I’ll be honest, I almost didn’t do a Cold Start today, as I was in a bit of pain and took some pain meds that kinda knocked me out. But that wouldn’t be fair to my hard-working Autopian brethren, would it? They labor nonstop to get you top-notch car content, so how can I languish in a languid stupor instead of getting them this bit of start-of-day content? I can’t. So, out of the torpor I drag myself, and I’m glad I did, because I found something in a 1970 Hillman Avenger brochure that is genuinely baffling, maybe concerning. Let me show you.
The Hillman Avenger, in case you’re unfamiliar, was a pretty conventionally-engineered and attractive small car from Chrysler’s European Rootes division. The most notable thing about the car is that it may very well be the most badge-engineered car ever made: there’s about, what, 13 different names this same basic car was sold under all over the world. At least! Plus it was made under one of the existing names in other places, like Iran.
Here’s a list of all the nameplates this car was sold under:
- Hillman Avenger
- Chrysler Avenger
- Chrysler Sunbeam
- Sunbeam 1250 TC
- Sunbeam 1300
- Sunbeam 1600
- Talbot Avenger
- Plymouth Cricket
- Dodge Polara
- Dodge 1500 (Argentina/Uruguay/Colombia)
- Dodge 1800 (Brazil)
- Dodge Avenger (New Zealand, built by Mitsubishi)
- Volkswagen 1500
I mean, I think that’s all of them. That’s absurd. Also, that Volkswagen 1500 has the distinction of being the only VW passenger car ever to use a front engine/rear-drive layout, which is because it’s not really a VW, despite what the badges say.
Okay, let’s get back to the weird part about this brochure. It’s in this paragraph:
Look at that last sentence there, extolling the “big-arc” wipers and “powerful washers.” It notes how those keep clean the “zebra zone-toughened windscreen.” What, exactly, do they mean by this?
A “zebra zone” refers to a crosswalk, based on the black-and-white stripe pattern that defines where a crosswalk is. So, a zebra-zone-toughened windscreen means a windshield…that can, what, handle the impact of pedestrians slamming into it?
I’m trying to figure out some alternate meaning, but I’m coming up blank here: this sounds like they’re saying hey, if you’re sick of blasting through crosswalks and ending up with some whiny, bleeding jerk smashing through your windshield and making a mess of your interior, boy are you in luck, because this zebra zone-toughened windscreen will just let those pesky pedestrians bounce right off, saving you loads of hassle!
Am I wrong here? How else do you read “zebra zone-toughened?” Were Hillman customers just absolutely fed up with the incessant screaming and whinging of injured cross-walkers blasting through their windshields? Sure as hell sounds like it, and, luckily, it looks like Hillman had a solution.
Maybe I’m wrong. But if so, I’d love to know just what that phrase does mean, because it is very unclear. I do like this little collage of details about the car, from the era when showing that the car did indeed have exterior door handles and lights was enough to get people, especially tiny people in swimwear, excited.
Zebra zone-toughened. Damn.
In New Zealand the Avenger was initially sold as Hillman then as Chrysler. It was never sold as Dodge. Wikipedia notes that it was sold as a Dodge in South Africa.
Hiiiiiiighwaaaaayy to the Zebra zone
It ensures you’re protected if you’re on the road during Zebra Time.
No? Nobody else has watched Zebraman 2: Attack on Zebra City? It’s just me?
What? Not a single mention of that otherwise rather horrible car’s absolutely fantastic hockey stick tail lights? And you even had a picture of them, right there! 😉
You are of course excused, the aorta situation considered 🙂
Also, to be a little more helpful, I have some kind of idea:
Got a new pair of sunglasses in ’23, I wore to a lot of our local car things, looking very cool, and noticed that some windscreens on on old cars looked kinda zebra’y through them. For instance the one on the Fiat 850 Spider.
So I guess it has something to do with the pattern the glue is laid out in the laminated windscreen? And suddenly that was visible through the polarized glasses.
Why it’s not even, I haven’t got the slightest, but then again, the Mercedes ribbed taillights aren’t even, and everybody knows they are better 🙂
HERE are some other car nerds than us discussing that subject 🙂
Considering it’s a car built and used all over the world, I just assumed it was special heavy duty safety glass for zebra infested areas.
