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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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One wonders why GM even did the engineering work to offer that combo.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
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Might be okay for basic transportation for someone, or maybe to build a street rod, but "collectable"? I don't think so.
The bids are more than generous and already exceed book value. The seller should be pleased. He did a good job on marketing it.
I agree, this car would be pure torment to drive....which is why I suspect it's going to be made into something else. It would make a great "street sleeper". You can buy huge HP crate engines for not much more than you paid for the entire car. Add a HD automatic with stall converter, quick-shifter and a credible differential and a dash mounted tach and you can go YEE-HAW all day long for under $15,000 bucks.
I can't even imagine what that baby is like to drive.
but if you really want it, let me know. I am about 1 mile from the town it is in.
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Full-size Chevy V8's (primarily Impalas) are so commonplace, still, I believe that whomever buys this Bel Air will keep it as-is. I guess I mean, if someone wanted to hop one of these up, there are tons of Impala examples still out there and almost certainly for less money.
BTW, that 250 L6 in '73 Chevys was rated at a whopping 100 net horsepower!
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nothing that big though, and all the sticks were at least on the floor.
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I wonder what kind of 0-60 time something like that would post? The '77 Cutlass Supreme sedan with the Olds 260 that CR tested always sticks in my mind, with its miserable ~21 seconds, but I'm sure something like this would be much worse! Although maybe the manual shift would give it a slight advantage compared to the THM350 that the Cutlass had? I think the Cutlass they tested had a/c, too.
The handful of '76 LeSabres that Buick built with the 231 must have been another miserable experience to drive.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I think the slowest car I ever had was a 1980 malibu with a 229 V-6. I think 0-60 came up in around 14-15 seconds. Sadly, that seemed good at the time, but most of my friends had stuff like early 80's Cavaliers, 4-cyl Mustangs, Pintos, 4-cyl Fairmonts, 1980 Honda Accord automatics, etc.
I'm sure if I ever had to go back to something like that, though, I'd hate it.
The vin number looks like a Biscayne with the 250/1bbl engine. Strong bids and another day to go for the auction.
In '73 it was down to 100 bhp. It had been 110 prior to that. I know this because we had a '73 Nova 250 6, my sister had a '73 Chevelle 250 6, both new, I absorbed all the info in the brochures like a sponge and about lived at the Chevy dealer...while other 15-year olds were playing football and wooing girls!
It all depends on the rear axle ratio on those. If they had a higher number, the pickup may have been a little better. If they really lowered it in those days of no overdrive for gas mileage, then they were dogs.
I remember my friend drove from Charleston to see his mother in Cincy and they drove a Buick equivalent of the Cutlass with the 231 and got 30 mpg--through the mountains. I was impressed. But that car had no pickup and was lumpy; I had driven it while vacationing at the beach. But it got from point A to point B.
Is there a source for rear axle ratio data?
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Sometimes the sales brochures would list axle ratios in them towards the back, with the engine data. And now that I think about it, I have a bunch of the big blue "Motor's" repair manuals that my Granddad used to get, and they probably have axle ratios listed. Granddad has a bunch of them from 1960 to 1976. He's missing a few in between, but each one goes back 7 years, so he still pretty much has 1953 to 1976 covered.
he didn't buy them after the 1976 edition, because cars were just getting too complicated and annoying for him to work on, with all the emissions and crap. And downsizing made for less room in the engine bay.
Off the top of my head, I know a few of the axle ratios for the 1979 full-sized Mopars.
225-2bbl slant six: 2.94:1 axle
318-2bbl: 2.45:1 (2.76:1 optional)
360-2bbl: 2.45:1 (2.76:1 opt)
360-4bbl: 3.23:1 (but oddly, in police cars it was a 2.94:1)
there was also a 318-4bbl for use in California, as the 2-bbl 318 and 360 were banned. It had a 2.76:1 axle.
FWIW, I found a 1976 Buick brochure at www.tocmp.com, but unfortunately I couldn't find axle ratios listed. I'd imagine by 1976, most V-8 Buicks were using a 2.41:1 axle. There was a 2.73:1 axle that was probably used by the V-6 in smaller cars like the Skyhawk and Skylark, but they might have had to boost it to the 2.9 or so range for bigger cars like a Century or the LeSabre.
