"Amoore100" (amoore100)
11/16/2015 at 22:16 • Filed to: Ridiculous Rebadges, Mazda Roadpacer, Holden
6
13|
"Amoore100" (amoore100)
11/16/2015 at 22:16 • Filed to: Ridiculous Rebadges, Mazda Roadpacer, Holden | 6
| 13 |
Welcome to Ridiculous Rebadges, a series of articles in which I go through and examine the details and circumstances surrounding some of the more infamous and some of the more esoteric vehicular rebadges throughout automotive history.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
As a sort of fitting final to the Australian month that Ridiculous Rebadges has had, I decided to go with perhaps one of the oddest products of badge engineering in history, courtesy of !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ‘s suggestion a few weeks ago. The car in question is the Mazda Roadpacer AP (Anti Pollution, not Advanced Placement) and was built in the mid 1970s as a competitor to the contemporary Toyota Century and Nissan President market. Lacking a properly large sedan to call their own, Mazda rang up Holden and asked for several HJ Premier sedans to be shipped up to Japan, sans engine. There they were fitted with Mazda’s venerable 13B rotary engine, more known in later applications with the RX-7. Despite being more powerful than Holden’s standard straight six engines, the rotary produced nearly no torque, resulting in an astounding 103 mph top speed and 9 miles to the gallon (in the middle of the ‘70s oil crisis). Extra luxury features such as “a central locking system that activated when the car hit 10 km/h (6.2 mph), a chime system that activated at 90 km/h (56 mph), a dictation system and a stereo able to be controlled from both front and back seats” ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ) were added to cater to Japanese buyers, but unsurprisingly, only 800 models sold, mostly to government agencies. Later, many of these were crushed, so if you find a Roadpacer on the roads someday, you may be looking at one of the last.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Holden HJ Premier
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
[First two images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
[Third image courtesy of flickr.com user HJ75]
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Mazda Roadpacer AP
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
[First two images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons]
[Third image courtesy of flickr.com user History of Japanese Cars in New Zealand]
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Sources:
[ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ]
[ !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ]
Birddog
> Amoore100
11/16/2015 at 22:30 |
|
Those Holdens crack me up. The design is a weird mash up of contemporary American GM cars. There’s a little LeMans, Nova, Caprice, and Cadillac on the exterior. The interior is pretty standard 70s fare.
Now, the Rotary? That just had to be the result of too much Sake one night.
|
Amoore100
> Birddog
11/16/2015 at 22:38 |
|
I love it so much for that reason. The styling is something that could only be conjured in an alternate reality after hearing a Caprice being described over long distance telephone, and the rotary engine is just icing on top of a very odd cake of vegemite...
|
Birddog
> Amoore100
11/16/2015 at 22:41 |
|
That’s a perfect description!
Bring one to a local Cruise night here in the States and watch heads explode.
roflcopter
> Birddog
11/16/2015 at 23:21 |
|
There was a period in time where Mazda produced ONLY cars that had rotary engines in them, that still blows my mind.
Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
> Amoore100
11/16/2015 at 23:55 |
|
I’m suddenly thinking of the Toyota Cavalier...
|
Amoore100
> Manwich - now Keto-Friendly
11/17/2015 at 00:26 |
|
|
Amoore100
> roflcopter
11/17/2015 at 00:27 |
|
Wow! I knew they had many rotaries, but I didn’t know it was all rotary...definitely Wankel and NSU’s visions coming to fruition...
pip bip - choose Corrour
> Amoore100
11/17/2015 at 01:55 |
|
supposedly Mazda gave GM Rotary technology , Mazda received Holden bodies due to being rhd.
ly2v8-Brian
> Amoore100
11/17/2015 at 02:02 |
|
courtesy of ly2v8-Brian ‘s suggestion
|
Amoore100
> ly2v8-Brian
11/17/2015 at 02:03 |
|
My pleasure. I almost always try to honor suggestions to the best of my ability. Just a common courtesy among Opponauts!
|
Amoore100
> pip bip - choose Corrour
11/17/2015 at 02:04 |
|
Yeah, I read about that...didn’t seem to have worked too well for GM though...or Mazda for that matter...
|
ly2v8-Brian
> Amoore100
11/17/2015 at 02:14 |
|
Thank you. I don't know if you have done it, but go for the granddaddy of rebadge/license the Austin 7.
|
Amoore100
> ly2v8-Brian
11/17/2015 at 02:19 |
|
Wow! That’s really interesting...I’ll have to feature it sometime; in fact, I haven’t done the British car industry much here, perhaps it will be next after the Malaysian segment...