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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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I wish they'd start learning how to use color coordination again with modern car interiors, instead of picking the two or three most generic colors that sort of work with any color. I guess it's kind of hard to do with all the plastic they use these days, though. Back in the day, when they had more exposed metal, vinyl, and fabric, maybe it was easier?
Those magazines are much harder to find on this side of the pond, of course. I couldn't believe it when I found a couple dozen of them in a podunk town in Washington state.
The collectible value isn't so important to me, they are simply good to read.
He also had bound volumes from thelate 30's and early 50's. These typically contain one quarter's magazines, minus the front and back covers, in a hard cover. It's a tidier way to keep them, I suppose, but not the same. They were something like £ 40 for each volume...
My better half says I am mad to keep the ones I already have, and she is probably right. Sooner or later they will probably be available electronically and that would be a lot more sensible, but it is not the same as looking at an actual magazine somebody walked into a shop and paid a shilling for in about 1951...
On two occasions when I was young I found large quantities of 1950s-60s American car magazines at second hand goods sales for very little money - maybe a couple hundred issues for $10. I sold them all when I was in school - the pocket sized hot rod issues brought decent money on ebay, and as a college student, that meant more than some old paper.
I especially like to read 60s-80s issues, as the format and cars themselves are more familiar. I don't seem to find them that often anymore.
i have seen a high school aged driver in an early 80's pontiac bonneville sedan,
light green with a green vinyl roof and wire rim hubcaps.
i have seen a high school aged driver in an early 80's pontiac bonneville sedan,
light green with a green vinyl roof and wire rim hubcaps.
As if high school-aged drivers wouldn't drive anything that gets them from A to B cheap. Back in the day it was old 1940's Plymouths, now it's old Pontiacs.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Nice blue whale
Golden anniversary
Expensive provenance
New Caddy
Pimpy
Nice bids
Three tone
Good luck finding parts
Lost cause
Sad, but good for parts
Top of the line?
Period colors
Likewise
Good for WW2 reenactors maybe
Roaring 20s
Racer
Fighter plane on wheels
Send it home
"a great opportunity"...for what?
"THE ONLY CAR EVER FACTORY BUILT IN POST FALLS, IDAHO"
1958 Buick -- the closest America has ever come to copying a Russian car. Oh the horror, the horror....
52 Caddy 4-door -- $14K for a 50s 4-door? Don't think so, bub.
Brand New '76 Cadillac --- the bid at $8,000 or so was fair enough. There's no more money here, SELL IT!
Fiat 600 Moretti --- what a sorry mess. You might as well just MAKE one. The Italians know how to do that, they make old Ferraris all the time. :P
600 Mercedes --- parts car. You can just go out and buy a nice one for 1/3 rd the cost of restoring this bucket of bolts. Sad end to an interesting car.
300 Fintail -- ditto. Grab those precious bits and put a better car on the road.
58 Olds 4-door HDTP -- last bid was market correct.
38 Opel -- sell it in the UK, not here.
190SL "racer" -- it's a fake, so who cares?
Messerschmidtt -- I always wanted to attack one of these on the road with my Triumph Spitfire :P
Rover P4 -- nobody but nobody in America cares.
DeTomaso Deauville -- virtually sale-proof in America. Bids are generous at $6K. Sell it!
76 Leata -- I'm speechless.
Asking price is $16K... I think you pegged it at $16K-$20K..
Must be hard to find a buyer.. It looks almost brand-new...
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You could drive right under semi-trailers... with room to spare..
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Yeah, I read there's a cottage industry that turns old Fieros in Ferraris. Well, they try to, anyway, then try even harder to pass them off as the genuine thing.
"38 Opel -- sell it in the UK..."
What, sell a late '30s German car in the UK? You're joking, right?
ITALIANS -- no, I mean they MAKE an entire old Ferrari, an exact duplicate of the original in every respect. A complete, highly convincing counterfeit car. When a car starts being worth millions, they can afford to and sometimes they get away with it, especially if they have a VIN plate or the original motor but not the car or frame.
Actually, I have seen a number of period German cars that were sold to well to do Britons, and given local bodies. Probably because what was under the hood was more advanced than pretty much anything coming from the old island.
For some reason, I'm thinking this car should have a 300 hp 364?
Those two Olds 98's are nice cars, but by this time I really prefer the 4-door, which was still a hardtop. That '76 Coupe DeVille is gorgeous, though. Again, I'd prefer the 4-door, but I think that nice light blue really helps this car out.
That '57 New Yorker is one sweet car, too, although I never was crazy about that salmon color.
