I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today!

sphinx99

I saw a Sable Convertible in the sketchier parts of Highland Park, MI today. That's right, a chopped Sable. Honestly, it didn't look all that bad - ditch the large chrome rims and it's actually a fairly nice looking cruiser convertible. However, it probably drives like a 1960s car...

Shifty: I have not heard of a single one of those cars, although the "Bond Equipe GT" makes me wonder whether Sean Connery, um, went ballin' in the back seat of one...

a_l_hubcaps

Shiftright-

I know I've seen a pic of a Bitter before, but I can't recall what it looks like. <does Google search> Ah, like this. I know nothing about these cars, I just saw one in a magazine once.

Lancer LaFemme: Wasn't this a failed attempt to market a car to women, sometime in the 1950s? I seem to remember reading something about this.

-Andrew L

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, good guess on the La Femme. It was a Dodge Lancer 2 door hardtop with "special equipment", which I believe included a pink umbrella, tissue dispensers and sun visor with lighted vanity mirror. This was around 1955-56. The car itself also came in pink and gray two-tone. Given that women had been riveting ships together from 1941-45 and were by 1955 a big percentage of the work force, Dodge might have been about 20 years too late with this concept.

A Bond Equipe was a car made with Triumph Herald chassis and running gear and a fiberglas fastback body. This was done in the 60s, when any number of "specials" like this came out of the U.K. There was TVR and Ogle and Ginetta and Berkeley and probaby tens and tens of others I have forgotten. It has nothing to do with James Bond, but the designer, also a gent named Bond, also designed, I believe, the better known Reliant three wheeler.

The Bitter in that photo used an Opel inline 6 cylinder engine as I recall.

speedshift

The Packard Hawk is obscure?

Admittedly I have a slight advantage on that one. In the '60s there was a white Packard Hawk usually parked at the main post office. I thought it was gorgeous.

Mr_Shiftright

Well they only made it one year (1958) and that's rather obscure for a car dontcha' think? And if you will forgive me SS I think it is one mightily unattractive automobile. Are we talking about the same car? The warmed-over 1957 Studebaker Hawk with a froggy fiberglass nose? Or are you thinking of the 1956 Golden Hawk with Packard 352 cid engine perhaps?

carnut4

sometime from the late fifties-early sixties? Seems like it looked a little like the Volvo 122. I bet there are WAY more Volvo 122s left than Simca Arondes. Was that the Simca with the old Ford flathead V860 motor?

sphinx99

I was about negative fifteen years old when all these cars were made...

ghulet

...in a really cool kelly green. They're not super rare, but definitely not 'something you see every day'.

jrosasmc

Speaking of Saab, I saw a nice black mid-90s 9000 Aero yesterday afternoon. Probably the rarest of all 9000s, but still, I wouldn't get one due to the reliability risks.

wilcox

haven't seen any VW Dashers in a long time. Guess they are all rust, dust, and carbon by now.:)

andys120

many years ago (ca.'65-66) when I lived off Thomas Circle in DC. Theis Moretti had a low slung, shartk-nosed Italian body, possibly by Touring or Frua and nice wires. I haven't seen one since. I fiogured it had a Fiat under the hood but I know nothing about it.

Weren't Stanguellinis all monoposto racing
/formula cars?

lokki

I got to see one and sit in it years ago in Boise Idaho. I loved that car. Totally impractical and not the most beautiful of Alfa's but a 'wow' piece just the same with that V-8.

I was told that it was in the country illegally because of pollution controls, bumpers etc.

I've heard of some of the others but never seen them in the sheet metal.

stever

We seem to have our fair share of obscure cars here in Boise. Our nice dry desert climate attracts them maybe? I'm afraid I'm going to break down and buy something "different" (that'll break down in turn, lol).

Steve
Host
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tarik

Opel, GM's European subsidiary, envisioned a futuristic sports coupe in the early seveties, but the 395 cars would be built by ex car dealer and engineer Erich Bitter in conjunction with Baur Coach, a German company specializing in small output production runs.

He called it the "Bitter CD" and it was produced from '73 - '79. Based on the current full-size offering Opel Diplomat, the CD first had GM's 327 V8, then switched to the 350 cui version. The SC would become the CD's successor, albeit in a different format. It had an I-6 engine, also borrowed from Opel's line-up of luxury sedans of that time (1981-'86).

You can find more material about Bitter cars by clicking here.

Tarik

Mr_Shiftright

Hey, you guys are good. Very high level of Obscure Car Awareness here. Those who were in diapers are excused and held blameless.

