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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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!) "
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 )
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
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!
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.
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.
Were those the ones with the Infinity like rear ends?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
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.
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!
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
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.
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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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.
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.
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!
Ah, there's another rather unloved car I like!
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:
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
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.
Well neither had a grill...
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
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!
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!
But it was a two door. With a padded landau roof.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
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.
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.
I guess "really homely" is quite subjective:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.automotivehistoryonline.com/1962%- 2520Studebaker%2520Lark%2520Cruiser.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.automotivehistoryon- line.com/studebaker1962.htm&usg=__Y2U_jFBaVjLyd53iAzNJKAuXCL8=&h=360&w=571&sz=43- &hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=knO1HmqNBR1J_M:&tbnh=84&tbnw=134&prev=/i- mages%3Fq%3D1962%2BLark%2BCruiser%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.tocmp.com/pix/Dodge/images/1962%2- 520dodge%2520ad-01_jpg.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.tocmp.com/pix/Dodge/pages/1962%2- 520dodge%2520ad-01_jpg.htm&usg=__666NHcdNg7wCZAGf9XdvT50oalM=&h=574&w=705&sz=133- &hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GLOhxJbc3wzxpM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=140&prev=/- images%3Fq%3D1962%2BDodge%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1
I think there's a couple "Mercedes bends" in the Lark. I don't know where any of those lines in the Mopar came from!
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.
http://billstudepage.homestead.com/files/vmt62taxi2.jpg
Just for information purposes!
Those 1962 Mopars are so freaky and odd they become cool.
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.
62 Dodge---I agree, so freaky that it's now interesting. I call this type a "curiosity collectible".
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.
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.