The '58 Olds 98 is sort of an ugly brute, too, but I think being monotone, and black, helps it out a lot in toning it down. It's also kinda neat comparing it to the '58 Super, where you can really see that back then, Buick was a higher-reaching car when it came to prestige. That Super is essentially a poor man's Cadillac, being on the C-body with the Roadmaster and Limited, and the Caddies. The Olds 98 is just a slightly stretched-out B-body, sharing its architecture with the Olds 88's, as well as the Buick Century/Special.
Best sighting was a Ferrari 246/Dino...otherwise just saw a few 70s Porsches, an old VW Beetle convertible, a couple earlier 107s, and a 5 door Camry.
I always thought it would be fun to turn a cab into a GTI. Just need a same-gen GTI with body damage, and canibalize the drivetrain, suspension, interior (seats, dfash), etc.
Shouldn't be too hard, right?
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Lots of Cab/GTI conversions happened in the '80s, harder to find those parts now.
Next an immaculately restored in neon YELLOW VW Thing, with "Thing" personalized license plates". It also had the top down, and the driver was having a hugely good time, along with his big dog.
Last, a Pinzgauer model 710 (so says the 'net) in the parking lot at Home Depot.
This is the first one I've seen in real life. I was surprised at how small it was. Honestly not all that much bigger than the Thing, if it wasn't 40 feet in the air.
Uhm, the military connection never occured to me :confuse:
I guess I was too hung up on the correlation between the high ground clearance and Austrian High Water Pants.
You'd think high water pants would be necessary in Holland, not the Austrian Alps.
i hate gas heaters!
that Pinz, must be the 'Pimp My Ride' version with the yellow handles and white letter tires.
Photo captions refer to this 58 Buick as a "classic". What a joke.
In decades to come, observers will wonder which was worst styled GM vehicle ever - 58 Buick or Pontiac Aztek.
Back in the 1950's it was common to give a suffix to a model name to denote a hardtop model, versus a pillared model. Chevrolet used Bel Air and Pontiac used Catalina, although these eventually became full model lineups. Olds used "Holiday", while Buick used "Riviera". So technically that '58 is a Buick Super Riviera. If it had a B-pillar, it would just be a Buick Super.
I think 1958 was the last year that Buick did that, though, as they went through an image transformation in 1959, throwing out all their old names, and trying to go for a hipper, more youthful image.
As for style, IMO, the Buick is pretty bad when you compare it to a '58 DeSoto or Chrysler, but otherwise it's just typical 1958. I don't think it really looks any worse than an Edsel, Mercury, or Oldsmobile. Heck, compared to some of those, it's pretty tasteful! :P
The name "Riviera" first appears associated with a 1949 Buick I believe.
With the '58 Mercury, the car seems to me that it got stuck in metamorphosis, somehow, between the more rounded, curvy shapes of the 1950's and the more squared-off, chiseled, angular styles that would prevail in the 1960's. I also see this a bit in the '58 Olds and Buick, as it looks like they tried to bulk up and square off a body that was meant to be more rounded, but It seems really prominent in the Mercury.
The Edsel really doesn't bother me that much, except for that awful horsecollar/toilet-seat/vaginal central grille theme, and headlights that jut out a bit too far. If they just got rid of that center section and any associated bulges, and given the headlight area a bit more of a forward slope, I think it would have made for a much more attractive looking, if somewhat generic, car.
There's a good reason you see so few cars from those dark years (58-63). With rare exception (61 Impala comes to mind) most people disliked, or were unimpressed by, the styling of those cars and still don't bother to restore them. Those that do restore them always seem to choose the "high line excess" of a '58 Buick or '59 Cadillac. Somehow gaudiness and bad styling look best with a huge size and lots of chrome...which makes perfect sense.
I guess I was expecting to see a "Riviera" badge on the car. It only showed "Super". Maybe I didn't look close enough and there is a Riviera badge somewhere inside or on the outside.
If there was no badge, then maybe this invisible naming convention is like Mercedes cars where some guys distinguish various models as W(nbr).
Pontiac had a clean looking 62 Catalina 2-door hardtop designatied Grand Prix.
Also, I was wrong about it being a suffix for hardtops being dropped after 1958. It actually lasted through 1963, even though that was the year the Riviera personal luxury coupe came out.
Wikipedia also mentions that there was a 1951 Super Riviera 4-door sedan (pillared, as 4-door hardtops wouldn't come out until 1955). Its wheelbase was 4 inches longer than a regular Super, and an inch shorter than a Roadmaster. Interesting, as I always thought the Super and Roadmaster used the same wheelbase. At least, in later years they did. This Super Riviera also had a plusher interior than a regular Super...which makes me question its existence. Wouldn't it then start to encroach on the Roadmaster's market? But, GM was big enough back then to get away with stuff like that!
Everybody seem to wake up around '63--cars got a LOT cleaner, and things were great until they all hit the wall around 1974. Year of the Mustang II. Evil portent.