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

andre1969

using a name like "Limited" on the top line Buicks might have had some prestige. However, by the time the 70's and 80's rolled around, most people really didn't want basic big cars anymore. If they were in the market for a big car, they wanted the most luxury they could get. As a result, starting in 1977 the Caprice outsold the Impala, and the Bonneville simply blew the Catalina away. And in other models such as the LeSabre, Delta 88, and even the Electra and Ninety-Eight, it was the top-line models that ended up being the top sellers.

So in a way, they were a victim of their own popularity. The nicer, more prestigious models were everywhere, and it was the base models that were becoming increasingly rare. In 1978, for example, Buick sold about 16000 base Electra 225's. In contrast, they sold about 103000 Limited/Park Ave models (sales stats in my book don't break the Park out separately).

At some point though, that trend started shifting back. Perhaps when they started dumping the cars into rental fleets? The last year my book breaks out sales stats by trim level for Buick is 1993. In the LeSabre line, they sold 99518 Customs and 51416 Limiteds. The Park Ave moved 40468 base models and 14738 Ultras. The Roadmaster, however, still bucked this trend, with 13233 base models and 17725 sedans sold. And 9541 wagons.

I guess the name "Brougham" did signify luxury and status for some people though, and as a result Detroit milked it for all it was worth.

If you notice, in the early 80's, Pontiac only offered a "Brougham" trim level on cars that appealed to an older audience, like the Bonneville-G, Grand Prix, and Parisienne. The 6000 went for more of a base/LE/SE trim line, trying to sound all Euro. And they wouldn't have been dumb enough to try "Brougham-ing" something like a Grand Am, Firebird, or 2000.

Interestingly, Pontiac tried to avoid that "Brougham" stuff with their midsized cars in the 70's. The nicer LeMans was Luxury LeMans, and then Grand LeMans. The Grand Prix was offered in base, LJ, and SJ trim levels, and wouldn't offer a Brougham until the 1981 reskin.

The Bonneville G and Grand Prix weren't too popular with their Brougham lines. In these cases, it was the base models that tended to sell the best. The Parisienne Brougham was a strong seller, though. Especially for a car that, by that time, was totally out of sync with Pontiac's revitalized performance image. Still, I'd imagine that every one sold was pure profit by that time, and Pontiac probably wasn't complaining.

andre1969

I spotted a 1950 Mercury 4-door sedan for sale at the used car lot just up the road from me. Solid black, looked good from the road at least, and appeared original and un-molested. I get so used to seeing these things chopped and customized, that it's refreshing to see one in its original form.

I dunno any details about it yet though, as it's not showing up on their website. I had to do a Google search to identify it as a '50. And looking at all the pics Google brought up for 1949-51 Mercurys really makes me shocked that there are ANY '51-55 DeSotos left at all! Seems like just about every one built ended up getting its "teeth" yanked to end up in a Merc! Somebody should go into business reproducing those teeth. Not for the DeSoto clientele, but for Mercury! :surprise:

imidazol97

>a "limited" must mean limited to a few hundred thousand copies

I don't see any difference with naming then compared to now. I see a Toyota is an XL, XLE, Touring, or Limited. Those names have sound, not meaning, and that's what the GM names were for. Other car companies used name to evoke images, not just GM.

imidazol97

1959 Ranger what pulled out in front of me. It had the little round taillight lenses and said Ranger between them below the trunk lid. It looked to be in good shape. It had temporary tags on it. White with red stripes on the trunk lid.

fiatlux1969

"Those names are so pretentious....I mean, a REAL brougham is something completely unlike these cars, and a "limited" must mean limited to a few hundred thousand copies...it's such "jive" and really tended to destroy GMs credibility in the luxury market."

I know. When I first saw the word "Limited" applied to a car I wondered if it just meant corporate, as in "Limited Liability," or if it meant that it was limited in its abilities. When the world first started going pc, village idiot became "Oh my, that poor soul seems somewhat limited."

Mr_Shiftright

They're still doing it, to some extent, but now we have a more sophisticated audience than in the 70s, so they can't get away with "parisienne" and "brougham" and "elegante". Buyers would laugh. But they can still do Malibu because that isn't such a stretch. Or meaningless words also work, like "Escalade".

