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

andre1969

an old Chrysler/Imperial sign along Route 3 North in Maryland, right around where you cross from Prince Georges County into Anne Arundel. I think I first noticed it in late 1994, when I bought my condo out that way. I think it finally got taken down in the late 90's, or maybe it just fell down? It was really close to a utility pole right-of-way, and partially obscured by trees. The road had been built up over the years as well, so it actually appeared to be down in a little valley. I think maybe the last time the crews came through to trim the trees, they might have taken it down. Shame...it was cool to see it.

lemmer

On my way to work, I drive through an extremely affluent neighborhood. I pass the kids going to high school, and many of them have newer BMWs, S200s, SUVs and the like. Lately I keep seeing this one young kid that drives a truck that looks just like the trucks they have in Old Navy. Maybe a 1950s Chevy? You experts can tell me.

I also see a guy that uses an early 240Z as his daily driver. I see him unloading groceries and stuff out of that old car. It looks really original. Has faded out orange paint, with dented up original hubcaps and skinny old tires.

Another guy has a Mark I Scirocco. It looks like it is in great condition, slightly lowered with early GTI wheels. My first car was a 1978 Scirocco, so that one brings back memories.

michaellno

Downtown Denver. A pristine early 60's Continental. Black, suicide doors, absolutely excellent condition.

Oh yeah -- whoever owns it put 22" rims on it.

I know, it screws up the originality, but it looked sinister!

lemko

For an even more obscure Chrysler reference - I saw a Rootes Group sign with the Chrysler pentastar on a side street in Camp Hill, PA. Rootes used to make such gems as the Plymouth Cricket, (Hillman Avenger).

merckx

but it did make an impression. Driving to work I saw a really immaculate about 1975 Mercedes 240D. It was white,with whitewalls and the white trimmed wheelcovers. As shiny as it was,it really looked great! Time is helping those hideous bumpers look a little more presentable...

kyfdx

So, did you have to slow down on your bicycle, so that he could catch up?

merckx

to have to admit that he breezed by me and my Passat on a suburban expressway...I was driving to work,though...and why hurry there?

fintail

uuugh US spec bumpers. Much worse on the 116 and 107 though.

I saw a few oddballs today. An Eagle Premier, a very straight 57 Chevy Bel Air wagon that looked like the body had just been finished and needed paint - but all chrome was present...and a newer oddball, a 2 door Toyota RAV4. I see it every day, and it just struck me that you don't see many of these. Not saying that I want to see more.

lemko

...has anybody seen a mid-late '80s Rolls-Royce with the US spec headlights that looks as if they were lifted from a 1986 Chevrolet Caprice? It looks weird!

lemko

...but truly weird. I spotted a white first-generation Toyota Avalon with blue flames painted on the front end of the car ala a 1950s hot rod. Junior must've got Mommy's old ride as a hand-me-down.

fintail

Those are indeed DOT lights, another ugly pointless mandate. Goes against the original intent of the design, just like the clunky DOT lights on a 126.

I hope this works:



Avalon sounds funny

scscars

Looks like a few folks are trying to get one last outing with some older cars before the snow flies. Over the past 2 days, I've seen a '70 Cougar Eliminator in a medium to dark blue. I don't know if that was an original color, but it had the hood scoop and badging. Even if its a clone, '70 Cougars are rare around here. Also saw a metallic blue '65 Lincoln Continental convertible, a gold '70 Olds Cutlass convertible, and a '73 Olds Omega in fair shape. I've also seen a few '67-'69 Camaros lately, although they aren't really very obscure here in the burbs.

Lemmer: The Old Navy in my neighborhood keeps a 1950 Chevy pickup in its store. Other Old Navy stores that I've been to have had '49 through '54 Chevy pickups. I don't think they're picky about the age of the truck, however, I've never seen a GMC of that era at any of their stores.

Lemko: You saw a Rootes Group sign?? I think it's been 20 years since I last saw a Plymouth Cricket that was running. I don't think I've seen a dealer sign for them since the mid-70's. Incidentally, a few Chrysler dealers around here have kept their Plymouth signage. Oldsmobile signs have literally disappeared since last year.

