funny guy, but minds all a little flat? Are you kidding?
I'm I'm the word. I'm clearly not the brains of
this comedy operation. You tell jokes in here all the time.
In fact, before our podcast sometimes you're you're telling jokes
were cracking up with It's are deep and go on
the airth Well, you know, some of those jokes can't
go on the air. That's true. That's true. Good. Um,
so that's a very good point that you made. If
(34:00):
you have any jokes that can be on the air,
then please feel free to mail them along with the
topic suggestion to our address we are our stuff and
how stuff work dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. This at how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from house stuff Works dot Com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott and I am Ben. Just
Ben sounded like I was gonna say something. I really did.
I thought you're gonna launch into some incredible die dribe
(00:22):
about that today's topic, but instead I was met with nothing. Hey,
you know I talk a lot, so every so often,
you've gotta let the room breathe. Oh you know what,
if you were to run a stop watch on our episodes,
I'm sure that I would far out with you. I
feel like I'm I'm over here blabbering all day long.
But today maybe we'll both blabber on a little bit
about some interesting Australian built vehicles. Yes, yes, yes, ladies
(00:48):
and gentlemen, friends and neighbors. Uh. If you are in
the United States, who are in Australia or anywhere in
the world. Maybe you're an astronaut, maybe you're an orbit
We hope you will enjoy this episode the Car Stuff.
We have been checking out some great topics that come
to us from Australia just over the years. We have
a huge following in Australia. This is I don't know
(01:10):
why they find this strange, but we do. We seem
to get a lot of listener response from Australia. They
love us over there, and uh, and you know we
we appreciate it, of course, so we try to work
a few Australian topics into the into the mix occasionally. Right,
we've done you shows, We've done the bathrooms, Yeah, the
bathrooms one thousand, the road Trains episode. You're right. Um,
we talked about kangaroo um dummies using crash tests. We've
(01:34):
talked about a bunch of Australian stuff. But today we're
going to take it a different way with Australian production vehicles.
And they may think that we're just gonna be talking
about Forward and holding in Toyota, because those are the
ones that are typically associated with Australia. No, there's a
continent has a much bigger and broader automobile history than
(01:54):
that than just those three brands. I mean, that's a
big history to begin with. But uh, there's a lot
of what we'll call range vehicles in Australia's auto manufacturing
pass right, and Australian listeners may be surprised to find
that even you might find a new vehicle today that
you haven't heard of, because some of these are deep
cuts man. Honestly. Oh, definitely, we're gonna talk about some
(02:16):
very low production number of vehicles that are coming out
of Australia from one of the last sixty or seventy years,
I think. So there's some surprises here even for people
who live in Australia as you mentioned, but definitely for
the rest of the world. Yeah, we're gonna jump around
in time a little bit and we hope that we
find some things that are surprising to you. We know
that we're going to find some things that are surprising
(02:37):
to our listeners outside of Australia, So let's just dive
into it. What's first on the list. First on the
list is the Dare sport Teeth. This is a car
very very low production. As we said, there were just
twelve of these built, right, Yeah, and the story behind
it is uh fascinating, if not funny. This was based
(02:58):
on the VH Commodore. Uh. The There's a firm there
in Melbourne called the Classic car Craft and they created
the Sportif It's two doors, uh using parts of a
German opal record uh. And that's something that the early
Commodores were based upon themselves. Yeah, it's got other parts
as well. There's the headlights from the ford Fair Lane. Um,
(03:20):
it's a strange car. So it's a Holden car that
they're putting a new body on, really, and it's built
by a company called Classic car Craft. And Classic car
Craft described the sportif as the car General Motors Holden
should have built. And it's funny that they say this
because they only built twelve of them, right, And I
think a lot of people really didn't like this car.
(03:40):
I mean obviously it didn't really catch on, but you know,
with twelve examples sold, I don't think you could really
have the uh you know, the uh huevos to say
that General Motors should have built this vehicle or the
Holden Company should have built this car, right, Yeah, And
we saw that the a lot of times. Man, the
big talkers are the first to uh falter when they
(04:01):
walk The hold NBH Commodore itself is uh pretty darn
good vehicle. I mean, released October one, and you know
it's the evolution of the previous Commodore, the VC model. Uh.
