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

imidazol97

Ford Probe in white. Had the GT on lower door just like this one.


Took me quite a minute to figure out what it was as it passed me. Long, long time
since I've seen one on the road or at a cruise-in/car show.

The P R O B E at the left of the trunk had been taken off or had fallen off.
There were tiny holes left. Made it really hard to figure out what it was
till I saw the Ford over on the other side.

xwesx

uplanderguy said:

Those unibody Ford pickups are one of my very favorite pickups made by anybody. I always liked how the rear wheel openings somewhat mimicked the fronts. I like the taillights too.

Before I knew they were unibody, I remember trying to describe this series truck to a longtime Ford friend of mine, who is a decade older than me. I'd say, "They're like the ones up to '66, but the rear wheel wells resembled the front", to which I'd get an odd stare!

Funny, the ones that they introduced in '62 with the old '57-60 wide bed, and even the ones with the '64-66 wide bed, did nothing for me, but those unibodies, did. I grew up Chevy but the '60-66 Chevy trucks do absolutely zero for me.

The "Emmett's Fix It Shop" truck I pictured above was a stepside, so it had the old rear fenders and bed Ford started using in '53.

The amazing thing about this truck, in my opinion, is that they were so reviled when they were released that Ford scrambled to change the design to a separated bed and ended up using the prior generation bed until they could get a new bed into production.

Why? They were just not up to the task of being a truck, and the "unibody" approach tore itself apart under the stress of work.

Now, in the days of trucks being toys too, the unibody's short life cycle and unloved reception means they're rare, so now they have cachet. Not every car gets a second life like that.

tjc78

@imidazol97 said:
Ford Probe in white. Had the GT on lower door just like this one.

Took me quite a minute to figure out what it was as it passed me. Long, long time
since I've seen one on the road or at a cruise-in/car show.

The P R O B E at the left of the trunk had been taken off or had fallen off.
There were tiny holes left. Made it really hard to figure out what it was
till I saw the Ford over on the other side.

To think that was supposed to be the Mustang replacement.

explorerx4

@xwesx,
There is even a name for the reuse of the old bed. It's called the 'Wrongbed'.
http://fordification.info/tech/wrongbed.htm

ab348

In looking at the underside pics of that Ford pickup, it appears to have a full frame. But the cab and bed are a single unibody bolted to it.

xwesx

ab348 said:

In looking at the underside pics of that Ford pickup, it appears to have a full frame. But the cab and bed are a single unibody bolted to it.

Yeah, it's somewhat of a misnomer because it is not a "unibody" like we normally think of it with an integrated frame (like the early Econolines).

fintail

I saw a 4x4 unibody on the road today, looked like an original vehicle.

roadburner

tjc78 said:

@imidazol97 said:

Ford Probe in white. Had the GT on lower door just like this one.

Took me quite a minute to figure out what it was as it passed me. Long, long time

since I've seen one on the road or at a cruise-in/car show.

The P R O B E at the left of the trunk had been taken off or had fallen off.

There were tiny holes left. Made it really hard to figure out what it was

till I saw the Ford over on the other side.

To think that was supposed to be the Mustang replacement.

Ford often had a hard time understanding the appeal of the Mustang; back in 1982 the GT 5.0 was almost labeled the "SS."
I suppose Chevrolet could have retaliated with the Camaro Cobra.

uplanderguy

There is even a name for the reuse of the old bed. It's called the 'Wrongbed'.

I like Studebaker Champs, so I can't say a whole lot about the "Wrongbed" LOL, but the styling of the Ford surely matched the cab of the '57-60 it was designed with, but had nothing in common with the '61-63 cab. The horizontal feature line doesn't match up and the wheel openings aren't similar.

The Champ wide bed was too wide for the cab, but I always thought the styling actually matched the Studebaker cab better than it did the Dodge cab it was born with.

ab348

xwesx said:

The amazing thing about this truck, in my opinion, is that they were so reviled when they were released that Ford scrambled to change the design to a separated bed and ended up using the prior generation bed until they could get a new bed into production.

Why? They were just not up to the task of being a truck, and the "unibody" approach tore itself apart under the stress of work.

Now, in the days of trucks being toys too, the unibody's short life cycle and unloved reception means they're rare, so now they have cachet. Not every car gets a second life like that.

