The MP Lafer was an

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

built in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

by Lafer S.A. beginning in 1974. Created by Percival Lafer, a furniture manufacturer, it was a

fiberglass Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...

-bodied two-seat roadster that took its styling cues from the classic British sports cars of the 1940s and early '50s, with a strong resemblance to the MG T-series and

Morgan Plus 4 The Commodore Plus/4 is a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, database, and graphing); it was billed as "the produc ...

. Unlike those, however, its chassis, engine,

manual transmission A manual transmission (MT), also known as manual gearbox, standard transmission (in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States), or stick shift (in the United States), is a multi-speed motor vehicle transmission (mechanics), transmission ...

, steering and suspension were from the

Volkswagen Beetle The Volkswagen Beetle—officially the Volkswagen Type 1, informally in German (meaning "beetle"), in parts of the English-speaking world the Bug, and known by many other nicknames in other languages—is a two-door, rear-engine economy car, ...

(known as the Fusca in Brazil). Although the stock VW Type 1

four-cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categorize ...

made it somewhat underpowered, it became a sought-after car in its time. Approximately 4,300 were built over its 16-year production span. It was available in two models—the classic MP, and the more modern TI, introduced in March 1984. Some 1,000 were exported, most to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

but some to the United States. MP Lafer Back

References

Cars introduced in 1974 1980s cars 1990s cars Cars of Brazil Retro-style automobiles Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Rear-engined vehicles {{Modern-auto-stub