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

uplanderguy

Agree totally on their lame engine choices. Why should a full-size, or even a RWD mid-size, Chevy have the availability of significantly more horsepower than a full-size Cadillac had?

MHO only, although Lincoln moved 'American luxury' forward with the Mark VII, I liked the old-skool luxury inside, and exterior styling, of Cadillacs of that time better although there is no BS'ing the lousy engine choices.

andre1969

And to add insult to injury, Buick offered the 231 turbo in the Riviera, from 1979-85. I don't know how popular it was, but apparently, it was worthwhile to keep it for the entire run of that generation E-body

It wasn't as powerful as the more famous Regal T-type/Grand National version, but it was still good for 180-200 hp I believe, depending on the year.

I always thought Cadillac should have just kept that 368 V8 around, minus the V8-6-4, perhaps, and just say, CAFE fines be damned! Or, perhaps develop a 4-speed overdrive that was sturdy enough to handle it. IIRC, Cadillac used the beefy THM400 transmission with the 368. I have a feeling the THM200-R4 would not have been strong enough, although in later years that unit was beefed up enough to handle the likes of the Grand National, Monte Carlo SS, and the B-body wagons equipped with the Olds 307. There was also the THM700-R4, which I believe was based on the old THM350. It used a Chevy-only bolt pattern, so it wouldn't mate up to B-O-P or Cadillac engines, but I guess it wouldn't have been too hard to modify it. After all, they did with the THM200.

But yeah, an Eldorado Touring Coupe with the Grand National's engine would've been pretty wild!

fintail

andre1969 said:

A few years ago, Consumer Guide did a "10 slowest cars (that they tested) from 1981." Here's the link...
https://blog.consumerguide.com/the-10-slowest-cars-of-1981/

They tested a Fleetwood with the 4.1, and got 0-60 in 22.6 seconds. Interestingly, they also tested an Electra and it was "only" 18.3 seconds.

Take some of those specs they include with the articles with a grain of salt, though. For instance, these cars used a 4-speed automatic, not a 3-speed. At least, according to the EPA. And there's no way in hell that they'd use a 2.41:1 with an engine that weak, in a car of that heft. I also question whether the Fleetwood Brougham really weighed 4250lb as tested. I just checked my auto encyclopedia, and 4250 is the weight they list for it. BUT the 368 was standard. I think the writer just quoted one of their auto encyclopedias when he got that GVWR. As for that 3-speed/2.41:1 axle, that was probably for the V8-6-4.

Interestingly, the DeVille averaged 19.0 mpg, vs 17.2 for the Electra. That seems like a bit of a disparity to me, but I don't know how consistent Consumer Guide was, in their fuel economy testing, like if they'd use the same route/course/driving style, etc.

I have a 1985 Consumer Guide that has a test of a Fleetwood Brougham with the 4.1/249 V8, and by then they got 0-60 down to about 14.8 seconds. But, 14.8 is also the fuel economy they got! FWIW, this particular example they tested was 4,034 lb. It used a 4-speed automatic and 3.42:1 axle.

I've had that Consumer Guide since it was new, and as a kid used to think it was sad, how slow that little 249 was. But after seeing some of these slower tests, it gives me a new respect for that engine!

I have the 1981 Consumer Guide car book somewhere - well, in pieces, as the binding perished and it broke apart. When a Dasher diesel is dusting your gasoline luxury car, you know you have a problem. Go with the 8-6-4, worth the risk.

IIRC in that book, the only diesel MB they tested was a 300CD. That was the first year for it being a turbodiesel (prior MB turbodiesel was the 300SD, a more expensive car), and performance was adequate, especially for the era.

andre1969

Yeah, my 1985 car book is getting pretty ratty, too. At one point I taped up the binder, but it came apart again. It tested two Benzes, a 190E and a 300D. The 190E was a 5-speed stick, and did 0-10 in 11.0 seconds. The 300D was an automatic, but still good for 0-60 in 12.1.

