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

uplanderguy

Gotta say, don't remember "Poop brown" on the mid'60's Chevy color charts!

berri

Well maybe it was more of a goldish brown, not a real dark shade as I recall. I had a 63 Olds that color and poop fit. I think a lot of Chevy's had that color in the Chicago area in the 61-64 era, and a few in the 65/66. As I remember they were mostly 4dr sedan Biscaynes or Bel Airs (two tail lights). I also recall Pontiacs, particularly 63's in the that color. I think I know the blue you are referring to because there was a boat load of Chevy's in that shade.

ab348

Looking at a '64 Chevy color chart, there is no actual brown listed. The closest thing appears to be Saddle Tan Poly. In '65 it went to Sierra Tan Poly. I looked at several other '60s charts for Chevy and didn't see anything that was called brown except in '63, with Cordovan Brown, and '69, when Burnished Brown made an appearance. Both of those were dark. Lots of blues and blue-green shades in the '60s though.

berri

Were those saddle whatever colors kind of copperish? My memory may be gone, but I sure seem to remember cars like that back then. I don't recall any dark browns. That seemed to be more of a 70's and 80's thing.

hpmctorque

It was the trunk space issue, not the weight balance.

hpmctorque

I agree, the Jaguar XK-120s were drop dead gorgeous in their day, and still look very goood.

berri

Thanks

berri

I found some of those GM colors on the internet and the saddle and gold types are the browns I was talking about. To me, all those tan, saddle, gold types looked like shades of brown (I used the poop reference because my 63 Olds was a pile, but it was an old college car to be fair). I confused Uplander's marina blue with "silver blue" which was the blue you seemed to see everywhere back in those days. It's interesting how many colors they offered back in the old days compared to today.

oldbearcat

I agree too. Last year I saw a red XK-150 at a car show. Love to own one some day. I recently saw another car that I think is also a timeless beauty near Winston Salem, NC, on the interstate. It was an Austin Healy 3000 in excellent condition.

Regards:
Oldbearcat

fintail

Saw a Vehicross today - pretty beat up. Also an E30 cabrio, cigar Bird, 37 Chevy, 62 Fairlane sedan, a couple of decent looking W140s, a weirdly restored 60s Suburban with wide whites, ~46 Ford flatbed, pimpy ~76 LTD with hidden lights landau top etc, and a highly optioned looking 67 Camaro.

ab348

The "silver blue" was big back then. Sort of like straight silver is today. I see the Chevy Cruze offers a similar silver blue, one of the few cars that does now. Wish we could get some greens, creamy yellows, and mid-browns back in the automotive palette. But I guess few people would buy them.

Mr_Shiftright

on a farm up in the Sonoma hills. Looked to be in nice shape. From the road, looked like a 220 Sb. Parked next to it a rather shabby looking "tin station wagon" of the early 50s. I couldn't get that good a look at it, but I'm going back to find it. I'd love to have a tin wagon from that era.

magnette

Dragged myself out of bed for the annual early morning dash to Westminster Bridge to see the Veteran Car Run - nothing newer than1904, and about 500 cars in total. Every year there are new entrants, or cars dug out of long-term storage in Museums and recommissioned for this event- though a lot of the cars are familiar, there is always something new, and it is great to stand in about the most iconic spot in London, across the road from Big Ben and watch all these old cars - when you see one or two really old cars they are great but to see 500, it is something else - and it always amazes me how the car evolved from a noisy engine bolted onto something resembling a horse-drawn wagon, into a recognisable proper car - conventional at least by standards for the next sixty years, with an an engine at the front, shaft drive, and wheel steering.

Along the way, though there are the tiller steered cars, various body arrangements, like the vis-a-vis, where the driver sits on the second row of seats, facing his passengers, who are in front but facing backwards, the other rear-seated drivers who have a passenger sitting in front of them, basically acting as crash protection for the driver, often in a wicker or timber seat sticking out ahead of the front wheels, and of course various combinations of chain drive, steam or even electric motors, and there was even a Loehner-Porsche from circa 1902 with electric transmission.

A great morning out - its just such a shame it is so early, partly to avoid the traffic (it used to start at 8:00 am, or even later, but now sets off from 7:00) - and some years it is bitterly cold and/or pouring with rain - although this year it was mild - we've had warm weather for the time of year - and it stayed dry too.

