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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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Andre, speaking of old Chicago cop cars, there's some shindig today at Daley Plaza (across the street from where I work) honoring Chicago's Finest (I won't comment), lots of old cops in kilts and whatnot; there are also two old Chicago police cars (or at least old cars made up to look like Chicago police cars)--one is a '66 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan (nice, but it has civilian tires, which makes me think it's a fake) and a Dodge Royal Monaco (painted in current cop car paint job, which is incorrect--Chicago cop cars from that era were all white with stars); at least the Monaco is a sedan, the one outside House of Blues painted up like the Bluesmobile is a four-door HARDTOP, of all things.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Too bad about the Weber carburetor though...they are fussy and they suck gas. He'd be much better off going back to stock on that rig.
if it's 'tucked away' it's probably a 'faux'.
Anyway, originally, a hardtop was a car with a fixed roof that had no B-pillar. They were originally called "hardtop convertibles" because they looked kind of like a convertible with the top up. Frameless door windows, no B-pillar, and you could roll everything down and get an open-air feeling that a sedan with a B-pillar just couldn't deliver. I think the original ones were created just by taking a convertible and grafting a steel roof onto it. Chrysler made a handful of Town & Country models this way from around 1946-48. GM was the first to mass market it though, in 1949 with Buick, Olds, and Cadillac models. I believe Chevy and Pontiac followed for 1950, and I think that year Chrysler also jumped on the bandwagon.
In 1955, Olds and Buick offered a 4-door hardtop (prior to this, all of them were coupes, although I have seen artwork for a prototype of a 1953 DeSoto 4-door hardtop, so it had crossed their minds at least). By 1956, just about everybody had one. Nash/Rambler even went so far as to offer a hardtop station wagon! So did Olds and Buick. Mercury also had a 2-door hardtop wagon. Can't remember if Ford did as well...I think so. And Chrysler offered them from 1960-64.
The hardtop had a lower, more rakish roofline than its sedan counterpart, and usually had a different windshield as well. This made them appear more sporty and low-slung than their sedan counterparts, but also cut into headroom. Sometimes they'd also be a bit tighter in the back seat, because they would move the seat forward, allowing the roof to end more abruptly and coupe-like, which would then give the car a longer rear deck.
Hardtops usually ran a few hundred bucks more than their sedan counterparts, and were usually only offered in the higher trim levels. For example, in 1972 you could get an Impala or Caprice hardtop, but not a Bel Air or Biscayne hardtop. And police departments usually specified the low trim lines, meaning that a Chevy police car was usually a Biscayne or Bel Air back in those days.
Sometimes though, I think smaller jurisdictions might have just taken what was available. And I'm guessing it was possible to order a police car in a nicer trim level. Did Olds ever offer a police package? I recently saw a movie called "Race with the Devil", where the cops were driving 1973 or so Olds Deltas. And at the end of "Smokey and the Bandit", there was a scene toward the end, where a '74 Olds Ninety Eight (I can't believe these were ever used as copcars!) crashes into a '77 LeMans just outside the fairgrounds.
The Ninety Eight was an airbag model though, so it's possible it was put into a police fleet to test it out. Not all police cars were/are high-performance interceptor models. They've always had regular-power models to do stuff like serve summonses, make the patrol rounds, do donut runs, etc.
Just to drive something nobody else has?
How he does it, that's the hard part :confuse:
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
No other way that I think of....
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I like the style of this...if I didn't know better, I would swear it is French or German
Shifty-mobile
I wonder what kind of mileage this would get
A freakishly cool British interpretation of 50s American styling...I think these have quite a following in England too
Another Euro-American styling hybrid
Of course it's very pretty, but is it really worth more here than at home?
Beautiful sinister looking DS19
A "new" Buick that is cooler than any really new one
Final year Airflow, you can see how they tried to normalize the front end, and it appears to have conventional seats too. Still a cool car, and the color suits it
Andre-mobile
I remember I had a Matchbox car that looked just like this
I wonder if this is for real
Seldom-seen bodystyle
Interesting wagon
Pretty blue Olds
Pimpy yellow behemoth
Someone experiencing the joys of trying to unload a somewhat restored fintail. Not a bad looking car though, and it will last forever
although i enjoy all your ebay posts, this one is the best for me.
when i saw the pictures of the '60 wagon, i thought of the ridgeline.
the shifty had a link over it titled 'enlarge this picture'. i thought. why would i want to do that? it looks really bad in a small picture.
i think you really nailed the 'andre mobile'.
the euro-american hybrid really got me. father is american, my mother german.
when i was 8 or 9 years old, my grandfather(german) had the same car, but blue with a white top. he lent it to us for a trip to berlin. when we got to the east german border, my dad started taking some pictures. what i really remember after that is the border guard sticking a machine gun in the window of the car at my dad. he asked for our identification, that took the camera removed the film and gave the camera back.
it took me a long time to figure it out, but here is what i came up with. we were driving a car with west german plates through to east germany. once the guard figured out that we were americans, he let us go.
my dad, bring the kind of guy he was, stopped the the car around the next corner, and put in another roll of film. i remember stopping again to take a picture of a tank on a big cement pedestal. i also remember the gun had one of those barrels with all holes around the outside of it.