This this is a car that you see around everywhere
so it's it makes sense to me that this would
(04:22):
be a good beginning for an experiment. Yeah. Sure, and
we'll find a lot of the companies do that. They
rebody a car. They take you know, elements that they
like from other vehicles and put them together and say,
like this one didn't said oh yeah, this is the
car that you should have built. People are gonna love this.
And then in fact again with twelve twelve built, uh
and failed on the in the marketplace. Well, let's move
(04:44):
on to the next one, the bowl. Well I like
this one. This is maybe the coolest looking one on
the entire list. I really like all of the different
models and makes of this one because there were nine
different models and they're very similar in design, I guess,
but they go from Mark one through about Mark eight.
And then I was confused by that because it says
nine models, but it goes Mark one to Mark eight.
(05:06):
Um later they revealed a Mark ten, which is kind
of strange, a Negari model they called the Mark ten
Nagari and revealed in two thousand eight, and it had
a starting price that was north of two hundred thousand dollars. Now,
this is an interesting vehicle because the mechanicals were borrowed
from several different manufacturers. Engines came from Ford Holding and
(05:28):
Volkswagen for this car. Yeah, and Bullwell has a fascinating
unexpected story because, as we said, their Australian company, and
they originally produced sports cars for a very short amount
of time. Yeah, just from what nineteen sixty two through
nine seventy nine, so what about seventeen years? Yeah, And
this is the part where someone saying, Scott been hang on, guys,
(05:51):
you said that they had a new car coming out
in oh eight. Yeah, that's right, And I think in
two thousand nine they actually started building this car. And
I don't know. I don't even know if there's still
an in production. I haven't really dug into it enough
to find that out. But I can tell you what
it looks like because I did look up the vehicle
that they revealed in two thousand and eight, and the
best way to describe it is sort of like a
(06:12):
lotus a lease maybe, but not exactly. It's a it's
a little bit different in the way, um the back
end is treated. But if you want to look at
the older bowl Well designs, they kind of look like
the dots and car Yeah, that's really good. Maybe like
the two something that Yeah, the Bull Well nagari uh
Negari is an Aboriginal word that means flowing. Was the
(06:33):
first full production car that Bowl had sports car at
least uh They only made a hundred coupes and eighteen convertibles. Wow,
so pretty low production again, so talking about a hundred
and eighteen total, that's it. That's extremely low. So let's
move on to the next one the list. Let's get
more on Bowl Well that we need to know. Oh no,
(06:54):
I think we have, We've got We've got others to
get to and honestly, I'm saving some good stuff about Bowl.
Where a possible podcast in the future. Oh yeah, because
it's an interesting car. It definitely looks cool. Oh that's
what we should say. Guys. If you hear a vehicle
that we mentioned that you would like to hear more
about or you think would make a good episode for
a podcast, go ahead and send us an email. Ah. Yes,
(07:15):
and here's another car that is still in production today.
This is called the Bufforey. Is it boufore your beautforrey? Maybe?
I think Bouforey before eight. Now this is weird. This
is an acronym bufo r I. It's an acronym for beautiful, unique, fantastic, original,
romantic and irresistible. So you would think that this car
would just be uh, the car to end all cars, right? Yeah?
(07:37):
To me, not speaking Italian at first, I wondered, is
this for some reason Italian word? And I felt Uh.
