Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
Options
I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
I don't know for sure, but my guess is, yes it was. Studebaker marketed pretty heavy to fleet users in the '62-66 period by making Lark models called the "Heavy Duty Sedan", which had beefier frames and other HD items. In '62 the Heavy Duty Sedan was based on the longer-wheelbase Cruiser, and this taxi is the long-wheelbase model (vent window in rear door glass) and has "Studebaker" nameplates on the fenders instead of "Lark" although has non-Cruiser items such as the basic rubber trim around the rear windows, etc.
When I was at the Studebaker Museum archives a couple years ago, looking at all the '63-66 units sold new by my small hometown dealer, I see even he sold a '63 to a taxi company in a town about 15 miles away.
One Lark that I think makes a very good looking four-door sedan, is the '63. I always thought the cut of the rear door says '75 Seville or '77 Caprice Classic, both cars with excellent styling IMO.
My web site has additional information and sales literature about Studebaker fleet vehicles (including the Lark Marshal police car). I owned an army-surplus Lark which is also pictured at the bottom of the page. Just below that is a musical slide show I made from a 1962 Studebaker Lark radio commercial. http://stude.net/builders.html
Included in that slide show is an image of the version of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile that was also designed by Studebaker designer Brooks Stevens. On the following page is another advertisement for the Lark taxi and the Plymouth Valiant taxi. Stop by and enjoy.
I didn't see the trailer it came to the show on.
RE: Taxis --- most taxis I've seen at shows are in fact made-up cars and were never cabs---I'd say the vast majority are fakes. Why is that? Because real taxis were mercilessly used up and then junked.
Not that it matters too much, unless the cab is really vintage, say pre-war or perhaps 40s/50s. The early cabs, if documented, are worth some money.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Should get a few chances over the next 4 years.
Had a new big chrome pumpkin cover on it.
After market rear shocks, that did seem to work too well.
Spewing some dark smoke as it drove along at a steady speed, so I'm guessing the carb needs some adjustment.
nice red paint. And it had a mini whale tail, not original (I assume), but still looked OK.
out driving on I195 in NJ.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Ford discontinued its famed flathead V8 (in its cars, at least) after the 1953 model year, and introduced its OHV V8 in the 1954 model year.
I think the styling of the '60-'62 models we're discussing here was rather neat. I applaud Chrysler for its efforts to introduce new styling themes, as it did in '55 and '57, and earlier with the Airflow.
Generally I'm pretty forgiving to automakers of that era, except for 1958, which was inexcusable right down the line for the Big Three and Little Two. The fact that people bought them is no defense. :P
Now we bought well used at that point but I do remember a wonderfully hideous faded pink and purple 58 Pontiac Safari wagon. We even had an unintended acceleration adventure in it. :sick:
Heading to the ocean yesterday I ran across a bad repaint on an old MGTD and a 72 Lemans convertible. There are a fair number of people who like to bring their old classics to the shore so they can get all that salt they missed by garaging them in the winter.
That is the last place I would ever bring my classic car. Not only as you mention the salt air, but there is so much congestion (especially on a Saturday in the summer) that I would be afraid of something happening to it.
I guess you frequent LBI, I was there a few weeks back for a beach day.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
first, a 1975ish Valiant 2 door HT. brown with a tan vinyl roof. a door version of the car my best friends family had when we were in HS. Even looked pretty original, but not at all ratty.
then, a mid-60's plymouth land yacht convertible. Yellow. I assume a Fury? one of the years when it looked like a rectangular block. Totally flat hood and trunk, made it look like an air craft carrier.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I don't know how many GSX Buicks were built in '71 but there couldn't have been too many and they are a rare sight where I live. After selling my Mustang during my senior year in HS, I test drove a '69 GS 400/4-speed which a friend was selling. Kind of tricky to get a car that long and heavy to drive smoothly with a manual trans. The Mustang had been too uncomfortable for daily driving and I was looking for something bigger with an automatic trans so I passed on the GS.
Later I found a sharp cream colored Buick GS automatic on the used lot of an AMC dealer in Lancaster, but we couldn't agree on price. Too bad. Hope somebody saved it for cruising on weekends like this.
The show was at a museum, and among others they had 2 Duesenbergs an Edsel Station Wagon and a 20's Jordan Playboy - more famous for it's advertising, then and now ..("Somewhere West of Laramie...").
Among the European contingent was Volga, Panhard, Gilbern, Bitter and a nice Ferrari 330 - plus the museum had an Enzo, F50 and F40...
I'll upload some pictures at some point.