Mr_Shiftright

I'd love to see that someday. Do you get any kind of a spotter's guide or list of cars? I'd imagine many of them would not be easy to identify. They are beautiful things, the early cars---the craftsmanship (in most cases) is very evident.

magnette

Yes - they sell a guidebook which lists all the entries - including both the number the car will be carrying and its registration number in most cases - they come along in a LandRover about ten minutes after the first cars roll by though, so you have to guess or remember the number for the first few. They come along in batches -n they start off the oldest ones first, and every two minutes another dozen or so set off - so initially it is quite easy but as the run goes on faster cars will overtake the slower ones, so by the time they are out of London it must be a bit more difficult - although I've only ever seen it in London, so I don't really know.

Mr_Shiftright

At classic car auctions, the cars eligible for this race will bring considerably more money than the same 1905 model.

magnette

Yes, it is the Wimbledon of old car events I suppose - some people leave their cars in Britain all year to run 60 miles to Brighton every November - there are entrants from all over the place, and yet the cars are often British registered...

one or two cars which were accepted for years but have been redated ie 1905 instead of 1904 get so-called grandfather rights, if they ran in loads of old events before this became apparent, but only about ten cars running today were not certainly dated, ie not on a proper provenance - including the 1905 Spyker that featured in the 50's old car film "Genevieve" which was set at the Brighton run of about 1955.

fintail

I'd love to see that event too, it's certainly on my bucket list. I've always liked the veteran cars, very charming. If I ever come into a fortune, I'd like to drive that event, probably in some monstrous roadgoing locomotive of a Mercedes Simplex or similar.

fintail

You should buy them both. What color was it?

Another boring day for ATL area oldies - a few old GM donks, a hot rod ~34 Ford pickup, 70s Alfa roadster, and in newer cars a strangely pristine ~96 Crown Vic and a very nice senior citizen owned 89-91 W126 300SE, typical southern colors of white on saddle.

berri

I don't think the southeast is the greatest place to spot old cars - it's emergence is too new still relatively speaking. The northeast and midwest are probably best for spotting the real oddities, and the west and southwest for the most frequent, and best preserved views. But when you're down that way, I'd focus on Florida and North Carolina. They both have a fair number of car shows. Georgia and Alabama are about football!

wevk

"Swangas & Vogues" are all the rage in Houston (H-Town). Saw these on a new E-Class Benz.
http://www.slabcustoms.net/images/pics_slab_section/gorilla_poke.JPG
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-aoBlEcB2g

Mr_Shiftright

Surely that can't be legal. We might have to do what the Roman troops did to fight the scythed chariots of their enemies...open ranks, let them pass through, then shoot them full of arrows. :P

au1994

always funny to see wheels worth more than the car they are on.

ab348

As H. L. Mencken apparently said, nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.

au1994

For oddities, no, I would say you are less likely to see them in the Southeast. They are around if you know where to look and most of the larger/major cities will have a German, British or Italian car club to provide a place to show or moral support as the case may be. Plenty of good ol' American iron around though.

Oh and we do have a museum or two that we go to when were not watching football!

Mr_Shiftright

It's like the automotive equivalent of bell-bottoms. I wish I had money to waste on crap like that. :P

magnette

There were a couple of those too - also a FIAT grand prix equivalent monster - which was pretty noisy. These big cars can keep up with traffic, but don't stop...

texases

Wasn't that FIAT a little too new? Here's the 1907

Mr_Shiftright

Back in the day, the only way those old cars could go racing was to increase the displacement. They didn't know yet about other ways to make power, due to very low compression ratios. i think some Fiats hit...what..was it 15 liters?

wevk

We don't use arrows in H-Town :

"The distinctive wire wheels were originally created for 1983 and '84 Cadillacs. They went out of production for years until a California company called Texan Wire Wheel started making them again.
"When you have these swangas, it's like, 'Yeah, you're that cat.' You know what I mean? You're that guy," Murray said.
But it's for that very reason these attention grabbers have another reputation.
"I call them a death trap," Murray said.
In March, 3-year-old Charissa Powell was shot and killed. Right after the shooting, the little girl's father said. "He shot her in the process of trying to shoot me, to rob for some swangas."
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7699639

magnette

Your right - the Fiat I saw was only a 24/32 HP - the red car I thought was a Fiat was a Martini - the big engined car I heard rather than recognised was a two seater 40hp Berliet, and there were some 45hp Mercedes, a 35hp Panhard, a Mors, although some of the racers from previous years weren't there - there is a racing Napier and a Peerless I think, which were Gordon Bennett racers in 1904, and they really fly - plus no silencers...

