Rare and interesting car sightings

[scott]

A mid 1980's Ford Spectron, still looked good and was still stock.

A Mazda T3500 bus still being used as a bus by a school.

[Swift]

I recall the futuristicTV ad for the Spectron and it's luxury features.
I remember thinking how awesome this people mover was at the time. It was basically a Ford Econovan painter's van with the lot.
I always thought those Mazda minibuses had an attractive rear to them. The taillights were the same as the early front drive 323. Clever reuse of them by Mazda.

Get a load of this dealer newspaper ad from 1975. I didn't know the Centura came out that early.

[scott]

They were launched in March 1975, according to Wikipedia there were delays as the CKD parts kits sat on the wharfs for a while due to industrial action brought on by protests against French Pacific island nuclear testing.

Parts could be difficult to source due to union bans and Chrysler's European division being taken over by Peugeot and also factory strikes in France. There was a long wait for French sourced parts and Mitsubishi ceasing all parts support in the early 1990's, auctioning off stocks of parts and throwing out the unsold parts after the auction.

The Centura gave way to the Sigma, with its Japanese/Australian underpinnings, that was a lot easier to support. I saw a fawn GH Sigma running around Bentleigh, still on it's old early 80's issued plates.

[Swift]

That's a sad story on Mitsubishi disposing of NOS parts for the Centura. I bet there are owners who wish they were available now, not that there are many left out there anymore. I guess storing inventory of parts for a diminishing model makes no financial sense.
I believe they were only offered with the 3.5l six to begin with until they offered the 4.0l as an option. I guess Chrysler deemed the considerably more powerful 4.3l as ridiculous for a body designed with a four cylinder in mind. Maybe they didn't want it stealing charger sales with such a high power to weight ratio overshadowing the Charger's sporty image.
It would have been nice to see a Centura get the ELB system if it had remained in production during the CM model run.

[Swift]

I found this V8 XC panel van at my local mechanic.

[boronia]

That's usually the most common place to find Fords

[Swift]

Plenty of vehicles from Gerald's Motors make appearances too and do you think they don't exchange designers between them behind the scenes, not to mention the same parts suppliers?