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

fintail

And my odd sightings today. I saw a ca. 1988 BMW M5, kind of dirty and tatty...with a tow hook on the back! Also, a ca. 1965 T-Bird with sequential signals...that was a cool idea. And a SWB W126 identical to my old car...same color, chrome wheels...could it have been my car? The guy I sold it to lives about 60 miles away, so I don't know.

I've always kind of liked these
Talk about an unusual emblem
Uncommon survivor
From the same seller, another you don't see every day
For the commercial car enthusiast
Nice state of preservation
Who would have bothered?
Kind of a handsome old beast
Freakshow
Much nicer fuselage
Seems more exciting than many late model Ponchos

fintail

Oh, and about the 600...there was a SWB, an odd coupe they made maybe a couple of- or just one, a LWB (Pullman), and an open LWB (Landaulet)

boomchek

That limo reminds me of the old Guiness record books that had the super long longest limo in the world with a hot tub/pool in the back. I wonder where those cars are sitting now.

As for the low mileage AMC, I can only imagine that in 30 years we will see low mileage Azteks, Ford 500s (current models), and other slow sellers of today popping up on online auction sites.

diana6632

Hi,
My name is Diana C. I have been trying to purchase a new Mercedes suv. I got a great deal on it but they said that they can't deliver without a Chrysler i.d. number for purchase. I have asked so many people and they said its no big deal to get one but I was hoping you could help me. I am happy to compensate for the i.d. number but I can't afford the car without it. Any help you could give me? Thank you! Diana

Mr_Shiftright

HI Diana,

Welcome. You're in the wrong area here. You need to post in a suitable topic within the Smart Shopper Board. Here's your link:

Smart Shopper Forum

andre1969

while driving down a few roads I haven't been on in awhile...

1946-48 DeSoto 4-door, parked in a driveway, originally blue but with a lot of gray primer on it. Looked pretty solid, at least from a quick drive-by.

1976 Olds 98 4-door hardtop, in another driveway, in a shade of brown that only a 70's car could pull off with any dignity.

Then, in another driveway, a 3-fer...
1964 Impala 4-door, black, kinda rough looking.
1970-72 Monte Carlo, mostly primer/blackish/brownish, rough but looking like a work in progress.
early 60's Chevy pickup, 8-foot bed, again in primer, and servicable looking.

andre1969

I was out and about, and saw a few more old relics. Among them were a '66 Impala 2-door hardtop in a yard, white, a bit rough but looked like it at least moved under its own power; a faded burgundy '78-79 Pontiac LeMans sedan moving down the road, and finally, an early 70's AMC Hornet 2-door sedan, in that robin's egg blue that every other one seemed to come in, parked in a driveway.

I also dug my '76 LeMans out of the garage and drove it around the neighborhood for a bit. It had been awhile since I've run it, so it had to be jumped.

fintail

Today I saw a sound original looking MB W108 250SE being towed, a 1955 Pontiac 2 door hardtop, a 70s Toyota Corona wagon, and well-worn examples of both the Pontiac T1000 and Mustang II.

andys120

I saw a '59 Chevy Station Wagon, parked next to a small home
it did not look to be in running condition, perhaps undergoing restoration.

fintail

Today I saw a later model Gremlin, in an ugly green with dog dish hubcaps and blackwalls, a Land Rover Defender pulling a junk hauling trailer (!) and an excellent '59 Caddy 4 door hardtop - the flat top kind - in two tone white and pink.

boomchek

A very nicely done MB S Class (W126), with euro bumpers, all in black, lowered with 20 inch rims.

The rims matched the vehicle perfectly and didn't lok out of place probably because it was lowered a few inches.

It alos had Euro bumpers.

Overall it was the only modified W126 that I saw that actually looked good.

oregonboy

Gremlin, in an ugly green

Would that be the ugly bright lime green, or the ugly avacado green? :confuse:

james

bhill2

WOW! A Mercedes 600 coupe? That would be one helluva sight. Could you by any chance find a picture of that to post?

fintail

Here's a page with all W100 600 variations. The hearse is interesting. I always thought if I take my last ride in a hearse, I want it to be a 1930s hearse or a fintail hearse. But I would be happy with that 600 too.

And re: boomchek's W126...there's a period Lorinser conversion on a pre-86 Euro 500SE sitting at my local MB specialist. It has the bodykit, wheels, interior mods, etc...it's pretty decent. If it's there when I visit again, I will get a photo of it.

fintail

It was kind of a dark tank green. Not a pretty sight. It was in nice condition though, someone was obviously caring for it.

