I used to get Hondas and Toyota rentals then (mostly, Toyotas). I kept expecting an epiphany that never arrived, LOL. The domestics, minimally anyway, still offered bigger-car feel and looks, trim level and wheel choices, engine choices (even if not great), etc.
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That Monte is pretty sharp in blue with rally wheels, although too bad it isn't more loaded.
On the road this morning had a little time warp. I noticed at center stage in a little used car lot was a pristine looking K-car, "89" on the windshield, along with "3995" (of course, I thought $4 grand for a K-car, insane!). Then I noticed parked adjacent was a first gen Concorde, then what pulls up behind me but an earlier model Lincoln Mark VIII. soon after a Suzuki Sidekick soft top and a Chevy Celebrity would cross my path. Gotta love living in the west.
As someone in the comments section there posted, surprising to see one that's not green or brown. For some reason, I remember a lot of '73's in light green metallic or "Green Gold Metallic".
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That Monte is pretty sharp in blue with rally wheels, although too bad it isn't more loaded.
On the road this morning had a little time warp. I noticed at center stage in a little used car lot was a pristine looking K-car, "89" on the windshield, along with "3995" (of course, I thought $4 grand for a K-car, insane!). Then I noticed parked adjacent was a first gen Concorde, then what pulls up behind me but an earlier model Lincoln Mark VIII. soon after a Suzuki Sidekick soft top and a Chevy Celebrity would cross my path. Gotta love living in the west.
Couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve seen any of those.
I saw two old cars in my recent visit to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas. The first was a 1914 electric Rauch and Lang, owned by Ike's wife Mamie's prosperous family, but sometimes driven by the young Eisenhower. The original list price was $3400, which is about 100k today. The other car was a custom 1942 Cadillac limo used by General Eisenhower during World War II. The large back area could seat at least four, and was apparently often used for planning and discussions.
That Monte is pretty sharp in blue with rally wheels, although too bad it isn't more loaded.
On the road this morning had a little time warp. I noticed at center stage in a little used car lot was a pristine looking K-car, "89" on the windshield, along with "3995" (of course, I thought $4 grand for a K-car, insane!). Then I noticed parked adjacent was a first gen Concorde, then what pulls up behind me but an earlier model Lincoln Mark VIII. soon after a Suzuki Sidekick soft top and a Chevy Celebrity would cross my path. Gotta love living in the west.
Couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve seen any of those.
I'm looking at a first-gen Concorde, as I type this. At least, if this counts My buddy who used to have the '78 Mark V Diamond Jubilee recently downsized his household belongings and moved to Florida, and jettisoned some of his car stuff, and this Concorde was one of the things to go.
It's weird to think, that the Concorde is probably older now, than that Toys R Us truck was, when the Concorde was new! Even in 1993 that toy truck seemed old to me, yet the Concorde's era doesn't seem all that long ago.
Oh, the other day when I got my 5th Ave back from the mechanic, I saw this snuggled up against it... Not sure what year it was, but it was a GTA, so I think that meant it had the 350 V8?
Oh, it was just annual check up type stuff. I like to take the Catalina and the 5th Ave to the mechanic once per year, before car show season starts, and have him check the cars over for any signs of impending doom. The GM and Mopar shows in Carlisle are about 115 miles away, and there's the Das Awkscht Fescht show in Macungie, PA, that's close to 200 miles, that I put the Catalina in. For that show though, I always go up the night before, to a friend's place near Harrisburg, crash there, and then we ride over together for the show, so that at least breaks the trip up a little bit. Normally, coming back I'd drop him off at his place, relax and hang out for a bit, and then hit the road back that night. But last year I was wiped out, getting back to Harrisburg, so I crashed there again that night, and then came back home the following morning. Getting old, I guess. But, I also hate driving around Baltimore at night with a passion. I swear the drivers get crazier every year, and it only gets worse after dark.
