Curtis Perry has become one of my favorite photographers at the Cohort. We’ve seen a number of his shots from Portland, but he’s recently posted a few from a trip to South America in 2014. This Citroen Mehari Ranger was shot in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. It looks like it’s been leading a very useful life, yet well cared for too. What more could any car ask?
This well-worn Ford Taunus looks to be a bit less cared for; not surprising given that it was found in Buenos Aires.
Curtis shot a couple of Argentine Ford Falcons, a car whose long production there we took a closer look at here. This is a 1985 Falcon Rural Deluxe, which is similar to the Australian Falcon wagon in having a shorter rear end than the American version, to avoid bottoming out on rough rural roads and ditches.
The Falcon was built for thirty years in Argentina, and identifying the correct year is a challenge. Curtis said this is a 1973, and that’s good enough for me. A 3.6 L (221 CID) version of the Falcon six powered many of these.
Here’s a car that I’ve been on the hunt for forever: a 1971 Hillman Avenger, sold in the US as the Plymouth Cricket. Has anyone seen a Cricket? This Avenger was found in Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay. it’s 46 years old, and still looks like it’s in front-line duty. They seemed to survive in South America a lot longer than they did in the US. The Cricket was one of those cars that disappeared from the streets seemingly within a few years of its appearance.
Recognize this shape? Rambler American? Close. This is a 1979 Renault Torino, which has nothing to do with Renault buying into AMC later in the early 80s. The Torino was first built in Argentina in 1966, by IKA (Industrias Kaiser Argentina), a division of Kaiser Industries. IKA desperately needed a new car to replace their aged Carabella (Kaiser Manhattan).
The Torino used the center body section of the Rambler Classic, with modified American front and rear ends grafted on (the Classic body was wider than the American). Under its hood was the legendary Kaiser-Jeep “Tornado” OHC six, a development of the ancient flathead six. It had a rough start in the US, but became a solid performer in Argentina, as well as a successful racing engine.
Related reading:
I think that the Hillman Avenger was sold as Dodge 1500 South America. Later it was sold as VW 1500
The Hillman Avenger (later Chrysler Avenger and then the Talbot Avenger) was built in the UK from 1970 to 1981, and sold in the US as the Plymouth Cricket without huge success.
Variants also appeared in South America with Dodge badges, and when Chrysler Europe was sold to Peugeot in 1978, Chrysler retained enough rights to the Avenger to support production in South America, and these transferred to VW when Chrysler sold out of South America, where production continued to 1990, as the VW1500.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillman_Avenger#International_production
As soon as I saw the Torino, I knew there had to be an AMC influence in there – just look at the door handles.
Curtis has done a great job with these pictures.
Good catch. And that’s a bit odd, as those door handles weren’t used until the AMC Hornet in 1970. The Torino must have adopted them at some point, because they’re not on the earlier versions.
Also, those handles are strangely reminiscent of Morris Marina and Austin Allegro door handles!
The infamous AMC “paddle” door handles appeared on all of their products EXCEPT the American in 1968. Ambassador, Rebel, Javelin, and AMX all had them, and they were used to the very end. You haven’t lived until you have tried to dislodge a frozen-shut AMC door. The extended handle left nothing to pull on.
Crickets seemingly vanished as soon as they were sold. I don’t think I’ve seen one in 35 years.
Ford Argentina should’ve re-used some Australian bits since they both had rougher roads than the Falcon was designed for. If not, I’m guessing it was a capital problem, or else the corporate hierarchy didn’t work horizontally.
It’s been years since I’ve heard about the Cricket. How did it compare to the Marina & Cortina, which were marketed Stateside around the same time?
The Marina and Cricket are considered perhaps the two biggest failures in the US market ever, and both disappeared very quickly. The Cortina Mk1 and Mk2 sold decently, until the Pinto replaced it. And it was reasonably rugged, except that it was very rust-prone. There are a few around, and I’ve seen one or two in the Bay Area in traffic, so I couldn’t shoot them.
The Aussie Falcon 6s used the V8 suspension pieces from the Fairlane Compact and Mustang and the 5 stud hubs and just locally toughened the bodyshells updating the strengthening with the annual facelifts when failures became apparent. Even after the XP which appears to be the South American model there were problems in severe service with body cracking.
I think the body pressing dies for the station wagon were sent to Argentina after Ford Australia were finished with them, which would explain the similarity of the wagon which debuted in 1966.
It looks like the 1973 facelift adopted the XP Falcon front panels (aka early Mercury Comet).
That wagon looks close to ours, but i’m not so sure. The rear lower panel is XK/XL with the taillights ‘centred’ rather than running flush with the top edge as per XM/XP. And the d-pillar on this example is different to the oz XK-XP wagons’. The rear door glass is more inclined than ours at the trailing edge. The front wheel arch is also different to our XP.
I’d say none of these panels is from us.
The Argentine wagon is quite different in the rear end. The picture below, from the Argentine Falcon post I did, shows all three: Argentine (top), Australian (middle) and US (bottom).