This afternoon's spottings were a really nice looking Ford Fairmont woody, and a very nice looking MB W123 in an ugly period 'cookie dough' tan.

bhill2

Thanks, Fintail. I was right, the coupe is a helluva sight (both of them, actually, but I prefer the Nallinger).

imidazol97

a 1976 Ford Thunderbird on a flatbed hauling it north from Knoxville. It was a wide, wide looking rear and when I saw the front I realized it shared the body with Lincoln Mark IV in its life gasp last years. It looked well-preserved in blue.

fintail

I saw a real good one today...a ca. 1936 Packard roadster, a big highline model. It wasn't a sporty roadster, but the kind of thing that still looked like it would have a rumble seat. It was pristine of course, and just silently glided down the street. The only thing is that it was a shade of blue that somehow didn't seem period correct.

It was something of this style:

lemko

Cool article about the late great Jeep Wagoneer from the Philly newspaper:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20070405_Wagoneers_ho__Still_rolling_on.htm- l

Mr_Shiftright

I think they make much better hobbies than they did everyday cars---but then, that's true of most old stuff.

Mr_Shiftright

"R.L. Polk & Co. says that as of last July (2006), only 9,153 of the 3 million Pintos built between 1970 and 1980 were still on the road, as were a mere 3,367 of the 2 million Vegas assembled between 1970 and 1977."

I'm amazed there is even one left.

oregonboy

LIVE... from Boring, OR

Classic Pinto

"The pictures speak for themselves" (and they say, I'll show you the back seats, but not the front) :P

james

andre1969

it sounds like the Pinto has a survival rate of about 0.2%, while the Vega is about 0.16%. For some odd reason, the statistic that roughly 2% of all 1961 DeSotos produced were still around as of 1990 sticks in my mind.

I've always been fascinated with that kind of stuff, like what percentages of old cars are still around. I'm guessing there's not an easy way to find out, though.

Another useless statistic I remember is that, as of roughly spring 1987, roughly 50% of all the 1980 GM X-cars were still on the road. I think it came up because there was some news report at the time of them being implicated in yet another fiasco.

How old does a car have to get before it won't get covered in a recall anymore?

fintail

I wonder how many 220SE fintails are still left...production was around 66K units in a 5.x year span...but that's global, not just NA or US.

imidazol97

How many of the first 10 years of Hondas imported into US are still on the road?

When did Toyota first start in US? How many of the first 10 years are left?

This is interesting.

andre1969

I think early Hondas and Toyotas are going to be extremely rare, because by and large, their earliest efforts in this country were probably cheap junk. For example, I think the first Toyota brought over to the US was the 1958 Toyopet. I don't know much about them, but have heard they were utter junk.

Similarly, I'd guess that the first Hondas hit our shores around 1968 or so? They made a Honda 600 or something like that, and they also made something else, before moving to "big" cars like the Civic.

Once you started getting into serious attempts at small cars, like the 70's imports, I'd imagine that they probably had a fairly good survival rate once you got out of the rust belt.

However, like the Vega and Pinto, most small cars back then were viewed as cheap, basic transportation. Sure, if you drove a 1976 Accord, you probably looked down through your nose at a Chevette, Pinto, or Gremlin driver, but most of the vehicle buying public was still looking down through THEIR noses at you! And a lot of people bought those little things not because they wanted to, but because they felt forced to.

Therefore, they just got used up and disposed of once their usefulness was gone.

I'd imagine that the best survival rates would be found among luxury cars like Cadillac, Lincoln, and Imperial. People tended to buy them and pamper them, and hold on to them longer. And when they got traded, often they ended up in the hands of second hand buyers who still pampered them and held on to them.

Musclecars and ponycars and such might be considered much more desireable, but they were often driven hard, abused, smashed up beyond repair, etc., and that probably keeps their numbers comparatively low. Although if they're desireable enough they'll get salvaged. Still, musclecars went to the crusher in droves once the first fuel crisis hit.

And more mainstream cars, like a Chevelle, Impala, etc, while not as disposeable as some cheap subcompact or compact, still were often discarded once their usefulness was up, or something new and (not necessarily) better came along. A lot of these big mainstream cars also got ditched once the fuel crisis hit

imidazol97

The first Hondas of which I was aware outside of a motorcycles was a 1978 CVCC IIRC. It was rusting with little more than a year on it. I lived in the midwest but the car was at the beach in Charleston. I wonder how many of those first 10 years after that are left?

