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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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Yeah, that was just me being sarcastic. It would've come off better as a stand-up comic routine. :P
"The Packard Motor Car Company was the first automobile manufacturer to build air conditioners into its cars, beginning in 1939.[18] These air conditioners were originally optional, and could be installed for an extra $274 (about $4,050 in 2007 dollars[update]).[19] The system took up half of the entire trunk space, was not very efficient, and had no thermostat or independent shut-off mechanism.[20] The option was discontinued after 1941.[21]"
Wiki air conditioning first offered in Packard.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Isetta wasn't really a pure BMW product, BMW bought it from an Italian designer and it was made at the same time by other manufacturers as well. It was however the most successful microcar. If you want to see a pure BMW from the era, look to the 507.
American industry was untouched by war, and in a sense, this allowed the Europeans to be much more highly innovative than we were. New factories, new tooling, new designs, new ideas. They couldn't produce the numbers of cars like we did, and didn't necessarily make them suitable for American driving conditions, so their success was limited until they learned how to make a car suitable for the US market.
BMW and Alfa pretty much created the "sport sedan" concept in the postwar era. 4-speeds, overhead cam engines, bucket seats---they were nothing like American compacts, which were just big cars shrunk down and de-contented.
Bu the sport sedan does seem to be a continental idea, and it's still where most of the best come from.
BMW Dixi:
By the time WWII broke out BMW was building the exquisite 327/328 series which were technically advanced and successful in racing as well as the market.
They continued to make them for a while after the war but didn't find many buyers in war-devastated Europe so BMW turned to the manufacture of the tiny Isetta and followed with the larger BMW 700 Series which was a rear engined family car design that was only moderately successful, it was perhaps considered upscale in an economy dominated by Volkswagen Beetles.
BMW 700 sedan:
In 1952 BMW introduced it's first luxury sedan the "Baroque Angel" (BMW 501-502). It was followed by the slow-selling and expensive 507.
BMW did not really become a mass maker or an export power until after the Neue Classe cars were introduced in the 1960s (BMW 1500/1600/2000/2002.
BMW1500 (New Class):
This is all by way of explaining that anyone who looks down on the Isetta or sees it as an aberration is probably ignorant of the real heritage of the Bavarian Motor Works.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
A well-restored BMW Isetta can fetch a pretty penny these days.
Did they sell those in the US? I wonder how much something like that would have cost, new?
The Isetta isn't to be looked down upon...it was made out of necessity and probably provided the money needed for future advancements. It's not the ultimate driving machine, though.
Back in the hot days, Isettas could bring 30-40K without a lot of drama. I think I'd rather have a Messerschmidt though, for the full fighter plane experience.
Now, it's also true that the European cars, particularly the upscale brands, introduced a new kind of luxury to the U.S. car buyer. These models handled much better than traditional American luxury cars, and it could be argued that their interior and exterior designs were more elegant, and less flashy.
Alfa was the first with a postwar sports sedan when it introduced the Alfa 1900 and 1900 Super in 1950.
Lancia introduced their beautiful Aurelia B10 the same year with V6 power>
Five years later Jaguar introduced the redoubtable Mk.1, which proved to be an excellent race car as well as a fine, techically advanced sport sedan.
BMW was actually late to the game considering they'd built some ground breaking sport sedans before WW II but none of their 1950s offerings were very sporty and they didn't get into the game until the advent of the
Neue Klasse 1800TI/TISA in 1964.
The 2002 which really put them on the map, especially in the USA, was introduced in 1968 nearly 20 years after the pioneering Alfa and Lancia.
BMW did a great job of making up for lost time but let's give credit where it is due.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Americans had two main objections to European sedans in the 70s and 80s---1) they rode "too hard" and 2) they shifted too hard. Also, as we all know, the AC sucked when it should have blown, and there were no vinyl tops, opera windows, landau bars, crushed velour and gold script.
Old habits die hard...sometimes never. Probably Lexus came closest to catering to Americans' idea of "luxury". The LS400 was cushy, quiet and while you couldn't get the landau bars, I think you could get gold lettering and something of that "floaty" ride we seem to like, or liked.
