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

jrosasmc

The only Italian car in the '80s I still see running on an active basis is the Alfa Spider. And even those are few and far between.

fintail

Wow, Triumph Mayflower...very cool. Ugly as sin, but weird enough to have charm.

Reminds me of another car the guy who has the Universal had - an Austin Devon. I am sure Shifty anyway is familiar with them...it's like a 3/4 scale c.1940 or so Chevy, made in the early 50s. Very charming, with "Austin of England" badges, and an art deco interior. I thought it was a great old car...but it hadn't ran in 30 years and had bits stamped "Lucas", so I knew to keep away.

There's a bronze 80s Maserati Quattroporte I see on occasion in my area. I think the rest of the time it's in the shop. It just has that air to it.

Mr_Shiftright

I like Quattroportos. The Maserati V-8 is a basically good engine but everything attached to it isn't maybe so good. The leather interior on this car is to die for.

The Bi-Turbo---what a bad joke. It would never leave the hospital if you owned one. World's worst car ever? May-beeeee.....that certainly skunked Maserati's once-great reputation. What a shame to put out a product like that, right after the Citroen SM, too, another impossible to repair automobile. Well at least it didn't have the Maserati name on it even if it had that infernal V-6 engine. Can you dig it? A car with a Maserati engine and Citroen hydro-pneumatic suspension that was connected to the power steering and brakes. Yikes! I did like the thick spongy floors, though.

Delorean---can't get no respect. If only...if ONLY....John D had insisted on the turbo Lotus engine originally planned for the car. He might have had at least a FAST and great handling car...albeit not a GOOD car. Actually, 'Loreans are coming up in value. I guess by this time the atrocious build quality from the Ireland factory has been worked out by the previous owners, so there's more confidence in the car. Still, wear your boots in a rain storm.

sonjaab

A new Range-Rover of some kind. The BIG one !
Painted flat grey with the black triangles painted on the sides and black bras on front and rear. It did have the big brush guard on the front with a bunch of headlights mounted on it.
It had Arizona mfr. plates......
Tried to follow it but traffic on the Strip was very heavy............

fintail

I like the 60s Quattroportes...but then again, as you might have noticed, I like big 60s Euro highline sedans

The Biturbo styling reminds me of a period Sentra or something. Wasn't that one renamed the 425, and it had a cool clock? I remember the convertible version...kinda pretty.

I have noticed immaculate DeLoreans going for less than original sticker...ones that have been sorted out over the past 20 years with upgrades. I am leery of a British car, not to mention one built in Ireland. If I had one I would tack on all the crap to make it look like a Back to the Future car.

Mr_Shiftright

Delorean owners insist they can get $18,000 for a nice one but I've seen them go off at $10K and less more often than not. I guess it depends on where you sell it and to whom. But the values are creeping up from the basement to mediocre.

Yes, the Bi-Turbo had a lovely clock, most of which are missing from the Biturbos for sale.

The Quattroportos were frightful gas hogs. The car will bust you at the gas pump even if nothing goes wrong.

fintail

I wouldn't pay so much for one. They are a cool piece of 80s nostalgia...but I think any real value is a decade off still. I don't know if one could be a reliable special interest car. There does seem to be a dedicated fan base though...they must have parts stocks.

The clock, from what I recall



Road and Track lists the Qporte at 9mpg in 85

jrosasmc

Are DeLoreans notorious for leaking in rain?

Mr_Shiftright

The gull wing doors didn't fit right. You know, if you aren't a German, you shouldn't try this sort of thing.

Lessee, if I buy a Quattroporto, at 9 mpg @ current Calif. price of about $2.29 for best premium, that's....ohhhhhh, .25 cents a mile.
Maybe I'll just get nekkid and sit in that sumptuous leather interior.

andys120

probably leak less than the gullwing doors on those Bricklins.

lancerfixer

...but why John Z. picked a Volvo engine (and not even a B230FT...that would have at least given it a little power...no, he chose the PRV V-6...ugh) is a complete mystery to me (and, I suspect, many others as well.)

jrosasmc

John Z. should have put an Alfa Romeo V-6 in his car. Now that would have hauled some serious butt!

Mr_Shiftright

I think he was promised the Lotus turbo but that fell through so he had to scramble for something. The whole car was a scramble. At least with the Alfa V-6 he would have had a nice sound out of the engine compartment instead of that can of gnats exhaust note.

jaserb

On a rural 2-lane in central Utah - a Smart car. I have no clue how this dude wandered so far from his native habitat into the land of dually diesels and ATVs.

-Jason

ajvdh

It must have been "take your exotic car out" day. I went to lunch with a couple of car-geek friends of mine (in an AMG C32 belonging to one of said friends). On our way down, we passed a GT40 (or a *very* nice replica, though considering our proximity to the Shelby museum it could have been the real thing) going the other way. While we were eating, a new AMG SL55 went by, followed almost immediately by a prancing-horse 328. On our way back, in the same spot where we saw the GT40, we passed a Pantera going the other way.

magnetophone

It wasn't even really a Volvo engine at all, guys. It's a Renault engine that Volvo merely used.