I've been lucky, in that I've never had a car break down on one of these car show trips, but I guess statistically, it's bound to happen eventually!
I watched some WW2 documentary stuff on youtube the other day, and I might have seen that very car, a fleet of American cars in Germany anyway, and one was a senior Caddy like that.
I saw two old cars in my recent visit to the Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas. The first was a 1914 electric Rauch and Lang, owned by Ike's wife Mamie's prosperous family, but sometimes driven by the young Eisenhower. The original list price was $3400, which is about 100k today. The other car was a custom 1942 Cadillac limo used by General Eisenhower during World War II. The large back area could seat at least four, and was apparently often used for planning and discussions.
I do the same for the fintail, it goes in for an annual service and inspection, and I tell the shop to not worry about making the car perfect, rather, ensure it is roadworthy. I also took the car in for a special inspection before I drove it out here a couple years ago (300 miles and across a mountain pass, it performed flawlessly).
Oh, it was just annual check up type stuff. I like to take the Catalina and the 5th Ave to the mechanic once per year, before car show season starts, and have him check the cars over for any signs of impending doom. The GM and Mopar shows in Carlisle are about 115 miles away, and there's the Das Awkscht Fescht show in Macungie, PA, that's close to 200 miles, that I put the Catalina in. For that show though, I always go up the night before, to a friend's place near Harrisburg, crash there, and then we ride over together for the show, so that at least breaks the trip up a little bit. Normally, coming back I'd drop him off at his place, relax and hang out for a bit, and then hit the road back that night. But last year I was wiped out, getting back to Harrisburg, so I crashed there again that night, and then came back home the following morning. Getting old, I guess. But, I also hate driving around Baltimore at night with a passion. I swear the drivers get crazier every year, and it only gets worse after dark.
I've been lucky, in that I've never had a car break down on one of these car show trips, but I guess statistically, it's bound to happen eventually!
I had the Club Sport checked out before I drove it to Hilton Head and it performed flawlessly- although I watched the temperature gauge like a hawk since the entire cooling system-except for the thermostat and one plastic firewall fitting-was 26 years old.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I put about 170 miles on my Stude over the weekend, going to the big Heritage Days Super Cruise in my hometown. Got there early enough to receive an event T-shirt, bright orange, in my size, and I won a bottle of local wine at the end of the day. Car ran great and it's a scenic country drive about the last 20 miles into my old hometown. Free show, free T-shirt to first 200 registrants, and probably a 50/50 chance you'll win a bottle of wine at the end of the show.
If you're really bored (LOL), here's a link to a car cruise-in FB page that has 451 photos from the car show Saturday:
Funny, I don't even remember that car, andre! But estimates were between 700 and 1,000 cars there. Of course, not everybody registers, unfortunately. A friend took a pic of a light blue metallic '70 Catalina hardtop coupe which I missed. He knows I have grown to like '70 big Pontiacs.
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I gotta tell you, it's gratifying to see this many people on Main St. Saturday. The town is fairly remote and has been kicked about, economically since the '90's. Population is somewhere in the 5000's although there are townships around where people consider themselves from Greenville.
2024 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 2LT; 2019 Chevrolet Equinox LT; 2015 Chevrolet Cruze LS
I put about 170 miles on my Stude over the weekend, going to the big Heritage Days Super Cruise in my hometown. Got there early enough to receive an event T-shirt, bright orange, in my size, and I won a bottle of local wine at the end of the day. Car ran great and it's a scenic country drive about the last 20 miles into my old hometown. Free show, free T-shirt to first 200 registrants, and probably a 50/50 chance you'll win a bottle of wine at the end of the show.
If you're really bored (LOL), here's a link to a car cruise-in FB page that has 451 photos from the car show Saturday:
there were quite a few cars there that I would love to have. Sadly, at this point, not thinking I will ever end up with some sort of classic. Shooting though to get a toy of some sort this winter or next year. Just something newer. Maybe another Miata if I fit better in a newer version (and my wife can actually get in and out and fit once in!) Or something a little more suited to old people. I did love the BRZ I test drove. That could work.
