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

Mr_Shiftright

LeCar---Gee, I didn't think a LeLemon could even reach $1,500. Generally $300 seems like top dollar out where I live. Welcome to hell, new buyer....

'58 Eldo---at least the seller was quite honest (and correct)...do NOT attempt to restore this car. Some good bits and pieces though if you need 'em...

DKW--now there's a shifty-mobile within striking distance but the opening bid is really DUM...er...DUMB....you got an unrestored car with a bad trans and you're askin' top dollar. Well, gee....no bids......Shifty Value Guide says about $400 as is where is, another $400 to ship.

LANCIA--in its day, a GREAT rallye car (European style rallye, as in "you're nuts").
It's worth something to the right buyer. Lancia people are few and eccentric, but they will step up and pay the price.

GOGGOMOBILE---it may "turn more heads than a Ferrari" but really, which one would YOU rather be driving?

andys120

were ugly little pretenders based on gutless Fiat 850s and dressed up to look like
classic prewar sports cars. It was a sad swan song for a company that once made beautiful Gran Turismos like the Siata 8V 202->

Mr_Shiftright

Can you imagine the Spring? A rear-engine car with a large front grille?

andre1969

that's really tragic, looking at that '58 Eldorado Brougham. Those things were like $13,000 new. Just for reference, my neighbors, which just sold their home to developers for $500K, paid about $13K for their HOUSE back in 1958! Incredible to think that something that expensive would ever get put out to pasture so unceremoniously!

As for that '58 DeSoto Fireflite, well the Fireflite was the most expensive full-line DeSoto. Only the limited edition, high performance Adventurer was more. That '58 hardtop probably had an original base price of around $3750 or so, probably about in line with an Olds 98 or Buick Super, and I'm sure there was a Mercury priced close to that, but the Mercury lineup for '58 is eluding me a bit at the moment. The "DeSoto 360" that the ad mentions, if stock, would actually be a 361-4bbl with 305 hp. I've heard 0-60 in the 7.7 second range, but take that with a grain of salt. I guess, with the right gearing, it's possible, and they did give you some variety in rear ends back then. For example, there was one year you could get a Chrysler 300 Letter Series with a 6.07:1 rear end! That must've been a screamer from 0-60, but then probably had a 65 mph top speed! :-)

Oh yeah, that '58 Fireflite is also wearing a '57 grille, so it might have been wrecked at some point. I've actually seen another '58 like that, though. It's in a junkyard in southern MD, a Firedome hardtop coupe, that was sporting a '57 grille. Is it possible that maybe they just had some leftover '57 bumper/grille assemblies, and fit them onto a few '58's to get rid of them? Would people have bought a car like that back then? Considering how fickle people were back then, wanting the latest and greatest, I can't imagine many people would want a 1958 car sporting a 1957 front end.

Another car where I've seen an awful lot of mismatched grilles, for some reason, is the 1981 Malibu. I've actually seen several that have the 1980 grille and taillights. They're easy to spot because the '81 sedan got a more formal, upright C-pillar and slightly different rear doors. Is it common for auto makers to just use up extra parts like that?

fintail

I think a lot of carmakers did that before things started changing less. Even with fintails...fintail people know the difference between an early and a late car. My car is a late one, with dual circuit disc brakes replacing drums, power steering, etc...but it has the older steering wheel with a round horn ring typical on the early cars, and the outside mirror on the door instead of the fender, as is normal on a late car.

I think it'd take 500K to bring that old Brougham back up.

andys120

the Mercury lineup for '58 is eluding me a bit at the moment

Monterey, Montclair, Turnpike Cruiser and Colony Park wagon IIRC.

Mr_Shiftright

boy, 1958 has got to be the low point of American car design, with a few (very few) exceptions and nothing outstanding.

andre1969

online at http://www.tocmp.com/brochures/Mercury/1958/index.htm. The Old Car Manual Project has tons of great info, such as old pictures, manuals, brochures, etc that you can view online.

Reading through some of these manuals is really a hoot sometimes! For example, take this excerpt: "Bigger, roomier, more powerful, and more beautiful than other cars in its field, the smart, stylish Mercury Monterrey is priced as much as $116 lower than comparable models of Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, and Dodge"

I also think it's really interesting that Mercury is comparing itself to Dodge in the Mopar lineup, where IMO DeSoto and Chrysler would be much more appropriate. Especially since by 1958, they had Edsel to go up against the likes of Dodge! With GM though, I can understand Pontiac, and Oldmobile and Buick certainly competed with Mercury.

