[harit]

Originally Posted by Stanher

'appears to be a Morris 8, with a modified grille.

And modified headlights, they should be oval, VW Beetle type.

[harit]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

How unfortunate, I would think the car is far more collectable/desirable than say a Chevy tourer or Model A. What is the current status? Is she still with them, or gone to that big junkyard in the sky?

Normal 4 door tourers other than Chevy/Ford A may be more collectable because of rarity, but Chevy and Ford A can be made very reliable. Parts can still be sourced. So if I were to go for a tourer for use, it would have to be one of these two. By normal I mean those which were not exotics, 4/6 cylinder daily use cars.

[V-16]

Originally Posted by harit

Sirjee, finally gotcha with a tale!!

Doesnt seem so Harit. I too remember seeing the name of the school on the car.
Maybe the Driving school was owned by him/family/relative/friend i am not aware, maybe he was connected to the owner of buyer. You know of some persons who claim other's cars as their own (You know what and whom i mean very well)

Ill tell you how i was told. The Old man was an Uncle of my friend Sayyed Abbas from school (who owned the Lucky Restaurant near the Dadar Gurudwara, now Lucky interiors) Sayyed lost his father in early years so his uncle took him under his wing. Sayyed used to, on his holidays sit at the bakery and assist his uncle there. Thats where i first came into contact with the old man. Even after i passed out from school i used to visit Sayyed and his uncle at the shop very often (for craving of sliced plum cake also) where the old man told me many stories, ranging from his baking equipment to this car. I also have a picture somewhere of the Old man, Sayyed and me along with some other persons sitting in the car. The car had the name of the Driving school painted on it. I hope i can find the pic.

So, i dont think the old man was spinning a yarn. What motive he must have had? Not likely, but whos complaining? I got my regular complimentary slice/s of the coveted plum cake in the bargain

[anjan_c2007]

Originally Posted by Stanher

'appears to be a Morris 8, with a modified grille.

The Morris 8's of the late 1940's had this sort of headlights which were straightened.This model was in vogue during the WW II and later also after the war ended.
About the front grille I am not sure, but the grille in the second picture above looks like the one shown.
There were even two door Morris 8's sold in India. They are very rare today.

[kannan666]

Cool Guys ! Regarding the pic that I had earlier posted, the car actually stands in the lawn in front of the main lobby of the Taj Savoy in Ooty !

[trammway]

Originally Posted by Biggles

Is the Triumph standing at Vivek Chandrasekar's lot near Teynampet?

Oh yeah. You are right.

[powertwin]

Originally Posted by siddartha

but why is it called "pearl" yamaha?

This cute commuter was brought & assembled in India by m/s Pearl Industries ., Punjab ( think from Ludyana), hence the name "Pearl".

ps:Yes, there were few stories , about Pearl Harbour>>>>Japan>>>>Yamaha..........all bombs

[karlosdeville]

Moralfibre and me recently spotted this trio of rust buckets. One appears to be a white fintail 220S Merc, the other a 46-48 Chevy Fleetmaster taxi. what is the third? It has a typical English car rear end, like a Hillman or Humber or Sunbeam but is quite large. Unfortunately we couldn't get better pictures.

[Prabal]

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

Moralfibre and me recently spotted this trio of rust buckets. One appears to be a white fintail 220S Merc, the other a 46-48 Chevy Fleetmaster taxi. what is the third? It has a typical English car rear end, like a Hillman or Humber or Sunbeam but is quite large. Unfortunately we couldn't get better pictures.

Mein Gott! Karl, that's some discovery. She's nothing less than a Daimler Conquest/Century (or a Lanchester Fourteen, which was a badge-engineered job of the Daimler). What a shame about letting something like this go so far down. If too far gone for a resto could be a good donor car though. Wasn't there a thread in the forum by a gent named Ramanna (hope I got the name and its spelling right, apologies if not) who's restoring one? Could be of immense use to him or anyone else with a similar car, depending on what is left on this. I'd say, get your hands on her if you can, for yourself or Kiran, if a resto is possible. Some of the usual suspects will now flood you with requests also soon, I guess.

I had posted on some other thread in the V&C section many months back that there used to be a Chevy Fleetmaster taxi that would regularly come to the taxi stand at Poona railway station till the early 80s, driven down by her immaculately-groomed and turned-out driver-owner (in spotless whites, carefully hennaed-and-combed hair and beard, etc.), a muslim gentleman. He also had a Hindustan 14 taxi that would get a day out when the Chevy stayed home. Taxis had a differential fare structure in the olden days according to size, so he had two segments covered thus! When I last saw him in the early 80s, he was semi-retired but drove down more out of routine than any real search for custom. Anyway, sorry for digressing, I wonder if the Chevy taxi in your photo could be the same?

[Ram]

Prabal is right of course. But the car did remind me for a while of the BMW 501 Barockengel

If you indulge me going offtopic for a while ...
back in 1961, when I was four, my father, an Atomic Energy scientist, spent two years in Poland, Czechoslovakia, USSR and GDR on Indian government work. Among the toys he brought me, were a pair of clockwork snap-kit toy cars from Berlin, East Germany. They were a Mercedes 300SL and a BMW 501 Barockengel.

