Lonsdale Car Company

Lonsdale Car Company is a former car brand that briefly sold Australian Mitsubishi models in the UK .

history

The Lonsdale brand was founded by Colt Car Company , Mitsubishi's importer for the British Isles. Its purpose was to circumvent the import restrictions on Japanese cars in Great Britain that existed in the early 1980s. Under the brand name Lonsdale, vehicles built in Japan and manufactured under license in Australia were to be brought onto the UK market as Australian cars.

The automaker was Mitsubishi Motors Australia , which emerged from Chrysler's Australian subsidiary in the late 1970s . Chrysler had been producing Mitsubishi models in its Lonsdale plant since 1971 , which were sold as Chrysler on the Australian market. After Mitsubishi took over the plant, it was mainly the large sedans and station wagons of the Mitsubishi Sigma series that were manufactured there. The cars were technically largely identical to the Japanese models.

These models were sold in Great Britain from 1982 under the newly established Lonsdale brand. The Colt Car Company positioned Lonsdale as a low-cost competitor to the 240-series of Volvo . Lonsdale was unsuccessful in the market. Only about 800 vehicles were sold in nine months. In the spring of 1983, the Colt Car Company discontinued the Lonsdale brand.

Models

Lonsdale Saloon (1982)

The Lonsdale models corresponded to the Australian Mitsubishi Sigma of the GJ generation . Stylistically and technically they corresponded to the Japanese Mitsubishi Sigma, which was sold in Germany under the name Mitsubishi Galant . A four-cylinder with a displacement of 1.6 liters and an output of 81 hp, a 2.0-liter inline four-cylinder engine with 95 hp (70 kW) and 152 Nm, or a 2.6-liter four-cylinder with maximum output served as the drive of 103 PS (76 kW) and a maximum torque of 192 Nm. The latter engine is considered to be one of the four-cylinder engines with the largest displacement of the post-war period.

Lonsdale offered a four-door notchback sedan with the model designation "Saloon" and a five-door station wagon ("Estate"). The purchase price in 1982 for the basic version was £ 7,499.

literature

• Giles Chapman: The worst cars ever sold . The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7509-4714-5 .
• Harald H. Linz, Halwart Schrader : The International Automobile Encyclopedia . United Soft Media Verlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8032-9876-8 .

Web links

Commons : Lonsdale Car Company  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Giles Chapman: The worst cars ever sold. The History Press, Stroud 2011, ISBN 978-0-7509-4714-5 .