Ring any bells? You might not have heard of it, but Ronald Reagan owned one for 20 years on his Californian ranch. Later versions used a gutsy turbocharged 1. You got bucket seats with lumbar support, tinted glass and power-adjustable mirrors. Naming the others would simply take up too much room. On top of the features, it promised a 40mpg thirst and performance to keep most of the 70, buyers entertained.
Why, then, was it forgotten? However, a devastating factory fire in put paid to that and the company folded shortly afterwards in despite huge acclaim for its compact cars. The Bronze was launched in with a glassfibre monocoque body and was the first car with this construction to pass contemporary crash tests. With neat styling by Richard Oakes and aerodynamic design input from Gordon Murray, the later Gold was just getting into its sales stride when that fire destroyed all of the tooling.
In all, Bronze and Gold models were produced and they are slowly gaining recognition for their ground-breaking design. Executives consigned the project to the automotive attic until the late s, when the oil market had seemingly settled.
Alfa Romeo made several changes before launching production but the first 6 that drove off the line already looked dated. The carburetted, 2. How do you attract young buyers? If a book existed detailing the answer, Buick read it cover to cover. Their Century Turbo was an impressive offering produced by the same company making the Indianapolis pace car. Talk about motorsport pedigree. The Turbo Coupe used a bhp 2. When almost everyone else was abandoning the sports car market amid fears the USA would legislate them out of existence, Professor Anthony Stevens came up with the superb Cipher.
Light and compact, it used a simple chassis, glassfibre body and cc Reliant engine. Despite all of this, Stevens could not raise the funds to take the Cipher into production and only seven were ever completed.
