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

andre1969

One of my friends had a Cavalier Z24 in college. Red coupe with silver accents. It really was a sharp car for the time. I always thought that timeframe 1988-90 was the high point of the Cavalier. The coupe and convertible looked great, and even though the 4-door and wagon retained the old roof structure, the update was still nice. I thought the taillights especially looked good...made me think a bit of the taillights on my old 1980 Malibu. They definitely screamed "CHEVY!" but in a good way.

I didn't care for the 1991-94 version, though. While it was a very mild restyle, the headlights seemed larger, and with the grille-less look, I thought it came off a bit cheap. And the taillights seemed a bit more generic.

andre1969

Texases, is this the car you're asking about?


My first guess would be a Jaguar S-type?

texases

Yep. What do you think it is?

stickguy

In that still, the side profile does look Jag. But in the video, the front end did not look right for that. But it was a quick glimpse on a small screen!

texases

Same here, the grille seems to stop halfway up.

ab348

Look closely at this car, local to me.

texases

That's some dedicated bodywork!

explorerx4

That's the Big Bird edition?

ab348

I saw it up close maybe 10 years ago and it didn't look as good as it does in that pic, so maybe the owner had further paint & body work done to it. I have to admit that the Superbird add-ons actually seem to suit the bigger C-body better than the intermediate Road Runner shell.

texases

I saw some Superbird collector on some show, had one of each color, 6 or 7 it seemed. Kind of overdoing it, to me...

andre1969

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Plymouth Superbird (and by default I guess '69 Charger Daytona) were technically banned for sale in Maryland, because of bumper laws.

It's not that Maryland had any sort of progressive thinking when it came to crash protection; it's simply illegal to drive a car that doesn't have a front bumper on it. I'd never really thought of it, but apparently with the Daytona and Superbird, there is no really substantial bracing underneath that nose, at least nothing resembling a bumper. So it doesn't take much of a hit to the front to do some serious damage.

I wonder if the law was actually enforced, though? Or, if there was some kind of workaround?

roadburner

andre1969 said:

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Plymouth Superbird (and by default I guess '69 Charger Daytona) were technically banned for sale in Maryland, because of bumper laws.

It's not that Maryland had any sort of progressive thinking when it came to crash protection; it's simply illegal to drive a car that doesn't have a front bumper on it. I'd never really thought of it, but apparently with the Daytona and Superbird, there is no really substantial bracing underneath that nose, at least nothing resembling a bumper. So it doesn't take much of a hit to the front to do some serious damage.

I wonder if the law was actually enforced, though? Or, if there was some kind of workaround?

I read the same thing, I believe that they were actually banned. Back in the late '70s I saw a Daytona at a swap meet that had a regular Charger doghouse on it because the nose had been mangled in a crash. The guy wanted $4000 so I passed. I also stupidly passed on a Torino Talladega a couple of years later.

fintail

That one has been on YT for years, some say it is 64 by the signs.

Driving from right to left in the first ~10 seconds or so, something seems familiar:

texases said:

Interesting video of traffic on the Sunset Strip in '63. Any idea what the black car is coming the other way at about 0:30?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/this-rare-color-video-footage-of-the-sunset-strip-in-1963-is-going-viral/vi-AALle0r?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531

fintail

There's a blue Z24 convertible in my neighborhood, white top, parked outside but appears to be in excellent condition. I need to take a peek at the odometer the next time I can get close to it.

tjc78 said:

Why do I like this?

If anyone objects to a Tiktok link or can’t view them I’ll stop but I see a good bit of content that we would all appreciate here

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdUEUMX9/

tjc78

Watched a movie set in 1990 called The Little Things last night. Lots of period metal in there, although heavily recycled through the movie. The beige 85 Town Car was in 4/5 scenes or more.

