Lightburn made small cars in the '60s...

[cfz2882]

Australian washer maker built a couple models of fiberglass body mini cars: sedan and sports model with 2-stroke, German made,Sachs engine. Only about 400 cars were made around 1964-65, but a few have survived to present day Ring ding ding...

 

[gizmo]

Yes, the Lightburn Zeta...

https://www.drive.com.au/caradvice/the-forgotten-australian-built-cars-lightburn-zeta/

BTW, the engine of the standard version was a Villiers from the UK, the German Sachs was used only in the Zeta Sports, the cute little sports convertible version.

Everything I have read about these funny little cars emphasized how absolutely terrible they were.

 

[vacerator]

I have a 1982 UK hard cover very thick book of supposedly every car make y.t.date. No mention of it nor the engine companies.

 

[gizmo]

This video gives more info on the Zeta, the car is at the National Motor Museum at Birdwood, North of Adelaide.



The Lightburn Zeta Runabout was based on a British car of the 1950s, the Anzani Astra, but with unique styling.

The blue car in the video is referred to as a "ute" or "utility" which is the Australian term for that body style of a pick-up based on a regular passenger car model. The nearest US cars would be the Chevy El Camino or Ford Ranchero. I think the USA VW Rabbit had a version, too?

That body style was first developed by Ford Australia, the story was that an engineer at Ford Australia received a letter from a farmer's wife, asking Ford to develop " a car that was nice enough to drive to church on Sunday but practical to take pigs to market on Monday." The engineer, Lew Bandt, styled a car that was a regular sedan at the front, two seater, with a cargo area at the rear, but with side bodywork that looked car-like at the sides, not truck-like. He named the style "coupe utility" and the model was a great success, and Aussies shortened to name to Utility and Ute. The style was always popular here until Australian car manufacture ceased in 2017. Holden was the Australian brand of GM, here is a link to a history of Holden utes and the later versions, the Holden Commodore Utes...
https://richardlewis.org/holden-ute
https://richardlewis.org/commodore-ute

 

[vacerator]

Anzani is listed as an Italian builder 1923-24 in my G.N. Georgano only. Published by Random House. He died in 2017. These are the first makes I've ever looked up that were missing.

 

[gizmo]

Hi Vacerator
Is Hartnett listed in your book? It was a small Australian car company in the 1950s with an interesting history. Unfortunately the project wasn't successful and only a small number were sold. I am busy today but can give more info later.

 

[vacerator]

Yes gizmo Hartnet is listed. It's an interesting book with many odd cars too. The only color photos are about ten in the preface. I found it at a warehouse closeout store for under $10. It was before we even had cable TV in 1983. I didn't know that Holden existed or Ford and Chrysler Australia. Got cable TV a year later and saw Australian movies on Cinemax and Showtime and HBO and saw the cars.