You learn something new... - Cars you didn't know existed, until now!

[Tornado]

The Catera didn't make any sense as it was.

 

[TheCracker]

A Vauxhall limo doesn't make sense to me, would it have made a little more sense if it was based off the Cadillac version?

It's not really a limo in the sense of ferrying VIP's to and from important business meetings (or more likely, school kids to proms) - it's a taking mourners to and from funerals kind of limo.

 

[TDZdave]

So this image came through my facebook feed a few months ago, was cleaning out my SkyDrive on my phone and found it again, I know its a Ford, and I know its based on the 2008-2015 FG Falcon, but this is a coupé, and we dont get them here in Australia, does anyone know if this is just a concept car? Production car? Or aftermarket build? I cant find any information on it at all,

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Subaru RX, I was learning about this for when I was looking up the Leone.

 

[The Vanishing Boy]

-> ...

So this image came through my facebook feed a few months ago, was cleaning out my SkyDrive on my phone and found it again, I know its a Ford, and I know its based on the 2008-2015 FG Falcon, but this is a coupé, and we dont get them here in Australia, does anyone know if this is just a concept car? Production car? Or aftermarket build? I cant find any information on it at all,

^ I'm afraid that it's an expertly done 'chop. Since I tried to search it through Bing and multiple pictures including this one showed up.

 

[Niku Driver HC]

And now for some curiosly bi-nation American/Italian metal;

The Dodge Daytona Decepzione. Complete with an American/Italian hybrid word, because this hides more than its Daytona body would suggest. What does it hide? This, apparently;

Yes, the hood scoop doesn't lie; the Viper was not the only Chrysler Group car to hold a Lamborghini engine hostage inside its engine bay, because this Daytona is rocking a V8 block straight from a Lamborghini Jalpa. But if that wasn't enough, the team responsible for it also managed to shoehorn a 4WD system into the darn thing... Sadly, because the engine was a tad bit too tall for the Spirit-based chassis (check first picture for that sick ground clearance), the project didn't go ahead.

I do wonder if the car still lives to this day, because darn, it's quite the combination...

 

[TexRex]

(check first picture for that sick ground clearance)

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Well, I'm calling it what it is. After all, if they didn't reinforce that oil pan, you'd rip it right off going down the Corkscrew. Now that is a different kind of Italian supercar engine issues...

Amazing edit: Ok, this needs to be mentioned now, because it's something else which I wasn't expecting, and was found through the Decepzione's search (since it cames from the same site where I got its pictures); first of all, meet the Suzuki Twin;

Not much about this one; slow, small and with mediocre interior quality, it couldn't come close to licking the Smart Fortwo's shoes. But for all this car does wrong, there is one thing that may rank amongst the "Greatest Things Done with a Kei-car" list. Courtesy of Japanese tuners garage Ducks Garden, I give you this;

Ok, I have to admit it; I love this. It's glorious, all of it; the fake Porsche badge, the colored rims, but above all else, that pun-tastic name. I mean, that kit sells itself for all I care. I want to meet the man who had this idea, buy him a cup of sake and offer him a medal. And then tell him "You can live without regrets, you have achieved all you could do in a mortal life"... 👍

 

[TexRex]

Well, I'm calling it what it is. After all, if they didn't reinforce that oil pan, you'd rip it right off going down the Corkscrew. Now that is a different kind of Italian supercar engine issues...

Yeah, I was laughing at the "low hanging fruit."

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Yeah, I was laughing at the "low hanging fruit."

Did you really need to stoop that low?

Also, you should look to the post above yours, you may laugh a little...

 

[Heldenzeit]

Ducks-Garden is a great name for a tuning company. Its up there with Racing Service Manatee.

 

[Obelisk]

I want that Twin! Without the porsche badging, though...

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Ducks-Garden is a great name for a tuning company. Its up there with Racing Service Manatee.

That does sound like a fantastic name indeed, very credible. I have no clue if Ducks-Garden is still in business, but I want to see if they kept up their sheer greatness. Imagine all the Porsche keis; the Suzuki Alto GT3RS, the the Daihatsu Copen Speedster, the Suzuki GT3some... Gold mines, I'm tellin' ya.