The guy who rents the garage spot next to my fintail has an Avanti II, and a 66 Continental convertible in the same color (dark red). The Lincoln is there now, so big.
Local highline high priced car lot had a few goodies today...a couple of nice 928s, a Shelby Mustang, a lovely light brown 80s Rolls...and the coolest thing I saw today, a Lamborghini LM002...in what I am pretty sure was a dark purple.
I think some 1958 cars looked better than their '57 counterparts. With the Mopars, the '58 Plymouths definitely looked better than the '57. While they did screw up the rear-end, going with little "lollipop" taillights and cheaping out with a single backup light, up front it looked better with a sub-grille that matched the main grille, rather than that slatted thing on the '57 that made it look like it was just about finished eating a Jeep. And as the cars were designed for quad headlights, they definitely looked better once they actually got them, rather than that setup with the single headlight and the turn signal styled to look like an inboard headlight.
At Dodge, in addition to the quad headlights, the grille was also a lot less heavy-handed looking. I think the '58 DeSoto was a wash compared to '57. A bit fussier in the details, but still attractive IMO. And the Firesweep was an improvement. Somehow, the fussier grille worked better than the simpler '57 grille, when mated to the Dodge front clip. And no doubt the quad headlights helped here, once again. The only real sin the '58 Chrysler committed was a shrunken taillight that didn't quite fit in the fin. and the Imperial still looked good.
Now with Ford, I didn't like the '57 Mercury, and I didn't like the '58, so I really couldn't say which was worse. I think a '57 Merc with the single headlights isn't TOO hideous looking, but the quads were very poor fitting. The '58 Lincoln was hideous compared to the fairly attractive, sleek '57. Just about everything that can be said about the Edsel probably has been said, so I don't think anything can be added. But then with the '58 Ford, I actually like 'em, with the exception of the taillights. I always hated that bug-eyed look on the '57 though, so I prefer the '58, with quad lights that seemed to fit better.
At GM, I think the only true sinners were Buick and Olds. I think the '58 Chevy is pretty attractive. I'd actually prefer the '58 to the '57. And the Pontiac, with the exception of the bulging headlights, isn't bad. Caddy is kinda of heavy-handed, but still not bad.
Most of the '58 Studebakers and Packards were pretty vulgar,although the Studebaker Hawk was still a good looker. And I thought the cheap Studebakers (Scotsman?), the ones that had single headilghts and were fairly unadorned, were at least handsome looking, if unexciting.
And I think the '58 Rambler looks better than the '57, with the quad headlights mounted outboard in the normal location, instead of the single headlights contained within the grille.
Now in 1959, I think just about everybody went downhill, style-wise. Most of the cars ended up too ugly, too far-out, too heavy-handed, or a combination of all three. That's part of their charm nowadays, but that must have been an, umm, interesting, time to buy a car! I'm sure the car buying public of the time had a totally different perception though, compared to what we have today, looking back.
I agree with you that Buick and Olds were the worst offenders in 1958. Mopars were really just continuations of '57 styling. 58 Fords were pretty homely, too. You may not be old enough to remember, but the '57 Ford was an extremely popular car with young drivers and was considered very handsome at the time. Not until the Mustang would young buyers come back to Ford after 1957.
Today I found a nice parking space right away which kept my looking to a minimum.
Shifty - you would be correct - both were good beach cars.
I have to watch myself on the island. I see Jeep Wranglers that start looking good to me (because with a permit you can drive them on the beach). Not something I need.
I think GM mostly had the patent on 58 ugly. Buicks mostly but I hated what they did to the Chevy. Of course Ford introduced the Edsel but that's almost cheating counting that.
I agree on teh Plymouths. The 57 tail looked better.
1960 was a funny year for cars. Everybody realized at once that tail fins were yesterday and did a full retreat. Made for some curious designs.
The 1958 GM body shells were unique to that year only. Only GM could afford to tool up for a body shell that was used for one year only. The Buicks and Oldsmobiles were the worst of that lot. I thought the Pontiac and Chevy came out better than the others.
I liked Ford the best of the 1958 cars because the big Fords looked related to the four seat Thunderbird, which sold nearly twice as well as the 1957 two seat model. The 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 Victoria hardtop is one of my favorite cars of the 1950s.