What really irritated me is the main plot car was a 1970 Nova and part of the plot was that the vehicle would have high mileage and they showed the odometer with six digits plus the tenths… I’m pretty sure a 70 Nova would not have had a six digit odometer. Maybe they used a Canadian model and changed the speedo face?

tjc78

Just to see if I’m not the only one who noticed the mileage thing I checked IMDB and it’s on there a few times.

andre1969

I just checked the IMDB too, and thought this comment was kind of cute: "1969-72 Nova is shown with a 6.1-digit odometer indicating 463,099.6 miles. A) they had only 5.1-digit odometers and no Nova ever drove that far, ever."

Oh, I saw one of those zombie-outbreak movies a couple weeks ago, called "Army of the Dead." It had a pretty nice looking silver '77-79 Continental sedan in it. It was driven by a "just married" couple on their way to Las Vegas, who inadvertently start a zombie outbreak when they decide to, umm... test out the tilt steering. Husband gets distracted, and drives head-on into a military convoy transporting something sinister.

One thing that impressed me about it though, is that it looked like the crash and explosion were done with the help of CGI, and the Continental most likely came through it unscathed in real life. I thought it was pretty cool, that even with a high-budget movie like this, it appeared they showed some appreciation for the car.

tjc78

I was pretty ticked off when in Queen of the South they torched a really nice Continental too. Doubtful that was CGI there was a lot of scenes with the burned shell. Hopefully the burned one was a POS and the nice one survived.

The Panther forum guys get all bent out of shape from the scene in Roadhouse where the monster truck takes out all the Panther wagons. I said that they had to realize when that movie was made they were just used cars. It would be like a monster truck going over a few 2015 Subarus… who would care?

ab348

tjc78 said:

What really irritated me is the main plot car was a 1970 Nova and part of the plot was that the vehicle would have high mileage and they showed the odometer with six digits plus the tenths… I’m pretty sure a 70 Nova would not have had a six digit odometer. Maybe they used a Canadian model and changed the speedo face?

They could have used as many Canadian 1970 Novas as they could find and none would have had more than 5 digits on the odometer. In fact even when Canada switched to metric speeds and mileages for the 1978 models, GM still retained a 5-digit odometer, so your odo would roll over to zeros at 60K miles, cool. GM started to introduce 6-digit odometers in the mid-80s here, but some models didn't get them until 1990 or so.

tjc78

@ab348 said:
They could have used as many Canadian 1970 Novas as they could find and none would have had more than 5 digits on the odometer. In fact even when Canada switched to metric speeds and mileages for the 1978 models, GM still retained a 5-digit odometer, so your odo would roll over to zeros at 60K miles, cool. GM started to introduce 6-digit odometers in the mid-80s here, but some models didn't get them until 1990 or so.

Cool I wasn’t sure when Canadian models got six digits.

kyfdx

I like the part about how no Nova has ever gone 400K miles.

uplanderguy

Back to that Cavalier Z-24 for a moment--that is the cleanest, most-original-looking one I've seen in awhile. I was considering one of those at the same time I was looking at a new '89 Beretta GT. I called my insurance man and he said a Z-24 would be more to insure. For some reason, that cemented my decision to buy the Beretta.

I like the '87 and later Cavalier coupe roofline, but then in general I like fastback styling and big quarter windows. The back window is tall too. I'm reminded of the '61 GM bubbletops.

andre1969

tjc78 said:

I was pretty ticked off when in Queen of the South they torched a really nice Continental too. Doubtful that was CGI there was a lot of scenes with the burned shell. Hopefully the burned one was a POS and the nice one survived.

The Panther forum guys get all bent out of shape from the scene in Roadhouse where the monster truck takes out all the Panther wagons. I said that they had to realize when that movie was made they were just used cars. It would be like a monster truck going over a few 2015 Subarus… who would care?

In the case of this zombie movie, there was a few scenes of soldiers surveying the wreckage afterward, but for the most part, all you could see was the front of the rig that the Continental hit, with some unidentifiable pieces of wreckage scattered about in front.

Now that I think about it, I remember an episode of "CHiPs" from years ago, where a '69 Bonneville gets wrecked. I remember watching it, in reruns, when I had my '69 Bonneville (so this would have been early 90's), and thinking "Damn, I could have used that side marker light!"