Andre: I was watching a movie on cable over the weekend from about 1973 called The Outfit. In this flick there was a 6-door '73 Chrysler New Yorker Limo and a '71 Imperial 6-door Limo. These had to be custom jobs, since I don't remember Chrysler even having limos at that time. It seemed like Cadillac and Lincoln had all of the limo business to themselves even back then.

andre1969

the last Chrysler Limos were built by Ghia, on an extended 1957-66 Imperial platform. They were ridiculously expensive. I think a '57 limo cost around $13-14,000, whereas the '55-56 Imperial limos were only around $7,000. And in 1954 and earlier, you could actually get a DeSoto or Chrysler limo, as well. I think Plymouth and Dodge quit making them after 1952, though.

I did see a '65-68 Newport airport limo, though. IIRC, it had 4 sets of doors on each side. Must've been a real pain in the butt to do, stretching out a Unibody car to make a limo. I'm guessing there were aftermarket companies that did these kinds of things, though.

Chrysler did make those little K-car limos back in the early 80's, but they don't really count! Back in the late 80's/early 90's, one of the local junkyards had about 10 of them!

toomanyfumes

Has a super stretched out Chrysler minivan limo.Must be about a 1990. White with a part vinyl roof. Very wierd. He says he picked it up on Ebay cheap. He has about 4 other Chrysler minivans, so he has plenty of parts for it.

lemko

...back when I was in college, I saw a beige 1986 Honda Accord limo. I imagine you can make a cut-n-paste limo out of any car. I've seen 1988-91 Mercury Grand Marquis limos.

andre1969

with unitized cars it's really not THAT hard to make a limo. I think they just run frame rails under the new part of the car to connect the front half with the back half. They'd have to connect the frame on a body-on-frame car, anyway.

stickguy

I was watching one of those TLC type shows the other day where they were showing the Kustomizer that created the 2 headed Mini, and how they did it, really quite fascinating, and didn't take them too long.

I think it had a ausna or hot tub in the middle.

Same guy did a 6 wheel mini (2 rear axles) with a hot tub out back. Looked kinda neat. Could yo imagine driving one of those to high school?

scscars

I've actually had the dubious experience of riding in a K-Car limo. It was narrow, had a noisy and rough ride since it only had a 2.6L 4-cylinder instead of a V-6 or V-8, and it really did not hold a candle to the Lincoln and Cadillac limos at the time. Maybe a stretched 5th Avenue would have made a nicer ride. I'm not surprised that the K-Limos turned up in the junkyards.

I've seen '88-'91 Mercury Grand Marquis limos in Chicago, although they're gone now. Mid-80s Buick LeSabre limos were common here for a few years too. Lately, I've seen a lot of Hummer H-1 and H-2 stretches, as well as Excursion and Navigator stretches. Last Saturday, I pulled up alongside of a silver Escalade stretch at a stoplight. It took him forever to pull away from the light when it turned green.

andre1969

would have been cool. Although believe it or not, the M-body isn't any wider than the K-car inside, so I think it still would've come up a bit short compared to a Caddy or Lincoln limo of the era.

There were actually a few prototype limos built on the '81-83 Imperial platform. I think one of them was used by some upscale hotel in New York City for awhile. One of the also ended up in the movie "Cannonball Run II". Here's a webpage with some pics...

http://imperialclub.org/Movies/Cannonball/

Horrible movie as I recall, but that was a cool car! Too bad they didn't mass produce them!

fintail

Yesterday I saw a mid 90s Eldo convert. It didn't look too bad for an aftermarket job, although I have to question the integrity of it. Top down in 40 degree weather too.

It's ebay time:

This is neat and odd, but it should stay at home

70s resto (brown trim) Pierce with odd/wrong interior trim

Awesome looking high quality late DeSoto...the bidding sure is high

This is kind of like a Russian Imperial

I don't know why you'd want to, but if you do, here you go

Classy late Stutz

Funny early roller-skate Honda

I saw several of these in Vegas, odd sight here

Sterling hatchback

Mint Fiat 128, for the handful of people on the planet who actually care

Now this was a pretty Fiat, very hard to find one of these

The ultimate parts car/money pit fixer for Andre. Interesting specs

Binz fintail wagon

Beautiful big car, big price

And perhaps the best fintail ad on ebay ever. Not for the car so much - although it's a nicer than average 111...but for the presentation. Good pics, great wallpaper for the site, and a cool video of the car being taken for a drive. Now you can see what it's like to be in a fintail...the car sounds healthy too, and the guy gets it up to 50-60mph on a residential street. It might take a couple minutes to load on a slow connection

andre1969

that the cross-ram 383 is probably accountable for at least half of that 1960 DeSoto Adventurer's price! When you think about it, it's actually kind of funny that going from a 383-2bbl (standard Adventurer engine that year) to the cross-ram 383 with dual quads, hp only jumped from 305 to 330. I think the regular 383-4bbl in 1959 put out 325 hp. Sweet car, though.