Well there you go, conventional wisdom/urban legend bites the dust again. I can’t help thinking that the 1966 station wagon timing is rather convenient, and I could see them modifying things to avoid having that curved rear side glass.
Looking at the Citroen Ranger seems to have answered a question of where have all the Ford Tri-motors gone!
Some years back, I played around designing a very rugged and simple vehicle, making it as cheap as possible, and what I came up with looked remarkable similar to this. The doors appear to be symmetrical to fit either side. Even that roof line was exactly the same!
The biggest difference was I didn’t think of the body being corrugated steel.
A more refined(?) VW Thing. Fascinating. I’d like to see one of these in person!
The corrugated look was common to the Citroen H van also.
In Europe, it would be unusual to see a Mehari with a top on, as they tend to only come out in the summer and in France. Ideal for use on scrub land but so much n the beach itself, given the relatively narrow tyres.
Unless I’m mistaken, the body of the Mehari isn’t corrugated steel, but corrugated plastic. Very cool little minimalist trucklets.
Yes, ABS plastic.
The looks of the Citroen seem to emphasize the front wheel drive.
I don’t think so. My parents have 1986 Citroën 2CV Charleston.
Citroën 2CV and its variations have two-cylinder boxer motors in front of axle with longitudinal mounted gearbox behind the axle (like a T-shaped). Henceforth, the front end doesn’t have big overhangs common with many modern FWD vehicles.
You want photos of another Avenger Ive already shot the two I can see everday in regular use but there are two shed fulls of them not very far away not a rare car in Aotearoa by any means they were quite popular especially after Andrew Cowan wiped the floor with the much vaunted Ford Escort Rally cars in a Rally Avenger one season.
Bryce; I didn’t say “I want photos” of an Avenger; they’re easy to come by on the web. I said I wanted to actually find a Plymouth Cricket in the US.
Good luck Paul – you’ll be hard pressed to find an Avenger in the UK!
As it happens, I was on the Cohort earlier today, looking for Avenger/Cricket sightings for my CC work queue. to add to an eBay find.
There is a blue automatic Avenger on the cohort and a brown one too both posted by me under different names the guy I bought my Minx from has a wagon and theres a wrecking yard a couple of towns away with some.
Believe it or not Paul, but there was a mint condition Cricket at this Fall Carlisle in October; I think it was a ’73 model. I think the last one I’ve seen in the wild was in the early to mid 80’s back in Pennsylvania where I lived owned by an older couple, and it too was in pretty good condition back then. Now I kick myself for not getting a pic of it for posterity. I forgot how small they were – about the size of an 80’s Dodge Omni.
I saw a silver, Quebec-plated Cricket in the drive-thru of the Morrisville, VT McDonalds in about 1995. It is the only one I have ever seen in the metal.
Cool, I wish I’d had a digital camera on my two month stint in Argentina in 1995.
Many many cool Curbside classics on that trip, including the cars shown above (including the Torino which literally stopped my in my tracks), a Harley Knucklehead, and a real Chance Vought F4U Corsair on a pole at the tiny airport. (It was later taken down and restored, photo is the actual plane I saw)
Unfortunately I never got the chance to return to Patagonia through my job.
South & Central America had a lot of Yankee leftovers; e.g. the 1969 Soccer War involved Am. prop fighters on both sides, Brazil had M3 Stuarts, & Argentina had Gen. Belgrano (former USS Phoenix w/ 11 WW2 Battle ★s) & A4D Skyhawks, effective against RN destroyers despite being a ’50s design.
The Mehari should be durable as the body is plastic.
For those who don’t know it, Colonia is just across the River Plate from Buenos Aires; an easy ferry ride for a day trip.
From Citroën Méhari to E-Méhari (only available in France).
That’s new to me. Tell us more please, Johannes!
Basically it’s a Bolloré Bluesummer, 100% electric, top speed 110 km/h. Obviously a fun-vehicle.
More pictures here:
http://www.autoblog.nl/image-gallery?file=Citroen/E-Mehari/
Great shots and story. It’s always interesting to see cars that have long disappeared from North American roads (not to mention some that were never sold here) live on, sometimes for decades, in places like South America. As for the Plymouth Cricket, I haven’t seen one since the late Seventies, and they weren’t a common sight at that time either. Ontario’s winters (not to mention heavily salted roads) aren’t kind to cars, and it’s especially hard on those that weren’t really designed for it.
Great points. I just want to point out there is no such thing as one South American market. Just since the early 90s there has been a common market and only between Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay.
You can find the Brazilian and Argentine industries and market have always been very different, and even Uruguay built many unusual and unexpected vehicles only for its domestic market. Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia and Chile also had their own specific cars made.
A neighbor had a Cricket when it was new…the main thing I recall is that the guy next door to him bought a new Vega at the same time, and spent a lot of time trying to figure out who had the worse car. I haven’t seen one in decades….and don’t think that’s any great loss.