No its NOT in your head. It makes a BIG difference. Put big wheels on a heavy car like that and you could increase your braking distance a good 20 feet from 60 mph. And lose 10 HP, too.
I found this car. I'm not sure it is a test car for a paint shop, an advertisement for Gymboree primary color kids clothing store, an owner who's very undecided, owner who's schizophrenic, etc. It pays to take your camera with you when you go to Advance Auto Parts.
Great! I looked it up. There are about 264. Four color combinations. The pictures I found didn't have the wheels that this car has on it. I really like the wheels.
Actually I thought it was one of the students from the local Vocational campus for high schools in four counties, more or less. We often see some really sharp custom paint jobs on their own cars by those students.
I feel so uneducated about so many of these cars... :sick:
on my commute home, all ~5 miles of it, I decided to keep a look out for the oldest car. Well, oldest, not counting whatever I happen to be driving! :P This time, it was a tossup. I spotted a white '87-91 Camry sedan and a black '85-89 Lincoln Town Car. Other than that, nothing of interest really caught my eye.
No its NOT in your head. It makes a BIG difference. Put big wheels on a heavy car like that and you could increase your braking distance a good 20 feet from 60 mph. And lose 10 HP, too.
I have a couple of 235/70/R15 tires mounted on 15x7 Mopar copcar wheels sitting around. I put one on a bathroom scale once. Came in around 52 pounds. Kinda wild to think that a set of four of those is basically 10% the entire weight of some small cars! I'd imagine my 15x7 Pontiac rallys and 225/70/R15's are a similar weight.
I still have the Catalina's old wheels and tires sitting around. I'm kinda curious to put one of those on the scale and see how much it weighs, in comparison.
My '85 Silverado has 15x8 rally wheels, with 255/70/R15 tires on it. I imagine those suckers are pretty heavy. Thankfully I've never had to pull one off the truck!
I don't like the proportions. The rear axle needs to be kicked back about half a foot to respect the shorter front overhang, and the front and rear greenhouse slopes make it look like the entire cabin is leaning backwards.
The rear axle needs to be kicked back about half a foot to respect the shorter front overhang, and the front and rear greenhouse slopes make it look like the entire cabin is leaning backwards.
I played around with that Seville pic in Photoshop. Didn't do anything with the roofline, but I did try kicking the axle back about a half-foot. Personally, I don't care for it, but it came off better than I thought it would...
Initially, I was afraid that moving the rear axle backward was going to throw off the proportioning with respect to the C-pillar. I don't like cars where the C-pillar falls aft of the axle, as it makes them look stubby and top-heavy. But at the same time, if the C-pillar falls too far ahead of the C-pillar, it doesn't look right, either...witness something like a 1969 Imperial hardtop coupe or Coupe DeVille...they just end up having TOO much trunk in relation to the passenger cabin, and IMO the 4-doors end up looking better.
The main thing I don't like with this photoshop job I did, is that now it makes the car look like it doesn't have enough rear overhang, IMO. Maybe if I had just moved the whole rear back along with the axle, it might have looked better. Of course, that sort of defeats the whole concept of downsizing. Moving the axle 6" back increases the wheelbase from 114.3" to 120.3" while maintaining the overall 204" length. However, moving the whole rear back, along with the axle, would bump that up to 210".
It's just the same old GM (well Big Three) 3-box design and it's not aging well IMO. Cars of this type look just like boxes welded together on an assembly line. One year they change Box 1, then in a few years, Box 2--but it's pretty unexciting styling and it shows.
it does give you headroom, however in the rear seats, if that's any consolation.
Three box design. These cars all look so weird to me because of their design which fits the three box, but it's disproportionate. Looks like other makers beside GM use it.
I saw one of this era Volvos sideways the other day and thought about how boxy it looked and actually how it looked piecemeal in design (someone had commented on the Aztek being the same and that's why I noticed).
But when I think back to that era, the shape actually was regal or stately for both the Seville and the Volvos.
Well "imitation" stately. If you look at ACTUAL stately cars of the era, like Rolls or Benz, you'll see that GM and Volvo were trying to do their usual "rich on the cheap" routine, and in my eyes, it did not work. It looks more like 4 foot fiberglass Grecian columns on a McMansion. Who are they fooling?
