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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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If the DKW guy is ignoring specific mechanical and structural questions, I would be worried about him hiding something.
I have been tempted to buy a car on ebay now and then. but as I have only one good parking spot, I stop. I don't want to keep a cool vintage car out in the rain all the time. The insurance on oldies can be really good. I pay about $2.50 a month for the fintail, even at my age.
I got a free car from a friend of the family when I was 18...a semi-decent Datsun 510 wagon. It was a one owner car, and seemed to be in OK shape. But I never could get it to run right, so I sold it for $500. That probably made up for the windshield I replaced and the entire weekend it took me to install it.
MISTAKE, MISTAKE, MISTAKE.
It is expensive to own a third car. Even with two drivers (and three cars), you get no break on the insurance, and you have a lot of fixed costs like licenses, etc. And there is NO guarantee that #3 won't need as much repair as #1 and #2.
We did that experiment for one year. At the end of the year, we sold #3 and used Enterprise RAC as our #3 car. If either car would not start, I had a standing order with the ERAC for a vehicle. I could get WHATEVER car he had available for $22 per day which was the rate he gave the shop where I had my cars worked on. Sometimes, I found myself crammed in a Ford Aspire while other times, I was hauling to work in an F-150. You can easily rent a car for 30+ days for the cost of having a third car!
Clutch went out on the Miata. If it were my only car, I'd have paid $400-600 for a new clutch, plus rental fees. Instead, I was able to take my time, do some research, and fix it for $10.74 (clutch slave cylinder rebuild kit). Paid for a whole year's insurance right there.
My insurance is about $500 per year, plus $70 licensing. That $10.74 is a grand total for repairs over the 3+ years I've had it. :-)
I alternate them, but neither car spends more than 3 days parked without use, unless we get a snow storm.
-juice
http://www.craigslist.org/sby/car/20863133.html
Here's a highline fintail on ebay in Germany. I'd call this one above average condition, but it doesn't look too special. Already approaching the NA high end for a 300SE in that condition, and in Germany it will go for more.
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2447399710&- amp;category=18303
There's another that looks even better than the first for $500 but it apparently doesn't run. Guy can't get rid of it sounds like. Call him up and offer him $100.
http://www.craigslist.org/sby/car/20625557.html
I could find you these all day long if you've got a flatbed truck and think you can get any money for them somewhere else. You could bring back 4 at a time! I even see them still in junkyards but somewhat picked over. Plenty of W123s in yards. I got a pair of yellow fog lights for $12. Be glad to forward all sightings if you can find a use for these cars.
The W110 fintails like that 230 always bring no money. They are pretty austere. The higher line cars....220S/SE have more demand, better trim.
The only one I really want is a LWB W112 300SE, and it has to be a nice original at least as good as my 220SE. However, if you run across any old Becker radios, accessories like passenger side mirrors, headrests, center console covers/armrests, heated rear windshields for fintails...etc....I'd be interested.
I am also looking for a set of chrome 15" flat face MB wheels which would have been stock in the late 80s, or a period aftermarket set like these:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- =2447504624&category=38662
Second, if I am spending about $23 per day to get a car delivered from Enterprise, I can have a car in the shop 20-25 days before the 3rd car make sense. And I have only needed a rental for one day tn the past four years.
Even the 280SLs, 350SLs and 450SLs are starting to be parted out if they have bad engines, because it now costs about $12,000 to rebuild one (just the engine) and a shabby SL (except a 300) isn't worth $12,000 anyway as a whole car.
So I'd say the only sure candidates for restoration will be 50s and some 60s(not all) Mercedes coupes and certainly all convertibles. I notice some Pontons are being saved if they aren't too badly off to begin with.
This follows the standard rule---the more common the car, the faster it disappears. Since sedans are made in larger numbers than coupes or converts, this is why this happens.
American 4-doors are somewhat less prone to this rule of extinction because they are so cheap to fix up, being rather simple cars and often with a very strong aftermarket parts industry.
So really restoration costs decides who stays and who goes.
Best possible world for an old Benz sedan is to never have deteriorated...a "survivor" that never went downhill. These cars will be saved I think, as long as they are still running well and looking good.
In my case, I'd have to rent a roadster on every sunny day. Or a 4x4 on every rainy/snowy day.