I wonder if England clear-cut most of Europe to build their wooden cars. Maybe this is why the Greek islands have no trees? Did they use up all the cedars of Lebanon? Did they make the engines out of wood as well? :P
To this day, I look with envy at the autos being sold by American companies in Europe that we rarely get here. Anyone remember the Opels that GM sold here briefly? Or the Mercury Capri? I'm into cheap comfort now, with my MG-B days well behind me, a so I don't know many modern examples. Anyone else?
I think the Europeans have been building cars their way for 120 plus years. After all, the automobile was invented there.
The Japanese automobile influence is much more recent. They didn't take long to catch up, since they had the benefit of copying what had already been done. And Korea and China are right behind them.
My first German car was a fintail, and it was a great car. My second, a stickshift 280SL, and my third, some years later, was a BMW 1602. After that, my German vehicles were all two-wheelers, with a brief return to a 300 diesel---another great car. From then on and thereafter, it was Porsches of various types.
I had a brief two week fling with a 560SEL but I could see the deep dark pit of torment it was beckoning me into, and unloaded it cheap. I probably should have done the same with the Porsche 928---it turned me into a bad boy, and bad habits cost money, too.
PUNCHING OUT
The Ford and GM offerings in Europe have been a generation of what is sold here for eons, and it holds true today. Then again, all makers sell more advanced lineups elsewhere. This is the land of cheap and easy.
I also had a W126, but mine was the I6 model, much easier to maintain.
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I think I read the Deutsches Museum recently opened a standalone facility just for transport...I want to see it.
Found a video comparing a hummer with mattracks
versus tires. The tracks dig in well of course and also raise the truck higher to clear the snow. But the ROI for a winter-beater like that may be better spent on a warm climate vacation. :shades:
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I got my '89 Gran Fury hung up once, but it was my own fault. It was back in 2000 when we had a serious blizzard. The car was parked out on the street, and there was a lot of snow piled up in front of and in back of it. I got lazy with shoveling, only doing the bare minimum, then got in the car and tried to bash my way out. Don't try that with a newer car, but this car at least still had the old fashioned 5 mph metal bumpers on shock absorbers. Anyway, it seemed to be working, until I threw it into reverse, and actually went UP the snow pile in back a bit. The rear wheels didn't leave the pavement, but enough weight was taken off of them that it just spun. Didn't really need the car, since I had my Intrepid by then, so I just let the Fury sit until the snow melted a bit.
My Intrepid sat really low to the ground, and even though it was FWD, would get hung up in the snow more easily than the Fury or my grandmother's '85 LeSabre, which I also still had at the time. But, like you mentioned, for the most part, by the time I'm out driving the roads, they've at least been plowed.
The greatest influence came from to the British Austin Mini/or Mini Cooper for the front-wheel drive, platform layout and construction. They were not the first to have these advances in design, but they began the trend to cars of today because VW and Japan Inc followed BMCs lead. However, American technology was not sitting still in the post-war period and many innovations began by the Americans still exist in cars of today.
Americans were the leaders in automatic transmissions, powerful engines (Ford Cobra -Ace Bristol, the Rover V-8 was actually a Buick motor), power brakes, tubeless tires (Goodrich 1947), self sealing tires (Goodyear 1950), power steering (1951 Chrysler), 12 volt electrical system (GM Delco in 1949) alternators (Chrysler 1960), modern air conditioning system (Nash in
1954) and seatbelts (optional on Nash in 1949, Ford in 1955).
Is there an example of an American car that used a European power train from this era?
Europeans were faced with high gasoline prices and taxes on horsepower (taxable horsepower), so they came up with ingenious ways to get more power out of small motors and light bodies, but they could not compete with American cars except for mimited numbers of makes and models that were much more expensive than American counterparts.
I am a fan of European micro-cars and I own one (1955 Messerschmitt) but I admit that these cars are dangerous, not only because they are small, but because they don’t stop well and roll over easily. The Corvair was a safety vehicle compared to the inexpensive cars the Europeans were selling at the time (BMW Isetta, Fiat, VW, Renault Dauphine, Gogomobil).
