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

fintail

Ah the Horizon...I drove by a childhood home of mine last week, and the first thing that came to mind was my dad's old blue Horizon sitting in the driveway. The house is like a time warp from when I lived there...unchanged...but I know that car went to the junkyard years ago.

And about the Subies...I love seeing a decrepit old Subie or VW, usually belching smoke due to various maintenance-related maladies, with environmentalist bumper stickers plastered on the rear. These people might have good intentions, but they are apparently not aware of the environmental impacts of their vehicles.

lemko

...red 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu two-door hardtop with black vinyl roof.

Beige 1972 Ford LTD convertible with black top.

gsemike

I think those old LTD convertibles are completely under rated. Jewel had a video where she was zipping around in one that was midnight blue with a pristine white interior and Champ 500 wheels. The car was completely hot.

There's nothing like a pretty girl in a convertible.....

jlawrence01

These people might have good intentions, but they are apparently not aware of the environmental impacts of their vehicles.

Ah, isn't the road to hell paved with good intentions??

I could easily sit down tonight and pretty much justify ANY vehicle purchase on its environmental impact. Likewise, I could probably lampoon ANY vehicle purchase on its environmental impact.

I guess my point is that we all act in our own self-interest regardless of how we spin it.

fintail

Indeed...and I guess my point was that if one is going to drive a heavily polluting old beast, don't slap environmental stickers on it.

On the obscure front, today I saw a first-gen Taurus (still tons of these around, they couldn't have all been bad) with 3 Tempo hubcaps and what I believe was a Dodge Dynasty hubcap. That can't be common.

I also saw a twin to my old W126, SWB, diamond blue with chrome wheels. I couldn't read the badge nor see if it had Euro lights like my car. I sold it to a guy about 60 miles from here...could it have been through town? Kind of got me going for a minute.

Mr_Shiftright

What's so environmental about an old Subaru anyway?

andre1969

What's so environmental about an old Subaru anyway?

Well they are biodegradable, aren't they? :P

stickguy

a brown 71-73ish Cougar convertible. Nice shape, but not attractive design. Certainly rare though.

And, a very early (prob about 1 '78?) Accord hatch, in the blue that they all seem to come in. No rust noticed, but certainly all original. Even had the original (very faded) dealer chrome stick on logo. Just looked like a car someone has used for 30 years.

The kicker is, it looked like an "original owner" car, since the old guy driving it looked to be in his 70's, and not wearing as well as the car!

gsemike

Subies are actually known to get poor gas mileage for what they are

andys120

I spotted a black Jetta from the last generation, common enough but this one wore "B-O-R-A" instead of Jetta on the trunklid.

VW cognoscenti will recognize Bora as the name Volks uses in the Euro market instead of Jetta (don't ask me why).

I suspect the black car I saw was badge-engineered into a Bora as it was otherwise
ordinary including a blank plate mount in the front sized for a North American License plate.

kyfdx

I saw the same thing a few months ago... Until that, I had never heard of Bora.. I think your assumptions are correct.

fintail

Seattle news today has had a "time filler - slow newsday" story about some local dope who paid 125K for an Amphicar...

Mr_Shiftright

He'll never live long enough to see that money come back. Well, 5 times the retail value isn't a bad buy---he's just "ahead of the market" as we say.

jlawrence01

Seattle news today has had a "time filler - slow newsday" story about some local dope who paid 125K for an Amphicar...

I know a couple of people who bought an Amphicar for a lot less who would be willing to dump it at cost!!!

fintail

Today in traffic I saw some kind of W111 cabrio, maybe a 280SE. It was blue with a darker blue top...the top didn't fit just right, and the wipers were parked wrong.

Mr_Shiftright

A very clean 403 sedan toodling down Pacific Ave. in Santa Cruz. Very rare to see a 403 on the road anymore. It's a handsome clean little car.

andre1969

I didn't know what a Peugeot 403 was, so I Googled it. Question: When did Nash start building cars for Peugeot? :P

fintail

Colombo's car was a 403

andre1969

I thought Columbo always rode around on a horse? Wait, that was McCloud.

