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

benjaminh

Here are the specs for the tenth generation Thunderbird from wikipedia. It's not quite as wide as I thought it was, but it is pretty long....

tjc78

Michaell said:

Regarding the overweighted travel T-Bird, I used to travel 20 weeks a year for about 10 years. Rented a bunch of forgettable vehicles in that time, but I do remember getting a T-Bird with the V8 in Dallas once.

Big, yes.
Comfortable, also yes.

Also, more fun than something that size ought to be.

Had rain one day and I remember doing donuts in the empty hotel parking lot.

Ah, to be young and dumb again.

My Mom’s 96 did amazing donuts even only being a V6. I actually liked that car despite the V6 and cliche 90s color.

benjaminh

We moved into our house 21 years ago, and in walks around the neighborhood not long after we moved in I saw in front of two different houses a c. 2000 Acura CL and a c. 2002 Acura TL parked on a street a block away from us. All this time later and the cars are still there, and so I snapped some pix. They aren't classics as far as I know, but they certainly have lasted a long time....

roadburner

A column shift is inextricably intertwined with my definition of an old man's car.

fintail

Early 00s Acuras with a V6, transmissions 'o glass, right? Someone must be doing maintenance for them to survive.

Funny thing, when shifting migrated from the floor to the column in the late 30s, it was seen as very modern. Speaking of buckets and column shifts, that's most late 50s and 60s MB sedans.

tjc78

Were the Honda V6 transmissions as bad in the cars? I know the extra weight of the Odyssey killed them fast.

fintail

I recall a friend of mine with an 03 Accord V6 coupe had the transmission puke at 70K (3 years old). Replaced gratis. I think it was a big thing at least until 03-04 in all V6 cars.

I think the engine upgrade for the new 03 Accord might have been an issue, maybe older ones are safer.

andre1969

I thought the '87-88 T-bird just about hit styling perfection, as well. The only complaint I can think of, looking through modern eyes, is that the wheelbase is too short in relation to overall length, but that's a minor nit. However, I thought the '87-88 Cougar was a bit of a mess.

With the '89 style, I prefer the Cougar, although when both went to that pinched-grille/puckered-up look, I thought they screwed it up.

Uplander, when you say 3 across seating, are you talking about the front seat, back seat, or both? If I recall, didn't Ford get into the habit with the Fox platform, in general, of not offering 3 across seating up front? I remember my grandparents' '85 LTD having individual seats with these little bins and armrests mounted on the inboard side, where a middle spot would normally be.

I think there was some T-bird editions, with the '83-88 at least, where you had a console in the back seat as well, making it just a 4-seat car. One reason for it might have been that with the Fox platform, it seemed like the driveshaft and transmission hump was overly large, compared to equivalent Mopar or GM models. So the center spot up front might have been almost totally useless, while in back, it might not have been much better.

tjc78

The fox platform wasn’t very wide, combined with the tunnel really made three wide not very feasible except for small children. The Panther platform had a huge tunnel as well. The front row middle wasn’t a good place to be. I remember getting that spot in Pop’s Mark VI and 85 Town Car.

uplanderguy

Hey andre, did you hear the show at Hershey is going to be held, just not the swap meet? My buddy with the Riviera informed me of that, and I'd love to spend the day with him at his first AACA show with his car, which he has worked very hard to make very nice--but that is a long trip for me for one day there.

uplanderguy

I meant three-across front seat. I have to admit, perceptions be damned (typically my case, LOL), that a center armrest is more comfortable than a console lid, and no console there up against your right leg is nice. And there are times I have liked sliding out the right side of the car.

But why did Ford not use floor shifters if they were forcing buckets and console on you? I think that even when I look at early sixties T-Birds.

explorerx4

My 88 TBird had a console shift.

andre1969

The last time I had six people in a car at one time was in my '89 Gran Fury ex police car so Good Lord, that's been a good 20+ years now. Heck, I had bought my '00 Intrepid in November 1999, and was mostly driving it after I bought it, since it was so much more economical, so it had to have been before that.

The Mopar F/M body isn't really that wide inside, either, something like 56" of shoulder room. And I think that's about what most Fox sedans tended to be. But, the F/M body is still more "old school" compact. Its 112.7" wheelbase is closer to a Panther, than a Fox! And more or less splits the difference between a GM A/G body and B-body. As a result, the driveshaft and transmission hump aren't that bad. It also doesn't have as much wheel well intrusion in the back seat as the more modern, downsized cars. The dash is also fairly high and out of the way.

