Usually I'd do a rare car entry about something there is only one or two of, they are often relics of great ideas that didn't pan out, or were ahead of their time.



This isn't a rare car in the same way, it is more a car of interest, something that should be more than a footnote in the history of classic cars.

Glas would already be known to anyone with an interest in microcars as the company that bought us the Goggomobil.  Founded by Andreas Glas the company’s primary business was sewing machines, at least until the end of World War 2.  Post war they produced the Goggomobil, but more interestingly for us in 1964 they started building the Glas 1300GT.



The 1300GT was a very pretty car, designed by Frua, powered by an inline 4 1290cc, single overhead cam engine.  Later the 1300 was beefed up and available as a 1700.  In 1966 the cars had a facelift and in which the round headlights were replaces by sharper rectangular lights, the lines of which created a more angular wing profile too.

Glas became part of BMW pretty soon after with the Glas 2600 GT being produced as a BMW and later beefed up to 3 litres with the 3000GT, essentially the design was the same but with BMW badges, if you line up the BMW cars from 1967 together you'll notice one stands out from the crowd, the Glas.



What piqued my interest in this car is this photo of a 1300GT racing, it is apparently taking part in Group 4 1970, however that would seem a bit late for it to be in international competition, does anyone know any more?

More information on the 3000GT can be found here

You can find out much more about this cool car on the Glas Club website

Isuzu are not a company you would usually associate with sleek supercars, however for at least one brief moment this was the world they played in.  At the 1969 Tokyo Motor Show Isuzu presented the first of two concept cars, the Bellett MX1600.



The car had a mid mounted 1.6 litre engine from the GT-R version of the Bellett powering the rear wheels.  Inside the car was a two seat sports affair, and being Japanese is was right hand drive.  In 1970 Isuzu presented a second MX1600 concept car, the imaginatively named MX1600-II.  It was only subtlety different from the 1969 model, mainly in the front end styling.



Sadly the car never made it into production or it would have provided an interesting counter point to the ever popular S30 platform Nissans, as well as acting as a predecessor to the Honda NSX in terms of Japanese super cars.

The car was designed by Tom Tjaarda, who worked at Ghia, Pininfarina and Italdesign, his hand can be seen in many Pininfarina cars of the 60’s from Fiat to Mercedes.  Most notable here is the DeTomaso Pantera, whose design is said to be a direct descendant of the Isuzu MX1600.

Sadly I have no idea where about these cars live now days, does anyone know?

I was going to start this entry as the first in a series of "What If" ideas.  The basis being; take an idea that a manufacturer should have done and take it to its logical conclusion.  What if Volvo had started racing the Volvo 240 Estate in touring cars rather than waiting for the 850.  What if the Mk2 Fiesta has been developed for rallying instead of the Mk3 Escort.  Those kind of thoughts.

My big idea for today was "What If Alfa Romeo had built a Group B rally car".  I was a bit scuppered on this as a what if when I found out that they did, they just never saw it to its conclusion.


Alfa's Group B car was based on the Alfa Sprint.  Taking the lovely Sprint as a base they removed the rear screen and seats before shoe horning a the GTV 2.5 V6 engine in to drive the rear wheels, creating a 2 seat rear wheel drive coupe.  The project was killed off by Alfa Romeos financial worries before they produced the 200 road going examples required for homogulation.  It is believed that only one remains at Alfa Romeo's museum.



You can still take this and What If it though.  What if they hadn't stopped with the Sprint, what if later they had developed the 33 in the same way.  What if Group B hadn't stopped, what would the Sprint Group B car have ended up being like in its second or third evolution?  What if you got a Sprint and a beyond repair GTV then decided to build your own version?.... now there’s a thought.

This little gem kind of ties us back to motor racing week, but it was too good to pass up, particularly in light of our recent trip to the HSCC Historic Festival, a full feature on which is forth coming.

Innovation

These days it is difficult to remember that Formula 1 used to be hugely innovative, monocoque construction, wings, downforce, tyre technology, and all sorts of more modern driver aids were experimented with in Formula 1.


What is great about formula racing is that the very formula regulations themselves are what has encouraged innovation, having a limited set of things that you can change focuses the mind somewhat.  So it was that Tyrell found themselves facing a new set of small wheel diameter rules in the 1976 season.  Smaller front wheels would reduce grip for the cars, obviously something engineer Derek Gardner wanted to avoid.


Lateral Thinking

Being engineers their solution was a brilliant piece of lateral thinking, the rules stated smaller wheels, they didn't however state how many, so Tyrell set about building a car with 4 front wheels, all of which steered the car.  Compared to other cars of the era the wheels size could also be thought to have aided air flow.