Well yeah, it was an insult to the Packard name, for sure. I don't know what they were trying to do with the front-end. It's like they somehow got a Studebaker Hawk to copulate with a catfish, and this was the result! I don't think the "regular" Packards are *too* hideous, though. Like this 1958 hardtop coupe. I think the biggest sin is the poorly-executed attempt at forcing quad headlights onto single-headlight fenders, but at least in black, it sort of tones that down. But otherwise, it just looks like a copy of a Mopar. '58 Chrysler-esque front-end, with a '58 DeSoto-ish spear down the side
As for the '57 Ford, that's an old people's car, the kind of car my grandparents would drive. In fact, my grandparents bought one! :P Okay, so Granddad was like 43 when he bought it, so they weren't *that* old! It was the first new car they ever owned; I think their previous car was a used '49 Ford, and before that somehow they got by without a car.
The '57 Ford actually WAS popular enough that it beat out Chevy that year, by something like 100,000 units. I can believe that it was popular, and viewed as attractive for the time. The '52-56 Fords were a bit conservative and stodgy looking, IMO at least, and the '57, while still immediately recognizable as a Ford, did seem a lot more radical and advanced. For the most part I actually like it...I just can't stand those bulging headlights...that's something I don't like on ANY car! And that's probably the main reason prefer the '58, with its quads that don't bulge nearly so bad.
With Olds and Buick that year, while I think they are the worst offenders, especially when compared to the reasonably attractive '57 models, for some reason I like the Buick. It's just so over-the-top that it manages to work The Olds, though, just comes off as kind of boxy, and ugly, and way too overdone, but not in a cool way like the Buick. But, somehow, the buying public of the time loved it. While the mid-priced field crashed and burned in general, Olds actually did pretty well, down around 25% compared to '57. In comparison, Pontiac was down around 35%, Buick was down around 40%, Chrysler was off by about 50%, and Dodge, DeSoto, and Mercury by more than half.
58 Packard Hardtop --- it's pretty bad. Those fat, stubby slanted fins and the suckerfish grille really turn me off. This is a great example of totally incoherent design.
JEEP WRANGLER --- I too have moments of weakness when I see one of these at the beach---then I remember how drafty, unreliable, noisy, clunky and utterly useless they are. Still, there I was the other day looking at a '51 Willys Jeep with a Chevy V-8 on sale for $4000. (no, I didn't). On the plus side, the Jeep design is very purposeful. You look at it, and you know what it does.
Agree 100%. In March '58, we bought a brand new '57 Belvedere 2 dr Hdtp from Harris-Neff Motors in Crockett, CA the day I mustered out of active duty. As soon as we arrived home
the '58 lower grill replaced the '57. However that didn't prevent the Torque Flite from blowing up at 12,000 and the connecting rod scoring the crankshaft at 25,000. It was the worst quality car of its time. Haven't purchased a MOPAR since!
Regards:
OldCEM
A "Packardbaker" I like is a '57 wagon. Like a midsize car, but pretty luxurious and cleanly-styled. Studebaker's V8's were sturdy. A fellow who for decades has written a monthly column in the international Studebaker Drivers' Club magazine, who also owns many other old cars of other makes, can spout off several reasons why in his opinion the Studebaker V8 is one of the best V8's made by anybody, overall.
Studebaker was the style leader in 1947 and 1953, a few years ahead of the others, but they could not afford new bodies every three years. They could not keep up with the styling changes they started and their bodies did not adapt well to the quad headlight craze.
The Studebaker V-8 was a wonderful engine that makes a nice distinctive sound partly because of its firing order. You can hear the Avanti Bonneville speed runs with Andy Granatelli at the bottom of the page here. http://stude.net/avanti.html
I owned and operated a 1963 Avanti from 1972-1983 and a 1955 Commander from 1979 to the present. Sunday I drove my Commander on Pacific Coast Highway between Santa Monica and Malibu and had a wonderful time. It is like a trip in a time machine..
Red 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne also on Terwood Road.
Bluish-gray 1959 Ford Galaxie near car wash in Bethayres, PA.
Ratty olive green 1969 Ford Mustang on Rhawn Street in NE Philly.
AC Cobra with racing livery on Skippack Pike.
Black Studebaker Lark on Sumneytown Pike outside Sumneytown, PA
Light blue metallic 1974 Cadillac Eldorado on Route 63.
The Stude V-8 *was* sturdy. I beat the living hell out of mine, and they never failed me. I used to love driving through the Midtown Tunnel in 2nd overdrive in the '55, then mashing the gas pedal to downshift from OD to conventional 2nd gear. Since this causes a momentary ignition break, now and then you'd get a great backfire as well as the roar of the V8 with the cherry bombs I had attached to it.
The GT Hawk engine was more leisurely, mated to a heavier car and an automatic transmission, but it was a great cruising car as long as you didn't push it into turns too fast. I liked it because nobody else had one. It was a rare sight even in its own day. I was often complimented on the good looks.