That is amazing. I'm sure I remember seeing that very engine when I lived there (moved away forever in 1980). The fire department and police department were in the same building then, and the firemen were always washing and/or waxing the fire engines, and yes they had a Dalmatian as is the stereotype. It was right on Main St. across from where Phil Godfrey Ford is now.
Funny thing happened to me on Friday. Greenville is in a valley, and I sweat driving a Stude down "West Main Hill" but did without incident, and was hungry, and heard that Jules Tavern ("Since 1934") in an old, rather rundown residential neighborhood on the west side of town, has had good food for the past couple or so years. Chicken pie is a thing in that town but restaurants usually only have it on Thursdays. I went to Jules Tavern, parked right in front, and I wasn't in there thirty seconds and I hear, "Hey, who owns that Studebaker?" and I turned around and it was an old classmate of mine. "Billy!" he said. We sat at the bar; I asked the barmaid to ask the kitchen if there were any chicken pie dinners left from the day before and was told there were two left, so I said I'd have one. My classmate insisted on buying my lunch. And so he did.
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@uplanderguy said:
I like my car, but I wish in '66 they hadn't put Hawk emblems on it. It's kind of like "We used to build the Hawk....remember us?!" LOL
Probably got ordered by the brass in South Bend to use up some leftover emblems they were sending up.
@andre1969 might be interested in the current (August) issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine. They have an article in it about a ‘57 DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman, the Dodge based model that was the lowest branch on the DeSoto tree that year. Nice looking car.
@andre1969 might be interested in the current (August) issue of Hemmings Classic Car magazine. They have an article in it about a ‘57 DeSoto Firesweep Sportsman, the Dodge based model that was the lowest branch on the DeSoto tree that year. Nice looking car.
Thanks AB348, I'll have to check it out. Back in late 1994, a local guy was selling a '58 Firesweep 4 door sedan. It was white with a yellow top and spear, had the 350-2bbl, and 2-speed Powerflite. I could've gotten it for around $800-850, but someone else beat me to it. Probably for the best, because I had just bought a condo and moved out on my own for the first time around then, got married the following summer, and went into some serious debt after that. Adding another car to the fleet back then might have sunk me financially even quicker.
I have mixed feelings about the Firesweep, because I look at it as sort of the beginning of the end for DeSoto. They tried moving down a bit into Dodge territory, which to me, cheapened the brand a bit. And then, soon after, DeSoto was gone entirely. Of course, I'm sure that would have happened, anyway, when the '58 recession cratered the market in general, but really zeroed in on the overcrowded mid-priced market.
And, to be fair, DeSoto was sort of being groomed for a 3-tier lineup, anyway. In '55-56, they only had the Firedome and Fireflite (and limited production Adventurer for '56). But, in '55 they had a stripper hardtop coupe called the Firedome Special. In '56, when hardtop sedans were introduced, the Firedome offered a stripper hardtop coupe and hardtop sedan in, ironically, the "Seville" trim level, just as Cadillac was using that name for their upper echelon. So, in my opinion at least, the Firesweep sort of filled in for those cheap Special/Seville models, although it was more full-range, offering a pillared sedan, wagons, and for '58, a convertible.
I wonder how things would have turned out if DeSoto had simply offered the longer, 126" wb model, with a stripped down interior, a bit less trim, and the Dodge engines, rather than trying to cobble together a DeSoto grille, Dodge front clip, and DeSoto body? But, Chrysler ended up shrinking the Windsor for '58, to the 122" wb, so I guess that would've caused a problem.
And then, once the market contracted, the Firesweep soon amounted to the bulk of DeSoto's sales. In a similar vein, the Windsor did the same for Chrysler, and then when the Newport came out and undercut the Windsor, and what little was left of DeSoto for '61, sales took off even further.
