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Seen yesterday (August 22nd, 2016) in Singapore, of all places...
Couldn't believe my eyes. You rarely see old cars here at all, let alone classic American cars.
I'm not a C1 expert by any means... I'm guessing '58 to '60 based on the trunk spears and exhaust tips in the bumper.
Right hand drive; if it's a conversion (they didn't build any original RHD C1s, did they?) is as old as the car, because the interior condition looks as worn as the exterior. Clearly a survivor, and a rough one at that. Don't know how the owner keeps it running. Owner wasn't around, so I couldn't get a look under the hood, but we had a great time gawking.
I met an Australian at Old Town, FL one night whose job was converting cars (of any vintage) to right hand drive. He said they did it to anything...takes some ingenuity and fabrication quite often but they get it done...
I cant even imagine the effort on a C1...just thinking about swapping the grab bar and gauge cluster makes my head explode...
Last edited by Frankie the Fink; 08-22-2016 at 08:05 AM.
I've said it before, so I guess I can say it again; when on R&R in Hong Kong in 1967 I saw a righthand drive 67. which in itself is interesting as it was essentially a new car....
Nothing unusual about that, we see them in North Carolina all of the time...
actually these are quite unusual here, but not for the reason you might think either.
GUSTO
OK, i'll bite: what with Bragg, Lejeune, Cherry Point and a couple of Air Force bases in NC, there are probably a lot of military folks bringing them home....; if not military, then what?
Bill
OK, i'll bite: what with Bragg, Lejeune, Cherry Point and a couple of Air Force bases in NC, there are probably a lot of military folks bringing them home....; if not military, then what?
Bill
Bill, I did bring it back from Japan in the late 90's. Everyone I talked to said it can't be done and you're crazy for trying. I did lots of research and became a duty expert very quickly on what it took to bring one to the U.S. It was a royal pain, but once I started the process I decided I would not stop until they told me no!
At that time, it was required that you contract with a Government licensed, Independent Commercial Importer (ICI) to import a non-certified car to the U.S. I wrote to a dozen ICI's asking for an estimate. Only about half even responded and the average cost was over $10k. Only one ICI had actually done one and he was non-negotiable on his price which was $12k. At that time you could buy a 3-4 year old Miata here for about 10k. That's why there are so few (I only know of 2) RHD, NA, Miata's here.
A good friend was living in Japan at the time and running an export business sending dozens of used RHD cars to Jamaica. He had a Japanese car dealer that was his sponsor and would take him to the auction to buy used cars (that there was very little market for in Japan) to ship out. One day he called me and said hey, "you need to come and see the '91 Corvette I bought at the auction today, it needs a bit of work."
I went to his shop after work and saw his '91 Corvette immediately. It stuck out like a sore thumb among all the 4-door Toyota's and Nissans. Oh, and it needed a LOT of work, it was in very rough shape. On top of that it was obviously a 1984 Crossfire Corvette, not a '91. I immediately pointed out this discrepancy to him and he showed me all of the Japanese paperwork, including the title for the car and it was definitely titled as a '91. I asked him what he was going to do. He said the car was imported to Japan in 1991. When it was registered, the Japanese DMV assigned a model year to correspond to the year it was imported, making it a 1991.
Buy the way, once it was registered and compliant with Japanese regulations, to bring it back to the U.S, it would also have to be re-imported with a U.S registered ICI. I have no idea what year they would call it since it would then have a Japanese title showing it as a 1991.
GUSTO
I've said it before, so I guess I can say it again; when on R&R in Hong Kong in 1967 I saw a righthand drive 67. which in itself is interesting as it was essentially a new car....
Bill
Don't know about you, but the two R&R's I was on involved copious amounts of local brews, exceptional tour guides and many historic views but I don't remember seeing any vehicles....
The local brews had apparently very high alcohol content as compared to the Korean stuff available in RVN and I did learn quickly and painfully to back off significantly after the first day.
Last edited by toms silver 60; 08-23-2016 at 06:37 PM.
Don't know about you, but the two R&R's I was on involved copious amounts of local brews, exceptional tour guides and many historic views but I don't remember seeing any vehicles....
The local brews had apparently very high alcohol content as compared to the Korean stuff available in RVN and I did learn quickly and painfully to back off significantly after the first day.
Tom
apparently you never 'sampled' the RVN beers with, alledgedly, formaldehyde as an ingredient....
Bill
Wow, Singapore is really strict on cars, especially old ones. Don't know how he keeps it on the road over there. When I was in Vietnam in '72' there was a red '63' Corvette or could have been a '64' red convertible running around Saigon. I remember it very clearly. The guy who owned it went by the name of Rick. I always wondered what happened to the car. He may have shipped it back to the states, but who knows. Maybe the Viet Cong turned it into a planter, but I got feeling its still there. Also many old motorcycles over there at the time. Harley 'K' models, Sportsters which U.S. Aid had sent over years before and some of the American's later on bought.
Mark Nevill (or anyone else, of course), could you enlighten me on how the clutch linkage is managed on these projects. Were the bellhousings modified to accept a right side clutch fork or were bellcranks used to utilize the existing mounting. Thanks in advance.
08-22-2016, 01:18 AM
RHD C1 Seen in Singapore...
