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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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The 1977 Cutlass I traded for a 1980 Cutlass. I'd like to know if the '77 is still alive owned by a collector.
The Mustang Pace Car, 1979, I'd like to know, but they are rarely seen at car shows, rare.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I've loved that for each of my '63-66 Studes, I've been able to find the name, address, occupation of the original owner, and what they traded in, from the Stude Museum. That's rather unique i think, despite a former moderator here who actually said he thought having that info available was a negative. Of course, obviously that was because his favorite make did not have that information available. Exhausting.
I'd mentioned this before, but I helped an original lady Avanti owner actually find her serial number based on the description of the car and where she bought it new. I had to enlist the help of an Avanti guru, but...try and do that with a high-volume manufacturer like the Big Three. I'd think it'd be nearly impossible. It took a year but she found the actual car, from a reader on the AACA website where I'd posted a 'does anybody own this car?' post, but it was in such condition her husband said 'no way'.
I wouldn’t mind knowing what happened to my 89 MGM and my 89 Town Car.
The MGM was sold to the service manager of a Ford dealer (the one local to @stickguy). I’d wager it was run into the ground.
The LTC was sold in town and I saw it a few months after looking very sad. I suspect the owner had trouble with its size as it had several battle scars it didn’t have when sold.
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Plus, it was just a Dart 270 hardtop, not a GT or GTS, so it wasn't anything fancy. Although when I see what people are asking these days for total junk, I guess it would have some value these days.
My '85 Silverado, that Granddad bought new, was still around as of a couple years ago, at least. I had sold it to a friend of a friend, and at one point not too long ago, saw it the background of a picture on Facebook.
One car I'd be really curious about is my first car, a 1980 Malibu coupe. It just had the 229 V6, but these days, those coupes are kinda popular among the rodders, so if it had survived, I could see it having a bit of interest. I had sold it in 1990, with just over 100,000 miles, and a year later, ran across the wife of the couple who bought it, in a parking lot. I chatted with her a bit, and she said that they loved the car. I think it had about 115,000 miles on it. About the only thing they had done to it was get the headliner fixed. Still, that was 31 years ago, so I guess the chances that car survived are slim.
The rest of the cars were pretty much shot by the time I got rid of them, so I'd imagine they're long gone by now.
Saw this guy today at lunch.
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The Belair is nice too 😎😎
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Spotted this while walking to Leo's Italian Restaurant in Cuyahoga Falls last evening:
BTW, fintail, I'm going to South Bend for the Studebaker Drivers' Club International Meet this week. I'll post a pic of that '60 M-B across the street from the old Studebaker Administration Building, assuming it's still there. My bet is that it is.
I wouldn't be shocked if that Ponton is there, and the chrome is probably still OK on it too. VW makes me think "intentional patina".
and today near my house, a 69 or 70 Mustang fastback. Red. Was a bit behind me so could not tell what trim package it was. Looked nice though!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/cto/d/encino-1979-mazda-626-coupe-spd-like/7477995058.html
Price tag is a little too blue for my blood, but I do think it's a cool little car.
I like those. Rear wheel drive too.
But not at that price.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
This color makes me think a bit of that 1965 Iris Mist/Evening Orchid.
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2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Besides I got tired of seeing and reading and hearing about '57 Chevys my whole life, I was never crazy about the fanned-out piece of trim on the rear quarters. I actually kind-of prefer the One-Fifty with its straight trim there. You could give me a '57 Nomad in Dusk Pearl though, that's for sure.
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I knew Fargo was the Canadian Dodge truck. I googled 'DeSoto trucks' and it appears they were sold in Mexico and Central America and other places and built alongside Dodge and Fargo in certain plants.
From what I've heard, the name "Plymouth" meant very little to anyone outside of the United States, whereas "DeSoto" had a more international flair, and as a result was more marketable in foreign markets. For awhile, the DeSoto Diplomat was pretty common...basically a Plymouth, with a DeSoto (or DeSoto-esque, in some cases, as it wasn't always a direct swap) grille and different trim.
According to Curbside Classic, the company Askam was founded in Turkey in 1962, and Chrysler had a 60% stake. Askam built trucks under the DeSoto and Fargo names. Chrysler sold its interest in 1978. Askam itself went under in 2015. I think the name Fargo survived through to the end, but DeSoto may have been reserved for bigger trucks, and may have succumbed sooner.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-trucks/dead-brand-trucks-fargo-and-desoto-still-being-made-in-turkey-well-into-the-21st-century/
I have no idea how long ago this was written, but as of its writing, according to the National DeSoto Club, if you really wanted to, you could get a "current year" DeSoto...just contact a Turkish Chrysler dealer and place your order, but good luck getting it back to the US, because it probably wouldn't pass our safety/emissions standards. https://desoto.org/trucks/
https://www.primoclassicsllc.com/vehicles/391/1967-pontiac-catalina-convertible
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From what I've heard, the government was considering rollover standards, which would have effectively killed convertibles and hardtop body styles, and GM jumped the gun, eliminating those styles with the '73 Colonades. I think hardtops, and to a degree convertibles, were on their way out anyway, and wouldn't have stuck around much longer, even if GM had still offered them on midsized cars for '73.
Air conditioning pretty much killed the convertible, I think. And probably did a good number on hardtops, as well. With coupes, the personal luxury look, with opera windows, was becoming the in thing, and people usually didn't buy coupes for the back seat, anyway. 4-door hardtops really only caught on with full-sized cars. It never was all that popular of a body style in midsized cars, and in compacts, only the Corvair ever tried it...although that one came off beautifully, in my opinion.