Mr_Shiftright

and you wonder why I tease you.

The 403 is really a nice driving and very well-made little car. More like a Peugeot sewing machine than a Nash locomotive.

lemko

Of course you know the guy who played McCloud once drove a red-orange 1970 Plymouth Valiant chased by a big ugly tanker.

chuck1959

My fav movie..........Duel.

Mr_Shiftright

I always root for the truck.

andre1969

One of the trucks which was used as a backup truck for "Duel" was on eBay awhile back. I thought it would have been cool to buy it, but I believe the opening bid was something like $25K! I think it currently resides in St. Louis. This particular truck never actually got any airtime because it kept breaking down, but it's visually identical to the "star" truck that was used in Duel. There was also another truck that was used when they filmed some extra footage a few years later to bump the running time up by about 15 minutes, and then in 1978 in an Incredible Hulk episode that raided a lot of stock footage from "Duel".

Years ago I was in CA, and took some pics of my rental car in some of the same spots that Dennis Weaver's Valiant went in "Duel", like where he tried to push the school bus outside the tunnel, where he blew off the truck on the little gravel side road (after which it went after him and chased him down the mountain to Chuck's Cafe), the spot where he parked along the railroad tracks near the junkyard, and another spot where he drove off the road to get away from the truck right after it almost pushed him into the train.

Note to self...a 1991 Honda Civic is NOT as good of an off-roader as a 1970 Valiant!

It was really weird, almost creepy, driving in that area, a place I had never been before in my life, but knowing where practically everything was, just around the next corner, because I had seen the movie so many times!

I was out there again in 1999, and the railroad crossing is gone now. It looks like the railroad tracks were re-routed, along with the road, and nowadays the road passes under the tracks. I'm sure that makes for some fun when they have flash flooding!

If I can ever find those old pics I took, I'll scan 'em in and post them.

Hey, does anybody know what highway they used in the opening credits of the movie, where they go through a rapid series of tunnels? I went through that too, but can't remember what highway it was. I keep wanting to say it was 101 or 134, but it's been ages now since I went through them. I think it was near Universal Studios though.

chuck1959

It's been awhile since I saw the movie. I lived in L.A in '86 to '91 so it's probably the 101.

fintail

Looks like a great survivor, but "ROLLS ROYCE BENTLEY QUALITY"? uhhh

Neat little thing, dunno what it should be worth

For the brave

"TS" is a bad name for a car

Fargo, have the only one on your block

Healthy bidding here

Italian-Polish hybrid

French Mercedes, pretty nice, even with steam

What should these go for?

Gaudy paint, thick padded top, questionable interior...aaah the 70s

This has to be amazingly rare...and it's been rodded. 1980s MB aftermarket style steering wheel is quite uncool in this

Perfect car for a trip to the 'Big W' (yes, I know the real one was a '62)

I don't recall these ever being officially imported

Can't be many left like this

Andre dream car...I'm pretty sure I've seen it before

This looks pretty decent

Someone had way too much free time

Take a nice original and dope it up a bit...great

andys120

Chrysler Daimler??

Would you buy a used car from someone who didn't even know the make of a car they were selling? :P :sick:

Mr_Shiftright

Well now we know that a pristine Peugeot 604 is worth about the same as a banged up Mazda pickup truck.

Wood veneer 190DC?---as if it weren't slow enough. Well at least they didn't carve it out of 4 X 4s.

That '58 Desoto is quite the restoration (at least in pix). Doesn't seem likely the seller will come out whole at $29,000, or even $35,000. So much work!

'61 Olds -- yeah, it is a shame. I would have just taken it down to bare metal and re-painted the car a decent color, rather than muck it up into a shrine to bad taste. There are certainly other makes of '61s that deserve this fate, but not this car.

