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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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Anybody know anything about it?
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I don't exactly how much faster the car cornered because of these options however....but seriously, there was apparently an "Open Road Handling Package" (HUH?) but I don't know what that is.
In any event, it seems that the rarity of the Touring package doesn't affect value very much, so it's mostly an academic treasure hunt.
1980 was a dark year for automakers, one of the worst in their history.
As for handling, well I've only driven civilian R-bodies, so I can't comment on the cop suspension. In the M-bodies though, there's a world of difference between the standard cars and the cop cars (well the 4-bbl cop cars, at least!). During the 3 years it was available, the R-body was usually the top-rated police car when it came to handling.
Otherwise, this St. Regis touring edition almost sounds like a St. Regis with a 5th Avenue interior and backlite. My NYer is a light creme color inside, and I think they call it "cashmere" too.
I've been hearing about another low-production, top-line R-body as well, but what little info I could find on it is sketchy. Now at first, I was always under the impression that with Chrysler they had the Newport, which was priced around LeSabre/Delta territory, the NYer, which was a notch above the Electra/98, and then the 5th Avenue, which was a special package that added about $1500 to the NYer. Well, supposedly, there was something that was a notch above the 5th Avenue.
This url: http://www.angelfire.com/ca/mikesspot/history.html (it's Angelfire, so you might have to copy and paste if double-clicking doesn't work) mentions it. This site is worded a bit confusingly, but it looks like this car was called the New Yorker 5th Avenue Special Edition.
The site mentions that they produced 386 of them in 1980 and 347 in 1981. Any info on that one, Shifty?
Anyway, I don't know if this qualifies as car as obscure, just because say it's the only Chevrolet station wagon known to exist with pink sun visors.
When does an option package become "important" and affect value and impressions of rarity? Good question, worth a topic by itself.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
There's a red Alfa GTV-6 that lives outside a storage place near the highway. I keep wanting to go up to it and ask it if it needs a good home. It's not that pretty a car, but I've heard they're amazing fun to drive with the rear-transaxle giving great weight distribution.
Also saw my first Honda Element today. It was green with grey fenders. Not bad looking, actually. For an army-truck wannabe, at least. (At least it's honest about it, unlike an Escalade, X5, or H2...) It had dealer tags. Around here, Insights are moderately plentiful despite the relatively cheap fuel, so it wouldn't be rare to see them.
Another one that I did a double-take on was an Audi 200 Quattro that I was behind for a while. Doesn't look like much (same as any 100, pretty much) but with the same tubro-5 drivetrain as the ur-Quattro and S2 it's blazing fast. (SCI's Peter Albrecht got to 60 in 6.13.)
And then there was this Ford I saw. It looked kind of like a "5.0" vintage Mustang, but was more Sirocco-sized. Not being much for American cars (the only one anyone in my family ever owned was a 1987 Plymouth minivan that suffered a cracked V6 block by 1993...), I noted it but didn't pay too much attention. It said "EXP" or something on it.
An interesting car (for an early-1990s Japanese sedan, which is a little bit oxymoronic but I'll continue anyone) I saw recently was a Nissan Sunny. It looks kind of like a 3/4 scale early Infiniti Q45. Also similar to the "4DSC" Nissan Maxima. I saw several of 'em in Abu Dhabi. I would've wanted one of those when I was 16, if I hadn't been able to get my dream car (below) and if this Sunny had been available in the USA.
An interesting car I saw last summer in Belgium was an old Volvo 700-series limo. I think those were DDR (East German) state transportation. And in September I saw a fleet of German diplolatic corps Audi A8 W12's in Salzburg, during the meeting of the World Economic Forum there. And I do mean a fleet -- there was a parking lot full on 'em. (Also saw a Peugeot 607 there with French flags on the hood.)
Oh yeah, and when I came home today I saw a beautiful white Citroen DS-21 Pallas in the garage. Last time I checked, there were only three in the state. Life doesn't get any better than that! Well, maybe that with a modern Nissan or Honda twincam 2-liter under the hood....
PS: Shiftright mentioned Pakistan. As it happens, I was there in January. The car scene there is (as one would expect for a historically poor country like that) pretty depressing. The standard upper-middle-class car is a new(ish) Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. One also sees a few W123 and W124 Merc E-Classes, and smaller Nissans. Poorer people drive Honda or Yamaha bikes, take Vespacar rickshaws, or drive Suzuki hatchbacks. The trucks, buses, and tractors are all pretty elaborately decorated. I do have two friends with interesting cars -- one a Citroen 2CV6 in Islamabad, the other a Morris Minor and Rover P5 (? Their first BOP/Rover V8 sedan) in Lahore.
Alfa GTV-6 isn't that much f un. The Alfa engines of the 80s all got strangled by emissions requirements and lost a lot of their traditional Italian soul over here. Some of it came back with the 164 but it was too late by then.
