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

uplanderguy

In my mind, the '65-66, '67-68, and '69-70 Chevys were different styling generations, even though the chassis may well have remained the same.

At Ford, I think of '69-70 as the same, '71-72 the same, and '73-78 the same.

For whatever reason, I always thought the shape and design of the wheel openings told me if the car was a carryover or new styling.

I can remember in detail the first '73 Chevelle I saw out back at the dealer, and also the first '71 Impala, a Sport Sedan in a dark color I think might've been called Rosewood (too lazy to check).

fintail

By my time, new cars were known in magazines before I saw them on the lot, although it always was a fun thing to see a new model for the first time. Dealer unveilings were pretty much done by the mid 80s I guess. For whatever reason, seeing the Corsica/Beretta at the local dealer in early 1987 sticks in my mind, along with the Mk II Jetta.

I like the rectangular lights of the 75-76 Caddy, modernizes it, never noticed the eggcrate Chevy thing.

roadburner

I took the Club Sport to a local car show today- as usual, no trophy as there wasn't an "Imports" class:


There was a good turnout- 138 cars:


Two of my favorites:

texases

BMW E30 cabrio in the Lowes parking lot today, sounded like it could use a tune up, idling very high.

sda

roadburner said:

I took the Club Sport to a local car show today- as usual, no trophy as there wasn't an "Imports" class:


There was a good turnout- 138 cars:


Two of my favorites:

I would love to have a car to take to a show. My daughter saw an ex boyfriend drive by in a Miata and asked me about the one I had, which was a weekend car. My daily driver was a Mazda Millenia. The Miata was a fun car, good memories. I still see Gen 1 Miatas regularly but can’t remember the last time I’ve seen a Millenia.

uplanderguy

I used to goof on this kind of thing myself, but this year I'm going to be one of those guys who takes a new car to a car show, LOL.

Here's getting ready to check the oil level for the second time in six months of ownership, last Tuesday. Car has to be warm (175 degrees min.) and running to check the oil level. It has a dipstick still, which I prefer to an electronic level readout. We live on a hill, so I took it to the megachurch parking lot down the road.

I posted this pic on my FB page last Tues., and one of the people commenting was the VP of our Ohio Stude club, whom I've known for thirty years. Two hours after he posted on my page, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. You just don't know, do you.

Leaving Thursday (not in the C8) for Memphis, for a tour of Graceland, which has been on my bucket list. Wife said 'do it'. She's still working (teaching) and has no desire to see Graceland. While there I'm going to see the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated; going to visit family in Arkansas; and take a tour of Bowling Green assembly and the Corvette Museum on the way home.

Just like today is it hitting me how far I'll be driving solo, longest in a long time.

kyfdx

texases said:

BMW E30 cabrio in the Lowes parking lot today, sounded like it could use a tune up, idling very high.

Something is needed every three months with an E30.

sda

uplanderguy said:

I used to goof on this kind of thing myself, but this year I'm going to be one of those guys who takes a new car to a car show, LOL.

Here's getting ready to check the oil level for the second time in six months of ownership, last Tuesday. Car has to be warm (175 degrees min.) and running to check the oil level. It has a dipstick still, which I prefer to an electronic level readout. We live on a hill, so I took it to the megachurch parking lot down the road.

I posted this pic on my FB page last Tues., and one of the people commenting was the VP of our Ohio Stude club, whom I've known for thirty years. Two hours after he posted on my page, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. You just don't know, do you.

Leaving Thursday (not in the C8) for Memphis, for a tour of Graceland, which has been on my bucket list. Wife said 'do it'. She's still working (teaching) and has no desire to see Graceland. While there I'm going to see the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated; going to visit family in Arkansas; and take a tour of Bowling Green assembly and the Corvette Museum on the way home.

Just like today is it hitting me how far I'll be driving solo, longest in a long time.

Tragic news about your friend. Safe travels, sounds like a great trip. Keep us posted with pics and a travel report.

kyfdx

@uplanderguy We did that same trim about 20 years ago. Saw all the same stuff. Even down to visiting family in Arkansas!

uplanderguy

Thanks, all. I'll post pics here.

Buddy whose parents always had Caddys when he was growing up, sent me a pic of a '72 Calais now on BaT with 17K miles. I find the Calais perversely interesting. At a squint you can't tell it from a deVille. I have to believe this particular car, and most Calais models, were probably bought by people "moving up" to their first Cadillac, and/or older folks. If I look at the ad closer, I'd probably find out, but I wonder if this car was sold by an exclusively Caddy dealer or one combined with another GM division.