The '56 Golden Hawk had the 352 Packard engine, which was *not* a good engine. They had severe oiling problem/lifter failure, and were very heavy. Studebaker apparently thought so, too, as they put the 289 in the Golden Hawk the next year, with a supercharger. It was quick for its day, but a Corvette would still crush it, since '57 was the beginning of Corvette's real performance abilities.
My friend Tommy had a '57 with 4-speed transmission as I recall, which I'm told was very rare. I envied that car.
Given that these 50s blocks were heavy iron, you don't have the head gasket issues you sometimes get with modern engines if there's an overheat.
Short of running out of oil, it's pretty hard to kill most 50s V-8. All you really had to do was freshen up the rings and bearings now and then--you didn't even have to do a re-bore or a crank---maybe a crankpin polish, in place.
In 1996 I wanted to buy a 1964 Stude Daytona convertible, but my Mom and girlfriend talked me in to buying something new. I bought a Chevy Cavalier LS convertible with the 150 h.p. "Quad 4" because I wanted to buy an affordable American convertible with some power.
It ate its starter motor at 25,000 miles. It wears out its brakes every 12,000 miles. At 31,000 miles the head gasket leaked and it cost me $3,200 to learn about the wonderful world of overhead cams. One week ago, at 59,000 miles, it jumped the cam chain and destroyed its valves. Now it is sitting at G-Man automotive in Los Angeles while I decide whether to put a new $2000 motor in an $1800 car that is clean condition.
It's a pretty good car, except for the motor. (As the Washington Post reporter once said, "Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?") Now I wish I had bought the 1964 Daytona convertible.
An old car is like your favorite and beloed vintage clothing. You don't wear your WWII era camelhair coat to work in your garden. For one thing, just about everything in the 40s needs drycleaning and every 60s car needs LOTS of tinkering :P
I saw a woman driving a BMW 507 a couple blocks away from where I live. Hard to find em like that
I'd love to have an interwar-era MB, sinister image and all. They are just amazing looking cars. The local concours had a MB theme last year, and there were several late 20s-late 30s MB there. Droolworthy.
Excellent analogy, Shifty! You know, I am not a mechanic in the slightest sense. I mean, I take my Studes someplace for oil changes! This is sometimes frustrating for me as I see fewer and fewer places that want to even touch them for service/repair work as they aren't "in and out" kind of work, and this is ironic to me as everyone has always said how 'old cars are so easy to work on compared to modern iron'! But I'm so darn attached to them! Sometimes I want to just sell 'em, especially the '64--but then I wouldn't have any hobby!
Yeah, I know the feeling. Sometimes though, you can luck out and find a mechanic that understands older cars. I took my '76 LeMans in for an oil change last week, and had them look at the choke. That car has NEVER run completely right in the time I've had it. My old mechanic tried to mess with it, but admitted that he couldn't guarantee anything, and mentioned that they didn't have any manuals that went back to 1976. Second mechanic (the one that has my DeSoto right now) messed around with it, after it got to the point that it wouldn't always start, and left me stranded one blistering day at the liquor store. He replaced the intake manifold, distributor, ignition coil, and I think had the carburetor rebuilt, but all that did was put it back to, more or less, how the car acted when I first got it. It would always start, even when brutally hot, but the fast idle never worked, and it just seemed to miss a bit.
But then this latest mechanic just fiddled around with the choke, got it running great, and I guess put so little time into it, that he didn't even charge me for it!
Hmmm, probably not the worst place to be stranded on a blistering day. It's never fun to be stranded, but if it happens...
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Elvis-Presley-Mercedes-Benz/ss/events/en/090210elv- iscar#photoViewer=/100902/482/urn_publicid_ap_org262fb24d969741008abd5c3e4ab37db- 5
I haven't changed my own oil on the thing for eons, maybe since right after I got it. I'm lazy and the expense balances out the hassle. It's overdue for its yearly oil change now...gotta do it in the next 6 weeks or so while the weather isn't complete crap.
Changing the oil is a fall ritual, although I used to do it twice a year.
I don't think is has ever turned out the same way twice.
This year, pretty good. Didn't make a big mess on the garage floor, the vertical drain plug didn't fall into the soup (it has 2 drain plugs), and I didn't tip the old oil filter over when removing it.
Also, when trying to figure out what socket/wrench to use, I spotted one of each which I put a piece of tape on to make them easier to find.
Oil disposal is easy. Our town has a drop off for the old oil and filters.
They burn it to heat the highway dept garage in the winter.