I felt like a nincompoop a dunderhead when I figured
out there was an acronym when I found that part,
because it reminded me of Hagundahs ice cream, which I
don't know. I don't know if that's everywhere else in
the world or if it's justing nine States. You know
(07:57):
that word means nothing, right, that's what. Yeah, just a
way to sell the product. The guy made it up
because he said, oh this sounds fancy. Sure, yeah, so
I got hagendahsed on this. But before themselves, uh, they
started building um Madison with a VW engine in nighties
six three brothers and they still build cars. They still
(08:18):
build them, but not in Australia. They moved the production
to Malaysia in and they build two different models. Now
I think they had three different models that were built
in Australia. They both Madison they built one called the
the V six I and then the Mark two. Yeah,
and uh now based in Malaysia, they're building the La
Joya and the Geneva models exactly right. So that's the
(08:40):
Malaysian production. And I guess the best way to describe
the because they went online and took a look at
the the two cars that are around today. I mean,
he says, these have kind of the classic coach style look.
I guess, uh, you know, like a long front end
and you know, two seater, very little or no trunk,
but you know that long long hood with maybe the
rolling fenders and you know the wheel, the spare tire
(09:01):
mounted on those fenders on the on the front, great
big headlights. It's kind of a classic look. But the
the newer vehicles, the you know, the Geneva and the
or Lajoia. I don't know, um it kind of looks
like a cross between a Rolls Royce and a morgan
erro coupe. It's not a particularly attractive car in my mind,
(09:22):
but um um, I don't know. It's it's not Buffori
and the Lahoya or the La Joia is very similar
in style, so they're not dramatically different between the two
makes uh two models rather, but I would bet there's
a cost difference is probably where it's at, you know,
with the accessories, etcetera. Oh yeah, I bet, I bet. Uh.
Let's go on to the next one. This is an
(09:45):
interesting one. The bullets. Yeah, the bullet this is this
is almost why you could just say that this is
a Maza m x five, right, so, right, yeah, these
are rotary powered reach Hassie m x five. Yeah, you're right.
But the difference is that they they alter these, they
modify these, right, So these are they take the Mas
m x five or what we call the Miata here
in the States, they modify them with in some cases
(10:10):
a giant Lexus V eight. Uh so these are these
are very powerful kids that you know, oftentimes supercharged, so
so extremely powerful small sports cars. It's always been a
popular combination, right, and this is a recent addition because
people familiar with this, you'll recall that they started mid nineties,
I guess, and the Lexus V eight engine starts coming
(10:33):
in around the two thousands. But they still specialize in
these kits and they apparently we're on the street, is
they have a new supercar in the works. Yes, And
I went to their site. I went to the bullet
site and you can go to bullet cars dot com
for updates on this. But they haven't really announced any
kind of body style. They haven't shown you what they're
gonna do yet, but they're saying that they're not going
to use the m X five donor body anymore. They're
(10:56):
going to create a brand new supercar, so again, all
new style. They're going to continue to build these high
performance supercars, but it's gonna have a new look. Yeah,
and this I went into the website as well. This
is something that is definitely worth looking at if you
are a supercar fan. If you are not a fan
of supercars, I'm surprised. I mean, as Fleetwood Max says,
(11:20):
go your own way, but seriously, supercars are awesome. That's funny, Ben.
It's like you're saying, you gotta see it my way. Well,
I mean just not necessarily my way. It's my way
or the highway, it's the right way. So maybe you've
influenced me. Oh man, I'm gonna get some LEAs. But
bullet cars dot com they definitely have some great cars
to check out there, so do it. Next up on
(11:40):
our list, the Geocatolo um which I mispronouncing. Uh, it's
the it's a low volume vehicle, right, um. And it
was manufactured by the Geo Catol motor It's a low
volume vehicle, and it was produced by a Italian company,
an Italian company named Geo Cotolo Motori. Uh. This this
(12:04):
is interesting. Uh. The name is Italian for what's got toy.
It's called a toy. So it's outright saying this is
just a toy car. It's not for everyday use or whatever.
But uh, this vehicle is from the mid nineteen eighties
and you may think, well, that's kind of a strange
era to really, you know, think about you know, these
incredible low production sports cars like what they're building. Right.
(12:27):
But what was happening in the mid nineteen eighties is
very important here, right, because this was a vehicle that
was intended to compete in the Group B rally competition. Yes.
