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Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-04 09:32pm
by Venator
The other day I ran into something I'd never seen before in downtown TO. It was a black convertible with a front end like a cross between the Mazda RX-8 and a current-gen Porsche.

The logo was (in silver) something like this:

Image

Neither myself nor my coworker had ever seen something like it... any help from the interwebs?

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 05:03am
by Havok
Could be Oldsmobile. Possibly Scion. Maybe Infinity.

They all have silver circle-ish logos.

Do you remember any more details?

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 05:10am
by General Zod
Could be an Audi. Hard to tell without much to go on.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 10:10am
by tim31
About three rings short of an Audi.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 10:47am
by Darth Fanboy

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 11:00am
by Venator
Amazingly, it was none of those. I'm beginning to suspect it was a kit car; I'm a pretty big car fan and it looked like nothing I'd seen or heard of before. The only other feature I can remember was thin double or triple rectangular vents below the front licence plate.

Thanks for the responses, though the logo was pretty much what I drew above save for maybe proportions of being flipped on an axis... pretty distinct from the others listed. Unless Quiznos started an automotive division and nobody told me, I'm stumped :P.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 02:38pm
by Havok
Hmmm... Yugo and Zastava have the same logo... which looks the most like what you described. :lol:

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-05 06:04pm
by fgalkin
Havok wrote:
Hmmm... Yugo and Zastava have the same logo... which looks the most like what you described. :lol:
Considering that "Yugo" is just the Western name of Zastava cars, yeah.

However, this was their last and most modern car (they're now owned by Fiat), and I don't think that's it.

Image

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-07 09:04am
by Tolya
Was this a Toyota MR2? Like this one? I imagine they are not as common in US as they are in Europe.

Image

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-07 10:22am
by Ilya Muromets
Could it have been the rather stylized logo of Daihatsu?

Image

And maybe the sports car was some variant of the Daihatsu Copen?

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-07 09:35pm
by Venator
The MR2 is about the closest thing suggested, but it would've had to be a heavy conversion... the front vents were quite different among other things... it really did look like a 'kitbash' of a 911 and an RX-8 more than anything.

The badge was very distinct, like the image I posted... that's the clearest memory I have of the vehicle. Not to be confused with say Toyota or Daihatsu, though I *wish* it was a Copen, I'd love it if we had that adorable little mosquito on this side of the Atlantic :P.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 01:50am
by PhilosopherOfSorts
Hyundai, maybe
Image

Hyundai Tiburon
Image

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 04:32am
by Tolya
PhilosopherOfSorts wrote:Hyundai, maybe
Hyundai Tiburon
Read the whole OP correctly next time. He specifically said "convertible".

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 05:02am
by PhilosopherOfSorts
Hmm, you're right, and I don't know if Hyundai makes a convertible Tiburon, my bad.

Leaving aside the logo, maybe a Mitsubishi Eclipse
Image

Come to think of it Nissan's logo is pretty close, maybe a 350z
Image

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 09:50am
by LapsedPacifist
Panoz.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 10:01am
by Dargos
Could it be a Renault Samsung? scroll down a bit

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 10:26am
by GrandMasterTerwynn
Dargos wrote:Could it be a Renault Samsung? scroll down a bit
The logo does look like the one he's posted. Only problem being that Renault Samsung doesn't produce any convertibles that I can find with a spot of Googling.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 11:54am
by tim31
FD RX7s have off the shelf kits available to make them look more Porsche-like.

EXAMPLE

The Mazda badge of the day didn't look dissimilar to the one in the OP; bit of a stretch though.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 12:12pm
by LapsedPacifist
The Panoz Esperante looks like described, and it has a similar badge:
http://www.panozauto.com/EsperanteDetails.htm#Exterior

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-08 12:18pm
by Ilya Muromets
Does Panoz Auto have a silver logo? Their crest is definitely too colorful.

Image

Although, that CGI silver version on the above pic does look quite close to the OP illustration. And I suppose it's not that much of a stretch for the guy to get the crest chromed or whatever.

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-09 04:35pm
by The Infidel
A wild shot: Proto Motors? The "O" in their logo looks close to your drawings. Maybe they use their "O" as a logo? I couldn't find much substancial, tough.

Wiki says: "Presently, the company specializes in redesigning existing models by developing electric cars or convertibles based on them."

Can you find it if you google "proto motors" and do a picture search?

Re: Identifying a car?

Posted: 2010-06-12 09:43am
by Netko
Havok wrote:
Hmmm... Yugo and Zastava have the same logo... which looks the most like what you described. :lol:
That's actually a mistake on that page. Yugo functioned as a separate brand for Zastava and, as such, had its own logo/badge:
Image
So its possible there are other mistakes on that page as well...