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

explorerx4

If I spent the money on a Wilwood disc brake conversion, I'd want people to see them, too.
Those wheels looked better in person than in the picture.

kyfdx

explorerx4 said:

If I spent the money on a Wilwood disc brake conversion, I'd want people to see them, too.
Those wheels looked better in person than in the picture.

If it has an LS V-8, you’re going to need some upgraded wheels/tires.

texases

True, Coker sells 16" and 17" Rally wheels.

uplanderguy

Seen on FB and taken at a campground this past weekend.

stickguy

That is cool.

explorerx4

Too bad the Corvair doesn't have a white top.

laurasdada

The RV (not the coloring, of course) looks like the Urban Assault Vehicle from "Stripes."

xwesx

Those things are so rare to see still kicking about today.

I saw one in someone's yard in eastern Ohio last month. The whole back half of it had collapsed, and it just looked like a debris pile from about the mid-door back.

texases

Would be interesting to see a 'modern' version, say with the 3.0 L GM turbodiesel, similar torque and hp.

Double the mpgs?

explorerx4

There are plenty of those GM RV's for sale. They have a following.
https://www.gmcmi.com/motorhomes-for-sale/

roadburner

Those GM motor homes were very advanced for their time and their owners are fiercely loyal.

andre1969

About a year or so ago, one of those GMC motorhomes was at the local gas station. The owner let me go inside and check it out. One thing that really impressed me was that, for a relatively low-slung motorhome, it still had pretty good headroom. I had to duck under a/c unit in the roof, but as I recall I would have that issue with just about any motorhome.

I guess being FWD really had its advantages, as they could really lower the frame, as opposed to most motorhomes where the body is basically sitting on top of the ladder frame of a medium-duty truck.
It's a shame they didn't keep the design around longer, but the motorhome market pretty much imploded with the second Arab oil embargo. I'd imagine the Olds 403 going away had something to do with it as well, though. Even though Chevy's 454 was still around, it might not have been cost-effective to work it into the design, of something relatively low-volume. I'm guessing that beefy THM-425 FWD automatic transmission went away after '78 as well, when the Eldorado/Toronado downsized.

stickguy

Lots of room for a battery pack to make that a hybrid too. Also handy to have juice to use when parked.

Sandman6472

We had a '72 Lincoln Continental 2-door, white with a white vinyl top. Talk about a long vehicle, even the two front doors were large & heavy to close. Was great driving vehicle though and it lasted in their garage till 1975. The white vinyl roof got pretty dirty so they had it painted black when I came home from school and it looked like a totally different vehicle.
After many years of Cadillac's and Lincoln's every two years, they switched to Pontiac's for their next three vehicles. A '75 Grand Prix, then a '77 Bonneville Brougham and that awful 1979 Parisienne diesel. Then in the next four years, two more Parisienne's, but they were the downsized ones like the Chevy Caprice. From that point after my dad died, my mom got three identical Mercury Grand Marquis's over the next few years, all white with a blue vinyl top and that ridiculous tire in the back fender. Think they were called the "Presidential" or something like that. Never drove in any of them but did sit in one of them once.

stickguy

saw the Lincoln that moved in recently up the road from me out driving today. Until now just saw the tail end. I think it is a 1970 Continental. 4 door (suicide) and the updated styling that doesn't look like a 60s version. gold with black vinyl roof.

explorerx4

Saw this while walking the dog. I think it's imported.

stickguy

I like it. send it my way if it is a stick shift.

roadburner

explorerx4 said:

Saw this while walking the dog. I think it's imported.

Back in 1980, a Mercury dealer had a new turbo RS on the showroom floor. EVERY option but A/C so I passed. Orange with bright green OEM stripes. What might have been.

explorerx4

Beneath the RS it has the wording Speciale'.

texases

The bubble back rear window didn't do much for me, I'd prefer a Mustang.

andre1969

I didn't care for the bubble back window, but did like the Capri's front-end better than the Mustang's. It seemed a bit more substantial and musclecar-ish than the Mustang's sloped-back prow.

