[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I thought a Matador was a Hornet coupe. In "Man with a Golden Gun", didn't > Bond and the redneck sheriff chase Scaramanga and Tattoo in a Hornet, with > Scaramanga driving a Matador which converted into an airplane?
That was the Matator Coupe (Scaramanga), which gained some notoriety as possibly the first mass-production car that became a common insurance write-off due to the exhorbitant price of one part: the huge hood, with its scalloped shells around the tops of the headlights. Within a few years of the model's debut, adjusters were choking on the (IIRC) $1200 price tag for a hood. Pretty horrifying, given that back then they probably sold for what, 8 grand? Wasn't there also some semi-urban-legend about those, along the lines that the early cars shipped with insufficient bracing on the underside of the hood, and as a result could be bent in two by slamming the hood too hard? Ii always wanted one. Mac