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

au1994

A friends mom had a black Lancer Turbo when we were in high school. Pretty nice looking for the day. And yes, we can attest that they were pretty good performers indeed with the turbo. At least in a straight line. We didn't care too much about the twisties back in the day.

We were typical HS kids in Alabama in the mid 80s/early 90s and the motto was "there is no replacement for cubic inch displacement". :P

5.0 Mustangs were cool etc. Some of us appreciated other stuff, but something like a BMW seemed so unobtainable, we didn't waste much energy learning about them.

tjc78

The Lancer and LeBaron GTS did get a lot of good press at the time.

If I had to chose between a Tempo/Topaz, Grand Am or the Lancer/Lebaron I think I would take the Lancer/Lebaron every time, especially in the turbo varients.

michaellno

When I graduated from college in the fall of '85, I moved back to my hometown in California and needed to buy a car. I looked at 4 different models:

1) '85 Pontiac Grand Am 2-door (2.5L 4-cyl)
2) '85 Ford Mustang (2.3L 4-cyl)
3) '84 Toyota Corolla
4) '85 Honda Accord

The Grand Am and Mustang were junk, IMHO. The only ones in my budger were stripped down models that couldn't hold a candle to the other two.

The Corolla, IIRC, was a former rental car and was the one my dad was pushing me towards. This was the blocky-looking version, which didn't appeal to me one bit. Plus, it was 4 doors. C'mon! I was 21 and didn't really cotton to the idea of a sedan.

Which left the Accord. LX hatchback with a 5-speed and the louvers over the rear hatch window. A/C, cruise, cassette deck .. loaded! It had less than 17K on the clock.

I think I paid $8650 for it - drove it for 3-4 years and about 40K before trading it in on an '88 Trooper.

andre1969

The Grand Am and Mustang were junk, IMHO. The only ones in my budger were stripped down models that couldn't hold a candle to the other two.

In early 1990, my uncle was thinking about getting a new car. He went up to the local Pontiac/Dodge dealer (Bob Banning, to the locals) and hated the Grand Am the minute he sat in it. Too plasticky and junky, in his opinion. So, he bought a used 1988 LeBaron turbo coupe. I know that sounds funny, thinking the Grand Am is crap and then buying a K-car variant, but that thing actually was pretty nice. And with that sleek, sexy body and the hidden headlights, it was probably about as erotic as a K-car could ever get. Interior was really nice as well, with leather, nice padding on the door panels, and very little hard plastic. Upgraded-looking carpeting. It was probably just about fully-loaded, with the exception of a sunroof. At least, I'm presuming they offered a sunroof?

I forget how many miles it had on it, but I think he paid about $10K for it. It wasn't a bad car, but after the 90,000 mile mark, it started falling apart and was done by around 115-120K miles. In its defense though, he sold it to me when I got married, it got stolen a few times, I let the ex- have it in the divorce (right around the 90K mark), it got stolen a few more times, abused in general...so maybe the fact it still made it to 115-120K was a blessing, rather than a sign of a bad car!

The main thing I didn't like about the car was the torque steer, which took a bit getting used to, as I was accustomed to RWD cars.

berri

I recall those mid 80's LeBaron GTS as decent lookers. Were they 4 dr hatchbacks?

andre1969

Yep, 4-door hatchback, but one of those styles where the slope of the rear window came down about 2 feet short of the rear of the car, sort of hiding the fact it was a hatchback.

An American Revolution. Note that back then they were still quoting acceleration times in 0-50, instead of 0-60. At first I was thinking 5.7 seconds? Hot DAMN!

ab348

My elderly female next-door neighbor -- I don't know her exact age, but she has to be well into her 80s -- still has one of the Lancer-style Chrysler Lebaron sedans that she drives to the supermarket once or twice a week. A little scary, actually, since she is barely visible over the top of the steering wheel. The car was bought new by her late husband in the mid-80s and is in very nice condition. It's a pale yellow color and actually not bad looking even now.

Back in '83 or '84 I saw one of these advertised in the paper by the local Chrysler dealer and drove over to give it a test-drive because it had a really good price on it for a brand new car:



It was the same pale yellow in color. I drove it and was not all that impressed -- it was a K-car after all, just a dolled-up one -- but when I pulled into a mall parking lot to give it the once-over I could see that it had been repainted on one side. there was visible overspray and that side lacked the pinstripe the factory put on the other side. When I returned to the dealer I asked the salesman about it and he denied all knowledge. I walked away. It was apparently damaged in transit and they decided to fix it and sell it off cheap. Slippery bunch!

fintail

Saw an oddity today - odd that it is still on the road - an E32 750iL, ca. 1989 I guess. It looked to be in fine shape and sounded good. Maintenance must be killer on that thing. It was also wearing cool period aftermarket wheels, I think by Lorinser, that I have also seen on a 560SEC.