Maybe they were singling out Dodge because, when they started running down the statistics, the Merc didn't look as good against a DeSoto or Chrysler? For instance, they list standard hp. The cheapest '58 Mercury had 312 hp. According to their comparo, that stacked up to 265 for Olds, 250 for Buick, 270 for Pontiac, and 252 for Dodge (I guess they forgot about the 6-cyl Dodge...they could've really tried to make Dodge look bad if they listed that!). I think the '58 DeSoto started off at 280 hp though, and the Chrysler was around 295 hp. That's getting closer to Mercury's 312, and when you figure that the Merc was using a 383, versus a 325 for the base DeSoto and a 354 Poly for the base Chrysler, suddenly that hp:CID ratio doesn't look so good!

They brag about the Mercury being roomier inside than the competition, but here they mainly single out GM. It had more shoulder room than B/O/P, but they don't mention Dodge. Same with legroom and trunk capacity. About the only interior dimension they claim superiority over Dodge is hip room. So, I take that to mean that the Merc has smaller armrests than everyone else? :-)

Oh yeah, they also brag about the Mercury being wider overall than any of them. I dunno if that' something to brag about, especially in 1958 when VW Bugs and Ramblers were starting to sell in record numbers!

Now I'm sure that, in all fairness, you can find all sorts of BS in all these car brochures from the time, so I'm not singling out Mercury for this. Merely showcasing them! :shades:

Now if the '58 Merc isn't your style, perhaps a '59 Monterrey 4-door hardtop cruiser, a big-family car with Mercury's gay Cruiser hardtop styling would be more exciting. And hey, those were Mercury's words, not mine! http://www.tocmp.com/brochures/Mercury/1959/pages/59-Mercury03_jpg.htm

andys120

Now if the '58 Merc isn't your style, perhaps a '59 Monterrey 4-door hardtop cruiser, a big-family car with Mercury's gay Cruiser hardtop styling would be more exciting. And hey, those were Mercury's words, not mine!

You had to go and ruin my appetite right @ lunchtime with that awful '59 Merc HT! :mad: At least the damned tank looked a lot better than it's b-pillared brethern. .

-Learned to drive on '59 Monterrey.

andre1969

I don't think the '59 Merc is a bad looking car, but I'll take your word for it that it handled like a tank, Andy! Supposedly around that timeframe the Mopars were the best handling of the domestics. Well, I probably wouldn't want to drive my '57 DeSoto on a daily basis, so I imagine I'd want to drive something that handles worse even less!

I'm really not too crazy about those attempts at fins on the '59 Merc. Looks like they just melted the sheetmetal and then sculpted it with a garden trowel while it was still soft! They should've just gone with a regular "normal" fin, IMO. Another problem is that it looks like all the Mercs used the same windshield and roofline, regardless of whether it was a 2-door or 4-door, hardtop or pillared. That makes the hardtops look much more blocky and upright than the GM and Mopar hardtops. I think the '59 Merc might actually be one of those rare cars that looks a bit better as a 4-door than a 2-door!

lemko

...white MG Midget without the nasty rubber front end.

andre1969

I went to the Hershey show with Grbeck. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pics because it rained all day. Anyway, there was a '57 Adventurer hardtop there for sale. Looked good from a distance, and on the outside the body looked good. However, most cars DO look better in the rain when they're wet! Interior was a bit rough though. The price in the window? $45,000!

Are the models with the Hemi worth any more than the later ones that used the Wedge? I know a lot of people griped back in the day when the Adventurer, and then the 300 Letter Series, dropped the Hemi, but does it make much difference today?

For some reason, the '59 DeSoto seems to have a better survival rate than the '57 or '58, even though they built more '58's and way more '57's. I've heard that Mopar actually did start to improve their rustproofing and quality in general on their '59's...maybe this is evidence of it?

andre1969

I saw, and was almost creamed by, a '74-78 Chrysler Newport 4-door sedan! I went home for lunch, and coming back, had to make a right turn onto a 4-lane divided road. From the other side, this Newport jumps to the median, and then with no turn signal, turns left onto the same road. Why is it that when people do this they can't go into the left-most lane...they have to come ALL the way over to the right lane, which I'm turning onto?! :mad: Anyway, he cut over right behind me like a foot off my bumper, as if to show anger.

The car looked like it was in really nice shape, too. Although with the way that old geeze was driving it, I wonder how it's lasted roughly 30 years without being bashed to hell, and taking out a few smaller cars in the process?!

andys120

The '59 Merc actually did look better as a four door HT than as a tudor. And wasn't to be fair all that bad looking...for a '59 anything. It prolly didn't handle any worse than the next '59 pig either but it was just so g-d big!

jaserb

I think I've seen this one tooling around before. It kinda messes with your perspective, since you think it's a VW bus but it's just so tiny. It has to be under 10' long.

