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

fintail

I've always thought the original Mr. Wilson was pretty funny, and it was a great car spotting show when I was a kid. Corny, but I can deal with it. Same for Leave it to Beaver, worth it for some of the car scenes.

texases

kyfdx said:

I just want to note that Dennis The Menace was a terrible TV show, and the comic strip (currently) might be worse.

Didn't watch the show, but I agree, the comic strip is bad since the son (?) took over. Same with Family Circus...

ab348

fintail said:

A view from a prior season episode showing another cool FoMoCo product, and those background houses:

I don’t think I have ever seen an Edsel wagon like that before. Wild rear end design.

texases

Compared to the '58 and the '60 I find it almost normal, for the time.

andre1969

I don't think I've ever seen a '59 Edsel wagon in person. I know I've seen a '58 now and then. I just looked up production figures and oddly, the '59 wagons sold better than the '58.

In 1958, they sold, in the entry-level Ranger series...
963 Roundup 2-door wagons
2294 Villager 4-door, 2-seat wagons
978 Villager 4-door, 3-seat wagons.

In the step-up (but still Ford-based) Pacer series...
1456 Bermuda 4-door, 2-seat wagons
779 Bermuda 4-door, 3-seat wagons.

The larger, Mercury-based Corsair and Citation didn't offer wagons.

For '59, "Station Wagon" was its own series, and they sold...
5687 Villager 4-door, 2-seat wagons
2133 Villager 4-door, 3-seat wagons

The' 59's were priced about $50 more than the equivalent '58 Ranger Villager models. But, they were de-contented. The '58 had a 303 hp 361 V8, whereas the '59 had a 200 hp 292 V8. A 223 6-cyl was a credit option. I'd imagine they might have de-contented them in other ways, as well?

While the Edsel is widely regarded as a failure, I'm actually impressed the '59 wagon sold as well as it did.

uplanderguy

RE.: Dennis, I thought the first Mr. Wilson was pretty funny...."Martha, my nerve medicine!". And I thought that both Henry Mitchell and Margaret looked almost exactly like their cartoon characters!

Now, I think Edsel should've put more trim on the rear of their Villager wagon....not! Sheesh!

When I was a kid, I enjoyed watching "Hazel". Some clips on YouTube I've seen, still make me laugh. Shirley Booth was an appealing personality playing a working class/humble background character, and she and Don DeFore had a great banter between them I think. And even I enjoy seeing all the new Fords on the show.

imidazol97

andre1969 said:

I don't think I've ever seen a '59 Edsel wagon in person. I know I've seen a '58 now and then. I just looked up production figures and oddly, the '59 wagons sold better than the '58.

In 1958, they sold, in the entry-level Ranger series...
963 Roundup 2-door wagons
2294 Villager 4-door, 2-seat wagons
978 Villager 4-door, 3-seat wagons.

In the step-up (but still Ford-based) Pacer series...
1456 Bermuda 4-door, 2-seat wagons
779 Bermuda 4-door, 3-seat wagons.

The larger, Mercury-based Corsair and Citation didn't offer wagons.

For '59, "Station Wagon" was its own series, and they sold...
5687 Villager 4-door, 2-seat wagons
2133 Villager 4-door, 3-seat wagons

The' 59's were priced about $50 more than the equivalent '58 Ranger Villager models. But, they were de-contented. The '58 had a 303 hp 361 V8, whereas the '59 had a 200 hp 292 V8. A 223 6-cyl was a credit option. I'd imagine they might have de-contented them in other ways, as well?

While the Edsel is widely regarded as a failure, I'm actually impressed the '59 wagon sold as well as it did.

@andre1969
thanks for the review and the data.

