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

fintail

You won't see your twin at any car show

"Antique"

Makes hens teeth look common

Like those hubcaps on this "Rare Classic"

More fins

Kinda has that time warp look

Cadillac style

"Custom Coachwork"

Decent looking fintail

Another, in my backyard. Euro lights + US signals = d'oh

Seems to be missing a few parts

You don't need an SUV to haul people

Mr_Shiftright

78 Honda: this is the kind of ad copy that really makes you want to bid even more:

"There was rust above the front two tires on the frame next to the hood. But this was cut out and fiberglassed"

toomanyfumes

The owner of the stretched '81 Eldo says "let me know if you need any more photos." I think those say it all.

justaveragejoe

I love pictures of the motor where you can't even see the motor. That Honda looks cool, especially the bubbling paint, but that has been taken care of. Maybe a Ford 302 would fit in that MB Sedan. Is "surface rust" defined as a standard in some automotive manual, maybe the KBB?

fintail

There's one of those floating around my area, too. For the money, I'll take a real gullwing and have some cash left over.

fintail

Surface rust probably means 50-70% of the floors are still intact, but you can punch through the rocker panels

boomchek

Good picks this week fintail.

If you squint your eyes, the Borgward looks like an old MB Fintail, almost. Very similar lines.

That old Accord, is a neat little car, but those bubbled fenders look atrocious.

The stretched Eldo looks like it was abandoned to die somewhere on that farm. I'm surprised at the number of bids on it. And why would anyone stretch it and make it look worse than it originally was? Probably the same people who dreamed up the Stutz.

And that Woody... more wood growing out of the car than on it.

Mr_Shiftright

The stretched Eldo is hilarious---did you read the ID tag from the "custom coachworks" that built it? They list a P.O. Box on the tag---LOL!

explorerx4

saw a really nice old mini flare fenders, brg/white roof/silver minilites. lots of little stickers in the windows. my daugther who was horseback riding even noticed it and remarked about it to me.
stopped at a traffic light; two black shortbed pickups, side by side. a 65 or so ford and a hew hemi ram 4x4. the old ford looked so small and low to the ground compared to the ram.

fintail

I am sure that company remained in business for years. Yeah. Right. Sure.

And about that Borgward...there were a number of designs in Europe around 1959-60 that are like the fintail, that Farina style was in vogue for a little while.

fintail

Yesterday I saw something that would catch very few eyes...but it was odd. It was a 560SEL...but in this odd light creme yellow color with kind of a light tan lower portion. I have only seen this color in Euro cars...it's not the most ideal. The car also had US bumpers but Euro lights, and it was in excellent condition.

Mr_Shiftright

Saw a '56 Ford 2D, that classic aqua and white, at the skateboard park; a 63 or 64 Buick Special 4D with a surfboard on top, and a late 60s Malibu, also at the beach--very nice shape but with some modern wheels.

oregonboy

at the skateboard park; a 63 or 64 Buick Special 4D with a surfboard on top, and a late 60s Malibu, also at the beach

So you, like, surf the parks and the waves... kewl, dude! :P

Mr_Shiftright

It's just where I live, I can't change the geography :P There are lots of old cars in daily use around here.

andys120

There are lots of old cars in daily use around here.

Thge same is true in Arizona where a lot of prosaic cars like 80s Accord, 60s Valiants and 70s AMC Hornets are seen in commuter traffic or parked near businesses. You have to go to Scottsdale to see the fancy stuff. :P

fintail

Today I saw a car I have seen before, but it still gets to me. A 280SE 3.5 low grille cabrio, in a very nice shade of blue. What gets me about this car, is that when I see it, it is always dirty. Almost like it is an uncared for daily driver. I almost want to approach the driver and ask them what's going on.

Mr_Shiftright

Well he probably USES it---god forbid! :P

that's a fairly valuable car. Good for him!

I rarely wash my cars, and I never wax them. Just hose 'em off now and then, and give them a bubble bath maybe once every 60 days.

fintail

I'd use it too, but I would at least wash something like that! Beautiful cars deserve to be clean.