Interestingly, for 1959, they went through the effort to use a shortened DeSoto/Chrysler front clip for the Firesweep and Windsor, so the cars started bearing a much stronger resemblance to the bigger models. I guess they would've had to, though, as that wild '59 Dodge front, with the exaggered "brows" over the headlights, would've been really hard to fit a DeSoto or Chrysler grille onto, and probably would have looked horrible, as the Dodge was still more rounded in the '57-58 style, whereas Chryslers and DeSotos were starting to square off a bit in their styling.
I just stumbled across an old time capsule of sorts. In a box that had a bunch of old photographs that my Dad had taken over the years (well not that old, they were developed by Walmart), I found something I thought had gotten tossed years ago...a bunch of old paperwork from the cars Granddad had bought over the years.
I remember Granddad showing me all that stuff, years ago, but I thought it had gotten tossed at some point. But, nope, here it is! One thing I found, of interest, was the purchase agreement for my Dad's '63 Impala SS409. It was actually made out in my Granddad's name, something I never knew. Anyway, its purchase price, on July 15, 1965, was $1,995. $500 down, and $72.50 per month for 24 months.
It also lists the VIN... 31847B117581. I tried to do a VIN decode, but unfortunately in those days, the VIN didn't tell all that much. "3" means "1963" I don't know what the "18" stands for. I found "16" for "Impala 6 cyl" and "17" for "Impala V8" "47' means "2 door sports coupe" (i.e., the hardtop coupe) "B" means it was built in Baltimore, Hon (a local joke that's probably becoming increasingly outdated) And the rest is the sequence number.
Too bad it's not like later years, where there was a code in there for the engine.
My Dad said it had a 409, with the 425 hp setup, but years later, a mechanic said that no full-sized Chevy ever came with that engine, that the 425 hp was a Corvette-only engine. But, the '63 sales brochure lists it. You could only get a 3- or 4-speed synchro-mesh with it, as the Powerglide was only offered on the 340 hp version of the 409.
I wonder if there's a way to find out if that car is still around? It'd be pretty cool, if it was!
This is one of my favorite cars. I paid $250 for it in 1981 and it had 81k. I sold it later for around $500. I put less than $100 into it. A decent return for a poor college student. It was a 65 Cutlass with factory buckets, tach, ps, pb, am, 330 4bbl, single exhaust. It was smooth, quick, fuel miser it wasn't.
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I'm not normally a fan of those oversized wheels, but somehow I think they work on that '57 Special. To me, these cars had sort of a custom-car look about them anyway, with the large rear wheel openings.
I think it's interesting too, seeing someone commenting on that car, through a modern perspective. Like how the guy mentioned that he loved that three-piece rear window. But, from what I've read, when these cars were new, there was sort of a slur going around. In response to Plymouth's "Suddenly it's 1960!", people were busting on these Buicks, saying "Suddenly it's 1949!" or something like that.
and, where the "1957" badge what, they thought that was really cool. And, it probably was, say, in September of 1956. But by September of 1957, it was hardly a badge of honor anymore!
Buick's sales took a pretty big hit in 1957. Part of it was a cooling economy, and increased competition from Chrysler. But, I've also heard there was a bit of a backlash, because the '55-56 models, which were highly popular, weren't all that well built, and the reputation was getting around. I wonder if they were improved for '57? The ones I see at car shows on occasion seem to have a pretty sturdy, beefy build to them. As much as I love my Mopars, I'll say that the '57-58 Buicks, and Oldsmobiles, definitely have a more solid look to them. Of course, there's more to reliability than how solid a car feels.
I don't mind that '57 Buick even though I'm a big fan of being original. That car has one big thing going for it on that front, with an actual Buick engine under the hood with a lot of period pieces installed, which is a big plus over the usual SBC or LS engines you find so often in such cars. They came close on the interior although the houndstooth upholstery is a substitute for the presumably unavailable upholstery Buick installed, but at least it is a decent sub. I don't mind the wheels on this since they seem to go well with the all-black body with all of its chrome trim.
