Sat Jan 16, 2016 3:42 am by SheikhMansour
conan wrote:We weren't sure if this car is just a myth until this photo turns up.
There was a popular story about this car. The Whiskas Enfant Terrible. Many people said it was created as an experiment, or rather more as a show off case. Whiskas at the time was doing well, but they couldn't really make ground in the American market, unlike their British competitors Ocelot and Vanquist (Incidentally both then a part of British Motor Inc., therefore they competed against themselves). So Whiskas worked on a car that they think would do well in American market.
The car was not based on any Whiskas, but rather, a Conan Saloon S. It was not that the Saloon S body was any good (a classy but bland British saloon at best), but more because they didn't even have the resourced to design a new body, for they were developing another more sensible car at the time.
The Engine was bought from a famous Italian Tractor company which then was just starting to make their own GT car. They rebored and stroked the engine to 3625cc, designed a new cylinder head featuring Twin Cam and 48 valves, reduced compression, and then they installed BMi Mechanical Fuel Injection. All of that was not to make the engine more powerful, because in the end the engine produce about 10 less horsepower (or so they say). The engine was mated to a 3-speed Bork-Warren BW13 Automatic transmission popular in many luxury cars at the time. And the Suspension was a Hydropneumatic type sourced from a French company known for using them, which the report said made the ride the best of any car in the world, while also being to hold it's own on a canyon run.
Alas, the car went nowhere. The managements decided that it was not viable for a then small company like Whiskas to make such a machine. And they especially don't like that nearly all components are sourced from other companies.
Some people say Whiskas built 5 of them and run them to see their durability. And in the end with one of the weirdest practice ever in Automotive industry. They sold the cars used as a Conan, because all of the cars had Conan VIN number. Some people must have thought that it was a great joke or something. We have no actual evidence that any of them survived or actually existed in the first place, but it would be very exciting to find one in a barn somewhere in the South of France or Texas or Quebec or something.
I have a feeling this is based off real life. I know the references to the engine, the suspension, and the British rival car companies (or at least one of them for sure), but is this actually based off a true story?
Can't wait till next season!