OT: Good Thread - What is the most obscure car you've seen in the wild?

[zmudshark]

No pics, so it probably didn't happen, but in my working life as a UPS driver, I had a high end car restorer on my route, a guy who has won Pebble Beach with his resto's.

Bob Lutz was a friend of his and kept some of his cars out here. the guy converted a Silo pad to a helicopter pad for Lutz to fly out. Lutz had a Cunningham there, but some of the resto's were even cooler.

I had lunch with Lutz out there one time (may have overstayed my 30 mins) and tried to talk him into buying a BMW McLaren. His Cunningham was pretty cool, big block Chrysler in it, if I recall.

[seanile]

i went to high school in northern new jersey and a company (HYTORC apparently) that i drove by every day had a rotation of cars parked in a single paved parking space on the front lawn of the building. supposedly he sold the variety to get the veyron..
these are what i saw in that parking space:
ferrari f50


ferrari f40


dodge viper gts-r


lamborghini gallardo


buggati veyron (this is the actual car)


Mercedes V12 cl600



threads talking about the guy:
http://www.6speedonline.com/forums/f...back-ebay.html
http://www.audizine.com/forum/showth...eyron-Rt-17-NJ!
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/new...7-bugatti.html
https://forums.nasioc.com/forums/sho...1445679&page=2

[texbike]

I've been a bit of a car fanatic for most of my life and have always had an interest in obscure machines. Not counting car shows, car meets, cars in shops, etc, the most obscure cars that I've actually seen in the "wild" are:

-AC Greyhound - lived a few blocks down from my parent's house in Houston.
-Matra Djet (someone else mentioned this one) - owned by a guy in the Brentwood neighborhood in Austin.
-Renault Caravelle - I actually owned one of these - a 1967. Fun car - Rear-engined convertible with a 1100cc water cooled, 4 cylinder motor.

Probably the most obscure car that I've seen in the wild happened about a year ago as I was dropping my son off at one of his friends' houses for a play date here in Austin. A house a few doors down had its garage door open and I happened to notice what looked like the rear bumperettes and backend of a Bugeye Sprite in the garage. The homeowner was in the front yard and I pulled over and asked him if he might be interested in selling the Sprite. Turns out it wasn't a Sprite, but a little British special called an Ogle SX1000 GT. The Ogles were based on Austin Mini mechanicals and utilized a fiberglass body that was very Italian in design. There were only 66 of them made before the founder of the company (David Ogle) was killed in one of them in the early 60s. The owner that had this car had an interesting story about it. The car had been in his family since it was new. His Dad was actually the official importer of the cars to the U.S. in the early 60s before David Ogle was killed. As the owner showed me the car, he opened up an old filing cabinet in his garage and pulled out several 60s vintage marketing pieces and spec sheets for the cars and gave them to me. Interesting car, neat story, and a nice gentlemen.

Texbike

[fuzzalow]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

I'd see obscure as the Venn diagram of rare and rarely thought of/little known. Even passing car dorks know about Ferrari Enzos and Porsche Carrera GTs. Rare? Sure. Obscure? Eh, not so much.

I'd say more something like this I saw around the corner from my place a couple weeks ago: Datsun 2000 Fairlady convertible.

OK. You win.

I like cars but despise car culture. There are some obscurities in this thread I know nothing about, but also that those kinda cars are not really my thing so I wouldn't know of them anyway.

I guess it's a lot like taste in art, it's got to have something more behind it than it just being an oddity. And some of these cars are just simply oddities.

[dgauthier]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

I'd see obscure as the Venn diagram of rare and rarely thought of/little known. Even passing car dorks know about Ferrari Enzos and Porsche Carrera GTs. Rare? Sure. Obscure? Eh, not so much.
(...)

Agreed. Though one hasn't lived until one has seen a La Ferrari. Enzo schmenzo...

The most obscure car I've ever seen: Jay Leno's Tank Car, cruising along Wilshire Blvd in Westwood -- with Jay at the helm, of course. It really must be seen in person appreciate how *huge* it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp5SmVST15w

Runners up include the Qvale Mangusta, Lambo LM002, and Mercedes Unimog.

