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 think the proper term was "Ventiports" although they didn't "vent" anything.
Still, I can't imagine an old Buick without them!
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
Pale yellow.. '65 or '66?
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
and about 2 houses away, another original condition looking '69 Camaro, in the nice dark (hunter?) green, with black vinyl roof.
and on the road, a late 60's ford convertible. Maybe a fairlane? Was badged as a GT. very nice condition.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Just saw a real doozie - first gen RX7 with no hood. It was missing its hood because it now contained what I guess was a small block Chevy engine.
I wonder if some day the very first 86 Taurus models will be worth something. It really was a game changer. We were watching a movie the other night probably shot in late 86/87 and the main character was driving a Taurus "L" model (base) and it just made just about every other car look old.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
In a strange twist of fate, 1958 was the year they took the ventiports off of the Buicks! IIRC they were gone in '59 as well, but returned for the much-cleaned-up '60.
Originally, they wanted to put a light in each one of those ventiports, and have it light up when the cylinder fired. So, their intentions weren't exactly high-class in the beginning, either.
As for those 70's vents, on my 5th Ave they're fake as can be, although I think they look good on the car. I do remember looking at some Ford product from that era that had them though, and they actually did have a hole behind them. Can't remember if it actually vented into the engine bay or the wheel well, though. And, it's questionable as to whether that actually did anything other than allow a place for moisture and debris to collect.
RE: Lit-up ventiports ---now THERE is a bit of Detroit frivolity I would have supported!
You are most likely right. To me it just seems that it has some significance, but they made so many, that its not like it is going to be rare even in the next 40 years.
It seems to be that the only car out of the eighties worth squat is a Grand National.
Just saw a 59 Impala out and about. It looked beat to death, but complete and I was doing 75 and he blew right by me. I caught up at the exit ramp, to get a good look at the rear of it. Over the top, I would think.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
These didn't flash but I remember thinking that they looked cool at the time.
It was always a mystery to me why Ford never built a two-door model. I might have bought a second generation Taurus if they sold that model. I remember seeing two door bodies in NASCAR racing and wondering why I could not actually buy one that looked like those.
Faint praise in other words.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
The 3.0 engines were pretty good. The 3.8's were known for head gasket problems and all of them quickly broke their front motor mount.
Transmissions were so so and were usually good to around 100,000 miles.
Not bad cars but nothing remarkable. The rental car companies LOVED them!
I'll help you solve this mystery...two doors don't sell very well!
Ever see a Camry coupe? Yep, they did make a few some years and they crashed and burned in the market.
Honda still builds Accord Coupes and it's a rare day when one get's sold.
Just a dead market especially compared to the "old" days!
My uncle had an early 86 Taurus L, I remember it had the frisbee hubcaps (as I called them), a cool blue backlit clock, and unusual interior fabric, it was a low pile cloth, kind of like a vintage car broadcloth. It seemed like a very nice car at the time even though it was a low model.
Drove back to the first world this morning, saw a few oddities - Vanagon Syncro, nice W123, hotrod 34 or so Dodge sedan pulling a small travel trailer, silver Mercury Marauder (the ~2003 type), And this exact car on 405 going a little slow. Can't be many green 48-49 Caddy convertibles out there, had to be the same one.
Ever see a Camry coupe? Yep, they did make a few some years and they crashed and burned in the market.
Ironically, I saw a Camry coupe just yesterday, in DC. It was a '92-94 model judging from the taillights that went all the way across. It was pretty ragged out, smoking and stinking, and whatever paint wasn't faded had long since peeled away.
As for the Taurus, 2-doors were still selling pretty well in 1986, but by that time the intermediate market had fragmented a bit. People still wanted their coupes, but they wanted their coupes to be personal luxury models like T-birds, Cougars, Monte Carlos, Cutlass Supremes, and Regals. Not so much the Grand Prix, though. When it was restyled for 1981, it sold fairly well given the recession, but then sales fell off fast.
The more plebian, mainstream intermediate coupes started dying off in 1981. That year, GM axed the Century and Cutlass Salon coupe For 1982, the Malibu coupe was dropped, and when the LeMans morphed into the Bonneville G, the coupe was dropped as well.
GM did this in part to make way for the Celebrity/6000/Century/Cutlass Ciera 2-doors, but they really weren't huge sellers. For instance, in the Malibu coupe's final year, 1981, they sold about 40,000 coupes. The Celebrity coupe, even in its heyday, never beat that total.