There's an advertisement currently saying a certain percent of the 11 years of a car model are still on the road. 90%. And I don't remember the car right now. But they sold few of those cars through the first years so having sold lots of them more recently means most of them better still be on the road since the firs 3 years may only be 10% of the whole mess of vehicles sold. Statistics misused to mislead people.

seminole_kev

Obviously it is tough to do an apples to apples comparison, but I wonder what the survival rate of the average unibody car would be compared to a body on frame car. Seems like the unibody car would be less likely to survive over the years to me.

explorerx4

like this?

220 SE

andys120

The Civic CVCC was the fourth Honda car to be imported,
the Honda S500 was the first ca. 1965 followed by the Honda
N600 and Z600 ca. 1970. First imports of the Civic were around '76 IIRC.

fintail

Nice color, and my fintail would love those tires. Not cheap though...and cosmetic-only restorations always worry me a little.

explorerx4

it was just a 'co-inky-dink' that i happened to drive by there today. i went to there site after seeing the '67 shelby/stang in their showroom driving by it.

Mr_Shiftright

No the early Toyotas weren't junk, they were just totally wrong for American driving conditions, so we thought they were "junk"....but in fact American salesmen couldn't sell them, so they decided to destroy them by driving them abusively---as parts cars, loaners, etc....but they couldn't kill 'em. They were very tough but very wrong for America...underpowered, bizarre styling.

they weren't "cute" like a VW bug or pretty like a Renault Dauphine but probably a much better car all in all....

Remember, too, that in 1958 many Americans still hated the Japanese. The war was only over 13 years, well within the memory of veterans and their families.

I think you don't see many early Japanese cars because the bodies just disintegrated and the cars themselves not worth restoring.

It's the popular cars that disappear at the fastest rate, ironically....no one thinks of them as precious or rare or special.

fintail

Early 50s style

High bidding

Maybe a Shifty-mobile

"Diplomatica"...yeah, if Elvis or Liberace ran an embassy

Odd survivor

Perhaps my favorite 1930s Packard

Sharp fins

Big bucks

It would be hideous if it wasn't so unashamed

OF all the things to be saved

Very nice fintail...so correct, but the hubcaps aren't

imidazol97

The 1968 Buick is nice! It has a yellow needle in the middle of the speedometer picture; the speedometer needle is orange. What is the yellow needle for?

The 1958 Buick is supreme! Red!!! Wow. Most striking of the bunch.

Then the 1958 DeSoto. It's my favorite car because of the big fins from that era, but the colors look bland after the _red_ 58 Buick.

Then the 1953 Buick Skylark popped up. Beautiful burgundy restoration. The curves on that babe are spectacular.

What a bunch of US cars this time around. Thank Fintail.

boomchek

My god, an overpriced Stutz again! What are these people thinking?

Every time I see one, the front end looks like it's unfinished (the front corners look like there's turn signals missing.

Mr_Shiftright

You know I love micro-cars but there are a couple I don't care for...one is this BMW 700, which is everything BUT charming and cute...

kyfdx

And... the only thing missing is an engine... such a small problem.. :surprise:

andre1969

I'm not ashamed to admit, I really like that '76 LeSabre hardtop! As for that yellow needle, I think that was a speed control. You'd set it at whatever speed level you wanted, and then when you were driving, if you went faster than that level, a buzzer would go off to warn you. It seemed to be a common feature on Buicks, even way back in the 50's, but I dunno if other brands used it as well.

That '58 DeSoto Firedome is cool too, although the fit of the passenger side front door is awful. And I think those close-up pics confirm somethng I've always theorized...that the 2-door hardtop and 4-door hardtop used the same roofline. I think the interior looks pretty good, too...one of the better non-original interiors I've seen.

About the only thing nice I'll say about that Stutz is that I love that shade of dark green! But otherwise, it's pretty hideous. Hey, I caught a Stutz reference on tv this morning. Don't laugh, but I was watching "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop", and at one point she jumps into her racing car to escape. She refers to it as a Stutz Bearcat model XKZ.

And this is probably gonna sound weird coming from a big-car fan like me...but I like that '69 Toyota! Neat looking little car.