And the reason this is of singular importance is because
if you have listened to our episodes on Group B
rally cars and the regulations that came from that, you
(12:47):
know that these these vehicles eventually we're outlawed because they
were just too powerful. Yeah, they were too they were
too good and therefore to Dane, yeah, it was. It's
an interesting story and we do again. We have that
whole podcast about that, and uh, it's fascinating history. But
I can tell you a little bit more about this
car and then I think we'll move on to the
(13:08):
next one. But it was the work of an entrepreneur
named Paul Holstead and a former F one designer named
Barry Lock. And well, it's tough to say Barry Lock.
I want to say Peter Brock when I say that,
because we're talking about Australia and design anyway. So it
was Barry Lock who was a former F one designer.
And you can imagine this car has, you know, quite
a bit of style like the you know, the the
(13:29):
group b rally cars of that day. I mean it's
it's got a giant wing on the back. It looks
like it has fender flares. Pretty cool looking, but again
it's the mid nineteen eighties, so maybe not exactly what
you're thinking. Um, so incredible power out of this car.
It has a five leader Holden V eight among other things.
I mean, it has a lot of different parts from
different vehicles, so it has an Alpha Romeo um glass
(13:51):
house and and cabin, which means, I guess the entire
upper part of the vehicle. UM has kevlar body panels
and it has what it called what they call it
bespoke mid engine chassis, so accustomed chassis is what that means.
We'll get this though, is one more thing on this
one weird thing? Yeah, it has a toolkit that comes
with a minibar sized bottle of Bundenberg rum and a
(14:15):
pair of shot glasses. That's a strange tool to need
on the side of the road, but I feel like
I've needed that at some point. I mean, we have
crazy traffic here, right Uh. And then there is the
Go Go Mobile. Yeah, the Go Go Mobile. Now you
may think, well, that's a German car. That's not something
that you know is Australian production, right, You would be
wrong because what happened was they they brought in the
(14:38):
German made Gogomobile from what nineteen fifty seven until about
nineteen Yeah, and this is a microcar. Yeah, microcar. I
don't know how I didn't mention that right away, but
it's the microcar from post World War two Germany. And
what the Australians did was They brought it in without
the body on it. They brought in just the chassis,
the rolling chassis with the with the engine and everything
(14:58):
in the interior, and then they rebodied it to fit
their needs. Right. Yeah, they had locally made fiberglass bodies.
And I gotta tell you, every time that I see
a microcar, I chuckle a little bit. And I'm not
I'm not being in jerk, but I just I always
noticed them, and I think their neat and I think
they're cool. I don't know if I would ever be
(15:19):
in a place where I could drive one. Yeah, but
if you have seen one of these, then first off,
you should know that you're very, very very lucky. And secondly,
I would like some photos. Pretty low production on these,
but again they were they were rebodied with locally formed
fiberglass bodies. So that's where the Australian UH manufacturing comes in.
(15:40):
I guess to this kind of a technicality, I'd say,
I guess. So, Yeah, they built a saloon style, they
build coops, they build coop convertibles and even a light
van variant. And they all had three hundred cc and
four hundred cc twin cylinder engines, so not that powerful.
But again, you don't really need anything that's strong. I
guess when you're in a tiny car. I mean people
(16:01):
are buying microcars to take him out to the salt flats,
you know, I mean definitely not. Next up, we have Heartnets,
which I think will be familiar to a lot of
people because this was formed by a former Holding boss,
Lawrence Heartnet, way back in nineteen forty nine. That's right.
The idea was to challenge Holden's market dominance, which is
kind of funny now when we think about what's going on.
(16:22):
It came from the Prime minister at the time. Yeah,
the Prime minister. The guy's name was Ben Chiefly, and
U Ben said that, yeah, there's just too much market
down it's going on through from Holden at the time.