I don't think I've seen the 59 Edsel wagon in person. I have seen the others and seen various models.
About 12 or so years ago there was an Edsel convention, maybe national, at a hotel in Miamisburg, south of Dayton. I took several pictures. Maybe I'll come across them...

fintail

I can see that kind of scooped out concave looking section on the rear of that 59 Edsel, the area below the brake lights, as being pretty different. Similar to that area on a 62 Mercury below the trunkline - kind of a jet age/space age thing. 58 definitely had the most flamboyantly 50s tail lights. 60 was just weird, but would be cool to have via high rarity. I've seen 58s and 59s, but never a 60.

andre1969

I actually kinda like the rear treatment of the '59 Edsel wagon. It somehow manages to look a bit Mercury-ish, and Pontiac-ish at the same time. In contrast, I always thought the rear-end style was the weak spot of any body style of '59 Ford. It looks like the upper part of the body was designed for a larger car, but slapped onto a narrower car, and with the big,, low-mounted, tucked-in taillights and that slight vee-shape crease across the back that joins the fins, it makes the car look top heavy and tipsy.

uplanderguy

That '59 Edsel wagon--maybe it's shadows or something--but it looks like it has a loose piece of horizontal trim at the top end, and an incomplete piece of horizontal trim on the low end.

At Hershey one year, I saw two '60 Edsels--a two-door hardtop and a four-door sedan. I find them intriguing because of the insane rarity, plus the '60 Ford is a good looking two-door hardtop IMHO and although the Edsel's taillights strike me as goofy, I'd still proudly park one in my driveway.

'59 Ford--not a thing on them I ever liked. To my eyes, blunt front, taillights too large, backup lights above the taillights, etc. I don't care for the instrument panel either.

I love the '56, like the '57, and like the '58 too. Some of that may be because my favorite aunt had a '58 well into the sixties, but it's generally the '57 body but hammed up with trim, I know. I like the instrument panels of '56 through '58.

uplanderguy

Speaking of "Leave It To Beaver" earlier, I'm sure everyone has seen that Ken Osmond ("Eddie Haskell") died very recently. An annoying but funny sitcom character:

"If your dumb brother tags along....oh, hello Mrs. Cleaver! I was just telling Wallace how enjoyable it would be to have young Theodore join us at the movies!". LOL

imidazol97

Here's another perspective for that interesting rear.
I see the styling as being jet related, like a lot of styling through the middle
50s on.

fintail

I recall an Edsel wagon as the family car in an early episode of 'The Donna Reed Show' as well, looks like it was a 58. The family had Ford and Mercury later on, IIRC. I'm pretty indifferent on 55 vs 56 Ford, and might prefer the 58 to the 57 as the kind of frog eyed 57 headlights put me off, and the very 1958 gingerbread on the 58 can be overdone - but that was the thing that year. I think I recall reading the 59 was seen as tasteful and elegant when introduced. And of course, I like the 60. My dad was big into old Fords when I was a kid, so I saw these cars a lot. I remember one of his grail cars was a 54 Ford convertible - he joined the USAF that year, and knew a guy who had a new one - he never forgot about it, and thought highly of it. A couple years later, my dad bought a Crown Vic.

I saw the news about Ken Osmond/Eddie Haskell too, RIP, funny character well-played. I remember when I was a kid I'd try that overdone flattery on the mothers of friends, and teachers.

ab348

The '59 Ford won the Gold medal of the Comité Français des L'élegance of Paris for design (supposedly) - but this webpage makes the case it was just a scheme cooked up by Ford's marketing folks:

http://automotivemileposts.com/autobrevity/ford1959award.html

andre1969

One odd thing I remember from "The Donna Reed Show" is that there was a couple of scenes where they'd show the exterior of a 1961 Mercury 4-door hardtop, but the interior would be of a '60 (or maybe even a '59). It was easy to spot, because the '60 had a reverse-slant C-pillar, and had a metal spacer piece to allow the rear window to roll all the way down, while the '61 had a thick, formal, T-bird inspired C-pillar, and the rear door just had a small, triangular spacer piece, rather than a full-height piece that, when the door was closed, looked like it made up the bulk of the C-pillar.