Oh, the Saab Sonnett. Yes, well...ahem....

That's right, the Simca Aronde DOES look like a Volvo 122. That's a perfect ID for it.

Stanguellinis are monopostos (one seaters or "one place" for those not ethnically Italian). I think they had either Fiat motors or a more desirable special engine, the origins of which escape me at the moment.

Tarik has covered the Bitter nicely, thank you.

Saab 9000 Aero is a nice car, but as you say, probably a money pit. I rather liked the early 900 Turbos, which were a less complex, more edgey car. Back then, Saabs were very unique; now more run of the mill. The 50s and 60s Saabs are really darling little cars, and the most interesting of all in my opinion.

The 1958 Packard Hawk was actually a Studebaker through and through, 100%. As Studebaker was dying, they slapped the Packard name on this....this....THING...I guess in order to try and cash in on the old Packard reputation. It still elicits a collective groan from Packard buffs, but some of the Studebaker freaks really like the car. And yes, it is certainly obscure! "Be the only one on your block, etc etc."

lemko

...the "Shovelnose Packard!" The 1957 "Packardbakers" didn't look too bad, but the '58s were downright grotesque! How about those grafted-on pods for the quad headlights? How about the fins on top of fins? Yuck!

magnetophone

There's a florist down the street that has an Avanti. I should take a picture of it. it's in the characteristic red.

andre1969

...of a '58 Packard last weekend. As soon as I get a chance, I'll put 'em up. This wasn't a Hawk though, just a regular 2-door hardtop. What were these called, anyway? Starliner or something like that?

Still pretty grotesque, but not nearly as bad as the Hawk!

Mr_Shiftright

They aren't Packards and shouldn't be called that. Arghhh! It's a complete fraud. These are Studebakers, no different than Hyundai buying Mercedes and putting a three-pointed hood star on an Elantra.

If you want to call them Packardbakers, I'd go along with that!

Did you know that Studebaker execs ordered all Packard historical records to be thrown into dumpsters?

carnut4

I wonder if it might behoove us to bring back that Packards topic, now that there seems to be more participation in the Classics forum? Just a thought. Anyone else?
I watched a movie yesterday that took place in 1958, in which the featured car [until it got the window bashed and the killer got caught] was a 55 or 56 Packard-a big black 4dr sedan. The last of the real Packards. A Clipper? Was that the premium 4dr? Sure don't see many of those anywhere anymore. Not even in carshows.
I used to think they were kinda cool looking as a kid.
At least they used the real Packard motor in the 57 Hawk, right?

andys120

on display at Expo67 (World's Fair in Montreal. hence the name). I think I've seen maybe two or three in the intervening 30+ years. Are they worth anything?

And can you tell us something about the beautiful but obscure Moretti?

speedshift

No Shifty, I actually like the Packard Hawk, better than the '56-61 Hawks with the ersatz Mercedes grille. The '53-4 is the best of course, a timeless design. Call me conflicted.

The Packard Hawk had the supercharged 275-hp Stude 289. The 352 Packard V8 was in the '56 Golden Hawk, one of which I picked up in 1971 for a cool $250. There was a 2x4v version of this engine rated at 310 hp standard on the Packard Patrician and 400. The Clipper was Packard's price leader and registered as a different make in '56.

Also around '71 I saw a burgundy '61 Hawk that I still remember distinctly, parked behind a gas station. What stood out about it was that it had a four speed, the first year for Studes IIRC. Even had a circular T-10 emblem on the trunklid. The Borg Warner T-10 was the first four speed available in American cars, starting with the '57 Corvette.

carnut4

engine [the 352 Packard, rated at 275 hp] compared to the 57 289 Stude engine, with the same 275 HP rating? In actual output?
Speedshift-that 56 Golden Hawk you picked up must've been a rare bird even then. And for $250? Hey a lot of us would go for a deal like that, just for curiosity!
Of course in 1971, things were a bit different in the collector car market!

speedshift

Yeah it was a rare bird even then. I'd drive past it every day on my way to school and I was the one guy in a million who actually knew what it was. Of course the car I was driving was a '56 Stude Power Hawk so I was an insider and knew the secret handshake.

One day I decided to ring the doorbell and ask if they wanted to sell. They did and that was the first step down the slippery slope. I had found a great way to buy interesting cars cheap and then bury myself financially making them nice.

I guess I'm one of the few people who knows that the Packard 352 was a lump, even with whatever gears they used with OD. Lots of torque but not much else (hmmm, kind of like the GTP I used to have). It weighed over 800 lbs., more than the Chrysler hemi, so the Golden Hawk was best used in a straight line.