We need something new to compete. And and this guy
from Holden, you know, this former Holden boss. His name
was Lawrence Hartnet. As you mentioned, I decided, well, the
way to do it is just to start up our
(16:43):
own company and we're gonna call it Heartnet. And they
made a couple of different models. They made the Tasman
Sedan and the Pacific Convertible. Now Tasman I can kind
of think I'm guessing that it comes from the Tasman
c which is right outside of Australia, between New Zealand
and Australia. Uh and then Pacific of course, is the
other side. Um. So it seems to make sense the
(17:04):
way they name these, but really very very very low
production on these things, right, Yeah, there were supply issues,
so the company went under in fifty five after they
built just around a hundred and twenty cars. Uh. There
were some station wagons as well that they dabbled in,
you know, but it just goes to show that making
(17:27):
cars can be a very risky business. Starting a company
can be a very very difficult business. I did not
see that they made station wagons. That's pretty cool, that's uh.
I kind of would like to see that because it
had an interesting shape. I mean it almost had a
pickup truck boxy look to it. I like looking at
pictures of these old Heartnet vehicles. I like like looking
at pictures of all these vehicles we talked about today.
(17:48):
But uh, you know, to imagine the uh, I guess
a wagon version of that. UM fascinated by wagons anyway,
so maybe that's it. Well, here's something that that I
think is interesting about the heartnet or the Tasman specifically,
and it's it's a similar issue to what plagued the Volt.
All right, So the original price the of this vehicle
(18:12):
was supposed to be less than three pounds. I was
wondering how you're going to tie this into the Vault,
And then before production and even started, they said it'll
be more around four pounds. Then January they said, okay,
it's gonna cost less than five pounds, but that counts
sales tax. H no cars have been delivered yet, and
(18:36):
the company said, okay, honestly five pounds and then you know,
plus sales tax. So that would make the purchase price
less than six hundred pounds. Uh. The first aluminum bodied
Pacific convertibles sold in April and fifty two calls six
hundred and nine pounds and that includes sales tax. So
(19:00):
they more than doubled the price of the vehicle from
when they first you know, announced the vehicle. Yeah, I mean,
it's it's just tough and I'm not seeing their bad cars.
But you know, we saw the same changing expectations with
the Volt pre production. Sure we did. Yeah, and you
know it was it was promised at a very low
level and then it then it came out it was
(19:20):
very expensive. Yeah, and this is a car. These are
cars that I don't know. They're so rare that I'd
be surprised if somebody had seen seen these maybe. Um,
I haven't looked to see if they're in a museum
or anything. Now. I'm sure that there's gotta be examples
somewhere hanging around the museums. I know that there are,
and I've seen a few of them, you know, with
(19:41):
just one and twenty cars produced. Um, I know I've
seen photos of them online, so I know they're hanging around.
I don't know if they're all, you know, still in Australia,
if they've you know, kind of I've been spread out
over the world or what. But I know, I know
I've seen examples of them. I've never seen a station
wagon version though. That's that was surprising to me. I
want to see what other people think about this next
when the light burn zet. This is a quirky little car.
(20:03):
And I believe that when I went to that that
microcar museum, I think I saw an example of this.
Oh that's cool. I'm pretty sure he had one there.
