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

lemko

...a 1950 Pontiac Catalina and a 1946 Ford, both slightly hot rodded.

Mr_Shiftright

Somebody hot rodded a '50 Pontiac? That is very weird.

andys120

Somebody hot rodded a '50 Pontiac? That is very weird

No it's not. Way back in the late 50s a buddy of mine had a '52 Pontiac coupe (same body style)
with a Flathead Ford V8 in it IIRC. It was known as the "Rolling Cherry" from it's bright red paint job.

I can't imagine anything from the late 40s and early 50s that wasn't rodded up by someone. I saw a souped up Lincoln Zephyr convertible in
Hemmings recently.

Mr_Shiftright

Such a heavy dowdy car. It's an old lady/old man car. There are so many better choices. But sure, somebody somewhere has even rodded a hearse...

andre1969

an old pic that my Dad took back in either the really late 60's or really early 70's of a '55-56 Pontiac that one of his buddies had. It's been ages since I've seen that pic, but IIRC it was a 2-door sedan, so most likely a Chieftain, and I think it was a dark bluish-green that was fairly common back then.

It was rodded. For some reason, for awhile around that time it was popular to yank the independent front suspension off of a car and put a solid front axle on instead. Don't ask me why. Anyway, this car sat up high enough that it looked like it would be a better off-roader than most modern SUVs! And it had a bunch of cartoon cars painted on the side. "Kills", like the old fighter pilots used to do back in WWII, da big one, and other wars, I'm sure.

andre1969

I thought it was popular to rod them ever since the 60's, when they became popular among the surfer crowd! An early 50's Pontiac would be cool to rod, simply because it IS a sleeper! And so unexpected. Sometimes those types of cars are the best, the ones you least expect it from. Okay, time to get back to work putting the Hemi in my '79 NYer :-)

andys120

My radio station used to have a '76 Caddy hearse with custom paint, alloy wheels, mega-sound system and flashing light show as a promotional vehicle. We called it The Yellow Sumarine. It was mechanically stock (500CID) so technically not "rodded".

A college buddy used a stock '55 or '56 Caddy hearse to cart around his Triumph Bonneville 650. We may have had a keg party or two in back. :-)

---
I think Shifty's forgotten that there was a time when guys on a low budget had only heavy, frumpy leftovers from the 40s and early 50s to choose from if they wanted to rod something up.

Ford Anglias and Willys sedans were popular because they were light so they had some incredible motors put into 'em.

andre1969

once you start getting into really powerful, torquey engines, to do it right don't you have to beef up the frame/structure? A car that's heavier and beefier to begin with could actually end up being lighter overall than one that was fragile, and had to have extra reinforcements haphazardly thrown on here and there.

Besides, an early-mid 50's Pontiac was still on the GM "A" body, same as a Chevrolet, although longer. It wasn't THAT much heavier, and with the earlier models a lot of that extra bulk was probably in the straight-eight engine. Now if it were a Buick Special or Olds 88 on the heavier, sturdier "B" body, that might make for a bit more of a porker.

andys120

I got a good look at a 1950 Chevy Deluxe HT coupe
black over pale yellow with two shades of brown upholstery. A nice looking car but hardly perfect with rust flecks showing in a few places. Garage owner told me it just got a new Stovebolt 6.

License plate: SPLIT (they still had two piece windshields).

andre1969

wasn't 1950 the first year that Chevy got a hardtop coupe?

andys120

wasn't 1950 the first year that Chevy got a hardtop coupe?


Most likely, IIRC the '49 Chebby 2-doors weren't really coupes but fastback sedans.

Mr_Shiftright

Yes, 1950. It was called a BelAir coupe.

andre1969

that when hardtops came out they were actually referred to as "hardtop convertibles", even though the top didn't retract. The reason they called them that at first was because they did simulate, to an extent, the look of a convertible with the top up, and had no B-pillar.

I think some of the very first "hardtop convertibles" WERE just convertibles with fixed roofs welded on. Chrysler made a handful of them from 1946-1948, and that's all they were. I'm sure the phrase "hardtop convertible" would confuse a lot of people today. I'm surprised it didn't confuse more of them back in the old days!

andys120

Well this particular car said simply "Deluxe" not "BelAir".

