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

ab348

fintail said:

sda said:

Paging @fintail

His enthusiasm is endless. I know in the past he also reviewed a 60 Squire.

I can't stand him TBH. Odd that his behind-the-wheel segments show a reversed image. If he had bothered to look up the engine specs properly he would have found that the 2-bbl 352 was rated at 235HP and the 4-bbl like this one was rated for 300.

The '60 Ford is generally seen painted white but looks good in solid black with all the trimwork on this one. The owner seems to have installed a set of aftermarket hot-rodder extended leaf spring shackles on it to cure the chronic rear end sag which works well enough but is unfortunate versus getting the rear leaf springs re-arced. Lovely car though.

fintail

ab348 said:

fintail said:

sda said:

Paging @fintail

His enthusiasm is endless. I know in the past he also reviewed a 60 Squire.

I can't stand him TBH. Odd that his behind-the-wheel segments show a reversed image. If he had bothered to look up the engine specs properly he would have found that the 2-bbl 352 was rated at 235HP and the 4-bbl like this one was rated for 300.

The '60 Ford is generally seen painted white but looks good in solid black with all the trimwork on this one. The owner seems to have installed a set of aftermarket hot-rodder extended leaf spring shackles on it to cure the chronic rear end sag which works well enough but is unfortunate versus getting the rear leaf springs re-arced. Lovely car though.

I'll admit usually when I watch his material, I keep the volume low or mute it He is worth watching though, he has an eye for that 1958-63 or so period and gets access to some unusual cars. It'd be fun to see him to over a concours condition fintail of that era and see his reaction, both to the car being relatively restrained, and to the build quality.

I am ok with the tomato red seen on Fords of the era (my dad's car was red and white), and I think there was a medium (maybe metallic?) blue that would look good. I could also be just as happy with a 4 door HT, the "Town Victoria" style that is probably 10x as rare as a Starliner today.

fintail

This is a funny one. I had long noticed the kind of bubble rear window of Fox Mustang notchbacks along with the louvers (which I think kind of evolved away by the 1987 facelift), but never really placed them elsewhere. Then I saw this online from a period launch article, and had to chuckle a little:

tjc78

LOL … didn’t they do a similar thing with the Granada and a Mercedes sedan?

tjc78

Maybe it was the Versailles?

fintail

tjc78 said:

LOL … didn’t they do a similar thing with the Granada and a Mercedes sedan?

Yep, some Ford suits apparently had a thing for MBs, there was an entire Granada ad campaign built around comparing it to MB - these are still snarked at nearly 50 years later. A host of sedan ads, and a couple ads comparing it to the SLC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2NGPnyqTOk




The same execs probably thought the Versailles was more like a Rolls-Royce (to be fair, I kind of like the Versailles - some I have seen have real rich looking interiors, and I have fond memories of a relative having a loaded 78 Versailles when I was a kid, I thought it was a really nice car).

stickguy

I am still amused that mid-sized or even "compacts" from back in those days are nearly as long as my Maverick of an Odyssey. Though my HS car (A Duster) which was definitely considered a compact was 196" long. I must have had different standards back then, because today I consider that a full sizer. Nearly a foot longer than our RDX.

tjc78

Yep those are the ads I was thinking. Crazy comparison.

texases

@fintail said:
This is a funny one. I had long noticed the kind of bubble rear window of Fox Mustang notchbacks along with the louvers (which I think kind of evolved away by the 1987 facelift), but never really placed them elsewhere. Then I saw this online from a period launch article, and had to chuckle a little:

Those fake C pillar vents (or whatever they were) on the Mustang always looked a bit wrong, while I always liked those on the SLC. Go figure…

tjc78

@stickguy said:
I am still amused that mid-sized or even "compacts" from back in those days are nearly as long as my Maverick of an Odyssey. Though my HS car (A Duster) which was definitely considered a compact was 196" long. I must have had different standards back then, because today I consider that a full sizer. Nearly a foot longer than our RDX.

What is really full size these days? To me that’s a Town Car, LeSabre etc. Nothing like that today.

