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

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  • tjc78tjc78 Member Posts: 16,946
    Not sure. I looked on Ebay and the 88 on there had it. However, I noticed a few 93s on there and they did not. The 93 still had a digital instrument cluster but a standard Gm/Delco radio. Wiki notes the feature, but doesn't mention standard or not and whether it was phased out in later models (which I suspect).

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  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    Yup, that's Mama's Nova. I always wondered...is there a way to tell a '73 apart from a '74? I never could tell the difference, as the '73 had the big bumpers in back as well, in anticipation for the 1974 standards.

    According to Google Maps, this house is about 2.5 miles from the Back to the Future filming locations.

    When it comes to houses, "Mama's Family" was very inconsistent. When it was run on NBC back in 1983-85, the house used for the opening/closing credits was different from this one they used for exterior location filming for a few episodes. And then, when it went syndicated for 1986-90, they used a totally different house, which was on the same street where the first "Halloween" movie was shot, less than 2 miles away. They also went back and changed the credits on the original NBC episodes, using the newer house.

    That first house (675 S Oakland) was also used in a T-mobile commercial a couple years back, one where a guy goes out to get the mailbox to get the phone bill and a neighbor hollers "DEAD MAN WALKING!!"

    Don't ask me why this stuff sticks in my head. :blush:
  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
    A '73 Nova has the 2.5 mph bumpers in the rear; a '74 has the 5 mph (bigger) rear bumper than the '73. The '74 has a bowtie in the center of the grille; the '73 does not. The nameplates on the hood and trunk of the '73 have "Nova" with a bowtie; the '74's nameplates say "Nova By Chevrolet".

    We had a '73 Nova. Lot of car for the money, and only one inch shorter wheelbase than a Chevelle coupe. Not as nice, but much cheaper to buy. Ours had sloppy workmanship though; probably the sloppiest of any of Mom and Dad's new Chevys, before or after.
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  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    That lump of a flathead does look out of place in that otherwise thoroughly modern 1957 engine bay. One thing I'll say for it, at least the oil filter looks easy to get to! On my '57 DeSoto, it's a real bee-atch, buried low on the passenger side, just above the exhaust. If you remember where it was on your '85 5th Avenue...basically, same spot, but harder to get to, and extremely messy to change!
  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 58,415
    edited August 2010
    Yeah, like is mentioned below, the Nova differences are front vs rear bumpers.

    I'd noticed some of the exterior shots were different than the shots in the credits too. Once I tried to find the location of the house on the credits, but IMDB pointed to something completely wrong. (correction, I just googled it and found it, 1027 Montrose in Pasadena) Oh well. I've never even been to Pasadena before, but I've always had an interest or at least memory of the Back to the Future houses, and the Mama's Family house, along with other filming locations of the period. Like you, I kind of liked that show, and certainly saw every episode, especially when it was in heavy syndication on some channel a couple years ago. Harmless innocent kind of dopey humor, not much of that around anymore.
  • jljacjljac Member Posts: 649
    edited August 2010
    I agree with most everything that Andre says but I must disagree with this statement.

    Yet, all things considered it [the Edsel} didn't do too bad. Ford forecast 100,000 sales for 1958, and they ended up selling around 63,000. So, they sold about 63% of what they wanted to.

    It was once said that the Edsel was an answer to a question that nobody asked.
    Sales of 63,000 for after that much hype and publicity by Ford was a terrible showing and 1959 was worse. In 1959 Ford sales went flat and GM came out with the biggest fins ever seen on American cars while Studebaker chopped the fins and the quad headlights, shortened the wheelbase and came out with the Lark. Studebaker sold 138,866 cars compared to 53,866 the previous year and made a profit for the first time in five years.

    But the good times did not last long. Studebaker and Rambler had the "compact car" market to themselves in 1959, but in 1960, the "big three" automakers entered the compact car market with a vengeance. That year Ford sold 436,000 Falcons, Chevy sold 250,000 Corvairs and Plymouth sold 194,000 Valiants. That was only the first wave of small cars. In 1962, Chevrolet introduced the Chevy II (Nova) and sold nearly 407,000 that year. They were soon followed by Mercury Meteors, Pontiac Tempests and Dodge Darts as millions of other compact cars far outnumbered the Larks and Ramblers. All of these cars cost less than the Lark because of the economy of mass production by the Big Three. Only Rambler did well against the Big Three. . .but only for a little longer.

