Today's highlight is the wonderful kombi spotted at a local home-improvements store parking lot. Great for carrying those 4x2s or kitchen units.
Wonderful color, and dotted around are stickers revealing some of it's history. Looks to be in nice condition, although not sure if the color is original - almost certainly had a respray at some point.
Private plate '333'. Like the curtains, not just for show, it's a camper after all! And yea, they can be quite slow unless they get modded and engine swapped ...
The 'steelie' chrome hubcaps are utterly bonus, along with the roofrack and period windows this is a cool looking Kombi.
Volvo wagon ... an old favorite of mine. 'Thors Hammer' these cars last forever. This one from the late 90s/early noughts looks barely out of diapers ...
The window sticker says it all. It always tells us the rear end is 99% likely to be completely original, no rear-end shunts. Good tip when looking at old cars to buy - the since-new stickers show how original it is.
One from the left field, a Malaysian Proton. I had a chat with the owner, who was doing her laundry at the same time. She said it was great on local roads, the ride and handling is excellent. Thank Lotus for that ... (it's partly engineered by them)
Proton went to town on this little hatchback, with help from the incredible engineering talents at Lotus - which was owned now by the same group. Lots of cool stuff like the boot lid spoiler, alloy wheels, and cool centre-exit exhaust.
All in all this little car looks so cute, it's smaller than the pictures look. Yet pulls of a presence. Thinking how it would be cool to modify one and put Lotus badging on it. Understand Proton and Lotus history to get this idea for a 'homage' ...
Auto Industry Trivia time!
3 completely random and very different vehicles recently spotted in Thailand. I'm going to run through them quickly, in terms of their unique attributes and how they fit into the overall picture of motoring culture in Thailand. Then we're going to look for connections between them.
Euro-Brit-Asia connections ... maybe?
Volvo and VW are both European, and vastly practical vehicles with big loading areas. One is a German bus, the other a Swedish wagon (estate car). So these are (kind of) easy to pair and compare. Yet the next, the little Malaysian hatchback is where we have to dig harder! Proton are from Malaysia, with a British connection. Do you know what it is? Proton cars owned Lotus from 1996 until 2017, until it was sold to the Chinese car group 'Geely'.
Bingo!
Then it struck. Geely, along with taking over Lotus - now also owns Volvo. Voila, we have our connection! The Proton (via Lotus now falling under the same company as Volvo).
Fun for car nerds, perhaps something to be continued - take 2 seemingly random and disconnected cars, and find a connection. It's amazing how much brands, models, and components of the automobile industry can intertwine over the years.
More on Proton: Idea for a Lotus 'homage'
During the period, many Proton cars came out that had a hand in engineering directly from the Lotus division - whose business has always been big in consulting for major manufactures). Proton were able to up their game for international sales and deliver cars with superior handling characteristics as a result. Which makes some of them sort of interesting today!
As noted in the comments, I'd like to build a funky 'homage' to when Ford and later Talbot, Vauxhall and others collaborated to create 'Lotus' versions of everyday cars. (see my post about the Lotus Cortina).
thanks for reading this slightly random and rambling car post! Instead of the obvious, we've gone for the seemingly cryptic challenge of taking these totally random cars seen in the wild, and seen if we can make connections. I'll be looking out for more pairings to bring you soon!