I want that Twin! Complete with the porsche badging, though...

FTFY, just for clarity's sake...

 

[Tornado]

And now for some curiosly bi-nation American/Italian metal;

The Dodge Daytona Decepzione. Complete with an American/Italian hybrid word, because this hides more than its Daytona body would suggest. What does it hide? This, apparently;

Yes, the hood scoop doesn't lie; the Viper was not the only Chrysler Group car to hold a Lamborghini engine hostage inside its engine bay, because this Daytona is rocking a V8 block straight from a Lamborghini Jalpa. But if that wasn't enough, the team responsible for it also managed to shoehorn a 4WD system into the darn thing... Sadly, because the engine was a tad bit too tall for the Spirit-based chassis (check first picture for that sick ground clearance), the project didn't go ahead.

I do wonder if the car still lives to this day, because darn, it's quite the combination...

Amusingly, Dodge did this after GM jad already tried and abandoned the very similar Feretta:

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Amusingly, Dodge did this after GM jad already tried and abandoned the very similar Feretta:

Hmm, interesting. Was this Feretta packaged with the same drivetrain as the Dodge, or did it pack something completely different?

And still on the topic of Ducks-Garden, believe or not, they are still in business! And not only that, guess what I found;

Yes, it's a Daihatsu Copen that is made to look like a 356 Speedster. I was kidding, damm Japan! How in the heck did I call this!?

 

[Heldenzeit]

They are actually.

RS Manatee makes heim jointed control arms for Miata.

 

[TexRex]

Seems a great deal more effort was put into the Copen than the Suzuki. I'd prefer the Copen as-is, mind you, but I'm loving that rebody.

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Seems a great deal more effort was put into the Copen than the Suzuki. I'd prefer the Copen as-is, mind you, but I'm loving that rebody.

If I had to guess, the GT2Win must have been one of Ducks's first projects. The Copen seems to be a far more modern replica, and a good one at that. The Porsche details are more obvious and better laid out, and the overall shape is pretty faithful. Still, just because of sheer comedy value, I like the Twin more. It's just one big hilarious gag at a crap slow Suzuki city car's expense.

 

[Heldenzeit]

They've been around awhile. I remember seeing some of their Miata products in an old HyperRev I have.

 

[Obelisk]

So many cool cars in here, and I'm stuck in a town full of generic somethings. I'll see if there are any obscure cars around here.

 

[Tornado]

The Feretta was only Fwd, but was otherwise pretty similar. It had the same sort of ~3.5L, ~250 HP fancy quad cam V8 as the Decepzione, but it was built for that car by Isuzu. It was what GM was kicking around as a potential Camaro replacement.

 

[Niku Driver HC]

The Feretta was only Fwd, but was otherwise pretty similar. It had the same sort of ~3.5L, ~250 HP fancy quad cam V8 as the Decepzione, but it was built for that car by Isuzu. It was what GM was kicking around as a potential Camaro replacement.

An Isuzu V8, huh? Now that's interesting, I can't recall anything from the brand this side of the 4200R that had such an engine... Although I doubt that a FWD coupe could really fill the gap of a Camaro, considering how short-lived the Daytona was against the Charger.

 

[Obelisk]

The Feretta was only Fwd, but was otherwise pretty similar. It had the same sort of ~3.5L, ~250 HP fancy quad cam V8 as the Decepzione, but it was built for that car by Isuzu. It was what GM was kicking around as a potential Camaro replacement.

FWD and V8s do not mix well if I remember right. I know the 2006-2009 Impala had a V8 in it, as do the new ones, but there's gotta be a ton of electrical aides to help the car keep the power down.

 

[TexRex]

FWD and V8s do not mix well if I remember right.

Cadillac managed for 35 years.

 

[Obelisk]

Cadillac managed for 35 years.

Props to them, then.

 

[Dennisch]

Amusingly, Dodge did this after GM jad already tried and abandoned the very similar Feretta:

Lawdylaawd. I absolutely love that thing.