The Hardtop convertible theme was really strong in GMs of the early 60s which had simulated convertible bows in the HTs that were offered as alternatives to the airy bubble top HTs from '62
to '64.

andre1969

but if you to www.ebay.com and paste 4538082405 into its search, it'll pull up a '61 Catalina hardtop coupe. I've always liked these alot. Any idea what the going rate would be for this one? Was it the Catalina/Grand Prix that had the "Slim-Jim" automatic, while the Star Chief/Bonneville used the older, better-built 4-speed Hydramatic?

andre1969

I think when it first came out, "Bel Air" just referred to the hardtop body style, but wasn't just a separate series. So the 1950 Chevy hardtop might have been technically a DeLuxe Bel Air? Olds did this with the Holiday nameplate, and Buick did it with the Riviera nameplate. I think Pontiac did it with "Catalina" for awhile, too.

For example, there wasn't a 1953 Pontiac Catalina or Buick Riviera per se, but there was a 1953 Pontiac Star Chief Catalina, or a Buick Century Riviera. Or something like that...

andre1969

I have to stop looking at eBay! I found something else I like.

Here's a pic of it...



and it's item #4539532356

Cincinnati's only about 8 hours away from me... :-) I wonder if my pickup would be strong enough to haul this thing...

seminole_kev

Andre, you frighten me sometimes!

andre1969

I even frighten myself! For some reason I've always liked the '76-77 LeMans, although truthfully I like the base model better, because it has a cleaner, more aggressive grille. And was less likely to have the landau roof. Some of them had the louvered quarter windows in back, which were cool in a 70's sort of way.

I'm actually tempted by this thing, although it does have 170,000 miles on it. The 350's been rebuilt though, and the tranny has a shift kit in it.

kyfdx

The louvered window model was called the Grand Am...

I had a neighbor with one of them... We thought that was very cool, at the time..

andre1969

Grand Ams were cool. They offered the louvered rear window in the regular LeMans too, though. Maybe they got rid of it after '75, though? My Mom had a '75 LeMans, just the base sport coupe, that had the big triangular windows in back. By '76-77 though, it seems like most of the LeMans coupes just had the little opera window. There was the '77 1/2 Can Am, though, which had the louvered window, kinda like the '73-75 Grand Am.

andre1969

now I REALLY have to stay off eBay! I just found this:



With the exception of the '69-73 Imperial, the big '69 Dodge is probably my favorite of the "fuselage" styled Chryslers, mainly because it did a better job than the rest at hiding it's "fatness"! I think it might be a combination of the bulky front-end, large rear wheel cutout, and the lower two-toning that help make it look less chunky than something like a '69 Plymouth or Chrysler.

fintail

I like those 61 Pontiacs like that bubbletop on ebay. Nice looking big car. I can tolerate the fuselage cars...not so much that 70s Pontiac. The front ends of those make me think of Smokey and the Bandit.

Over the weekend I watched bits of the old movie "CoupeDeville", about a trio of brothers who drive a 54 Caddy convert to Florida for their father, in 1963. The mother in the movie had a 62 Olds hardtop, which I guess would be a Starfire probably, as it looked deluxe. Nice interior, cool steering wheel.

210delray

My aunt had a 1961 Olds Dynamic 88 bubbletop. Cool car. I remember sitting in the back seat, and when you looked straight up, you'd see the sky.

She bought it new in the fall of 1960, so we were one of the first in the neighborhood to ride around in a brand new 1961 model. She was going to buy a 1960 Olds, but it was too long to fit in the garage!

The '61 GM large cars were slightly shorter (except maybe Cadillac?)

lemko

...was shorter too. In fact, Cadillac offered a short-deck sedan for city drivers called the Park Avenue. Now looking at the car by itself, it doesn't look that small, but you will see a real difference if you parked it next to a "regular" Sedan DeVille.