[martl]

Originally Posted by carpediemracing

The scariest car I ever saw was a BMW, I want to say 328?, tiny little relatively insignificant looking car. It was some special edition, adorned with many fascist logos.

Can you elaborate? Are we talking



or



?

If we are talking pre-war, there may have been racing cars "decorated" that way. BMW did some racing, mostly in lower classes or hillclimbs, but wasn't used in propaganda as extensively as the grand prix cars of Mercedes or Auto Union, which were Adolfs pet projects. If we're talking post-war, i can absolutely guarantee it wasn't an official "special edition" (showing Nazi emblems is a serious crime here in D, even on model airplanes or tanks, and it is about the last thing on earth BMW would do), more likely the home-job of some deluded fella.

[tuscanyswe]

Originally Posted by velofinds

I just went through my photo archive going back a few years when I first started documenting. Most of these aren't super rare or obscure, but one definitely does not see them every day. A sampling:

Interesting, you could probably see most of those cars in a day or 2 in stockholm. Well not the Lancia.

[Cicli]

As far as VW's go these are rare.

Parked in my driveway.

[goonster]

Originally Posted by velofinds

My dream car.

I've seen a few in the wild, most recently in Switzerland. Beat up, dull paint, cracked fiberglass, dirty interior. Still want one.

[joosttx]

A guy down in our neighborhood owns a McClaren and another who owns a 1967 Shelby Cobra.

Also, one of the big Ferrari collectors stores his collection about a mile away from our house. I seen his 250 GTO and I think is his, Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder. Once I was riding in Ridgecrest Blvd (7 Sisters) and heard what I thought were motorcycles turn out it was that Ferrari GT with the top down. I have a picture stored somewhere.

Finally, I went to Junior Highschool with Carrol Sheby's granddaughter. Her mom had a Cobra with a corvette automatic transmission. I have been in that thing.

[martl]

Originally Posted by tuscanyswe

Interesting, you could probably see most of those cars in a day or 2 in stockholm. Well not the Lancia.

was going to say the same thing about Munich... well, maybe not the Volvo truck
Having a top-tier football team and a major movie and TV industry in town, plus being the preferred shopping-area for sheikhs and oligarchs, helps definitely. Few current supercars that one doesn't see around. No one bats an eyelid at a Porsche, Ferrari, Lambo or Aston any more.

[choke]

Originally Posted by martl

That's a nice one! Always thought the Saudi Military were the only ones crazy enough to buy one of those (and how many of those they managed to keep running). Makes you wonder where the fellas designing the HumVee were looking at...

In 1991 I attended a small car show at the Beverly Hills High School.....there were two LM002s there. The best part of the day was at the end of the show, nearly every car was driven to the show and we got to watch (and listen to) most of them leave. I'll never forget observing a woman who had to have been in her 70s slowly driving away in her Ferrari 330GT. Another highlight was a Lamborghini 400GT.

Originally Posted by velofinds

A Pinzgauer...one of my top 10 most lusted after vehicles. I've seen one of those on the road as well.

[martl]

Originally Posted by choke

A Pinzgauer...one of my top 10 most lusted after vehicles. I've seen one of those on the road as well.

Pretty sure that is a Volvo c303 but hard to tell from that pic. They look very much alike



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[Dave B]

Went to high school with Michele Mellencamp and her dad...Johnny Cougar would pick her up in his Porsche 959. That was pretty sweet.


Also saw a Bradley GT, a german kit car amalgamation, driving around IU's campus. Being my last name I went bananas as a kid when I saw there was a car named a Bradley.


Was stopped at a stop light (on my bike) and a Veyron and Murcielago pulled up next to each other. The green light began an absolute symphony of horsepower, screeching tires, and the earth shattering exhaust notes. They took off in their testosterone who has a bigger one drag race. Gave me chills.

[paredown]

Originally Posted by seanile

i went to high school in northern new jersey and a company (HYTORC apparently) that i drove by every day had a rotation of cars parked in a single paved parking space on the front lawn of the building. supposedly he sold the variety to get the veyron..
these are what i saw in that parking space:
ferrari f50
...

Cool to see these--one of my nabes commutes past there, and told me about the rotating collection of beauties, but I never saw anything there on my rare trips past Hytorc--I'll see if I can spot the Veyron....