I wipe my cars down when they get dirty or dusty...the fintail gets a wax every couple years, and the modern car gets it every few months.

Mr_Shiftright

Ah well...when you're driving it you can't see much of it, so why wash it? :P

fintail

LOL...but you've still gotta see it in the garage (I hope it's not parked outside)

kyfdx

Not sure about the PNW, but in the midwest, I'd say every third 560SEL was one of those creamy yellow two-tones, or some similar combination..

I have a hard time picturing the car, unless it is in that combination...

fintail

Here's a cool chart of W126 colors

I think this car was code 623 or 690. Most 126s I see are black or white, just like most fintails.

kyfdx

Nice chart... Most of what we saw here were the pastels... blue and cream, mostly... Of course, plenty of white, black and silver, just like any other car.. But the two-tones stick out in my mind (not in a good way, necessarily).

fintail

Mine was DB355, diamond blue, with the darker lower panel. One of the best colors, but I am biased.

I have seen some cream colors on earlier cars esp 300SDs...but the one I saw was more yellow, somehow. Odd color. Not many people would bother to pay attention to colors on such a car...and an OCD person like me would love to have a production breakdown

bumpy

I see a worn-looking late-80s E-class in those colors (680/673?) around here. Rather unfortunate looking, especially with the rusty receiver hitch.

bhill2

Thanks for posting that, Fin. It turns out that my beloved, trusty, fits-like-an-old-shoe 380SE really is "Champagner". I had seen the color referred to as "Champagne", but wasn't sure that was the original designation.

fintail

Those color names are in German, of course. That site is a great W126 resource, very handy for odd info like that.

Yeah, I have seen W124 in that color too. It doesn't seem right on a top of the line car like a 560SEL. And a trailer hitch is never a good thing.

andre1969

in the middle of the day, I went to the repair shop to drop off my Intrepid and pick up my pickup. They had a good looking '67 GTO hardtop, in that medium metallic blue that seemed so popular on them, up on the lift. Both the front and rear suspension were off the car, being rebuilt.

On my way back to work, I went a different way, just for a change of pace, and saw a '67-72 era GMC pickup in a driveway, at one of the few remaining farms in my neck of the woods. Just caught a glimpse of it though, so I couldn't tell its condition.

And this morning, coming into work, I saw a '71-72 Chevy pickup. At least, I think it was that range. It was the style with the finer lattice grille, as opposed to the bolder, thick grilles of the older models. It was black, and had been repainted, but didn't look like a paintstaking restoration. Lots of little dents and creases here and there.

ghulet

is 'Light Ivory' (my mom's dead '88 300E, which may or may not still be sitting in her driveway...funny, she always made fun of my grandparent's house for having dead cars, is light ivory with palomino leather).

fintail

The GF of a guy in my building just bought a 2000 G-Wagen. As it is that year, it is one of those unofficial imports from some company in New Mexico or something like that. It's quite a piece of work. I am not an SUV guy, but if I needed a big bus of that size, a G would be nice.

andre1969

on my way home from work, I saw something that made me do a double-take. It was an R-body NYer 5th Ave. It actually made me pause and think for a second...did someone steal mine?! Then I came to my senses and realized wait aminute, I'm IN mine right now! Duh!

It looked solid but kinda dirty. And for a two-tone creme/beige car to actually start looking dirty, it usually has to be FILTHY! It's not like black, where it starts looking dirty 5 minutes after you wash it; you have to put some effort into getting a creme/beige car looking dirty! Its vinyl landau top was also pretty well-shredded.

It was driven by an old, white-haired dude wearing a flannel lumber jacket. Oddly, similar to the one I was wearing. Heck, I hope I didn't just see a premonition of myself 30-40 years from now!

Mr_Shiftright

Flannel, eh? You'd better get in a supply of lint brushes--LOL!

Oh in 40 years you'll probably have some 2007 land yacht. You should walk around and picture what you'll be driving in 2050.

mazda6iguy

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.