It's a true shame that the Beretta is such a piece de poo because if it was any better I would buy one in a heartbeat and style it like the Feretta.

Edit.

I think I need to be quick, as there are just 2 left for sale in the Dutchylands.

 

[Tornado]

An Isuzu V8, huh? Now that's interesting, I can't recall anything from the brand this side of the 4200R that had such an engine... Although I doubt that a FWD coupe could really fill the gap of a Camaro, considering how short-lived the Daytona was against the Charger.

Long post coming.








The circumstances with the Daytona is a bit different in that regard. Dodge could give all of the media buzz for the Decepzione that they wanted, but 1989 was a pretty terrible year to give obviously fake reasons for canceling an engineering prototype. Even as the first Daytonas rolled off assembly lines, nevermind the Shelby Turbo Z ones or the Decepzione, the ink was drying on the contract for the Diamond Star Motors plant. The fact that the AWD Eclipse/Laser/Talon came out of the program, designed from the start for AWD and 200 horsepower instead of a discontinued Lamborghini engine that didn't really fit and a cobbled together AWD system, is what doomed the Decepzione. The top spec Daytona Turbo could still reasonably compete with the top spec Eclipse GS-T on paper, and the interior redesign in 1990 helped immensely; but the Eclipse was clearly the more modern car with the better chassis and it was a little cheaper. Why Dodge even bothered with the later IROC R/T I never really understood, so there was no chance they were going to try and put the Decepzione into production as soon as the AWD DSM cars started hitting the market regardless of how much ground clearance it had.




The Feretta was much more complicated, because of GM's incompetence in the 1980s. GM in the mid 80s were working on a dedicated offshoot of the W-Body (at the time known as GM-10) called GM80. It was to use the same initial starting point as a W-Body, but have a steel spaceframe and composite body panels like Saturns, Dustbuster minivans and the Fiero. The GM80 was the car that was supposed to replace the Camaro/Firebird by the end of the 1980s; but Oldsmobile was supposed to get one too. Because the cars used the Fiero-style production process, they actually were going to be very different from each other in styling.

For example, here is the Olds:

And here is the Firebird and Camaro (Camaro is the red one):

They were constantly showing up in car magazines at the time from spy shots of preproduction mules. The doors and windows (and mono wiper!) were all the same, but that was about it.


By the beginning of 1986 the program was put on hold and the Camaro/Firebird replacement pushed back to 1991, because it had gone quite a bit over budget mostly because they didn't consider that making a much larger car than the Fiero would dramatically increase the price of the production process the Fiero used. They spent a ton of money trying to figure out how to make it cheaper before concluding that nothing they could do would make it much less expensive than just building them out of regular steel (which would kill the differentiation), and they were having serious trouble with the FWD transmission development to support a car with enough power to call it sporty. At the time GM needed the money and resourced to be put into the Saturn brand (which at the time was falling behind schedule) and the GM-10 (since the Taurus was in dealers and the program was already a year behind and billions of dollars over budget). By the end of 1986 GM cancelled the whole thing, but didn't comment on what was happening to the Firebird/Camaro after that. They quickly had Isuzu put together the Feretta to gauge interest in how much people would be interested in a high performance Beretta instead of replacing the Camaro/Firebird. The Feretta had an engine that was in line with what GM wanted to power the top version, but the GM80 platform was cancelled before GM had started working on specifics. If response was good, they were just going to kill the Camaro/Firebird entirely and just sell fast Berettas with GM 80 styling and hotter tech laden V8s, and it would allow them to bring the launch date back to their original plans. Probably what they should have done in the first place, since the Beretta was a very popular car when it launched, but that's neither here nor there; and it's good that they didn't because the L-Body platform was eventually infamous for how willowy it was.


1987 was also when Ford started doing preproduction work and testing on what became the 1989 Probe, but was supposed to be the 1989 Mustang. And rumors had been getting out about it up until this happened:

Ford had been trying to keep a lid on it to try and beat GM to to the punch with a Mustang replacement since the GM80 problems were well known, but it blew up in their faces. People hated what became the Probe, and hated that Ford was going through with it even though gas prices were going back down, and hated that they believed Ford had let the Mustang wither on the vine in order to justify it all. Ford didn't expect any of this, so they just pushed the Mustang back to 1994 while they reworked it on the cheap and sold the Probe anyway.




