Lightburn Zeta
Today's Car Lust is the direct result of a little Internet link free-word association. It all started when I was reading Slashdot, where I found out that cows tend to point due north. At the bottom of this already strange article was a link to the Telegraph's special on the 100 ugliest cars of all time, which I felt preternaturally compelled to visit. Then, at No. 71, I saw this:
71 - Lightburn Zeta Sedan
Australian washing machine (and cement mixer) manufacturer turns its hand to cars. Fails.
No picture, no further explanation--just those two sentences. Just like that, I knew I absolutely had to look into this.
In the early 1960s, Harold Lightburn, owner of a cement mixer, washing machine, and fiberglass boat manufacturing business, decided that there was a huge hole in the Australian automotive market--namely, there was a need for an inexpensive, domestically produced second car. So, in a fit of daring, schizophrenia, or a lot of both, he purchased the rights to the British-designed Anzani Astra and proceeded to create a custom fiberglass body for it. Thus, the Lightburn Zeta was born.
To fully grasp how completely and utterly insane this enterprise was, consider the following--the Astra was the smallest and cheapest British car in 1954. Choosing a 10-year-old, barely post-war British design for your new car manufacturing business is only slightly more sane and well-thought-out than a Warsaw Pact country licensing and building old Fiats and attempting to resell them in the United States after Fiat itself had been run out of town. Thankfully, the relative sanity ended there--had it continued any farther, we never would have been treated to a car with truly bizarre and wonderful properties such as the lack of a tailgate, or the ability to go 60 MPH in reverse.
Oh yes. You read that last sentence right. Allow me to explain. ...
Because the Zeta's frame was made of fiberglass, Lightburn was unable to equip the Zeta with a tailgate--allowing the rear end to open would have severely compromised the already suspiciously fragile body. Consequently, putting anything in the back of the Zeta required the owner to remove the front seat. Of course, this begs the question--why did the Zeta need a fiberglass body? Simple: When you're building a car with a 324cc engine that's "good" for 16 horsepower, you save weight when and where you can.
This, in turn, brings us to its unique backwards handling properties. The Zeta used a chain drive to move the wheels (a technology available on second-hand Schwinns), which led to a problem--how does one shift a chain-driven vehicle into reverse, exactly? Lightburn's answer was as cleverly simple as it was a sign of his deep-seated washing machine agitation cycle-induced madness: Make the owner turn the car off, then press a button that turns the engine in reverse. The result was a car that had as many gears in reverse as it had going forward, meaning it could go just as fast in either direction.
Lightburn marketed the Zeta aggressively, pricing it at £595 and entering it in the 1964 AMPOL Around Australia Trial,
a 7,000-mile rally through some of Australia's toughest roads and
terrain, with the hopes of highlighting its superior British-inspired
engineering. Impressively, one of the three Zetas entered did complete
the course, which shocked everyone; most people thought the Zetas would
be lucky to make it past the starting line. Less surprisingly, though, it came in dead last.
Unfortunately, neither the aggressive pricing nor the rally-inspired PR stunts helped sales--by 1965, only 363 Zetas made it off of the showroom floor, thus ending that exercise in supreme futility.
(Or did it...?)
For more information on the Zeta and other Lightburn Industries autos, Unique Cars & Parts is an excellent source. The advertisement at the top is from flickr's Hugo90, and the Zeta pictured at the bottom is from flickr's SQUIZZY. There's also a good writeup and some better pictures in the Adelaide Talkback forum, and there is a Lightburn Zeta Owners Club of Australia, which can be found here.
--David Colborne
Cookie the Dog's Owner on August 27, 2008 at 10:51 AM
Visit Baggins Motors in downtown Hobbiton and test drive one today.
What an utterly silly, utterly delightful little car!
Anthony Cagle on August 27, 2008 at 10:56 AM
Does it stop running when it gets unbalanced?
Shawn on August 27, 2008 at 08:09 PM
A great read on a car I'd actually never heard of. I can't believe it'd make an ugly car list with such a harmless appearance.
Zweck on August 27, 2008 at 10:34 PM
An Australian Trabant. Very intriguing.
Mochi Mochi on August 29, 2008 at 12:39 PM
Great story David! What a delightfully written and engaging read about a really funny little car. If you look up "quirky" in the dictionary there much be a picture of the Zeta.
Slick on September 20, 2008 at 10:13 PM
I have always been strangely compelled by these cars, ever since I saw one in the automotive museum in perth when I was just a wee lad.
Stuart Tallack on December 27, 2008 at 05:43 AM
You have rather missed the point about the reverse gears. The car used a motorcycle gearbox and, with the exception of the three speed and reverse Albion, they lack reverse. However, a two stroke engine with piston controlled ports will run happily in either direction if the ignition timing is altered. (It was possible to get a Scott to go into reverse by retarding the ignition at tickover... best done on a sidecar outfit!) SIBA, and probably other companies, made a dynastart which would allow you to stop and start again in reverse. It was used in the three wheeled 'disabled tricycles' made by such well known firms as Greeves and A.C. There was nothing eccentric about it; it was the obvious thing to do with a two stroke engine and motorcycle gearbox.
Big Dave on March 09, 2009 at 10:18 AM
When you started talking about a "Warsaw Pact country licensing and building old Fiats" I thought for a minute you were talking about the Polski-Fiat 125p, except those never made it to the United States. We can thank our lucky stars for this fact because it was one of the worst vehicles ever made that nobody ever talks about!