Sandman6472

I just asked Siri to show me a pic of the 1970 Lincoln Continental and it looked almost like our 1972 model. Same size and all that but just looked a bit nicer. As a high school kid, didn't care much for driving such a big vehicle but it was my mom's vehicle so I didn't get to drive it much. Usually had to drive my dad's 1969 Olds Toronado, which I really liked. The premature death of my beloved grandpa during my senior year provided me with a vehicle of my own to drive though. Since my mom had bought her folks the 1967 Olds Cutlass Supreme as a gift & being that my grandma never learned to drive, the car just sat in the garage for a day or two. My dad told my mom that it was silly to just not use it, so it became my daily driver for the rest of senior year.

explorerx4

CT is such a pretty place. Good car story too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyTZn2m3y3Q

andre1969

I actually spotted two different c1972-73 Lincoln Continental sedans, watching some old first-season Barnaby Jones reruns the other day...



I know I've mentioned the second one before, because I remembered thinking that's probably NOT a good personalized license plate to get, even if your name is Beatrice Johnson!

Oh, I also spotted this one, which I genuinely did not know what it was...

I'm sure if I googled around I could find it, but figured it would be more fun to make a guessing game out of it. I have a feeling it's not that difficult though. My first thought is something British, upscale, and from the early 50s?

kyfdx

Pretty sure those are '73s. We had a '72, and it was much less heavy in the front end treatment.

andre1969

1973 would make sense, since these episodes were aired in early '73, and they most likely would've used brand-new cars.

Comparing '72-73 Lincoln pics, it looks to me like the grille and headlight covers are the same, but for '73 they jutted the bumper out further, extended the wrap-around part on the sides, and most likely made those bumper guards standard...
Here's a '72, for comparison, with the bumper being much better integrated into the design of the car...From the angles I caught the Barnaby Jones cars in, the bumper protrusion wasn't as noticeable, but you sure can see it from a side shot!

ab348

Ford designed their impact bumpers worse than the other manufacturers in those years.

andre1969

ab348 said:

Ford designed their impact bumpers worse than the other manufacturers in those years.

I think the one that might bother me the most is the front bumper on the '77-79 T-bird/LTD-II/Cougar. It not only juts out way too far, but it doesn't seem to line up with the contours of the front of the car. The peak of the grille is more exaggerated than the peak of the bumper.

I think Ford's fetish for those long, bladed fenders and protruding grilles, coupled with headlights the tended to be inset, made it harder to make those bumpers look good.

While Mopar messed around with those bladed front fenders as well, and so did the Eldorado and Toronado, the fenders didn't peak out as far ahead of the headlights. Actually, considering how cash-strapped Chrysler was becoming by then, I'm impressed at how well they did integrate some of their bumpers. In 1973, they got by with just putting those big rubber blocks on the bumpers, but some cars, like the 1974 C-bodies, did a pretty good job of working those bulky bumpers into the design.

fintail

Mystery British car really has the look of an Austin A40/Devon, but seems bigger. @magnette will know.

Barnaby Jones must have been sponsored by Ford.

andre1969

fintail said:

Mystery British car really has the look of an Austin A40/Devon, but seems bigger. @magnette will know.

Barnaby Jones must have been sponsored by Ford.

Something like this? I could see that. The car looks a lot stubbier than I imagined it would be, but you can't really pick up on that from the straight-on shot that I posted.

And yeah, Barnaby Jones, which was a spin-off of "Cannon", was sponsored by Ford. Although, it was amusing...in the episode that had the green Lincoln, mention was made about a rock star who blew through all his money, and one of the examples was "buying a $24,000 Maserati for a DJ!" Of course, in 1973 $24,000 was a lot of money. How time flies!

