Thanks for all the comments and emails on the Part 1 of the Cars You Never Heard Of.
Thought I’d follow it up with the Panther Kallista. This stems from the same article in “Classic and Sport Car” a UK publication. The article pitted pricey European cars against less expensive cars and rated them. It’s over all theme was “See you can get this close to the expensive cars, for less.”
1985 Panther Kallista
Kallista was the product of the Panther Car Company and they were built between 1980 and 1990, actually coming on the market in about 1982. The were a box chassis with an aluminum body. The engine that was first used was Fords 2.8 V6 which cranked out 2792 cc from its 12v configuration. The electronic fuel injection helped it deliver 150 hp and 159 lb ft of torque. Top speed was about 120 mph with the help of the 5 speed manual transmission.
In the article Kallista was compared against the Morgan Plus 8 which you can purchase now days for about 35,000 British Pounds (about $70k US) compared to the collectors price of 7,000 BP ($14k US). In that contest comparing Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability the Morgan was judged with a total of 37 points and the Panther Kallista end up with 35.
I did find one on Ebay with a few days still to go with a current bid of just over $4k. It’s an 1986, 4 cylinder – not a V6.
Of course I spend a lot of time reading and again a lot of that is two or three-dimensional, although my wife says it’s a single dimension. She sees just “CARS” I see muscle cars, sedans (that I want to turn in to muscle cars), exotic cars and even some European cars. That’s multi-dimensional, don’t you think? I gained a little interest in them when I was a kid and my Dad surprised my Mother with a 60’ish MGB – mainly I learned that unless you wanted to fix ’em a lot…stay a way!!!
I gained a little more familiarization with another brand when I was in college. I had my license suspended….you can figure out why…so don’t make me say ‘too many speeding tickets”, ok? Thanks. So it was only about a mile or so walk to the campus from where I stayed, but if you are from one of the colder States, like northern New York, then you’d know that a morning jaunt on a Dec. morning is ‘nippy” to say the least. So I would catch a ride with a friend. He drove the one of the coolest cars I had ridden. It was a Citroen. Similar to this one:
It had the coolest suspension that would raise when you started it and lower when you turned it off.
My point being that there is another dimension to my reading – European cars. But I am in no way any kind of expert with any of them – although when I lived in Germany, I drove a very old European Ford Escort. That car was horrible!!!! However, it got me round, even when the upper part of the seat frame broke and the only way to drive it was by holding yourself forward using the steering wheel else the seat back, because it leaned so much, should dump you in the back seat. Last year I signed up for..please kneel…”HEMMINGS”… thank you….you may relax now… SPORTS & EXOTIC CAR magazine – some great articles and I enjoy Mike’s and Richard’s writings. Geezze, this is a long way around to the point that I picked up a copy of Classic & Sports Car magazine – UK produced – the other day.
In this was a series of articles that pitted 4 pair of cars against each other. One car in each pair was an expensive classic brand/model and the other was relatively inexpensive newer brand/model. Two things dawned on me, one was,”Hey, I’ve never heard of a Reliant Scimitar SS1 or a Panther Kallista.” The second thing was, “Hey, have never heard of any of these cars!” Normally if I have just one of these realizations – I won’t read the article… nope not interested…. but this time I did.
And now I need to know a little about these cars and I know you do to….all three of my readers!!! So we’ll take a look at the Panther Kallista and the Caterham Seven and the TVR S3 and the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
First up is the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
This car (at about 3000 British Pounds – $6000 USD) was being compared to the Lotus Elan (at 16000 British Pounds or about $32,000 USD). Here is what it looks like:
Reliant Scimitar SS1
Not bad-looking!!!!
These cars were made from 1986 to 1990, however the Scimitar actually arrived on the scene in 1964 with a Ford straight 6 cylinder as the power plant. These more recent models had a spaceframe chassis and fiberglass body, an iron block, alloy heads, SOHC 1809 cc, 8 valve 4. It also sported a Garrett T2 Turbo with electronic multi-port fuel injection system. This allowed it to lay out 140 HP and 141 lb ft of torque and reach a top speed of 128 mph and it only weighted 1969 lbs.
They sported a 5 speed manual transmission, rack and pinion steering, double wishbone independent suspension and disks breaks.
Just to give you some closure, it was compared to the Lotus Elan where it scored 2 points less than the Lotus (38 to 40) in Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability.
Any one out there have one of these? Know anyone that has one? If so drop a comment and pic.
The Roaring Twentys – a great time in US social and economic history. 1928 things still looked pretty good and no indication of the tough economic times that would lead to the terrible 30’s.
1928 saw 8 car companies fighting it out for market shares.
Chevy lead the way with just over a million units at 1,193,212 cars. Ford was a distant second with 607,592 vehicles.
Surprisingly Willys-Overland/Whippet were in third with 315,000 (well behind Ford). Hudson/Essex produced 282,203 for fourth spot with Pontiac/Oakland at fifth with 244,564, Buick was next with 221,758. Chrysler and Nash grabbed sixth and seventh place respectively with 160,670 and 138,137.