I can remember when my one friend bought his first Panther, a '95 Grand Marquis GS, that center spot up front was really bad. As a joke, we had taken the center console (one of those cheap aftermarket things that sits on the transmission hump) out of my Gran Fury, and tried to put it in the Grand Marquis, because I was going to show it off to another friend and make him think I bought a new car. But, that console wouldn't even fit on the hump of the Grand Marquis. I remember something about the way the dash jutted out, and the shape of the hump, that wouldn't let it fit.

Now to be fair, I can remember when I was younger, getting six people in my grandmother's '85 LeSabre, and it really wasn't that comfortable, either. While it had the shoulder room for it, the seats were really contoured to seat four people in comfort.

I think that was one casualty of downsizing in the late 70's...true 6 passenger comfort. Plus, as center armrests, and split front bench seats became more common, the center seating position both front and rear really got compromised.

I know it's hard to take a unitized car and make it wider, although it's not hard to make one longer. Still, if Mopar could have found a way to give the M-body about 4 more inches of shoulder room, and maybe a few more inches out back to increase trunk space, it really could have passed off as a full-sized car.

When Chrysler came out with the 1980-83 Cordoba/Mirada, and '81-83 Imperial, they were based on the F/M body, and I think they did have a couple inches more shoulder room...maybe 2. So I guess it IS possible to make a unitized design wider. However, Chrysler did a lot of alteration to come up with the Cordoba/Mirada, compared to a LeBaron/Diplomat. They probably made the doors a bit thinner, as well.

uplanderguy

Was your '88 T-Bird an automatic trans, with a console shift?

explorerx4

Yes automatic with console shift. It also had a V8.

omarman

I test drove a new Cougar XR7 with a console shift 4 speed AOD at Chesrown in 1989. They also had another XR7 with a 5 speed. Somewhere I read that there were more 5 speed cars built in '89 than automatics.

edit to clarify: More 5 speed XR7 cars built in '89 than automatics.

tjc78

explorerx4 said:

Yes automatic with console shift. It also had a V8.

Was 88 still the LoPo 5.0 from the Panther or the HO from the 'Stang? I always forget when they switched over.

explorerx4

LoPo. If I remember correctly, it was 155 HP.
Found a picture of the dash with the shift.

kyfdx

Yikes... I don't miss the '80s dash.

explorerx4

@kyfdx,
Too many gauges?

roadburner

I hated the asinine and moronic 85 mph speedometer in my 1984 Turbo Coupe. Ford could have put in a real speedometer as the imports did- but the Big 3 were too afraid.

fintail

Funny curved shift lever there.

I remember "55" was often either in red or outlined, maybe even both. Ugh.

kyfdx

explorerx4 said:

@kyfdx,
Too many gauges?

equalizer, shifter.. an assault on the eyes.

xwesx

benjaminh said:

We moved into our house 21 years ago, and in walks around the neighborhood not long after we moved in I saw in front of two different houses a c. 2000 Acura CL and a c. 2002 Acura TL parked on a street a block away from us. All this time later and the cars are still there.

It's a shame that they haven't been used in all this time...!

uplanderguy

Thanks for the pic of the Thunderbird automatic with console shift. I can't recall ever seeing one.

The Acura pics remind me that my daughter, who lives in the central coast region of CA, has been sharing her Cruze with her boyfriend who has moved out there.

His parents just this week drove his '10 Civic out there from OH and are flying back...and the car had no working A/C! Last time I looked inside of it, it had 74K miles.

They had a Honda dealer out in CA repair the A/C and also bought new tires for the car, as the old ones "had over 30K miles". Nice gesture for sure and I bet driving 2,500 or so miles with no A/C helped make them make that decision for their son!

ab348

Man, so many buttons and sliders on that T-Bird center stack! And people complain about touch screens...

That shift lever and quadrant looks almost aftermarket and not in a good way.

sda

uplanderguy said:

Thanks for the pic of the Thunderbird automatic with console shift. I can't recall ever seeing one.

The Acura pics remind me that my daughter, who lives in the central coast region of CA, has been sharing her Cruze with her boyfriend who has moved out there.

His parents just this week drove his '10 Civic out there from OH and are flying back...and the car had no working A/C! Last time I looked inside of it, it had 74K miles.

They had a Honda dealer out in CA repair the A/C and also bought new tires for the car, as the old ones "had over 30K miles". Nice gesture for sure and I bet driving 2,500 or so miles with no A/C helped make them make that decision for their son!

Nice of his parents absolutely. I think would have done those repairs before the trip to CA.

uplanderguy

I sure would have!

explorerx4

Check out this Grand Prix commercial.
The car styling goes every which way and talk about buttons!
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=1988+pontiac+gran+prix&docid=608017083641365570&mid=55E044E529EA693C06EF55E044E529EA693C06EF&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

uplanderguy

Seems like almost every '88 Grand Prix was white. The taillights always made me think of SpiderMan.