It was the 80s, probably not to be remembered as the golden age of the automobile :shades:
I don't see the old Volvo as piecemeal - it is hard edges and boxes everywhere. Like the old movie joke: Volvo - boxy but good.
The Aztek on the other hand...I don't see the same design language from the sides to the front to the back. Styled by committee, no doubt. And I suspect those committees are still employed.
Well "imitation" stately. If you look at ACTUAL stately cars of the era, like Rolls or Benz, you'll see that GM and Volvo were trying to do their usual "rich on the cheap" routine, and in my eyes, it did not work.
Well, throughout most of the 70's, I'd have to say that Rolls Royces were getting pretty tacky looking. They were starting to turn into caricatures of their former selves. Almost as if they took a Granada and threw on a bunch of classic Rolls styling cues. Which is quite ironic, considering how back in the day, Ford loved to compare its Granada to the likes of Rolls and Benz.
With Benz from the mid 1970's, I think the small ones look old fashioned and outdated, almost like a 1960's car trying to pose as a 70's, but the bigger S-class and the little 2-seater models have aged very well.
It looks more like 4 foot fiberglass Grecian columns on a McMansion. Who are they fooling?
Considering the popularity of the damned things, I'd say a lot of people. That's all they build around these parts anymore, if you want a single-family home. I was hoping this downturn and housing bubble burst would put a stop to it, but around these parts, they're still cranking the things out. Just for kicks, I went through a model home just up the street from me. They have the nerve to name it "The Tara". And no, I didn't check to see if the doorbell plays the "Gone with the Wind" theme. :P
People with whom I worked who were buying Volvos of the early 90s late 80s vintage liked the car other than the reasonably high failures and high cost parts to fix said failures.
The concept that they were safer than other cars at the time sold most of them, in my opinion. The other factor is that they were "different" and represented some prestige for a person who's not actually wealthy who would have bought a Mercedes or Cadillac at that time in the Midwest (or a very nice pickup truck).
As I recall, Volvos basically came in two styles in the 80's...
240: what you get when you put rectangular headlights on a 1960's looking car
740/760: the box that the 1981 Reliant came in. :P
FWIW, I kinda like the 740/760. My neighbors had a 1989 740 wagon, though, and towards the end it got to where every time it had to go in the shop, they were looking at a $1000 or more repair bill, and they finally gave up on it in 1998.
RR presence really went down a notch in 1981 with the Silver Spirit/Spur. Those cars have a severe resemblance to a 1981 Granada. Ultimate money pits too, with running costs to make a 1985 S-class look like a Civic. The previous RR Shadow had similar faults, but it dates back to 1966, and at that time it was considered to be elegant.
Old MB have looks that age a lot better when you see them in Euro trim, with small bumpers and flush lights.
Still lots of McMansion tracts around here too, even in the deflating housing market. "Normal" houses seem to have been replaced by condos.
Today Lexus seems to be for people who hate cars...especially something like a RX. I used to make that same joke about Saturn, too.
Are you saying cardboard, plywood, and face brick aren't materials made to stand the test of time? I want to see what those places are like in 50-75 years.
Funny you should mention the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow. I just saw one at lunchtime - two tone bronze and black. It had to be a model prior to 1973 as it had the thin chrome bumpers.
Per McMansions, I'm sure my modest circa 1955 Airlite is better built than those flakeboard and styrofoam monstrosities. At least it's made of real brick.
In 50-75 years those places will either be vacant lots as those homes were long since swept away by Mother Nature or they'll be worse than the shabbiest third-world slums. Good God, what passes for plumbing in those places! I wouldn't trust that stuff for a temporary repair on my car's heater hose!
Bronze and black Rolls...yeah, that's 70s style :shades:
50 year old houses seem like they will survive the upcoming 50 years a lot better than modern buildings. A lot of 70s-80s houses look like teardowns already.
saw a bent,busted and rusted '85 spectrum still running thru the neighborhood,my guess,it had a burnt valve,and a bad exhaust gasket,but most of the paint was good, oh and there was a '69 SS-350 camaro in the shop today,yea, phathom green w/white stripes,cowl induction,weld wheels,and it sounded like a redneck under the hood,with the original motor,rebuilt with a lunati roller,and hi-r.p.m.parts...zorus duntov woulda grinned at this one, what a nice piece of memorabilia....the bowtie is alive & well in carolina.