One other strange thing about these '61 models - it didn't matter what paint colors you chose, or whether you went with a base model or Custom Cab version, you had your choice of a single interior color, brown. The CC gave you nicer upholstery, but no color choice. Today I guess black is the new brown.

uplanderguy

Did the Custom Cab get you a headliner and upholstered door panels? I really have no idea. Studebaker used to advertise that even in the standard Champ cab you got that stuff, unlike others.

I do remember riding in my friend's Dad's '66 Chevy C10. Every bit of that interior, except floor covering, was metal, that I do remember. You'd close the door and it echoed.

sda

I remember reading in Jr High, ‘Travels with Charley’ where Steinbeck relates that pickup trucks are comfortable like cars with automatic and ac. It was his adventures with his dog around 1960.

ab348

uplanderguy said:

Did the Custom Cab get you a headliner and upholstered door panels? I really have no idea. Studebaker used to advertise that even in the standard Champ cab you got that stuff, unlike others.

I do remember riding in my friend's Dad's '66 Chevy C10. Every bit of that interior, except floor covering, was metal, that I do remember. You'd close the door and it echoed.

The BaT '61 unibody is a Custom Cab. It sports a drivers side armrest but none for the hapless passenger. Both interior door sides are stamped metal, no upholstery. It does have a headliner which the brochure says was standard on all models. It also boasts of insulation under that and also under the rubber mat.

xwesx

ab348 said:

One other strange thing about these '61 models - it didn't matter what paint colors you chose, or whether you went with a base model or Custom Cab version, you had your choice of a single interior color, brown. The CC gave you nicer upholstery, but no color choice. Today I guess black is the new brown.

Now that's interesting. I never knew that. I have only seen a couple "original" trucks of this unibody style, and both were completely shot. I remember one local farmer for whom I pulled rye when I was 12 or 13, he had one sitting next to a variety of "retired" farm machinery near his house. I would walk around there during my lunch break and marvel at the oddness and ingenuity that went into a lot of those machines.

He had basically everything that farm had ever retired starting, I think, with his father (this was late '80s, and he must have been in his '70s). There were a couple of horse-drawn combines, and an old plow that must have started out as horse-drawn, but was converted to being pulled by a tractor. Also an early Allis-Chalmers and a Ford of some sort (I'm not all that versed on my tractors), as well as many, many grain trucks (mostly International and Ford, as I recall).

I always thought the grain trucks were the most interesting because their cabs and hoods looked the same as the light duty pickups of the same era, but they had much longer fenders and grilles .

uplanderguy

Thanks Greg for the info on the '61 Custom Cab interior.

fintail

On the road spotted a yellow Suzuki Aerio hatch and a patinated but apparently still going strong 1st gen Prelude.

andre1969

Here's a pic I took in the parking lot of the old folks' home where my housemate's grandmother lives...


I don't think I've seen that many domestic vehicles in one spot since the last time I went to a classic car show!

I didn't get a pic of it, but we had parked next to a silver Cavalier sedan, of the final generation. It was a little banged up here and there, but no rust, and the paint was still shiny. I can't remember the last time I've seen a Cobalt, or a run-of-the-mill Cavalier. I'll see Z-24s at car shows on occasion.

tjc78

I found the one they sold.

Michaell

tjc78 said:

I found the one they sold.

I’ve seen 2 or 3 around where I live.

fintail

I think a few dozen ZDX sold in the PNW - I see a couple now and then. There's also a white RLX I see around town, the fancy 4:3 Accord that sold at least 20 units. I don't know if any brand receives the same lifeblood from CUVs as Acura.

Regarding domestics, still tons of Cobalts around here, I think most 97-03 Malibu production ended up here, too. I saw a WI or MN plated G6 the other day, rockers and the area behind the front wheelarch were Swiss cheese.

On the road today saw a weird custom 1st gen Bronco that had almost like a surrey top, 71-72 Chevelle, early 60s Beetle, same 356 cabrio I see now and then, purple C6 Corvette, LHS New Yorker, W123, 300M with factory chrome wheels.

uplanderguy

Gotta say, there were a couple things I liked about our two Cobalts better than the Cruzes I've owned.

Mostly, road noise was non-existent, and the 2.2 four was silky smooth at idle. It felt like the car had stalled.

I still like the styling of the Cobalt coupe for a cheap car. My kids were complaining about getting in the backseat of my previous Cavalier coupe so when it was time to trade, I got a sedan.

I liked the round taillights on the coupe.