    The Edsel was a dead end to nowhere. The Lark was the wave of the future of more ecomonical cars, but Studebaker would not be part of that future for long.
  • texasestexases Member Posts: 11,107
    At Edsel.com, they say this:
    "First year sales were projected to reach 200,000.
    Total Production for all 1958 models: 63,107 units
    Total Production for all 1959 models: 44,891
    (Sound like a lot? In the same year, Ford sold more low price 2-door Ranch station wagons than all 1959 Edsels combined!) "
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    edited August 2010
    If they were forecasting 200,000 cars then yeah, the Edsel was a flop. Every source I've ever seen though, said 100K. So, I don't know who to believe?

    Looking at prices, the Edsel actually seems a bit of a bargain. For example, in 4-door pillared sedans:

    Ford Fairlane 500, $2428, 145 hp 223-6 (my book only lists the 6-cyl price, not the V-8. On the Bel Air, the base V-8 added $107, so I'd guess upgrading would be similar here)
    Plymouth Belevedere, $2440, 132 hp 230.2-6 (again, book just lists the 6-cyl price)
    Chevy Bel Air, $2547, 185 hp 283 V-8
    Dodge Coronet, $2559, 245 hp 325 V-8
    Edsel Ranger, $2592, 303 hp 361 V-8
    Mercury Medalist, $2617, 235 hp 312 V-8
    Pontiac Chieftain, $2638, 240 hp 370 V-8
    Buick Special, $2700, 250 hp 364 V-8
    Olds Dynamic 88, $2837, 265 hp 371.1 V-8
    DeSoto Firesweep, $2819, 280 hp 350 V-8
    Chrysler Windsor, $3129, 290 hp 354 V-8.

    The Edsel has the most hp and the best hp-CID ratio. Probably the best hp-weight ratio, too. I remember Consumer Reports testing an Edsel, but I can't remember which model. Anyway, they said it was the fastest car they had ever tested, up to that point. And they had tested a few T-birds and Corvettes prior to that! CR hated it, but back then they hated anything that was fast.

    1958 was probably not a good year though, to market something with that much power, which probably required higher-octane fuel than the others. Still, it seems like a lotta car for the money.

    I wonder how much of a stripped-down dog the Mercury Medalist was that year, to come in at a price that low?

    Personally, of that bunch, I'd probably go for a Coronet or DeSoto Firesweep (no big surprise there, eh? :P )
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    RE: Edsel: -- It's bad enough when an automaker tries to squeeze a product into a niche that doesn't exist--but when the niche product is also hideously ugly, well then, disaster looms.

    With the benefit of hindsight, ALL American cars were obsolete in 1960---but none of the "advanced" automakers had the horsepower to compete with them, and the Big Three didn't even know they were going to be the future extinct dinosaurs in 20 years time. Probably nobody knew.

    But then, without all this calamity, we wouldn't have an "obscure" topic to play with. :P
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    With the benefit of hindsight, ALL American cars were obsolete in 1960---but none of the "advanced" automakers had the horsepower to compete with them, and the Big Three didn't even know they were going to be the future extinct dinosaurs in 20 years time. Probably nobody knew.


    Well then, by that very statement, I'd say they were anything BUT obsolete. Let's face it, who else in the world could find the perfect blend of performance, reliability, interior room, and price, as the domestics? The only way the imports could do it was with much pricier products, which still couldn't match the interior room, and often the reliability. And anything in the price range of the domestics was usually comparatively crappy. It wouldn't be until the 1980's the the imports caught up with the domestics in areas such as automatic transmissions and air conditioning. Unless, of course, they bought said automatics and a/c's from the domestics!
  • lemkolemko Member Posts: 15,261
    The imports caught up with the domestics by the 1980s, but the domestics themselves regressed quite a bit in horsepower and performance by the 1980s as well. I'd say the imports and domestics met in the middle by that time.
  • lemkolemko Member Posts: 15,261
    image
  • jljacjljac Member Posts: 649
    edited September 2010
    According to Fifty Years of American Automobiles by Editors of Consumer Guide, Ford planned to produce 100,000 Edsels in 1958 but only sold 63,000+. A 63 % sales rate for the first year of production is terrible. Packard was going out of business with similar sales figures in the mid-fifties, so Edsel effectively replaced Packard sales in its first year only, then Edsel sales got much worse.