Funny though nowadays, when I watch that episode, I can tell there was a ramp behind one of the cars, a 60's Lincoln, that was used to make a few other cars ride up on and flip. But when the Bonneville comes up, it looks like the driver chickens out, and the car slides sideways, and the rear quarter sort of slides up the ramp a bit.

I can't find that Bonneville on the IMCDB, but here's the Lincoln...


Judging from the way it made several cars go airborne, I'm guessing it's the elusive "Bustleback" Continental that the 1980 Seville took its inspiration from

andre1969

uplanderguy said:

Back to that Cavalier Z-24 for a moment--that is the cleanest, most-original-looking one I've seen in awhile. I was considering one of those at the same time I was looking at a new '89 Beretta GT. I called my insurance man and he said a Z-24 would be more to insure. For some reason, that cemented my decision to buy the Beretta.

I like the '87 and later Cavalier coupe roofline, but then in general I like fastback styling and big quarter windows. The back window is tall too. I'm reminded of the '61 GM bubbletops.

Interesting, that the Cavalier would cost more. I wonder if it's because it was a (slightly) smaller car, and that was just enough to give higher insurance costs when it came to injuries, repair costs, etc. And maybe with being a less expensive car, that was just enough to skew the the Cavalier's demographics more towards younger, riskier drivers? So even though YOU might be the safest driver in the world, they're still punishing you to a degree, for buying a car that attracted a rowdier demographic?

One thing I just thought of...I know that car insurance usually gets cheaper, as you get older, as long as you're claim-free. But is there a general age where it starts going back up, I wonder?

uplanderguy

I guess the fastback Cavalier coupe (with trunk) started in '88. I was guessing and said '87 earlier.

fintail

Oddities spotted: Suzuki Forenza (another unloved Daewoo), MB W163 ML55 AMG in a period appropriate kind of cranberry red with a hint of purple color, and parked at a construction site, an unrestored looking 58 Mercury Monterey sedan - I drove by hours later hoping to snap a pic, it was gone.

uplanderguy

At lunchtime, I spotted in town, a '79-85 Toronado, in a brown that was reminiscent of Chevy's 1972 "Golden Brown". I remember the color palette on '83 and '84's; for some reason I'm thinking this car was pre-'83 but basing that only on color.

Looked great--no vinyl top, just full wheelcovers, clean, correct-size tires and whitewalls. Ohio Historical Plate.

andre--re.: whether insurance goes up and at what age? No idea, good question.

andre1969

I wouldn't mind having a '79-85 Toronado. As I recall, the grille seemed a bit cheap on the '79, but it wouldn't be enough to deter me from the car in general. Plus, 1979 had the best engine, a 170 hp Olds 350 that could actually move the car from 0-60 in under 10 seconds. Hey, that was something to get excited about back then!

I do remember a trim package called "Caliente" that I didn't care for. I think the grille was fussier, and they added a bright trim piece to make it look taller. And they gave it sort of a landau roof treatment with a stainless steel looking band, that did away with the hardtop look, and made it look like it had an opera window.

As for car insurance, I do remember, when my Dad got his '03 Regal, they actually made him sign an agreement that my Granddad, who was living with him at the time, would NOT drive the car. Granddad was almost 89 when Dad bought that car, and gave up driving, willingly, just before he turned 90. Dad was with Erie Insurance, which is what I have. I forget who Granddad was with at the time, but I guess Erie pulled the information on all drivers in that household. Granddad did have a few minor claims, but they were honestly the type of stuff anybody could do, not just old people. For instance, the driveway leading up to the carport was steep, and at a fairly sharp angle, rather than being a straight shot off the street. One time, Granddad was backing out, cut it wrong, and snagged his side view mirror on a support column. When it bent the mirror forward, it messed up the door. They probably blamed it on him being old, but honestly, I'd come close to hitting that support column myself!

