Jamie

... and although some stories indicate that William Durant found the emblem in 1914 on some wallpaper in a Paris hotel room ... .... others say he actually tore off a piece of the wallpaper with the design from the Paris hotel room in 1908, and kept it in his wallet until he found a suitable use for the logo ... ... and it was first used in 1913 on the Chevrolet Royal Mail and Baby Grand models ...

The base vehicle is a GM product, but the conversion was done by some people at a telephone company. The vehicle in question is currently in an auto museum. Stock GM seats for the era.

Nope, it's GM based ...

Anyone care to identify this?

I'm still here, but I'm not finding much time to post on C&G. Yes, I'm still in Australia, but I don't know for how long. My girlfriend is trying very hard to convince me to move to Canada. We've considered the option of her moving to Australia, but her kids don't want to leave Canada. The cold is one thing I'm not looking forward to. It's almost summer here and today the prediction is for a low of 68 and a high of 80 (currently at 2 in the afternoon it's 75°F/24°C ... feels just about perfect). Where my girlfriend lives in northern Manitoba, it's currently -2°F/-19°C. Not my idea of weather that's suitable for humans (the next town north is the hub of the polar bear watching tourist industry). When she came out to Australia with her kids in July/August, her kids were so worried about losing part of their Summer vacation to travel to a place where it was Winter. When they arrived, they discovered that there was very little difference between the northern Manitoba Summer that they had left and the Australian Winter. Of course, I don't want to move to northern Manitoba, but unless she lands another job elsewhere, that's where I'll end up.

clicky This isn't a bad article on the subject. It looks at the BIG picture (inproved fuel economy vs cost of buying a hybrid). If mathematics causes your brain to lock-up, you'd be best to skip the article. The quick and dirty summary: Gas-electric hybrids are the most fuel-efficient passenger cars on the road and ecologically there isn't a more viable option. Until something big changes, though, the industry-high efficiency can't economically offset the steep sticker price.

The general feeling from others that have seen the images is that the photos were taken in China, and the engine is a 60s vintage Toyota 2R or 12R.

And now, the latest show bike from Russian Chopper ...

OK, I'll change that. Unless you plan on doing something lame like running a section of pipe across the back of the car behind the fuel tank, an exhaust outlet on the right that doesn't involve running the exhaust through the right rear wheel well and wrapping it around the fuel tank in an unsafe manner, is impossible with a standard Commodore fuel tank.

The current rumor in Australia is that the car was pulled from the eBay auction after Jay Leno got interested.

eBay listing The highest bid reached just over $150,000, but the reserve wasn't met before it was pulled from the auction. "Final Objective" is a street legal 55 Chevy with a V12 1650ci Rolls Royce Merlin engine (the same type of engine used most of the P51 Mustang fighter aircraft). At 3000hp, it is in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most powerful street registered car. The car was built in Australia by Rod Hadfield of Castlemaine Rod Shop. It's been on a tour of the US, and it looks like he doesn't want to bother shipping it back to Australia.

They were both very lucky to get out if it with no serious injury.

The full set of still images:

I put this particular animation together for another forum to because there was some debate about the possibility that the individual images were presented out of sequence. I figured that as my animation is being passed from forum to forum, I might as well let you guys see it. This happened very recently at a "Cruise" event at the local circuit race track. It was a "low speed" cruise event, so helmets weren't required, and the poorly installed 4 point seatbelts proved useless in a rollover. Fortunately there were no serious injuries. The passenger (on the left side ... the car is RHD) received grazes and needed stitches for a gash in her head from hitting the roll bar, but was back at work within a couple of days. The car is an LJ series ('72 to '74) Torana. That generation Torana is basically a late 60's Vauxhall Viva with the nose lengthened and an inline 6 installed in place of the Viva's 4 cylinder. They were small, light and fast. The one in the images has had the inline 6 removed and a small block V8 installed in its place. It's a 9 second drag car, but the suspension and tires are exactly what you don't want for drifting. There's more information here

From what I've heard, there have been a few bulk orders of Monaro trim pieces from various groups of GTO owners.

Considering that the 1948-53 Holden 48-215 (aka FX) and the 1953-56 Holden FJ that the Efijy is based on had strong Buick influences, it's no surprise that you would see it as a Buick. There's no reason that a toned down production version couldn't be manufactured GM. Essentially it's just a lengthened C6 Vette chassis and drive line clothed with a custom fiberglass body.

I suspect that the engine is not a preview of the "Blue Devil" configuration. Judging by appearances, the supercharger setup is based on one of Harrop Engineering's Stealth LS112 supercharger packages. EDIT: Examination of high resolution images of the Efijy engine compartment reveals that the supercharger installation is indeed based on an Australian designed Harrop LS112 package.

I agree. The more I look at those photographs on the VWVortex site, the more convinced I am that they are Commodore VE engineering mules wearing modified VZ bodywork, and not reworked VZ models for the US market.

Chrysler built 3 different versions of their Air Raid Siren from 1942 until 1957, but the Hemi powered version was only produced from 1952. Even then it wasn't the first use of the Chrysler hemi V8. The Hemi was offered in Chrysler cars from the fall of 1950. There's a good web page on the Hemi powered sirens here.

Well, you certainly aren't talking about the hemi-powered Chrysler Air Raid Siren from the early 1950's, as the IND-20 Industrial hemi engine they used wasn't produced until years after the WWII vintage V12 and V16 engines.

Well, there were 2 WWII vintage Chrysler hemi-engines, neither of which reached production status. A V-12 was developed as a tank engine, but I think it was the inverted V-16 that was first and test flown in a P-47 Thunderbolt.

When you've just completed your bouncing-off-the-rev-limiter, lame-ass drift in your riced (or is that sauerkrauted) BMW, no matter how many extra points you think the judges may award you for it or how cool you think it looks, it is usually a really bad idea to get out of your car while the back tires are still spinning. not for the overly sensitive

Photo enhancement of the 3 shots of the Sedans appears to indicate that there are both left and right side exhaust outlets (as per the 2005 GTO). An outlet on the right is not possible with a standard Commodore gas tank.

Bingo. The fuel filler is shifted, so the tank probably has been relocated to meet US regulations. I'll bet that a photograph of the right rear flank of the sedans would have also revealed a shifted gas filler. They are either development mules testing out some of the next generation Holden engineering ... or they're planning an imminent US release of the Holden Wagon and possibly the Sedan as well. There is no other reason for relocating the filler unless the tank has also been moved to meet US regulations.

That Station Wagon photograph reveals a far bigger story than anybody has realized. The information is in plain view and nobody has picked up on it yet. Look at this section of the photograph of the Wagon from the VWvortex Forums: Now look at this image of the same section of the current VZ Commodore Wagon that I cropped out of an image I just downloaded from the Holden web site: What's in a different location? The big question is "why is it in a different location?". For the answer, think back to the really major change that Holden made to the Monaro to turn it into the GTO.