They seemed to like the 190E a lot, and called it "Truly a smaller Mercedes, and not an imitation of the real thing". I guess that was a bit of a jab at cars like the Cimarron, Versailles, etc...cars that might have put on luxury pretenses, but were based on much more humble designs. Their main gripe was the price, where they said you could buy two Accords for the price of this one...although obviously the Mercedes was higher quality. There was no mention of its MSRP though.

With the 300D, they said that as good as it was, they just couldn't justify paying "Well over $30,000" for it.

fintail

I need to seek out some of those books, they are fun reading.

In 1985, a 190E would have been a 2.3 4 cylinder, those aren't bad numbers for such an engine in that era. A 190E was probably around 25K then. 1985 was the final year of the W123 300D, by then nearly a 10 year old design and not substantially revised (aside from engines) since production started in 1976, maybe a harder sell at the end. 1986 was the first year of the W124, which was a very modern E-class for the time, and when sales volume of the midrange car went from diesel to gas. The 3.0 I6 in the W124 300E should have been good for a sub-10 second 0-60, that's around the time performance everywhere started picking up again,

Speaking of Versailles, they are a guilty pleasure. I've seen a few and the interiors are pretty rich when they have leather.

xwesx

andre1969 said:

The 190E was a 5-speed stick, and did 0-10 in 11.0 seconds.

Eleven seconds! That thing would be a struggle to even get out of the driveway!

ab348

Speaking of things in print, last week I got my latest issue of Hemmings Classic Car in the mail. It has a new look which I guess is more hip but I find it harder to read and it isn’t as eye-catching to me. But this issue spends a whole bunch of space on a pretty fringe topic - something called “gow jobs”, a term I’d never heard of before. I’m not sure they even know what it is, but after the cover story about a fellow and his pair of such vehicles, which was very baffling and didn’t explain it either, I was despairing that the new editor had already run the magazine into the ditch. When I got closer to the back of the issue, there was another long piece about them. At least this one tried to define them, but it didn’t do that very well either.

Reading that second piece I thought it meant taking a Model T, stripping most of the original stuff away, then hopping it up with a later engine from something a bit later like a Model A or a flathead V-8 engine, plus a later transmission, rear end and brakes, and then hooning around in that. But then the article strayed away from that and got into other makes too and even motorcycles so I’m still unsure exactly what it means. I gave up reading when the author (David Conwill) started going on about swapping in various 1930/40s/50s pieces into one of the things, as if you could go to a wrecking yard and find them. Cripes! What is the expected audience for something like this? Feels very hipster-ish. Not interested, thanks.

texases

Here's more on 'gow jobs'/speedsters, sounds like 'gow jobs' was a distant reference to illegal drugs:
https://www.classicspeedsters.com/blog/2020/1/29/cutdowns-revisited-gow-jobs-and-homebuilt-speedsters

texases

Saw a '65 T Bird on the way to work, looked in good shape, top down, enjoying our short spring weather.

ab348

Thanks, @texases , that piece did a far better job explaining it than the 15 or so pages the magazine burned on it. Still not of interest to me but at least I know more after reading your link.

fintail

ab348 said:

Thanks, @texases , that piece did a far better job explaining it than the 15 or so pages the magazine burned on it. Still not of interest to me but at least I know more after reading your link.

I like brass era material, so those are cool to me in their own way, but I can definitely imagine a hipster vibe going along with them in 2023. Be sure to add a twirl to the handlebar mustache

stickguy

a weird one today. at the gas pump in front of me, an early looking Chevy squarebody PU. My favorite spec, a short bed step side. Not sure if C or K but I think looking at it, a C. had dual center exhaust with large pipes and made a healthy rumble when the owner started it up.

the weird part was the paint and design. Had all kinds of stars and figures painted on it. along with some slogans, greatful dead stickers, stuff like that. so a definite hippie/dead head type vibe. Not that common to see these days, but somewhat odd to see on a hopped up Chevy pickup instead of a VW van!

uplanderguy

Not the typical sighting, but I've been volunteering at my old hometown's Historical Society lately. They have a 1913 Empire Touring Car that was built in the town. The company was headquartered in Indianapolis but contracted out some construction to Greenville Steel Car Co. then. The company bought the car in 1966 in SW OH and had it restored at a Rolls restoration shop in Chardon, OH, near Cleveland, that I'm told is still there under a different name. I've seen the car a number of times over the years as when the company left town, it was sold to the Historical Society for $25K and there was a big fund-raising drive. It runs and a couple fellows have the front end torn apart now to try and fix a shimmy it has.