I remember the speed buzzer on my Dad's 72 Buick Estate Wagon. It got annoying so my Dad always set the needle past 100, so he never used the feature.

andys120

Back in the day a buddy of mine's Dad had a speed buzzer in his '64 T-Bird. One night when we were cruising in w some girls we used the buzzer and a Princess phone in the glove box to pretend we had a car phone:

"Can you get that Andy?"
"Sure...Hello...Oh hi Larry, we're on the way, the two Annes are with us we'll be there in ten minutes"

Car phones were almost unheard of in the 60s but for a few minutes they totally bought it. :P

lemko

...white 1971 AMC Ambassador DPL sedan in really nice condition - an unusual survivor. This one had blackwall tires and the little AMC dog dish hubcaps.

ramlinrandy

Howdy... was at the Carlise Car Show and saw what looked like a VW Bug.... but was a knockoff looking thing that looked just like a VW Bug. Morris had a big flower power sticker on the side.

Some photos of the Morris and lots of others at the big show here on me blog...

http://www.inap.biz/theshowroom

Enjoy,
Ramblin Randy

fintail

Today I saw a 64-67 Stingray, a Lotus Elan, a W210 E55, and the weirdest thing, a late 70s BMW 5er cut down into a pickup. It looked relatively well done too, like an Aussie ute.

grahampaige

That was a morris Minor, quite common outside the US. It was morris's small car (The model name goes back to the twenties). Was produced from just after the WWII until the early 70's, so your comparison with the VW is close. They were used by everyone, from the UK post office through to the Phone companies and ended up mainly owned my nurses ;-). They even did a woodie.

Pretty indistructable, (until the rust gets them) but gutless (850 & 1000 cc, 4 cylinder). but handled pretty good. They now regularly get a Datsun 4 cylinder transplant and disk brake conversion. A lot of these things are still in daily use over here in Australia.

andre1969

...on Saturday. Meant to take a picture of it, but got distracted.

Mr_Shiftright

the Minor is quite charming. I've owned two. Rather awful car to drive but as you say, with some modifications you can make a decent ride out of it. I think it would be wiser to replace the transmission rather than the engine, which is really okay if you use a 1275cc version, say from a Sprite or Midget. The transmissions are quite weak unless you get the later ones. It's not a car one wants to drive quickly unless there are serious upgrades to brakes and steering and suspension. I broke a steering shaft right in half one day.

lemko

...green 1972 Pontiac Grand Prix with white top for sale in my neighborhood.

magnette

Still common here in London, too - I've seen about 5 this week. We had them with 1098cc engine from about 1964, which made them a bit more sprightly, although they were still called Morris 1000, and the handling was quite fun. My first car was a late 'Woody' - the Traveller, they called it - and I learned more about driving at the limit (which was obviously quite low) from that car than anything else I've ever driven. They were tough too - the main areas of rot were in the front wings and the rear sills, but they had an alarming habit, when neglected, of suffering collapse of the front suspension leg, usually after going round a sharp bend -it used to be a frequent sight to see them leaning over with an awry front wheel after a roundabout...Doesn't happen now, of course, because any that are left will probably be maintained properly, in which case it wouldn't be an issue...

andys120

I just happened to see a couple of mid-engined exotics recently:

-Bright yellow Lotus Esprit, seen at the local hand wash Auto Spa where all the cool cars go. When they fired it up to back out of the shop it sounded very racy.

-Ford GT, only got a glimpse of this as it was crossing a parking lot.

Mid-engine exotica are a rare sight in Cow Hampshire.

fintail

Why is this on this continent?

The Israeli auto industry

"Daimler-Benz"

This has a good dose of late 70s Euro glamor

I want these tires on my fintail

How and why such cars were preserved...

Something you don't see every day

Mr_Shiftright

Daimler Barker Special Sports--a total flop as a "sports" car. More like 0-60 in around 20 seconds...on a good day.