Mr_Shiftright

that's right, a 2.6 liter Renault V-6. Probably better than a Volvo with respect to performance at least.

The Deloreans were so bad coming out of the factory that each car needed about $2,000 additional work by the time it got to America. And this on top of a $25,000 price tag in 1981 for a car that was not much of a performed. Can you say DOOMED FROM THE START?

jrosasmc

And don't forget the Volvos themselves that came out of Sweden in the '70s. You said yourself that they seemed to be buily by "blind men."

Mr_Shiftright

Styled by blind men would be fairer I guess. I don't know WHAT was going on in Sweden and the Volvo and Saabs plants in the 1970s vis a vis quality control....maybe lots of foreign labor or ???? Oh well, water under the bridge now. Their new cars are pretty nice, and seem so much tighter and better screwed together than the old days.

Odd isn't it, with some "prestige" cars, you could say that the old days were much better.

magnetophone

Well, isn't that true for most cars built in the 70's? Really, only Mercedes have lasted the test of time from that decade.

Volvos are odd, because mechanically the 240 was so ancient by 1985 that the 1985-1992 string of them are rock solid reliable, and will go on forever in many regards. However, they were never built very well and certain defects like broken handles are common. The cheapness of material quality for the center console is astounding. I once dropped a textbook on the center console of my old 90 240GL and it cracked in half!

Mr_Shiftright

Well they may live forever but so do 100 year old men if you can call that living. You are right though the interior on older Volvos are bio-degradable.

Ever see a 444 Volvo? Split windshield, column shifter, and old B16 tractor engine with the very whippy (and sometimes snappy) crankshaft and single carb.

stever

I had a couple of early '70 bugs that sure out-ran my two '74 Volvo sedans. I also got stuck in the interior of Alaska about this time of year 23 years ago, hypothermic and shivering in a damp sleeping bag under a canoe nursing a thermos of hot Tang in a sleet and snow storm waiting for my ride - it was 3 hours late arriving because the '79 Volvo shuttle car didn't want to crank. I was down on Volvos before then but that was the final straw.

Steve, Host

jrosasmc

Here's what I think: Volvo didn't build a really, really great car until the 850 came out in the early '90s. I think that was the car that started Volvo's current trend of making vehicles with Mercedes-like quality and reliability.

jrosasmc

I just came from class this morning and my British professor spoke about the now-defunct British Leyland as part of his lecture on the UK's economy. Basically, as I was getting more educated on the subject, I came to my own conclusion that BL was a large, commercially failing company made up of smaller commercially failing companies. BMC (maker of MGs), Standard-Triumph, Jaguar-Daimler and Rover were all in the thick of this in the late '60s and early '70s. BL had to be taken over by the British government after it went bankrupt in 1975.

Mr. Shiftright noted in an earlier post that Jaguar engineering was always pretty bizarre. Personally, when I've taken an in-depth look at, say, Range Rovers or Triumph TR7s/8s, I find engineering on those cars to be bizarre as well. All the British cars seemed to be designed to not let the owners save time and/or money when trying to sort out their myriad of defects and problems.

It's like old pipe organs too. I'm an amateur organist and I can certainly tell the difference between an English, Swedish and American organ. Swedish organs seem to be the most durable (like Volvos), with some examples dating from the 16th century. Although I haven't played an English organ yet, my teacher has told me that they always seem to have problems with their electrical parts (just like British cars!).

Mr_Shiftright

I think there is a cultural aspect to engineering, yes. That is what makes cars so interesting, or USED to make them interesting before globalization took most of the differences out of them.

Now you can't really find obscure cars because the eccentricity that once made cars peculiar and obscure has been bred out of them. Even French cars look normal and act normal.

Not only that, but there are SUVs that handle like sports cars and 4-door station wagons that have dashboards like racing cars.

Used to be, you stepped out of a family sedan and into a sports car, this was an entirely different universe, a shocking transformation. No more. Even humble sedans have pretty slick instrumentation, bucket seats and floor shifts.

magnetophone

British Leyland sort of exemplified how uncompetitive the British economy truly was in the 70's. I think their lack of truly solid, dependable small cars in the wake of the Ford Fiesta and Granada did them in, as well as horrible collaborations with Honda. Also, the fact that other European only brands like Peugeot and Renault had considerable third world presence and outsourced their designs to the Iron Curtain.

lemko

Who could forget the Sterling 825! I remember that car debuted about the same time as the Acura Legend. Wasn't the Sterling some strange cross between an Acura and a Rover? I remember the commercial with the sophisticated British voice-over speaking of "advanced Japanese engineering." It seemed to me like the British admitted their engineering inferiority in that statement.

jrosasmc

When the Sterling came to the U.S. in 1987, I think it is safe to say that just about every major British car built for America at that time (Jaguar, Range Rover) was under-engineered and poorly built for our tastes.

jrosasmc

How can you get a Sterling serviced in America these days?

lemko

...take it to the Honda, Acura, or Land Rover dealer? Needless to say, a running Sterling would be a rare sight these days.

ateixeira

Leave it to Sterling to make a Honda powertrain unreliable. Was it electrical gremlins, or what?