I remember what having a Cadillac supposedly meant back then.

My best HS buddy worked at a local drug store and the owner, a WWII vet and medic during that war, had a '75 Sedan deVille he'd have my buddy wash. Then my buddy would come and get me and we'd go for a short spin past girls' houses, LOL. He said his boss said to him, "John, you like driving that Cadillac, don't you? It took me twenty years in business to get my first Cadillac". A rite of passage, apparently, then.

tjc78

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-cadillac-calais/

I looked it up. Very nice car and pretty equipped too.

roadburner

uplanderguy said:

I used to goof on this kind of thing myself, but this year I'm going to be one of those guys who takes a new car to a car show, LOL.

Here's getting ready to check the oil level for the second time in six months of ownership, last Tuesday. Car has to be warm (175 degrees min.) and running to check the oil level. It has a dipstick still, which I prefer to an electronic level readout. We live on a hill, so I took it to the megachurch parking lot down the road.

I posted this pic on my FB page last Tues., and one of the people commenting was the VP of our Ohio Stude club, whom I've known for thirty years. Two hours after he posted on my page, he was killed in a motorcycle accident. You just don't know, do you.

Leaving Thursday (not in the C8) for Memphis, for a tour of Graceland, which has been on my bucket list. Wife said 'do it'. She's still working (teaching) and has no desire to see Graceland. While there I'm going to see the Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated; going to visit family in Arkansas; and take a tour of Bowling Green assembly and the Corvette Museum on the way home.

Just like today is it hitting me how far I'll be driving solo, longest in a long time.

There's probably an HPDE at the NCM track- you should take advantage of it. I've been on it a couple of times; it's great.

Sandman6472

Think I'm partial to Cadillacs from the '60's especially our '68 Eldorado and the '70 DeVille convertible. Maybe it was because I got my drivers license around that time. But those two vehicles were done very nicely.

The folks switched over to Pontiac by the mid '70's and ended up with a string of Bonneville Parisiane's, one even being a diesel which didn't last that long. They all drove very nicely but those glow plugs in the diesel were a major pain in the butt.

uplanderguy

There's probably an HPDE at the NCM track- you should take advantage of it. I've been on it a couple of times; it's great.

Not taking the C8 though. I'm renting an Enterprise compact, which means what I consider a compact will instead be a microcar, LOL.

fintail

uplanderguy said:

There's probably an HPDE at the NCM track- you should take advantage of it. I've been on it a couple of times; it's great.

Not taking the C8 though. I'm renting an Enterprise compact, which means what I consider a compact will instead be a microcar, LOL.

You'll get a "free upgrade" to a Sentra with 3 different tires, a missing hubcap, and the scent of wacky tobacky.

uplanderguy

I refused my car once at this place because I told them it smelled like a French ***** inside. I wasn't going to smell that for a couple thousand miles. Just super-strong cheap perfume smell.

andre1969

My housemate had to get a rental car last year, when he was having some body work done on his 2017 Murano. I think his insurance entitled him to an equivalent of what he had, but the place had a shortage of vehicles. So he got to pick between a Mitsubishi Mirage and a Nissan Leaf.

He knows almost nothing about cars, so I told him he might want to go with the Mirage, since the Leaf was electric. I have nothing against EVs, but just no experience with them, and he didn't want to deal with it, either. Well, we had to walk past the Leaf to get to the Mirage. When I saw the Leaf I said hey, that's actually not half bad! And then, when we saw the Mirage, I started thinking hmm, maybe we should've taken the Leaf!

My housemate hated the Mirage, to the point he swapped it a few days later when the rental place got a few more cars in. It probably didn't help that every time I saw him in it, I'd start whistling circus clown medleys. I rode in it once, and actually, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think it's just like that old joke about an ugly chick and a moped...both can be a lot of fun, but you don't want your friends to catch you playing with one!

Oh, on the old car front, yesterday I was riding around on the lawn tractor giving the yard its first cut. Happened to glance up at the road, as two Corvettes drove past. I only caught the quickest of glances, but the first was a '53-55 (single headlights inset, rather than flush), and the one following it was a C2. Both white. It was perfect weather for it. Temps around 70, and hardly a cloud in the sky.

andre1969

I think it's kind of curious that Cadillac kept the Calais around for as long as they did. When the name came out for '65, it still kind of made sense, I think. It essentially replaced the old Series 62, with the exception of the convertible. In 1964 and earlier, there was a Series 62 convertible, but no DeVille convertible. For '65, the convertible was moved to the DeVille range.

