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Originally Posted by manishalive Here is one more Gazal from a small town collector |
Hmm.......interesting how many Gazels are turning up down south lately!
Is this in Bellary (MYY regn. would indicate that, as per KPS whose '32 plymouth is also an MYY regn.)
This car isn't as complete as the green one photo'd by Arun/Karthik but it has both the chrome bumpers intact, and also (rarely seen) the original air-filter! I remember our Gazel too had exactly the same type of air-filter until around 1987 when the then mechanic found it faulty and replaced it with a Fiat one, which worked since (afterall, the Gazels shared the fiat carb!)
And note the front grille- the earliest gazels had this kind of grille, as opposed to the aluminium "perforated" design on subsequent models. This, IMHO looks more attractive.
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Originally Posted by J.Ravi My dad had purchased a brand new grey Standard Herald [2-door-coupe] in 1965 costing Rs 16 k from Union Motors, Mount Road, Madras. It had a convertible variant with canvas top also.
However, the 2-door coupe version, though a superb car, was not a hit. So, Standard Motors discontinued it and introduced 4-door saloon named 'Gazel'. Even Gazel could not compete with Fiat and Ambassador. |
Hi ravi, welcome aboard.
Nice to hear about a Herald in your family. Do you have any old pics. of the car to share? Also do you recall the regn.? 'would be useful in finding out it's present whereabouts, if any.
Note, however, that it was NOT a Coupe, but just a 2-door saloon. A Coupe, by definition, is more of a sports kind of car with a "fastback" style roof, giving limited room in the rear for passengers (they are known more commonly as 2+2 seater rather than 4-seater)
There was a Coupe version of the Herald too, but was not available in India. Note the difference in the shape of the roof:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/2531797...7622849468879/ http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto...-main_Full.jpg http://herald-tips-tricks.wdfiles.co...loon_coupe.png http://www.flickr.com/photos/5170480...98273/sizes/o/
As for the convertible version, while I've heard that it certainly was available as OE in India too, I'm dubious about it because so far I have never come across a single original example, all converted from saloons only; you can tell by just looking at the chassis no. A few just done professionally and close to original (you may remember one such car- the maroon '61-62 Herald, MSW 6959, in the 60s Tamil hit movie "KAthalikka nEramillai") but never OE-produced ones.
Also the Gazel was not the actual 4-door Herald version but a different model altogether, only based loosely on the latter. The 4-door version was called Standard Herald Mark3, made from 1968-71, as a saloon and also an estate version "Companion", which was short-lived. Do go through this webpage that has detailed info. on all the Indian Herald variants. BTW, your father's Herald must've looked like the Grey mk1 in the top pic.
History of Standards in India
Again, while I've heard a lot even from an ex-dealer about the 2-door Herald being a failure , I've noticed more of these around, especially the early (mk1) ones, than the 4-doors or the Gazels.