Brazilian Prototypes

[Seth]

Not sure if we've already been here but....

The Brazilians sure produced some wacky home market versions of 'normal' cars. That can only mean one thing. A whole load of even sillier prototypes didn't make it as fas as the production process. In this particularly lazy thread, here's a link (and a few photos from) a 7 page gallery of such sillyness.

http://www.carroantigo.com/portugues/conteudo/curio_carros_conceito.htm











There is plenty of text - in Portugese - so those of you more studious than I can surely research some of these automobiles with a bit more depth should you wish to do more than look at the pictures (like I have)

[Hirst]

Astounding stuff! I'll probably generate some content out of this at some point.



Puma had a tie-up with Daihatsu to built the Mini-Puma, essentially a Daihatsu Mira/Cuore/Domino built under licence, with the same 547cc twin-pot. With one minor difference - the body was to be made out of fibreglass! Never happened though, due to massive company debts which were brought on by mismanagement. I imagine a lot of the stories will be along these lines.

[Jon]

This came up in conversation on chat last week; I think garycox found it again after looking at it a while back? I reckon I could easily waste a lot of time looking through it but in fact I managed to find a (personal) holy grail, so it's probably best to quit while I'm ahead:







I'd seen these images on the brown forum a couple of years ago but think they were lost in the 'purge'. The Brazilian connection to the link made me ask on chat if anyone could remember seeing any images of a 3 door J-type Monza estate, then lo' and behold I found them. Can't decide whether the estate shell would have been sourced from GMH in Aus (as Cavalier estates were) or whether the US manufactured the shells of the multiple models they offered? Either way, I have copies of the images, so that's all that matters.