    If Packard had the advertising dollars that Ford put into the Edsel, Packard might have survived the 1950s. There is an amazing amount of Edsel sales literature available for a car that only existed for three years. (This is not a negative comment on the value or quality of the Edsel, only that it was a sales flop because it came at the end of the big chrome, two-tone paint era of the 1950s.

    In 1960 Rambler nearly beat Plymouth as the third best selling car in America (after Chevy & Ford) and did beat Plymouth in 1961. The 1960s were good times for Rambler but by 1969 the Rambler name had lost its sales appeal and the name was dropped to become AMC. During that same time the Big Three responded with cars of similar sizes and prices and the Falcon became the platform for the Mustang which was a huge success. After Rambler and Studebaker were gone, the foreign car companies took over the small car market when the Big Three went back to their old ways.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    "In 1960 Rambler nearly beat Plymouth as the third best selling car in America (after Chevy & Ford) and did beat Plymouth in 1961. The 1960s were good times for Rambler"

    Rambler did very well coming out of the late 50's recession. D3 also reacted by bringing out their new compacts and actually slightly reducing the size of many 61 models.

    As for the 60 and 61 Plymouths. Well, politely they were a bit unusual looking. More honestly, they were just plain ugly.

    I think the 55/56 Packard was a very nice looking car for the time both outside and interior. It is too bad they didn't have stronger finances back then.
  • imidazol97imidazol97 Member Posts: 27,675
    >1960 61 Plymouths. Well, politely they were a big unusual looking.

    Were those the ones with the Infinity like rear ends?

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  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    As for the 60 and 61 Plymouths. Well, politely they were a bit unusual looking. More honestly, they were just plain ugly.

    I always theorized that Mopar did that on purpose, to make people spend the few more bucks for a Dodge! I thought the 1960-61 Dodge Darts were neat looking cars, if a bit oddball, but the Plymouths were just flat-out ugly those years! Even when they came out with those prematurely downsized 1962 models, I thought the Dodges looked better.

    Similarly, I've always wondered if they made the '61 DeSoto a little extra ugly on purpose, so that people wouldn't miss it so much when it got phased out to let Chrysler expand downward with the Newport? In 1961, the two DeSoto models that were left were, I think, about $100 more than equivalent Newport models. I wonder if there was anything in a '61 DeSoto that made it worth that $100 or so more than a Newport? They used the same 265 hp 361-2bbl wedge. And IIRC, the DeSoto just used a Dodge dashboard, while the Newport had the cooler "Astra Dome" dash.
  • lemkolemko Member Posts: 15,261
    Without that funky upper grille, the 1961 DeSoto would've resembled a 1960 Lincoln.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    Yeah, I always thought that, too. I think the '61 DeSoto would've looked a lot better if they had gotten rid of the upper grille, and let the hood flow down to the lower grille, like it did on the '60 Lincoln, or perhaps even a '59 Buick.

    The DeSoto was probably forced to share the same hood with the Chrysler Newport and Windsor though, which most likely prompted that upper grille to fill in the spot that would have been the top of the trapezoidal grille on a Chrysler.

    I think the '61 DeSoto is actually pretty sharp looking from the sides and rear...just not from the front!
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    You're talking about marketing and price point and value---I'm talking more about technology.

    The Russians, for instance, have the only rocket in service to lift heavy payloads into space right now. Is it obsolete? Totally.

    American cars of the 60s were no more advanced than they were in 1941---in Europe you already had dohc engines, 5 speed transmission, light weight, great fuel economy, disc brakes, fuel injection.

    Basically, had GM been bombed into dust, we'd probably have had all that too.

    It's not about brains, it's about motivation. American automakers were not anxious to kill the Golden Goose with innovation. They had to be terrorized into doing it.

    RE: Ford vs. Rolls Royce --- well, you glue a mattress to the bottom of your car, and it'll be quiet, too. :P
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    1960 61 Plymouths -
    Were those the ones with the Infinity like rear ends?