That '58 Buick wagon is a neat car, too. I think the '58 Buick is about as excessive as cars got that year, but somehow I think it wears it better than something like an Olds or Edsel. I still think it's a styling mess compared to any '58 Mopar, which were almost too tasteful to be 1958 cars, but it's still pretty cool. One thing I notice about it that's interesting, is that, for a station wagon, it looks like it would be almost useless. The cut of the C-pillar makes it look hard to get into the back seat, and the cargo area looks fairly small, as well. I wonder how much cargo space these things were rated at? For comparison, I think the Mopar wagons were rated at 95 cubic feet back then. Didn't matter which brand you got, as the body shell was the same from the cheapest Plymouth to the priciest Chrysler. Of course, today it's a moot point, because nobody's going to buy something that nice and use it for trips down to Lowes and Home Depot! Another thing I noticed, looking at that Buick, is that Buick did a good job at making their cars look more massive than they really were. IIRC, a Special was only something like 207" long. I think that was only incrementally longer than a '58 Chevy, and well short of a Mercury, DeSoto or Chrysler, and I think even a '58 Dodge was about 214" long. '58 Buicks were heavy little suckers though. I dunno how well that translates into being well-built or sturdy, though!

andre1969

what's a Porsche 928 "supposed" to sound like? I just heard something go past my house that sounded like a truck, and looked out the window to see a red 928 go by. I see it fairly regularly, usually once or twice on weekends if I'm around. Now granted, it sounds like a muscular truck, but I just figured it would sound a bit more sophisticated? Also seems to have a lot of tire noise, too.

Is a 928 one of those cars that often gets a Chevy smallblock transplant?

Mr_Shiftright

Probably just one more 928 beater with rotted out mufflers that the bargain-hunter owner can't afford to replace.

In stock form they sound very mellow, and with an Ansa exhaust they sound really nice.

Yeah, you can do the engine conversion to a Chevy and then they sound like a jack-up Chevelle on Flowmasters, but a "truck" noise is usually just rotten out exhaust, a common problem.

Of course, the engine conversion costs more than the entire car is worth, so I'm not sure what's up with that. That's easily a $10,000 project. So I don't think it's done "often". I've only seen one (pretty neat, actually).
The 928 engine is not a problem, it's everything they attach to it. So unless your steering, AC and electrics are also early GM, you still got many of the problems. It's like the Jaguar V8 conversions--they throw away the best part of the Jaguar, the engine. Well at least in the case of the XJ6, they also throw away the pathetic automatic transmissions, so that's a good thing. Can't beat a TH400.

andys120

-There's a part of me that would love to bid on that Facel, what a great time you'd have explaining to people what it is
and it's a pretty car besides, although it could use a better color.

-"Italian Stutz" my :censored:!

-I totally agree on the Fintail, it just doesn't look right without the color matched hubcaps.

fintail

Yeah, the hubcaps bug me. Easy issue to fix, anyway.

Mr_Shiftright

The Stutz looks like it was assembled out of used furniture and plumbing fixtures bought at auction from a bankrupt brothel in Reno.

explorerx4

yes, that yellow needle is for setting the speed alert. we had a 1970 electra that had it, and i got in trouble a few times for changing the speed it was set at.

fintail

Yesterday I saw a beautiful correct looking 190SL in black with wide whites, sitting in the driveway of a very stereotypical 50s looking house...it was a cool sight.

magnette

I recall the first Japanese cars I saw in UK were a pair of Honda S800's in 1966... I was ten, and had gone with my father to a local car race track in South Wales, near where we lived. There was a dealer there, demonstrating the new Honda S 800 coupe and roadster, which had just gone on sale in the UK - we thought it was just a cheap copy of a Midget/Sprite/Spitfire....
Daihatsu had already tried to sell cars in UK before that, with the Compagno in 1964, but they were rare - I think they only had about two dealers, and I never saw one on the road...
Toyota started selling the Corona here in 65, but they were only in big towns like London at first - again, they weren't on the roads where I lived.
We got small Datsuns from 1966, too, and I started to see those as there was soon a dealer quite nearby - little did we know......

justaveragejoe

I am not sure what defines obscure but does a McLaren or Ferrari count? Check the albums at:

http://www.carspace.com/justaveragejoe/Albums/truck/

justaveragejoe

I finally figured out how to add a picture to the message. Here is a half a million dollar car that drove past me while I was taking pictures of my old truck. Not classic yet but kinda obcure.

gsemike

Rolling up 6th Ave this morning in Manhattan, I saw a nice red 68 or 9 El Camino SS. It had pretty nice red paint and was rolling on 15 X 8 rallies. The car looked pretty good except for one spot of rust on the lower front corner of the passenger door. Other than that, it looked good and solid with shiny paint. In Manhattan, a car like that really stands out.