Um it was in uh, Madison, Georgia. Yeah, that guy
had everything the Microcar Museum. Anyway, it was this is
this is strange, man. It was again built by an
appliance manufacturer named Light Burning Company. Well they also built
cement mixers, so we can't just say they were just appliances,
(20:26):
but they made appliances, which we found so many times
in the past, you know with was it Kelvinator? Is
that the one? Who else was it? There were others? Right,
let's see. Oh, I'm thinking we had a lot oh
Tucker Tucker was making well that was more military equipment, sure,
I am, yeah, but I'm thinking of like home appliances,
(20:47):
even kitchen appliances. And I know we've got a short
list here somewhere of the toaster makers. Yeah, exactly right. Yeah,
there's some pretty interesting manufacturers, uh that have come out
of the home appliance that's strange. It makes sense because
they have the industrial base to do it. But this
this is a funny story about this one, Scott. When
I was doing some research and it I found it
(21:08):
on a couple of ugliest cars ever lists kidding, yeah,
which seemed really unfair to me. I mean, don't get
me wrong, it's not an absolute work of art. But
I don't think it's I don't I don't think it's
a dog. I don't think it deserves to be on
the Ugliest Car List by any means. I mean, it's
it's unusual looking for you. Like I said, it's a
(21:29):
quirky little car. Um, this is really strange. Okay, it
had no no, let's just get to it here. It
had no rear storage. UM. I guess there was a
reverse gear and some of them, well yeah, and in
most of them there was a sports model, which is
not the one we're talking about that we're talking about
just the light burns data the sedan model, right, and
I think they also had a utility in a UM
(21:51):
in addition to the sports body. UM. So the sports
model was a little bit different. But this vehicle did
not have any kind of reverse So if you're in
the car, you can imagine that's very um, you know,
difficult to get around. A problem to get around. I
guess it'll be a parking lot. So what you would
do is you would switch the vehicle off and the
engine would be started in reverse, and then you would
have effectively you would have four reverse gears. Because it
(22:13):
was the same forward as backwards, So whatever the top
speed was in forward gear was also your top speed
and reverse gear. Theoretically, what's the worst that could happen
if you could drive that You could actually shift this
car and reverse if you wanted to. I mean from
you know, first, second, third, fourth the way through. Very
very strange and very low production as well. So there
was something like four hundred of these cars produced total
(22:34):
and that was it, and had some really weird things
like the fuel tank was located behind the dashboard and
had a gravity feed system. UM. You know, the we
mentioned the the Sports Model. UM, I think that one
had a slightly bigger engine than the Zeta that we're
talking about, because the Zeta model had a three cc
twin cylinder engine and the Sports Model had a what
(22:57):
they called the big block c C, which is if
you think about it, they're big block engine. UM that's
about that's about a half a leader displacement. Really, it's
a very small engine for even for what they call
the Sports Model. And if you want to see what
the Sports Model was adapted from. UM, again this is
a very low production. Only forty eight of those Sports
Models were produced, and they were based on a car
(23:19):
called the Meadows Frisky. So unusual vehicles to say the least.
But you know, check out the the light Burns Zeta
sports Model and the Meadows Frisky and tell us what
do you think about those. Let's go back to something
a little bit bigger, and let's also go back to
rotary engines with the Mazda road Pacer. That's so weird.
(23:39):
I can't even say this with a straight face, but
this is a a Mazda car. So it was sold
in Japan from seventy seven. Yeah, and it was well,
it was actually shipped to Japan because it was built
in Australia and it was based on a Holding vehicle.
It was built based on the Holding h J and
h X Premier. And uh. The strange thing about this
is that those cars typically had um I think I
(24:02):
believe it's an inline six engine or a V eight engine.
So these are great big Yeah, these are big, big vehicles.
You gotta picture of nineteen seventies, mid nineteen seventies. So
when did they put so they shipped them too Japan
without without the engines, and Japan or Mazda decided that
they were going to add their third team B rotary engine,
which is the Wankel engine designed by Felix Wankel. We've
(24:24):
talked about that in the past, but um I can
tell you that the power output was about the same.
The horse power output was about the same between the
three point three leaders six cylinder engine from the holding car,
but it had way less torque, right, Yeah, which meant
that it was pretty slow. End of the eight hundred
that were produced, uh, most did not satisfy the owners.
(24:48):
This is, however, the only rotary engine GM product. Yeah.
Strange that they would put this smaller Wankel engine, this
rotary engine in this giant land yad of a vehicle
when it was luxury car. Virus that we're looking to
buy this. Yeah, like uh, fancy French cheese and Chinese food.
These are two great things that don't go well together.
That's a good way to put it. Ben Alright, so
(25:09):
let's let's move on. Here's a here's a strange one.
