Low-volume car models are somewhat notorious for raiding existing cars’ parts books for easily adaptable components. Rear light assemblies are a case in point. The De Tomaso sourced the Pantera’s tail lights from whatever designs Alfa had sitting around, and there was a downright incestuous level of British parts-bin raiding by Bristol. Lotus, however, endured an extra level of contempt for re-purposing Renault Alpine GTA rear lights on the Elan. As if FWD wasn’t bad enough, the indignity of French components on a British design was almost too much for some Lotus fans to bear.
Which brings us to our encyclopedia heading for today: car designs that raided neither their own maker’s parts bin nor their countrymen’s, but reused existing components from a manufacturer in (gasp!) a foreign nation.
The Caveats (there are always caveats):
- This does NOT mean parts co-developed between two manufacturers as a technology-sharing partnership, or common parts used on sister brands as a result of intra-corporate cooperation, even if they’re located in different countries. The scenario we’re looking for is this: Company 1 in Nation A puts a part on its cars. At some later point, that part shows up on Company 2’s cars, manufactured in Nation B. Capisce?
- Generic parts that are manufactured and sold with the intention of being used on multiple vehicles don’t count.
- Likewise, components commonly sold to a variety of manufacturers by third party component builders don’t count. Allison, Getrag, Bilstein, Brembo and Dana have whored themsel— um, supplied just about everybody at one time or another.
- Production road cars only. No customs, prototypes, concept cars, or works race vehicles. Which is, admittedly, kind of a shame.
- No aircraft or marine craft, unless it’s because they stole parts from existing cars.
Difficulty: 2.9896 megapicas per microcentury.
How This Works: Read the comments first and don’t post duplicates! Bonus points for adding photos.
Image Sources: oppositelock.kinja.com & carphotographyplus.co.uk
Leave a Reply