-Jason

fintail

Not old but odd...Acura SLX...a big kinda stupid thing which is really a rebadged Trooper. I suspect they sold a dozen of them or so.

davem2001

Yeah, I remember them...it was a swap deal with Isuzu - Honda/Acura got SUVs - the Passport and the SLX...Isuzu got rebadged Odyssey vans in return.

debaser853

There's a Subaru van parked at the local new car lot. Interesting to look at, very very small. Spot on vw comparison.

lemko

"Isuzu got rebadged Odyssey vans in return." Is/was this minivan the Oasis?

Spotted today: nice-looking 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass 2-dr hardtop, olive green with black top. The 1968-72 GM A-bodies were beautiful. Much nicer than the ugly 1973-77 "colonnade" generation.

andre1969

that was the Oasis. I kinda liked those first-gen Odysseys and Oases. They were a refreshing combination of minivan and station wagon, but not really too much of either one. Seems like a jadestone-type green and a light blue were pretty common colors.

stickguy

In a driveway, half under a tarp, a yellow Checker. Looked to be a 1960s vintage, with cab markings. Looked like new.

Also a very ratty squarebird. Rear end all sagged out, in a nasty robin's egg blue.

stickguy

an original. Red with white stripes, looked real sharp, but darn that thing was tiny.

toomanyfumes

being driven by an elderly man. Also, a late 70's cutlass 4-door with the slantback roof in white vinyl. :P

lemko

...bright yellow Lotus Esprit.

wimsey1

We have a '95 Odyssey and really like it. I think the smaller, lighter, better handling size with still large interior makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately it costs about as much to make a car that way as to make it BIGGER. And at least here in the USA bigger is better (selling).

davem2001

I think the new Mazda 5 will be about the same size as the first generation Ody..maybe slightly smaller..but it seems similar to the old Ody to me.

andys120

was used as a taxi in NYC, don't know if they're still around.

oregonboy

I always rather liked the original Odyssey. I still remember the headline that Car & Driver used for their first Odyssey road test: "Not a Greek Tragedy, but not a Homer either"

(Well I thought it was funny/clever) :P

james

andre1969

but I actually remember that tagline!

lemko

...the Homer by Powell? It was the car that put Powell Motors out of business.

andre1969

however, does anybody remember the tagline "You may hate it now, but wait till you drive it!" ?

lemko

The Homer was a car designed by Homer Simpson. It was a car designed with the average Joe in mind. Homer Simpson had a long-lost half-brother, Herb Powell, who was CEO of Powell Motors in Detroit. Herb offered Homer a free choice of any car his company built.

Homer said, "I want a big car." One of Herb's female execs said, "Americans don't want big cars." Then Homer said, "OK, I want a fast car." Again the lady exec replied, "Americans don't want fast cars." Herb was frustrated that his company didn't build a car that the average American wanted so he commissioned his half-wit half-brother Homer to design one.

The result was an $80,000 monstrosity with a Rolls-Royce grille, huge spoiler, and a double-bubble top that played "La Cucaracha" when the horn button was pressed.

The car with the tagline "You may hate it now, but wait till you drive it!" was the 1983 Wagon Queen Family Truckster in metallic pea from the Chevy Chase movie "Vacation."

davem2001

Clark Griswold in "National Lampoon Vacation", describing the Family Truckster!

davem2001

sorry I didn't read your post - you had it first

Mr_Shiftright

He was ahead of his time. The Homer is now called the Maybach.

210delray

Can't top that for now, but I did see a red Acura NSX today.

fintail

A few oddballs today... 2 (!) Studebaker Larks, some kind of rodded model A, some weirdo 70s Japanese coupe - probably a Mazda, a late 124 300D, 65 Mustang convert

jescue1

white in showroom condition yesterday.

lemko

...maroon 1963 Chevrolet Impala two-door hardtop lightly customized.

Mr_Shiftright

Probably because it was still in the showroom?

andre1969

not unusual in and of itself, but this one was, well, how do I describe it? Let's see, we're not allowed to use that word. And we're not allowed to use words that are suggestive of that word. Well, let's just say that it had racing stickers all over it, one of those wings on the back kinda like what the early 70's Mopar wagons had to keep the rear window clean, and some bling-bling rims that looks like they had maybe 35-series tires on them. All things considred though, it was actually pretty well done. It was a bright, deep blue, kinda like that "B5 Blue" that was used on Mopars in the late 60's.

fintail

I saw a decent looking Daihatsu Charade (unfortunate name for a car IMO) today. They seem to hold up, I spot one or a Rocky now and then.

Ebay time comes early:

Too bad it's not a real Voisin

Duel Cowl? Great for Hatfields and McCoys I guess...