If it weren't for the fact that it doesn't have a title, I'd actually be tempted to bid on that 1980 Gran Fury! I just pulled it up on Mapquest...only 355 miles away! ;-)

Mr_Shiftright

You can get a title, that's no problem. All you need is a bill of sale.

Most DMVs don't care about old cars that aren't worth too much. It's only a very high dollar title-less car that perks up their ears. I've titled maybe (counting here....um....) 6 title-less cars in California, Colorado and elsewhere. I even titled a car I FOUND by the side of the road and towed home. (honest true story).

fintail

You should get it Andre. With those mechanicals, you'd have the meanest NYer out there.

andre1969

who either has, or used to have (it was for sale at Carlisle PA in 2002) a 1981 NYer 5th Ave with a copcar 360 and a 3.23 rear end, and dual exhaust. I imagine it was pretty mean!

I think what I'd like to do though, is get one of those older 360's, which I think had more like 220-230 hp with a 4-bbl (and more in cars like the Duster 360), or maybe get a Mopar Performance crate 360. Sure, I'd never get my money out of it if I sold it, but I think it would be a lot of fun along the way!

fintail

I wonder if you could somehow wedge a V10 into a NYer

andre1969

have a longer block than a slant six? Seems to me that it shouldn't, considering you only have 5 pistons in a row versus 6, but I dunno. There's plenty of room in the engine bay though, both fore-aft and side to side.

fintail

I dunno...I imagine it to be a long block, but that's probably just because a Viper has such a long hood. Now that would be a mean NYer...if you ever come into some unforseen fortune, it would be a great project to use for scaring people. Like the AMG twin turbo V12 fintail I've thought about.

Mr_Shiftright

Keep in mind that a Viper crate engine is $15,000. You can buy a whole Viper for $35,000.

lemko

...a DeLorean with both gullwing doors open at a gas station near my workplace.

Mr_Shiftright

Probably couldn't close them.

andys120

There's wreckers and there's wreckers. Most junkyards are piled up with nondescript cars but certain ones seen to look for the unusual or the collectible. There's one near me that seems to get a lot of interesting stuff, enough to be worth the occassional detour on my way to buy the Sunday papers.

This Sundays hits included--

'64 Catalina 2-dr. Coupe (w B-pillar).

'65-'69() Corvair 4dr HT.

 Volvo PV544 Wagon (did I get the right number Shifty?)

 Chrysler 4dr of early '50s vintage.

 Chevy truck of prewar vintage with wooden stake and board bed.

All of the above were rusty worn-out and likely good only as parts cars with the possible exception of the Volvo which might be restorable if someone cared enough.

They also had a 70 Buick Riviera Boattail that looked quite good and driveable and a mid-60s Ford Fairline stripped and primered waiting for paint.

Seen elsewhere--

A ratty Volvo 122 wagon, apparently driveable and
a very nice '55 Ford Tudor (Pillared)with two-tone medium blue over refrig white. It had shiny paint, good chrome, full wheel covers and straight body work, I wanted it!

andre1969

but that '64 Catalina 2-door sedan is actually fairly rare. Only 12,480 built, according to my old car book. In contrast, they built 18,693 convertibles and 74,793 hardtop coupes that year.

I saw an old first-gen Corvair convertible today. Looked a bit rough, but definitely salvagable. Also saw the butt-end of a light green '72 or '73 Impala in a parking lot, sticking out from under a ratty looking car cover. Couldn't tell what body style it was, but it looked too swoopy to be a 4-door. Also spotted the rump of a light blue 1980 Malibu coupe from the window of the title company where my condo settlement was held today. Identical to my first car. After closing, I had to go look at it, just to see if, by some freak of nature, it WAS my old car. But no, it was too nice to be. Looked like it still had the original paint, and no body damage, which was more than could be said for mine! ;-)

andys120

but that '64 Catalina 2-door sedan is actually fairly rare.