Mr_Shiftright

No I think most people who know engines thought the 352 was a lump. It ate valve lifters, too.

Well, phew, just looking at a '58 Packard Hawk brings tears to my eyes. What exactly do you like about it. Is it that it is SO bizarre and junked up, like a '59 Cadillac? I could genuinely appreciate a macabre worship of the totally overwrought, the "Liberace / Elvis Syndrome".

So are you being perverse here?

To me, a Packard Hawk violates every standard of good taste in car design I could conjure up, from the froggy nose to the fake spare tire to the tail fins on top of the tail fins. The beat goes on!

How about a photo for the boys? One front, one rear. The whole enchilada. You don't have to comment or vote, this is not a trial.

speedshift

I like a car that expresses the spirit of the times without inhibition. A Packard Hawk is pure unfiltered 1958. How many car companies let their hair down like that these days? ;-)

lemko

...I believe that was the excellent television movie "Murder in the Heartland" often shown on the Lifetime cable nextwork. It was about the Charles Starkweather-Caril Fugate spree killings that took place in Nebraska and Wyoming in the winter of 1957-58. The car that Tim Roth's character, (Starkweather)drove was a 1955 Packard Patrician sedan. The real Lauer Ward, one of Charles Starkweather's victims, really did have a black 1955 Packard sedan. Rarely do movies get the cars accurate. Charles Starkweather's beater '49 Ford was accurately reproduced in the movie right down to the missing grille. Other notable cars in that movie were the 1955 Oldsmobile police cars, the Studebaker Land Cruiser taxicab, and the 1956 Buick Special of Starkweather's last victim - a traveling shoe salesman.

carnut4

A good one, too. I don't usually watch TV that long in the daytime, but I'd never seen it before, and it hooked me just for those 50s cars. Kept me from playing with my own old rides.
That Packard must've been original, cause it would have cost a mint to restore, and who'd do that these days-especially a 4door. Still, an impressive car-nice to see it [and the others] in the film.

Mr_Shiftright

'55 Packard was an interesting car with many advanced features. It had a self-leveling suspension, an electrically operated, push-button automatic transmission, (Chrysler's was mechanical, with cables) and a lock up torque converter. All of these features, in modified form, are used today on modern cars but were not used in 1955.

Packard was not noted for being style leaders, but they always had an excellent engineering department.

Their last year they only sold something like 11,000 cars.

andys120

was Ternence Malick's "Badlands" (1973)with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. They're not called Carol Fugate or Charlie Starkweather but it's the same story, very well told.

Sheen has gone from serial killer to paid assassin (Apocalypse Now) to President of the US
(?The West Wing).

carnut4

just to see the old cars in the film. What did he drive in it?

ghulet

I saw a nice green '64-65 Commander sedan sitting at a gas station, and a Hawk two-door hardtop (with the old-style backslanting rear window, but no fins, so around '62 maybe?), in this strange green and gold color combination, but in great condition.

Mr_Shiftright

No fins would be a Gran Turismo Hawk, 62-64 model. Nice looking car, more tasteful than earlier Hawks but same old chassis /driveline. Last gasps of a dying company.

Some people say it reminds them of the Ford T-Bird roofline of the same era.

tarik

...ElCamino not too long ago. Here's one of these - with two extra wheels. I showed up at a recent weekend's "Cruise to the Woods" event in Iowa.

Cool, huh... >:-O

ghulet

....a Malibu sedan with the El Camino rear graphted (sp?) on. The one I saw (still no pictures, sorry) was a stretched El Camino (same era) with one extra set of (front) doors. Picture two sets of long front doors (pillarless), with a large V-shaped b-pillar in between. It was quite awkward looking, but did have, as a result of the stretching, enormous legroom in the back seat (which were buckets, btw). This thing also had crank windows. You'd think for all that trouble of basically making the El Camino into a limo-truck, they'd add power windows, no?

Mr_Shiftright

Looks like rough work in the photo. Hey, he's made an Avalanche!

PF_Flyer

It's homecoming this week at Penn State, so I expect that my chances of seeing an obscure something or other are going to be a bit higher as old alumni come back to town driving their "baby"...

PF Flyer
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lemko

Martin Sheen drove a 1959 Cadillac stolen from a character I believe to have represented Mr. Ward. Unlike Mr. Ward, the character wasn't killed by Sheen's character.

dgraves1

A couple of weeks ago I saw my first ever real life DeTomaso Mangusta on the back of a flat bed. I have seen pictures before but always thought the Pantera was the better looking car. I wish I had more time to look at it but it sure looked beautiful sitting up there.