So GM ultimately did the same thing. They cancelled the development of the engine entirely in favor of doing the quick and dirty conversion of the 60 degree V6 in the Cavalier and Beretta to a twin cam for use in the Lumina Z34. This showed a lot of promise in development, but was again stymied by lack of suitable transmissions because they wanted the automatic and manual to have similar performance and the Northstar transmission wasn't completed yet (and probably wouldn't have fit anyway) and had to be dramatically detuned. The hottest Beretta got the Olds Quad Four instead, and GM quickly showed a couple of styling concepts that were updated/wilder versions of the styling from the GM80 cars to reassure everyone that the Camaro/Firebird weren't going FWD:

And then toned them down again for the production models, which mechanically was mostly a strengthened and stiffened version of the previous generation with powertrains that debuted in the Corvette when it was re-freshened in 1991 (1992 models had some of these improvements too). That's why the 1993 Camaro and especially the 1993 Firebird have something like a foot of empty space in front of the engine block before the front end of the front bumper, because they adapted the styling and hardpoints from originally FWD cars.








In a somewhat ironic note, in the time between GM canceling GM80 for production costs and debuting the 1993 Camaro/Firebird, they managed to come up with a plastic composite production process that made it viable to use in the final car anyway.

FWD and V8s do not mix well if I remember right. I know the 2006-2009 Impala had a V8 in it, as do the new ones, but there's gotta be a ton of electrical aides to help the car keep the power down.

While what you're saying is mostly true (Cadillac never quite managed to crack that egg, and when they got closest with the final Seville it was already obviously too late for them to have have continued trying) and that particular car was a disaster, GM actually put a decent amount of effort into the W-Body V8s except for the Impala. The Grand Prix had a bunch of suspension tricks and heavy duty parts, bigger brakes and a strengthened steering rack, transmission fiddling and some nifty ideas with tires to try and mitigate the disadvantages for shoving a big 330lb-ft V8 in a chassis designed 20 years prior for 200 lb-ft V6s. The Buick got most of the same stuff, but tuned softer. The Impala didn't get any of it. All of them were transmission eating disasters (again, just like the problems GM had faced with the same transmission in the 1980s) that only two years later would be matched by the very same Impala with the 3.6L and 6 speed auto in a drag race, but the Impala (and Monte Carlo) was the worst of the lot because GM did everything they could to make the sticker price around the same as a V6 Accord or whatever.

 

[Niku Driver HC]

Long post coming.

Well Tornado, you never cease to amaze, that is quite the rich backstory you put together. To think that the Decepzione was an accidental Ecplise rival at the wrong time never really crossed my mind, but when you put it together like that, it did make far more sense to cash off the Mitsubishi deal and profit on far more modern platforms and deliver stronger cars for the performance market, than using a hotted-up Lambo Daytona that was not quite put together.

But the Feretta's story is even more incredible; a project that was done to control damage after the GM80's termination, simply done to gauge interest and eventually failing due to GM's mismanagement... I cannot help but to imagine how different things would have been if the GM80 would have gotten its way, ending the Firebird/Camaro's career prematurely and creating a new breed of GM sports cars. And to think that by the time the F-Body duo was back in action, GM had the technology to make the GM80 a reality in the end... Bad timing; a classic automotive staple, especially for General Motors.

The '89 Mustang story is also quite surprising for me; I knew that the car had Mustang vibes, but to actually be heraled as a true Mustang... That was a daring plan, but it backfired simply because the Mustang's fanbase would not allow it either way. There are some minefields that were simply not worth crossing in the 1980's...

Thanks for the very informative post, it is clear that you have your American car history down pat.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

The Chevrolet Monza Mirage, I like the stripes.

 

[Razor440]

The Chevrolet Monza Mirage, I like the stripes.

Inspired by wannabe race cars.