The Cobalt I bought new was an XFE (5-speed) with optional ABS, and that's about it. I got excellent service out of it. The other one was a four-year-old car I bought on eBay for my younger daughter. The purchase transaction was right out of a sitcom, with the NJ seller. He was angry with me for asking three or four questions about the car, but I told my wife I didn't need to like him to buy the car. When I picked the car up at his satellite office in southern OH, it had 6K more miles than his ad, and he had brought the wrong title. Exhausting. He did give me an extra $500 off then. He'd also been fined $500 by PA State Police for having the car mounted on the trailer improperly.

But, when my daughter was hit by a hit-and-run driver here in Kent in 2017, I got $100 more for the car than I'd paid four years earlier.

uplanderguy

Couple other things: The Cobalt's hood stayed open without a prop rod, and the decklid opened with little shock-absorber-like things instead of big gooseneck hinges which cut into trunk space.

imidazol97

Cobalts were good cars for the money. That engine idled super smoothly. Smooth power range for the 4-speed tranmission. But I wonder how much better it would have been were the 2.2 engine hooked to the 6-speed in my Cruze. Likely perfect.

The hood rod on the Cruze irritates me everytime I've opened it, even when my son drove/owned the car.
The noise is better in the Cruze, but we carried on easy conversations in the Cobalt at 70 mph with the Michelins on it.

sda

My 2008 HHR 2LT was based on the Cobalt. It reminded me of the “Little Engine that Could”. Not great at anything but a versatile car. It rode well, had good power from the 2.4, comfortable, decent mpg. My only complaint was a horrible blind spot at the right ‘B’ pillar which made merging lanes stressful. My wife and daughter were not fans of the HHR, I liked it.

uplanderguy

The HHR was a crib of the PT Cruiser of course, and late, but it was bigger than a PT. My Studebaker dealer friend's wife had one right until she passed.

I remember when I saw the panel-truck version of the HHR on a delivery truck. I thought that would be an instant sales hit for low-buck owners who liked to customize. Apparently I missed that prediction by a mile, LOL.

Both our Cobalts were good, reliable cars, especially at the price point. The ignition switch fiasco was just that. There was a TSB about that early on in my ownership. When I first felt that removing the key was even the slightest bit sticky, I had it replaced for free. I'm thinking, but not sure, that when the redesigned switch was implemented, it wasn't given a new part no. So when the recall came out, both my cars had the new switch put in as it wasn't obvious if the replacement switch the car I'd bought new had, was the new part or old--dumb. I remember asking my service writer about it once and he opened a desk drawer with probably a couple hundred invoices--cars and owners waiting for parts.

I remember telling my Stude dealer friend, of course elderly by that time, that Chevy would give them a free loaner until parts were in and his local dealer could do the replacement. He and his wife had no idea about any different feeling to the switch in their car, but he much-appreciated my telling him that as the dealer did give them a loaner for about two months. He just liked not putting miles on their car for that length of time.

sda

I had traded the HHR before the recall. However I received multiple mailings requesting I bring the HHR in for repair. I notified the dealer I no longer owned it which made little difference and I continued to receive the recall notices. Hopefully the new owner had it repaired.

Michaell

sda said:

I had traded the HHR before the recall. However I received multiple mailings requesting I bring the HHR in for repair. I notified the dealer I no longer owned it which made little difference and I continued to receive the recall notices. Hopefully the new owner had it repaired.

The '06 Saturn ION we got for my stepdaughter suffered from that malady. First time it happened to her, she was on a back road by her college. She was able to coast to the side of the road and restart it, without incident.

The second occurence was a whole 'nother story. She was on her way home from school, and driving through Denver on I-25 during rush hour when the car died on her. She was able to get it home, but the experience shook both her and my wife, who told me she wasn't driving that car again.

We traded my '03 Saturn L300 for a new MINI (not my first choice, mind you), and I inherited the ION, which I drove for another 3-4 years. I did eventually get the ignition replaced as part of the recall, and handed it down to my stepson and his wife..

uplanderguy

Getting my daughter to not have an enormous key chain full of stuff on that car was like pulling teeth. That would aggravate the problem, supposedly.

explorerx4

My Mom's Malibu had to have the ignition replaced, luckily to a no start condition, not stalling.
Cost $250 to replace. By the time the recall notice arrived, years later, the car was gone and I couldn't find the receipt.

Michaell

uplanderguy said:

Getting my daughter to not have an enormous key chain full of stuff on that car was like pulling teeth. That would aggravate the problem, supposedly.