Yeah, exactly. I mean Sweden requires The Moose Test, right?
Jason you fool! You’ve combined a toxic mix of barbiturates, and rendered yourself time detached. It is not May 31, 2023 , or February second, for that matter.
Dude, as someone with a history of pain management, lemme tell ya: pills suck. Instant constipation, they barely mask pain, the effect doesn’t last (and requires escalating doses to keep up), and the come down is hard. THC gummies are your friend, you can write the great American novel while stoned.
I don’t disagree, but please check with your doctor first before moving to self-medication. You don’t want some weird side effects that make things worse. Speaking from experience here.
Hey thanks for the concern. I’ve been fucked up since 2004, so I’m way past prescription drugs for pain management. Frankly it’s attitude and exercise that takes care of me, bedtime is when I need some help.
Yeah. Exercise has been the largest difference maker for me. Glad it’s helped a lot for me. Also my terrible posture at my desk was a large factor in my shoulder issues.
FWIW I discovered through happenstance a lot of my joint pain issues were the result of chronic dehydration. I forced myself to drink a lot more water and within a few weeks the pain was gone.
Burying the lede that the ’90s coupe was not the first car called the Dodge Avenger.
Forget the windshield (which, as other commenters have pointed out, was an early form of safety glass) – can we discuss how truly *tiny* that woman in the red leisure suit must be in the top photo? And that’s while wearing platform shoes! Hillman Avengers were not large cars. The Internet coughs up the height dimension of one to be 54″ tall – 4 foot 6 inches! That lady must be shy of 5 feet tall in bare feet, and maybe 90 pounds soaking wet…
Those aren’t platform shoes, they’re roller skates. She’s like a trunk monkey. Hillman offered this luxury option with every purchase.
She hangs onto the back of the car on a rope, and basically waits around until some projectile zebra manure hits the windscreen, then immediately whips around front, skating across the hood with a squeegee, to clear your view of the road.
Sadly, this innovative strategy was unsuccessful in preventing zebra-induced traffic fatalities, so the option was discontinued prematurely in the middle of its first year of availability.
Frickkin’ zebras…
You are partially right. She’s actually an early attempt at the Motocompo concept, later perfected by Honda. Once you get close to your destination you can ride her for the last mile.
I’m more intrigued by the “heavy anti-burst door locks.” Were bursting door locks a problem on British cars? I mean, why not, I guess. Could’ve been an altitude thing, I suppose, or maybe they used volatile chemicals during lock manufacturing and high heat could set them off. Did Lucas make door locks?
The two features have to be connected somehow; after all ..
“ there’s this, like, lattice o’ coincidence that lays on top o’ everything”
What could the connection be?
Somebody should ask Adrian, he’ll know.
My Plymouth’s driver side door didn’t open from the outside, maybe that’s the kind of locks it had.
“I don’t care about Zebra Glass. Or that there are no trees to hide behind. I got to take a leak. Now.”
And the people in the collage are underwear models who somehow got confused and ended up in the car photo shoot rather than the K Mart photo shoot by accident.
Obviously the Zebra Glass is to blame here.
It is well-known that in the former British colony of Kenya, the Land Rover was the king of the safari. However, following the Suez Canal Crisis, Britain restricted export of Defenders to Africa and the Hillman Avenger became the vehicle of choice for observing the annual Wildebeest and Zebra migration from Tanzania into Kenya.
Since the flimsy Avenger was ill-suited to this duty, several modifications were made: Door handles were recessed to mitigate impalements when bouncing across the Serengeti and latches were beefed up to withstand a direct Rhino hit. The final improvement was Zebra resistant glass that could shed a bloody animal carcass at up to 30mph.
I can’t tell satire from fact in the comment section anymore.
I think that was the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me.
All I know is that the model in the top shot could probably do a prostate check on a zebra. Heeeyyyooooh!
Those fingers are insane.
Uma Thurman’s more gifted sister.
Oh man, I love a car with door handles, on both sides of the door, sold!
I couldn’t come up with anything more clever than what’s already been posted in the comments so I googled it and found the following in a forum by username 530dTPhil:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=140&t=1958022
I should also point out that my google for ‘zebra zone toughened’ brought up this very Autopian article in the results and it’s not even 1 hour old yet. That’s some great SEO work guys, keep it up!