Anyway, yesterday I was reading the stacks of paperwork they have on the car and two things really wowed me.

One, there was a letter from Bill Harrah to Greenville Steel Car Co. about the car, as he also owned an Empire car. Funny to read, "If I am in your area I would like to stop in and see the car". Hard to imagine he'd be travelling from Reno to Greenville, PA but cool I thought.

Second, there was correspondence from Beverly Rae Kimes, late well-known automotive historian who has done the definitive history of Packard. She was then editor of Automobile Quarterly and was asking to come to Greenville to take photos of the car, and they did. They loaned me the book the article was in and there's that Empire, in front of Steel Car's office building which was about a block-and-a-half from our house. I'll post that pic here in a bit.

uplanderguy

Here's the car in the 1974 Automobile Quarterly book:

Here is a pic they gave me of the car in 2007 on Main St. The fellow on the left is my friend who with his parents owned and operated the Studebaker-Packard-MB-Simca-Sunbeam dealership in town for over forty years.

uplanderguy

BTW, "Greenville Steel Car Co." built railroad cars for decades at their plant, right in the middle of town, along the Chicago-to-NYC mainline of the Erie Lackawanna railroad.

Two years after NAFTA passed, they left Greenville and moved to Mexico. By that time they were known as Trinity Industries.

uplanderguy

I was behind a "Carnival" today. One of the dumbest model names ever IMHO, right up there with Celebrity, Lumina, and Camry. Can a "Circus" be far behind?!

tjc78

@uplanderguy said:
I was behind a "Carnival" today. One of the dumbest model names ever IMHO, right up there with Celebrity, Lumina, and Camry. Can a "Circus" be far behind?!

I’d rather have Carnival than any of the other dumb letter combinations out there…

Hyundai Carnival is better than MV380 or something

uplanderguy

I can never remember those names with letters and numbers.

With 'Carnival', all I think about is that calliope music with someone saying "Step right up!".

Michaell

Living in the west, I'm starting to get annoyed with all the western themed model names:

Taos
Yukon
Santa Fe
Tucson

Waiting for the Belchfire Tombstone to be released

Back in the 70's, "Cheyenne" was a trim level for Chevrolet pickups.

uplanderguy

And Laramie was a Dodge truck trim level I'm pretty sure.

I gotta say, I liked 'Cheyenne' as a model name back then--way better than 'Silverado', which when I first heard it I wondered if they were trying to crib a bit off of 'Eldorado'.

uplanderguy

An acquaintance who was into V8 Packards used to say they should've called their lowest-priced Clipper Deluxe, the "Plebian", to bookend "Patrician".

ab348

Geez, man. A lot of car models are named after famous/glamorous locations. BelAir, Biscayne, Catalina, Bonneville, Malibu, Capri… nothing new under the sun.

imidazol97

ab348 said:

Geez, man. A lot of car models are named after famous/glamorous locations. BelAir, Biscayne, Catalina, Bonneville, Malibu, Capri… nothing new under the sun.

And the Cruze must be named after Santa Cruze.

kyfdx

A friend's father-in-law had a Volvo DL. He always told him it stood for De Lowest trim level.

fintail

ab348 said:

Geez, man. A lot of car models are named after famous/glamorous locations. BelAir, Biscayne, Catalina, Bonneville, Malibu, Capri… nothing new under the sun.

You can get a Tacoma truck with Yakima accessories if you want names of real garden spots.

roadburner

fintail said:

ab348 said:

Geez, man. A lot of car models are named after famous/glamorous locations. BelAir, Biscayne, Catalina, Bonneville, Malibu, Capri… nothing new under the sun.