I'm pretty sure that was a contributing factor for my stepdaughter, as well. When I drove it, I had nothing on the keyring other than the key and the remote fob.

explorerx4

People have had heavy key chains for decades.

texases

explorerx4 said:

People have had heavy key chains for decades.

But GM made a decision to cheapen the ignition switches, making them susceptible to problems.
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=gm+ignition+switch+problem&view=detail&mid=D71B410FA09252223DF0D71B410FA09252223DF0&FORM=VIRE

uplanderguy

I don't recall Malibu being recalled for that...Cobalt, G5, Ion.

texases

uplanderguy said:

I don't recall Malibu being recalled for that...Cobalt, G5, Ion.

Here's a list of added cars:
The latest recall includes these cars and model years:

Buick Lacrosse, 2005-2009
Chevrolet Impala, 2006-2014
Cadillac Deville, 2000-2005
Cadillac DTS, 2004-2011
Buick Lucerne, 2006-2011
Buick Regal LS & GS, 2004-2005
Chevy Monte Carlo, 2006-2008

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gm-recalls-3-16-million-cars-for-ignition-problems/#:~:text=The latest recall includes these cars and model,& GS, 2004-2005 7 Chevy Monte Carlo, 2006-2008

explorerx4

@uplanderguy,
I guess you don't know everything.

fintail

A relative had an HHR, the passenger side A-pillar created a massive blind spot/obstacle for her, drove her nuts. I don't recall her having any real issues with it anyway.

sda said:

My 2008 HHR 2LT was based on the Cobalt. It reminded me of the “Little Engine that Could”. Not great at anything but a versatile car. It rode well, had good power from the 2.4, comfortable, decent mpg. My only complaint was a horrible blind spot at the right ‘B’ pillar which made merging lanes stressful. My wife and daughter were not fans of the HHR, I liked it.

uplanderguy

@uplanderguy,
I guess you don't know everything.

Really?

uplanderguy

I also had a 2011 Malibu at the time of recall (new iteration in 2008). Somehow it escaped even the revised list. I guess since it was a new design in 2008. The others are older designs.

imidazol97

The Cobalt had a key with a slot in it, IIRC. That meant the weight of whatever was on the keychain would be off center from the key's center of rotation. . When a vibration of a bump hit, the force generated by the torque of the larger weight being off center could rotate the key. That in some cases caused the car to turn OFF. All that was needed was to turn the key to crank and restart.

The spring setup inside the lock cylinder needed more resistance to turning to resist the torque generated by the heavy key chains.

Early on in Cobalt discussions, one young lady had her phone on her key ring as well as other things. Her car turned OFF going over railroad tracks. I recall one poster telling her to use only a naked ignition key to run the car. And that fixed it.

Besides the botched fix on the internal spring for rotating the lock cylinder, the "fix" also included new keys that he only a hole in the middle. So heavy keys hung on the lock cylinder's center of rotatin and couldn't generate any rotational torque.

The replacement lock cylinders were noticeably harder to rotate from OFF to ACC to ON to CRANK due to the tougher spring.

ab348

Like many other issues, the ignition key debacle turned into a media and political circus very quickly.

GM ended up recalling 29 million vehicles to replace ignition switches. How many were actually problematic remains unknown and likely always will be.

To my surprise I actually owned one of the supposed problem vehicles, a 2009 Lacrosse. I do not remember it having a particularly low-effort ignition switch. It replaced a 2002 Intrigue which, in my distant memory, had a similar-feeling switch. Neither had a problem like the one in question during my ownership.

Testimony at the hearings from the poor scapegoated mid-level engineer was that GM was trying to obtain more of a quality feel like certain Euro brands in the design of trivial components like switches. Rather than have them feel ratchet-like and notchy they were going for a smooth feeling when you used them. But the execution was poor, in part driven by the bean-counting culture at GM. The low-effort spring internal to the switch was the cheap solution, and when the engineer tried to replace that with a higher-effort mechanism, the bean-counters sent him back to the drawing board. At least one of the articles I read said or implied that he realized the low effort was indeed a problem, and when turned down for his proposed spring fix he directed the supplier to produce it anyway, but to use the same part number so it would not be flagged by the accountants, a classic bureaucratic tactic. How the presumed cost increase was hidden I do not know.