Mr_Shiftright

Came up behind a really nice '55 Chevy 2D, that tomato soup red with creme two-tone. Very tidy and seemingly accurate restoration, right down to belching hydrocarbons that defoliated everything within 50 yards (quick, Shifty, hit the RECIRC button---gasp!). Sounded oh so 50s. Handsome car.

stickguy

in the bays of an auto sound place I drove by, an 80s vintage rolls, and a 68-70ish Buick (skylark style).

and a couple more late 60s ones outside a gas station, but not I forget what they were!

and an early 60s Chevy stepside PU for sale, not far from my house. Looks clean, and slightly modded (wheels, etc.)

stickguy

forgot 1 more. I have seenit in a driveway before, but saw it moving today.

a mid 70s Lincoln town car (or continental I guess then?). Big honker. it had the bigger bumpers, and based on some googling, looked like a 76 Had the funky football shaped opera windows in the c pillars. Black, and looked to be in pretty nice shape.

uplanderguy

I saw myself driving my Ermine White '63 Studebaker Lark Daytona Skytop, factory Avanti power, about 80 miles to its winter storage location this past Sunday. Generated a good number of smiles and "thumbs up" and ran great in the cool fall weather. It was sunny and peak fall colors in NE OH and NW PA, and the last half of the trip was glorious...in the country and through rolling hills. I recommend a drive soon if you have an old car and can take it on a nice long drive while the colors are still here and weather's still good.

omarman

"Those Camry wagons kind of remind me of Daimler hearses"

Maybe even an old Scout would make a good stable mate to the Camry wagon. This one from Butts Pontiac sold on ebay for just $6k. But they're all located in the Pacific NW now.

oregonboy

But they're all located in the Pacific NW now.

That's because we appreciate the 4x4 as a fashion statement.... Just look at any local Walmart parking lot.

AND, we don't salt our roads.

tjc78

looked like a 76

IMO the 77-79 with the waterfall grill is so much nicer looking. 78 probably being the best because you got the newer dash design and could still get the 460 (not that it wasn't choked to death).

FWIW, I think I may have seen the one you are talking about. Can't be too many floating around SJ.

jljac

You are probably aware of this Skytop Lark web site and maybe your car is here too. http://studebakerskytop.com/pics.html An image of my 1955 Commander got to this site before I was aware of it. townhall-talk.edmunds.com/direct/view/.ef0e895/18006

lemko

My Dad had a 1989 Chrysler LeBaron coupe and my sister had a 1987 model.

Heck, your uncle wanted to go all the way, he could've got the TC by Maserati!

lemko

Did you ever notice how quickly those early '80s LeBarons quickly become "_eBarons" because the upper part of the "L" snaps off?

uplanderguy

Yes, a bunch of photos of my car are under the 'Avanti Powered Skytops' section of that website. My car is the earliest serial number on the site.

uplanderguy

I always liked Scouts (both iterations) and thought they were better-looking than Jeeps. I remember our hometown I-H dealership having a tractor in the front yard, then a Scout, another tractor, then a pickup, etc.!

They were serious rusters, but then...I own Studebakers. Maybe there's some connection there!

michaellno

MB 300 Gullwing .. pulled over by a motorcycle cop on I-25.

Looked original, but I was doing 65MPH as I passed so not 100% certain.

stickguy

C2 I guess that was the mid-60s, right? ) Really nice looking red, looked brand new. Actually out driving around on local roads at 5:00, so in traffic.

Easy to tell the year, since it was actually a split window '63. Not something you usually see bopping around on a weekday.

Mr_Shiftright

A limey-chartreusey green 80s era BMW 530 sedan.... the filthiest running car I think I've seen in 40+ years of looking at filthy cars. Muffler hanging down, bald tires, black soot on windows, 2 dogs in back. Nice.

kyfdx

I liked the Scouts, too.. Also, the big one... Travelall?

I had a friend in high school who's father worked for IH... Always had a company car... Pretty sure my friend could do 30 mph in reverse! :surprise:

fintail

530 would be a late 70s car or an early 90s car...the latter having a teeny tiny V8 of all things. But with the soot, I would guess the earlier car.

Mr_Shiftright

It had the older body style. The soot was on the windows, not the tail pipe!

fintail

Was the tailpipe in the middle? When I was a kid I thought that was a funny design feature.