Market seems strong for these things

Subaru van

I like it, nice patina...although I prefer the 34

I think this is really cool. Excellent history on it too

Sadly neglected low mileage Borgward

The last really classy dignified Packard

This is neat, and I bet Shifty will like it...but I think it should stay home

Very pretty DeSoto

Could be the only one in the states.

Looks like fun

If you want a big project...

Very nice Cordoba for Andre

This will bring crazy money

Neat early AMG

And since Andre was on a Pontiac fixation earlier, I looked at a few...

Beautiful 57 Fuelie

Neat original bubbletop...I see the car has a Walla Walla license plate frame...SE Washington is full of sound old cars

"Executive"...name a Pontiac that now, and people would laugh themselves silly

The first Grand Am? Better than the last!

andre1969

this is probably too predictable, but I really like that Cordoba! That's about the same color scheme as a 1980 that I looked at locally last summer. Red with a white vinyl interior and a floor shift. The one I looked at had a built-up 318-4bbl out of a mid-70's Dart, and a torqueflite tranny and a 3.23:1 8.75 rear end out of a '69 or '70 Charger. Unfortunately it also had no brakes and some pretty bad rust. in the rear quarters and in a bulkhead behind the rear bumper!

I think if I could have any '60's Pontiac, the '61 would be the one that I'd want. Unfortunately that one's out of my price range! I'm surprised bidding is going so high, considering the obvious rust on it. Are they really bringing that high of a price these days? The other two are pretty sweet, too. I guess 1966 was kind of a transition year, in that they were calling it "Star Chief Executive", instead of one or the other? And was the 389-2bbl actually rated at 325 hp? That sounds a bit generous to me. IIRC, the 400-2bbl that my '67 Catalina originally came with (it was rebuilt before I bought it and now has a 4-bbl), was only rated at 290.

andys120

I'm surprised you're not heading to Jersey to checkout that Grand Am.

I love that '61 Catalina bubbletop, one of the best looking Ponchos ever, it has the eight lug wheels! I think I'll park it in my wallpaper for a bit.

stickguy

but I actually really like that Grand Am too!. For some reason, I always like the urethane bumper early 70's GMs (the Grand aAm and Laguna S3). Not sure why.

This one just looks nice, especially if it has been treated as described. Plus, it has a 4 speed, a big plus!

Besides, it might be the last bastion og "muscle" cars that us poorer folk can still afford

andre1969

that were an option on the Laguna S3. Were they optional on other GM midsizers at the time? I think one reason that I like cars like the Laguna and Grand Am is that they were still making an honest attempt at marketing a more youthful larger car. When you look at how the market in general was turning by this time...opera windows, padded roofs, wire hubcaps, strip speedometers, and the like, it was refreshing to see somethinig that was trying to be a muscle car. Plus, those bumpers did give the car a sleeker, more integrated look than those massive crash-bumpers they were starting to hang on the cars in '73. And supposedly, if you got the right engine (a 400 was standard, but there was a 455 or two available), the Grand Ams were still pretty quick.

Unfortunately I can't drive a stick worth a darn. I mean, I can get by, but I'm hardly a pro at it. Probably my biggest downfall, considering what a car lover I am! My Dad loves a stick shift though, and said that if he ever got an old car again, he'd want a stick. Maybe I should show it to him?

kyfdx

I know you could get the swivels on a '73 Monte Carlo, as well... I think they were in almost all of the "personal luxury coupes" that GM had out at that time...

andre1969

yesterday I saw...

1966-67 Chevy II hardtop, in reddish-brown primer. Looked pretty solid and ready to paint
1965 GTO hardtop coupe, dark red. Looked pretty nice
1969-70 Cadillac DeVille convertible, red with white top, looked nice.
First-gen Corvair convertible, red, parked in someone's yard with the top down. Looked nice
1973 Caprice convertible, light metallic green. It was under a tarp that had been torn to shreds. What I could see of the car poking out from under the shreds looked nice, though. It's been in that spot for at least several months now
1955 or 1956 Packard, black 4-door. Saw it behind someone's garage from the interstate. Really couldn't tell the condition, but from a distance it didn't look bad.
2 Dodge Vipers. One was a convertible, top down. Left lane camping on the Balt-Wash Parkway!!
1955 Chevy 2-door sedan, dark red, nicely done.
Lots of Mustang convertibles with the top down. Mostly newer ones though. Oldest I saw was around an '83-86.

lemko

You think that's funny? I actually saw a first generation Avalon that had '50s hotrod-style flames painted on the hood and front fenders. I wish I had a camera!

lemko

Yesterday was a great day for Mustangers. Saw a 1969, 1967, and 1966 model Mustang yesterday. All were either well-kept or nicely restored.