One thing Chrysler tried, on the 1981 LeBaron, was offer a 2.76:1 axle on slant six LeBaron coupes and sedans without air conditioning. But if you got a wagon, or a/c, you got the 2.94:1. And then the 318 got a tall 2.26:1 axle, but still wasn't TOO bad, because they changed first and second gear compared to the 6-cyl.
GM might have tried similar tricks. One trick they did in 1985, at least with the Cutlass Supreme, is that if you got the 307 with a 3-speed automatic, they stuck it with an ultra-tall 2.14:1 axle. But if you got the 4-speed overdrive, I think it was a 2.41:1.
When I was in Germany in the Army in the middle of the 1970s, I hung out with some girls from England who worked on the base in clerical jobs. They called American cars "Yank Tanks."
Well, it's a 121.5" wb, and probably around 221" overall. I think one thing that might make that car look disproportionate is the wheels. They look under-sized to me. Probably still a 15" rim, but maybe the tires on a Bel Air were smaller than an Impala or Caprice? Or maybe the current owner just put small tires on? I think the standard, or at least "proper" size for a car like this would be a 225/75/R15, or maybe even a 235. But if you put a 205 on a car like this, it would look under-sized. Those dog-dish hubcaps make the overall wheel look smaller to me, too. visual trick, I guess.
One thing I find interesting, is that even as the big, protruding bumpers were added to these cars (front in '73, rear in '74), the overall length of the cars didn't really go up much. I think the '71 was around 219" long, while the '76 was around 221.5". I think I see how they did it up front. While the bumper sticks out a lot more on the '73, the '72 had more of a peak at the center of the grille. So, I'm guessing they flattened the front of the car, stuck that big bumper on, and now the whole bumper sticks out as far as just the peak did before...no real difference in overall length, but visually, the car looks bulkier.
For 1974-76, I think they might have made the rear deck a bit shorter, and not quite as rakish, and then stuck on the protruding bumpers.
I feel pretty certain that only styling changed in the rear of '74 and later big Chevys, from the '73. I would think the rear overhang is the same; only that the bumpers are different. I do know the sedan roofline changed for '75 and '76.
I might be wrong, but my hunch is that this car brought extra$$ because of its 'stripper' nature, on top of the low mileage. I gotta believe if it were another light green '73 Impala 4-door with 350 2-barrel and no air--like so many were--even in the same condtion--it would've brought less money.
Then again, maybe not. Some of those big barges could be horribly inefficient when it came to use of space. Back in 1968, for example, the 4-door compact Dodge Dart actually had more front and rear legroom than the 4-door full-sized Impala! And, having owned a '68 and '69 Dart hardtop, I can attest to the fact that they had more legroom up front than my '67 Catalina does, or my '69 Bonneville did. So it's possible that the '71-76 big GM cars managed to get even worse.
I think the only reason I find my '76 LeMans so comfortable is that the power seat gets into some pretty obscene positions, and it also has a tilt steering wheel. I probably wouldn't like a base model nearly as much.
I've driven a few '71-76 GM big cars in the past, and without power seats, and don't remember them being so bad, but it's also probably been a good 12 years or more, so maybe I just don't remember how short on legroom they were. Or, it could be that I've changed. After all, I'm in my 40's now, rather than my 20's or 30's, so I just don't bend the way I used to!
In 1971-73, the Impala Custom and Caprice coupes were true hardtops, with the more formal C-pillar, fairly large quarter window, and the concave rear window.
For 1974-76, the Impala Custom/Caprice had a long, thin stationary rear window and a B-pillar. I can't remember if it still had a concave rear window or not.
The '71-73 Impala Sport Coupe, which was the cheaper model, had a more sloping C-pillar and triangular shaped rear quarter window, and the back window wasn't concave. The Catalina/Bonneville, LeSabre/Centurion, and Delta 88 also shared this roofline.
In 1974-75, the Impala Sport coupe got a revised roofline. It looked a bit like the '71-73 Custom, but a bit clumisier. The rear window was no longer concave, and the whole C-pillar area didn't seem to flow quite as well. For 1976, the Impals Sport coupe went to a fixed rear window and B-pillar, but I can't remember if it was the same roof as the Impala Custom and Caprice. Probably was.