Today I was in a very pricey neighborhood (Medina WA, home to Bill Gates among others - the fintail likes to cruise there), and I saw a first generation Citroen CX, likely a grey market import from the early 80s. It looked like brand new, it was pristine. Driven by a little old lady, too. What an odd sight.
And my own obscure cars had their first face to face meeting today
C43 meets fintail
I hope they'll get along
One of my dad's friend's just purchased a '98 E300 Turbodiesel- it has about 89k miles on it. He says the motor will definitely go forever but he is not so sure about the electronic stuff. What series was that '96-'02 generation again?
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Seems like a nice car otherwise though, although I imagine with a slant six (they were down to about 90 hp by that time...in a ~3400 lb car!), 0-60 isn't going to be anything to brag about! I heard that by this time, the 318 actually gave you better fuel economy, because it didn't have to strain as much to lug it around!
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A 96-02 E is a W210. Seems all the old diesels are becoming sought after as gas rises.
My 1981 Consumer Guide recommends the V8 over the 6cyl option in just about every car it tests. Seems they all got better mileage, as they were less stressed, and performed better (although just about everything that year performed horribly)
Speaking of Matchbox cars...I remember there was a MB 500SEC at the same time that Chrysler was made, in similar colors. I have a lot of my old cars too, and a bunch of older ones that I have bought later. I need to keep away from that fixation, those little things are too pricey.
at a local gas station, for sale:
48 Plymouth Deluxe two-door sedan, at a local gas station, for sale; pretty dowdy looking, even by 1948 standards, but this example was pretty nice, in a light tan with darker interior; I think asking price was like $6500. You'd be the only one around who owns one, but I can think of dozens of cars I'd rather have at that price.
54 Pontiac sedan, looked fairly high line, at the same gas station for sale ($5500, IIRC), in a pretty cobalt blue; I wonder how many people were seriously miffed when the '55s came out after having bought '54s, what with the much more modern new styling and availability of V8 engines (of course, the same question could apply to just about any '54 domestic compared to similar '55s)
67 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible, in stunning triple white; I never realized, til last night, the easiest way to tell a '66 from a '67 is the steering wheel; the '67 had the corporate-wide 'energy absorbing' steering wheel with the huge padded hub.
65 Chrysler New Yorker four-door hardtop, driving down the street, white with red leather or vinyl, in beautiful condition. I think this one even had working factory a/c, as it was a bit hot out and the guy was cruising with his windows up. I know this era is not among the most popular with collectors, but I kinda like the '65-66s, more so the former, with the concave taillights.
70s (W116?) Mercedes 280SE, in that kind of dull dark yellow color (Bamboo?) with matching hubcaps and the usual palomino tex, or possibly leather. In pretty nice shape, considering most 116s I see now are on their last legs.
Ultimate beater? $750 doesn't buy much usually
Pretty car, price doesn't seem bad at all
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
In the case of GM and FoMoCo the introduction of wraparound windshields in '55 was a dramatic break with previous styling. ChryCo's wraparounds were less dramatic in shape but they had something even more dramatic, FINS even bigger than Caddy's.
Things were never the same afterward.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I remember reading a comparison test from around 1955 in one of those consumer rags (not CR, but Consumer-something or other) that tested a Chevy Bel Air sedan, a Buick Special, and a few other cars. I thought it was interesting that they'd be daring enough to pit the Buick against a Chevy, as they usually didn't compare across classes like that back then.
Well, the truth came out though, that the Chevy tested better all around than the Special. Less hp, but it was also a much lighter car. IIRC the tranny was better too. The Powerglide was decent for 1955, but the DynaSlow evidently sapped a lot of performance. Plus, back then Chevy Bel Airs had really upscale interiors, moreso than a top-line Ford or Plymouth, where the Special's interior was kind of downscale, being the cheapest Buick.
As for wraparound windshields, Chrysler didn't go for the extreme dogleg like GM and Ford did, but instead went for an extremely rakish look. Not in '55-56 necessarily, but the '57+ Forward Look cars were extremely raked back, with a windshield that was futuristically-sloped for the time. In contrast, GM and Ford wraparounds are upright and boxy. The Chrysler wraparound was sort of what modern cars morphed into, with a normally-slanting A-pillar, minimal dogleg, and a fairly rakish windshield. For all the wild reverse-slant A-pillars and such on the Ford and GM cars, their windshields were actually pretty upright and brick-like.