Some names are fairly harmless, like "Town Car".

fintail

I think the 'Limited' name last had true prestige around 1941

imidazol97

While we're off talking about the names through the years, many of them are figments of the customer's imagination--it's all in the perception, not in the literal meaning.

I am curious about the name "Versa" and where it comes from. I sat in one at the Toyota dealer last week; salesman was like a Siamese twin so I didn't get to sit long.

I understand "Fit" and "RAV4." Well I guess I Don't know what RAV4 means, unless it means "rave" and the 4 is the number of tires or seats.

What does "Camry" mean? -"Accord."

I guess "Avalon" was named after "Frankie." (Maybe that was before your time?) Some of the names I have found curious and really would like to know their etymologies.

X5? "X" means experimental, right? I can take you around the National Air Force Museum here at Wright Patterson with lots of X models (free tour of Hangar 51, if you can find the one in the fairy tales).

Has a book been published about car names?

fiatlux1969

I have for years been fascinated by the names applied to Japanese cars. At first I was put off by "Camry," and resented its being imposed on us, meaningless syllables that they are. I made jokes about its being an instrument for taking photos of country music performers, as in "Grand Ole Opry." I was later told (later like 2007) that it is an anagram for "My Car," which was a FIAT 500 variant produced by Frances Lombardi, if I remember correctly. For a real laugh, look up the dictionary definitions of "Cressida" and "Virago," which was a Yamaha. All right I'll save you the trouble. "Cressida" means an unfaithful woman, and "Virago" is a man-like one. The perfect mount for Ds On Bs? And then there is "Previa." The only place I ever encountered that word in the real world was in Lamaze class in combination with "placenta." As for Honda model names, I have no quarrel with them except for the pronunciations (where do they get Pray-lood?), and that they somehow convey a sense of smugness.

I'm afraid the movement toward using meaningless syllables in the names of nearly all things commercial, not just the names of car models, is a result of words being less important than they once were. We are a less literate culture, and words are losing their power to evoke emotional responses. All things are visual, and the faster the pictures change, the better. I hate that, but I believe it to be a reality.

Mr_Shiftright

I distinctly remember the terms "brougham" being held up to ridicule as early as the 1970s. These of course are terms from the carriage trade, when bodies were coachbuilt by private firms. The last real coachbuilt cars were probably Rolls-Royces in the mid 1960s.(Silver Cloud III) After that, coachbuilding terms become mere artifice.

Speaking of obscure, here's a car I appraised recently (similar to this one, not the actual car for privacy reasons).



It's a Mulliner Park Ward Silver Cloud III drophead...formerly called the "Chinese Eye" design but now more PC as the Harlequin Headlight.

There is also an H.J. Mulliner coachbuilt drophead which is considered more beautiful and more valuable

fiatlux1969

"The last real coachbuilt cars were probably Rolls-Royces in the mid 1960s.(Silver Cloud III) After that, coachbuilding terms become mere artifice."

I believe coachbuilding was killed off by two things: the almost universal practice of building unibody cars, and by government-imposed safety standards. Who can afford to build an extra one-off car just to crash it on purpose? A lot of etcerini manufacturers in Italy managed to overcome the first hurdle, but not the second.

Perhaps, if there were a low-volume exception to the safety standards, coachbuilding could be resurrected using pick-up frames...

kyfdx

..in the same parking lot at Target..

Acura NSX and a Bentley convertible..

fintail

Just like what Rodney Dangerfield drove in 'Caddyshack'

The headlights are iffy, but if one relates them to the period in which they were made, it's an elegant car. What's a nice one of those worth, 150K? Just guessing.

fintail

I always thought old Honda names were chosen to be subconsciously soothing. Civic = something like 'civic minded', respectable and honest. Accord = a peace agreement, peaceful. Prelude = classical music. Odyssey = adventure. Ridgeline = wannabe outdoorsman. Insight = smugness. And so on.

The Toyota names seem like weird Japanese interpretations of English.