50 year old houses seem like they will survive the upcoming 50 years a lot better than modern buildings. A lot of 70s-80s houses look like teardowns already.
My old condo was built around 1972/73 (the circuit breaker had a sticker that read 12/1972 on it), and it was pretty crappy. The place I live in now was built in 1916, and is much better built. Even at the age of 93 years, and needing a lot of work, it's still a lot more solid than that condo was. When I had my heat pump put in last fall, they had to run all new ductwork and such, and the guys putting it in said they couldn't remember the last time they had seen a house so over-built. Extra studs and joists running where you wouldn't expect them to, and a few beams here and there that could be done without, but still helped beef up the house.
I guess in a lot of ways, old houses are like old cars. Newer ones may be better in many respects, but the older ones are often over-built. A lot of stuff is like that, I notice. I've been cutting the grass with a 1968 era Montgomery Ward tractor...not because I'm a nostalgia buff, but because our newer tractor, a 1990 Montgomery Ward, is broken! The engine pulley sheared, and I'm waiting for the new part, which is on order. And on top of that, the suspension needs work, the seat is tearing, and, shades of the 1990's, the paint is peeling off! :surprise:
My current house was built in 1905 - and although there are cracks and bits falling off, it is in better shape than anything built in the 1970's onwards - most of the things wrong with it are due to later additions (ie central heating that doesn't, windows that have been replaced for double glazed ones, and they are the ones that are falling apart), or to the stuff that no old house can do - wiring being the most obvious example... The foundations aren't remotely in accordance with modern building regulations, and it's built on clay, as is so much of London, but it is still fairly straight after 104 years - including a near miss that erased the block opposite during the blitz... I lived in a flat in another part of London before - built in the mid eighties - and that needed new windows already...
I guess my house might be classified as a McMansion, but it is really well built and I love it. Just wanted to throw in a small defense since people seem to beat up on these houses. Just like anything else is life (particularly cars) if you know what to look for, you can find modern conveniences combined with rock solid build quality. There were probably tons of crappy houses built back in the good old days too. They've all just fallen down or been rebuilt by now.
Spotted a beautiful 57 Chevy Bel Air last night... Had tastefully done yellow custom paint, no body modifications, and big, but wide-whitewall tires on steel rims with baby moons.
Really nice. Couldn't see much of the interior as I blew past on the expressway, but looked like a tuck n' roll custom to match the paint.
I really liked it... I think that you can play with the engine, paint, and upholstry on a car like that as long as you don't start cutting up the body.
Here's a picture of the same model but, of course, a different car.
In fairness, there are still a number of lousy houses from Victorian/Edwardian times in London - we saw several when we were looking for ours. And there are a number of good modern houses. But the room sizes are generally smaller and the ceilings are lower although that makes them more energy efficient. I must admit I like the convenience of a modern property, but also love the character of an older one. We have some developers here who build houses like rabbit hutches, and they last about as long, while others build to a good standard and have a better reputation.
I guess we are a little off topic on this thread, unless edmunds have a forum for " I spotted an old house today"....
When my parents were first married, they owned a 57 Chevy. Yellow exterior, but I don't remember the interior color. At the time, it was just an old car.
It got totaled by a cement truck on the 101 just outside of Santa Barbara before I was born. Sigh.
I think there's a definite parallel between old cars and old houses. Newer examples have a lot of creature comforts and require much less maintanance than older ones, but older ones often just seem more solid and built to last, and then the whole idea of design/architecture can come into play.
