Ack! I even ran across the Ford Taunus in my searches, but I passed it off as a mispelled Ford Taurus. If only I had clicked on those links. Ah well, I can finally concentrate on work now. That contest was consuming me! Cool Ford, too.

- trs

Thanks for putting me out of my misery, now I'll have to spend just as long finding out about OSI - and it looked so familiar!

So, where did this contest originate from? Is there a regular "Name that Car" contest that you're referring to here?

- trs

A friend of mine took the photo on a trip to SFO last week and wanted help identifying the car.

Not a regular competition, unless you want to make it one...

Same here - it may just have so many similarities that it instantly looks familiar, but I was sure it was fairly well-known. But I can't find much info on OSI that I can translate!! Not sure if it was available in the UK, but I am intrigued by the mention of Ford M-Models (http://www.ford-m-modelle.de) which seem to be a subset of Fords.

I thought I had a fair knowledge of recent classics (or UK at least), so that was really bugging me!! Better luck next time!

I actually have a Ford Taunus parts catalogue up in the roof - wonder if it covers these....

It's not in my "every car sold in Britain 45 - 80 book", but one of the cars on one of those sites has a UK reg. I'm going to bounce it on to "Honest John" at the Daily Telegraph, who has a special section for this sort of thing (We grew up together, half a century ago in Orpington)

You know Honest John? I am not worthy! You could post it in the "Back Room" of his site for starters I guess.

Gareth

I wouldn't say knew so much, as we did have some correspondence a couple of years back identifying that we thought that we knew each other in our youth and could identify long gone people and places.

Honest John's reply:

OSI was an Italian coachbuilder. The car in the photo is an OSI bodied FIAT 124

So those of us that thought Fiat and Italian were basically along the right lines.

Great, thanks. I've passed the info onto the photographer.

The car in the photo is an OSI bodied FIAT 124

So, now I'm thoroughly confused. Was it a Ford 20m TS of a Fiat 124? It most certainly looks more like the former. Or am I just misunderstanding you?

- trs

I think it's a Ford, not a Fiat, and Honest John is wrong.

He is also wrong when he says this:

Lots of dodgy second-hand Eurons Roadster imports about.

Uncertificated Eunos Roadsters imported by traders after May 1998 could not legally be registered, so any Eunos Roadster might be a 'clone'.

I think it's a Ford, not a Fiat, and Honest John is wrong

If I get 10 mins. I'll look for it, but there was mention of Fiats as well as Fords on one of those German or Dutch sites - but I guess the guy can't know everything, he replied to my email in minutes, so I suppose he must have been fairly certain.

You're on your own with the Eunos: Another marque that I'd never heard of until this thread started!

I'm going with the Ford. There is mention of the OSI Cross Country based on the Fiat 124 under the OSI link on this site http://www.carsfromitaly.com/others/index.html, but the similarity escapes me!!

You're on your own with the Eunos: Another marque that I'd never heard of until this thread started!

Eunos = Mazda sub-brand, but only in Japan.

Mazda MX5 (Europe) = Eunos Roadster (Japan) = Miata (US)