Taxonomy
Rare
6 entries
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Book II
Mitsuoka Orochi
Named for an eight-headed serpent that had to be made drunk before it could be killed
A small Japanese coachbuilder named its supercar after the eight-headed, eight-tailed serpent of the Kojiki — a creature so large that moss and…
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Book II
Ford Mustang Cobra R
Sold without a radio, without air conditioning, and without a back seat, to people who had to prove they could use it
Three times, Ford built a Mustang with the sound deadening removed, the rear seat deleted and the stereo left out of the parts list, and required…
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Book II
Ford Falcon XC Cobra
A falcon and a cobra on the same car, in a country with more venomous snakes than any other
Four hundred were built to clear a stock of leftover hardtop bodies. Ford Australia painted them white with blue stripes, numbered them on the…
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Book IV
Gilbern — the Welsh Dragon
The only cars ever series-produced in Wales, from a country whose flag is a dragon
Wales has produced exactly one series car manufacturer. Wales also has, uniquely among nations, a dragon on its flag. Gilbern built glass-fibre…
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Book V
De Tomaso Mangusta
The mongoose. Named, allegedly, as an insult, and shaped like an apology for it.
Mangusta is Italian for mongoose: the small, fast, faintly rabid carnivore famous for one thing, which is killing cobras. Alejandro de Tomaso built…
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Book VI
Bolwell Nagari
It sounds exactly like the Sanskrit for serpent. It is not the Sanskrit for serpent.
Bolwell, an Australian glass-fibre specialist, named its Ford V8 sports car Nagari. Every reader of Indian mythology stops dead at that word. The…