Ford's last year for "mainstream" 2-doors was 1982, when they offered a 2-door Granada and Cougar, cars based on the Fairmont by that time, but being marketed as midsizers. When the "small" LTD/Marquis debuted for 1983, there was no coupe. They probably did that in part so that it wouldn't compete too much with the new aero '83 B-bird/Cougar.
The Fairmont still offered 2-door models in its final 1983 year, but to show how much that market shrunk, the upright 2-door sean only sold 3,664 units, while the sleeker sport coupe, the one with the basket handle roof, sold 7,882. But the 4-door sedans sold 69,287.
Chrysler bailed on its M-body LeBaron/Diplomat coupes (and wagons) after 1981. For '82, the LeBaron became the New Yorker, but it was only offered as a 4-door. Chrysler went one step further and left the personal luxury coupe market after 1983, when the Cordoba/Mirada and Imperial were dropped.
Personal luxury coupes still did fairly well through the 80's, but in the '90's they started to die out. The Regal coupe's last year was 1996, I believe. The Cutlass Supreme lasted through 1997, which was also the last year for the T-bird/Cougar and, I'd imagine, the Mark VIII. The Riviera's last year was 1999. I think the Eldorado's final year was 2002? Grand Prix played out its last act in 2003, and the Monte Carlo in 2007 I believe.
So nowadays, if you want something even remotely resembling a big car, I think the Honda Accord or Toyota Solara is about it.
I saw an Audi coupe today. A5 or A7 or something like that? Sharp looking car, IMO. I imagine they don't sell many of those either, though.
Solara has been gone for a few years, I think. There is the Altima coupe which nobody buys, to fill the gap along with the Accord which sells little. Large coupes are pretty dead. The Audi A/S5 is nice looking, not the biggest thing in size or sales (but lots of em in my area.
MB has kept a medium and large coupe around for a long time, but they aren't priced as mass market items. BMW has an expensive large coupe too that kind of slots in between the medium and large MB models.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Oh yeah, that's right, how could I have forgotten MB...I think they're the only ones still offering their coupes as true hardtops, as well!
I think that's because at the time, the Taurus seemed so much more advanced than anything in its class at the time. The Japanese hadn't graduated to anything resembling a midsized car yet, and for the most part they were still pretty angular and boxy. So that pretty much left the Taurus's competition as whatever GM and Chrysler were offering.
My grandparents had a 1989 Taurus LX with the 3.8 V-6. They had an '85 LTD before that, and the Taurus made the LTD seem positively ancient. It handled better, was faster, and the interior seemed like it should be the poster child for ergonomic efficiency.
I remember the car got wrecked within a year, when Grandmom was driving Granddad to the foot doctor, and a woman in a 1974 Catalina swerved out of her lane, sideswiped the Taurus, and pushed it into a telephone pole, resulting in about $6,000 worth of damage. They had an '89 Century rental for about a month, until the Taurus was fixed, and that thing just seemed an ergonomic mess compared to the Taurus.
They only had that Taurus for about 5 years, from late '88 to late '93, when they traded on a '94 GL, which just had the 3.0 V-6. The '89 probably only had around 30-40,000 miles on it, so they really didn't keep it long enough for to kill the transmission or engine. Still, I seem to remember it overheating once, and leaking coolant a couple times. And I think it stalled out once or twice, something more associated with old carbureted cars that are out of tune, rather than a modern, FI vehicle.
Absolutely. It was one of the first cars with nice big round HVAC knobs, multifunction turn switch, wiper, high beam. Steering wheel cruise (OK, Ford had that for a while). Many had the door mounted keyless entry pad too.
It also spawned a look that continues today. Full wrap around body color painted bumpers, composite headlights, etc
Like it or not, the 86 Taurus changed the mid-size market completely. The shame of it was that they didn't prove to be ultra-reliable and built to a super high standard. The 4cyl models were also painfully slow and coarse, the 3.0 was the best bet, and as Isell mentioned the 3.8 popped head gaskets (enough for Ford to secretly extend the warranty on them).
Once the 92 Camry was introduced the Taurus started to show all its flaws and Ford started dumping them into fleets. It was nowhere but downhill after that.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
My grandparents' '94 Taurus had more of a generic, wallflower feel to it than their '89 did. I thought the 92-95 refresh was sort of a mixed bag. On one hand, I thought it was a bit better proportioned, with smaller headlights and just a smoother style overall. But, the interior seemed more choppy, and the overall car just seemed so much less radical.
