Mystery Car!
Last Friday something happened, a disturbance in the Hooniverse if you will. Or maybe it was just that Taco Bell I had for lunch. Whatever the source, last Friday’s Mystery Car! failed to be solved within an hour of its posting, its typical outcome. It also saw a second hour pass without solution, and then a third, a fourth, and then the whole weekend! Eventually I gave up checking to see if anyone got it, although from what I hear, it was finally solved on Monday. For those of you who didn’t revisit the post, the answer is after the jump.
Today you get a chance to redeem yourselves with a car with which many of you should be familiar, and which is resplendent in a what could best be described as metallic pinot. That’s all you have to go on, oh, plus that and the image above, which shows off some sexy haunches. The question is, whose haunches are those? It’s up to you to fill in the blanks, make, model, year and engine. And while you’re ruminating on that, check out last week’s answer below the fold.
And there it is. Nineteen eighty six’s the Cobra 230 ME, displayed at the Los Angeles International Auto Show in the picture above. The Cobra ME may have been but an auto show blip in the public’s eye, but it was an amazing almost-was for Ford. The ME was originally going to be Ford’s sports car to niche between Pontiac’s Fiero and Chevy’s Corvette. The failure of the Fiero and Toyota MR2 to light the sales charts ablaze, meant that Ford’s contender would never make it past the bean counters.
But what makes a failed development turned car show throwaway so important? Well, the Cobra ME came out of Ford’s GN34 project, a mid-engined sports car that was planned to share its engine with a special edition of a car considered to be the company’s bread and butter, the Taurus. Ford didn’t do the engineering for the GN34 in-house, contracting out chassis development to Roush Engineering, and that of a potential V6 power plant to Japan’s Yamaha. When the Cobra was cancelled Ford wrote off the Roush work, but the 220-horse quad-cam V6 intended to sit aft of driver and passenger in their sportster still found its way under the hood of that wildly successful family hauler, creating the legendary Taurus SHO.
That makes the Cobra ME a significant part of Ford’s history, and one of the most vexing Mystery Car! contenders we’ve ever had.
Image: [Chris Flanders Photography via Flickr]
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Mid-engine sports car? I was soooo close last week.
<img src="http://www.bittenandbound.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/NSX-Super-Bowl-Commercial.jpg">
Hey, it's funnyman Jerry Seinfeld, pushing the new NSX!
One of thew few commercials I've enjoyed so far
Oh, I completely agree, but, then again, I am an unabashed Seinfeld fan. But if there is a product for him to shill, an NSX is pretty great.
how is he pushing it from the side? Without touching it?
When I looked at the Facebook announcement of this post, I thought to myself "Surely they wouldn't make it that easy, would they? It's a 70's 911!"
No. No, it isn't.
I immediately thought Porsche Beutler.
<img src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4053/5165525353_e4e2282ddd.jpg" width="500" height="328" alt="1957 Beutler Porsche 696 Spezial (04)">
Ooohhh. Pretty. Too bad the Panamera didn't get a little of that in it.
Lancia Aurelia?
Lancia Aurelia B20 Coupe don't have the body line under the window.
<img src="http://www.partaj.cz/imgs/italove/lancia_aurelia_7.jpg" width="450/">
The windows don't look quite right and I haven't found any pictures of one with a gas door there. It is a coupe, from some time in the mid-late 1950s to early 1960s, probably coach built and probably European.
OH THANK GOD. I thought it was a DB4 Zagato and I would have called you out on that, but the fuel door is roundy instead of square.
I was going the Aston route too, nice to feel like I maybe had a half-decent guess on these once in a while.
It kinda looks like a 1950 Ferrari 195 Inter…so I guess that.
Also the 2.3L V12 if it is indeed that car
I was thinking Zagato as well. Perhaps a Fiat coupe? It is not an Elborata or a version of the beautiful 1950s 8v (some are Zagato) that I can find. Those un-round wheel arches hold a clue.
Pinot doesn't come from Italy though so perhaps this is a one-off from the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
My first thought was Cisitalia 202 Berlinetta – but the gas cap is on the wrong side…
Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 SS Villa d'Este?
<img src="http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/1357/rcl15603alfabiggg3.jpg">
I suppose it could also be a 6C 2300SS Ville d'Este, which is very similar to the above.
Bertone perhaps? The Abarth 750 Record has the wheel arch and the fender bulge but nothing else.
<img src="http://bringatrailer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/1958_Abarth_750_Double_Bubble_Coupe_Rear_1.jpg" width=400>
This is supposedly a 1939 FIAT 6c 1500 barchetta. It is not the winner but does have a similar paint color. In reading about the car, the roof with front window can be removed. The "guys in the forums" think it might be a home-build or it might have all kinds of cool history. Either way, it looks cool and I'd love to have it.