Saw a 1968 Jaguar 3.4, sometimes called the 340. It looks exactly like a Mk II, but has a smaller engine. Rather rare in the US. It was an interim car while Jaguar brought in the (drum roll please).....
S Type, which looks something like the Mk II in the front but has square rear wheel wells (ugh!). A flop as you might imagine.
The S-Type (both original and current) may have been ugly, but at least the 1960s version of it had a proper Jag engine (the XK, as opposed to a Ford mill) and introduced their brilliant IRS to the midsized sedan.
I took my driving test in a 1985 Vanden Plas, and I can't imagine a modern multilink IRS rearend (to say nothing of the crude live rear axles that even Lexus and Infiniti trucks sport) providing as good a ride-handling compromise (on 70-series tires, at least) as the halfshaft-as-link Jag IRS did.
I can't think of anything that positive to say about the Forduar one, though.
PS: Hindustanis were made in India, and for that reason absolutely don't exist in Pakistan.
Jaguar--yeah, but those inboard brakes are a hassle and did we need roller bearings in the suspension links? And don't get me started on the saddle gas tanks issue!
What's the story on this?
DeSoto did something similar in 1960, where you could get a cross-ram 383 that put out 330 hp, in any Adventurer, whether it was the 2-door ht, 4-door ht, or 4-door sedan. I think the standard engine was a 383-2bbl that put out 305 hp.
I think once the big Bonneville was cancelled after '81, they used Delta 88's for these monstrosities.
The one you see above was advertised for $45,000, a virtual steal compared to a new BMW 5 Series seems to me:)
Italy, huh? I'll just keep that one in my back pocket to use at an opportune moment.
Damn, it's still out there. I have to look at it once more to get home tonight.
This is a '72, which was the first year they got a "normal" windshield (the '69-71's had kind of a vee'd 2-piece thing).
You can really see the Grand Prix underpinnings in this one.
You know, sometimes I'll see an oddball car that if someone offered to sell me for a few hundred bucks, I'd be tempted to buy just for kicks for a while. Like a 2CV or a Topolino (of course, no one would actually sell a decent one of them so cheaply). With this Bearcat, no one would be laughing with you, just at you.
I don't KNOW why people buy cars like this. I also don't know why they dress up like giant frogs and go on Let's Make a Deal, or why they reveal the most grisly aspects of their private lives to an entire nation on Bachelorette.
I just don't know.
Me, I'd buy it to set on fire and then drive through a wall of old appliances, something like that, you know, an "event".
Excaliburs and other abortions I've forgotten.
One that wasn't too bad was the Cord 810 which had an almost lookalike Cord body in 8/10th scale (get it) and a Corvair engine turned backwards to drive the front wheels (IIRC). It featured a body made of some type of rubberized plastic.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Bill Lear picked up the rights and continued production as the Sports Automobile Manufacturing Company (SAMCO) Cord Sportsman. 13 of those also had Corvair engines; later examples, through around 1974, had Ford smallblock or Chrysler 440 engines. The SAMCOs looked much less like the original Cord than did the 8/10, which was a cunning scaled-down copy of the original model (styled by Gordon Buehrig, I believe).
It was (and I can say this from firsthand experience) a terrifying car to drive, a death trap.
I suspect it's too heavy for most car body applications, but small dents pop right out with a little heat, and it's durable as all get out. It's hard to mold sharp edges into it.
I suppose those Saturn body panels are a similar type of polymer.
Steve, Host
They really don't have any good interior shots, though, but some of the pics have a glimpse here and there. Here's a '77 convertible, known as the Blackhawk...
Here's another shot, I think of an early '80's 4-door sedan.
The dashboard here also looks like a heavily modified LeSabre dash (the location of the glovebox door is a giveaway) but then the speedometer is pure Oldsmobile from that era, with its numbers crunched together in the middle and then spread out at the edges. The gas/brake/emergency brake pedals are also right out of GM's full-sizers of that era.
Carry on
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You know, there are facts and there are opinions, and the two don't have to get all mixed up.
In 1978 the price rose to $64,500, and you could order fur carpeting (I'm not making this up) and 24K gold interior trim. In 1979 there was a new 4-door with an MSRP of $107,000. In 1980 a limousine (the Royale) came out with a 425 cid engine and "throne seating", which could lift the occupant over the roofline of the car. (no, I'm STILL not making this up). This thing had an MSRP of $235,000. The sedan model carried the 350 cid engine, the Blackhawk the 403 and the limo the 425.
Okay, in 1981 the Blackhawk VII came out to replace the VI, the 403 was dropped at the 350 was standard on all models at an MSRP of $79,500 was shown for the sedan, $129K for the Beacat and 275K for the limo.(do you see disaster coming here?).
I'm not sure when they folded, but the 80s sometime.
And so the Virgil Exner Reign of Terror finally ended. Like Napoleon, he was not easy to subdue.
Here's a real Stutz. As you can imagine, it was quite the sensation. This is 1914!