Per obscure cars - I was at the Amoco station and saw two little old ladies in a bright orange 1969 Dodge Charger with a black vinyl top. They may even be the original owners. Andre should've been there.

andre1969

was also shorter than the big '59-60 models, although only by a couple inches. IIRC they rode the same wheelbase, but just had less overhang. And I think they made a short-deck model called the Park Avenue that was only 216" long. Sure, that sounds big today, but I think the regular Caddies were more like 221-223"

1961 was also the only year of the 60's, IIRC, that the Pontiac Catalina rode the same 119" wheelbase as the full-size Chevies. Usually it was on a wheelbase 2-3" longer, at least until the downsized '77 models put it on the same wheelbase as a Chevy. Oldsmobiles and Buicks seemed like they trimmed a lot of overhang in '61 as well. I have a feeling that if one GM car didn't lose any length that year, it was the Chevy! It seemed like all the more prestigious cars were losing a bit of bulk, but the lower-end ones like Chevy and Ford were still putting on some weight, trying to look more "important"

I was going to watch that movie "Coupe DeVille", but I got sidetracked. Was it any good?

As for "Smokey and the Bandit", I think that might actually be the reason that I LIKE the '76-77 LeMans!

lemko

...I have the movie "Coupe DeVille" on VHS. An old girlfriend gave it to me a long time ago. It's a fogotten gem which has its moments. It's sort of like a better "Wonder Years" episode. The car in the movie isn't really a Coupe DeVille but a 1954 convertible.

andre1969

one thing I thought was interesting is that, throughout most of the 50's, the Cadillac coupes were actually longer than the sedans. Not counting stuff like the 60 Special and Fleetwood 75, of course. But usually, a series 62 or DeVille coupe or convertible was around 5-6 inches longer than the sedan counterpart.

In '59, they all went to the same length, 225", although the 75 Fleetwood was still much bigger

fintail

I saw a couple oddballs today...a sharp looking blue Ford Fiesta, and for andre, a really decent looking fuselage Chrysler Town & Country, in dark blue with barely faded 'wood', driven by a man who was maybe 300.

You'll steal the show at any MB 126 enthusiast gathering

Mr_Shiftright

It would be a great courtesy car for the local MB dealer, to prepare you for the repair bill.

stickguy

a 70ish (70-72) coupe, 454 4 speed. Looked nicely restored, but also used. Very sharp.

Odd part, it was in the parking lot outside my office building (in the burbs at least), in a compact only spot.

kyfdx

Black BMW Z8..

Owned by a local restaurateur... He also has a yellow Acura NSX..

lemko

...a dark olive green 1972 Buick Centurion in excellent condition.

andre1969

I always liked those. But then, I'm twisted, and liked most big 70's iron.

BTW, the bidding's up to about $1500 on that '76 LeMans I found on eBay the other day. I checked into shipping, and was quoted $790 to deliver. If I do decide to splurge on the thing, I think I'll just go get it and drive it back myself. Heck, it's only 500 miles!

kyfdx

Stop by the house.. I'll buy you a beer...

fintail

Drove by the local Italian car repair place on my way home....spotted a silver 328 and a bright blue 512TR

lancerfixer

That's odd...I stopped into the local Euro joint to make an oil change appointment. There was a red 328 in pieces in one of the bays. I have no idea what was wrong, but I'm really glad I'm not picking up THAT repair bill!

lancerfixer

Oh, and speaking of repair bills...can anyone guess how much a new fuel pump, installed, for a 2000 Camaro costs? Anyone?

Bueller?

$1,200. Found that out by way of an unfortunate co-worker.

seminole_kev

Maybe I'm missing something, but how can it cost that much? Must be some real pain in the butt process to drop the tank?

lancerfixer

Yup. The part is, apparently, $600. On top of that, you've got to drop the rear axle to gain access to the tank.

seminole_kev

damn. $600 for a fuel pump? I think the last one I put in was on a mid-80's Cadillac and it was about $25 for the part (and this was only maybe four years ago). Heck, I could get a correct fuel pump for my old jag for probably a 1/3rd of that.

I think for $1200 I'd just strap some fuel cans to the hood and let gravity do the work. ;-) Jeez.

seminole_kev

Yep, just checked out of curiousity:

I can get an SU fuel pump for the old gal for $170 or a "doesn't look stock but does the same job" pump for under $100.

