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There’s A $200,000 Mohs Safarikar For Sale On eBay

Just three examples of the Mohs Safarikar were ever made and only two have survived to the current day, the vehicles were designed to be a combination between a four-wheel drive and a Rolls-Royce for wealthy people to use when big game hunting in Africa.

When new the Safarikar cost between $19,600 and $25,600 USD, a vast sum in 1972 dollars. Due to the high cost, unusual looks, and exceedingly small potential market the car wasn’t a success, and it would be the last car offered by Mohs.

Fast Facts – The Mohs Safarikar

The Mohs Safarikar is based on an International Harvester Travelall 4×4 chassis with a bespoke “dual cowl phaeton” body designed for hunting off-road in Africa.
The body of the Safarikar is made from aluminum and it has an outer covering of soft polyurethane foam covered with black Naugahyde – a waterproof synthetic leather.
Power is provided by the Travelall’s 392 cubic inch (6.4 liter) V8 and it’s sent back through a 3-speed automatic transmission.
Seating is divided into two sections, with the safari guides up front and the shooters in the rear. The rear seats can also fold down and become a bed if needed.

The Amazing (and Eccentric) Bruce Mohs

It’s impossible to tell the story of the Mohs Safarikar without first talking a little about the company’s wildly eccentric founder Bruce Mohs.

Not only did Bruce Mohs become an automobile manufacturer, but over the course of his life he was also a specialist mechanical prop maker for Hollywood, working with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock.

The Safarikar is a decidedly unusual looking vehicle, designed to combine the luxury of a Rolls-Royce with the go-anywhere ability of a four-wheel drive.

He would also become a restaurateur and a hotel operator, he was the inventor of the instant milkshake, he was a big-game hunter and photographer who travelled to 110 countries, he did infrared photography for NASA’s earth satellite program to help calculate satellite trajectories, he was a museum curator, and he was the inventor of the Reflecto-strip, a reflective material used on highways and guardrails around the world.

That’s not all he did in his life, but it’s enough to give you a general idea of what kind of person he was.

“Concentric people go around in circles; they never fly off in a tangent and get anything done. Many concentric people are simply going and doing their 8-to-5 jobs and coming home and sitting in front of the TV tube and opening a can of beer and going to bed and doing the same thing the next day. I think everybody should have some little eccentricity.” – Bruce Baldwin Mohs

The first car developed by Bruce Mohs was, believe it or not, even more outlandish than the Safarikar. It was called the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan and it was essentially an uber-luxurious way of driving to the opera.

The only way to enter the passenger compartment was through a single rear door that opened upwards, this was to allow ladies in ballgowns to get in and out of the car elegantly in front of the waiting media. The sides of the car were steel reinforced to keep the occupants safe in an accident, and the air-conditioned interior was awash with rich carpeting and plush upholstery.

Only one example of the Ostentatienne Opera Sedan was ever made, however this left Bruce Mohs entirely unperturbed, and he immediately set to work on his next creation – the Safarikar.

The Mohs Safarikar

As a big game hunter, Mohs was doubtless familiar with the off-road vehicles typically used in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s – usually Land Rovers with very rudimentary interiors that had lived rough lives.

This led him to his eureka moment, he would build a luxurious vehicle like a Rolls-Royce with an off-road four-wheel drive chassis and a body that could be used as a shooting platform – with rifles being rested directly on soft, foam-covered body panels to help hunters aim.

The seats were apparently designed by Steve McQueen for Baja desert racing.

The Ostentatienne Opera Sedan had been based on an International Harvester chassis and drivetrain, and Bruce would choose the same automaker as the supplier of the chassis and drivetrain for the Safarikar – each would begin with a rolling International Harvester Travelall platform.

Power would be provided by the IH 392 cubic inch (6.4 liter) V8 mated to the company’s 3-speed automatic transmission. Upon this platform a new aluminum body would be built incorporating two distinct seating areas, Bruce liked to call it a “dual cowl phaeton” after the elegant pre-WWII cars with the same layout, but truth be told he was stretching the term so thin it became translucent.

There idea was that the driver and guides would sit up front, and the hunters would sit in the back with their rifles, binoculars, and probably brandy. If needed the rear seat could fold down into a bed to keep everyone comfortable overnight.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of trivia about the Safarikar is the source of the three bucket seats in the front – they were apparently designed by Steve McQueen and his team for desert racing in Southern California and sold under the Solar Automotive brand – Solar Productions was the name of his film production company.