Barnaby Jones got a new LTD coupe every year, although oddly for the last season when he got a Panther, it was one of the cheaper models with the single headlights. Lee Meriweather, who played his daughter in law and secretary, had a new red Pinto every year. Some years, it had a viny roof and a sunroof, which I imagine was pretty rare, for a Pinto.

ab348

Barnaby Jones was one of many Quinn Martin productions, along with shows like the original version of “The F.B.I”, “Cannon”, “The Streets of San Francisco”, and many others. Martin had a relationship with Iacocca, perhaps through Iacocca’s buddy Bill Fugazy, who did promo work for Ford that included product placement in Hollywood productions. I think Lido talked about how that occurred in his first book but I don’t have it handy. Fugazy had all sorts of connections with people in Hollywood and New York, some savoury, some less so.

roadburner

Yesterday we went to the wedding of a friend’s daughter. The venue had originally been a new car dealership. I thought @andre1969 would find the decor particularly interesting.

Sandman6472

Our white over white '72 coupe looked just like those earlier pics. Just remember it being quite large to drive. A real land yacht! But a super nice vehicle. Not sure what my folks were thinking in having so many 2-door vehicles in a row, my dad never had a 4-door sedan as his daily driver ever.

sda

Dad always preferred a 2 door. Even his 71 Catalina company car which he got to pick out was a 2dr. His boss was not pleased with that selection. His 73 Catalina company car was a 4dr sedan. His boss complained about that one as well as it had an AM/FM stereo, quite expensive then, and not the cheaper AM radio.

uplanderguy

Wife and I just got back from an extended weekend trip to visit daughter in Seattle. She took us to the LeMay Museum in Tacoma, which was a 'wow' for sure.

As fintail points out, not unusual to see domestic iron from the nineties still being used as dailies. I was behind an Intrigue which looked like it could've been a three-or-four-year-old car. I was reminded what a nice size, and pleasant overall shape and styling those were.

Saw a '73 or '74 F-150 with 'Ranger' trim, somewhat flatter paint but otherwise looking solid and original. I never see those back here.

I did bring Covid back with me. Somehow I've avoided it until now. I'm sure it was caught on the plane or in the airports--O'Hare and Sea-Tac were unbelievably crowded. From stepping at the end of the line to getting through security at Sea-Tac was one hour and 37 minutes. I know there are ways around that, now, but that's my first flight since 2019.

sda

@uplanderguy Feel better soon. Hopefully it is just a minor case.

imidazol97

Get well

uplanderguy said:

I did bring Covid back with me. Somehow I've avoided it until now. I'm sure it was caught on the plane or in the airports--O'Hare and Sea-Tac were unbelievably crowded. From stepping at the end of the line to getting through security at Sea-Tac was one hour and 37 minutes. I know there are ways around that, now, but that's my first flight since 2019.

Get well soon. I am curious what your symptoms are.

I had a mild head cold a few weeks back with a raging sore throat for 3 days. Using old covid tests one showed positive and two showed negative. Since the positive one came from some of the later tests that had a high rate of false positives, I don't trust any of them. No body aches like flu. I wondered if it was RSV. Nurse who lives next door says at the major emergency room in the main hospital they have been getting people with covid or rsv or flu for months now. We're surrounded by 3 nurses in homes
around us.

ab348

My older brother had RSV at the start of the year. Put him in hospital. No symptoms like yours, he just couldn't breathe. It was scary. Somehow he got through it.

uplanderguy

I had to look up RSV.

My symptoms are like a bad cold--first a phlegm-y cough, nasal congestion, side ache from coughing, chills.

Wife had me take a Covid test when we got home last night. It was an out-of-date test (expiring Feb. '23) but it was clearly a positive test result, a first for me. Went to CVS for another test today and it was positive. I got no suggestions other than lay low for five days, and wear a mask for ten days total.

For the past couple days I've been taking NyQuil at night and DayQuil during the day. They help.

texases

Those Covid tests might not have been expired, they've extended the dates on most of them:
https://fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-covid-19-and-medical-devices/home-otc-covid-19-diagnostic-tests#list

fintail

uplanderguy said:

Wife and I just got back from an extended weekend trip to visit daughter in Seattle. She took us to the LeMay Museum in Tacoma, which was a 'wow' for sure.

As fintail points out, not unusual to see domestic iron from the nineties still being used as dailies. I was behind an Intrigue which looked like it could've been a three-or-four-year-old car. I was reminded what a nice size, and pleasant overall shape and styling those were.

