Another mystery car

[JeffreyB]

This is a fascinating thread!
The more I look at this car the more convinced I am that it's French. I think it might be a one-off design exercise by Jacques Durand (Atla, Scora, Arista, Sovam and Jide). Gull wing doors were a recurring theme of his designs together with wrap around screens (usually at the rear). The Atla was based on the Renault 4CV so the proportions seem to be about right. Could our mystery car be a one-off based on the Atla?




Note the wheel disc similarity.


La Sovam 1966

Edited by JeffreyB on Friday 19th February 23:47

Edited by JeffreyB on Friday 19th February 23:49

[galro]

It can be anything from what I know now (which is not much). While that is said I do not think it is based on a Renault 4cv as I can't imagine that this car would be rear-engined. First off I'm not sure if you could even fit a engine and a driver's compartment so close to each other at the rear, and if you manage to do that then I can't imagine how awful it would drove with all that weight at the rear and nothing up front.

I'm also not sure it is one of Jacques Durands creation. It may sound harsh to him, but I think our mystery car is much better designed than what he did (that I'm aware of). It have a completely smooth bonnet that likely barely clears the engine underneath, have a continuous line from the headlights to the wings, have wheels that completely fill the wheel wells. It basically looks like a well proportioned, clean design with enough unique details to keep the interest. Durands cars are interesting but they also have a certain homemade/kit car feeling to them that I do not get from mystery car in the same way.

Edited by galro on Saturday 20th February 00:40

[Dr G]

I like the Jacques DUrand idea; a quick Google brings up 10 cars that make you think "that's a bit like it" - but there's nothing with the arch flanges, centre fuel filler, overriders... The search (and frustration!) must continue for now...

[Rich G]

douglasb said:

I realise that it is difficult to compare things in the photo, but if the van had the same size wheels (13 inch) as the 100E saloon that it was based on then I think that 12 inch wheels for the mystery car are realistic.

I think you are very wrong about 12-inch wheels - given that the 300E has 13-inch wheels, I'd say the mystery car is running 14-inch wheels at least, if not 15-inch.

AndrewCrown said:

[838HNK]

This isn't it but it is another close but no cigar .. the MGA Panamerica Special

[threespires]

That MGA is amazing, you can just make out the origins.
It would seem to have a V8 engine. I did a search but was unable to find any info.

[galro]

Another car having something of the same design going on, at least at the rear with the fins, is the coupe iteration of the Skoda 1100 race car.

[threespires]

I like that, very attractive. Not seen it before

[prpr]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so perhaps the question has already been asked, but does anyone recognise the location? Were there any small scale manufacturers based in the area? What chance the car is being brought around the block for a brief test?

[galro]

prpr said:

I haven't read through the entire thread, so perhaps the question has already been asked, but does anyone recognise the location? Were there any small scale manufacturers based in the area? What chance the car is being brought around the block for a brief test?

It's here: https://www.google.no/maps/@51.5146708,-0.1467345,...

Where Vere Street exit into Oxford Street.

[galro]

Another car with wrap-around windshield and gullwing doors was the Arnott-Climax GT. It also had a low bonnet line and a drivers compartment that was pushed very far back, but a lot more messy design than our mystery car imho. Few pictures exist so I'm not sure if they offered more body styles or even if they offered a standardized body style at all. They were made in London till 1957.





Closer look at the survivor:
https://youtu.be/78BPk8_yvIo?t=2m2s

Edited by galro on Saturday 20th February 22:50

[threespires]

That's an interesting car. The 'screen is very similar - good find

[dryden]

They were probably bodied by Williams and Pritchard. Look at the shut lines on the roof, the way they follow the windscreen and square back.... it is the same. The Arnolt would be a little earlier, and for a different customer.

[galro]

threespires said:

That's an interesting car. The 'screen is very similar - good find

It's not only the screen. The doors (what we can see) seems to largely be the same design with the way they follows the screen over the roof and cut the pillars in half, although to be fair I guess it is somewhat limited how many ways you could design that type of door. Both cars also have a surprisingly high roof-line relative to the windshield height, almoust like they had intended to make it into a Zagato double bubble roof just forgot the middle sunken part. Another thing is that both cars appears to be front-mid-engined with the engine pushed up against the firewall. To me it looks like it could either be a re-body of a Arnott after a crash, a car specially ordered by a customer wanting a more streetable car, or a (likely external imho) styling excercise to redesign the gt into a more proper grand touring car. I certainly think it is possibility at least.

dryden said:

They were probably bodied by Williams and Pritchard. Look at the shut lines on the roof, the way they follow the windscreen and square back.... it is the same. The Arnolt would be a little earlier, and for a different customer.

I've tried searching and I have found no mention of Williams and Pritchard relating to the car. What little information I have found about Arnott suggest that they did the manufacturing of their bodies in-house. I don't think either really looks like the style of cars Williams and Pritchard built but I have to confess that I'm not really familiar with their products.

Edited by galro on Sunday 21st February 01:21

[530dTPhil]

The windscreens are quite different in detail. The A pillar angles are almost vertical on the race car but inclined forward on the road car. I would suggest that the race car screen is some sort of Perspex or polycarbonate material as the shape and corner curvature would be almost impossible to achieve. The screen on the mystery car does appear to be either a front or rear screen from a production car with a far more straightforward shape and would have been made in toughened glass. The technology to bend laminated glass to those sort of shapes did not fully develop for some years after the suspected date of the photograph.

[838HNK]

The Fairthorpe family I think use the back window of an early Vauxhall Victor (pre 1958) which has similar curves to most of the cars with the "close but no cigar" prize.

The one main thing is I've not found any car with similar front headlight shrouds but I am also convinced of the "French" direction with those wheels.

I hope we don't find out for a while as its turning up loads of stuff I'd never seen before - love the Skoda ..

[galro]

530dTPhil said:

The windscreens are quite different in detail. The A pillar angles are almost vertical on the race car but inclined forward on the road car. I would suggest that the race car screen is some sort of Perspex or polycarbonate material as the shape and corner curvature would be almost impossible to achieve. The screen on the mystery car does appear to be either a front or rear screen from a production car with a far more straightforward shape and would have been made in toughened glass. The technology to bend laminated glass to those sort of shapes did not fully develop for some years after the suspected date of the photograph.

Keep in mind that we are looking at the mystery car from a angle from the front while we are looking at the Arnott from a angle from the rear. I don't think there is such a difference in the a-pillar. The picture of the mystery car makes it appears like the a-pillars forward angle continues in the windshield over the roof, which would clearly not work.

Also keep in mind that Arnott, from what we know, only produced approximately 25 units between 1951 and 1957. This means that it was likely large design variation between each cars and everything was probably hand-built down to smallest details.

I'm not saying it is necessarily is a Arnott, but I do think it is likely it is in some way related to the GT shown above given the design on the door/roofs on it and the mystery car.

[uk66fastback]

All very interesting! I'm surprised the mystery car seems to have such a crude rear window ... After all the curves of the front affair, it seems to have a basic flat pane of glass at the rear there ...

[galro]

I took a screenshot of car in the video from approximately the same angle as the mystery car is seen at and added a line to represent the contour of the side window on the mystery car (free hand in paint, so not that good mind you).



I'm not sure the mystery car have a more aggressive forward angle to it than that.

[sun.and.rain]

Wee bit more to think about, -

Mystery car appears to be a very short wheelbase car. Simple measurements of the image based on wheel size 12 to 15 inches put the wheelbase maybe 60 to 72 inches.
Maybe. . .

When this thread first started I thought the car was a prop for film/tv.

Edited by sun.and.rain on Sunday 21st February 16:14