Downsizing pretty much killed the 4-door hardtop in the full-sized ranges. Larger windows, but less area for them to roll down into, and rear wheel openings that cut into the back doors made them impractical. With GM's B- and C-bodies, even as-is, the rear windows only went down about half way, and that was with a spacer window in the door! Ford's Panthers went down about 3/4 of the way IIRC, but their back doors were also shorter, I believe. Chrysler's cheaper R-bodies also went down about 3/4 of the way, but again their doors weren't as big. On the New Yorker, they rolled down all the way, but it was a small window.
One reason the hardtop coupes might have stayed around longer with the small Japanese coupes, is they were probably less likely to have air conditioning, so fresh air ventilation was more important. And while in the US, small cars were usually seen as a second car, or a single-person commuter car, in Japan, where any car was more of a luxury, I'm sure these small coupes probably had their back seats used a lot more frequently. At least, that's my guess.
I guess it's possible though, that the bright sunlight makes it look lighter than it is?
It has been moved since, but appears the same otherwise. Looks like a posh model.
My first college roommate drove his parents' old '68 Bonneville Brougham. I liked it a lot, but those Strato-Bench seats GM used then, looked great but the backs seemed padded pretty thin for a luxury car. Definitely luxurious-looking, including the door panels.
I loved the Brougham two-door hardtop--luxo interior with fastback roof. Almost never seen though.
That '67 Catalina convertible--man, that's some money! You know me, I like original/authentic and there are too many things on that car that I notice. I'm probably 91% (LOL) sure that the only way buckets were available in a Catalina that year was when the Ventura option was made, so someone has added those seats.
I'm gonna check out that red convertible now. I always remember two '67 GP convertibles in my hometown when I was a kid, and of course both were red!
I don't know the production numbers, but for all I heard my whole life about "one year only!", seems like I've seen my share of them over the years!
They dropped the Brougham convertible that year and brought it back for '68. Now there are some Pontiac convertibles I have never, ever seen in the flesh.
I guess this takes care of the three-side-window thing I always complain about, but sheesh, what a blind spot now. I'd rather have the glass there.
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with the "3-window look", I agree it can be awkward, but on that '76 Delta 88, I think that vinyl top makes it worse. While that '74-76 hardtop coupe look was kind of love-it or hate-it, I liked how it gave the passenger cabin a light, airy feeling, and I thought it gave the car a slightly less heavy look. But by giving it that landau treatment, just makes it look more bulky and top-heavy to me.
One thing I noticed, is that it seemed like it was only Ford that really embraced that "3-window" look...or on 4-door cars, the "window behind a window". While Chrysler started doing it too, starting with the 1980 Mirada and Cordoba, I guess, that was actually the result of Ford stylists, who jumped ship to Chrysler, before Iacocca.
Years ago, someone pointed out to me how much a 1980 Cordoba/Mirada looks like a '77-79 LTD-II in the basic shape and a lot of the details. I had never thought about the similarity before, but now, I can't un-see it. And it's funny, because I'd LOVE a Mirada, but never really cared for the LTD-II. Although I've warmed up to the LTD-II in later years, though. I guess, as they say, the Devil is in the details!
Now that I think about it, other than that '74-76 B-O-P hardtop coupe roofline, did GM ever do the "window-behind a window" thing, either with a 2- or 4-door? I had to think about that for a few minutes, and the only other examples I can come up with are the Corolla Nova from 1985, and the Daewoo LeMans, but I guess you can argue if those are really "GM."
I do remember, when my grandparents traded their '81 Granada 2-door for an '85 LTD, that extra window in the C-pillar was one feature I didn't like. But, I dunno, with the overall shape of that roof, I think not having that rear-most window would have looked awkward as well. Seems to me the C-pillar would just be too thick, in relation to the rest of the car.
A Lincoln I used to like the looks of, and that I'd get as a Budget rental car a good bit, was the Town Car of the early '90's. I don't want a mock top, nor the aftermarket wide chrome around the wheel openings; just the base car! Some of those had the three-window look, but eventually got rid of the divider in the rear door glass. I'd rather have that cleaner look and not have the window go down as far, LOL.
Technically a hardtop, but not a coupe. The pillared sedans did not get a 3rd side window.
Of course, there were also the '73-'77 Colonnade sedans, with a window behind the rear doors that did not move, although it was separated from the door glass by the narrowest of posts.
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That small C-pillar window in the '75-76 four-door hardtops was an improvement to me. It was a small window with a slender pillar, behind a normal-sized door window, unlike the B-O-P two-door hardtops. Always struck me funny that B-O-P didn't use that roofline on their uppermost series.
Never liked the four-door Colonnade rooflines. In general those cars and rooves looked stretched to me...and they were.
So with a 4-door car, I'm thinking something like this...
And with a 2-door, something along these lines...
I guess the Ford Elite would be the most egregious here, having the window that would normally roll down, and then TWIN opera windows!
The one thing I hate though, is a frameless window that doesn't go all the way down. They rattle when you close the door with the window opened, and to me just look weird, and a bit unfinished. Now on some cars, where you had frameless windows, but then a fixed spacer window at the back, I didn't mind it so much. Like, say, the '79-81 Mopar R-bodies, or the '80-85 Seville. At least the back part of the window had a track to attach to, and that stabilized it somewhat.
The '95-99 Neons had frameless windows, and their rear windows went down less than half way...
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Chevy called it "Medium Dark Green Poly"