I'm guessing the studio had pulled apart a '59-60 so they could do interior shots, perhaps in an earlier season, and didn't want to spend the money pulling a '61 apart for consistency? Or maybe it was a prop that the studio already had around, from some other show or movie? I do recall late 50's/early 60's Mercurys having a lot of presence on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", but that was a different studio. It was shot at Revue Studios in its earlier years and moved to the Universal lot in later years. I think Donna Reed was produced by Columbia, although that backlot later became a Screen Gems property I believe, and is now called the Warner Brothers Ranch. But, I guess different studios might swap props and such, from time to time?

kyfdx

I don't have anything against old sit-coms... Just that one.

texases

That '59 Edsel wagon rear end styling looks original to me, while the '58 and '60 look like they're tacked on to existing Ford designs.

andre1969

texases said:

That '59 Edsel wagon rear end styling looks original to me, while the '58 and '60 look like they're tacked on to existing Ford designs.

Yeah, I agree. And worse, the '58 Edsel wagon looks like they modified the '57 Ford, rather than the '58, so that make it look like it's already a bit out of date!

The '60 Edsel must have been a real money pit for Ford, It still offered a full range of body styles...2- and 4-door sedans, 2- and 4-door hardtops, convertible, and 2/3 seat wagons. All that, for 2,846 units, total.

Production breakdown went as follows:
777: 2-door sedan
1288: 4-door sedan
295: hardtop coupe
135: 4-door hardtop
76: convertible
216: 6-passenger wagon
59: 9-passenger wagon

It was also on a 1-inch longer wheelbase than a Ford, 120" versus 119", so I'm sure that slight difference added some cost. And it looks like the Edsel has some unique sheetmetal, compared to a Ford, even though it shares a lot, as well.

In contrast, when DeSoto bowed out for '61, with 3034 built, they were down to just a hardtop coupe (911 built) and hardtop sedan (2123 built). I think the reason it had that awkward mesh upper grille was to try and disguise that bulge, so they could use the same hood as a Chrysler Windsor or Newport. With the Chryslers, the trapezoidal grille filled out the front-end, so they didn't have to worry about empty space at the top. I believe the bumpers were the same, and even though the taillights were different on a DeSoto, they were still designed to fit into the same opening as a Chrysler, so they didn't have to do anything unique to the rear quarters. I can't remember if Edsel had its own dash, but I think the '61 DeSoto used the Dodge dashboard.

I find Edsel pretty fascinating, that Ford would go through so much trouble to come up with a new division like that, only to can it after two years and a few months.

uplanderguy

I never knew the Edsel was on a longer wheelbase than the Ford, but for one inch longer, one would wonder why they bothered.

Rumor was that the night of the Edsel's introduction party at Ford HQ, with wives present, McNamara said to James Nance something like "You know we plan to discontinue the Edsel". That sounds pretty dramatic and may well be hyperbole, but Nance eventually did get fired and went to run a bank in Cleveland in 1960. Ironically, Nance had been president of Packard and Studebaker-Packard through the end of 1956. Edsel had a junior and senior line, like Packard. We talked about this recently but I'd heard Edsel was a lifeboat of opportunity, supposedly, for Packard dealers that didn't add Studebaker, but Studebaker actually had a couple strong years, '59 and '60 primarily, but also '62--while Edsel was treading water badly.

uplanderguy

RE.: Edsel wagons for '58 using '57 Ford wagon taillight housings--I always thought it was odd, too, that the '58 Ranchero still had the '57 taillights, while '58 Ford wagons had taillights like the coupes and sedans.

I could very-much like a '58 Fairlane 500 2-door hardtop (still called "Victoria" then I think), in that cocoa brown and white roof. I never see any '58's though, except for Skyliners--and no thanks there!

andre1969

Yep, "Victoria" was the name Ford assigned to their hardtop coupes and sedans. According to my old car book, they kept that up through 1962. It probably started sounding old fashioned by then, and out of place.