<img src="http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/attachments/other-italian-cars/234249d1326765715-1939-fiat-6c-1500-fiat_1500_barchetta_1939_01.jpg" width=400> <a href="http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/other-italian-cars/190630-1939-fiat-6c-1500-a.html” target=”_blank”>http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/other-italian-cars/190630-1939-fiat-6c-1500-a.html
That dull red is incredible. And the triple rear window totally says Flash Gordon style rocketship.
I like the curved AND split wiperless windshield.
I want to say it's some kind of Pegaso, but I can't find one that looks like that.
My guess is that it's a Borgward Isabella.
Argh, old thing? I'm never going to get that. My knowledge of anything before 1965 is spotty.
Wait!
<img src="http://www.allcarcentral.com/Cisitalia/Cisitalia_202_1947_ca-mm-2008_OSE0101.jpg">
A 1947 Cisitalia 202, it is not. No crease between the rear window/trunk, taillights are surface mounted, and the gas filler neck (also surface mounted) is on the other side. This is their only road car, as well, or I'd look for variations.
Aston-Martin! No…
Talbot! No…
Fiat 8V! No…
Bristol! No…
Salmson! No…
Porsche Beutler. No
Bentley Continental S2. No
BMW 50something or other. No
Lancia of some sort. No
Humber Super Snipe. No.
Maserati Costin Coupe. No.
I'm going to have to just leave my chip on some sort of coachbuilt Zatago one-off and leave the table. I have work to do.
Not it, but how did I not know until today that Zagato, Ghia, and Frua had all done wonky bodies for the Jaguar XK140 and 150?
<img src="http://www.histomobile.com/histomob/internet/18/1142001.jpg" width="600">
<img src="http://www.hauteliving.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Jag-Zagato_resize.jpg">
also, loving the Frua and Fiberfab (!) bodies for the MGA:
<img src="http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/variants/pics/frua.jpg">
<img src="http://www.britishv8.org/MG/BillSpohn/BillSpohn-A.jpg">
Ooh, and the Boano Loewy XK140, for which the good link doesn't want to work. Also I see now on my post above that they're blocking my image steal. Pish! Anyway, you all have google should temptation lead you down the same path.
wow, that fiberfab is one of the sexiest gt bodies I have ever seen.
What makes it tough is that it is a uncommon car in a sea of cars that look nearly identical.
It makes you realize that in the 1950s, Italians designed a lot of two-door coupes.
I was dead certain that it was 1947-1949. I am stunned to learn it's a 1950.
<img src="http://www.rmauctions.com/images/cars/MO10/MO10_r293_01.jpg">
1950 Ford Italmeccanica IT160 Coupe with Flathead V8!
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php…
<img src="http://www.rmauctions.com/images/cars/MO10/MO10_r293_02.jpg">
I got so freaking lucky, I thought it was surely a Delahaye 235 or something like it. There almost at the bottom for the GIS of "delahaye coupe" it was!
Winner winner, chicken dinner.
nice going.
Well played. I hit up Delahaye on Motorbase and naturally didn't spot it.
Good heavens, that's sublime.
The photography doesn't hurt either, more examples:
http://www.extravaganzi.com/rm-auction-2010-sport…
That….is rather attractive. In an alternate universe, it would have made a lovely Packard sports car.
Nice fake Italian car with a crappy Ford engine, bro.
Oh, are we not still trolling?
Awesome find! Who put those awful '68 full-size Ford wheelcovers on it? They should be beaten.
Oddly, I got a definite and inexplicable early-'50s American vibe from it… wouldn't have gotten this far, though. Lovely car.
Fun fact, if you search for "Delhaye" instead of "Delahaye" you get a photo of a naked lady.
Anyway, I'm guessing it's a Delahaye 235 from the '50s, which was powered by a 3.5l straight six. I can't find very many photos of the rear end, especially since there are 8 billion custom bodies for the thing, so it's a shot in the dark.
EDIT: Well don't I look silly coming 10 minutes after the winner. In my defense, I was on the phone with a lovely Russian man between when I started and when I posted.
That's exactly the car I thought it was at first too
I vacilated between the 235 Chapron and the Alfa Romeo that I cited earlier.
Way to go mr. 100pt-er mzs zsm msz esq! I was way off base thinking of Jaguar, Bently, Bristol, Jensen-ish creations.
I have heard of a lot of these cars but not seen them before. Excellent job Graverobber!