I’d guess a Highlander, JGC L, Telluride is similar to a full size car.

stickguy

well, your truck is the equivalent of the old 1970s land yachts. 200" to me is full sized/large car. but now Accords, that started as compacts then graduated to mid sized, are pushing that.

andre1969

That "compact/midsized/fullsized" stuff is mostly just marketing, although the EPA has standards, based on interior volume. However, the volume is just an index. For cars it's just shoulder room x legroom x headroom for the front and rear seats added together, converted from cubic inches to cubic feet, and rounded off to the nearest foot. And then they add the cargo volume, which again, is rounded to the nearest foot.

One rough rule of thumb I used to go by for size classes was something like:
<175": subcompact
175-185": compact
185-210": midsized
210" or more: full-sized.
However, I based this mostly on what was being offered in 1985. And with the exception of GM's new FWD Electra/Ninety Eight/DeVille, just about everything on the market at the time fell comfortably in those brackets.

My midsized bracket seems awfully broad, but I think it captured cars like the Dodge 600/Plymouth Caravelle on the small end, and at the upper range, cars like the Gran Fury/Diplomat/5th Ave and Eldorado/Seville/Toronado/Riviera, were around 205-207".

These days, if you want what I'd think of as a "big" car, I guess you'd have to go with something like a Benz S-class, BMW 7-Series, They're definitely full-sized, when it comes to passenger volume. According to the EPA, an S-class has 112 cubic feet of passenger space, and a 7-Series has 110. For comparison, a 1985 Caprice had 110. The newer cars have small trunks though. 14 cubic feet for the Benz, 13 for the BMW, while the Caprice was a cavernous 21. I think the EPA's definition for a full-sized car is 120+ cubic feet of passenger/trunk volume combined. That's for coupes and sedans though; they have a different standard for wagons.

sda

A bit rough, exhaust system needs attention, perhaps rear end noise. Fully loaded with electric windows and ac. Are there aftermarket dash pads available? Good potential. https://youtu.be/k_eNWDSqio0?si=lbcBc5_gjxCvQXqx

fintail

stickguy said:

well, your truck is the equivalent of the old 1970s land yachts. 200" to me is full sized/large car. but now Accords, that started as compacts then graduated to mid sized, are pushing that.

With class creep, I suspect some rental companies are calling Corollas "midsized" now (to be fair, they probably are the size of an old Camry, in the same way Civics have bloated to the size of old Accords). I won't get into the class creep that had zero option Chrysler 300s counted as "luxury" but as those ended production, the fleets had to offer something closer to the name.

I think for legit large cars, it really is the purview of premium imports now - everything else is a potato CUV.

fintail

texases said:

@fintail said:

This is a funny one. I had long noticed the kind of bubble rear window of Fox Mustang notchbacks along with the louvers (which I think kind of evolved away by the 1987 facelift), but never really placed them elsewhere. Then I saw this online from a period launch article, and had to chuckle a little:

Those fake C pillar vents (or whatever they were) on the Mustang always looked a bit wrong, while I always liked those on the SLC. Go figure…

The lovers of the SLC being under glass were interesting to me when I was a kid - that car being top of the line when new might also add to its cachet. Also a subjective use of "sports coupe" - both of those cars may have a V8, but I wouldn't necessarily call either sporty.

fintail

By the looks of the scenery and one of the comments, I suspect that car has been exported (a fate I think might have happened to my dad's wagon) and is now in Czechia.

PW and AC has to be quite rare on something like that. Definitely has patina, which some enjoy, or nothing 25K or so wouldn't fix.

Here's another (identified as a "Town Sedan", which I think was the name for the 4 door post) in that ubiquitous 1960 Ford color:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNFTYTWTcxs

sda said:

A bit rough, exhaust system needs attention, perhaps rear end noise. Fully loaded with electric windows and ac. Are there aftermarket dash pads available? Good potential.

andre1969

I think the Accord nameplate might be the only one to ever span the entire range from subcompact to full-size. The current ones are classified by the EPA as full-sized, with 106 cubic feet of passenger volume, and 17 cubic feet of trunk space.