The brand of toy manufacturer was Auto-DUX of Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR. a.k.a GDR capital:Berlin (on the other side of the Iron Curtain). The snap-kit contained 5-inch long tin-plate chasses with a diecast aluminium Mercedes 300SL and a brown plastic BMW 501 Barockengel. The kit contained one clockwork (key-wound) motor and a brake lever meant to stick out the trunk lid. The motor was interchangeable with both chasses.

A couple of memories are vivid.
The cars had white solid polyethylene wheels with real rubber tires and chrome hubcaps. I remember regretting when I bit the wheels and they became oval, causing the BMW to roll along bumpily. :-) Couldn't straighten the wheel after that. I made zillions of attempts to sketch those cars, getting better and better with every attempt. I preserved the cars with oval wheels for at least 10 years later.

Coming back to the Barockengel, it was a 6-cylinder car. After 1954, there was also a V8 version called the BMW 502, which had a larger rear-glass (or backlight in proper English).
The 6-cyl BMW 501 had an inline 1971 cc six-cylinder OHV motor, driving the rear axle through a 4-sp. gearbox.

Ram

[karlosdeville]

Originally Posted by Prabal

Mein Gott! Karl, that's some discovery. She's nothing less than a Daimler Conquest/Century (or a Lanchester Fourteen, which was a badge-engineered job of the Daimler)

Prabal, you never cease to amaze. Brilliant.

She does indeed appear to be a Daimler Conquest/Century. I think Mr. Ramanna's car is a consort.



Is it just me or does this car just look like an overgrown Hillman? Not all that exciting for a Daimler. Either ways, I suppose it is quite collectable today.

The 3 cars are lying in a fenced field, I assume they have been collected for a reason. Can't imagine a selection of 3 such eclectic cars in one spot otherwise. There is also a black Landmaster and a 70s/80s Jap looking car in the bungalow next door.

Ram, I don't suppose those toys survive?

[TractionAvant]

Originally Posted by Prabal

Mein Gott! Karl, that's some discovery. She's nothing less than a Daimler Conquest/Century (or a Lanchester Fourteen, which was a badge-engineered job of the Daimler).

WOW Prabal, truly remarkable, you have got a keen eye .

A question, does Jaguar also own the Lanchester name?

Aditya

[wasif]

Originally Posted by TractionAvant

WOW Prabal, truly remarkable, you have got a keen eye .

A question, does Jaguar also own the Lanchester name?

Aditya

Lanchester, a once proud British marque, born in 1895, merged with Daimler in 1955. Daimler also a once proud British marque, born in 1896,became a subsidiary of BSA in 1910 and subsequently were bought out by Jaguar in 1960.

Daimler continued offering Lanchester cars upto 1956 and then the brand ceased to exist.

The currrent owners of the brand name are Tata Motors.

Ram : I believe the 501 was refered to a Baroque Angel in English. The "Barokangel" term sound like its from teh German language.Open to corrections on this though.

Wasif

[TractionAvant]

Originally Posted by wasif

Lanchester, a once proud British marque, born in 1895, merged with Daimler in 1955. Daimler also a once proud British marque, born in 1896,became a subsidiary of BSA in 1910 and subsequently were bought out by Jaguar in 1960.

Daimler continued offering Lanchester cars upto 1956 and then the brand ceased to exist.

The currrent owners of the brand name are Tata Motors.

Thanks for that Wasif,

This is off topic but do bear with me.

According to this link- History
BSA bought daimler in 1910

and this link says- Daimler
BSA bought lanchester in 1930

The first link also says that BSA sold daimler to Jaguar in 1960 but what happened to Lanchester?


Now imagine what would happen if Tata does own Lanchester & decides to revive it.....
Lanchester.... the oldest british marque.... made in Bhosari, Pimpri

Aditya

[predatorwheelz]

My 2 cents:

1) Lanchester merged with Daimler sometime in the 30s (not 1955). For the next 20 years, they were sharing platforms and engines with Daimler. As Prabal pointed out, the Daimler Conquest/Century was a badge-engineered Lanchester 14.

The Lanchester brothers, founders of the Lanchester company, also stayed on in good management positions in Daimler post their merger.

2) About the Barockengel, the 501 and 502 were actually named "Baroque Angels" because their flowing lines and elegant shape reminded people of Baroque statuettes. "Barockengel" obviously is a literal German translation.

In relation to an Austin A90 Atlantic in some other thread, I had mentioned a Jon Pressnel article published in C&SC magazine , which described the top 10 sales flops in automotive history. Baroque Angel took a (dis?)honourable mention as one of the top 10 cars there. Apparently, in war ravaged Europe, no one wanted a car so big and with a 6-cylinder with a hearty appetite for fuel. The introdction of the 8-cylinder 502 was no solution either. For no fault of its own, the car failed to set fire to the sales charts.