When I was very young my family lived in a pleasant middle class 1930s brick tudor, then in 1982 we had a new house (kind of a malaise house I guess, although it was modern for the time) and several years later we moved again into a big ca. 1910 "American foursquare" style place that had abundant period workmanship....but always kept my dad busy with maintenance. Even when I was a kid I could tell the older houses seemed more durable, with their abundant quality wood trim, solid doors, built ins, etc. Not much of that to be found in a newer place. Today my mother lives in a working class 1920s craftsman bungalow, and the details in it seem a lot nicer than in any comparable new house. It's also held up pretty well for its 85 years.
chocolate brown mercedes 280 sel 4.5. if it had been parked back about a 100 feet in front of miss porter's school, the picture would have made a very nice ad.
2024 Ford F-150 STX, 2023 Ford Explorer ST, 91 Mustang GT vert
My circa 1955 Airlite is modest but solid as a rock. I tried to hammer a nail in the wall and the nail bent! I've got genuine brass and copper plumbing, the walls are actual plaster and not drywall, the beams are as thick as railroad ties, and the flooring is genuine maple. The one problem with my place is the concrete surrounding it is over 50 years-old and is crumbling. Sometimes that solid construction can come back and bite you as it is expensive to replace and repair.
Go down to the ghetto sometime. There are some genuine architectural treasures there. Even with the ravages of poverty, crime, neglect, arson, and vandalism, these late 19th Century buildings are still standing. These places are built from the best materials and have some of the most beautiful architectural details.
Theres an old Datsun truck for sale at a little used car lot near my place. It is finished in a period late '70s orange metallic with typical '70s earth tone graphics along the sides. They want $1,500 for it. I'd certainly be the only person in Philly to have one as just about all the other late '70s Japanese cars and trucks collapsed into piles of iron oxide dust a long, long time ago. It looks similar to the one in this ad:
Is "Airlite" a model name by the developer or something? It makes me think of a vintage travel trailer
My grandmother's ca. 1960 mid century style rambler has pleasant maple floors and cabinetry too. It was just a middle class box in a subdivision when it was new, but some of those details would cost a lot to replicate today.
I once heard, that during the housing boom after WWII, houses were required to have hardwood floors to qualify for a VA loan. However, "wall-to-wall" carpeting was the latest thing, so many homes were built with brand-new hardwood floors which were then covered over with carpet. :surprise:
Our '50s era ranch, that I lived in during my formative years in the '60s.. .had hardwood floors throughout, except the kitchen, which had linoleum...
But, the living, dining and hall were all carpeted wall-to-wall (over the hardwood), and my mother thought that between the carpet and the window a/c unit, we were living high on the hog... That house was purchased for a whopping $16,000 in 1964..
I can still remember my mother killing a whole weekend, waxing and buffing the hardwood floors in the bedrooms (one of which we used as a TV room). No urethane, then.... :surprise:
My grandmother recently had laminate installed in her kitchen as the 45 year old lineoleum (kind of a mother of pearl pebble pattern with glitter specks, like quartz) developed a crack and a modern equivalent didn't exist. They don't make stuff like that anymore. No wall-to-wall carpet, but a couple rooms have now-vintage low pile carpet that goes to within about a foot of the wall. Weird.
Her house actually has 2 bathooms and a 2 car garage, and cost about 20 grand new. At the height of the market it was worth a few dozen times its original price, but now has fallen a bit. Oh well.
I suspect the tank-like Chrysler my grandpa bought in 1965 is still around, too.
Comments
It actually looks neat.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Great! I looked it up. There are about 264. Four color combinations. The pictures I found didn't have the wheels that this car has on it. I really like the wheels.
Actually I thought it was one of the students from the local Vocational campus for high schools in four counties, more or less. We often see some really sharp custom paint jobs on their own cars by those students.
I feel so uneducated about so many of these cars... :sick:
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
It's a genuinely rare car. I am pretty sure I have seen only one in person, myself. I'd expect most went to the west coast.
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
I have a couple of 235/70/R15 tires mounted on 15x7 Mopar copcar wheels sitting around. I put one on a bathroom scale once. Came in around 52 pounds. Kinda wild to think that a set of four of those is basically 10% the entire weight of some small cars! I'd imagine my 15x7 Pontiac rallys and 225/70/R15's are a similar weight.
I still have the Catalina's old wheels and tires sitting around. I'm kinda curious to put one of those on the scale and see how much it weighs, in comparison.