As one reference book puts it in classic British understatement:

"The Daimler 'sports cars' fit rather uneasily into the early 50s market, as Daimlers were hardly thought of as 'sparky'."

texases

'77 Cutlass - I can't give you a good reason, but it seemed that the Cutlass had something extra about it in the marketplace, although by '77 they were starting to lose it. At least in Cincinnati (where imports were a non-event for years) they were bought as a high-profile car.

imidazol97

The '77 Cutlass Supreme was a highly desirable car because of the power and comfort. The motor was the Oldsmobile 350 and had a Quadrajet carburetor. The car was the most stable and nicest to drive of all the rear wheel drive cars I've owned.

I don't think they had lost any of their desirability in 1977. I had one in those same colors. I can't recall if I had a full vinyl roof or it it was the half roof like the one pictured.

kyfdx

Yeah... the '77 Cutlass Supreme was highly desirable.. That landau top look was the most popular configuration..

I don't think the Cutlass started fading until the formal roof line years ('78-'79?), and then the fastback look that came after that in the early '80s just killed it.

andre1969

these things ended up being wildly popular in 1977, and they're actually partially to blame for the whole engine-swapping fiasco of the late 70's.

GM's management knew that the downsized 1977 big cars would put a crimp in the sales of their existing midsized cars. After all, they were about the same size or smaller on the outside, roomier on the inside, and lighter in just about every instance, so fuel economy and performance were a bit better.

For some reason I've never heard an explanation for, the Olds 350 was given top priority to the 1977 Cutlass. They would not put a Chevy, Pontiac, or Buick 350 in one. Well, at first they figured they'd have enough 350's to go around and meet all demand. However, the Delta 88 ended up being a bigger hit than what they had imagined in 1977. And to top it off, Cutlass sales came in much stronger than expected, which led to a shortage of Olds 350's. So Olds did the unthinkable, and started sticking Chevy 350's in their Deltas and Ninety-Eights.

To make matters worse, it was also around that timeframe that places like California and some high-altitude areas started adopting stricter emissions standards. The Pontiac 350/400 never did adapt well to emissions controls, so they were often substituted with Olds 350's or 403's. The Pontiac engine liked to run cool (although two of the 3 I've had had a tendency to overheat, and the previous owner of my '76 LeMans told me it had overheated on him in the past ) and it tended to get cranky when they made it run hotter in accordance with the emissions controls.

As for the '77 Cutlass, they ended up running off about 490,000 coupes. However, that included the cheap Cutlass S, the sportier Salon, and the Supreme and Supreme Brougham.

In 1978, first year of the downsized models, they ran off about 400,000 of the notchback coupes, which included the Supreme, Brougham, and sporty Calais. The clunky "aeroback" coupe, which was marketed as the Salon or Salon Brougham, only sold a paltry 31,000 or so that year.

In 1980, the first year sales really started to cool off, but only a taste of things to come, the Cutlass was down to about 275,000 of the notchback coupes. They still had the Salon aeroback, which moved about 4,000 units. In 1982, at the height of the recession, they still sold about 165,000 coupes. In 1984 they rebounded to about 240,000 coupes, but by this time there was a lot more competition in the market, both from smaller, more efficient FWD models, but also a resurgent T-bird/Cougar. The Supreme coupe dropped to about 150,000 units for 1985, 145K for 1986, 86,000 for 1987, and 28,000 for the truncated 1988 model year.

andre1969

I think there's something about the '76-77 Cutlass that gives it an expensive, upscale look. Its smooth, clean, and modern looking for the time. In contrast, something like a Monte Carlo was a bit pretentious with its stacked headlights and French Curve sculpting. Something like a Grand Prix or LeMans was also a bit over-styled and busy-looking, compared to the Cutlass. The '76-77 Regal coupes weren't bad looking cars, although I think the front-end looks a bit heavy-handed compared to the Cutlass. And I guess the Regal was still a bit of a newcomer in the coupe field by that time, and just didn't have the name cachet of the Cutlass Supreme.

The Oldmsobile name in general just seemed to have a lot more magic to it back then. And indeed, I believe 1977-79 were 3 of Oldsmobiles best years in history. I remember as a kid, some relatives of ours had an Olds Omega. It was just a tarted up Nova, but back then I thought it was something upscale because it was an Olds!