I think Fiat were building racers by 1904, but proper grands prix were not started until 1906. It is quite a disparity though when the first cars are running about 1.5 or 2 hp...

Mr_Shiftright

Many people don't realize that Fiat pretty much pioneered the "race car" for a short but glorious period of time.

texases

Was this the Fiat?


Hemmings said "Another participating vehicle with an interesting story is a 1904 Fiat, which had survived a decade buried at a home on Cape Cod. Mrs. George Agassiz, an American, bought the car while on honeymoon in Italy; unable to find a buyer in 1932, and unwilling to send it to the scrap yard, she buried the Fiat on the grounds of her estate. Ted Robertson, co-founder of the U.S. Vintage Sports Car Club, exhumed the car in 1942, and bought it for $50. Restored in the early 1990s, it was sold to its current owner in the Netherlands, Jan Brujin, in 2007."

fintail

The weather isn't kind either - no real winters, but the heat and humidity destroy cars too. The average 10 year old car in ATL looks a lot worse than its Seattle counterpart. Interesting to see a place with what looks like less car culture than the Pacific Northwest.

fintail

That's an epidemic in Atlanta. I didn't just see huge wheels on old Caprices, but also an Escalade with ridiculous huge wagon wheels, a W220 S-class with huge ridiculous wheels, and even a boring old W202 C-class with iffy wheels. I didn't see many of the themed cars (fast food, candy, cereal etc logos on the car) anyway.

toomanyfumes

What happened to all the spinning rims (the ones that kept spinning when the car was standing still. Used to see a ton of them, can't remember the last time I saw them.

fintail

I think that's very 2003 or so. Not too long ago at home I did see a car with stationary wheels - the wheel has a false front which remains stationary while the wheels move, making it look like the wheels aren't rolling.

michaellno

I didn't just see huge wheels on old Caprices, but also an Escalade with ridiculous huge wagon wheels, a W220 S-class with huge ridiculous wheels, and even a boring old W202 C-class with iffy wheels.

On my monthly trips to Colorado Springs - about 30-40 miles south of me - there are lots of old 80's and 90's hoopties that have the dubs on them. The Springs is a big military town - 1 Army and 2 Air Force bases - so I suspect the customs of the enlisted folks is imported to town.

What happened to all the spinning rims (the ones that kept spinning when the car was standing still. Used to see a ton of them, can't remember the last time I saw them.

Funny, I just saw an S-class with the "spinners" on them last week at a local strip mall. Was tremendously goofy looking, if you ask me.

lemko

This is nothing new. There was a 1953 Buick showcar called the Wildcat that had what they called "RotoStatic" wheels. The wheel would remain stationary while the tire rotated.

hillmanbilly

"They are like go-karts with leafblower engines."

Ha ha ha.... that's awesome!!! So true.

hpmctorque

"The wheel would remain stationary while the tire rotated."

Was there some engineering logic for that, or was it just to be different, and, thus, interesting?

lemko

I think it was just a gimmick.

lemko

...silver Porsche 944 turning left onto Tabor Avenue from Ripley Street in NE Philly.

merckx

The hubs on modern Rolls-Royces don't rotate, either....

uplanderguy

I just love this commercial. Everything about it just seems so all-American...and I've thought the '65 Chevy was just beautiful inside, outside, front, and back:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bz-nO6WvOYw

As I've mentioned before, in 2010 the original owner of my '63 Studebaker Daytona Skytop R1 drove in a rented car from Detroit to NE Ohio where I live to see the car for the first time in 45 years. It's not the same as the Chevy story, but it was a great day and I have a lot of photos to remember it by.

fintail

That is a good spot, the domestics need more heritage themed ads IMO - the Europeans have used it and gone far with it, especially MB. Of course, it could have been averted had the Impala guy just had his kid get a job :shades:

I suspect the original owner of my fintail is lone gone, judging by the crazy old man notations he left in the owners manual.

imidazol97

All this makes me wonder where my 1967 Mustang is now. I don't have the VIN, of course. Did they even have VINs then?

texases

Like most Mustangs, I'd wager it's gone to that big rust pile in the sky...mine ('65) fell apart while I watched...

au1994

yep, they had VIN's, my 66 did. One stamped in the fender and one on the door, but I can't honestly remember if the one in the door was a VIN or some other type of data plate. I know it could be decoded like a VIN to find out original color, engine, trim, plant etc.

imidazol97

Any ideas on how to find an old VIN number like that? Car registration information in Indiana? Insurance company? FoMoCo?