My '85 Silverado has 15x8 rally wheels, with 255/70/R15 tires on it. I imagine those suckers are pretty heavy. Thankfully I've never had to pull one off the truck!
I played around with that Seville pic in Photoshop. Didn't do anything with the roofline, but I did try kicking the axle back about a half-foot. Personally, I don't care for it, but it came off better than I thought it would...
Initially, I was afraid that moving the rear axle backward was going to throw off the proportioning with respect to the C-pillar. I don't like cars where the C-pillar falls aft of the axle, as it makes them look stubby and top-heavy. But at the same time, if the C-pillar falls too far ahead of the C-pillar, it doesn't look right, either...witness something like a 1969 Imperial hardtop coupe or Coupe DeVille...they just end up having TOO much trunk in relation to the passenger cabin, and IMO the 4-doors end up looking better.
The main thing I don't like with this photoshop job I did, is that now it makes the car look like it doesn't have enough rear overhang, IMO. Maybe if I had just moved the whole rear back along with the axle, it might have looked better. Of course, that sort of defeats the whole concept of downsizing. Moving the axle 6" back increases the wheelbase from 114.3" to 120.3" while maintaining the overall 204" length. However, moving the whole rear back, along with the axle, would bump that up to 210".
it does give you headroom, however in the rear seats, if that's any consolation.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
But when I think back to that era, the shape actually was regal or stately for both the Seville and the Volvos.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I don't see the old Volvo as piecemeal - it is hard edges and boxes everywhere. Like the old movie joke: Volvo - boxy but good.
The Aztek on the other hand...I don't see the same design language from the sides to the front to the back. Styled by committee, no doubt. And I suspect those committees are still employed.
Well, throughout most of the 70's, I'd have to say that Rolls Royces were getting pretty tacky looking. They were starting to turn into caricatures of their former selves. Almost as if they took a Granada and threw on a bunch of classic Rolls styling cues. Which is quite ironic, considering how back in the day, Ford loved to compare its Granada to the likes of Rolls and Benz.
With Benz from the mid 1970's, I think the small ones look old fashioned and outdated, almost like a 1960's car trying to pose as a 70's, but the bigger S-class and the little 2-seater models have aged very well.
It looks more like 4 foot fiberglass Grecian columns on a McMansion. Who are they fooling?
Considering the popularity of the damned things, I'd say a lot of people. That's all they build around these parts anymore, if you want a single-family home. I was hoping this downturn and housing bubble burst would put a stop to it, but around these parts, they're still cranking the things out. Just for kicks, I went through a model home just up the street from me. They have the nerve to name it "The Tara". And no, I didn't check to see if the doorbell plays the "Gone with the Wind" theme. :P
"Volvo--the car built for people who hate cars".
McMansions -- a friend calls it "postage-stamp wealth".
The point being that you could knock these houses down with your bare hands and feet.
The concept that they were safer than other cars at the time sold most of them, in my opinion. The other factor is that they were "different" and represented some prestige for a person who's not actually wealthy who would have bought a Mercedes or Cadillac at that time in the Midwest (or a very nice pickup truck).
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
240: what you get when you put rectangular headlights on a 1960's looking car
740/760: the box that the 1981 Reliant came in. :P
FWIW, I kinda like the 740/760. My neighbors had a 1989 740 wagon, though, and towards the end it got to where every time it had to go in the shop, they were looking at a $1000 or more repair bill, and they finally gave up on it in 1998.
Remember when they stacked Volvos one atop the other? Turns out they had welded re-inforcements into the roof of the bottom car.
tsk tsk
Old MB have looks that age a lot better when you see them in Euro trim, with small bumpers and flush lights.
Still lots of McMansion tracts around here too, even in the deflating housing market. "Normal" houses seem to have been replaced by condos.
Are you saying cardboard, plywood, and face brick aren't materials made to stand the test of time? I want to see what those places are like in 50-75 years.
Per McMansions, I'm sure my modest circa 1955 Airlite is better built than those flakeboard and styrofoam monstrosities. At least it's made of real brick.
50 year old houses seem like they will survive the upcoming 50 years a lot better than modern buildings. A lot of 70s-80s houses look like teardowns already.