Mr_Shiftright

Actually there was no tail pipe. It was just the muffler hanging down and the exhaust belching underneath. The car's body was so filthy I thought it was a burned out car in the parking lot---but then I saw someone moving forward with it, through the slime on the side windows.

fintail

I'd imagine there are a few cars in the general SF area like that. Around here the hippie-owned MB diesels can be very sad looking.

Speaking of dirty cars, last week I was near the ocean, and saw a 90s LeSabre that maybe had never been washed. It was once white, but had such a heavy covering of grime, mold, moss, mildew, and heaven knows what else that one could think it was green. It was possibly the dirtiest car I had ever seen. How can people live like that?

Mr_Shiftright

I'm afraid it speaks to mental illness, not car problems.

I don't care how people want to live but I have to wonder how dangerous these cars are and who they're going to kill someday other than themselves. It's not like you're going to hear them saying "Oh, Ed, after you scrape the windows clean with a putty knife and duct tape the rear view mirror, would you put new German-made rotors and brake pads on the car, and a new set of P-Zeros. Thanks, buddy, I'll pick 'er up tomorrow...oh, and feed the dogs, will you?"

lemko

I took my 1989 Cadillac Brougham in for its annual state inspection/emmissions today at my local mechanic. He was telling me about how many low-income people bring in their Mercedes and BMWs when something goes wrong. They fail to do any of the required maintenance on the cars and only pay attention to them when something breaks. Even then, they don't want to pay for a proper repair, just do a "band-aid" fix and send them on their way.

lemko

...grayish green 1957-1961 Studebaker Champion Hawk post coupe. Not sure if that's the proper name, but I believe Stude called all their low end cars Champions before the Scotsman and Lark. Any Stude experts tell me what it was?

toomanyfumes

Spotted a big '80's VW wagon yesterday. Too big to be a Dasher, Maybe a Quantum? I'm guessing it's not originally from this area (WIsconsin) unless it was stored winters, the road salt does a number on older VW's.

uplanderguy

Lemko, Studebaker Hawks with posts from '57-'61 were called Silver Hawk for '57-59, and just Hawk for '60 and '61. In '56, when there were four levels of Hawk, the serial nos. fell into the sequence of Champion, Commander, and President numbers, but they were not advertised as being a subseries of the "regular" Studebaker models.

I used to not like those post Hawks, but I think they have "aged" better than most '57-61 domestic two-door post cars.

uplanderguy

Just when I think I've seen all the old cars around town, tonight at dusk a dark gray, stock-looking, very low-slung (either springs and shocks completely worn or made to look like a low-rider), '58 Chevy Brookwood wagon drove by me, down our street. I turned and followed him, but he pulled away from me. The car was quiet, left no trail of smoke I could see, and had all lights operating (one taillight each side and license plate light working, even).

Ironically, a two-tone green '58 Brookwood wagon is the first car I can remember, of my grandparents who lived about four blocks away from us. They traded it on a new '63 Bel Air wagon (also green). When I was quite small, I can remember my aunt driving us in it and dropping a cigarette in her lap and hitting a telephone pole--not seriously though.

berri

When I was a little kid we had a neighbor that had a 58 Yeoman which I believe was the Delray stripper version of the Chevy wagon that year. A friend's parent had a 58 Delray and that baby didn't even have door armrests, plus the heater was optional.

fintail

The guy who parks next to me in the garage in my building has an Exploder Sport. He's been here for at least a year, and the thing has never been washed. He also has a dog who rides in the car, so the windows are pretty disgusting, you can barely see out of the passenger side window. And of course the windshield is cracked in several places and the thing is full of junk. I have to imagine it smells pretty bad inside too. And the guy isn't some old hermit, he's probably early 30s at the oldest, and appears to look normal and well groomed otherwise. How can people drive something like that? You bought it, why let it run into the ground?

Today's odd sightings - same white 64-65 Pontiac Tempest HT I have seen around a few times, a nice unrestored looking non-GTO driven by an older guy, and a maroon 65 Impala SS convertible on stock SS hubcaps.

fintail

I love the "Scotsman" model name...I guess "Cheap [non-permissible content removed]" was un-PC back then :shades:

Mr_Shiftright

Problem was that the Scotsman really LOOKED cheap, but not small. It's one thing to *be* thrifty, another to advertise it every day. And all this in the age of automotive excess. It would be a few more years before the American public got used to very spartan "compact" cars. But large cheap cars---Americans never like that much.

jljac

The Scotsman took economy too far with its painted hubcaps and sun visor on the driver's side only. Even the seats had less padding in them. It was only available in 1958 and led to the Lark the following year. There was also a Scotsman truck in 1958.