Like I said, YMMV. We use all 3 cars regularly.
-juice
Nice sedans are already just as rare as coupes and convertibles, if not moreso. And that will only increase as time goes on.
My old car is a survivor, and it will stay that way. I have been tempted to restore parts of it, but I never go that far. Patina isn't a bad thing, and the costs would be crazy. I wonder how few of these cars will be left in 10 or 20 years. A 6cyl fintail is already an 'obscure' car, and it will just be more so. I have had mine for almost 10 years now. When I got it, I would get a look now and then, but not all the time. Now I get comments and turned heads all the time.
I saw an old Audi 5000 wagon today. It was in awful shape, I swear it even had a bullet hole.
Oh well, I guess my career as a mosquito abatement officer will have to wait.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- - =2448429289&category=6389
This is really cool
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- =2448491605&category=6147
Now the Eldo Brougham, that is sweet! And to think they actually had magnetic shotglasses in that car...now that took guts. Guess it was okay to drink and drive back then, eh? ;-)
Magnetic shot glasses? I never knew that!
Wasn't the inside of the glove box lid made to hold those magnetized glasses in the Eldo? That' a pretty cool car, and nice looking too. It has that exotic upmarket 50s look also seen in the big Facel Vega sedans, like this.
Porsche 944 came out in 1983...so it would probably be a 914
The Packard Hawk was generally thought to be hideous when it was introduced and I don't think time has changed most people's opinions. Seeing it in real life is a bit of a shock.
There is simply no excuse for a car to look that bad. The '57 Studebakers aren't too bad to look at, and even the boxy 60s models were okay. Somebody at Studebaker should have stopped this car from ever being built. It did neither Packard nor Studebaker any good whatsoever.
-juice
When I look at what I know about 1958 cars, it seems that year was really garish. Chevy ditches the nice proportioning and classic details of the 55-57s for the short-lived 58 style. Olds and Buick get really big, fat, and busy. Lincoln gets huge and weird, much different from the cleaner 56-7 models. Cadillac gets even busier and more ostentatious, a sign of what will come in another year. Ford ditches the froggy headlights for quads and a faux hood scoop, and gets rid of the nicer 1957 fins for something that seems more Edsel-like, IMO. The T-Bird doubles in size (and sales too, I believe). Mopar might have had the cleanest lineup that year.
Not too many other cars introduced in 1953 would have still looked good by 1964 standards! Stylewise, that was probably one of the biggest changes in automotive history. Not like today, where some 10-15 year old cars almost look more modern than the current models!
-juice
I wonder if the new Nomad will be decent
I'm probably one of the few that prefers the '58 Chevy to the '57! I just like the lower/longer/wider look and the better proportions that come with it. That's also one reason I prefer Pontiacs in '55-57 to their Chevy counterparts. Same-sized greenhouse but a longer body overall gives the car better proportioning, although Chevies usually had cleaner grilles. I'd say the two biggest offenders for '58 were Olds and Buick. Both were basically enormous, chrome-laden bricks...about as squared-off and blocky as a 1958 car could get. Of the two, I'd say Olds is the worst, and should get a special mention considering how attractive the '57 was in comparison!
Over at Ford, I don't think things were too bad. The '58 Ford front-end looks like it's trying to ape Chrysler/DeSoto just a bit, and is a pleasing style overall, except for the colon-shaped taillights. The Mercury that year was also pretty blocky looking, but not as chrome-laden as a Buick/Olds. And okay, Lincoln was pretty nasty that year!
But then in '59, all the Mopar divisions started getting garish. It's like they were running out of good ideas on what to do with the gorgeous '57 body shell, so they dug some of their rejected ideas out of the trash!
I don't think the '59 Pontiac and Olds are bad looking cars...probably the cleanest styles of that year. And the Buick is so ugly it's almost cool, but the Chevy and Caddy are too much for my tastes.
And all things considered, I don't think the '59 Ford was bad looking. They did a good job hiding the fact that the '57, 58, and '59 Fords were all the same body. It was busy and glittery, but somehow pulled off that Thunderbird-inspired look fairly well. I also kinda like the style of the '59 Mercury, although strangely by this time, I think the 4-door hardtops were better looking than the 2-doors!
