The Yanq loves him some mini-pickups ...and this beauty has been showing up on my street from time to time for at least 7 years.
It´s a SIAM di tella Argenta, of the '63 - '66 vintage. It´s based on the legendary SIAM di Tella 1500 ...a mainstay of taxi fleets in Argentina for years.
It´s a real beauty and a real ancestor to our Strada in that it was designed to have all the comfort of a sedan with a ½ ton payload. I´m not sure about the Union Jack; I don´t think it´s original ...but SIAM had close relations with British marques.
In fact, the first Argentas, '61 thru '63, were Argentine built Morris Minors with a tiny truck bed!
And "espacio amplio para tres pasajeros", of course!
Our particular neighborhood cutie sports some very Italian lines and, truth be told, that grille had me convinced it was an Alfa Romeo until closer inspection.
The interior is very nice but oh how I was longing to find a full steel dashboard glistening with the same paint as the exterior! This padded dash strikes me as pretty advanced for a car that can´t be younger than 1966. But it looks completely original.
Looks like the bed hasn´t seen much use ...pretty typical for city-dwellers. Love those wood sliders.
My Uruguayan Farmer friend has been talking about an unusual utilitario, recently. One a these babies might be right up his alley ...so to speak.
A short cruise around the used car sites, though, leads me to believe this little truckycito is worth more than a brand new Hilux!
4 comments:
I get such a kick out of the cars here !
Especially the mint condition Old ones.
Sometimes I want one.. yesterday I was all over a fabulous shade of blue, Citroen deux chevaux .. I imagine it would be fun to have a Mini here, with Pup hanging his head out the sunroof :)
That is the coolest lookin little truck I have ever seen! That front grill really makes it. your right , it does look like an alfa from the front.
Yep, mini-pickups seems to especially delight yanquis ...they disappeared from the US market a long time ago.
If you cruise the car websites like Jalopnik.com all the norteamericano drool over the cute little truckycitos that you can buy almost everywhere else in the world.
Isn´t there anything on the US market in the 1/2 ton catagory?
I´ve read quite a few US buyers that are hoping that when Fiat starts bringing their models to Chrysler showrooms ...they might have a shot at a little Strada like ours.
Argentines love and pamper "autos antiguos":
http://www.arcar.org/autosantiguosbaquets.aspx
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