-juice

lemko

...mated Honda mechanicals to Lucas electrics. A spoonful of sewage in a barrel of fine wine makes it sewage.

magnetophone

It's a misconception that's it's an Acura underneath.

The Sterling in the UK would be known as "Rover 825" or a "Rover 827", or maybe Rover Sterling 825 or Rover Sterling 827, I forget. I think that Sterling was actually a trim level in Europe but an entire brand in the US.

The Sterling's powertrain and platform were mostly if not all Rover designs, the engine however was the same as found in the Acura Legend. I wouldn't say that Honda had much to do with the car other than the engine.

I actually really liked the Sterling. I wanted my mother to get one when I was a kid (instead she got a Mercedes.) It was just not strong enough of a car to start a brand revival in America. Although the rare hatchback version was sort of like a sexier Ford Scorpio.

The Rover 800 series was continued until about 1999 or so. The car looked essentially the same except its edges kept on getting rounder and rounder. By the end of its life, it was actually considered to be the best-built car from England.

jrosasmc

You are absolutely right- the Sterling was a separate trim level in Europe. I am seeing a lot of them in London, as a matter of fact. I think most Sterlings that went in the U.S. have now been scrapped.

ateixeira

Love the spoonful analogy.

-juice

andys120

It was a model designation for Rover as in "Rover Sterling".
IIRC correctly it used the platform and entire driveline (not just the engine) of the Acura Legend (Honda Legend in the UK and everywhere but North America).

The Sterling brand was created for the U.S. to disguise the fact that it was manufactured by Rover whose reputation for poor engineering was already known on this side of the pond.

BMW couldn't get reasonable quality out of Rover either, which doomed their ownership but they seem to be getting good quality out of Longbridge UK with the MINIs.

I wonder how Ford's doing with Land-Range Rover?
Not so hot last I looked.

magnetophone

Well, I meant trim level sort of like a "Toyota Celica Supra" or a "Toyota Camry Solara."

I don't believe it used the same platform as the Acura Legend, but I could be wrong.

The quality at Rover has actually increased dramatically, the Rover 45 for example is one of England's most reliable cars according to JD Power. Rover's current problem is a lack of exciting, appealing mainstream cars, not necessarily reliability.

British automotive companies are not necessarily good at building quality cars, not British people or British factories. The Nissan Primera (old G20 to you) is built in Sunderland in the Tyneside area and is very reliable. The Peugeot 206 is also another car built in England that is considered to be reliable. Toyota also builds the Avensis model in England and while I don't know its reliability rankings, I can imagine it's at least average.

Mr_Shiftright

Rover's quality could easily "increase dramatically" and still be somewhere south of a Hyundai.

ajvdh

Was an Acura Legend under the skin. Parked side by side it was pretty obvious they were the same car. I guy I worked with looked at 'em both. The Sterling was marginally cheaper, but that was offset by anitlock brakes being optional while they were standard on the Legend. The Sterling had a more "English" feeling interior and a more "sporting" suspension tuning. The power windows stopped working during his test drive. Oops.

ateixeira

I hope that was a sign not to buy, and he didn't?

-juice

ajvdh

Like his hair was on fire.

andys120

of telling them the Sterling was Rover-made and not likely to have the Honda-Acura reliabilty they expected.

It seems that more people were aware of the Hinda roots than the Rover roots.

Did any of them ever thank me by buying me a new car? NOOOOH!

BTW- I once saw a Sterling coupe on test in a convoy out in Arizona. It was never imported to North America. Talk about obscure.

ateixeira

They OWE you! LOL

Remember the odd looking 5 doors?

-juice

andys120

I liked the five doors but then I thought the bodywork of Sterlings was a lot more intesting than that of Legends.

Mr_Shiftright

Hey, synchonicity strikes! I saw a Sterling this morning, bopping up and down on its worn rear shocks on Highway 101. Ugh, they must have felt sick inside you'd think.

Saw one of those 60s Dodge motorhomes...of course not running. Parked in a field surrounded by cows, who may have been living in it. I know somewhere out there someone is looking for those door handles that the cows are rubbing their backs against, but where do I find him?

jrosasmc

Why's everybody blasting Rover engineering and reliability? One of my good friend's brothers swears by Range Rovers- he's got two older ones ('88 and '94). And yes, they break a lot.

andys120

Does he swear by them or at them?

jrosasmc

Haha, he does both actually...

Mr_Shiftright

Well there are plenty of unreliable cars I LIKE--that's not the point:)

fintail

I saw a very clean Fiat X19 today...and then but a few minutes later an early (covered headlight) Alfa roadster, maybe early 70s-ish. They both were moving under their own power with no outward signs of rust.