Any SUV or soft-roader is a joke if it has "4" in the name yet is offered with 2WD.

british_rover

Customer come in with a Bentley Continental GT yesterday. Dark blue with a cream interior very hot looking.

colloquor

Re. the Civic name . . . I seem to remember when the original Civic was introduced in the '70s, Road & Track magazine wrote that the name was derived from the Latin noun "civitas." One of the definition of the word is "community," i.e. a "community" or "city" car. Makes sense . . .

fintail

There are some still on the road here, yeah. I actually saw one of those later facelifted 9000s just today. It had the higher end wheels, so I guess it was an 'Aero' - there are a few of them still on the roads here. I see a couple of earlier 900 convertibles nearly every day - both of them in very dirty condition. Old 900s are not an uncommon sight. There's also a funky 70s wagon I see now and then, but I think it is a hobby car for nice days.

andre1969

on my way to the local plant nursery, I saw a '66 T-bird for sale along the road. Kind of a dark reddish color, and looked good. Unfortunately it was one of those horrid models that totally did away with the rear quarter windows, giving you an incredible blind spot.

On the way back home, I had to take back roads because I didn't want to drive fast with a bunch of trees in the bed. I saw a late 80's vintage Jag XJ sedan sitting in a yard for sale. Judging from the way the grass was growing up around it, it had been there for quite some time! :sick:

andys120

The Civic name was at least partially a riff on the Trade Name for Honda's stratified charge fuel intake system called CVCC (for Compound Vortex Controlled Combustion).
Sprinkle in a couple of "i"s and you've got "Civic".

This system was designed to reduce emissions without resorting to a catalytic convertor.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah, maybe 125--135K. The H.J. Mulliner version, the more traditional design, is worth quite a bit more.

The rear of the Park Ward is as strange as the slanted headlights:



The HJ Mulliner body of the same car is rather handsome:

douglasr

FYI:

The 'Chinese Eye' Rolls-Royce cars were designed by Swedish designer Victor Koren and originally built by Park Ward before its merger with H.J. Mulliner, design 2045 for the convertible, and 2041 for the coupe. The headlamp arrangement done by John Blatchley on the Continental chassis Silver Cloud III and Bentley S3 was done to accomodate four headlites without changing the outer fender line. They were sympathetically called "Korenentals" by the team at Crewe. No more than 700 Continental type chassis were built at Crewe between Cloud II/III Bentley S2/3, of which less than 416 cars were made in the Koren design.

The now iconic Cloud II/III convertible or "Drophead" was first done by Park Ward. It was taken up by H.J. Mulliner as design 7504---after Park Ward built the first example on chassis B568FA. Park Ward thought it was too expensive to do the conversion from the standard car, and did not put it in its catalogue! H.J. Mulliner thought otherwise...before the two firms merged!! Only 107 Cloud II's and 15 Bentley S2's 7504 design chassis were built with an additional 38 Cloud III's & S3's. similar to the red Cloud III previously pictured.

The low numbers show just how rare and difficult it was even for Rolls-Royce to market coachbuilt cars, but that was part and remains part of their cache. The last "coachbuilt" cars, in the best sense of the word, made at Crewe ended with the Phantom VI, where production ran from 3-45 cars per year before the last one rolled out of Crewe in 1986 costing more than $1 Million.! Otherwise Long Wheel Base Rolls-Royce were made much like what Lehmann-Petersen did at Lincoln in the 1960's...cutting the car in half, and lengthening & reinforcing it, welding it back together and trimming it out. Not until the Spirit/Spur series cars did Rolls-Royce build a specific bodyshell for longwheel base cars...

...even then they still offered the Park Ward Limousine, built in the same Lehmann-Petersen Lincoln Fashion! Lehmann-Petersen limousines cost roughly the equivalent price of a Rolls-Royce sedan at the time, with a base cost of $15,153.50 and an average retail between $16,500-18,500--- likewise for the Ghia-Crown Imperial Limousines. The Park Ward limousines of the 1980's 1990's costing 20 times as much!!!