You can get a Tacoma truck with Yakima accessories if you want names of real garden spots.

One BMW was called the Bavaria- but only in the US. The Lancia Monte Carlo was renamed the Scorpion in the US.

kyfdx

Yesterday, on I-75..

Early Celica coupe (small bumpers. '73?) being towed on a dolly behind a U-Haul truck. Rear wheels down.

andre1969

I've always wondered...where exactly is the Biscayne at, that the Chevy Biscayne was named after? My mom and stepdad have a house in Florida, in some area place called Biscayne Heights. But I'm sure that's not it!
Biscayne Bay, Florida, perhaps? That's near Miami, and was perhaps considered exotic back then? I guess "Delray" would be Delray Beach, Florida? Wikipedia says the Delray neighborhood in Detroit.

**Edit: Wikipedia says the Biscayne was, indeed, named after Biscayne Bay.

stickguy

@kyfdx said:
Yesterday, on I-75..

Early Celica coupe (small bumpers. '73?) being towed on a dolly behind a U-Haul truck. Rear wheels down.

Sarah N tuned on YouTube is restoring one of those celicas and swapping in a Toyota V8. Should be fun when complete.

uplanderguy

Not a car name but I laugh every time I hear "Del Boca Vista", so totally believable as one of those places in FL.

andre1969

Here's something kinda cool, I ran across on Facebook. An El Camino with an '81 LeMans front end.I always thought it was a bit of a shame Pontiac didn't go with this look on the LeMans from the start, in '78. It looks great on the coupe/wagons, but maybe it would be a bit awkward on the 4-door sedan. It was a bit clashy on the '81 sedan, a bit too sporty for the formal roof. But, to me it was just odd enough that I liked it.

Or, if nothing else, that front-end would have looked neat on the GMC Caballero. It would have been a good way to differentiate it, versus just slapping a GMC badge on an '82-83 Maliibu front.

uplanderguy

That would've been a nice way to differentiate the Caballero.

That reminds me, I'm sure there are folks out there who think those are higher-quality than the El Camino!

uplanderguy

Came up in my FB memories today, from four years ago.

I am still smitten with the purity of line, and color.

ab348

andre1969 said:

Here's something kinda cool, I ran across on Facebook. An El Camino with an '81 LeMans front end.

The real question is whether or not it has the Pontiac dashboard from those years.

As you mention, I like that front end on the 2-doors and it looks good on this too, but thought it didn't work so well on the sedan.

andre1969

Yeah, I was thinking about that, too. It would be really cool if it had the LeMans/Grand Prix dash, and door panels/seats from either of those two. One thing I just thought of...even though it didn't have a back seat, the El Camino still used the front seat from a coupe, rather than a sedan, right? IIRC, the spare was stored behind the seat on one side, and there might have been a bit of storage space on the other side?

andre1969

There is something about the '65 Impala that seems just about "perfect" to my eye. About the only thing I could find to nitpick is the taillights. And it's not that I even mind them, but I think the taillights are the one area where the '66 improved upon the '65.

And, whether it's a 4-door sedan, 4-door hardtop, coupe, convertible, or wagon, or even a low-rent Biscayne 2-door, it seems like the stylists took care to make sure every body style looked good.

sda

On my way to work, a red, very nice 87 Reanult Alliance GTA convertible, top down, driver driving briskly enjoying the morning. I haven't seen one of those in ages and brought back fun memories of my 85 convertible. The GTA had a stiffer suspension and 2 liter instead of the 1.7 that was in the 85.

uplanderguy

Never drove a convert, but I often got rental sedans and hatches (the latter being the 'Encore').

uplanderguy

RE.: The '65 Chevy--I personally like the 'bullet' taillights, used on big Chevys since '58 with the exception of one year, the '59.

I like how the body sides are so clean; no need to put a huge thing like the Buicks had on the front fenders; no need for side exhausts like the Starfire; no huge emblem like the Bonneville's 'spaceship'. That said, the instrument panel is just okay to me. As discussed here, the Pontiac panel was the best of the divisions that year, when it had the wood inlays. I'll admit I wasn't a fan of the black crinkle inlays of all sub-Grand Prix-and-Bonneville models.