The aluminum body was covered with soft polyurethane foam, which was upholstered with black Naugahyde, a type of waterproof synthetic leather that had proven highly-resistant to the elements. It’s believed that that purpose of this was to give shooters a stable platform to rest their rifles on, without risking damage to the car or the firearms (as mentioned above).

After its introduction to a bewildered general public in 1972 the Safarikar went on to sell a grand total of three units. Just two have survived to the modern day including the car you see here, which believe it or not has just popped up on eBay with a Buy It Now price of $197,000 USD. Interestingly this is considerably less than the $350,000 it was listed for on another platform last year.

If you’d like to read more about the Afrikar or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing, at the time of writing there are approximately 25 days left to get your offer in.

Images courtesy of Hyman Ltd

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An Interview With Giugiaro – The Design That Works: The BMW M1

The Design That Works is a series of interviews with a man widely regarded as the greatest car designer of all time – Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Each episode runs approximately 10 minutes or so in length, with Giugiaro himself going over many of his most famous automobiles and explaining their designs in detail.

It’s a remarkable insight that we don’t often get from the secretive world of car designers, and it provides invaluable insight into some of the most notable cars of the 20th century.

In this episode Giugiaro is discussing the design of the BMW M1, one of the most interesting BMWs of the age and the first production BMW with a rear-mid-engine design. The car had classic Giugiaro lines somewhat reminiscent of his other mid-engined designs from the era like the DeLorean DMC-12, Lotus Esprit, Maserati Merak, and the AMC AMX/3.

Giorgetto Giugiaro is arguably the greatest car designer of the 20th century, this short film shows him explaining the various design elements of the BMW M1.

The M1 project was fraught with difficulties from the get-go, Lamborghini was initially contracted to construct the car due to their familiarity with mid-engined cars with spaceframe chassis.

Sadly the Italian company was going through a period of financial difficulty, and BMW ended up contracting the manufacturing of the fiberglass bodies to Italina Resina in Modena and the construction of the tubular steel spaceframe chassis to Marchesi, also in Modena.

Once the bodies and chassis arrived at Giugiaro’s Italdesign manufacturing facility in Turin the cars were partially constructed including the interiors, before being sent to Germany to be finished by BMW.

Remarkably, 453 cars were constructed this way over the 1978 to 1981 production run and today they’re among the most collectible BMWs ever made.

If you’d like to read more about the BMW M1 you can click here to see the official BMW page on the car.

Images courtesy of Italdesign and BMW

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Rediscovered In A Barn: The Long Lost Reliant Bond Equipe Prototype

The car you see here covered in dust and lichen is the only example of the Reliant Bond Equipe that was ever made. It’s a prototype car that was developed to replace the Bond Equipe of 1968, though sadly it never made it to production as the factory was shut down.

The Reliant Bond Equipe had been intended as a sibling to the Reliant Scimitar, with closely related styling at a smaller scale with a more affordable price tag. It’s a shame the car never made it to production as it likely would have proven popular during the financially austere years of early 1970s Britain.

Fast Facts – The Reliant Bond Equipe

Ken Wood and his team developed the Reliant Bond Equipe in 1969 after the Reliant takeover of Bond Cars, it was intended to fit in below the Scimitar in the Reliant model family.
The car design was completed, the moulds for production were all made, and a single prototype was completed.
The Reliant Bond Equipe used a Triumph chassis and running gear just like its predecessors, however the project was cancelled before an engine was fitted.
The car was last purchased 40 years ago in 1981 and stored away carefully in an English barn where it was recently rediscovered after his passing.

Bond Cars And The Equipe

The Bond Equipe was launched in 1963 as a 2+2 sports car based on the chassis and running gear of the Triumph Herald, with the engine sourced from the more sporting Triumph Spitfire.

This is the Reliant Scimitar GTE, you can see the visual similarity between the design of this car and the Reliant Bond Equipe Prototype, particularly around the front end.

The Equipe had been developed to serve a market segment that would later become well defined and hotly contested – the segment for fast cars with four seats and trunk space for mothers and fathers who wanted a sports car but needed space for the kids.

