I like to include vintage TV commercials in my articles and so, naturally, I went looking on YouTube for a Holden Camira ad for today’s post. I selected the launch commercial for the Camira (“The Supercar!”, hah) because of all its 1980s glory. I did, however, stumble across this commercial which stumped me. Just what are those three identical cars the Camira keeps passing?
Surely the answer must be simple as that C-pillar treatment seems so distinctive. But the body color bumpers and wide taillights make it look like a car that ended production in its home country years ago and had its tooling shipped off elsewhere.
And every time I watch this commercial, I think GM T-Car (e.g. Holden Gemini, Buick Opel by Isuzu) but that doesn’t make a lot of sense for a GM-Holden commercial, does it? And as far as I can tell, none of the T-Car derivatives – even the Latin American and Korean ones – ever looked quite like the one in the commercial.
Can you solve this mystery?
Morris Marina?
My guess: a modified LH Torana
And Toranas didn’t have camshafts that snapped in half.
I agree with Brian. A Torana LH with a ‘modern’ 1980s style makeover – big plastic bumpers, dummy air vent, but the proportions and outline look very LH.
My god, I’d forgotten about the snapping camshafts! How is that even a thing?
Gotta be a T-Car, probably a Gemini too old to resell as certified used, mocked up to look as unlike itself as possible. And it has to have been only one car used in the three different shots.
A Fiat Elita, like the one who did a cameo in the movie “The Gods must be Crazy”? http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_13796-Fiat-Elita-132C2-1977.html
I remember the Land Rover, a/k/a The Antichrist, in that movie! I once had a car I called The Antichrist.
UC sunbird with a few mods to disguise it or the Hindustan Contessa which was where the original Vauxhall tooling finished up.
Ha ha you’re funny
Maybe a clay model of a Holden that didn’t make production?
They’re probably some obscure Eastern Block car extracted from behind the Iron Curtain.
I think it`s a VW 1500 from Argentina.
It was originally based on the british Hillman Avenger.
Then production was moved to Argentina, where it was sold as Dodge Polara.
Then VW bought the factory from Chrysler and sold it as Dodge 1500
(to avoid confusion with the VW 1500).
When VW ceased production of the VW1500 they named this one VW1500,
but only Brasil and Argentina.
UC Sunbird or Torana with disguise work done. No question.
The bigger question is why did they choose their own product to ridicule when they could (should?) have chosen another make?
The 70s Toyota ads with the broken Volare come to mind.
I don’t think it is a Torana, they wouldn’t use their own car in such a situation even disguised.
I thought it may have been a Datsun Sunny/Violet (A310) but the window line doesn’t match…
Having looked at it again on a larger screen I’d have to agree it is a Torana!
Using their own car (nb. several years old) would be a way of avoiding complaints from other manufacturers if nothing else.
A UC Torana in mid-eighties drag. Odd thing, any car ad which poops on the opposition always has the offender disguised, (usually one of your own in much mufti). There’s a golden rule in car sales (and p’raps other goods?) which says bagging the competitor never works.
Vaguely clever – if brave – ad, because it tackles head-on the two failings of the JB Camira, performance and reliability. Crash or crash-through approach. Ofcourse, with the disastrous sales collapse William mentioned, it just crashed.
It looks like a Holden Gemini, sold in the US as an Isuzu I-Mark, with a modified bumper.
Will, your first guess was correct. The car at 12.00 seconds has the rear side window profile of the Gemini sedans. The vent is a real one on one side, the other one covers the fuel filler. I just can’t remember which side was which.
I decided in .3 of a second – LH ‘Rana with bodgy panels.
KJ in Oz
Is it me or is the rear wheel in the mystery car somewhat out of place? Seems it is to the rear of the arch.
In my opinion, it’s not you, but the faked (probably fiberglass) oversize bumper, wich intruded the rear part of the arch. Proportions are weird all over the rear and the front. I wonder why they wouldn’t choose a Ford, or other non-GM
I grew up with Brazilian Chevettes (Opel Kadett, Vauxhall Chevette, Isuzu Gemini), most of them in 2 or 4 sedan configuration. Also the Hillman-Avenger, Dodge-1500 named, VW-1500 renamed made in Argentina. It’s absolutely clear for me thet the mysterious car is a Buick Isuzu Opel, a.k.a Isuzu or Holden Gemini. It’s unlikely that it’s a Brazilian-European version, as they had the front door locks ahed of the door handle, while the Japanese versions had it below and a little behind of the handle. Also, I’d bet for an American-sourced Japanese version, because of the side marker lights.
If you compare the red T car that William added to his post, you’ll look the likeness of the C-post. And what’s important is that the notchback T-car needed that post because it had the gas tank ahead of the trunk, vertically placed behind the rear seat, and the gas feeder was located on the right C-post, hidden behind one of those ventilators (the right one, at least in the Brazilian cars, was a door, and it didn’t have airflow of any kind)
The Torana (I’ve never seen one in the flesh) surely looks like a larger car.
Then again…after brilliantly making my case, and having looked again at the pic, and probably after boring you to death, I see the trunk door a little too downard angled in comparison to a typical T-car. The Opel Ascona B (early 70’s) might also be a guess. But I still stand with a slightly disguised model T. I won’t understand why didn’t they choose at least a small car from another brand that wasn’t sold in Holden’s market. Go figure.
I rest my case
I have a small fascination with identifying truckloads of crushed cars. On my commute. I usually encounter this when traffic is bumper to bumper and moving a mile every five minutes, so once in a while one of these are beside me or in front of me. I pass by a shredding facility so trucks bring their scrap from all over. Usually the cars are hauled in completely enclosed containers (minus the top) but every once in a while, they are out in the open, wrapped in netting or at least visible through the back of an enclosure trailer. I always guess the make and model and approximate year. Sometimes things are so smushed that all you have to go off of is something like a door handle or body cladding, so you just generalize (it’s a 1998-2005 GM sedan, for example).
The “newest” vehicle I’ve seen was a 2005-2010(?) Ford Mustang in 2011. Second place was a 2008-2010-ish Audi in 2015. In both cases I was left wondering: were they totalled in a bad wreck/flood or did they break down catastrophically? I surmised that the Mustang was totalled by a speed demon and the Audi lost an engine or something else really expensive out of warranty.