The Tatra T603

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The Tatra T603 was a Czech built car made by the 3rd oldest car maker in Europe. The T603 started life in 1956 and was built until 1975, it featured three headlights and a rear engined air cooled V8. With is rather odd styling the T603 was chosen to appear in the 2005 movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, raising the profile of a car that was once not well known outside communist European Countries. Almost entirely hand-built, Tatra’s were not for everybody; normal citizens could not buy them. They were reserved for Party elites, Communist officials, factory presidents and other notables, as well as being exported to most other Communist nations as official cars. Even Fidel Castro had a white Tatra T603.

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VW Type 3 fastback

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The VW Type 3 also known as the 1500 or 1600 was produced from 1961 until 1977. Called the Type 3 because it was VW’s 3rd design with the Beetle being the Type 1 and the Kombi van being the Type 2. The Type 3 shared much of its mechanical’s with its older relatives but with a few revisions. One example was the motor that despite being the same basic unit as in the Beetle and Kombi, it now featured a redesigned cooling system that let the motor sit flat under the rear floor parcel area. This was a huge marketing win at the time as shown in the classic ad above with a very young Dustin Hoffman. The Type 3 come in 3 body styles a sedan known as the notchback, a wagon known as the squareback and a coupe known as the fastback.    

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The Tampa Airport Monorail

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Monorails are often seen as a novelty and a tourist attraction, probably due to the fact that Disney likes them a lot and that they have a few limitations in when it comes to changing tracks. Monorails work the best on short loop tracks and the monorail at the Tampa Airport in the video above is just that, a short loop around the parking garage into the terminal and back again. Built in the early 90’s most of this monorail is inside providing almost no touristy scenery for the user like most of the other monorails in the world do. This monorail is all about moving people from their cars to the airport terminal, so it is one of the few monorails about that fill a practical need perfectly. 

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Hoons Trust Holden

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Most states in Australia have recently introduced anti-hoon laws to crack down on street racers and hoons that have a little bit too much fun with their cars. The laws generally see the hoon lose his car from anywhere from a few days to forever followed by a day in court. The police media units have been in overtime since the laws were introduced as stories of idiots getting sprung doing the stupidest things hit the papers. Some of the best stories we have seen recently include a WA lad losing his car only minutes after getting his licence, as he was doing a burnout in the testing centre and another guy losing two cars in only a mater of days. Today we stumbled across this piece on drive.com.au were Victorian police announced that of the 5000 cars taken in two years nearly half of them where made by Holden. What do you think, are Holden’s hoon cars or is there a more deserving brand for Australia’s Hoons. Hit up our comment form below.

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Daewoo Maepsy, a Gemini with a familar face

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The Isuzu Gemini was one of the most popular of GM small cars during the late 70s and early 80s with versions produced is Japan, Australia, Brazil, and the UK  to name a few. While most of these models started life as a carbon copy of each other some did get a unique from end treatment to suit their own market.  As the South Korean Daewoo version progressed along its lifespan it obtained a Opel Rekord or Holden Commodore looking frontend with a dashboard that looks remarkably similar to the Holden Camira dash (that was proberbly derived from another GM J car). The Daewoo Maepsy in the commercial above is dated around 1985, it was about then Gemini’s in the rest of the world moved to an all new front wheel drive platform. 

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Mercedes Benz Diesotto Engine

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Mercedes Benz have always been not shy in in investing in new car technology and if their Diesotto engine goes into production it could revolutionize combustion engines. taking its name from both the Diesel and otto cycle engine’s the new Mercedes design is about putting the best parts of both engines design into one engine together with plenty of other high tech gadgets to produce a engine with the economy of a 4 cyl and the power of a V8. In one test it achieved less than 6 L/100 klm in the body of a large S-Class which is about as good as a small diesel. Want to know more? Watch the news story above.

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The DC8

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The DC8 was an aeroplane manufactured by Douglas from 1958 till 1972. It is often hard to identify the DC8 from its competitor the Boeing 707. The 707 is often regarded as the first commercially successful jet airliner selling 1010 planes compared to 556 of the DC8. In 1967 Douglas merged with McDonald to become McDonald Douglass with the DC8 ending production in 1972. Boeing’s 707 continued in production until the late 70’s and paved the way for Boeing to become the worlds largest aircraft manufacturer. While the DC8 is often forgotten about when you talk about the pioneers of the jet age it is interesting to note that around 200 remain in service mainly to cargo airlines, compared to just 80 707’s which is a decent percentage when you look at production numbers. Today not much is left of the McDonald Douglass company after merging with Boeing in 1997 with a derivative of the DC9 known as the 717 ceasing production in 2006.

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