Mr_Shiftright

I about dropped my jaw on the floor. There I am, minding my own business on my bike, and a 30s black Packard woody in gorgeous condition comes puttering by me. That's got to be worth $60,000 bucks easy, at least in this condition.

fintail

Something like this?



That's one of those if-I-win-a-huge-lottery cars, and have some aircraft hangar to store my collection in. I like the 40-41 Packard woodies more - I've always thought they had decent proportions, but I wouldn't turn that one down.

Last night all I saw was some loud assumedly fake Cobra.

fintail

Mopar muscle

More Mopar...I like this one more

GT 500

Boss 302

Detail of pretty Camaro

Another view

Neat Fiat 'double bubble'

That insanely priced Amphicar...belongs to a realtor, that explains it

Stutz boat-tail

Rambler

Early 'town car'

Ex-Kipling Pierce Arrow

Classy LaSalle

Early 'tin snail'

Mr_Shiftright

That's it exactly! Where I live is a big surfing town so you see a fair share of woodies here.

fintail

The Fords are the most classic...surfer cars. But Packard has class and relative grace...for the US market kind of the Mercedes of the 30s.

Yeah I know these are the ultimate money pit...but this makes them look pretty cool

Mr_Shiftright

Something about this Mercedes 190SL doesn't seem right but I'm not sure why:

http://www.carspace.com/mr_shiftright/Albums/California%20Dreamin%27/190SL.JPG

nolid5

I don't think that is a period correct color.

By the way is that a new-fangled diesel engine? :P

british_rover

I think that hood ornament is non-original. That is a definite deduction from the concourse judge.

Mr_Shiftright

Those concours people---always harping on every little thing.

fintail

Yeah the non-functional hood scoop is some kind of aftermarket job.

boomchek

The "Italian Polish hybrid is the "small Fiat" that was seen everywhere in Poland.

The You Tube video with the Rolls: I'm trying to find one like that to rent for my wedding next september but I don't think anyone has one for hire or rent in Vancouver

kyfdx

In red.... Had a lot of rock chips, scratches, broken lenses, etc... Rubber lip gone off of front spoiler..

But, zero visible rust...

Mr_Shiftright

Bad car the 318. Stay away from that one.

kyfdx

Really? I figure by now, any surviving examples have had the problems all sorted out... The '91 has the same engine that is in the E36 4-cylinders that followed it..

lemko

...I saw a repeat of an old "Malcolm in the Middle" episode yesterday afternoon where the father was having an issue with a guy in a blue hot-rodded Chevelle with white racing stripes. The only problem is, the car kept switching years throughout the whole episode. In the beginning, it was a 1968 model. In one nighttime scene, they showed the taillights of a 1970 model. And then it became a 1971 model. Wassup wit' dat?

fintail

Ha, I saw that same episode yesterday! The front end shots were painfully obvious.

mazda6iguy

Of course you know the guy who played McCloud once drove a red-orange 1970 Plymouth Valiant chased by a big ugly tanker.

Anyone remember what Mannix drove, or Walker, Texas Ranger?

mazda6iguy

Perfect car for a trip to the 'Big W' (yes, I know the real one was a '62)

I wonder what ever became of the cars from that movie?

explorerx4

at least one of them went over a cliff.

fintail

I've never heard of any of them turning up. However, I wouldn't mind having Jerry Lewis' Chrysler 300 convertible or that pretty blue Impala bubbletop or that 48 Ford convertible that Phil Silvers ruins, or Don Knotts' 56 Ford convertible.

toomanyfumes

I had to google "Mannix" because I thought he drove Mopars. It looks like most years he drove a Dart GT or a Barracuda. Andre you should check out http://www.jmannix.net/ there is a section on his cars.

ghulet

Do you know of a website that shows (and lists the names of) Mercedes paint colors? Last week I saw two really nice late-60s/early '70s MB S-class (one was a 280SE 3.5 coupe, w/sunroof and gated floor shift, the other was a 280SE 4.5 sedan), both in fairly similar but definitely different greens.