Things worth knowing about vintage cars that you probably didn't know:
In a road test that once appeared on the MG MGC, an author probably didn't have his day and the powerhouse broke down to the bone. After that, every subsequent 'road tester' didn't like it at all. Such a thing would not brake and would only go around the corner in an excessively understated way ... If you have ever driven a correct MGC, you know differently ...!
Did you know that the Audi 100 (C1 and C2) the first Audi was - as a new car - sold more than one million times?
That the Lancia Gamma initially in collaboration with Citroën was conceived, designed and built?
That the fast Vitesse implementation of the Rover SD1 almost called Rapide? Shortly before midnight it was realized that Lagonda had already given that name to one of their models in the 1950s ...
De Ford Granada Coupé disappeared after the first model of the Ford scene. An 2 door version of the MkII could still be purchased in Germany.
Did you know that the BMW E12 5 Series were also produced in South Africa and even Portugal? To praise this model more favorably there, they were shipped there as a kit and assembled locally.
Can you imagine the Daewoo Imperial still remember? Such a thing was almost entirely based on the Opel Senator from the late 1970s. As Daewoo, it remained in production until 1993.
De Princess from British Leyland had also almost hit the market as the super-luxury Vanden Plas. It remained just the design. A prototype has never even been built. AC, best known by the Cobra, has built an extensive range of means of transport. In addition to many tens of thousands of invalid carriages, there are also six diesel locomotives for British Rail. There still seem to be two of them. And to be used ...
De Mercedes-Benz W123 was also available with ABS from 1980. It was the first mass-produced car equipped with that braking system. The W123 went out of production in 1985.
De Range Rover was the first car to be seen at the Louvre in the French city of lights. After recognition as 'special industrial design' by the designated experts had taken place.
If you tour around in Italy you will see one somewhere Fiat Panda 4 × 4 come into the picture. A four-wheel drive Panda. That system was conceived and produced by the Austrian Steyr-Puch and shipped to the Fiat plant in Termini, Sicily. Do not think that you can make a normal Panda - via a scraper - into an 4 × 4, because the carriage was considerably strengthened in various places at the factory. Are there actually 4 × 4 Pandas on the road in the Netherlands? If so, we would like to receive a photo of it ...
At the end of the 1980s, the New Zealand supplier of a few shiploads of butter received a brand new 1000 number after a lot of fuss from the Russian government. Lada Riva's as payment ...
In the years that the NSU Ro80 was delivered new - and for some time afterwards - the drivers greeted each other when they met. The Ro80 was way ahead of its time, was a fantastic driving, innovative car that led to the inevitable end of NSU due to rush and little money in development and production. Nowadays it is a coveted classic with all enthusiastic owners! It seems that the parts supply is still not sad.
Finally the Ford Transit and not the (German) Ford Taunus Transit. The first one rolled on 9 on August 1965 from the band at the Ford plant in Langley, UK. This means that this orderer is 'purely British'. Not so, because also at Ford in Genk, Belgium, the Transit rolled off the band almost simultaneously. And then it was the dam of the dam. Australia, Belarus, China, Ghana, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Senegal, Singapore, Southern Ireland, South Africa, Thailand, Trinidad, the United States and Vietnam followed ... A Transit of the first series is nowadays worth a small fortune. Provided in perfect condition.
With the Panda 4 × 4 it is nice to mention that Fiat had estimated the sales numbers a bit too low. The drive was largely manufactured manually because robotization was not profitable. Nevertheless, Steyr Puch never implemented the robotisation despite much higher sales figures than expected.
The Ford Transit was also assembled in the Ford factory in Amsterdam.
When my wife and I were in Lebanon in 2007 we had the dubious honor of being transported in a Daewoo Prince taxi, a licensed Opel Rekord E. The car was in a decent state of decomposition and the ride was from Beirut airport to Hamana. Rarely experienced such a memorable taxi ride. We still talk about it regularly ...