My old condo was built around 1972/73 (the circuit breaker had a sticker that read 12/1972 on it), and it was pretty crappy. The place I live in now was built in 1916, and is much better built. Even at the age of 93 years, and needing a lot of work, it's still a lot more solid than that condo was. When I had my heat pump put in last fall, they had to run all new ductwork and such, and the guys putting it in said they couldn't remember the last time they had seen a house so over-built. Extra studs and joists running where you wouldn't expect them to, and a few beams here and there that could be done without, but still helped beef up the house.
I guess in a lot of ways, old houses are like old cars. Newer ones may be better in many respects, but the older ones are often over-built. A lot of stuff is like that, I notice. I've been cutting the grass with a 1968 era Montgomery Ward tractor...not because I'm a nostalgia buff, but because our newer tractor, a 1990 Montgomery Ward, is broken! The engine pulley sheared, and I'm waiting for the new part, which is on order. And on top of that, the suspension needs work, the seat is tearing, and, shades of the 1990's, the paint is peeling off! :surprise:
The foundations aren't remotely in accordance with modern building regulations, and it's built on clay, as is so much of London, but it is still fairly straight after 104 years - including a near miss that erased the block opposite during the blitz...
I lived in a flat in another part of London before - built in the mid eighties - and that needed new windows already...
Really nice. Couldn't see much of the interior as I blew past on the expressway, but looked like a tuck n' roll custom to match the paint.
I really liked it... I think that you can play with the engine, paint, and upholstry on a car like that as long as you don't start cutting up the body.
Here's a picture of the same model but, of course, a different car.
We have some developers here who build houses like rabbit hutches, and they last about as long, while others build to a good standard and have a better reputation.
I guess we are a little off topic on this thread, unless edmunds have a forum for " I spotted an old house today"....
It got totaled by a cement truck on the 101 just outside of Santa Barbara before I was born. Sigh.
When I was very young my family lived in a pleasant middle class 1930s brick tudor, then in 1982 we had a new house (kind of a malaise house I guess, although it was modern for the time) and several years later we moved again into a big ca. 1910 "American foursquare" style place that had abundant period workmanship....but always kept my dad busy with maintenance. Even when I was a kid I could tell the older houses seemed more durable, with their abundant quality wood trim, solid doors, built ins, etc. Not much of that to be found in a newer place. Today my mother lives in a working class 1920s craftsman bungalow, and the details in it seem a lot nicer than in any comparable new house. It's also held up pretty well for its 85 years.
if it had been parked back about a 100 feet in front of miss porter's school, the picture would have made a very nice ad.
Go down to the ghetto sometime. There are some genuine architectural treasures there. Even with the ravages of poverty, crime, neglect, arson, and vandalism, these late 19th Century buildings are still standing. These places are built from the best materials and have some of the most beautiful architectural details.
There are lots of turbo pickups these days, but they're generally compression-ignition engines.
The best "turbo" script is from Porsche, but I do like the script used on Euro model W116 turbodiesels too.
My grandmother's ca. 1960 mid century style rambler has pleasant maple floors and cabinetry too. It was just a middle class box in a subdivision when it was new, but some of those details would cost a lot to replicate today.
There are still a few of those puttering around here, but I think they are Sunday garbage haulers now.
I once heard, that during the housing boom after WWII, houses were required to have hardwood floors to qualify for a VA loan. However, "wall-to-wall" carpeting was the latest thing, so many homes were built with brand-new hardwood floors which were then covered over with carpet. :surprise:
But, the living, dining and hall were all carpeted wall-to-wall (over the hardwood), and my mother thought that between the carpet and the window a/c unit, we were living high on the hog... That house was purchased for a whopping $16,000 in 1964..
I can still remember my mother killing a whole weekend, waxing and buffing the hardwood floors in the bedrooms (one of which we used as a TV room). No urethane, then.... :surprise:
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That may be the housing model of the new millennium! :sick:
Her house actually has 2 bathooms and a 2 car garage, and cost about 20 grand new. At the height of the market it was worth a few dozen times its original price, but now has fallen a bit. Oh well.
I suspect the tank-like Chrysler my grandpa bought in 1965 is still around, too.