In 1965, the Calais still moved about 33,000 units. But by 1970 it had dropped to about 9900.

For the 1971 redesign, it was just under 7,000 units. Meanwhile, the Deville sold around 135,000. Wasn't there a strike in 1971, that cut into GM's production that year? Anyway, the Calais never broke 10,000 units for any year in the '71-76 run, and by '76 I think it was down to about 6,200 units. In contrast, the Deville sold about 182,000 that year.

I could sort of see the rationale for keeping it around through 1970, as it was an existing trim level already in production, and since the '70 was just a mild facelift, the costs of having the Calais in the lineup were probably negligible.

But, when the new '71s came out, I have a feeling they could have dropped it entirely, and nobody would have noticed. Unless, it was still profitable enough, in its own right? And while luxury cars aren't supposed to appeal to cheapskates, maybe it still served as an incentive to get buyers in the showroom, and then upsold on a DeVille or other model?

ab348

That Calais on BaT is really nice. I like that it does not have a vinyl roof and only wish the original buyer had picked a better paint color. It has the obvious flaw of the cracked steering wheel but otherwise looks great. It's unfortunate that some previous owner decided only to paint the rear 3/4 of the car and not the front fenders as the paint mismatch is visible in some of the photos. Pretty much everything else is pristine.

I suppose the selling price you can attain by listing on BaT (if there is a bidding war) offsets the questions and criticisms one sees in the comment there from the keyboard warriors, as Fox Sports Mike Joy famously said. It can be quite ridiculous, like in this case where the right front corner of the hood is mismatched with the fender by maybe 1/8" and someone concludes it therefore must have been in a crash and is asking for a bunch of pictures to prove that or not. Putting up with that demand for perfection would drive me nuts. They were churning those things out of the Clark St plant back then at great volume. Even with Cadillac you weren't going to get coachwork that was to bespoke standards. I suspect this is nothing more than a maladjusted hood bumper at that corner.

xwesx

Condolences, @uplanderguy . Your sentiments really are the truth, too!

Based on my recent rental experience, I recommend the minivan.

Pricing might be different in your area, but the minivan was the cheapest option when I rented it from Portland (OR).

sda

I saw a very nice 58 Fury, very similar to this one, yesterday for a Sunday cruise.

sda

Stuck in traffic yesterday I was behind this unloved Olds Cutlass Cierra wagon. I was surprised by how low to the ground it was and overall small size compared to the other vehicles around it.

uplanderguy

One thing that made me chuckle a bit about the '71-73 Calais, was that they had only one "Calais" nameplate on the entire car--on the decklid. The "Cadillac" nameplate put there on other Cadillacs, was put on both front fenders of Calais models those years.

Still a pretty nice interior on those cars.

Calais didn't use leather, but 'expanded vinyl', which in my memory was a smooth, high-quality vinyl that resembled leather but wore much better. I like that style vinyl. Some GM product in the early seventies used vinyls that had a lot of fake 'graining' added, which made them look to me like cheap naugahyde recliners.

That cloth in the subject Calais looks pretty nice to me too.

andre1969

Some of those vinyls in the 70's make me think of what they used to cover school bus seats. Buick, especially, comes to mind. It does have a strong, sturdy look to it at least, but I have a feeling "school bus seat" isn't what they were aspiring to!

I remember the vinyl in my old '69 Bonneville being really nice. The interior on that '72 Calais is pretty tasteful, but I remember some of them having some pretty loud plaid patterns. Reminiscent of a sportcoat you'd expect to see Jim Rockford wearing.

uplanderguy

I always liked this vinyl, rarely seen, the optional interior on a '76 Monte Carlo, seems leather-like to me and no fake grain throughout. The lime green accents, yeesh, way over-the-top yet I can't look away!



RE.: Plaid seats in Calais--I think that's primarily the '75 and '76, which I kind-of like now although hated then. Even some deVilles and I think Eldos had the availability of plaid cloth in those years.

andre1969

That Limefire metallic fascinates me. While I'm a sucker for a nice shade of green, I tend to prefer more bluish-green colors, silvery green, or sequoia/forest type colors. Or even the pastel greens they had in the 50s. So that Limefire sort of flies in the face of everything I find tasteful...yet at the same time, I find it intriguing.

