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Name that car

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J

jayhawk

Jedi Warrior
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You guys are so good that you'll come up with this in no time but I just learned/read about this one and thought it was pretty cool.
Name the two door car that was produced in limited amounts in England starting about 1960, used a 350 V8 Chevy engine and had a fiberglass body designed in Italy.
I want one but know I won't get it.
 
Are you talking about the Iso Grifo A3/C
 
I thought they were aluminum...

Italian1.jpg


One I worked on. You can JUST make out the MG in the second photo, "in" the tree /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
I thought they were fiberglass - built by Bertone - initially had Chevy 350 V8...maybe they were built in Italy
 
All that tuck-n-roll looks italian to me. Very Bertone too.
 
Can't find enuff info, but now I kinda remember it being 'glas. Difficult thing to work on, I *do* recall.

I don't think ISO is the car J'hawk is referring to.

Mebbe a "visual" hint?
 
Where were Opal GT's made? But I thought those had buick engines.
 
Cherman ehnginheerink.
 
[ QUOTE ]
The Gordon (later Gordon-Keeble) used a plasic body & Chevy smallblock, although not a 350.

[/ QUOTE ]




Bingo-- my source (classic car book said 350 others say 5.7 liter and others say 327 chevy..
Again, I say, you guys are good!
 
The Opel GT body was all steel. The cars were assembled in Germany. All were fitted from the factory with Opel designed inline fours.

In the "small world" department, a lightweight sport version of the ISO-Grifo was built called the Bizzarrini. The Bizzarrini Strada variant came with a Chevy smallblock like the Grifo and Rivolta. The Bizzarrini Europa variant came with the same Opel four as the GT.


PC.
 
Plus the only one I ever saw was modded for drag racing and did have a buick v8 in it.
 
Dang, I was hoping to come in and save the day with the correct answer, but John beat me to it.

The Gordon Keebles had 300hp 327s. The Chevy 350 didn't appear until 1969.

By the way, Gordon had been previously involved with the Peerless!
 
[ QUOTE ]
The Chevy 350 didn't appear until 1969.

By the way, Gordon had been previously involved with the Peerless!

[/ QUOTE ]



Yeah, Wondered where you were, Sammy. Figgured you'd be in the first 3 responders. Yeah, I should have remembered about the 327-350 change. We had a big ol' used '70 Chevy Kingswood wagon (back in the days of playpens, portacribs and munchkins) that had the 350 V8 and it was considered a newish V8. It was a great engine, BTW, only the car rusted out from under it.
 
When I was still in the UK, I was out car shopping and at a BL dealer in Bilston (West Midlands) they had a Gordon Keeble on the used car lot. It really was gorgeous, but it was priced too high for me, and not very practical for a family. (The heck with practicality, if I could have afforded it, I would have bought it!). I must be the only member to have seen one on the used car lot of a franchised main dealer!
 
I should really mention that the 350 came out in calendar year 1968, so it's possible to get cars titled as '68s with 350s. But all Chevys with the 350 are '69s.

Just as a FYI:
first Chev V8 appears in model year '55 (265)
283 appears in '57
'58 the 348 big block makes it into passenger cars
'61 the 409 appears
'62 the 327 appears
'65 the 396 appears (409 disappears)
'66 the 427 debuts
'69 the 350 replaces the 327. 307s appear due to 350 shortages (350 w/ 283 crank)
70 454 replaces 427
 
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