So for this fine day, I give you.....the Crofton BUG

[Czechsix]

OK, so who's seen this before?

[Techmogogy]

Wow - where did you find that?

Edit: googled it (Crofton Bug) and more of a mini 'jeep' shows up

[Czechsix]

Tech...yeah, I thought it was a frikking amazing find.

There's nothing that I've found on the net about this. When you google the "Crofton Bug" that mini jeep creation pops up, but absolutely nothing about the Haflinger.

We've got a very large automotive swap meet/flea market here in the San Diego area - the Big Three meet. Literally a few miles of folks selling things they've dragged out of the desert, from their garages, trades, etc. Of course there are also quite a few car clubs, and one of the clubs that popped up was a Crosley car club. At their booth they were selling some Crosley related items, and in one of the boxes were a few of these flyers. I'll scan the back side, but it's looking like it's a repro of Stey Puch literature, only with the Crofton name.

Crofton was a local San Diego company that produced these little utes for some years, and I'm betting that they had some kind of an arrangement with SP to market them here. I note that this is pre-pathfinder too. Now that I've got the contact for the Crosley club (the connection to Crofton was that Crofton took over the engine builds, tooling, etc when Crosley went under), I'm going to contact the club admins and see if I can ask the membership if they have any knowledge of the "bug" that's actually a Haffy.

So - were any actually imported? If so, did they still wear the Haflinger name, or were they rebadged as "Crofton Bug" - and maybe there are Haflingers out there with a different name? Were any parts imported (who's got the stash???). How many of them came in? Mods? and on and on....this could be a very interesting research project. I think that some of the principals of Crofton still live in the San Diego area, and if so I'll be trying to contact them directly with a few questions.

It's probably going to be a dead end, but maybe we'll get lucky and get some interesting info out of this.

I'll keep everyone posted, and in the meantime I'll do a better scan of front and back, and maybe Constantin can post them on the Haflinger info site, as archival info.

[Julian B]

... but it's looking like it's a repro of Stey Puch literature, only with the Crofton name.

Great find, and I look forward too hearing more!

The brochure does look like a report of a SDP brochure, but I have not seen that actual image / sketch before elsewhere. But as I say, a fabulous & fascinating find

UPDATE: If you look at this Bug brochure it looks like they have sort of copied SDP's general brochure layout / style?

http://www.autopasion18.com/IMAGENES-CO ... 20Tug).JPG

[pathfinder700ap]

Hello,

very interesting topic, thanks for posting! I think I will ask some old ex SDP aftersales service employees if they can remember anything about this company.
And yes, thanks, I would definitely like to include that topic in my website! Is there any date on the back side of that brochure?


Cheers,
Constantin

[Czechsix]

Hi Constantin,
That will be very interesting to hear if any of the old employees recall anything.

I will do a higher quality scan of both sides and post/send them to you. Unfortunately no dates, publishers, or any other data on there.

Julian: Interesting that they didn't copy any SDP sales images, but the general layout and style was used by quite a few companies in the '60's - I have Rokon 2x2 and 6x6 AATV sales brochures that have much the same style.

One thing that occurs to me - we had two or three publications that used to run ads for all sorts of fun toys...come to think of it, that's probably where I started to get interested in vehicles, from the ads and stories in Popular Mechanics, Popular Science magazines. I'll see if there were any ads or stories run in those old magazines about the "Crofton Bug"/Haflinger.

[jhon]

Yes, that is interesting - keep us posted!

Hhhmm - not so sure about the name tho'; 'BUG' - it brings to mind a small parasite that feeds on it's host and uses all it's resources.

Oh wait...

[Callahan]

So the "bug" is not a bug-eye. Maybe this brochure predates the determination that larger headlights were required for the US market.

[Czechsix]

So the "bug" is not a bug-eye. Maybe this brochure predates the determination that larger headlights were required for the US market.

Yep, most definitely before the major run of federalized imports.