The radical cars were used through the entire 1976 season, picking up a number of good results as well as a famous one, two victory at the Swedish Grand Prix.



Over Taken By Developments

The cars key innovation was also its major downfall, the innovative wheel size resulted in the current tyre manufacturers not developing new tyre technology for the car, soon the more traditional four wheel cars had as much grip as the P34, coupled with the later P34B putting on a bit of weight this innovative car became uncompetitive.

Interestingly the car has proven itself competitive once again in the Historic Formula One series of races, as it is now able to take advantage of more modern tyre compounds.  When seen in action it is obvious how well it handles and seems to corner as if on rails.  Whilst many of the rare cars we've written about are difficult to see, the Tyrell P34 can often be seen racing, or at motorsports events like Goodwood.  In the mean time check out this amazing on-board video round Monaco:

A while ago we recommended the book Cars and Stars, whilst flicking through this the other day I spotted Jack Lemmon sitting in a bright red futuristic looking Ford.  In the book there were no details of what it was.  So I did some hunting.

That hunting was pretty difficult, what with not knowing that much about American Fords, or what year the photo was taken in.  Luckily for you I'm pretty persistent, or this would be a very short entry.  The car in question is a very rare 1962 Ford Cougar I, in fact it never made it out of concept phase.

Details on the car are scant to say the least.  I tracked down this photograph of a blue version of the car :



A bit more digging revealed that it is likely to be the car used in Under The Yum Yum Tree and this still from the film put the truth to that statement :



Thanks to Internet Movie Car Database for the details and pictures of that

CoolCats.Net gave the most detail I could find about the car "This is the earliest known use of the Cougar name on a vehicle. This Cougar 406 (also known as the Cougar I) was unveiled at the 1962 Chicago Auto Show.  It had a 102" wheelbase, 406 CID power, and the gullwing doors were electric."

Does anyone know anything more?  Where do these cars live now?  There looks to have been at least two made.

We love a rare car here at RSM, and few come rarer than this.  The Alfa Romeo 164 Pro-car is unique, the lone legacy of an aborted race series.


The idea was to extend the BMW M1 Pro-car series that ran before Formula 1 races in the mid 80's to include more manufacturers.  The only people that managed to get a car together before the idea was scrapped were Alfa Romeo.

The 164 Pro-car is essentially a 164 silhouette with a mid mounted 600hp V10 engine that could rev to 12,000rpm.  It was the only car ever to use this particular engine, so not only is the car unique, but the engine is too.



The car was built in 1988 by Motor Racing Developments Ltd., who were the company behind the Brabham F1 team and the car is in fact classed as a Brabham BT57. At the time Brabham were owned by Alfa Romeo and this was one of their first projects for the company. Brabham ceased to exist as a company in 1992, having been through a number of buy outs and some turbulent financial periods.  The car eventually ended up with Fiat before disappearing.

Check out these two videos of it in its prime :

 



There is good news though, it has recently been rediscovered and features in this issue of AutoItalia magazine.  It is currently on display at the Alfa Museum so if you can get yourself over to Italy it will definitely be a chance to see this totally unique car.



If you want to learn more and are lucky enough to speak German there is a whole load of information here on Alfisti.net

So... what else has a V10 engine that we can shoe horn into an Alfa 164...

It is fairly widely known that the Fiat group co-operated with Saab during the 80's and that resulted in the common platform shared by Saab 9000, Lancia Thema, Fiat Croma and Alfa Romeo 164.

Whilst the 9000 et al are relatively common still a much rarer beast is the Saab 600.  This was the first fruit of the co-operation, a re-badged Lancia Delta. Saab wanted a suitable replacement for the outgoing Saab 96 and the Delta model fitted that hole, having four doors and being about the right size, coupled with Saab's love of front wheel drive.  The car was only available in Sweden, although a few no doubt made it over to Norway.  The car was available with the 1500 engine, in various levels of trim, base, GL and GLS.  Early in its life a GLE version was available but didn't sell so well and was later dropped from the line up, the rarest of a rare breed.  Sadly none of the later high performance Delta versions were made available as Saabs. 

Other than the badges little is changed from the Lancia Delta, it is rumoured that Saab required better rust resistance from Lancia so it would be more suitable for the harsher climate in Sweden in Norway.  Sadly Lancia never managed to shake their reputation for rust in the UK and the Delta was the last officially sold Lancia in the UK when they pulled out in 1994.