My Grandmom, on my Mom's side of the family, lived to 91, but gave up driving when she turned 75. She couldn't pass the eye test anymore, because of macular degeneration. And my other two grandparents died at 73 (maternal Granddad) and 76 (paternal Grandmom) respectively. So everyone else either died, or gave up driving, before they got really up there in years.

tjc78

My Grandpop drove until a few days before he passed at 86. He never had even a fender bender. Still we all worried about him.

fintail

My maternal grandma voluntarily stopped driving when she was 86 or 87 I think, she knew her spatial awareness was becoming a problem. I think my paternal grandma stopped driving when my dad took the keys away, apparently she was becoming a problem.

Drove in the same construction area again today, hoping to see that Mercury again - no dice. But parked in the same general location was a R129 SL with the top down - in a very dusty area. Sad what happens when a car effectively becomes a beater/meaningless toy.

uplanderguy

We went to a theater today for the first time in over a year, and saw the film "Lansky", about mobster Meyer Lansky. We enjoyed it, but I don't think it'll be a commercial success--too much dialogue and no pow, bam, car crashes, etc., which seems required for a commercial success these days. It was set in 1981 Miami.

One of the main characters drives a mid-seventies brown Mercury Monarch, looked nice, and street scenes seemed to show a disproportionate number of '79 and newer LTD/Crown Victorias/Grand Marquis models.

andre1969

Out running errands this morning, I saw a '64 Catalina hardtop coupe. Looked mildly customized. The color, about the best way I can put it is gonna come off politically incorrect, but sort of a "Butch Lilac". Jacked up a bit in the back, oversized tires in the rear, dual exhaust, definitely had a nice rumble to it as it took off.

I also saw, from a bit of a distance an old Jag S-type. Only caught it from the side, as it went by. I was stopped at a red light, a few cars back. At least I'd guess it was an S-type? I'm not well-versed enough in Jag to know the difference between an S-type, Mark 2, Mark 3, et al to tell them apart.

uplanderguy

I typically like '65 and '66 full-size Pontiacs best, but there is something about a '64 Catalina 2+2 hardtop that I would love to own. I'd like that Sunfire Red color which is really a salmon, with white painted top. I'd like the optional wheelcovers that sorta resemble chrome-reverse wheels too.

tjc78

@uplanderguy said:
We went to a theater today for the first time in over a year, and saw the film "Lansky", about mobster Meyer Lansky. We enjoyed it, but I don't think it'll be a commercial success--too much dialogue and no pow, bam, car crashes, etc., which seems required for a commercial success these days. It was set in 1981 Miami.

One of the main characters drives a mid-seventies brown Mercury Monarch, looked nice, and street scenes seemed to show a disproportionate number of '79 and newer LTD/Crown Victorias/Grand Marquis models.

Panthers are always plentiful and they can go to at least 87 and most people wouldn’t know it from a 79. The 88-91 while the same overall car the front and rear ends are more smoothed over.

andre1969

I know I've asked this before, but does anybody know of any sites these days that do image hosting that's free, and easy to use? I was at the GM Nationals in Carlisle PA this past Saturday, and took a bunch of pics.

In the past, I used Photobucket, but seem to recall it started giving me fits. I used to have to pay for it as well, and I think I eventually let the payment lapse, and just gave up on trying to get back into it.

ab348

Avoid anything to do with Photobucket now, whatever group bought it, wrecked it.

Imgur or Imgrr both offer hosting but you need to keep track of the resulting urls carefully as they do not have great (or any) user interfaces that make that easy. You could spend a little money and use something like Flickr, which works better.

andre1969

Or, what about Facebook? Or would that be opening me up to the possibility of spam and such? There's really not that many people that frequent this particular forum, and I trust you guys, but I guess if I put the info out there, it could cause troubles?

**Edit: I just signed up for a Flickr account, so I'll see how that goes! I'm on the free version for now, but if I find I'm starting to use it alot, I might splurge for the paid version.

ab348

It is difficult if not impossible to get a photo link from Facebook to post inline on forums like this.

andre1969

Thanks for the advice, AB348. I made a folder of the pics I took at the GM show this past weekend...hopefully this link works for y'all!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/193359876@N06/albums/72157719472893061

Be sure to notice the closeup of what's under the hood of that somewhat rough looking 1990 Buick Estate wagon...the EPA would have a fit if GM had had the guts to do that, themselves!