I used to spend a lot of time on Pistonheads.
I got banned once for repeatedly breaking their swear filter.
Well damn, I can’t believe that shit 😉
It was a lot higher up the swear scale than that.
This makes the most sense, because a crosswalk is a “zebra crossing”, not zone.
Jason, does this mean you follow @carsrob at Instagram? If not, I think you should. You should also give me a stipend so that I could follow him on one of his trips.
Also seat belts and fittings are extra, but how much extra are we talking here on a scale between John Waters to Ru Paul?
I’m not sure how this scale works when you’ve got an 11 on both ends.
Neutral is in the middle
Inconceivable!
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Torch fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia”. But only slightly less well-known is this: “never write a post after consuming powerful narcotics”.
That’s not a blunder, it’s an adventure.
COTD!
My first thought was that these cars were sold in central and southern Africa, and that zebra there are just as common as whitetail deer in the US. A zone of zebras if you will.
Thus, the windshield is tough enough to withstand an impact with a zebra.
Like the Scandinavian moose test, but with more stripes involved.
And much unlike the Nissan Pao.
I’m pretty sure that would be fair, since I suspect you would not get upset if anyone else whose heart had recently tried to kill them decided the drugs and pain were too much. We’re all glad to see your byline popping up again, but don’t cause yourself too much pain or worsen your health just to provide us content.
Well, I put zebra into urbandictionary.com and the first definition is an obscure or rare illness. As in, telling new doctors “when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.” So if a patient presents with flu like symptoms, the first thought should be flu, not ebola.
But it COULD be ebola.
So maybe “zebra zone-toughened glass” protects against rare or obscure diseases? Or against rare or obscure road conditions?
Protects against falling anvils?
So if you’re running from Wile E. Coyote, don’t jump into a Plymouth Road Runner, make for a Hillman Avenger? Got it!
It means that when you rage-drive through a sporting event, you can target the officials with confidence that they won’t land in your lap.
Apparently it was common for the animals at the drive-through safari places in the UK to mount the cars and try to kick the glass in so they could get at the tasty driver-meat inside.
Zebras are particularly bloodthirsty about this, so you got zebra zone toughened glass
After a very near disaster involving the Queen losing one of her corgis and nearly her life, the UK, and other European safaris, regularly drug their animals now so this isn’t an issue.
I’ve been through a few of the drive through safari parks, and the trick is to use someone else’s car. Best outcome is you leave with no wiper blades and the HVAC intake full of monkey wee.
Worst case is the zebra get you.
They start eating at the feet so you live longer, and maintain eye contact with you until the screams turn to whimpers and eventually fade to silence.
This comment needs a trigger warning for the faint-hearted.
Wow, that got dark fast.
Jesus …
I’ve seen it a hundred times.
Have a Google for “triplex zebrazone”.
It’s zoned toughening in a zebra pattern in the hope that when a stone hits it it’ll leave you with some of a windscreen left that you can see through.
Specifically, it sounds like it was tempered glass, but tempered in a certain way that wouldn’t shatter into tiny pieces.
Basically, an alternative to laminated glass windshields.
Exactly, and here’s a picture of what happens in a severe impact:
VLnc0Xh.jpg (640×480) (imgur.com)
The glass would sort-of retain its integrity and leave narrow strips of pseudo-visibility, enough to allow you to (hopefully) find somewhere to pull off if the impact happened while you were blissfully driving along. Apparently, the solution to be able to see well enough to drive a bit further to park safely was to bash out a small hole to see through, or just bash the rest out as a bunch of typical little tempered-glass bits.
So, in Torch’s scenario, should one have to deal with an obnoxious pedestrian who dared upon asserting their right of way in a zebra zone, the angry sod is first going to bash your windscreen into something vaguely reminiscent of looking through a fogged-up window with vertical blinds in the way, and then if he’s not sufficiently dazed, he’ll be able to smash through the windscreen well enough to throttle you. Considering that, maybe it is pedestrian-friendly after all?
Aka front louvers.
“Zebra zone” made me think of when you look at a polarized windshield at certain angles you can see what appear to be stripes. That’s my best guess.
Or maybe zebra zone is an African continent version of the moose test? “We’ve crashed this car into a herd of twenty-seven zebras just to prove it is safe enough for you and your loved ones. Because we care.”