I seem to recall one generation of Accord, perhaps around 2008-2012, was either midsize or full-size, depending on what trim level you got. That's because the models that had a sunroof standard cut into headroom a bit, making them intermediate, but the cheaper models just barely made the cut to full-sized.

roadburner

Yesterday I displayed the Club Sport at Cars in the Commons in Louisville. More of the pictures will be posted in the CCBA topic, but here are a few interesting shots:

roadburner

More:

laurasdada

I like that the Esprit comes with a handy rear grab handle so you can just carry it away!

andre1969

I always liked those Pontiac G8s. Back when my 2000 Intrepid got totaled and I was hunting for a replacement, I briefly thought about buying one of those, before I found the 2000 Park Ave Ultra I ultimately bought. I remember finding a few used ones. Forget the price/mileage range that they were in, as that's going on 15 years ago now, but they were at least within my budget. Not what I wanted to pay, necessarily, but what I could afford. I think my biggest annoyance was that none of them had sunroofs, although when I bought the Park Ave, I had mentioned the G8, and he said they could always put a sunroof in.

andre1969

This just popped up in my facebook feed, one of those "Then and now" pics that you occasionally see of movie locations from years ago...

xwesx

That's surprisingly similar! So many dealership locations have undergone dramatic changes in that timeline.

andres3

Carlsbad BMW is a huge new dealership showroom, parts, and service all in one giant open floor plan with clear tall ceiling to floor storefront glass to the service bay so you can watch the techs working on your BMW on the lifts from your leather seat after using the expresso mocha machine. Impressive, but no wonder the X3M40i is $70K sticker with options.

ab348

xwesx said:

That's surprisingly similar! So many dealership locations have undergone dramatic changes in that timeline.

Odd that the left and center windows have been changed but not the one on the right next to the door.

fintail

They flattened our old car like a pancake.

I visited that location about 10 years ago, in Glendale CA (not Chicago), from here you can see where the Truckster was parked etc - a Chrysler dealer in 1982 and today:

andre1969 said:

This just popped up in my facebook feed, one of those "Then and now" pics that you occasionally see of movie locations from years ago...

Michaell

fintail said:

They flattened our old car like a pancake.

I visited that location about 10 years ago, in Glendale CA (not Chicago), from here you can see where the Truckster was parked etc - a Chrysler dealer in 1982 and today:

andre1969 said:

This just popped up in my facebook feed, one of those "Then and now" pics that you occasionally see of movie locations from years ago...

Looks like new owners had just taken over, given the temporary sign on the building....

fintail

Spotted the 88 T-Bird Turbo that lives a few blocks away - was out working in the yard and the older (senior boomer or maybe older) guy who owns it pulled up and asked me about the fintail (was in the garage uncovered). He's a big Ford guy apparently, told me about a couple he has.

stickguy

Driving around in traffic. Nice looking green MGA. With upgraded wheels.

fintail

On a somewhat obscure care note, RIP Ewy Rosqvist-von Korff, who with Ursula Wirth had dozens of victories in the 60s driving formidable racing fintails, and making history in the process:

https://youtu.be/NAMo2QHGs2E?si=0AV7D50QBZxRMsKn

sda

When we were in France in 1975-76, dad had a Renault 16 and 30 as company cars. I found this video interesting. https://youtu.be/DB58tiLxJV4?si=mI7ySgJK0We_9_mh

uplanderguy

We've been out in Seattle for a few days visiting our daughter. Yesterday near Snohomish I spotted a bright red '62 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk driving the other direction, and a red '65 Corvair Monza convertible also passed us.

We rented a Hyundai Palisade to come out here. It had 40 miles when I picked it up. Has over 3K miles. It has some quirky stuff compared to our GM's, but the size of it swallowed up all our stuff. We stopped at Kansas City (Truman presidential sites and WWI Museum) and Mt. Rushmore/Crazy Horse on the way out.

We spent six hotel nights getting here (first night was near Indianapolis as the next day was supposed to be solid thundershowers from our house, throughout OH and IN). We've decided to drop the Palisade off in Seattle and fly home (well, into Columbus) where our daughter and family will drive us the two or so hours home.