The name seems strange now, but it was built in the home town of the Fighting Irish.

ab348

That "Scotsman" name would be so un-PC today. Can you imagine naming cars with ethnic-group names? Unbelievable.

uplanderguy

I have read time and time again, that the Scotsman exceeded sales expectations and is probably what kept the company alive in '58. It also pointed the way that the idea of the upcoming Lark was spot-on. Way too spartan for my tastes, however. The original owner of my '63 Lark Daytona said that he had a '58 Scotsman a couple cars before the Daytona. Opposite ends of the Studebaker spectrum, for sure.

Mr_Shiftright

The Scotsman claim doesn't really hold up, though, since 1958 was a worse year than 1957, and 1959 a worse year still for Studebaker. You can't expect a company to survive by selling some 20,000 Scotsmans. Only the Lark in 1960 gave the company a few more years to stagger around. 1960--1962 were their last possible turn-around years but they didn't have the product mix and certainly not the capital.

Really Packard should have bought out Studebaker and maybe both could have been saved or their marques incorporated into larger companies.

andre1969

Actually, if I'm adding up the numbers right, Studebaker didn't do half bad in 1958, all things considered. According to my old car book, they sold 74,738 1957 Studes, and about 61,000 1958 models.

yeah, it was obvious that Studebaker was on life support by that time, and wouldn't be long for the world, but considering what a bad year 1958 was for everybody except Rambler/Metropolitan and the economy imports, the fact that Studebaker only declined ~$18% seems almost a miracle.

Those '58 Studebaker Starlight hardtop coupes aren't bad looking, with the exception of the poorly-integrated quad headlight setups.

Mr_Shiftright

Hmm....optimistic book maybe? . 1957 was about 63,000 and 1958 about 44,700 give or take a bit is what my books say. These are USA figures. I've seen other figures upwards of 54,000 for '58. I suspect that includes cars, trucks, overseas, the whole enchilada.

But no matter---these are pretty sad numbers no matter if we use mine or yours.

The Lark did well initially because for the first time Stude was *not* competing with the Big Three, but rather only Rambler and the imports. But once the Big Three jumped into the market for compacts, the Lark faltered.

The new GT Hawk was a very handsome car, but nobody wanted it -- too expensive no doubt. You could buy an Impala convertible for that money.

The Avanti created a sensation but alas, the production line for this car got so fouled up, everyone gave up waiting for one. It never recovered from that.

uplanderguy

1959 a worse year still for Studebaker

Huh? 1959 was Studebaker's best-ever one-year profit.

uplanderguy

S-P had a $43 million loss in 1956. Without the Detroit Packard plant (which was only sold for $750K per one place I've read), the loss was reduced to $11 million in 1957, on reduced sales and a '57 Studebaker lineup that was virtually unchanged from '56.

S-P's loss in '58 was $13 million.

They made a $28.5 million profit in '59.

Incidentally, the Scotsman was introduced in May '57, and sold 10,000 through the rest of that model year, as opposed to 4,000 predicted and dealer profits increased 66% after its introduction (source: Langworth, Studebaker 1946-66, The Classic Postwar Years). Also, although the loss was increased over '57, Studebaker passed Chrysler and DeSoto in production for '58.

Mr_Shiftright

Right you are! They did made a profit, but this was from their diversification plan that didn't only include cars. However, their production numbers were up in '59. It was a good year for Studebaker--by Studebaker standards I mean. To give us an idea, Chevy sold more full size station wagons than Studebaker sold entirely.

It was '61 when things started to plunge, when the Big Three moved into the compact car market. This I think was pretty much the death knell.

uplanderguy

The diversification program hadn't started in 1959. It didn't begin until late '60/early '61 when it became apparent that Lark sales were declining (a profit was still made in the '60 model year, but was erased during the '61 model year) and that tax credits available from losses of the merger years were expiring without being taken. The various subsidiaries acquired during the presidency of Sherwood Egbert after Harold Churchill was ushered out in Dec. '60 were what allowed Studebaker to remain in the auto industry, albeit on a small scale by that time, 'til 1966. They were still making a small profit in autos as late as 1966. They remained in the auto parts and service business until mid-1972.

uplanderguy

The new GT Hawk was a very handsome car, but nobody wanted it

Getting a Big Three sheeple, er, buyer, into an independent make was tricky of course, but sales of '62 Hawks were almost 2 1/2 times greater in '62 than '61.