This is This is one that was built as part
of a challenge, which I always find interesting and again
low production. They built one thousand examples back in one
and this is the Mitsubishi Sigma Peter where it's special Yeah,
and Australian fans will notice will of course remember Peter
(25:31):
ware It. Uh. Here's the challenge. At least according to
the anecdote, he was challenged to create a better car
after he complained to a Mitsubishi engineer about the way
the Sigma handles. Yeah, now Peter where it was a
He was a motoring and motorsport journalist. He's also a
race car driver, so we know this stuff right. And
then he went on to do other things too. I
(25:52):
mean I think he became the um co writer on
the show Torque, which was around from I think nineteen
seventy three. About nineteen eighty he opened his own driver
training school, like you know, post licensed driver training school,
so you know, way to perfect your driving. I upraded
that until about night. I think it's called Peter Warett
Advanced Driving. And then he was also a pit reporter
at the Bathroost one thousand nine three. UM. But according
(26:15):
to him, he converted the Sigma into one of the
great family cars the decade is how he put it.
And he did this with a lot of different a
lot of different ways. What he did is he upped
the horse power. He went from uh and this is
the strangeness here between us and the and the Australian.
They do the power and kill a wat. So it's
seventy two point nine kilowatts, which is about nine horse power,
(26:36):
and he up that to about seventy six kilowatts up
to about a hundred and two horse power, so a
minor increase, but still I guess significant. It's two point
six liter engine. Yeah, he fixed the shock tuning, got
this brakes all around, five speed, manual, fifteen inch oloy wheels,
Morelli tires um and of course a special paint job
with striped decals and all that, and a cosmetic kits.
(26:58):
So he's got Ricardo front seats and an autographed steering
wheel by Momo. Yeah. So you know, anything that carries
a signature like this is a special or signature edition
is usually a popular seller. And I wonder if a
thousand was was just kind of a limit for them,
or if it just necessarily wasn't that popular. I'm not
exactly the shore on the story of this, but I
would think that it's just a limited production vehicle that
(27:20):
they never intended to build more than a thousand of right, Yeah,
I think it was more just for the publicity and
improving a point. Uh. However, there was a car that
had only only around a hundred and twenty produced, and
that was the Overlander four wheel drive. Yeah, this is
one that was in production. Oh man, it's actually a
(27:40):
long production. It's it's from venty six to nine and
only a hundred and twenty. You think about that. This
is based on the Holding h J and HZ. Yes,
that's right. Now, I did have other things too. It
had a data transfer case and had a well front
and rear off road axles and wheels and tires and
suspension that are you know, also off approved. It was
(28:00):
a it's kind of a rugged outback type vehicle. I guess.
I mean it's something intended for off road use, right. Yeah.
And this was produced, uh, not just by Holding, but
by a company in Tasmania called Vehicle Engineering and Modifications
p L. So if you see one of these, even
if you don't think it's the most attractive car, go
(28:22):
ahead and pat yourself on the back because you have
seen you you have won the lottery of car viewing. Yeah,
there's a you know, a hundred and twenty produced and
the last one is produced what some twenty six years
ago now, so a long time ago, they had three
body styles. They had a wagon, they had a ute,
and then they had a kind of a heavy duty
you which was the one ton version and uh not
popular at all. I mean it just didn't sell well. Uh.
(28:44):
They found that most people that were in the same
market for something like this, for the for the same
vehicle bought the Toyota land Cruiser instead. Yeah, that's it's
kind of tough to take. But um, I guess if
you you know, you see the sales numbers on the decline,
and you see that, you know, the people that are
interested in your vehicle are going over next door to
the Toyota dealership and just picking up the land Cruiser.
(29:05):
It doesn't take long to understand that, you know this,
this vehicle is not going to hang out too long.
It's going to be quickly off the market. Right And
with that we arrive at our last obscure or strange
Australian vehicle on the list, and Scott, that is the
Ricaro Mystery. Yeah, this is strange has another name to
(29:27):
the arcade to pain taipe An strange strange names. Right now,
this is what this became and I'll explain it in
just a second. But to me, this vehicle, just to
describe it looks a little bit like the AMC Eagle
that was sold here in the United States, that four
by four AMC Eagle car very similar to it. And
this is a nine seven concept from the Sydney Motor
(29:48):
Show and it's it's uh, while the designer this is
somebody interesting, I guess Peter Kid Yeah, Peter. Now, Peter
is the guy that was responsible for UM designing. He
was a Ford designer at one time, and he designed
the mad Max Interceptor um or helped design the mad
Max Interceptor for the film, the one that we're talking
(30:08):
about in the film, and um that car was the
nineteen seventy three x b GT Ford Falcon Coope and
it was kind of a high performance police interceptor car
that was you know, built for the film intended to
look pretty evil looking. You know, it's kind of kind
kind of a dangerous look pretty on the road exactly, right.