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but my Granddad and then Dad died a few years back, within about 6 months of each other. They were both kind of pack rats, and held on to a lot of stuff. One of the things I found, was an old registration card for Granddad's '57 Ford, and I do remember it being listed as something like "1957 Ford Fairlane 500 Victoria" on the registration. I think the registration card for their first car, a 1949 Ford that they bought used, was in with those papers, too.

I can still remember Granddad saying that car cost about $3500 when it was new. The base price of a Fairlane 500 4-door hardtop was $2404, but I guess it's conceivable, how a'la carte cars were back then, to option it up to $3500? I think the base price of my '57 DeSoto was $3,085, but I spec'ed it out with one of those American Standard catalogs, and as equipped figured it was around $3800. But, the DeSoto came standard with a 270 hp 341 V8. The '57 Fairlane 500 had a 223-6cyl standard, and three optional V8s: a 190 hp 272, 212 hp 292, and a 245 hp 312 "Thunderbird V8", which is what Granddad got.

Or, maybe both sides of my family were just bad negotiators (or had bad memories). This was my paternal Granddad. It was my maternal Granddad who bought the $5,000 '72 Impala.

fintail

With those 60 Edsel production numbers, I wonder about the survival rate. I've heard it is extremely high, likely due to people saving them based on future rarity. Also fun to note, as was discussed a while ago, that the 60 Edsel 4 door HT uses the bubble rear window of a Fairlane rather than the flat Thunderbird style of the Galaxie. I can't imagine it was worth the time and expense of a unique tooling for a model that sold 135 units. I prefer the flat look for that particular car, as it maybe has more of an upscale image in my eye.

Speaking of that HT and Dennis the Menace, I recall an episode that briefly features a very nice looking 60 Galaxie "Town Victoria" - I like these, too. A couple years ago, a local specialty car dealer got in an apparent estate collection of nice somewhat ordinary 50s and 60s domestic sedans (including a nice 58 Edsel). Had there been one of these Galaxies, I would have been tempted:

fintail

The 58 Edsel from the local dealer. It wasn't concours, but a very nice driver or local show car. I suspect I could have got it for somewhere in the low teens, maybe 12K or so. Didn't appear to need anything but more correct looking tires:

uplanderguy

Just on styling alone, for me, the Ford-based '58 Edsels were the best-looking of all the Edsels. You read how the workmanship was bad, but why would it have been any worse than Fords or Mercurys being built at the same time?

fintail

I suspect maybe they had teething problems from the tele-touch etc rather than being absolute nightmares. Always a learning curve.

I agree about Edsels, 58 is the one - it is wacky (by modern standards, maybe just a little different by 1958 standards) and proud of it. The 59 is normalized, and the 60 is cool in a weird way, but not flamboyant.

explorerx4

You can change the wheelbase by changing the suspension.

sda

The drum speedometer on the 58 is neat. I wonder if it was hard to read on the fly.

sda

Got a laugh watching BeWitched. Season 1, ep 26. Paul Lynde is Samantha’s Incompetent driving instructor. Too funny. Darrin’s 65 Malibu convertible and instructor’s 65 Impala coupe are front and center. Darrin tried to explain PRNDL to Samantha and instructed her to start the car in N. Old school I guess?

andre1969

I've heard that the Edsels were built on a sped-up assembly line, so they slapped them together quicker than an equivalent Ford or Mercury. I don't know if that's true or not, though.

I didn't even think of changing the suspension, to alter the wheelbase. I always figured they'd have to lengthen or shorten the frame, for the desired results. But, I guess if we're only talking an inch or two, they could probably move the rear axle back a bit if there's enough room. Or modify the front, so that the wheels are slightly forward or backward. And depending on how big the wheel cutouts were, there could have been enough room to do that.

Still, I doubt anybody noticed that a '59-60 Edsel was on a 1" longer wheelbase than a Ford.

andre1969

sda said:

Got a laugh watching BeWitched. Season 1, ep 26. Paul Lynde is Samantha’s Incompetent driving instructor. Too funny. Darrin’s 65 Malibu convertible and instructor’s 65 Impala coupe are front and center. Darrin tried to explain PRNDL to Samantha and instructed her to start the car in N. Old school I guess?