Buick indicated the model year on the grille badge in '56 and '57. Why they thought that was a good idea I do not know. The same with the 3-piece rear window, which I guess Mr. Earl thought was a good idea at the time. But he seemed to be losing his touch in the latter stages of his career as the '58 refresh showed.
I wonder if that 3-piece rear window made the roof/body structure stiffer? I'd imagine that the crease that ran between the windows, and forward across the roof to the front, might have helped some as well.
But, either the backlash against it was severe and it caused GM to react quickly, or perhaps they were planning on dropping it the next year anyway, because for '58 the Buicks and Oldsmobiles went to a 1-piece.
I like the '57 Buicks for the most part, but for some reason, when viewed from dead-on in the front, they look odd to me...I'm sure they're just as wide as anything else that was offered in 1957, but when viewed from the front, they just have a narrow look to me.
Perhaps the chrome around the headlights is throwing it off, too. It makes the headlight itself look bigger to me, which, proportionally, might make the car overall look smaller.
Andre, Corvette did have a 425 HP engine but it was 427 inches in 1966 for sure and maybe 1967. There was a 409-425 in full size cars and was equipped with two 4 's. Corvette had a 396-425 hp in 1965.
I always thought the two bombs on the ends of the bumpers made the '57 look like it was scowling.
I think the placement of the turn signals seems a bit odd, too, almost like an afterthought. But, on the plus side, I have a feeling that location made them more visible from the side, than many cars of that era.
This is parked in front of my neighbor's house right now (pic taken from my living room - didn't want attention) - doesn't belong to the neighbor, rather, it suffered a hiccup and the driver left it there after the hood was up. Tinted windows and big wheels, I wonder if something odd is under the hood:
Boomer looking guy was initially assisted by a similar woman in a Lincoln MKS, so probably not shady. There's some kind of hot rod event in town today, I bet out on the road for that.
Andre, Corvette did have a 425 HP engine but it was 427 inches in 1966 for sure and maybe 1967. There was a 409-425 in full size cars and was equipped with two 4 's. Corvette had a 396-425 hp in 1965.
In 1966 the 427 was 390 or 425 hp. the 390 had 10.25 compression and hydraulic lifters . The 425 hp was the L-72 with 11.0 compression, solid lifter cam and bigger carb. Back in the day no one used the L whatever designation except for L-88.
In 1967 the 390 continued , there was a 400hp, 430hp L-88 and 435 with 3x2 carbs. In total 5 different HP ratings in 66 and 67.
A FB friend of mine posted this pic of Nixon riding up Main St. in Greenville, PA in 1959 in a '59 Buick convertible. The building that is marked "Burns Auto Parts" is now a used-car dealer run by said FB friend.
We lived in a double house on the road leading south from town towards larger Sharon, about 15 miles away. Story was our family sat out on our front porch and watched Nixon's motorcade drive by on the way out of town, but at age one I can't say I remember it, LOL.
Someone on my town's history FB page remarked that schools were let out that day, and that he was at Thiel College in town and got up close to Nixon; enough that when Nixon turned around he stepped on the guy's foot.
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South Bend is celebrating the Avanti's sixtieth anniversary this weekend at Copshaholm, the Oliver mansion next door to the Studebaker National Museum. They will have both the first serial number production Avanti (owned by the LeMay Museum I'm pretty sure) and the last serial number Studebaker Avanti (owned by the Crawford Museum in Cleveland). That's pretty cool. The below car will be on display with others, by its owner. Gotta love the "TAB" cups on display.