    The 60 had a large exaggerated tail fin. The 61 had the angry looking front end and the spaceship like instrument panel. The rear was flat with a taillight pod on either end.
  • imidazol97imidazol97 Member Posts: 27,675
    1961
    image

    The Infinity that I alluded to has a rear that is all smoothed over with no ridge, no shaping at all. I don't know what year to try to find a picture.

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  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    I always theorized that Mopar did that on purpose, to make people spend the few more bucks for a Dodge! I thought the 1960-61 Dodge Darts were neat looking cars, if a bit oddball

    Interesting idea. Exner was also under a lot of pressure to change styling direction from the high tail fins and rumored to be undergoing health problems during this time. His unique forward look had been a home run and Chrysler expected another one. Ironically, by 61 GM and Ford had retreated to rather conservative styling.

    I guess I can see how the 60 Dart with the shark fins and protruding gun sight taillights can be interesting. I also liked the 2 dr hardtop roof line. However, the cantilevered 61 tail fin treatment and convex front grill left me kind of cold. I liked the 60 full sized Chrysler and DeSoto, but other than the domed, back lighted instrument panel the 61's also left me a bit cold. I'm certainly not one to criticize though because I like the rather unpopular downsized 62 Plymouth Fury and Dodge Polara and would have liked to seen what the original full size dimensioned cars would have actually looked like.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    The back (I won't say "[non-permissible content removed]") end is the best profile IMHO! Nice picture though and I didn't wince when i saw it - I'm getting old and mellow. I sometimes think this one might have sold a bit better had it been a late 50's car when everyone seemed to be going to extremes?

    Perhaps the "infinity" you are looking for is a 63 or 64 Plymouth, they didn't seem to have a lot of defined shape, nor did the following few years for that matter.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    edited September 2010
    I think the basic shape of the '61 Plymouth is pretty nice. The scalloped out corners are kinda neat. But IMO, its problem lies in the details, such as those taillights and backup lights that were stuck on as an afterthought, and that hideous scowling grille that one rag said "sparked a whole generation of Japanese sci-fi movie monsters".

    Honestly, I think it's a miracle that they sold any full-size '61 Plymouths at all. That year's Chevy was drop-dead gorgeous, and the big Fords were handsome looking in a conservative sort of way. And even the Dodge Dart was good looking in comparison, with its simple concave grille, although the reverse-slant fins could be off-putting. The Dart was only 10-20 dollars more for the most part, and managed around 180,000 units, compared to around 203,000 for the full-sized Plymouths.

    In comparison, I'd imagine Chevy ran off around 1.2M full sized cars, and Ford probably rolled out around 800,000?

    ps, is that "Infiniti" shape you're thinking of the Infini J30? The one with the rounded-off rump?
    pss: My mechanic has a 1961 Plymouth hardtop coupe with 1959 Chevy taillights grafted on. As hideous as that might sound, it actually works!
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    1959 Chevy taillights

    Ah, there's another rather unloved car I like!
  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 58,415
    Today I saw a beat up dirty 60s looking 2 door Land Rover slowly clattering down the street, driven by a young woman who was yapping away on a headset with a mouthpiece. Weird.
  • imidazol97imidazol97 Member Posts: 27,675
    edited September 2010
    >"Infiniti" shape you're thinking of the Infini J30?

    That is the one. It's a personal dislike. Actually, the'61 Plymouth rates above this for me.

    The Plymouth just didn't seem as nice as this:

    image

    image

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  • ab348ab348 Member Posts: 20,280
    During this week's absolutely sweltering heat, I saw a '68 4-4-2 convertible on my way into work. Top down, 2 bikes in the back seat. White paint, it looked pretty good. Have never seen it around here previously.

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  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    The Infiniti looks like a walrus with gas.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    For the most part, I never really liked those early Infinitis. They just looked too much like Nissans to me. For instance, that J30 looks like an Altima to me. That G20 they had looked too much like a Sentra. The M30 looked like a 2-door version of the 1991 Stanza my Mom and stepdad used to own. Now the Q45 was a nice looking car, but I thought it beared a passing resemblance to a 1992 Crown Vic!

