There were way too many all-too real custom conversion kitschmobiles built in the ’70s. But here’s a sneak preview of some that never saw the light of day. Oh shame! How did we live without them? Starting with this superb Mercedes 450SLC clone based on a Monza Town Coupe. What an obvious choice, too! Brilliant.
I’m assuming this is supposed to be the same car, but the “artist” that created it looks to have been one of the kids of Standard Motors’ honcho. Even I could have done better than that. But it’s good to know that “it will be trimmed with femininity in mind”.
Standard Motors’ first Chrysler conversion. Oh joy! And what a fine job it is, offering the luxury of the Versailles (itself a factory custom conversion of the Granada) or Seville for under $10,000!
Speaking of the Granada, here’s a conversion that will absolutely positively erase any doubt about it being mistaken for a Mercedes, and not just Ford’s delusional ad writers.
How did we get through that decade without these gracing our pathetic lives with their grandeur?
Would the whole world recognize that a person bought an imposter? Do most people think kit cars are real? An MG wouldn’t sound like a Beetle would it?
“Do most people think kit cars are real?
Sadly, yes. Especially when it is a Cobra Kit car.
Ack! Those artist’s conceptualizations remind me of those advertisements for the fake beards, sideburns and mustaches that ran in the back pages of sketchy magazines. Very classy.
Something like this…
Does the phrase “lipstick on a pig” mean anything to these people? My grandmother used to say “it’s not the clothes you wear, it’s the peg they hang on”.
In the 80’s, there was a JCar based Mercedes 190 base clone here in Brazil.
If only Cadillac put so much effort into the Cimarron!
I would drive the wheels off this thing! Seriously, this would be a fun commuter (I do love J cars for winter beaters with a heater….) Especially if it had that silly raspy 1.8/2.0 4 banger. FWD for foul Appalachia weather….couldn’t get into trouble with that 4 cylinder if I tried…
Thanks for all these great Brazil car pics!
The Pyongyang 4.10
Paul, you surely got those illustrations from then contemporary issues of either Mad or Cracked magazines.
My thoughts or theses rip off companies employed their 10 year old sons as advertising artists. The 450SLC .How did they think they could get away with it. How about about the reverse clone. “Turn your first hen Seville into to a Nova” to fit in with your increasing unemployed community? “
There’s no way a Chevy Monza could be restyled to look like that for any reasonable price. Not that’s I’d want a car to look like that anyway….
Was this some sort of scam trying to get “dealers” to sign up? There’s a Standard Motors in Miami today but doesn’t appear to be related. Hard to tell for sure though with little but a PO box to go by.
We also has a Chevrolet Monza (Brazilian JCar) with a Chrysler LeBaron flare…..
There was even a VW Dasher with a Audi Quattro looks.
That’s pretty convincing!
Well, Ford was an instigator in this realm with their “Mercedes” clone Granada” ads.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/qotd-does-anyone-know-anything-about-a-ford-granada-vs-mercedes-comparison-test-by-airplane-pilots-in-which-one-of-the-mercedes-was-crashed/
I don’t know why we should be offended by this, after all this isn’t this just “badge” engineering? Doing the very same thing that most of the manufacturers were doing.
In the 70’s a conversion company here in Brazil created, how to say…..a Mavellac or a Cadirick (joke names). It was based on the Ford Maverick with a look alike Cadillac front clip and even a slanted back in a two door body. Bad taste at the last consequences.
One more picture of the Mavellac
That’s actually better looking than the original Maverick. Squared-off where it should be, nice big taillights.
It’s bring me an interesting “what if” scenario about what if Ford had continued to make the Maverick by upgrading its design?
I agree; although it wasn’t hard to be better looking than the Maverick! What most impresses me about it is the apparent high quality of the conversion.
Was it offered with a five speed manual ? Did it have a tachometer ?
This Cadirick Mavellac looks like a 2-Door version of the early to mid-1980s down-sized Lincoln Continental.
A conversion company named Avallone customized many models of XW and GM cars in Brazil during the 80’s . One of these was the Santana Avallone. It tried to emulate the Chrysler New Yorker looks in two different wheelbase variations.
Sergio, all of these are amazing!
+1. Seems this sort of thing was commoner in Brazil than in the US!
Need is the mother of creativity. We were closed to import cars and other goods from 1976 to 1990.
That would make for an interesting article. I don’t know much about the automotive history of Brazil. What was it like before 1976?
Yep it is. Creativity at its peak.
+2
Trying to wrap my head around a stretched wheelbase car where the length was added to the front rather than the back. Too much cachaça, surely.
I suspect they used the front half of the Santana coupe or 2-door wagon. Using existing parts would make the stretch relatively quick and easy to perform. In the 70s Volvo did the same when creating their 264 TE limo.
Of course a nonsense measure.
Yes it is. Brazilians are quite a bit creative..
I remember kits to convert a fox body Stang into a Mercedes R129 SL replica… weird times, especially now that the “replicated” machines are usually cheaper than those donors were.
PHEW TO ALL OF THEM!
Pimp My Ride did this to a Ford Escort
Oops…..forgot the photo
“The CLASSIC LADY, designed for the woman of today, will be trimmed with femininity in mind.”
Um, Dodge tried that in 1955 and 1956. It didn’t go over well.
As with the La Femme, I’d be surprised if anyone who had two X chromosomes was recruited to help design the Classic Lady; both are a clueless dude’s idea of what women want from their car. Hint: it’s not something that will show off how feminine they are, whatever that may entail.
Isn’t a similar thing going on in China? Not kit cars based on existing cars but knockoffs that look like the original.
Most of these are easily dismissed as the ridiculous abominations that they are. Some of these, like the fake Rolls Royce or ’37 Ford front end that bolted onto VW Beetles had a certain amount of irony to them. And since they aren’t manufacturing new MG T-series roadsters anymore, something like a re-bodied VW Beetle can be fun to drive on a sunny summer day. But you certainly can’t take these cars very seriously.
I remember the Bugs with the fake Rolls front end. What a joke. I saw a yellow one when I was a kid in the early ‘70’s, and I couldn’t believe that someone would actually buy one. I like Bugs, and there were plenty of things you could (and still can) do with one…but a fake Rolls? Nope. As for the other cars, I don’t think anyone with a shred of self respect would bother.
I remember seeing the Rolls-Royce and ‘37 Ford front end kits in the J.C. Whitney catalog well into the ‘80s. One practical aspect of these is that they increased luggage space!
“Grandeur” – sounds like an appropriate portmanteau word, combining Granada and manure.
Quite fitting!
The American counterpart of Mitsuoka.
Besides some of the one-off customs that people make in their garage, there’s a whole cottage industry of parts being sold to turn your Chrysler Sebring, or 300 or in some cases Ford Mustang into some sort of FrankenBentley. If you’re not intimately familiar with Bentleys, the one in the pic attached is fairly convincing. I don’t understand the fascination with this kind of thing, however.
Oddly, I have thought about getting one of these, but it would only be fun for a day. I’ll stick to the regular Sebring convertible instead.
Jon Gerard’s work as executed on a Monte Carlo.