Volkswagen got as big as it did (now No 3 in the world) because Eurpoeans did not have inexpensive, dependable cars. That car was created by the German government because Hitler wanted an affordable car for the masses like the Ford Model T.
fuel injection (1955 Mercedes Benz)
the "sports car concept", of 4 and 5 speed floor shifts and bucket seats (MG)
overhead cam, alloy engines (Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Mercedes)
disc brakes (well, workable disc brakes)
IRS suspensions
fuel efficiency
first production turbo sport sedans
first sport sedans
small pickups (Japan not Europe)
ABS
Efficient FWD
Efficient AWD
active suspensions (Citroen)
retractable hardtop (Peugeot)
As for "powerful engines", it's true European motors were smaller, but they were much better high speed cruisers and were content to run at very high RPM all day long---something that would probably kill an American V8 of the 50s.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
gasoline engines (Cadillac). America had two seat sports cars with bucket seats before WWI. See 1911 Mercer Raceabout below:
Many of the terms used to describle the advantages of the European cars are a bit fuzzy and have qualifiers in them such as such as the "sports car concept” “IRS suspensions ” fuel efficiency”“first production turbo sports sedans”“sports sedans” and the words like small and efficient” before items that already existed. What was the first “small truck?” Was it the Ford Model T with a truck bed on the back? Was the Stutz Beacat a "sports car?" Didn't Willys build small and efficient cars during the 1920s?
Yes, Mercedes Benz had mechanical fuel injection, but it was a dead end that drove Studebaker dealers crazy trying to maintain them when they sold Medcedes cars. Electronic fuel injection came from Bendix and was then licensed to Bosch. You won the argument that Crosley and Chrysler (not Studebaker) had the first disc brakes in production cars, but now you are giving the title back to the Europeans.
If European engines were capable of such great performance, then there should be an example of an American car sold with a European engine in it (such as the Ford Cobra) or an example of us bringing a European motor to put in our cars (such as the “Rover” V-8 which was a Buick engine that did not do very well here because it was underpowered).
The only European cars that could keep up with American cars on the open road were much more expensive so that only the rich could afford them.
I don't know about the MB MFI being a "dead end"...it is dead reliable if you know how to maintain it. I'd rather have a FI fintail than a dual carb model, I will say that much.
Those US cars that only high end European cars could keep up with were also only for the rich, in Europe anyway. That's why they came about.
I don't think the US manufacturers really tried anything resembling a "sport sedan" until the 1973 Grand Am. And to someone who's used to the real sports sedans, a Grand Am was probably a joke, although I do recall the buff rags of the era actually thought it was a pretty good effort.
Bendix fuel injection was a rather clunky electro-mechanical device and very finicky. It was also abandoned. The Buick V-8 engine was a bit of a dog--it drank gas, it couldn't pass upcoming emissions standards, and it had no power--- which is why GM sold the rights to the unfortunate Brits. It took them another 20 years to make a decent engine out of it--but it remained a gas hog and a bit of a slug all its life.
So really, your examples are not a very flattering case for American innovation, as they are all failures.
Anyway, the point is that postwar European cars were very modern while American cars stuck with "tried and true", much older technology.
Sure, everything was "invented" 80 years ago, but re-inventing it into interesting, workable packages is what counts, and the Europeans combined styling, engine efficiency, and sportiness in a way that was simply not on the Big Three's radar.
In other words, were it not for the Europeans hi-tech onslaught, the Americans, without competition, wouldn't have changed their cars into "world class" cars.
The Europeans perfected most of the things we see on modern automobiles. Most cars today are fuel injected, with 4-5-6 speed floorshifts or automatic floor consoles, most are FWD, most have alloy OHC engines--many have active suspensions, ABS, AWD.
America *could* have produced these things, but saw no need to do so.
Basically, the Europeans beat the stuffings out of us in the 1980s in the luxury field and in the realm of technological advances. And the Japanese gave Americans a new standard for reliability.
American car buyers were not about to go back to 1960s brakes, engines and handling, or 3-on-the-tree shifters and bench seating.
Keep in mind that GM and Chrysler have suffered multiple bankruptcies in the past. Why?
They resisted new trends and new products for a long, long time and were punished in the marketplace for it.
Competition is a very good thing.
I don't think it was too horrible for the time...155 hp in regular form, 200 with the turbo, all from a compact 215 CID engine. The problem, I think, is that the compact Buicks grew into midsized Buicks. And a 300 CID iron-block version with a 2-bbl carburetor and 210 hp was probably a cheaper, simpler, more reliable way to power those bigger cars than a fussy aluminum-block turbo unit.