Interestingly, Pontiac, Buick, and Olds 2-door hardtops went to their own unique roofline in '76, which was sort of a combination of "colonade" and true hardtop. You still had a small roll-down window, and then a longer, thin window behind that. Odd that GM would bother to let the Impala Sport Coupe have its own unique roofline for two years. That might have been a waste of money, but GM had plenty of it back then, and, at least, it gave a little variety I guess!
I've always loathed the 74-76 models with the B-pillar and thin rear window. Ugly. The concave rear glass in earlier models was kind of cool too, they were at least trying to make something interesting to the eye (even if the car was the size of an aircraft carrier).
When I was a kid an old lady my mom knew had a 76 Olds coupe in that odd hardtop style. Powder blue, [retty clean, I think it had a 350 in it...I could have bought it for like a grand when I was 16, but it wasn't my kind of thing.
This guy is the original owner, and the car now has about 360,000 miles on it! He did have the engine rebuilt in the mid 1990's, and the transmission in 2000. And it was repainted its original dark metallic gray a couple years ago. But, for a 360,000 mile car, it looked incredible! I've seen cars with 60-70K miles that had interiors that were more worn.
Oh, I did my beer run tonight, and saw a 1995-99 supercharged Riviera. Been ages since I've seen ANY Riv of that generation, let alone a supercharged. At least, I'm presuming it was supercharged as it had dual exhaust.
And, while not the most obscure thing in the world, in the parking lot at the liquor store I saw a 2003-ish Intrepid base model. It caught my eye because it was this gorgeous shade of pale metallic silvery blue. I think they called it "Butane Blue". Probably not the nicest name in the world, as it makes me think of something that could blow up, but it was a pretty color. And the car appeared to be in great shape.
The Impala Sport Coupes of '74 and '75 were a true hardtop, with a squared-off quarter window like earlier Impala Custom Coupes, but with a flat rear window. Conservative, but handsome. My Dad didn't buy A/C at that time and wanted four windows that went down!
All two-door Impalas in '76 were the Custom Coupe.
We had a guy at work that had one of those. He was a fanatic and it was pristine (especially for a 10 year old Black car). His was supercharged and IIRC he had very few problems.
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On our '77 coupe, there was a visible metal 'wire' or something like that, right in the crease in the glass. I think I remember reading that that is where the glass was heated to bend.
Of course, styling is subjective, but I think this car was styled sportier than the '79 two-door Ford LTD which was finally downsized that year.
I never looked closely enough to actually see a wire, but I do remember these back windows were referred to as "Wire Bent", so that might make sense!
And yeah, I think these cars are gorgeous, compared to the downsized LTD/Marquis coupes that came out for '79. I think the problem is that what Ford called a "coupe" was really a 2-door sedan. It was boxy and upright, and probably shared the same windshield and A-pillars with the sedan. Maybe it used the same roof and rear window as well, and they just modified things like location of the B-pillar and such? GM, at least, made the coupes more rakish than the sedan.
I always thought it was a shame Chrysler didn't see fit to offer a 2-door R-body. The windshield was fairly rakish compared to the Ford/GM competition, and the overall height was a bit lower. Plus, they had frameless door windows, so I think it would have made for a nice, smooth looking coupe. And in the NYer range, it would've done away with that awkward rear door, which had the opera window built into the trailing edge. It might not have looked bad, if the door itself was longer, allowing for a longer roll-down rear window.
My favorite downsized GM coupe was the '77 Catalina. I'd love to find one of those, preferably with a 400 or 403!
I'd want one of these stock rather than the shaved or flat black look in those pics. Even if it meant whitewalls and hubcaps, but I think some kind of styled wheel was available too.
Much sportier (relative term) than an LTD, which was very much a grandma barge.
Now that I think of it, all the GM versions of that downsized RWD platform seemed to get it "right." I drove a '78 Buick, '77 Cadillac sedan deville, and '79 Olds Delta 88 when they were new or nearly new and all had a solid, quiet and roomy feel. The General was still in command.
The Cadillac felt like it had the strongest engine though. I think both the Buick and Delta 88 sedans I drove had 350/4bbl engines.
I always thought it looked a bit like a Buick done up by Ford stylists, which might make sense, as a lot of Ford stylists jumped ship a few years before Iacocca, and were the ones that did the R-body.
The '80-81 Gran Fury has got to be the rarest of them these days. They only built around 18,000 of them in 1980, less in '81, and most of them were police cars and taxis, and probably beat into the ground.