Is this Camaro pump the same thing that would work on a GE turbofan engine or something? :P

Mr_Shiftright

:sick: Ferrari 328 isn't as bad as some Ferrari models in that you don't have to take the engine out to do the 30K maintenance service.

seminole_kev

that sounds familiar. I think every chapter of my maintenance manuals begins with "after removing the engine...."

andre1969

they need to just start putting the fuel pumps on the front of the engine again, like they did in the good old days. I had 3 Mopar fuel pumps go out, on a '79 Newport, '89 Gran Fury, and my '79 NYer. The Newport's was under $100, and the Gran Fury's was around $120. I forget how much the NYer's was, and I had them do a few other minor things around the same time, so the total bill was around $177.

I know a fuel pump's not that hard to do on one of those cars, but for some reason I just never had the patience to mess around with that part of the car. I think my Dart needs a fuel pump, though. It'll fire right up if I dump gas down the carb, but as soon as that burns off it dies. I might try tackling this one myself, since it's like 2 bolts and the thing pops off! Or if it's too tight of a squeeze, I guess I could just take off the alternator for a bit more clearance. That might add 5 minutes to the job!

Speaking of dropping rear axles, I did that on my Dart once, when I swapped out my 7 1/4 rear end for an 8 3/4. It might be worse on a Camaro, but on a Dart it's no big deal. disconnect the brake hose, 2 bolts for the U-joint, 4 bolts on each side where the axle connects to the springs, take off the tires, and the brake drums, and the thing slides right out. Only weighs maybe 160 lb for the 7 1/4, and 180 or so for the 8 3/4. :-)

Now admittedly, it took me a long time to do the swap, but then I'm not a mechanic, so I don't do this kind of stuff every day. And after those bolts have been on for 30 years, they don't just come right off. And then there was other stuff, like running the 8 3/4 down to the repair shop for them to put new brake lines on it (about 30 bucks), and running to the auto parts store for some new U-bolts to hold the axle to the spring (nobody told me you're NOT supposed to use the old ones again!), etc.

Mr_Shiftright

Ferrari shops have a special rolling rack for pulling the entire engine/transaxle out. They bolt the engine/trans up to the rack, unbolt it from the car and pull it. Then they can do the belts, seals, tune up etc.

Maintenance and repair are so expensive that an older, common type Ferrari, like a 308, is considered a parts car once it hits about 60,000 miles. Nobody buys high miles Ferraris unless you are nuts.

ghulet

I saw a fairly nice '68 Dodge Monaco two-door hardtop, unfortunately in white. Also saw a nice, red mid-80s Alfa Romeo sedan (Milano, maybe, it was the body style before the 164).

Weirdest thing I saw this week was in the parking lot (in the back corner against a wall), across the street from the bar I work at; I know it hasn't been there long, and definitely didn't arrive under its own power. It's a green and white, original but rusty and ratty, '54 Pontiac Chieftain 8 four-door sedan. Looked complete and original, technically 'restorable', I guess (though why would anyone?), four flat mismatched tires, a Chicago city sticker with a December 31, 1965 expiration and 1967 Illinois license plates. I'm guessing it must belong to the parking lot owner or the owner of the other bar across the street, or possibly to one of the few auto repair shops in the area. Strange beast.

Mr_Shiftright

1954 was a strange year for cars. It's like they were moulting from World War II designs into the modern era but hadn't quite made it yet. Suddenly in 1955 cars were a LOT more modern.

andre1969

was also a bad year in general, because of shortages brought on by the Korean war. Also, IIRC, in 1954 the only really all-new design was the '54 Buick/Olds/Cadillac. Just about everything else out there was just a 1949 or so body that was still trying to make the rear fenders not look quite as bolt-on, and still trying to tone down the big hump on the hood. The Ford products had actually looked pretty modern in 1949, but by '54 just looked dowdy to me, even though they were one of the first to flatten the hood and integrate the rear fenders.

fintail

Ebay time:

Always thought these were weird, never liked them

U-G-L-Y, and very heavy handed

It's a bad car and a bad boat...I don't understand why they go go high

Shifty-mobile - the freakshows in the background are just as interesting, too

Another Shifty-mobile

A high-end Shifty-mobile

Almost-funny Russian car humor

Very classy and elegant, I hope it is saved and not rodded

hahahaha that trunk cannot be for real

Hey Andre, instead of that Pontiac, you should buy this...it's kind of similar

Someone who is nuts over their LeCar

This must be special

Is this a highline car? Looks worthwhile

Heartbreaking sad rare Caddy