Eventually even that 300 would become inadequate, as it was enlarged to a 340 CID unit, and ultimately became the Buick 350.
If the cars had stayed small and lightweight, I imagine Buick would have tried to improve upon that little 215. But, as the economy started improving later in the 60's, more and more, people wanted bigger cars.
Which is why there is no British auto industry left. It's gone, done, finito.
Again, failure to innovate.
Well, yes and no. Doesn't the fact that the 215 evolved into the 300/340/350, as well as the 231 that went into the Grand National and GNX, the supercharged 3.8 that went in my Park Ave, and the fact that the 3800 was still in production until just a year or so ago count for something?
It needed to be bored, stroked, strengthened considerably internally, and made more reliable. And of course, we're talking about the iron block version, not the aluminum block, which caused a lot of grief to a lot of owners.
The engines you noted might have had 215 molecules in them, but they are more like the evolutionary grandchildren. The wooly mammoth is dead but we still have the elephant.
The 231 for instance, which derived from the 215, was one rough engine with lots of vibration issues (due to being a chopped up V8)----so GM had to design a completely new crankshaft system for it to smooth it out.
But you know, the longevity of the 215 and its derivatives is based on "doing things on the cheap"---these engines were not selected because they possessed any kind of advanced engine technology.
Designing an entirely new engine is shockingly expensive. I'm not surprised that GM, especially in the 80s, were interested in avoiding that kind of expense.
True, but to a degree, aren't all engines like that? The Chevy smallblock went through some major changes over its life. Actually, on that subject, do they consider the 4.8/5.3/6.0 V-8's to be continuations of the traditional smallblock, or were they all-new designs? I was under the impression they were all new. But, the LT-1 in a 1996 Impala SS, or even the sawed-off 4.3 Vortec in my uncle's '97 Silverado is probably vastly modified over the original 265.
Did America do itself any good in the international marketpace by hanging onto carburetors and pushrod engines well into the 80s? No, I don't think so. Even the Japanese were slow in the 80s, in innovation.
Alfa Romeo had a package of vastly improved fuel injection (relative to the 1968 VW version), sturdy 4 cylinder ohc engines, 5-speed transmissions and variable valve timing in 1981 for the American market, for instance, and Audi had AWD around the same time. Also the legendary BMW 325 appeared in 1983 which could equal American cars of that time in performance with its torquey 6 cylinder engine.
You would have thought GM would have seen these things coming down the pike at them.
Maybe it's easier for us to view the past than it was for them to see the future.
But there was a fluke in there - a 1966 MGB. with a 1.8L engine. It was the most fun-to-drive, and was very reliable - it never stranded me. And shocking to figure out that 1.8L ~ 110 cu in!
So, fast forward to 1993, and I'm in California now, driving a 1992 Taurus - not a bad car, and touted as being quite innovative for America, though it was really a European-inspired Ford sedan for America, with a 3.0L 90-degree V-6. Ho hum. Got bored and bought a new 1991 Dodge Spirit R/T, with a 2.2L Turbo and Intercooler, with a Lotus-designed DOHC head. What a cruddy car, but such a great engine! Drove that for two more years, and one day, I go and test-drive the newly-redesigned Nissan Maxima. Wow. 3.0L dual OHC, fuel injection, and smooth as only a 60-degree V-6 can be. This was the quickest, fastest, smoothest, quietest car I've ever driven. Much quicker than any Camaro I'd owned, about the same 0-60 time as the Dodge, more comfortable than my Taurus, and much better handling as well. The fun of the MGB was back. I bought it that day. My point is that it was much more innovatinve and reliable than anything I could find at any American dealer (maybe the one-off Taurus SHO, with a Yamaha-bred engine). That 3.0L was an immediate world-wide hit, a Ward's "10-Best" Engine (in several displacements) for decades. At time when my friends back in Ohio were telling me how great the GM Quad-4 Engine was.
It probably was all about the investments that GM and Ford weren't making, as all the money was being bled off into too many layers of mid-level Vice Presidencies and Union retirement funds and medical benefits. But that's another story for another Forum.