1973 Isuzu Statesman Deville by GMH - Japanese : 無料・フリー素材/写真
1973 Isuzu Statesman Deville by GMH - Japanese / daves_bellett
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示 2.1 |
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| 説明 | With the advent of the Internet, many people are aware of the Mazda Roadpacer. The Roadpacer was a strange anomaly for both manufacturers, being based on a Holden Premier, but with a Mazda rotary engine.Holden's garden-variety, upscale family machine, the Kingswood-based Holden HJ-model Premier, was never a good candidate for Mazda's Wankel Rotary Engine. The heavy-weight Holden was normally powered by six cylinder motors from 2850cc to 3300cc, while a 253ci (4.2 litre) and 308ci (5.0 litre) V8 were optional. The Mazda rotary was, in the Roadpacer, underpowered and lacking in torque. Australian road testers who managed to test the machine described it as, perhaps most kindly, as 'smooth'.The HJ-model Premier was sent to Japan as a CKD kit and assembled by Mazda with quite a few Mazda parts including running gear and, perhaps even more famously, mental paisley interior trim.As rare as it is, the Roadpacer is a known vehicle. More than one have come up for sale over the years and there are references to them on more than one Mazda reference website. The Roadpacer landed in Japan in about 1976 and was gone by the following year.So where did THIS thing come from?Pre-dating the Roadpacer by a couple of years, the Isuzu Statesman Deville by GMH has so far failed to prove it exists outside the pages of Isuzu's brochures. It has been mentioned in this brochure along with another that features the entire Isuzu range from 1973-1974. This brochure was also mentioned in the letters section of Unique Cars back in about 2005, ironically following an article they did on a Mazda Roadpacer!There appear to be no references to the car in any Isuzu books or websites. Further to this and unlike the Mazda Roadpacer, there appears to be very little input from anyone except Holden on this car.The Isuzu Statesman Deville by GMH pre-dated the Roadpacer by about 3 years and appears to be simply the HQ-model Statesman Deville by another name. The HQ was the first model of the second generation of the Holden Kingswood range, which began with the HQ, then moved through HJ, HX and HZ model updates until the sedan and wagon were killed off with the demise of the HZ in 1980. The long-wheelbase Statesman and the commercial range soldiered on, with significant upgrades, as the WB-model until early 1985.Although coil sprung all 'round, they weren't particularly good at handling, as the head of Holden at the time was an American who insisted that all Holdens should ride like Cadillacs! Certainly the Pontiac and Cadillac-inspired Statesman would have to have ridden the same, so the ride, often described as 'wallowy' would have been at odds with Isuzu's sporty nature! All too late for the Isuzu Statesman, the handling was something that was not fixed until the final model of that generation, the HZ-model range, which included "Radial Tuned Suspension" fine tuned by ex-Opel engineer, Peter Hanenburger.The HQ series went from 1971 to 1974 and saw many variations which included sedans and wagons (Belmont, Kingswood, Premier), coupes (Monaro), utilities and vans (Belmont, Kingswood), a cab-chassis (1-Tonner) and the long-wheelbase (shared with the wagon, van and ute) Statesman luxury car. It was sold in South Africa as the Chevrolet 350 and in the Middle East as the Chevrolet Caprice. It was one of Australia's best loved cars and cemented the Kingswood into Australian folklore as the quintessential Australian car, but I can bet you that out of the record 485,000-odd examples built by Holden, not many of them were Isuzu Statesman Devilles! |
| 撮影日 | 2009-08-28 04:01:48 |
| 撮影者 | daves_bellett |
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