Mystere mystery

Only one prototype was built to our knowledge, but the plan had been to go into small-scale production. It was based on the Torana Hatchback SS with special wedge bodywork by noted designer Peter Arcadipane. The most significant difference from the standard Torana was its cut-off Kamm tail, 14 inches shorter than the original. This was possible because of coil spring rear suspension.
Arcadipane claimed that this revision alone would be enough to propel it to a top speed of over 200km/h.
The rest of the bodywork was standard except for the nosecone and extended mudguards. In some sketches louvres were added to the bonnet, these were deleted on the prototype.
Two models were planned – a $17,000 base model (to be called the Concorde) and a $23,500 luxury model known as the Mystere Sprint. It was planned that the upmarket version would be built to L34 specs (this was all before the release of the A9X).

Recaro Australia financed the project and a pair of its seats featured on the working prototype, launched at the 1977 Sydney Motor Show. Other interior features included air-conditioning, stereo, digital display instrumentation and, a radical concept back then, a rear window wiper.
A couple of magazines featured the Recaro Torana on the front cover and the hype was that production was definite. Wheels certainly seemed to think so when they gave the prototype a road test up the Hume from Melbourne to Sydney.
And, if you can believe the anonymous ‘special writer’ who made the journey with Rob Luck, a member of the Recaro project team, the excitement began as soon as they tried to exit the city in peak hour.
“We arrive at an intersection just behind the University of Melbourne and stop mid-intersection to make a diamond turn right. The traffic pours endlessly towards us as we wait for a green turn arrow. We are stationary only 20 seconds and already it feels like we are centre-stage, spotlights glaring… a small boy does a dance of death through the crazy maelstrom so he can get a prime position on the median strip adjacent, a young woman opposite smiles as the breeze takes her skirt above her hipline but makes no move to force it down…”
The assumption was that the Mystere would attract the same response from the public, and 1970s spunks, that was usually reserved for Lambos and Ferraris… or the Alvin Purple Charger.
“The black paint job didn’t help – the car looks mean and brutal and its hungry, thrusting snout seems to provoke interest in people who are otherwise uninterested in ours.”

Before the trip the test drivers made a quick pit stop at the Bob Jane T-Mart in North Melbourne to exchange the Pirelli P7’s for “something more suited to a romp up to Sydney.”
Another detour, back to Arcadipane Automotive, was necessary when the Mystere mysteriously refused to take fuel from the bowser, the result of a blocked breather in the custom fuel tank squeezed into the shortened boot.
Once out on the open highway the Mystere ran well, as you’d expect from what was basically a V8 Torana. The 200km/h top speed claim wasn’t tested.
John Mellor, writing for Motor Manual magazine, was another who predicted that this car would go into production in the near future.
“The backers will have to wait and see what reaction there is from the buying public,” he wrote, “but just quietly we think we are witnessing something big.”
Not so, unfortunately.
As its name suggests, the Mystere project soon disappeared without trace. The buying public must have decided that the standard SS Torana was good enough for them.