Witty comment regarding a lame car

[Number_35]

This was back around '76. My friend Gary had a 2nd-gen Envoy Epic (often referred to as 'the Epidemic'), a '69 plus or minus a year. His mother had given it to him - it was white with a red interior, had the little base engine (1200 cc?), and a rare automatic, likely a 2-speed. The Epic and its sister car, the Vauxhall Viva, were manufactured by GM of Great Britain. I think the Canadian Chev-Olds-Cadillac dealers sold the Epic, and the Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealers sold the Viva. (Ford had a similar deal whereby their dealers sold the British-Ford Cortina in Canada.)

It looked quite a bit like the attached photo, but might have been a 2-door.

Anyway, Gary announced one day that he'd concluded that the Epic must get incredible gas mileage. I asked him if he'd calculated it, and he said no, but he'd read that jackrabbit starts and sudden braking yielded poor mileage. As the Epic was completely gutless and had terrible brakes, it did not allow its driver to engage in either of these gas-wasting habits.

He was a very bright guy, and said this only as a joke. The Epic died one Fall evening. We pulled the plugs and then had a friend crank it over - a piece of something, perhaps a chunk of valve, whizzed past our heads in the dark, and we figured a field repair was not going to happen that night.

 

[hpb]

That car was also sold in Australia, as the Holden Torana

 

[Cujet]

It's interesting that we look down upon lower end cars like this. However they really are a marvel of the modern industrial world. People in the 1800's would have found such a thing remarkable.

 

[eljefino]

I like the large greenhouse but this illustration screams "tin can/ deathtrap".

 

[andyd]

Last gen Falcon?

 

[AdmdeVilleneuve]

The description with the pic in the advert is... an inside joke? "Dashing..." "Pure glamour..." "...sweeping grille."

 

[Number_35]

Originally Posted by eljefino
I like the large greenhouse but this illustration screams "tin can/ deathtrap".
Likely true, but also almost certainly no worse than the '70 Corolla I was driving.

Originally Posted by hpb
That car was also sold in Australia, as the Holden Torana

That makes sense - a car from the Brit arm of GM being rebadged for the Aussie arm of GM.

Originally Posted by Cujet
It's interesting that we look down upon lower end cars like this. However they really are a marvel of the modern industrial world. People in the 1800's would have found such a thing remarkable.
I had owned the sister car a couple of years earlier, a '68 Vauxhall Viva. While VW Beetles and some of the early Japanese imports (Datsun 1000 and 510, Toyota Corolla and Corona, Mazda 1200 and 1500/1800) of the same vintage were well regarded, my Viva was very unreliable, as were the Epics two of my friends owned ... we were 0 for 3 as far as these cars went.

Agreed, the good cars of the day (and even the bad ones) would have seemed like a miracle to people of the previous century.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Calling that car the "Epic" is just plain hilarious!
It makes me a bit nostalgic, though...reminds me a bit of the mid-'70s Comets and Mavericks my parents owned. They rusted so quickly and completely that the sound of it would wake us up on winter nights.

Advertising...here's another great example of odd and possibly intentionally comic praise for a questionable product;

 

[Silk]

Originally Posted by hpb
That car was also sold in Australia, as the Holden Torana

Here they had to sit in the showroom alongside the Viva, and very obvious it was a badge job. Pretty popular here, the HA, HB and HC Viva, the last of them being the Vauxhall Chevette. There was also the Magnum, which had an 1800cc version of the Vauxhall slant 4. Never saw an auto Viva...no market for them.

Early models had a weak clutch, later beefed up, and they also used to burst 3rd/4th syncro hub. Worked on hundreds of them, just an unremarkable car.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by Number_35
That makes sense - a car from the Brit arm of GM being rebadged for the Aussie arm of GM.


Except Oz also lengthened the front of them and installed 6s (and trialled V-8s till the Govt stopped them).

The Front clip of an LC/LJ will fit on those, and carry the 6 into it as well.

Here's one of the ones that I owned...3.3L 6, triple 1-3/4" Stromberg carbs...not as fast as the 4 door 3 litre I built up.

 

[Kira]

I love the neat 'n clean designs of the little cars of that era. Isolate the grille in the picture and you can see an early Toyota grille.

 

[BrocLuno]

I'd like to have one from one year earlier (smog exempt here). All nicely restored and properly rust-proofed. But, I'd also like a 2-stroke Saab or DKW

 

[MrMoody]

Originally Posted by Number_35
While VW Beetles and some of the early Japanese imports (Datsun 1000 and 510, Toyota Corolla and Corona, Mazda 1200 and 1500/1800) of the same vintage were well regarded, my Viva was very unreliable, as were the Epics two of my friends owned ... we were 0 for 3 as far as these cars went.

We had a 510 2-door with Borg Warner 3-speed back in the early 80s, bought it for next to nothing, gave it a tuneup and drove the [censored] out of it. I honestly miss that little car. Didn't have a lot of power but it weighed almost nothing so it wasn't bad, and it handled like it was on rails even on the little skinny tires.

 

[Lyman]

My first car was a 1966 Ford Cortina. I bought it out of a junk yard with a blown engine. My Father and I rebuilt it as I wasn't even old enough to drive yet.

 

[Number_35]

Originally Posted by MrMoody
We had a 510 2-door with Borg Warner 3-speed back in the early 80s, bought it for next to nothing, gave it a tuneup and drove the [censored] out of it. I honestly miss that little car. Didn't have a lot of power but it weighed almost nothing so it wasn't bad, and it handled like it was on rails even on the little skinny tires.
The first Japanese car I ever drove was a beat-up '70 Datsun 1000 4-speed. I was utterly smitten - it was incredibly fun to drive compared to my '62 Chevy II w/ 194 inline-6 and Powerglide 2-speed automatic, and way faster off the line.

Originally Posted by Blkstanger
My first car was a 1966 Ford Cortina. I bought it out of a junk yard with a blown engine. My Father and I rebuilt it as I wasn't even old enough to drive yet.
My friend had a green 4-door Cortina, I think a '70. We called it 'the green box'. We rebuilt the engine in the summer of '77 - two young guys who didn't know what they were doing, but it all turned out OK. He drove it for a couple of years after that. We didn't have a hoist, so took the head off first so that the two of us could lift the block out by hand.

 

[Number_35]

Originally Posted by Kira
I love the neat 'n clean designs of the little cars of that era. Isolate the grille in the picture and you can see an early Toyota grille.
Back in the day, I thought that the Epic and Viva 2-door wagons looked really sharp.

 

[hpb]

Originally Posted by MrMoody
We had a 510 2-door with Borg Warner 3-speed back in the early 80s, bought it for next to nothing, gave it a tuneup and drove the [censored] out of it. I honestly miss that little car. Didn't have a lot of power but it weighed almost nothing so it wasn't bad, and it handled like it was on rails even on the little skinny tires.


They were called the Datsun 1600 here in Oz, and were the weapon of choice for rally drivers for many years, well into the 1990's! Sadly we didn't get the 2 door, only the sedan and wagon. Most that survive today have been retrofitted with later model engines, i.e., Z18, SR20, etc. Do a Google search for Aaron Fitzpatrick Datsun 1600 and you'll get the idea!