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Comments
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It really was like shooting fish in a barrel
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https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1973-chevrolet-monte-carlo-4/
On the road this morning had a little time warp. I noticed at center stage in a little used car lot was a pristine looking K-car, "89" on the windshield, along with "3995" (of course, I thought $4 grand for a K-car, insane!). Then I noticed parked adjacent was a first gen Concorde, then what pulls up behind me but an earlier model Lincoln Mark VIII. soon after a Suzuki Sidekick soft top and a Chevy Celebrity would cross my path. Gotta love living in the west.
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It's weird to think, that the Concorde is probably older now, than that Toys R Us truck was, when the Concorde was new! Even in 1993 that toy truck seemed old to me, yet the Concorde's era doesn't seem all that long ago.
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I've been lucky, in that I've never had a car break down on one of these car show trips, but I guess statistically, it's bound to happen eventually!
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Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
If you're really bored (LOL), here's a link to a car cruise-in FB page that has 451 photos from the car show Saturday:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?vanity=CarCruiseFinder&set=a.1630629490654467
Cool to see 80s stuff really popping up now.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Funny thing happened to me on Friday. Greenville is in a valley, and I sweat driving a Stude down "West Main Hill" but did without incident, and was hungry, and heard that Jules Tavern ("Since 1934") in an old, rather rundown residential neighborhood on the west side of town, has had good food for the past couple or so years. Chicken pie is a thing in that town but restaurants usually only have it on Thursdays. I went to Jules Tavern, parked right in front, and I wasn't in there thirty seconds and I hear, "Hey, who owns that Studebaker?" and I turned around and it was an old classmate of mine. "Billy!" he said. We sat at the bar; I asked the barmaid to ask the kitchen if there were any chicken pie dinners left from the day before and was told there were two left, so I said I'd have one. My classmate insisted on buying my lunch. And so he did.
Probably got ordered by the brass in South Bend to use up some leftover emblems they were sending up.
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I have mixed feelings about the Firesweep, because I look at it as sort of the beginning of the end for DeSoto. They tried moving down a bit into Dodge territory, which to me, cheapened the brand a bit. And then, soon after, DeSoto was gone entirely. Of course, I'm sure that would have happened, anyway, when the '58 recession cratered the market in general, but really zeroed in on the overcrowded mid-priced market.
And, to be fair, DeSoto was sort of being groomed for a 3-tier lineup, anyway. In '55-56, they only had the Firedome and Fireflite (and limited production Adventurer for '56). But, in '55 they had a stripper hardtop coupe called the Firedome Special. In '56, when hardtop sedans were introduced, the Firedome offered a stripper hardtop coupe and hardtop sedan in, ironically, the "Seville" trim level, just as Cadillac was using that name for their upper echelon. So, in my opinion at least, the Firesweep sort of filled in for those cheap Special/Seville models, although it was more full-range, offering a pillared sedan, wagons, and for '58, a convertible.
I wonder how things would have turned out if DeSoto had simply offered the longer, 126" wb model, with a stripped down interior, a bit less trim, and the Dodge engines, rather than trying to cobble together a DeSoto grille, Dodge front clip, and DeSoto body? But, Chrysler ended up shrinking the Windsor for '58, to the 122" wb, so I guess that would've caused a problem.
And then, once the market contracted, the Firesweep soon amounted to the bulk of DeSoto's sales. In a similar vein, the Windsor did the same for Chrysler, and then when the Newport came out and undercut the Windsor, and what little was left of DeSoto for '61, sales took off even further.
Interestingly, for 1959, they went through the effort to use a shortened DeSoto/Chrysler front clip for the Firesweep and Windsor, so the cars started bearing a much stronger resemblance to the bigger models. I guess they would've had to, though, as that wild '59 Dodge front, with the exaggered "brows" over the headlights, would've been really hard to fit a DeSoto or Chrysler grille onto, and probably would have looked horrible, as the Dodge was still more rounded in the '57-58 style, whereas Chryslers and DeSotos were starting to square off a bit in their styling.