We're going to Vancouver BC today and I guess a couple days at Whidbey Island. Near here, we stopped at Moses Lake and stayed overnight as we couldn't drive any farther after leaving in the morning from Bozeman, MT.

fintail

uplanderguy said:

We've been out in Seattle for a few days visiting our daughter. Yesterday near Snohomish I spotted a bright red '62 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk driving the other direction, and a red '65 Corvair Monza convertible also passed us.

We rented a Hyundai Palisade to come out here. It had 40 miles when I picked it up. Has over 3K miles. It has some quirky stuff compared to our GM's, but the size of it swallowed up all our stuff. We stopped at Kansas City (Truman presidential sites and WWI Museum) and Mt. Rushmore/Crazy Horse on the way out.

We spent six hotel nights getting here (first night was near Indianapolis as the next day was supposed to be solid thundershowers from our house, throughout OH and IN). We've decided to drop the Palisade off in Seattle and fly home (well, into Columbus) where our daughter and family will drive us the two or so hours home.

We're going to Vancouver BC today and I guess a couple days at Whidbey Island. Near here, we stopped at Moses Lake and stayed overnight as we couldn't drive any farther after leaving in the morning from Bozeman, MT.

That's quite a trip! The warmer than average weather this weekend may keep some oldies off the road - forecast is 97 here last time I checked, so the fintail isn't coming out. We lived in Moses Lake when I was a kid - if it seems like nothing now, it was half that size 40 years ago. I'll be passing through there on a trip in a week.

Nice score on the rental car too, brand new car - I know some fleets have high spec versions of the Palisade.

fintail

Have spotted a Dodge Daytona running around the neighborhood, looking a bit rough but still going.

Spotted this in the real estate listing of an apparent original owner 1978 house:

roadburner

The '66-'67 and '71-'72 Rivieras are my favorites.

stickguy

Convertible day. Later 4 door continental with the top down. And a 1970ish Challenger with the top up.

sda

Cool video about the NSU Wankel. It appeared to be a highly engineered and well thought out car. Too bad the engine wasn’t ready for prime time. https://youtu.be/SfI3C77nZIg?si=URrIXU8Oa6SyiNVS

fintail

sda said:

Cool video about the NSU Wankel. It appeared to be a highly engineered and well thought out car. Too bad the engine wasn’t ready for prime time.

Very modern for its age with flush glazing and lights, it could pass for many cars 15+ years newer than its 1967 debut.

sda

Still impressive today. Great music, beautiful country side, a little rough with the broom. https://youtu.be/BbyArx-YUW0?si=q5JkZrfH-KzMMfnR

fintail

sda said:

Still impressive today. Great music, beautiful country side, a little rough with the broom.

I initially thought it was a shovel and was expecting a broken windshield. Those cars were quite modern in 1968, especially as they replaced the lower line fintails with their wraparound glass and fins, very passe by that time.

fintail

Another one by way of a real estate listing (image is from streetview), house has the same owner since 1980. Looks like we have 2x Bronco II, Topaz, late 90s Continental, and a ~ 70 Sedan DeVille in a very pretty blue:

kyfdx

My mother's last car was that Continental, but in a slightly grayer shade.

tjc78

@kyfdx said:
My mother's last car was that Continental, but in a slightly grayer shade.

I almost bought a one year old one before getting my 2003 Avalon. They were very nice cars with a good bit of power for the time.

xwesx

@kyfdx Of all the pages I visit, this *one* thread still insists on setting me at the top of the active page rather than bringing me to the first unread post.

texases

Same here, odd that one thread has this problem.

fintail

Same thing happens for me too

Michaell

So far as we know, the vendor is still looking into this issue. I haven't seen any updates in a few days...

kyfdx

Also, it's not just this one page.. but hey, it's only been a month. I'm sure that's a normal response time.

xwesx

kyfdx said:

Also, it's not just this one page.. but hey, it's only been a month. I'm sure that's a normal response time.

Whoa! Just came in for updates, and it finally took me to the right location. Coincidence?

explorerx4

Some young people thought it was a Civic.