Thanks for reminding me. I have "Bewitched" set to record on the DVR, but it only holds the last five episodes, and I don't always watch it religiously. Sure enough, there was that episode, the most recent recorded!

I wonder what the rationale would be, to start the car in Neutral, rather than Park?

I can still remember the first time I heard the term "Prindle"; the episode of "Mama's Family" where Mama learns how to drive. She's sitting behind the wheel of Frannie's Dart Sport, and after being talked down to a bit by Fran, finally blurts out "why don't you tell me something I DON'T know. Like, what's a Prindle". Then she goes on to say "Right there! P R I N D L!"

Years later, when I bought my first old car, a '69 Dart, I noticed that Mopar used "P R N D 1 2", and that's what a Dart Sport would have in it.

That scene where Samantha parallel parks the '65 Impala was always pretty cool. I noticed that if you really pay attention, the car is sitting a little high, and when it moves sideways into the spot, you can barely see the wheel of some kind of dolly underneath, in the shadows. Still, a pretty cool trick, especially for a sitcom!

stickguy

my daughter called it a Prindle too.

uplanderguy

On "Green Acres", I remember farmhand "Eb" calling it a "perNUNdle" in Mr. Douglas' Continental convertible.

That show was surreal in places. I know it's the Beverly Hillbillies in reverse, but I liked it. Mr. Douglas was so smitten with American farm life, LOL. And Mr. Haney was hilarious as an oily huckster.

Since at times they would return to NYC, I always assumed the show was set in rural upstate NY, but they never alluded to that, that I can remember.

That was one of the shows I remember my Dad would say, "Do we have to watch this?", LOL.

andre1969

...and then there was that one day the Lincoln wouldn't start

ab348

andre1969 said:

Years later, when I bought my first old car, a '69 Dart, I noticed that Mopar used "P R N D 1 2", and that's what a Dart Sport would have in it.

I'm sure you must have meant "P R N D 2 1".

Of course the old GM Hydra-Matics used the N-D2-D1-R pattern. Maybe that's where the "start it in neutral" line came from.

uplanderguy

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were inspired casting in their roles IMHO.

uplanderguy

Nice Three-Hundred convertible! '67 I'd bet.

kyfdx

uplanderguy said:

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor were inspired casting in their roles IMHO.

I loved that show..

andre1969

Wasn't there a GM car back in the 50's, that had two

ab348 said:

I'm sure you must have meant "P R N D 2 1".

Of course the old GM Hydra-Matics used the N-D2-D1-R pattern. Maybe that's where the "start it in neutral" line came from.

LOL...oops, yeah, that's what I meant! Maybe subconsciously I was combining the pushbutton setup on my '57 DeSoto, which was...

R N D
1 2

And yeah, on cars with no "Park", you'd start in Neutral. Now, is my mind playing tricks on me, or was there one GM shift setup that had two "R"s in it? One "R" was for "Reverse", but I'm thinking the other meant "Retard"...as in "hold back" or "grade retard"?

andre1969

Oh, if anyone's wondering why Lisa Douglas is getting out of a Chrysler 300 convertible, that was actually an episode of "Petticoat Junction" she was in. While Ford sponsored "Green Acres", Chrysler sponsored "Petticoat Junction" (and the Beverly Hillbillies).