I think the color works best on smaller and sportier cars. I don't think it's suited so well to luxury cars. Yet, I've seen pictures of '76 Electras with it, and I don't mind it as much as I thought I would. I don't think Cadillac used that color for '76, but they had something called "Persian Lime" in '74. Not my first color choice (or favorite year) but I don't find it as jarring as I expected. Sometimes, the lighting (and probably camera quality) makes a difference.
That Monte Carlo's interior is nice. I think my biggest concern would be keeping all of that white looking so nice and clean.

uplanderguy

On that '74 Cadillac--there's that "Chevy" eggcrate grille!

It always bugged me when owners of Caddys of that generation felt the need to add a hood ornament, on top of the same crest with 'vee' already on the hood, sigh.

stickguy

I miss the 70s!

ab348

I think I mentioned this a while back, but when I was still living at home before my Mom passed away and the place got sold, our next-door neighbor - a nice god-fearing fellow but an almost milquetoast personality like you might expect from an accountant, who had 4 daughters and had been driving a '68 Impala 4-door, one day around 1980 or so showed up with this in these exact colors his driveway. It seemed both out of character and rather impractical with the 4 girls plus his wife, but I guess it was indeed a 6-passenger car:



I also remember a few years prior being absolutely smitten with a brand-new '76 Firebird in the same color combo on the dealer lot. It had the Pontiac rally wheels and the over-the-roof stripe (color-coordinated of course) with a white vinyl interior and was just incredibly good-looking to me.

kyfdx

The lime green was huge for GM in the mid-late '70s. Saw it on a lot of Malibus

andre1969

It's funny how that Limefire seemed like it was all the rage in 1976 specifically, and then just went away. Some colors are like that, though. For instance, there was a pale, powdery blue that seemed everywhere in 1975, and I especially love it on something like a '75 LeSabre. But then it was gone.

And this might just be some kind of confirmation bias, because it's the original color of my '76 LeMans, but I always associate Firethorn with 1976 specifically, even though it was still around in 1977. I think it's one of those colors that started with Cadillac one year, but then spread to the rest of the divisions the following?

sda

Firethorn was one of my favorite colors. I liked the Garnet red of dad's Cierra.
I don't recall the name Pontiac called the light metallic blue that I had on the Sunbird. The hue changed a bit depending on the lighting. Here it is at the Mazda dealer parked next to the 80 626 that I traded for. Also a similar color.

sda

And the Garnet red of my 84 Horizon SE.

uplanderguy

At Chevy, anyway, that lime color was '76-only, I feel pretty certain.

Oh....yes, Firethorn was available too in '77.

uplanderguy

Boy, I miss the '70's too. So many choices in cars--domestics, anyway, and colors, and options, and models. My Dad was on a 3-or 4-year cycle between cars, and he bought because he wanted to and trade-in value was good on cars like Impala coupes and Monte Carlos.

I honestly don't remember a single even medium-sized mechanical problem on any of my Dad's cars. 'Course, we're talking Chevy V8 RWD cars, primarily.

uplanderguy

Saw what I think was probably an '06 Monte Carlo, low-line trim version, at the Chevy dealer while I waited for an oil change. Old lady got out of it. I told her I liked it and hadn't seen one in awhile, and she smiled at me. I'm not near my phone now, but I did snap a pic which I'll post later.

andre1969

sda, do you have any other pics of that '80 Mazda 626? I've always had a fascination with those small Japanese hardtop coupes from the late 70s/early 80s.

ab348

Just crossed paths with an early '90s Chevy C1500 pickup in a parking lot that was absolutely pristine and looked original, not restored, in a shiny light metallic blue paint. Really clean and undented. Made me wonder where it has been living to have survived so well. Such a clean design compared to today's behemoths.

Michaell

Encountered a 90's Audi 80 or 90 sedan this morning on my way to the doctor. Looked in better than average condition.

andre1969

uplanderguy said:

I honestly don't remember a single even medium-sized mechanical problem on any of my Dad's cars. 'Course, we're talking Chevy V8 RWD cars, primarily.

I remember years ago, asking my Mom why she traded her '68 Impala in on her '75 LeMans. Her memory was a bit fuzzy, but she said she thought the rear end was starting to go. I never thought to ask why she just didn't get the rear end repaird. Looking back through modern eyes, I'd rather have the '68 Impala than the '75 LeMans. But, Mom was only around 26 when she bought that car. It was a coupe, and she probably like the image it portrayed a lot more than the Impala, which was a 4-door hardtop and given to her by Grandmom and Granddad.

I don't think driving your parents' hand-me downs was considered a badge of honor, especially a full-sized 4-door. But, by the time I was driving, and Mom gave me her old 1980 Malibu coupe, I was just grateful to have a car!

