Unheard, Underrated, Forgotten Cas & Manufacturers Thread

  • Thread starter Thread starter ZedMan1996
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Cano
It wasn't precisely a ckock off, it was just their own sportscar, it was called the Bearcat.
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I remember them looking very similar haha. Still awesome. Along with everything else in the vault.
 
Anyone ever heard of Zara Motors?
Well you'll have no luck finding anything about it on the internet apart from it being shown at 1991 Detroit Motor Show.

Probably the least known car company there is...

1991_Zara.jpg
 
Rickenbacker. This company was only ran 6 years from 1921-1927. Their cars were quite advanced and well engienered. I mean their 8-cylinder engines were so good that Audi used them. But they were so expensive that they had to close doors.

Rickenbacker Supersport (this actually was the fastest car in the world back then in 1926, it's also a one-off)

26supersport.jpg


I'll leave a list of all known survivers from this brand

http://www.rickenbackermotors.com/sr/sr.html
 
Hispano Suiza. I have a soft spot for this manufacturer as their platforms were popular among coachbuilders of the era. It also helps that they were tinkering with aircrafts later.

Hispano Suiza J12 Sport Torpedo 1933

HispanoSuizaJ12SportTorpedo1933.JPG


1934 Hispano-Suiza H6C Convertible Sedan, with coachwork by Fiol.

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and my favourite, Hispano Suiza H6C "Xenia", as ordered by Dubonnet:

Hispano-SuizaH6CXenia.jpg
 
I had a roommate from Ecuador that told me about a car named the Andino made in Ecuador and I cannot find anything about it. Any one here have anything. He told me its has corrugated exterior panels.
 
Most all of us have heard of De Tomaso; the Pantera, the Mangusta, or even the more obscure Longchamp. I even had the pleasure of seeing Tom Tjaarda give a lecture on Friday (he graduated with a B.Arch degree from U-Mich). But how many have heard of this interesting sports car from the 90s called the De Tomaso Guara?

Guara_2.jpg


The recipe wasn't a whole lot different than the Pantera. Big reliable mass produced V8 in a bespoke platform. I think the car looks quite good. The front end bares a healthy resemblance to the FD3S RX-7 so the whole thing kind of tends to come off as a GTA creation. But I like it.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Most all of us have heard of De Tomaso; the Pantera, the Mangusta, or even the more obscure Longchamp. I even had the pleasure of seeing Tom Tjaarda give a lecture on Friday (he graduated with a B.Arch degree from U-Mich). But how many have heard of this interesting sports car from the 90s called the De Tomaso Guara?

Guara_2.jpg


The recipe wasn't a whole lot different than the Pantera. Big reliable mass produced V8 in a bespoke platform. I think the car looks quite good. The front end bares a healthy resemblance to the FD3S RX-7 so the whole thing kind of tends to come off as a GTA creation. But I like it.
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I'm quite sure that I have heard about this car before, but it's something I wouldn't think being the most known De Tomaso car.
 
Eunos_Cosmo
Most all of us have heard of De Tomaso; the Pantera, the Mangusta, or even the more obscure Longchamp. I even had the pleasure of seeing Tom Tjaarda give a lecture on Friday (he graduated with a B.Arch degree from U-Mich). But how many have heard of this interesting sports car from the 90s called the De Tomaso Guara?

Guara_2.jpg


The recipe wasn't a whole lot different than the Pantera. Big reliable mass produced V8 in a bespoke platform. I think the car looks quite good. The front end bares a healthy resemblance to the FD3S RX-7 so the whole thing kind of tends to come off as a GTA creation. But I like it.
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Even more obscure, the De Tomaso Zonda.
1971_Ghia_DeTomaso_Zonda_05.jpg
 
Ligier Automobiles. Name Ligier is mostly known for their F1 cars, but they have also made a sports car called JS2.
Ligier JS2.jpg


It even had a racing version.
02.jpg


Sadly oil crisis in the early 70s made the company to focus on microcars like this.
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Caparo

50633-c-cap-.jpg


url.jpg


This car was designed by the same people who made the McLaren F1 and weighs only 1,000 pounds. 3.6-liter mid engine V-8 capable of producing 480 horsepower, and this is a rocket ship with the highest power-to-weight ratio of any road car. 0-60 mph time of 2.5 seconds, enough downforce for 2.5 g high speed cornering. Everything about this car screams: You will die! And you probably will. To me it looks like what the X2011 would look like in real life



Panoz


Weird looks aside, these things are actually really cool and fast

The Panoz Roadster

Panoz_Roadster.jpg



The absolutely ludicrous GTR-1

gtr1_04.jpg


And the Esperante

Panoz-Esperante-Green-SA-1600x1200.jpg
 
Don't understand how the Panoz Esparante GTR (yes that one in Gran Turismo) can be considered even remotely unheard, same goes with the Caparo T1, they even threw that around on Top Gear.
 
ZedMan1996
Don't understand how the Panoz Esparante GTR (yes that one in Gran Turismo) can be considered even remotely unheard, same goes with the Caparo T1, they even threw that around on Top Gear.
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They are certainly not household names. Panoz as a company is not well known at all. Same with Caparo. I was talking to my friends about cars. They are all car guys like me. We got onto the topic of race cars, which led to me mentioning the Caparo. They all looked at me and said "Whats a Caparo?"
 
Let's not forget this thread is about underrated cars as well as unheard of cars.
 
Tyger
Let's not forget this thread is about underrated cars as well as unheard of cars.
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Don't forget its also for cars that have just been forgotten with time. Cars or companies that were once a household name, now almost nobody knows they existed, and quite frankly, just don't care.
 
There is a difference between the general public and the racing world, in racing Panoz are as famous as Citroen to the general public, so to say a car is underrated and so on depends in what society.
 
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