...today Rolls-Royce and Bentley still offer custom made cars, and still cost $350-400K to build. But now they are no longer cut apiece, but the bodyshells are welded together from the outset. The current design of the Phantom's aluminum body allowing an easy extension. Rolls-Royce/Bentley took its body manufacturing in house prior to the buy-out for the Seraph/Arnage Series, thus can still specifiy custom extended bodies. The trick now is that the cars have to pass E.U. Commission and Federal Safety rules...

For independent companies such as Lehmann-Petersen in the 1960's, they lost several months of production waiting for the 1968 cars to be approved by federal standards...something all new independent firms must attain. Even with cad/cam, rapid prototyping and other forms of new manufacturing technology the "coachbuilt" era is indeed a lost art. Making cars auch as the Mulliner Park Ward Rolls-Royce and Bentley that much rarer and increasing in value.

However, the upcoming Cadillac V12 may yet see a revival of the "coachbuilt" art if Mr. Lutz has his way. If Mr. Nardelli at Chrysler LLC. is smart he will revive Imperial in similar fashion above a base model.

DouglasR

(Sources: Rolls-Royce & Bentley, The Crewe Years, Martin Bennett, GT Foulis 1995; Lehmann-Petersen Coachbuilders, Chicago, Illinois.)

lemko

One thing that really bugs me about that Dodge is the stupid continental kit the idiot tacked onto it. It really looks dumb and detracts from the rest of the car.

andre1969

One thing that really bugs me about that Dodge is the stupid continental kit the idiot tacked onto it. It really looks dumb and detracts from the rest of the car.

Yeah, if I had that '57 Dodge, I'd immediately remove that awful kit. However, I don't find it nearly as bad looking as a lot of continental kits I've seen on stuff like Fords, Chevies, or even Oldsmobiles? First, I don't think that kit sticks out as far off the back as some of the others do. But it could also simply be that the Dodge is so long and low, that there's a visual trick going on? At 214", a '57 Dodge is longer than any Chevy or Ford of that time. Heck, I think even a '57 Roadmaster was only 215-216".

Oh, as for that slanty-headlight Rolls, I'm sorry, but that has got to be one of the most awful things I've ever seen. It looks like they hired Virgil Exner, after the stroke, gave him a Rolls, a set of those quad headlight assemblies off of a 1958 Packardbaker, and said "have fun with it!"

I do kinda like the DeSoto-type taillights grafted onto the other Rolls, though.

fintail

Those Euro fins need chrome.

That SC droptop is worth like 75% more than the more 'modern' looking car I am sure.

fiatlux1969

"I guess "Avalon" was named after "Frankie." (Maybe that was before your time?) Some of the names I have found curious and really would like to know their etymologies."

Avalon was an island in the Arthurian Legend where the heroic dead were transported. It was a form of paradise--just like the eponymous Toyota! Avalon is also the town on Catalina Island.

danf5

I never liked his stuff. He could say less in more words than any other author.

fiatlux1969

"I never liked his stuff. He could say less in more words than any other author."

He never took the direct route, but the words were put together well, and sometimes in surprising ways, which I enjoyed as much as whatever the automotive subject may have been. If just getting to the facts of a thing is the object, why not just put everything in the form of an outline? Vote with your eyes, and read someone else.

texases

My problem is with the current Excel spreadsheet-driven type of journalism, with a car review consisting of multiple test results, weighted and scored, summed to give the winner. I have always read C/D for its opinions, not its math accuracy. I've just about given up on them, but where else to go?

fiatlux1969

"My problem is with the current Excel spreadsheet-driven type of journalism, with a car review consisting of multiple test results."

This shows how long it has been for me since cracking a mainstream car mag, and relates to a former posting about ours being a post-literate culture. I was using the outline suggestion to reduce to the absurd, and, apparently the outline is what is being presented as current automotive journalism. But, I do believe that may be appropriate in reviewing modern cars, which don't feel as if they are creations of human beings to the same degree that older cars do. Why should there be a human touch when writing about them? By the way, the only car mags I do read are devoted to classic sports cars and vintage racing.