I remember Granddad showing me all that stuff, years ago, but I thought it had gotten tossed at some point. But, nope, here it is! One thing I found, of interest, was the purchase agreement for my Dad's '63 Impala SS409. It was actually made out in my Granddad's name, something I never knew. Anyway, its purchase price, on July 15, 1965, was $1,995. $500 down, and $72.50 per month for 24 months.
It also lists the VIN... 31847B117581. I tried to do a VIN decode, but unfortunately in those days, the VIN didn't tell all that much.
"3" means "1963"
I don't know what the "18" stands for. I found "16" for "Impala 6 cyl" and "17" for "Impala V8"
"47' means "2 door sports coupe" (i.e., the hardtop coupe)
"B" means it was built in Baltimore, Hon (a local joke that's probably becoming increasingly outdated)
And the rest is the sequence number.
Too bad it's not like later years, where there was a code in there for the engine.
My Dad said it had a 409, with the 425 hp setup, but years later, a mechanic said that no full-sized Chevy ever came with that engine, that the 425 hp was a Corvette-only engine. But, the '63 sales brochure lists it. You could only get a 3- or 4-speed synchro-mesh with it, as the Powerglide was only offered on the 340 hp version of the 409.
I wonder if there's a way to find out if that car is still around? It'd be pretty cool, if it was!
2021 VW Arteon SEL 4-motion, 2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech
I think it's interesting too, seeing someone commenting on that car, through a modern perspective. Like how the guy mentioned that he loved that three-piece rear window. But, from what I've read, when these cars were new, there was sort of a slur going around. In response to Plymouth's "Suddenly it's 1960!", people were busting on these Buicks, saying "Suddenly it's 1949!" or something like that.
and, where the "1957" badge what, they thought that was really cool. And, it probably was, say, in September of 1956. But by September of 1957, it was hardly a badge of honor anymore!
Buick's sales took a pretty big hit in 1957. Part of it was a cooling economy, and increased competition from Chrysler. But, I've also heard there was a bit of a backlash, because the '55-56 models, which were highly popular, weren't all that well built, and the reputation was getting around. I wonder if they were improved for '57? The ones I see at car shows on occasion seem to have a pretty sturdy, beefy build to them. As much as I love my Mopars, I'll say that the '57-58 Buicks, and Oldsmobiles, definitely have a more solid look to them. Of course, there's more to reliability than how solid a car feels.
Buick indicated the model year on the grille badge in '56 and '57. Why they thought that was a good idea I do not know. The same with the 3-piece rear window, which I guess Mr. Earl thought was a good idea at the time. But he seemed to be losing his touch in the latter stages of his career as the '58 refresh showed.
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But, either the backlash against it was severe and it caused GM to react quickly, or perhaps they were planning on dropping it the next year anyway, because for '58 the Buicks and Oldsmobiles went to a 1-piece.
I like the '57 Buicks for the most part, but for some reason, when viewed from dead-on in the front, they look odd to me...
Perhaps the chrome around the headlights is throwing it off, too. It makes the headlight itself look bigger to me, which, proportionally, might make the car overall look smaller.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
Boomer looking guy was initially assisted by a similar woman in a Lincoln MKS, so probably not shady. There's some kind of hot rod event in town today, I bet out on the road for that.
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In 1967 the 390 continued , there was a 400hp, 430hp L-88 and 435 with 3x2 carbs.
In total 5 different HP ratings in 66 and 67.
We lived in a double house on the road leading south from town towards larger Sharon, about 15 miles away. Story was our family sat out on our front porch and watched Nixon's motorcade drive by on the way out of town, but at age one I can't say I remember it, LOL.
Someone on my town's history FB page remarked that schools were let out that day, and that he was at Thiel College in town and got up close to Nixon; enough that when Nixon turned around he stepped on the guy's foot.
Whenever I saw those two huge pods, all I can think of is a double-E cup or something, LOL.
I think similarly when I see '65 and '66 full-size Dodge instrument panels, and to a lesser extent, same with early-ish 2000's Corollas.