As for the LeMans, I remember it needing a new distributor within 1-2 years. And in early 1977, Dad ran it into a tree with one of his drunk driving escapades...one of several reasons Mom got fed up and they split. I remember Mom saying it never ran right after Dad wrecked it. When she traded it for the Malibu, in early 1980, it had about 60,000 miles on it. I was only 9 at the time, but I just remember that car seemed, well, old. But, the styles changed so fast back then, that might have been part of it.

I remember Granddad saying their '72 Impala needed a valve job around the 70,000 mile mark, but other than that I don't think it had any major issues. Other than rust, and the vinyl top shredding. In 1982, they sold it to some friends of the family, with around 100,000 miles on it.

I think it's interesting too, how a false memory can persist. I still picture that '68 Impala as a really vibrant turquoise color. But, when I found a picture of it, turns out it was that somewhat rare, and polarizing, "Grecian Green" or whatever they called it. I posted a pic awhile back, of Granddad standing next to it. Granted, the picture was 50+ years old and sort of washed out, but the color didn't look nearly as attractive, as it did in my mind!

The more I look at that Grecian Green though, the more I like it...In contrast, I really didn't like Mom's '75 LeMans much at all, at the time. I'm not even sure what color it was. Mom always called it "Bronze" and Dad said it was "Persimmon." I've looked at the paint charts, and damn if Pontiac didn't use both names that year! And they both look close enough to me, that either one could be it.

I just remember that, even in the 70's, that LeMans seemed to stick out. It was always easy to find, if Mom forgot where she parked it. In contrast, when she got the Malibu, which was a medium blue, and more generic shape, we used to lose that car all the time in big parking lots!

sda

andre1969 said:

sda, do you have any other pics of that '80 Mazda 626? I've always had a fascination with those small Japanese hardtop coupes from the late 70s/early 80s.

I thought it was pretty cool being a hardtop. The rear windows did roll all the way down which made for a nice profile. This is the only other picture I saved to my laptop. I was taking farewell pics of the Sunbird. I will see what I can find in my stack of car pictures. The 626 was a good car.

uplanderguy

Obviously I'm old-skool, but to my eyes, that Sunbird is prettier, inside and out, than that Mazda!

I'm prepared for you to say how much better the driving experience was in the Mazda.

uplanderguy

That Grecian Green was very popular in our parts. I'd say, second-only to whatever they called that champagne-like color that year.

stickguy

That Mazda was getting toward the end of the run for RWD Japanese small cars.

roadburner

As far as the '70s domestics go, the 1971 GM intermediate musclecars were nice, as well as the Z/28 and Trans Am. I also like the 1971 Road Runner.
What I really covet is a 1973 2002 tii or 3.0CS. I'dalso take a Jensen Interceptor SP or a widowmaker 911 Turbo.

uplanderguy

Here’s that Monte Carlo I saw this morning. While I liked it being a larger coupe in an era where that was primarily over, if this isn’t an example of a wheel that looks like a plastic wheel cover, I don’t know what is.

xwesx

Oh, my! No decade did green quite like the 1970s!

andre1969

Didn't the Japanese pretty much get rid of most of their small RWD hardtop coupes after 1983? I know there was still a RWD Corolla, called the SR-5 I think, but it was a new style with a B-pillar and stationary rear windows.

One thing I thought was cool about the 626 is how they were able to make do with just one window in back, fairly large, and made it roll all the way down. The Corolla and the 200SX made do with that "window behind a window" effect, with a small roll-down window, and then a stationary window in the C-pillar. Sort of like a miniature LTD-II or Mirada. The Sapporo/Challenger only had the one window, although the Challenger usually had it partly covered with louvers.

That's one trend from the 70's I don't miss...those louvered windows.

Stylewise, I think that era of Sunbird is a great looking car. I think that front end looks great, on both the notchback coupe and the hatchback. With the Monza, its front end seems well suited to the hatchback, but I don't think it quite works with the notchback. And as far as I know, the Skyhawk/Starfire only offered the hatchback?

stickguy

Somewhere around 1985 the celica and corolla both went FWD. I think just the Supra remodel carried on with RWD.

Michaell

stickguy said:

Somewhere around 1985 the celica and corolla both went FWD. I think just the Supra remodel carried on with RWD.

IIRC, the Corolla switched to FWD in '84. I graduated college in '85, and my dad was nudging me towards a Corolla.

Being the rebel that I was, I chose the used '85 Accord they had on the lot, instead. 5-speed, burgundy hatch with - you guessed it - the louvers on the back window.