Bond Cars had been founded back in 1922 in Preston, Lancashire under the name Sharp’s Commercials by Paul Sharp. In 1949 Sharp’s Commercials Ltd began the production of a new three-wheeled car designed by Lawrence (Lawrie) Bond, named the Bond Minicar.

The post-WWII economy in Britain was a time of severe austerity and as such, small and inexpensive cars like the Bond Equipe proved vastly more successful than they may have been otherwise, with almost 25,000 of them sold between 1949 and 1966.

The Bond Minicar was originally powered by a single-cylinder two-stroke Villiers engine of either 122cc or 197cc, and it had a single wheel at the front with two wheels at the back.

So popular was the Bond Minicar that Sharp’s Commercials Ltd changed their name to Bond Cars in 1963, and in that same year the company would release their first four-wheel car – the Bond Equipe.

Due to the smaller size of Bond Cars they opted to use the chassis and running gear of the popular Triumph Herald as the basis of their new car, with the engine supplied by the Triumph Spitfire sports car.

An early ad used by Sharps Commercials Ltd to advertise the popular three-wheeled Bond Minicar – almost 25,000 of them would sell.

In order to keep cost and complexity low the Equipe also used the Herald’s bulkhead, windscreen and doors. The rest of the body was made from fiberglass. still a relatively new material at the time that allowed smaller automakers to build car bodies without needing expensive steel stamping equipment.

The Bond Equipe was sold over five major model variations between 1963 and 1970 with a total of 4,389 produced. The first model was the Bond Equipe GT 2+2, which was followed by the Bond Equipe GT 4S, Bond Equipe GT 4S 1300, Bond Equipe 2-Litre Mark I Saloon, and finally by the Bond Equipe 2-Litre Mark II Saloon and Convertible.

The Reliant Takeover

Reliant took over Bond Cars in February of 1969 and immediately set about rationalizing the production line. They ultimately decided to discontinue the Bond Equipe even after designing a new version that would fit in with the Reliant product line and creating fiberglass moulds for it.

The Bond 875 three-wheeler would also get the chop, but interestingly they decided to keep the highly unusual wedge-shaped Bond Bug in production. Interestingly a Bond Bug chassis and running gear would later form the basis of the Star Wars Landspeeder.

A page from an early Bond Equipe brochure, click it to see the full size image.

In 1974 the Bond Bug was discontinued and the Bond name would leave production. There have been a number of attempts to bring it back over the years however none have proven successful.

The Reliant Bond Equipe Project

The Reliant Bond Equipe prototype is evidence that Reliant had serious intentions of keeping the Bond Equipe in production. The project to build a new Equipe used the fundamental basic format as the original car with updated Reliant Scimitar-influenced design cues.

Although no one will ever know for sure, it’s likely that the Reliant Bond Equipe would have been reasonably popular in Britain in the 1970s, possibly even more so than the Scimitar itself.

Ultimately one car would be made and fitted to a Triumph chassis and running gear. It never received an engine, transmission, glass, or an interior. The early history of the prototype is largely lost to history however we do know that it was bought by a private owner in 1981 and stored away carefully in a barn.

This private owner passed away recently and the car was rediscovered, it’s now being offered for public sale for the first time in over 40 years with an estimated value of between £2,000 – £3,000 ($2,770 – $4,160 USD).

Hopefully the car will sell to someone with the intention and ability to finish the job of building it and show the completed Reliant Bond Equipe to the world for the first time.

If you’d like to read more about the car or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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The Holden Piazza: A Turbo Hot Hatch From The Man Who Designed The DeLorean

The Holden Piazza, aka the Isuzu Piazza, is a car unfamiliar to many, just 13,000 or so were built between 1981 and 1990 and today they’re skyrocketing in popularity as they’re typically quite affordable, and ’80s-era sports cars are all the rage.

With its turbocharged engine (on some models), pop-up headlights, and unmistakable styling from the same man who designed the DeLorean DMC-12, the Piazza is a little-known 1980s treasure that is quickly being discovered by the Radwood generation.

Fast Facts – The Isuzu Piazza

The Isuzu Piazza was also sold as the Holden Piazza in Australia, the Asüna Sunfire in Canada, and as the Isuzu Impulse in the United States. The car were all largely the same with varying trim levels and powertrain options.
The Piazza was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro, arguably the most important automotive designer in history. He described the car as his fifth “Copernican Revolution” that integrated elements from many of his previous designs.
The Piazza offered seating for four adults with a hatch back in the rear for stowage.
A variety of engines were offered including a 2.0 liter naturally aspirated engine, a 2.0 liter turbo, and a 2.3 liter engine for US market cars only.