    The '60 Olds is a good looking car. Back in the early 90's, after I messed up my '68 Dart's suspension, I found a '60 Ninety-Eight hardtop coupe for sale and test drove it. Cool car. Could've gotten it for around $1500, but I ended up being able to fix my Dart myself, for about 45 bucks, so I went that route instead.
  • explorerx4explorerx4 Member Posts: 20,723
    I think it was supposed to mimic a a 60's jagUar.
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  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 58,415
    I saw an oddity today...an old 50s style wild custom. I think it started life as a 49-51 Mercury, but there was little hint of that left, just a general idea in the front end and A-pillar. C-pillar was completely customized and reverse angled.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    I like those 49-51 Mercury coupes---almost the archetypal 50s custom.
  • tjc78tjc78 Member Posts: 16,946
    edited September 2010
    Now the Q45 was a nice looking car, but I thought it beared a passing resemblance to a 1992 Crown Vic!

    Well neither had a grill...

    image

    image

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  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
    I always really liked (and still do) '61 Chevy Impala Sport Coupes and '61 Ford Starliner hardtops. You don't see too many of either in excellent stock condition, either, it seems. Really, I like all the '61 GM bubbletops. They look to me like factory customs, being shorn of fins, and remind me of the "Jetsons" era on TV!

    The '61 Mopars? Wow, what were they thinking? ;)

    The '61 Stude Larks were not too exciting-looking I don't think, either, although they had mechanical changes/improvements to the '60's.

    The dealer who sold my '64 Stude new, and who is a good friend, told me the Dodge 'road man' came into town once asking him if he wanted to sign up as the Dodge dealer recent 'dropped out'. He went to the dealer's pre-introductory showing of the '62 Dodge. He told the road man when asked what he thought of the new Dodges, "That looks worse than any Studebaker!"

    Although history would prove him wrong in the long run, he decided to not take on Dodge after seeing the '62's!
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  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
    My story of the Dodge road man reminded me of another story. A Studebaker buddy is the son of a retired small-town Ford dealer in IL. They also sold Mercury and his Dad's brother was the Service Manager.

    One day a Toyota guy came in, about '65, to ask if they wanted to handle Toyota. My friend's Dad said 'I handle the sales end and my brother handles service, but we make all decisions together. Let me go get him".

    Well, the brother (a veteran of the Pacific theater) came up, walked around the car, and asked the road man, "What makes you think we'd want to handle a piece of s**t like this?"

    I'd have fallen over laughing...at the time!
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  • imidazol97imidazol97 Member Posts: 27,675
    I saw a Pontiac 6000 LE. In the typical white.

    But it was a two door. With a padded landau roof.

    image

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  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
    edited September 2010
    The only new car I ever ordered was an '85 Celebrity Eurosport 2-door. I ordered it in sold dark plum (instead of with that silly silver below the side moldings) and aluminum wheels. The salesman told me the wheels were back-ordered. I told him if it came in with the steel wheels, I wouldn't take it. It did come in with aluminum wheels. I ordered it with the 2.8 multiport FI V6.

    I also had to order the 4-speed automatic (late in the model year) against the advice of a friend's Dad who was a Chev/Buick Service Manager. At 37K it had no 3rd or 4th gears, but Chevy put in a remanufactured one for $100 (deductible), even though 13K out of warranty and it ran fine 'til 60K when I traded it (back when I was young, unmarried, and foolish!).

    I ordered the plum standard (not CL) bucket seats which were really buckets instead of 40/40 as with the CL, and ordered the full instrumentation. The gauges reminded me of stereo equipment at the time--hair-thin needles; three gauges next to each other.

    It handled very well (Goodyear Eagle GT's) and had the most-livable back seat of any two-door car I'd been in in years.

    It took 12 weeks to come in , which p'd me off at the time.
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  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    He was probably thinking of the '62 Lark 4-door cars, which were really homely, not of the GT Hawks, which were attractive in '62.

    Pretty rare to see a mid 60s Toyota. They were simply unfit for modern American roads.

    One story goes that very early Toyota dealers simply could not sell their late 50s, early 60s Toyotas, so they just used them for parts retrieval, loaners, gave them to salesmen to destroy----but the cars proved extremely hard to kill.

    Toyota really didn't put out a competitive product until the famous '68 Corona, which was an excellent car compared to the soon to appear Pinto and Vega, and it completely outclassed the obsolete VW.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    edited September 2010
    Neither one is going to win the Pretty Baby Contest that's for sure. The back halves of both cars are regrettable.