Saw a '73 or '74 F-150 with 'Ranger' trim, somewhat flatter paint but otherwise looking solid and original. I never see those back here.

I did bring Covid back with me. Somehow I've avoided it until now. I'm sure it was caught on the plane or in the airports--O'Hare and Sea-Tac were unbelievably crowded. From stepping at the end of the line to getting through security at Sea-Tac was one hour and 37 minutes. I know there are ways around that, now, but that's my first flight since 2019.

You'll even see 80s material on the road if you look long enough. Today I saw a G body Cutlass sedan, and I went into the office and saw that a co-worker drove her boyfriend's clean 78 squarebody Chevy 4x4 to work (as he used her more fuel efficient car for a trip.

LeMay is something.

I've heard that Mondays and Tuesdays are gongshow days at Seatac. I read about 2+ hour waits Monday morning. Regarding covid, a few days ago I thought I had a familiar symptom too (sensitive scalp, weird, but I had it with my first two bouts). It seems to have mostly faded away now.

stickguy

1.5-2 hours? Not sure I could make it that long!

maybe I got lucky but my last 2 trips for work (Albany, a small airport, to DFW, not a small airport) the TSA lines went very quick on both ends. Though I do have pre-check, which IMO is an absolute must have if you fly. At least one of the times the regular lanes were a bit longer, but still nothing close to that.

only good thing is seeing all the "wait until the last-minute arrivers" in a panic. While us "get there 3 hours early just in case" types are relaxing.

fintail

stickguy said:

1.5-2 hours? Not sure I could make it that long!

maybe I got lucky but my last 2 trips for work (Albany, a small airport, to DFW, not a small airport) the TSA lines went very quick on both ends. Though I do have pre-check, which IMO is an absolute must have if you fly. At least one of the times the regular lanes were a bit longer, but still nothing close to that.

only good thing is seeing all the "wait until the last-minute arrivers" in a panic. While us "get there 3 hours early just in case" types are relaxing.

I have precheck too, although I don't fly more than a few round trips a year. It's worth the price, I don't recall any waits more than several minutes.

Lately in flying to SEA from GEG at Christmas, I just book first class - it's often only like $40 extra, but I have a checked bag which is usually $30, so it isn't a bad deal even for a short flight.

stickguy

even better than a quicker line, is being able to keep your shoes on!

tjc78

@ab348 said:
My older brother had RSV at the start of the year. Put him in hospital. No symptoms like yours, he just couldn't breathe. It was scary. Somehow he got through it.

My daughter had that as an infant. It was scary. Almost a week in the hospital. They had to literally bang on her back with a rubber piece to help break up the mucus so she could breathe.

uplanderguy

I saw three or four sixties Volvos--don't know the model, but they were rounded bodies, with round wheel openings. In fact, three were parked outside a place, that I'll assume was a repair or restoration shop. Another was driving. My daughter said lots of Scandinavians settled in that area, which might partly explain the Volvos.

ab348

stickguy said:

even better than a quicker line, is being able to keep your shoes on!

Years ago ('05 maybe?) I had flown to Seattle but on the return trip a week later was stunned to be ordered to remove my shoes at security. First time I experienced that. Awful.

uplanderguy

Had to take my shoes off both at Cleveland and Sea-Tac this past weekend. Belt, too.

uplanderguy

Ford designed their impact bumpers worse than the other manufacturers in those years.

The Maverick and Comet wore them terribly.

That said, although I'm one of the few who likes the '73 Chevelle, the front bumper used on Deluxe and Malibu models truly looks like a railroad tie tacked on. Even worse first half of model year, when filler panel between bumper and grille was silver on all colors. Mid-year, when this piece was made body-color, it looked a good bit better overall IMHO.

Michaell

uplanderguy said:

Had to take my shoes off both at Cleveland and Sea-Tac this past weekend. Belt, too.

Best $85 I spent was on TSAPre, even though I'm only flying once or twice a year now. I've also learned to wear athletic clothes when I fly so I don't have a belt to remove.