Where the hearings all went off the rails was the same as what happened to Ford a few decades earlier with the Pinto fuel tank - a manufacturing cost number that seems ridiculously low is thrown around in public discourse about the issue (I believe $3 in Ford's case and 90 cents for GM) which makes it sound like the manufacturers are being greedy profit-mad tyrants. Of course that is a cost that is only applicable if you were making the change while the vehicle was being produced in volume, and fixing them retroactively is a very different story. Some of the comments by politicians were equally absurd, like asking the CEO why she didn't know about all this years earlier before any of it surfaced at those levels, and overlooking the fact that during a good part of all this GM was actually controlled by the geniuses running the US government.

uplanderguy

I'm not excusing the heavy keychain stuff, but I do remember getting the letter which was for Cobalt, Ion, HHR, and G5, telling you that until the replacement was done, take all extra stuff off the keychain.

Somehow, I got my Cobalt in quickly before there were two-month waits. I think I asked the Service Writer to call me as soon as parts were in. My daughter was away at college so her repair took longer. But it was like she was blowing me off on the heavy keychain thing, which drove me nuts.

explorerx4

The C levels decided not to discuss the ignition issue in their meetings.
Very typical corporate behavior.

uplanderguy

ab348, you mentioned the Pinto fuel tank. I remember a recall for Ford for cars falling out of park, I think when running. I can't think of when I'd ever get out of the car while it was running, other than maybe to open the garage door in the days 20+ years ago when I didn't have a garage remote. But I remember the fix was a sticker on the dash that said something along the lines of 'make sure you really push it up into park!".

andre1969

uplanderguy said:

I can't think of when I'd ever get out of the car while it was running, other than maybe to open the garage door in the days 20+ years ago when I didn't have a garage remote. But I remember the fix was a sticker on the dash that said something along the lines of 'make sure you really push it up into park!".

Back around 1994, I had my '68 Dart almost run away from me. I forget the reason why, but I had stopped on the shoulder of the road and got out of the car while it was running. When I popped the hood, suddenly the car started backing slowly away from me! Thankfully I was able to hop back in the car and stop it. The shifter on that car wasn't particularly loose as I recall, but I'm guessing I didn't have it fully in park. I can't remember if I had closed the door, but that could have been enough to jiggle the lever down into reverse. Either that, or the vibration from popping the hood open.

Of course, there's a difference between a 26 model year old car with nearly 300,000 miles on it doing it, and a brand-new car doing it!

My '67 Catalina's shifter is a bit loose, too, but the only issue there is that sometimes it won't start. It's actually in park, in the sense that it won't roll, but I guess the neutral safety switch, or whatever, thinks the car is in reverse, so it won't start. All I have to do there is push the lever upward a bit, and then it starts just fine. I've never had it try to run away on me like the Dart did that time.

imidazol97

Original key with slot allowing weight to try to rotate the key.


Replacement key.

The replacement key alone would have stopped the problem caused by the
original easy--to-turn lock setup. But the hysteria was already driven by the
media and politicians.

ab348

explorerx4 said:

The C levels decided not to discuss the ignition issue in their meetings.
Very typical corporate behavior.

Do you have any idea how controlled and filtered information coming to that level is in a massive organization? The number of hands something like that would go through before it even got considered for their agenda would be huge, any one of which could have set it aside. Your comment implies that they knew all there was to know about it and decided not to discuss it for some nefarious reason. I would like to see some proof that is what occurred. One suspects it is not much different than what happened with other major engineering screw-ups like Ford's Powershift transmission debacle. Those at the "doer" level may point out problems while casting blame elsewhere, while those at higher levels who were champions of the direction originally chosen often do not allow information to get beyond their level without being carefully massaged.

https://www.freep.com/in-depth/money/cars/ford/2019/07/11/ford-focus-fiesta-transmission-defect/1671198001/

explorerx4

@ab348,
The reason I wrote that is because I met the person who would have reported on it.
They were in the room for that reason, but never asked to report their findings.
In my comment, I specifically did not call out GM on this.

ab348

Thanks for the clarification. I have been in a similar situation numerous times, most typically at government Cabinet meetings I was asked to attend. You generally do not volunteer anything you were not asked a direct question about. And sometimes, if there is someone else as the lead presenter, you do not get to speak at all.

explorerx4

@fintail,
Have you ever seen a Mercedes like this one(W114 /8 LANG)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD6hme3xUgc&t=3s

stickguy

That limo has some moves.