Sunday, March 21, 2010

Select your car of the year 1967

In the year 1967 the German magazine "Hobby" asked its reader to select their "car of the year". What is interesting is the choice offered, sort of a preselection. They had three categories based on engine size. In the "small" section you will find a lot of cars that people barely remember today. Cars like Autobianchi Primula Coupé, Simca Sportscoupé 1200 S, Sunbeam Imp Californian, NSU Sport-Prinz Coupé, Renault Caravelle, Bond Equipe GT or Matra Jet 5 are rare finds on today's roads and even at oldtimer meetings. I would reckon that people today don't recognize half of the cars on the first picture any more. Only the Alpine 1100 Coupé, VW 1500 Karmann-Ghia, Fiat 124 Sport Coupé and Lancia Fulvia probably are cars many people would remember.
With the bigger cars it's a bit easier. Less known cars here are probably Reliant Scimitar, Glas 3000 V8, Bristol 409, Alfa-Romeo 2600 SZ or Fiat 2300 S Coupé. The kings of the road of 1967 like the Jaguar E-Type, Iso Grifo, Maserati Mistral, Maserati Ghibli, Lamborghini Miura or Mercedes-Benz 280 SL probably are still in the memory of any car interested person having lived in the 60ies or even later.
So, what would my pick today? In the first group Alpine Coupé, Lotus 46 Europe, Honda S800, Alfa Romeo GT 1300 Junior and Matra Jet 5 would be candidates for the win and if I had to choose one it would be the Matra Jet 5 as it was a very innovative car with a mid mounted engine and fiberglass body and it's extremely rare today. Plus it was successful in racing too. In the large car category my winner would be the Lamborghini Miura, a car that I really adore.
Interesting at the side is the fact that Hobby didn't include the regular Aston Martin DB5 but rather a designer version.

2 comments:

John L said...

I have a bit of a weakness for NSUs.

areopagitica said...

Your site covers the same time period as what I have been doing on Looking Back Racing, my Facebook blog. Thank you for sharing our common interest!