So this is the guy that's that's building this vehicle,
or was you know, aiding in the design of this vehicle, right,
(30:31):
And Uh, this vehicle itself, the Mysteria was built from
a hold in Toronta. Uh, and that ultimately gave rise
to the Taipe hand body kit. But here's the interesting thing.
This was originally as a concept car. It was just
supposed to be a one off car that allowed Ricardo
to showcase some of their stuff. Yes, but it had
(30:51):
other variations too. It wasn't just a Toronto hatchback right.
It had a chopped tail, It had a shovel nose design.
It also had wheel arch flares I find very attractive.
As we all know, we had also found that the
type hand went through uh several different iterations of the
body kit, right, and you can get a version called Bobcat.
(31:12):
You can get one with an A C eight ducks
on it. You can also see uh, you can also
see variations on the nose and the hatch at the end.
But I think one thing that's interesting here is UH
to ask ourselves what happened to the cars that this
(31:33):
guy was designing, you know, like, how far did he
take it? Yeah? Well it was the plan was for
low van production numbers. But the the plan, however, you
know they had laid it out, it just didn't add
up completely. And eventually they said, well we've got a
good design here. We gotta do something with it, and
they sold the body kits um as that as something
they called the Type hand kit through Arcada Pain's coach
(31:54):
building business. So there's a way to get a kit
to make your your vehicle, your Toronto based hatchback look
just like this one. Yeah, I think that's pretty cool.
And also this is completely tangential. But this is something
I'm excited enough about to end the podcast on Scott.
(32:15):
You know about the new Mad Max coming out, right,
I do. And I've seen just very little of it
so far though, but some of the vehicles that they've shown, Yeah,
the vehicles amazing. So what I would like to do
is follow up in the future with an update on
the cars of Mad Max. Maybe we can start with
the Interceptor and the original and walk all the way
(32:35):
up to the newest mad Man. I would love to
do that. I'm a huge fan of that of that movie,
and I think that, um, some of the newer ones
that I've seen, I've just seen a glimpse of some
of them, you know what they're what they're showing us now,
And uh, I really really like this and we hope
that you enjoyed checking out this show. This is one
of those episodes that I feel like is a a
(32:56):
rabbit hole, you know, and it's very easy to fall
down into the streeve some of these cars, as we
said earlier, right to us and let us know if
you want us to do an entire episode on one
of these and it just might happen. In the meantime,
you can check out Car Stuff Show dot com to
see every episode we've ever done. We even have some
videos up because we're moving on up in the world.
(33:18):
If you want to see some stuff that doesn't quite
make it to the show, uh, please do follow us.
We are Car Stuff hs W on Facebook, on Twitter. Uh,
super easy and I don't know, we're pretty funny. We
get our chuckles in sometimes. Alright, Well, if you have
some advice for us about jokes we should be making
topics we should be covering. Yeah, I think you're a
(33:38):
funny guy, but minds all a little flat? Are you kidding?
I'm I'm the word. I'm clearly not the brains of
this comedy operation. You tell jokes in here all the time.
In fact, before our podcast sometimes you're you're telling jokes
were cracking up with It's are deep and go on
the airth Well, you know, some of those jokes can't
go on the air. That's true. That's true. Good. Um,
so that's a very good point that you made. If
(34:00):
you have any jokes that can be on the air,
then please feel free to mail them along with the
topic suggestion to our address we are our stuff and
how stuff work dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics. This at how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com.
CarStuff News
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Scott Benjamin
Ben Bowlin
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