I think the key to whether something looked good or bad in '58-59 had to do with whether it was designed into the car, or just tacked onto it! In the case of the Packard Hawk, that front-end was just tacked on, and it shows.
Not only did those '58's not help Stude-Packard, they practically finished them off. I think they were about ready to shut the doors, but the money held out just long enough to get the Lark out, and delay the inevitable for another 7 years.
Basically what retro is doing today is killing the creativity of the automaker's styling departments.
1960 was also an odd year....another wide redesign or at least big facelift, and lots of cluttered designs. I like the Fords the most of that year...very clean design, almost European. You see cues of the upcoming Continental and future Euro and UK Fords.
The 58 Plymouth (Christine) was a very nice design. I remember watching that movie as a kid and thinking how nice that car looked. Great long hardtop window line, copied by the also pretty Ford Starliner of 60-61.
-juice
A Nomad should have a V8, right? If you think about it, the Dodge Magnum is more of a Nomad than the new Nomad!
-juice
Instead of making cars bigger they made them REALLY HUGE. A '57 Chevy isn't much bigger than it's '47 counterpart but a '58is way bigger.
The sleek wraparound windshields of '54-'57 got even wider and started to wrap into the rooflines.
Instead of chrome and tailfins they just slathered chrome onto every surface (esp. Buick/Olds) and started making the fins into very strange shapes, the Chevy is a good example (sorry Andre)
'58 was the first year for the widespread adaption of four headlights. It's pretty obvious that many cars were not originally drawn with these in mind, the Packebakers being good examples. There's nothing inherently wrong with four headlights but it took stylists a couple of years to figure out they had to get them off the fendertops and into the grillework.
Actually, I don't think '58 was the worst year. '59 and '60 were even worse! Don't you know '59 was the year my Pa decided to get a new car </:^(
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
1958 is generally regarded by historians to be one of the low points in American automotive history.
Some cars did start shrinking for 1960, but that trend didn't last for long. That year's Mercury was really an incarnation of the previous year's Edsel, which in '59 was a much smaller car than a Mercury. The big Buick Electra and Olds 98 were a bit shorter for '60, and would shrink even more for '62. Dodge came out with a whole lineup that was Plymouth-sized for '60, and only sold a handful of its more traditional, 1959-sized cars. For '62 the Dodge and Plymouth downsized, about 15 years too early, to cars that are only about the size of an Intrepid today. They sold poorly. DeSoto, in the process of being phased out, dropped all the 126" wheelbase models for '60, leaving only 122" wb cars. For '63, Chrysler would do the same.
Where the pounds started getting put on though, were in low-end cars. Chevy bulked up considerably for 1959, and Ford did for 1960. In 1965, the Big Three all redesigned their big cars, and while some kept previous wheelbase dimensions, they were all much bigger. Again though, the biggest, upper-end cars really didn't balloon up much, it was the low-end cars.
In 1957, I think the longest regular (non-limousine) car was the Lincoln, around 227" long. Imperial was around 225", and Caddy came in two sizes...216" and 221" (the overwhelming majority were 221"). The next biggest cars were probably the senior DeSotos and Chryslers, at around 218-219" and the biggest Buicks were probably around that, too.
In contrast though, I think a '57 Chevy is about 200", a '57 Ford's about 202", and a '57 Plymouth is about 207".
By 1976 though, a full-sized Chevy, Ford, or Plymouth was pushing 220-222", so in 20 years, some of them had gained close to two feet, and close to a half-ton in weight. In contrast, the biggest cars...the 98's, Electras, DeVilles, and Lincolns, had only put on a few inches to a foot, ending up around 230", and weights hadn't shot up nearly as much. Heck, a '76 Lincoln Continental sedan might actually weigh less than a '57!
before it was completely squashed. They should've called it
the "Udebak" :^)
Good point about the reaction to the little Rambler, Andre. Before the Rambler and the Bug, Detroit wasn't interested in small cars but it was then, in the middle 50s that the still prevailing philosophy of covering all segments began.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Now I know that's pure Hollywood, but would a Lark have been able to pull a horse in a trailer, plus 4 grown adults? Funny, the things you can think of when you're just trying to zone out in front of the tv! ;-)
The Lark could be had with the Supercharged 289 as well. It was something of a pocket rocket compared to most other early compacts.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93