Recently saw a black Lancia Fulvia Zagato

fiatlux1969

It just occurred to me that some manufacturer will soon use a symbol (ala Prince) to represent a model of car, rather than an actual word. Seems to me to be the next logical step, and would generate buzz in the same way TAFKAP did.

british_rover

VW sort of did. The New Rabbit doesn't say Rabbit anywhere on the car. There is just a little Rabbit icon on the back.

magnette

Years ago, manufacturers didn't always put any model name badges on their cars, although they would have a badge - ie on the grille or somewhere - to show the actual make.

My MG Magnette didn't have any badge saying Magnette anywhere, except on the chassis plate under the body.

Austin didn't put model names on for years in the 30's through to the fifties - ie Devon, Somerset, A30, etc -

Jaguar didn't until the MK VIII, and the early Hillman Mixes until the late 50's were also anonymous, I think.

fintail

Yep, model badges are very much a postwar invention. Even Mercedes did not often have model designations on their cars before the war (although a few models would have them on the grille, oddly enough).

I think around maybe 1939-40 Ford might have started placing 'Deluxe' etc names on the hood, but I am going by memory and might be wrong.

imidazol97

A 1963 Falcon convertible in beautiful condition. White.

kyfdx

Ahh... the land of cheap airfare..

imidazol97

Cheaper than DAY and CVG! Southwest to Philadelphia for $118, total. And no bags lost like XXAir.

kyfdx

I know...

The last two trips I took on my own dime, I drove two hours to CMH..

$201/pp R/T from CMH to PHX!!

Of course, when the company pays, it's non-stop out of CVG..

fiatlux1969

"and the early Hillman Mixes until the late 50's were also anonymous, I think."

The symbol wouldn't have to be on the actual car (although it could be), but in the advertising, brochure, owner's manual, etc. The Minx, for example, could have used a profile of a saucy wench such as were popular on the mud flaps of certain trucks a while ago, and the car would have been known as "The Saucy Wench," or Minx, or whatever association the observer drew from the symbol. The idea is that the manufacturer not tie an actual word, such as "Rabbit" to the symbol, but leave that to the potential customer.

andys120

Years ago, manufacturers didn't always put any model name badges on their cars, although they would have a badge - ie on the grille or somewhere - to show the actual make.

Ferraris did not wear a badge indicating the model until the 308 series came along (mid '70s). Part of the mystique of the brand was that you had to know what it was
you were looking at.

Imitating the Ferrari mystique I removed the "124 Sport"
lettering from the rear deck of my Fiat Spider. People were always asking me what it was.

andre1969

I passed a '68 Chevelle hardtop coming from the other direction. Kind of a burgundy/plum color, black vinyl roof. Paint and chrome kinda faded, and I'm sure it was hiding some rust. Still kinda nice though, to see something like that still being used as a daily driver, instead of being turned into an SS clone.

Also saw a '65-69 Corvette hardtop coupe yesterday in the parking lot at work. Nice shape, antique white color. Aftermarket wheels that looked a bit oversized, maybe 15", but not too gaudy or overpowering.

Oh, and here's one for the "they don't build 'em the way they used to...or wait, maybe they do!" files. My buddy's '04 Crown Vic, with a 12/03 build date, and purchased by him in June of '04 with around 10,000 miles on it, is starting to rust at the bottom of the door, at the seam where the outer sheetmetal curves up and under and meets with the inner part.

One thing I've always wondered...has there ever been a study done that would show parking in a paved driveway, compared to a dirt/gravel driveway, would have much impact on how long it takes a car to start rusting? It seems to me a paved driveway would dry out quicker, so if you're in an area with a lot of rain, it could make a big difference. But then I wonder if a dirt/gravel driveway might "breathe" better? Possibly, a paved driveway could cause moisture to get trapped between the surface and the underside of the car?

Anyway, I have a gravel driveway and my buddy lives in a townhouse with a paved parking lot. The closest thing he does to "off roading" is if he comes over to visit!

andys120

If I had to guess I'd say a paved driveway would dry out faster, unless perhaps the unpaved one was loose rather than packed dirt.