'65 is a domestic high point for styling IMHO; across all car companies. I like the big Fords, and the Chrysler models (I'll take a 300-L) were elegant I think. When I think about it, all of the Big Three's full-size cars were all-new that year (except for Continental and Imperial I guess).

REVISION: I see only the Wildcats had that big 'thing' on the front fenders. Others had the mock portholes, traditional for Buick of course and less-egregious IMHO. Later I did think it was interesting that when the Centurion was introduced, it didn't have portholes and the nameplate was smaller and moved down lower on the body, both of which I liked.

andre1969

At least that thing on the Wildcat is behind the wheel opening, rather than in front...I know how much you love that, Uplander!

uplanderguy

True, it's not an ice tray in front of the wheel opening!

uplanderguy

'71 Cadillac on BaT. Nice, not perfect. Yes, enormous, but I do remember the first one I saw in the flesh, it struck me as so much more modern-looking than the '70, but with traditional Caddy cues.

I like the nameplates on the front fenders, a '71-only thing, and I always liked the brushed metal appliques inside deVilles that year, one-year only. In fact, I'm pretty sure those didn't even last the whole model year, as I seem to remember seeing fake wood there in later ones.

I gotta say, in all the super-poofy interiors since, that deVille seating is nice, tasteful, but doesn't bowl one over.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1971-cadillac-deville-2/

fintail

A friend spotted this crazy clean looking survivor street parked in Everett WA:

uplanderguy

Very nice....but wrong wheel covers, dammit! Those are from the '78 Impala.

With the '77's, Caprice Classic wagons finally had Caprice interiors, and could be had as 'Estate' or not. About time.

I'd put the Sport Wheel Covers on this car, which I like better than any of the wire wheel covers which came later available on these cars.

In our town, I distinctly remember a black '77 Caprice Classic wagon, not an Estate, red all-vinyl interior, with red factory pinstripe that went across the upper part of the tailgate too. Even my Dad would say, "Boy, that's a nice-looking wagon".

xwesx

I'm pretty sure one of those was required fare for every family with three or more children at one point. Except mine. We bucked the trend and had a Subaru GL wagon. Brown, of course!

explorerx4

Pretty nice looking wagon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yc2qQfiuMJw

uplanderguy

Nice '78 Cutlass Salon Brougham coupe, since we were recently talking about these. This car showed up on my FB feed today.

Nice interior too, but classic example of (I believe) the customer and even the salesman not knowing/remembering that the console was an option separate from bucket seats. Hard for me to believe that someone deliberately would choose buckets with a column shift. I see this semi-regularly across the various GM divisions.

Still, nice car that I like better now than I did when new.

I'm curious how trunk space compared between the slantbacks and the Supreme. Couldn't find a brochure online to compare dimensions.

uplanderguy

I'm really enjoying Bring A Trailer lately. Seems like the nicest, most-authentic cars are there, with the best presentation, and often bringing the best money.

While I can't say I'm necessarily smitten with this car, I appreciate original or authentic, and oddball, stuff and while I knew they made a full-size Olds wagon in '64, I don't believe I've ever seen an actual one. I remember quite a few Chevy and Pontiac full-size '64 wagons. They all had the Ionia-built body. Funny to see that on the door sills of this car as opposed to the 'Body By Fisher' emblems.

Someone posted underneath that this car doesn't have original/authentic upholstery, but I don't know these cars enough to comment. Someone mentioned the 'Slim Jim' trans as being a potential sticking point, but other(s) say, not really.

Bid to $10K so far, with a day to go.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1964-oldsmobile-fiesta-station-wagon/<img src=

sda

That is a nice wagon and fully optioned. I think the only thing it lacks is an am/fm radio and cruise, perhaps tilt and power locks if they were available in 64.

tjc78

I like that wagon. Looks to have the same speed alert that many Buicks of the era had. I thought that was only a Buick thing.