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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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"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
"There was rust above the front two tires on the frame next to the hood. But this was cut out and fiberglassed"
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.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
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.
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.
So you, like, surf the parks and the waves... kewl, dude! :P
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
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
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.
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.
I have a hard time picturing the car, unless it is in that combination...
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I think this car was code 623 or 690. Most 126s I see are black or white, just like most fintails.
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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
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
"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
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
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
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.
-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.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
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
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'."
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.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
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.
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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.
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!