The Piazza: A Quintessentially 80s Hot Hatch

Interestingly enough Isuzu is one of Japan’s oldest carmakers, the company was founded back in 1916 to build cars from British company Wolseley Motors using knock-down kits.

The styling of the Piazza is instantly recognizable, with design cues from many of Giugiaro’s other designs from the era.

The company is best known today for their large commercial vehicles and pickup trucks, however they do have a number of notable cars to their name including the Isuzu 117 and the Isuzu Piazza among others.

The project to build the Piazza began back in the late 1970s when it became clear that Isuzu would need a new car for the arrival of a new decade: the 1980s. The plan was to replace the aging Isuzu 117 sports car with a new car that offered both a sporting driving experience and the practicality of hatchback design.

The Volkswagen had launched the age of the hot hatch back in 1976 with the release of the VW Golf GTI and it was clear this new market segment was going to grow rapidly. Isuzu already had an established relationship with Giorgetto Giugiaro who had penned their earlier 117 model, Giugiaro had also designed the Golf for Volkswagen, so he was the perfect man for the job.

Isuzu gave Giugiaro total freedom with the design of the new car and he certainly didn’t disappoint. Giugiaro is known for putting just as much effort into the design of mass-produced consumer cars as he does with hand-built supercars, over the course of his career he designed everything from the DeLorean DMC-12 and the AMC AMX/3 to the Fiat Panda and the Mazda Familia.

The prototype that rolled out of the Italdesign headquarters was perfectly positioned to lead Isuzu’s charge into the 1980s. It featured pop-up headlights, cutting-edge styling, and a 135 hp 2.0 liter DOHC MPFI inline-four cylinder engine mated to a 5-speed transmission.

General Motors was a major shareholder in Isuzu at the time, GM would also acquire Lotus later in the 1980s and fortunately they sent a Piazza to Lotus for handling work – resulting in a Lotus-tuned version of the car that was produced in relatively large numbers and is now highly sought after.

The Isuzu Piazza – Specifications

The Isuzu Piazza uses relatively straightforward unibody construction, with stamped steel body panels.

Suspension is by double wishbones with a coil spring and anti-roll bar up front and a live axle located by four trailing links and a Panhard rod, with coil springs and an anti-roll bar.

Above Video: A humorous 1980s-era television ad for the Piazza featuring Joe Isuzu.

A varity of engines were offered over the course of the 1981 to 1990 production run including the 1949cc G200Z inline-four, the 1949cc G200WE DOHC inline-four, the 1994cc 4ZC1-T turbo inline-four, and the 2254cc 4ZD1 inline-four for US market cars.

Power ranged from just 90 hp on the low end up to 140 hp with 166 lb ft of torque on the turbocharged cars, 2.3 liter US market cars had 110 hp and 127 lb ft of torque.

A number of trim levels were available including Bella, XN, XJ, XE, XG, Nero and there were three different suspension tuning levels: Standard, Irmscher, and Lotus – however this depended on year.

A 5-speed manual transmission was standard on all cars however buyers could opt for a 4-speed automatic.

Approximately 13,000 examples of the Piazza were made in total and it’s not known how many have survived to the modern day. In more recent years the cars have been attracting more attention due to their styling and unusual history, as a result prices are on the rise.

The Holden Piazza XE Shown Here

The car you see here is the Holden Piazza XE model, essentially a rebadged Isuzu Piazza XE for the Australian market. This car is fitted with the desirable 1994cc 4ZC1-T turbo inline-four that makes 140 hp and 166 lb ft of torque in standard trim.

It’s also equipped with cruise control, a Dolby sound system with four-way speakers, a velour interior, central locking, power steering, air conditioning, electric windows and mirrors, a digital dashboard, and perhaps most importantly – pop-up headlights.

The car is currently for sale out of Chatswood in Sydney, Australia. It has 107,453 kms on the odometer (66,768 miles), and it had its most recent servicing at A-Z Auto Sydney in February 2021.

If you’d like to read more about this car or bid you can click here to visit the listing, it’s being auctioned live at the time of writing on Collecting Cars.