You've come a long way, baby.

bilde So last night, Quinn and I were sending each other random stuff, when he sent me something that caught my eye.   It was  a brown fastback thing with a widebody kit on it. This thing: arcadipane_mystere_aus_brown_1978 Naturally, this intruiged me.  I did a bit of digging and found that the Mystere (not the horrid Mazda MX6), was built from a Holden Torana which spawned the Arcadipane Taipan bodykit.  It was also a one off car that was built for Recaro to showcase their products. Here's what the front looked like mqXFLHtc0q4bvw8uldhjLlGIo3_500 It looks like there were several revisions of the Taipan kit, thought it's possible that these were revisions made to the individual cars. Here's one with NACA ducts on the quarters: taipan_3-4 Notice the different nose.  This is important. They also made a version called The Bobcat, which I guess meant it had another NACA duct on each side. bobcat_3-4 Again, it's got a slightly different nose on it from the last version.  It's also starting to take an oddly familiar shape.... Taipan20Ad No NACA ducts this time, but that nose!  You're probably looking at it right now, and thinking: Where have I seen that before?  Unless you're an Australian, then you know where you've seen it.  For the rest of us, you've seen it right here: cruisein_6078_resized That's right.  As it turns out, Peter Arcadipane, who designed the Taipan kits also designed the front end they used on the Mad Max Interceptor as well.  It was marketed as the "Concorde" front end.  (He's been using a lot of car names from the 90s to name these things.) The Interceptor and the Taipan aren't the only places you'll find that nose either.  That nose also made its way onto a 'van' (I'm a little leery about calling it that) version of the Falcon as well.  Anyways, when I sent the photo over to Quinn, he described it as "wide body ute with a molded in cap! so much fucking win it hurts."  You can judge for yourselves. XCConcordevan Hey, it's got the same plate as the Mystere! So you may be wondering: what wonderful and crazy designs has Mr Arcadipane been dreaming up now?  The last few cars I was aware of him having a hand in designing include this: Mercedes-Benz-CL55_AMG_2003_800x600_wallpaper_01 and mitsubishi-lancer-evolution-x I guess he's been a busy man.  Here's to you, Mr Arcadipane.

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4 comments

  • The black Recaro Torana should be back on the road within a few months.

    • ewokracing
  • looks like a Chevy Vega with a wedgie front

    • neil85ae86
  • Phil and I saw a Mad Max copy driving around Hamilton near Eurodrive clutches. We were on our way to drop off cores, and there it was, RHD Flacon with the nose, scoop and everything!

    Awesome post Aaron

    • discoquinn
  • OMFG that van is the coolest thing EVER!!!!
    wow.
    Also, MadMax, my childhood was filler with aspirations of huge blowers and awsomely tough flat black mosters

    • Paulcorolla