Day: Nov 26, 2018

Micropost: a mystery car?

It’s a mystery to me anyway. It turned up when I was researching clay models.

Source

The associated images show lots of Austin vehicles and other prototypes. I suspect it’s a rejected design for the Maxi or Allegro. Presumably Driven to Write’s readers know more. As ever, it looks like a fabulous missed chance from Austin-Rover’s immense catalogue of missed chances.

“Brian Borchester-Brom, head of Canadian marketing rejected Project Foal because he hated the rear door handles and also did not see eye-to-eye with Len Lennington, head of advanced mid-sized vehicle planning and insisted on a 4-cylinder saloon with doors from the 1300….”

The Mystery Of Other People And Me A Mystery Too

By December 24th, 2006 the Blackpool-based, sportcar-making, Russian-owned-firm TVR had entered administration. In February 2007, Evo (“the thrill of driving”) magazine reported proposals for a 200 mph supercar.

2007 TVR Typhoon: source

The article is still on-line (dated Jan 2007) with the same text as appeared in the published magazine. “Reports of TVR’s death have been greatly exaggerated,” began the article. That phrase is such a clichée I’d never even examined it until now, which shows the danger of hackneyed phrases.  Death is all-or-nothing and so can’t be exaggerated any more than one can be slightly pregnant. Deaths being exaggerated is thus a kind of lame joke.

I suppose this particular reported car was a form of phantom pregnancy because it didn’t Continue reading “The Mystery Of Other People And Me A Mystery Too”