[Vwdiesel] Nice Audi

[William J Toensing]

Reply to Mike Whalin. Although I have collected a good deal of automotive knowledge over my lifetime, I can not say the same for movies & celebrities. I do not recall the movie & would have to see a picture of the car to possibly identify it. As a kid before WW2 I was unaware that foreign cars existed, because I never saw any in the Minneapolis, Minn. area where I grew up.The first foreign car I ever saw, was identified as a "French DeSoto" parked across the street while I was getting a haircut. In retrospect, I think it was a prewar Peugeot 204 as the headlites, as I recall, were inside the front grill. I was 8 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked & since car production was stopped in the USA for war production, I became interested in airplanes & could identify many aircraft from pictures. After the war, 1945 I think, I saw a picture in Business Week, which my dad subscribed to, of the first Soviet postwar car, a Pobeda, which looked modern with no separate fenders, like the first Kaiser Frazier cars, but with a fastback like Fords of the era. There was an extreme new car shortage after WW2 & the British, desperate for dollars, exported the Austin A-40, the first foreign car I was able to look at close up. I was surprised  to see all leather upholstery, a 4 speed transmission, & a 12 volt electric system. Shortly after, I saw the new Hillman Minx. Later, the Tucker dealer in Minneapolis (Mpls.) displayed a rear engine Renault 4 CV, with an engine in the rear, like a Tucker. By then my automotive knowledge was expanding, thanks to articles in Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, & Mechanics Illustrated It wasn't till May 1951 that I found an issue of Motor Trend in a news stand, the first publication devoted to cars that I ever saw. I bought the magazine & subscribed to it & would buy any publication devoted to cars that I saw. Well, more for later.
Bill Toensing, Nevada City, CA