Classical cars, including the history of the great classical automobiles
October 16th, 2009

About.com Rejects Mystery Classic Cars

Hansa Coupe

So far I’ve managed to avoid adding a “mystery car” category to this site, perhaps because of an earlier incident when I was Cars Guide for About.com. The lady who produced About’s vintage car site included a mystery car every week which, for some strange reason, really annoyed the autos editor. Enough that he demanded the lady cease and desist. Said lady refused and was fired. I took over the site, changed the name to “classic cars,” then was sacked by a new-and-long-gone editor who demanded that I include Web pages on maintenance, restoration, and buying/selling. As an automotive historian I knew little or nothing about those subjects so I refused.

Here I am now, entertaining you in Classical Drives, and my friends at Creative Weblogging don’t give a darn whether or not I include a mystery car! Thus giving me an opportunity to feature this image from Nigel Matthews. As Nigel says, look at it carefully and you’ll see a period Studebaker influence plus Volkswagen Karmann Ghia hints in the shape of the rear 1/4 panels. From the mid-point of the front fenders Nigel also sees a Porsche 356. Whatever the mix, it’s rather pretty and I’ll give you a hint. The car is German but was sued by an American transmission maker as it felt the name was too similar to its US brand name. Okay, another hint: Hansa and 1500 figured predominantly on the badge. Add your guess in “comments” below and tell us whether you’d like more mystery cars.


by admin | Posted in As We See Things, German Cars | 4 Comments » |

4 Comments »

Comment by Yale
  • It’s a Borgward Hansa 1500 not to be confused with the much uglier 1800, but then again, it was early 50s. Thanks to Philip and Nigel.

    October 16, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
  • Comment by nigel
  • Well this is not really fair on my behalf Philip, as I know this is a Borgward

    Cheers Nigel

    October 17, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
  • Comment by Harley
  • Borgward was the only thing that popped into my old head. The “Hanza” part is interesting a very early model of Canon camera was sold as the Hanza Canon. Although I rewrote the history of Canon, I don’t remember any details.

    October 17, 2009 @ 11:09 pm
  • Comment by Philip
  • I’m sorry if I gave the impression that Nigel Matthews was unaware of the make of this car. He provided the image, along with some interesting Borgward facts. Believe me, Nigel really knows his cars.

    October 18, 2009 @ 3:31 pm
  • RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

    Leave a comment














    Powered by Wordpress using the theme bbv1