On an '89 Volvo wagon... who would have guessed?
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Old guy (70+, no offense intended), comes shuffling out of the store.. looks like he slept in the shorts and t-shirt he had on.... Holding his bag from the store, and what looks like his wife's wallet... walks over to a Mercedes C230 hatchback... in a greenish-yellow metallic color... sort of a Mountain Dew -- lima bean combination.... Holding his stuff, has to enter female-style, butt first... pretty shaky.. drives off.... has handicap plates...
Just plain strange!!
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Last week I found what I thought was a bargain on a new OEM set of C43 floormats. I got them yesterday - I received a set of C36 floormats. Awesome.
I think the C hatch is a chick car, but I have noticed a few oldsters in them. They are almost obscure too...even in Bellevue, they are uncommon. Here, it seems the stereotypical oldster car is a Lexus ES or maybe a Caddy.
The taillights definitely look Buicky to me, though. For some reason, I recall an episode where Peggy was shifting the car manually! Oh well, I guess you can't have total consistency in a cartoon...I just think it's cool they went through the effort that they did to make the cars look like actual cars!
I like it when real cars make it into cartoons. Watch the Simpsons, and you'll often see real cars...not Homer's or Marge's car, but some of the others, or just cars in the background.
And to me, the Canyonero was certainly an Excursion. Remember, Homer had the "F-Series", which was aimed at women.
i remember reading about a guy that had a 5.0 ford v8 conversion kit for volvo's that got shipped to you in a suitcase.
i know paul newman used to drive a vovlo(wagon?) converted to a v8.
this one takes it a couple of solar systems further.
it was at Lime Rock, about 120 years ago, maybe iot was Newman's. :P
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I don't think you could even make it downshift at that speed, though. The older, pushbutton style had a safety feature that kept you from going into 2nd gear once you got over like 80 mph or so. I don't think the newer ones were that "smart", but I can't imagine that going into second at 115 would be very good for the car!
Most likely, those older cars would have had much better top speeds if they had the benefit of transmissions that had more gears to space it out a bit better. For instance, if the Torqueflite in the example of my buddy's Charger had another gear somewhere between the 1.45:1 second and the 1.00:1 direct drive, it might've been able to downshift to that gear, and have enough oomph to go faster.
As for aerodynamics, an old Volvo might actually be WORSE than 0.50. The 1977 Cougar, which was a result of extensive (for the time) wind tunnel testing, had a Cd of something like 0.58.
Also, my '89 Gran Fury, which had the aerodynamics of a brick, could do 125 mph. At least, according to the Michigan State Police it could! And that was with a relatively low-hp 175 hp 318 V-8 and 2.94:1 gearing. The '79 St. Regis/Newport, with a 360-4bbl, 185 or so hp, and a 2.94:1 rear could also hit around 125 mph. The '89 Caprice police package, with a TBI 350 (around 190 hp) could break 130 mph...probably the first police cruiser since those infamous 1969 vintage Polara 440's that could do it!
Supposedly the '56 Adventurer hit 144 mph, but then mysteriously had engine trouble. Rumor has it that it was a "politically correct" move so as to not embarrass the more expensive 300 Series. And the '56 Dodge, with a 315 Hemi, hit 130 mph. Mechanix Illustrated and Motortrend both got the '57 Adventurer to hit 140 mph.
So what gives here? A little embellishment? Or was the marketing right, in that those tailfins really did add "strength and stability at highway speeds"? :P I wonder what the Cd would be on something like a '57 DeSoto or Chrysler? As rakish as the windshields were, and with the low, sweeping hoods, they LOOKED sleek, but cars that look sleek aren't always. Sometimes the most boxy, awkward shapes can still be very aerodynamic.
However, if these were official records put in the Bonneville books, I might tend to believe them. McCahill? I wouldn't believe anything he wrote but he was entertaining.
Aerodynamics as a science rather than an intuitive sense of style was pretty well proven by the Germans just prior to WW II---with no more or not much more HP than a 60s Hemi they were hitting speeds of 268 mph on the autobahn. Pretty impressive for 1938.
I think their understanding of aero was still primitive in '38.
'1939 Auto Union Streamliner=>
That looks like a low drag/high lift shape to me. Bernd Rosemeyer, one of the most gifted of a generation that included Nuvolari and Carriciola, was killed in one.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Besides, you push the envelope to go where no man has gone before, and somebody is going to get killed. You can't predict what happens in unknown territory after all.
I think the first really fabulous aero design in terms of efficiency was the Citroen for 1955. The car went pretty fast with dinky horsepower.