Notes for 1928:
– Chrysler was getting its new brand ready for the next year – the DeStoto.
– Ford business coupes came with a rubberized roof.
1950 was the year Mercury produced its one millionth car and it also produced two Mercury NASCAR Grand National wins and was the official pace car of the Indianapolis 500.
1950 Indianapolis 500 Pace Car ’50 Merc Convertible
One of those wins on June 18, 1950 – Blair piloted a 1950 Mercury owned by Sam Rice to victory in a race at Vernon fairgrounds in Vernon, NY.
Mercury was able to reproduce that success with two wins in 1951 as well.
There was a bit of a dry spell until 1956 when they won 5 NASCAR Grand Nationals.
One of those wins was Tim Flock, with his Mercury in rather wet conditions in the 258-mile NASCAR Grand National event at Elkhart Lake‘s Road America.
I thought I’d take a minute finish up the write-up on the very first upholstery job. I finished it up a two weeks ago and really missed driving the Mustang, but that’s what happens when you do your own work and you can only fit it between all the normal life stuff that needs to get done.
Yes, as I was reminded twice by a couple of car acquaintances, I used a kit, some say they aren’t much different from slip covers, but as you can see in my shots here that’s a bit of an understatement.
Now these next two videos are not all that great but I think you can see the removal of the back and the fasteners. I’ve worked with these type of fasteners before in my father’s body shop (back in the early ’70s) nearly all door panels and seat back were fastened in that way. They work really well but bend them (and they do bend easy of they aren’t aligned with the hole and pressure is applied) and you’ll have to spend sometime reshaping them, even then they might not hold properly, or replace them.
Check out the videos:
Here are a few more photos and the finished product. Not to bad for my first one. I have the passenger’s side to do.
With the plastic seatback removed.
Needed to remove the back release
2 piece
release removed.
Helpful hint: All the hardware and fasteners have to pass through upholstery. Rather than try to cut holes, I made X cuts and pressed the screw or hardware through. This made it as tight as possible.
Markings on the Foam
Good shot of the cloth sleeve with the wire passed through.
Here you would pass the hog wire while in the hog-nose pliers through the cloth between the upholstery and the wire. You then have to shove this down between the two pieces of foam and grab a spring.
Finished product.
Replacing the seat track was done before I married the bottom and back. Placing it back in the car was a little tricky..until I figured out that moving the set on the track was the way to get the studs to drop back in to holes in the floor board.
Over all this was not as tough as I thought it would be. The passenger side will be quicker. I’ll post the final product on that side.
3. Reader choice – you choose the next engine to highlight
I have a couple commercial ventures on the near horizon:
1. Certified Auto Appraiser – I’m about to finish my certification and will be specializing in Classic, Muscle, Antique and speciality cars.
2. Auto restoration project management. Focus is on those individuals that love their cars, but don’t have the time nor the experience to know what needs to be done. I’m actually waiting for my first car. It is a 1975 VW Bug coming all the way from Iowa City, Iowa, should be here this will for inspection and the beginning of its restoration.
So what engine would you want to see highlighted? Drop me a note here or on Facebook.
I was recently talking to a coworker of mine who own a 1949 Pontiac Silver Streak Delivery Van (link – http://wp.me/pKHNM-Bx ) and we were discussing his 6 volt system and the troubles with low amperage.
Well I just ran across a couple of interesting articles dealing with that subject. Now I will tell you I am not “the guy” for electrical work – nope not me (I had a bad experience – ok – a couple of bad ones). But even this one I can understand.
Increasing the power supply often means that you need to convert to 12 volt and maybe 15 years ago yes, but now 6 volts are readily available. So here is what you do (sorry no pics)
Take two 6 volt batters and link them in parallel by connecting the two negative terminals to each other and the two positive to each other. The main positive cable goes from the positive terminal of the first battery to ground and the main negative cable is connected to the negative terminal of the second battery. Of course in some case you may have to modify the batter shelf, but it will sure help kick up the cold cranking amps.
Folks seem to like this segment so let’s continue with 1950.
19 major car makers existed back then and Chevy topped the production totals with 1,498,590 units followed closely by Ford with 1, 208,912. The rest of the field were all less than have that.
So you’ve read my review and I promised to drop a note as to the “Long Lasting” part of Griot’s Garage’s – Long Lasting Tire Dressing.
Now is has rained nearly every day since I applied the dressing.
So take a look at the tires with 2 applications and 3 applications.
Tires with 2 applications of tire dressing
Here is the tire with 3 applications of tire dressing
Here is what I think as a wrap up. Long lasting to me doesn’t necessarily mean just duration, but can it stand up to everyday driving – oh—yeah…just in case I failed to mention, the Vette is my daily driver. It lived up to the Griot promise. I’ll continue using this product.