Mr_Shiftright

It could be yours for well under $30,000.

They are not terribly popular cars and yes you're right, I think the Pantera is better....well, could be MADE to be better with modifications and upgrades.

Problem with a Pantera is finding one that hasn't been mangled into a "boy-racer".

carnut4

I was looking through my "Standard Catalog of Imported Cars" last night, and came across Pegaso.
I remember having a plastic model of one, made by Hubley, back around 1954.
I remember that model, and the pictures rang a bell.
Anyway, the story of Pegaso in the book is quite interesting. For example, the makes creator, Wilfredo Ricart, had designed and built a four cylinder, twin cam engine with 16 valves and hemiheads in 1922-at the age of 24!
The Pegaso cars of 51-58 featured powerful 4 cam V8s, some of them supercharged.
Anyway-I've never seen one even at a museum-maybe they had one at Blackhawk when I was there-don't remember.
Anyone ever seen or driven one of these? Shifty?
Wonder how many are left?
With technical advances like that going back to the 20s, makes you wonder how GM could still be pushing flathead 6s and 8s in Pontiacs clear till 1954.

carphoto

Interesting cars and quite rare. The number built was small, 84 sticks in my head for some reason. The company that built them (ENASA I think) built trucks in Spain and is still in business. Ricart convinced them to build the Pegaso car kind of as a "look what we can do" showpiece, a technology demonstrator. The V8 engine is notable for being quite complex and having elaborate fixes designed in to correct basic problems. I think one fix was tiny pins to keep the main bearings from spinning. A few years ago at Pebble they had a Pegaso class and had 12 cars I think. The bodywork on some of them was spectacular with some of the best examples by Touring and Zagato. There is a guy in So. California with a nice one who takes it to a lot of shows. A nice older guy. His son found two of them many years ago and bought them to restore. He had just started on one when he was stricken with cancer and died. His dad and another relative who was a machinist restored the car sort of as a tribute. The company built one lightweight roadster with a supercharged engine for racing that I have seen at Monterey.

I really need to get more of my slides scanned so I can post pictures ofthis stuff. They look so much better than I describe.

Cheers

Mr_Shiftright

carnut---Pegaso are very rare and most people are likely never to see one. I had a chance to examine one in a restoration shop and was told they are incredibly complex machines and devils to work on. I don't know production numbers but surely no more than a few hundred tops. I believe, if I remember correctly, these cars were supported financially by the Franco government in Spain as a source of national pride. I also recall they were outrageously expensive for their time, astronomical.

American cars of that time period, 1950s, are generally better noted more for their vitality in styling and ingenious production methods than their technical prowess or innovation.

wilcox

I'm sorry, that's a U.S. airline company (falling)...not no obscure car name...

magnetophone

? I flew Delta last week to Seattle.

wilcox

within the next few months, they are going to shuck another 8,000 - 9,000 employees. "The shape of things to come"....fasten seat belts...

Mr_Shiftright

One never knows. The historians tell us that at one time or another there were perhaps 2,000 distinct and independent auto manufacturers in the US, starting from about 1900 to the present.

Stand by for the products of the new megacorporation General Fordsleryotabenz.
Three models, three colors, buy one or walk.

ndance

seems to me a natural outgrowth of technology that you also see in things like aerospace firms, chip manufacturers, etc. It's the other side of Moore's law (which I suppose can be applied to all of this stuff). Not only do items become more complex at a regular rate (doubling gates every 18 months, for instance) but the cost of non-recurring engineering AND build out of production facilities rises at some nasty rate.

Pantera-wise, I'd have to vote for the Mangusta...the front end is too cool looking for one thing. I've always associated Pantera's (in a not kind fashion, I suppose) with MD's. Kind of the 'forktailed doctor killer' of cars. I suppose the only way to stay sane with either one is to view it is a pre-assembled kit..maybe I'll dig out the SCG article on making a Mangusta handle.

stever

Saw a "cream yellow" '68 XKE tonight at the pizza spot (at least the vanity plate indicated it was a '68). It looked longer than most SUVs - I wanted to find the driver and find out if it had more than 70,000 miles on it. Isn't it common knowledge that Jag owners hate to pile the miles up? This one looked pretty pristine on the outside.


Steve
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Mr_Shiftright

Don't mean to nitpick, but the Jaguar is called the E-Type. The factory never named it the XKE. Somehow the name got cobbled up in America.