My driveway dries much quicker since we had it paved. If only we could get the town to pave the road.

fiatlux1969

Newer cars do have much better corrosion resistance than did their predecessors. I shouldn't think the composition of the driveway would have much effect on the rust described. I would suspect either that the paint was applied improperly (perhaps a step used to prepare the steel for paint wasn't neutralized), or the drain holes at the bottom of the door were plugged or never opened. Do other later model cars in your area rust to this extent?

andre1969

Do other later model cars in your area rust to this extent?

Nah, the winters in our area tend to be pretty mild. We might get one good snowstorm (like 18" or more) once every three or four years. And then when we do, we don't have the infrastructure to deal with it (DC suburbs), so they usually shut everything down (schools, my job, etc) so I can just stay home until the roads are somewhat passable.

I was actually under the impression, just from seeing the cars around here, that the rust problems got licked starting with GM's downsized 1977 big cars, which were much better than their predecessors with regards to rust resistance. But I've been to other areas of the country where I'd see cars like this rusted out as bad as cars ever did it, so it just depends on how much they salt the roads, I guess.

It's actually very rare to see a car develop rust around here, unless it's at least 10 years old. And then it's usually something fairly minor, like those 1994-97 Honda Accords that would get a little rust on the rear quarter right behind the wheel. I'd say you have to go back at least 20 years now, before you start seeing rustbuckets in any quantity.

Now that I think about it though, the 1995 Grand Marquis my buddy had before the Crown Vic started rusting when it was around 9 years old. There's a seam on these cars where the roof panel joins the top of the C-pillar, and it's unfinished, sort of passing off as a rain gutter, I guess. I've noticed that they tend to get a little sparse in this area when it comes to priming and painting, and I've seen a few of them start rusting here.

Both the front and rear bumper fascias of my buddy's '04 Crown Vic are peeling and cracking, too. I'm thinking that he's been whacked a few times in the parking lot by hit-and-run parkers, and that's caused the paint to fatigue and then, over time, crack and peel off. And driving it just exacerbates it, as the wind gets up in the cracks and makes more peel off.

Still, my 2000 Intrepid has been rear-ended, and I rear-ended someone with it myself a few months after I bought it. The paint has held up remarkably well though...no flaking off or anything.

bumpy

right after I got home from work today. It's only the second one I've ever seen anywhere around here.

imidazol97

in the beautiful yellow cream color. It shows white due to flash.

fintail

I am on the road and I haven't had a chance to look.

Speaking of Citations, yesterday I saw a black and silver X11 that looked showroom fresh, I think it was obviously restored. They probably didn't look so good when they were 1 year old, not to mention 25.

Today I have seen 3 Subaru Justys.

bumpy

Can I borrow your time machine? I want to go back to 1981 and buy some Toyota and Honda stock.

andre1969

Toyota become a publicly traded company, anyway? Just for kicks I went to Microsoft Money to see how far back their stock chart went, and for Toyota it only went to 1999! GM went back further, but still only to 1962. Back in 1981, it was trading for around $20-23 per share, and I think it's around $36 now. Not all that impressive when you figure in 26 years it hasn't quite doubled. However, GM usualy paid a pretty fat dividend.

Looks like it topped out around $93 per share in April 2000. I feel bad for anybody who bought into it at that particular time! :sick:

BTW, is that rust or dirt on the lower edges of that Citation pictured above? At first I thought it was rust...except that it appears to be on some of the plastic parts, too. Maybe it's a bit of both? Anyway, it looks pretty well-preserved, otherwise, considering the age.

imidazol97

The car is the creamy yellow color. In other photos without flash in the blue stripe-banded spectrum of the overhead lighting in the football stadium parking lot it looks splotched. I think that's some dirt causing shadowing where the flash wasn't as strong.

Mr_Shiftright

Coachbuilt cars could make a comeback. Certainly there is enough surplus wealth around to spend on such things as totally custom bodies done to your taste. I mean, houses are done this way all the time.

The problem would be to find enough talent to do this on a regular basis, and to convince that talent to work for GM.

I mean, to a billionaire, 5 million dollars for a coachbuilt Rolls or Cadillac is chump change.