Of the three midsize coupes introduced by GM that year, I liked the Cutlass Supreme, SL model for me, best.

benjaminh

That Grand Prix ad brought back memories. Sad to think that in just 20 years after that Pontiac would be dead. The death of Oldsmobile a few years before that was also rather poignant.

fintail

I am sure I have mentioned it before - I remember it must have been 1989, as I started junior high and had to walk a few blocks to a bus stop. On my way almost every morning, I'd see a then new Grand Prix driving past, someone going to work. I guess it was a 2.8 or 3.1, as it had the raspiest popcorn popper exhaust note, which really stuck in my mind.

Michaell

I had many Grand Prix rentals in that period.

After the Intrigue was released, I always tried to snag those.

stickguy

My son's friend lives around the corner from him, and his landlord has a old Land Rover 2 door (looks short, could be an 80). About 6 different colors from what I noticed. Definitely looks rugged!

fintail

As a cheap and cheerful beater a few years ago, my brother had a later run GP, maybe a 95 or 96, with HUD. Pretty cool car for what it was, but it had not been pampered, and wasn't going to be restored, later traded for another project I think.

tjc78

explorerx4 said:

LoPo. If I remember correctly, it was 155 HP.
Found a picture of the dash with the shift.

That’s what I thought.

We have the same countertops, lol

fintail

Looking at that Bird dash, the clock might be the same as in a Tempo, buttons at bottom instead of at the left side.

tjc78

That clock was the same as the Panther for sure. All the 80s Ford clocks had the three buttons and two small buttons to set it

fintail

I had to look it up, looks like my mom's 93 Taurus had the same 3 button idea too. Funny, that car was years later than the Tempo in our family, but I remember the Tempo much more clearly, having spent more time behind the wheel.

I recall my uncle's early 86 Taurus had a different clock, I think it was larger and had a green glow to it, it was kind of cool looking.

roadburner

I spent the morning detailing the Club Sport; I'm taking it to a local cruise tonight. It's the first time I've displayed it since it was invited to the Keeneland Concours d'Elegance in 2018. Needless to say, this cruise will be infinitely more relaxed- although everyone at the Keeneland event was very friendly.

stickguy

an older model Porsche 928 drove past me this afternoon. looked to be in OK shape. sounded like a manual tranny too!

tjc78

fintail said:

I had to look it up, looks like my mom's 93 Taurus had the same 3 button idea too. Funny, that car was years later than the Tempo in our family, but I remember the Tempo much more clearly, having spent more time behind the wheel.

I recall my uncle's early 86 Taurus had a different clock, I think it was larger and had a green glow to it, it was kind of cool looking.

Yes on the 93 it was above the HVAC controls.

Ford was really a creature of habit with many of their controls. They stayed the same for almost two decades in some cases. The keyless entry pad has worked the same pretty much since introduction. I know on my 89 Town Car and 04 MGM it worked exactly the same.

@explorerx4
Is it still the same on your newer Fords? Five digit code, 3/4 opens the passenger doors, 5/6 the trunk and 7/8 and 9/0 together to lock the doors?

explorerx4

Keypad works the same way still, although now invisible until you touch it on the door pillar.
5/6 opens the tailgate on my truck.

ab348

Never having had a Ford with that keypad I could not understand the 2 numbers per button logic. To my knowledge no other automaker has offered something similar, at least not in a long time. I guess Ford customers must like it though.

stickguy

unless there is a 3 strikes and you are out feature, really does not make it very hard to get in! If there are only 99 options to try.

explorerx4

@stickguy,
You can have 1 1 1 1 1, so 5 to the 5th power.

tjc78

I love the keypad. Not sure why other makers don’t use it. The only other car I can think that had it was the late 80s early 90s Maxima.

fintail

Out on the road in the fintail today, saw a kind of powder blue 67 Mustang - pulled up beside me at a light and gave me a wave. He pulled away kind of fast, thought he was maybe trying to have a fun race, so I indulged, and he backed off, funny. He then drove a little slowly, and I zoomed away, as the old car likes to be revved a bit, and traffic was light. Also spotted a MB W114/115 from a distance while taking a walk, gone before I would get to it. Didn't see any other oldies on the road, surprising as it was the first dry Sunday in a few weeks.

Michaell

Picking up dinner tonight, two Z3's and a C2 Corvette.

stickguy

Michaell said:

Picking up dinner tonight, two Z3's and a C2 Corvette.

That’s a big meal!