I've sometimes theorized that "Green Acres" was inspired, in part, by an "Outer Limits" episode called "Cry of Silence". In that episodes, Eddie Albert played a successful city type who takes his good looking wife, in a Ford product (I think it was a '64 Mercury) out to the country to look at a farm that's for sale. The wife falls down an embankment and twists her ankle, so they get stranded. Then all sorts of strange things that don't make sense start to occur. It even had an old guy in it who looked like and sounded like Mr. Ziffel, but it was a different actor.

stickguy

10 years back when I was driving big Ryder trucks every weekend, I usually got a newer Freightliner. That did not have a Park position. basically just reverse, neutral and drive (maybe some lower gears I did not bother with). So parked and started it in Neutral. Had a cool yellow knob to pull to set the air brakes when you turned it off.

uplanderguy

andre, since you're the resident Mopar guy, is Lisa's Three-Hundred a '67 or '68?

ab348

uplanderguy said:

andre, since you're the resident Mopar guy, is Lisa's Three-Hundred a '67 or '68?

I'm not Andre, but the '68 had those gills on the front fender whereas the '67 did not. The '68 also had the cool hidden headlight front end.

andre1969

I'm pretty sure it's a '68, but I'll confess I don't know for sure, without looking at pictures of them online. Looks like the '68 had those chrome slashes that look a bit like vents, while the '67 did not. I just went back to the IMCDB site where I pulled that pic from, and they list it as a '68.

andre1969

ab348 said:

I'm not Andre, but the '68 had those gills on the front fender whereas the '67 did not. The '68 also had the cool hidden headlight front end.

Sure enough, this one had hidden headlights...

uplanderguy

Whichever sister was the brunette on the left, I always thought she was the cutest. For some reason I'm thinking she was in Playboy, but that might've been wishful thinking, LOL.

andre1969

It's Bobbie Jo Bradley, the middle sister, She was played by Lori Saunders by this time, but in the early seasons was played by Pat Woodell. She was usually kind of a wallflower/bookworm, so didn't feature all that prominently in a lot of episodes. The two actresses resembled each other enough that I don't think a lot of people noticed the change.

I don't think she was in Playboy though. At least, google doesn't bring anything up. Now it does for the oldest Walton daughter, "Mary Ellen". I'd always heard about that story, and it seemed shrouded in controversy and scandal. But, I just discovered that it was a 1985 issue, and "The Waltons" was off the air by then. For some reason, I thought it had happened in the 70's. I'm sure if THAT had happened, Mrs. Walton would have definitely made her memorize some Bible verses!

uplanderguy

Oh, I definitely remember Mary Ellen being featured in Playboy! Funny, the very next issue was Madonna which got extended/early display so Mary Ellen's was overshadowed! For some reason, I'm thinking Erin might've been in it later at some point too, but again that might be wishful thinking.

UPDATE: Couldn't find anything online about Erin doing it, but I think I could be remembering a co-worker at the time saying he wished "...it had been Erin instead of Mary Ellen", LOL.

ab348

Speaking of breaking a squeaky-clean image, I remember that Lori Saunders appeared in a commercial for Salem cigarettes around 1970, which resulted in some blowback.

fintail

Was just out on an errand and saw a heavily patinated yet running and driving Mazda RX-3 - there's a unicorn these days, and fairly desirable.

andre1969

Here's an old Road & Track review of a 1972 RX-3: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a29120/archived-drive-mazda-rx3/

At the time, they said they weren't all that impressed with it, saying it was midway-priced between the cheaper R100 model and the RX2, but closer in quality to the cheaper model. That's a confusing model lineup, going from an R100 to an RX3, and then an RX2, but perhaps Mazda was in the process of transitioning their model names at that point?

It seems a bit pricey, too, at a $2945 base price. For comparison, a '72 Vega started at $2060 for the base 2-door, $2160 if you wanted a hatchback instead of a trunk lid. Heck, even a '72 Chevelle Malibu hardtop coupe with base V8 (307) was only $2923. But, the 0-60 in 10.9 seconds seems pretty impressive for the time. And my guess is that it was a bit more "premium" than the typical Japanese (or domestic) subcompact back then, especially with that rotary engine.

I wonder what Mazda's dealer network was like back in 1972? I'd imagine, pretty limited, and relegated mostly to the coastal areas? As a kid, I don't really remember Mazda having much of a presence until the 1980s, and it seemed like it was the first RX-7 that really put them on the map.