Oh, there's also a pic of the open trunk of a '68 Chevelle hardtop. I took that, because I remembered us having a conversation here about how those cars were actually rather small in some dimensions, and I think Uplander said the trunks were only rated at around 12.9 cubic feet. Judging from that pic, I can believe it...

imidazol97

Thanks for posting the pictures @andre1969

texases

It's amazing what a little different packaging will do. My '72 Duster's trunk was huge by comparison, they put the spare under the floor, like this:

tjc78

Great pics! Thanks

andre1969

Yep, I think the Duster's trunk was something like 19.1 cubic feet? That was actually in range of a full-sized car back in those days! At least, I think I remember reading that GM's '71-76 Caprice/Impala only had something like 18.8.

I remember reading somewhere, that the '67-69 Dart sedan and hardtop was around 17 cubic feet, but when they sloped the rear off for '71-76 it cut it to around 15. The Dart (especially the '67-69) had a longer trunk than a Duster/Demon, but it was shallower.

andre1969

Cool, glad that link worked, and y'all can see them.

Here's some pics from the Ford show, three weeks ago...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/193359876@N06/albums/72157719469595099

It's a much bigger show than the GM show, but it may not seem it from the pics, as I didn't take as many. But, it got pretty hot that day and I wasn't in that much of a picture-taking mood.

texases

Great pics, thanks. Looks like you steered clear of what must have been many Mustangs.

andre1969

texases said:

Great pics, thanks. Looks like you steered clear of what must have been many Mustangs.

LOL...yeah, I did. Did the same thing at the GM show, where they had a ton of Camaros and Firebirds, although not nearly to the degree that the Mustang represented Ford! We did walk through and looked at them, but I guess I just didn't feel like taking pics, because there's already tons of pics of those types of cars all over the place.

ab348

The Chevelle trunk looks identical to the one in my '68 Cutlass. Actually, the one in my old '77 LeMans wasn't much bigger, though by then I think they had moved the spare tire/jack location to above the differential. But my memory of that trunk was that it wasn't very large.

On the Duster/Dart, I remember reviews at the time criticizing the trunk for being so shallow. I guess with the spare tire under the floor and the fuel tank being shoehorned in there too (you can just see the filler pipe meandering across from the left side to almost the center of the trunk floor) something had to give.

tjc78

The Mary Kay Mark VII is an interesting piece. Beautiful color on the early 60s (I can never remember the details to pick out the right year of the early ones) Continental convertible.

texases

The Dart and Valiant trunks were a bit shallow, but the Duster/Demon, with it's sloped shape, wasn't. I packed that thing up many times for the drive back and forth to college, was amazed at all that would fit.

andre1969

I think that Continental is a '63. I looked at a few pics online as a reference, and on the '64 the vertical bars that segment the grille seem stronger, and the small openings seem more narrow and vertical.

I'm surprised I didn't get a pic of that good looking deep red Continental coupe next to it! There might have been too many people standing around it, or something else that distracted me from taking it.

With GM midsized cars, until somewhat recently, I had always thought the trunks on the Colonades were smaller than on the '68-72 models, but I think that's just because I fell victim to the hype I've heard about them over the years. The Colonades tend to be unloved, anyway, where many people think of the '68-72 as the golden era. The Colonades always got slammed for being space-inefficient. One of my Consumer Guide auto books described them along the lines of "The last new car designed in the American tradition of big on the outside, small on the inside, heavy, posh, and thirsty". Although personally, I'd think the big '74 Mopars would have taken that title? Anyway, I guess because I had low expectations to begin with, when I got my '76 LeMans, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as cramped as I'd thought it would be!

It also seems like, the further back you go, the more sketchy interior dimension information tends to be. And I'm convinced that, at one time, they had to have measured trunk volume differently. As in, much more optimistically! I seem to recall one year in the early 60's, Ford advertised their trunks at something like 25-26 cubic feet? That seems unlikely to me though, unless they took the measurement with the spare tire out of the car, maybe? Those Ford trunks were wide, and went far forward, but were shallow.