    The Lark looks like Godzilla stepped on it, and the Dodge is well...."tortured" to say the least.

    Studebaker, being broke, couldn't afford new body styles, so they had to keep welding, piecing together and using stuff off the shelf to make new models.

    With Dodge, it must have been something in the water fountains over at the styling department.

    "Homely" isn't always bad---at least "homely" can be honest.

    These years were not the best for Benz styling either, not until they hired Bruno Sacco in the late 60s.
  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
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  • fintailfintail Member Posts: 58,415
    There's kind of a period MB greenhouse on the Lark sedan, and the tall grille too. Maybe not totally random as Stude was marketing MB then.

    Those 1962 Mopars are so freaky and odd they become cool.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,023
    I think the 1962 Dodges were inspired somewhat by the turbine cars. Not the famous Elwood Engle styled turbine cars that looked like a '61-63 T-bird with "owl eyes", but an earlier turbine car. There's also a lot of Valiant/Lancer in that standard-sized '62 Dodge, but while that look actually worked on the Valiant/Lancer, it didn't carry over so well to the larger cars. And all things considered, maybe it's best that DeSoto wasn't allowed to carry over into 1962.

    I think the '62 Dodge is actually kinda neat looking, in a funky sort of way. Almost like they were trying to go for a futuristic look, which might have made sense in 1959 when work was started on these things. But evidently Mopar didn't get the memo, that the more subtle, clean, conservative look would be the in-thang for '62.

    Interestingly though, one of the rejected proposals for the 1962 DeSoto seems to have an awful lot of '60 Mercury and '61-62 Cadillac in it.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Was that ever a real cab, do you know?

    62 Dodge---I agree, so freaky that it's now interesting. I call this type a "curiosity collectible".
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    I think the clays are often more extreme than the actual production models. They were also based on full sized cars which would have given more room to carry out the design. The downsizing of the 62 Polara and Fury were hurry up jobs based on incorrect info on the Chevy II being the next Impala combined with confusion on the downsized 62 Ford Fairlanes, so I don't think they turned out all that bad for short lead time slice and paste jobs. The direction I think Exner was going with the original 62 full size cars can be seen a bit in the 63/64 Chrysler, although I believe Elwood Engel toned it down. The squared off big 65 Mopars definitely reflected where Engel had been going at Ford. I thought Engel did a particularly nice job on using the originally mistaken smaller platform for the 65 Dodge Coronet.
  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    I agree that Brooks Stevens and Studebaker did a nice job with the very constrained resources they had at the time. The problem for Studebaker, and soon Rambler as well, I think was that the public perceived each was close to going out of business, so they unfairly equated that with the vehicles being lesser to the Big 3.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Studebaker was very strapped for capital and had to be clever; so much so, in fact, that in 1961 they actually converted their flathead engine block to overhead valves, rather than design a whole new engine. Not only that, it was faster AND more economical than the prehistoric flathead.

    The Lark did okay until GM came out with its slick new powerful compacts like the Special and the F-85. That about nailed Stude's coffin shut.
  • uplanderguyuplanderguy Member Posts: 16,860
    I agree with the comments about Brooks Stevens. I very much like Avantis, but Stevens' job on the Gran Turismo Hawk and '62 and later Larks were brilliant with what he had to work with--"the money normally reserved for retooling a Plymouth door handle", as he put it!

    I own a '63 Lark Daytona and a '64--I think the '64 is crisp, handsome, very different from the '63 in many ways, and better looking, with its large rear wheel cutouts, than a '64 Chevy II, Falcon, or Valiant, which Studebaker marketed the Lark against. It seems almost contemporary today. And with the availability of high-performance V8's, disc brakes, and auto transmissions that could be shifted manually through three forward gears, click, click, click, as well as full instrumentation, inside hood releases, glovebox vanities, red instrument lighting and a number of other smaller things, it offered things other cars of that size did not.
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  • berriberri Member Posts: 10,165
    The compact that always intrigued me was the original Valiant for some reason. Can't really put my finger on it. Maybe because it seemed a bit different and European for its time? But you know, I didn't mind those 62 Polara's and Fury's either!
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