Solved - NEH 3843: Rootes "Ajax" project for Hillman Imp

[Carnut]

Name this and its purpose for 1 point:

Remember - solving puzzles using 'Google Search by Image' is BANNED on AutoPuzzles!

[Carnut]

Easy one for the Experts..

[richard cuyler]

The Rootes 'Ajax', this picture from a then new car magazine called 'Small Car and Mini Owner', which blossomed into the foremost motoring magazine from 1962 to the early 1990s. This photo was a termed a 'scoop', something this magazine (which eventually evolved into 'CAR') became renowned for.

[Carnut]

The Rootes 'Ajax', this picture from a then new car magazine called 'Small Car and Mini Owner', which blossomed into the foremost motoring magazine from 1962 to the early 1990s. This photo was a termed a 'scoop', something this magazine (which eventually evolved into 'CAR') became renowned for.

That's the car, yes. 

It was the only magazine really worth reading in those days when all the others (like 'Motocar' as Car used to like calling the weeklies Autocar and Motor, or Car & Drivel as they used to call Car & Driver) always brown-nosed all the manufacturers to avoid the risk of losing their advertising revenue!  The worst thing they could ever think of criticizing when they tested some truly dreadful cars that handled worse than a barrel in a storm was something like "the ash-tray is perhaps a little small considering this car is a 5-seater" and other such utter nonsense!  Car used to tell it like it was and if a car was crap they would say so; the manufacturers didn't like it at all...

But I still need you to answer the last part of the question for your point.  Locked for you of course!

[richard cuyler]

Rootes Ajax proposal?

I was in my mid teens when this magazine first appeared and being a bit of a rebel myself, I could see that at the outset that 'Small Car and Mini Owner' was going to major in truth-telling and that really appealed to me. I still have the first issue somewhere.  I bought the mag every month till the mid 90s and even if the content wasn't always as interesting as it could have been, there were always the excellent columns to read, George Bishop (old soak that he was ), Setright, Bulgin, etc.

I'm afraid today's CAR is just another car mag and I haven't bought one for many, many years. Anyway, today's cars, as excellent as they are, just leave me a bit cold.

[Carnut]

Rootes Ajax proposal?

I was in my mid teens when this magazine first appeared and being a bit of a rebel myself, I could see that at the outset that 'Small Car and Mini Owner' was going to major in truth-telling and that really appealed to me. I still have the first issue somewhere.  I bought the mag every month till the mid 90s and even if the content wasn't always as interesting as it could have been, there were always the excellent columns to read, George Bishop (old soak that he was ), Setright, Bulgin, etc.

I'm afraid today's CAR is just another car mag and I haven't bought one for many, many years. Anyway, today's cars, as excellent as they are, just leave me a bit cold.

That could be my story exactly too!
When the old guard moved on it became just another car mag and to be honest the other car mags had improved immeasurably too.  I stopped buying Car around when you did and switched to Performance Car because I loved reading a young very non-PC journalist called Jeremy Clarkson...
Then lo and behold Performance Car was taken over and amalgamated into Car..  So I never got any more of either one!

Anyway, to the puzzle.  What did the project eventually go on to become?!  Still locked for you.

[richard cuyler]

Hillman Imp.

[Carnut]

Hillman Imp.

Of course!