But, by 1994 the car had been on the market for 8 years, with just one restyle, so maybe it was just getting old, and the competition was passing it by. In a similar vein, I remember my Mom's '80 Malibu coupe seeming so modern when she bought it, but by the time she gave it to me in 1987, it just felt like an old car. I actually went through a phase where I wanted something newer like a Celebrity, but in retrospect, I'm glad I didn't go that route.
I always thought the 1989 Maxima was a valiant effort. But, I guess it was (and is) too upscale to be considered a bread-and-butter, mainstream car.
AFAIK, the 3 series has never been a mid-size car. IIRC, it's grown from sub-compact to compact over the past 20 years.
But you're right, in the "old days", the 325 was more of a compact car. I never remember it as a sub-compact though.
Even in 1995 the 3-series qualifies as mid-size (barely), with a 105 inch wheelbase.
In 1990 however, it was only 101 inches, so a "compact" at that time.
Ford Scorpio, 1985:
Definitely some design DNA and design personnel in common with these and the Taurus. It's still hard to imagine how alien the shape must have looked in a land of Celebrities, LTDs, and K-cars. Especially the Taurus wagon, which was like a spaceship.
Audi was an influence too - Audi 100 (5000), 1982:
More radical IMO was the 100 Avant, I still remember when I first saw one of these, it seemed futuristic to my grade school aged eyes:
Not too ancient looking for approaching 30 years old, just as a 26 year old Taurus doesn't really look like a car that in some areas can wear "collector" plates.
A few exceptions of course, usually bad. (Marlin?)
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
Not Bad:
Worse:
More Worser: :P
I usually go by the window sticker on the car. Last time I looked, the BMW was still a compact. Anyone know what it is now?
Here is a photo of window sticker from a 3 series coupe: it's listed as a subcompact.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
I can only imagine how the aero Bird caught people off guard in the fall of 82, especially alongside the angular small 80-82 Bird. I wonder if there was a lag time before people embraced it - I remember they were popular by 1985-86, just judging by childhood memories of cars in my area. I know in Europe, the Sierra was not accepted for a year or so after introduction, it was just too radical for the time. The larger Taurus-like Scorpio was an instant success, however. And just like in NA, in Europe, these jellybean Ford products made the more angular GM offerings look a generation old, overnight.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
But window sticker jargon aside, a 110-inch wheelbase car is not a sub-compact.
Yep, that's how the EPA classifies cars. On their website they have interior volumes dating back to 1978. For 1978-83 cars, you have to look at their text files, and there's a link for them at the bottom of the front page on their website.
The current BMW 3-series is rated as a compact in 4-door form (96 cubic feet of interior volume, 13 cubic feet of trunk) and subcompact in coupe form (something like 88 cubic feet of interior, 11 cubic feet of trunk).
To be a midsized car, those combined volumes have to be between 110 and 120 cubic feet, so the 3-series 4-door barely misses it.
FWIW, that 96/13 more or less falls in line with old-school, pre-downsized compacts. A '78 Nova sedan is also rated at 96/13. The Fairmont was 96/17, while the Granada sedan was 93/15. For some reason, the identical Monarch sedan was 93/16. The Aspen/Volare sedans were 98/15.
Some of those cars, however, might feel more or less roomy than those numbers suggest, depending on how, exactly, they get their volume, and how tall or short the driver is. Some cars have more shoulder room, while others have more legroom, or headroom, and so on. A BMW 3-series probably has a lot more legroom up front than any of those old-school compacts, and is probably more generous in headroom, while coming up short in rear seat legroom.
Interestingly, some really big cars from the 70's really aren't that big, looking at the interior volumes. The '78 Eldorado and the Mark V are both listed as intermediates! This, despite the fact that the Eldorado was around 226" long and the Mark V was even bigger, at around 230"! But, either one had around 100 cubic feet of passenger volume, and trunks that were maybe 17-18 cubic feet. They had good legroom up front, and shoulder room that would rival some livingroom couches, but not much in the way of headroom. I remember my buddy's Mark V, especially, being really low on the inside. The seat was low to the floor, and there wasn't a lot of headroom. I could fit in the back seat without my knees touching the front, but that was partly because the seat was so low that my legs were pointing upward, rather than straight out.
Of course it's all relative isn't it? I mean, our perceptions change as the overall size of new cars changes.
I will add my support to that. I thought the 72-76 Birds were a bad joke.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])