Brasinca 4200 GT
One of the reasons I love writing these stories for a few hundred people (invite your friends) is because many current event topics are but a roundabout away from some weird car, sometime, somewhere.
The T word, as in t-a-r-i-f-f, as in the thing dominating North American news sources lately in early 2025, has one angle in common with the 1964 Brasinca 4200 GT, aka the ‘Uirapurú’: new cars in regions with heavy tariffs will get weirder, and even the good ones, the expensive ones with decent backing from an established maker of large components for trucks (including cabs), well, they may only produce 77 copies.
Good jobs for a few years and an entertaining history, which we’ll get into, sure, however not the level of manufacturing that industrial giants like a Toyota or BYD or Chevrolet could, can, and will stamp out endlessly.
Spoiler alert: there is no modern Brasinca crossover SUV, selling in hundreds of thousands of copies.
Instead, we got 77 (at best) of a two-door sports car that looks vaguely like a spa’s “after” photo of a Jensen Interceptor’s chiseled, long hood coupé shape…chrome-less, post-Brazilian.
What is an ‘Uirapurú’? A bird! This name is closer to what the Tupi Brazilian indigenous peoples had for an Amazon bird with a ‘sweet song’, brown features, and curved beak — wirapu 'ru. It’s known in the West as the Musician Wren.
Jensen? Not always the same company…
Like the Interceptor, the 4200 GT was made in steel. Like the Interceptor, the 4200 GT had strong performance and plenty of engine torque.
Unlike the Interceptor, however, the 4200 GT was powered by a literal Chevrolet straight-6 truck engine, fitted with three SU carburetors.
Here in weird car land, that revelation of a truck engine should be, and is, only a flesh wound. A bigger knock is the standard 3-speed manual transmission from the C-14; a period 4-speed from the Corvette was optional. Top speed, over 200 km/h (125 mph).
The Brasinca 4200 GT / STV Uirapurú shown across press, advertising, brochure media created during the 1960s
Brasinca did build the bulk of production between 1964-1966, but lived on as a company until the 1990s — so rightfully left its GT car behind for the good of the company.
In 1966, the car’s production was then taken up by STV (Sociedade Técnica de Veículos Ltda), where it was officially named Uirapurú. Brochure below. ;)
Some had air conditioning; STV did develop the car further with the approximately 12 unfinished cars it received as part of its deal.
During development, it’s said the car wore that name before Brasinca went with the alphanumeric ‘4200 GT’. The official figures of more than 70 cars includes two convertibles and one ‘wagon’-back model that had been developed as a police car. Allegedly, this was meant to be fitted with honest-to-goodness g-u-n-s near its headlights, giving me hope in humanity as that idea went nowhere.
This car was then used as a TV prop.