Yep, that squares w my recollection of not seeing very many Tudor Cats back in the day. It's really kinda homely compared to the sleek pillarless HT, Even the 4 dr HTs were much sleeker than those (our family had the 4 door HT).

fintail

Volvo 544 wagon is very rare. There's one in my town, which has been very well renovated (I don't consider it a real restoration)

Mr_Shiftright

That's a car I'd really like to have, a PV544 wagon. Yes, you got the name right!

fintail

They are pretty cool in their own way

This one is the same colors as the one in my town


Can't beat wide whites

jrosasmc

Speaking of Volvos I heard through the grapevine that Irv Gordon is now up to 2.3 million miles on that '66 1800 of his.

andys120

Gordon's Volvo is like the apocryphal axe Washington used to cut the cherry tree down. If the handle's been replaced twice and the blade was replaced three times, is it still the original axe?

kyfdx

An early '80s 300TD... rear suspension must have been completely shot... bouncing up and down about 1 foot each way... sitting so low in the back that it looked like it was going to pull the front wheels off the ground...

Five miles farther up the road.. Another early '80s.. this time a 300D.. Looked like it was in great cosmetic shape, but was crabbing down the road, and both rear tires looked like they were off-camber about ten degrees.. Looked ready to break off the axle any minute..

Two within five minutes of each other.. I can go weeks without seeing one of these.

Mr_Shiftright

Most 300Ds I see are still running but need about $50,000 worth of odds and ends. In a way, the sturdy engine is carrying the rest of the dead carcass around.

jrosasmc

In your opinion what's the worst '80s Benz in terms of reliability?

As a side note I was watching 60 Minutes' interview with Dustin Hoffman on Sunday. It seems as if they wanted to have some fun with him so they sought out a red '67 Alfa Duetto, identical to the one he drove in "The Graduate." It was great to see Mr. Hoffman (much older now) tool around in that snazzy little car. I hear early Duettos can pull some pretty good prices these days.

Mr_Shiftright

I really don't know much about 80s Bezes other than the diesels. The 1980s in general hold no interest for me, no matter what the car...well, maybe a well sorted out Ferrari 328 but not much else. It was a pretty sad time in automotive history with only a few bright spots worth ten seconds of typing.

Duettos are very cool cars. They are still cheap compared to other 60s "classics" I think but it's hard to find one that hasn't been all screwed up, or RPO'd (ruined by previous owner).

fintail

I've heard the 190 4cyl can be a dog, and the 350SDL (might have been intro'd in 1990) is not the best powerplant.

Otherwise, 80s MB are very sound if they've been maintained. They are far and away the best 80s high end cars, and cars like the 126 and 124 probably represent the pinnacle of all round engineering for MB, cars that were excellent in just about everything. I think most of these cars count as bright spots for the decade. I'd take a mint 124 or 126 over many new cars.

andys120

a VW Transporter (split window) with a kind of pickup body on it being carried on a flatbed truck.

The Transporter was better known as the Microbus and came in various utility (truck and van) versions.

Mr_Shiftright

I'd say that Mercedes greatest failing in the 1980s was 1) over-engineering and 2)spotty reliability for what you paid. Greatest strengths were truly outstanding build quality, great parts network, and superb braking and handling for their size and weight. Made an American car look like an elephant on ice.

 Styling was neutral, neither great nor offensive...you might call it frumpy conservative.

debaser853

... a Porsche 944. Super shiny red, huge moonroof, looks like it was driven off a new car lot this morning. Looked perfect from my seat.

The real oddity to me is that it was 11 degrees this a.m., there's snow and ice and water everywhere, and this is the car mom decided to take the kid to the dentist in? At the least that nice wax & wash job will be toast by the time she gets home.

kyfdx

because it doesn't slide.. it is strictly a tilt up or remove piece.. Good in theory, but I never actually liked them very much.. The non-turbo models are kind of slow...

turboshadow

I saw a Volare. Under its own power. In the rain.

Turboshadow, doing his Steinbeck imitation

Mr_Shiftright

No problem. You smash up a 944, you can replace them so cheap these days you'd hardly notice the loss. I've seen clean ones for $3,500 and absolute beauties for $6K. Still, not a great snow car, to be sure.

I saw a Sterling actually moving under its own power today, upwards of 45 mph at times. Nice blue Mercedes 190SL--these are getting a bit rare because they cost nearly as much as a Gullwing to restore but are only worth about 1/10th the price.

kyfdx

Actually, if your 944 needs any semi-major mechanical repair, you might as well smash it up.. It will cost far more than the car is worth...