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

fintail

Well, I got a new scanner a while back, and haven't had much of a chance to test it out. I did so this evening, and scanned some pages out of the Consumer Guide to 1981 Cars. These are all of the big Mopar offerings, so this is aimed at Andre, although of course anyone can enjoy the beauty of this golden age of the automobile (ha ha ha). The scans are about 150-175K each, so they might take a while to load on dialup. I scanned them to be readable, and to show the aging of the old book. In the back of the book there is also a section on prices and option prices, if interested.

Cordoba

Cordoba/Lebaron

LeBaron

New Yorker

New Yorker part 2

Dodge Mirada

Dodge Mirada part 2

Dodge Diplomat

Dodge Diplomat part 2

Dodge St Regis

Dodge St Regis part 2

Imperial

Imperial part 2

Plymouth Gran Fury

Plymouth Gran Fury part 2

andre1969

looks like I'm going to be up late tonite reading, after I get home from work! Dammit, I just KNOW I'm not gonna get any sleep tonite ;-)

seminole_kev

Andre, you need help! Fintail - don't be an enabler!

;-)

nolid5

You left out the Omni :-)

andre1969

what year was it that the EPA changed the way they calculated their city/highway estimates? I know once upon a time they were overly optimistic, which is why you see some early 80's cars, like the K-cars, 4-cyl Citation, etc, with highway figures as high as 40, but then sometime in the 80's they started calculating differently to make them more realistic.

Just taken for face value though, I think it's amusing that those full-sized Chrysler R-bodies were EPA-rated at 17/26! I'd love to know how Consumer Guide actually got 18 mpg on their tests, although I did break 20 with my '79 NYer, once. They day I bought it, I filled up at a gas station before getting on the highway, and filled up again when I got home, so it was literally pure highway, with no stops, very little deviation in speed, no traffic congestion, etc. Seems like if you can get it up to about 70-75 and just keep it there, without too much slowing down and then speeding back up, it does just fine, but you can hear it sucking down gas on acceleration! I usually get around 10-11 around town, and maybe 14-15 in mixed driving. Mine has a 360 though, and while it only has 20 more hp than the '81 NYer they tested, it probably has about 50+ more ft-lb of torque, so sometimes it can be pleasantly surprising. And maybe the fact that the exhaust system came loose behing the catalytic converter, might've helped me pick up a few hp? ;-)

It's also interesting to see just how different things were back then. For instance, the '81 NYer they tested did 0-60 in 13.2 seconds, and they were impressed! But then at that time, you still had some cars that would take 20 seconds or more to hit 60, and plenty that would never make it to 100. And then, like they said, for a 3900 lb car with only 130 hp, that's actually not too bad!

Just to show how bad things had gotten though, Consumer Reports tested a 1955 DeSoto Fireflite, with a 291-4bbl Hemi, putting out 200 hp gross, which is probably about 130 net. It also did 0-60 in about 13 seconds, and would've weighed about the same. Shows how little progress really was made in 35 or so years, or perhaps just how much progress was undone. That '55 DeSoto would've been hampered a bit by the 2-speed Powerflite, versus a 3-speed Torqueflite for the NYer. But then again, the NYer would have air conditioning sapping its power, where most likely, that '55 DeSoto didn't. And I dunno what the rear-end ratio was for the '55 DeSoto, but the '81 NYer that Fintail posted had a 2.94:1 rear, which is a screamer for a car like that. By that time, most of them had something like a 2.24:1 or so, and even my '79 only has a 2.45:1.

fintail

I hope all of that was entertaning. The book itself is full of fun stuff. No Omni, no Fiat...etc...I thought I would leave the 'next' car on the scans just to taunt people.

Truly not the best time for cars. They rate the Camaro Z28 at 9.0 0-60, and the Corvette at 8.1 0-60. Funny how a plain old V6 Accord can beat the hell out of that today.

Slowest car I recall in the book was a Volvo Diesel wagon...0-60 in 25.8 sec

They are also fairly honest too...they go off about how bad the Triumph TR8 was, and the poor assembly quality of the Vette too. However, they say the Fiat Strada wasn't a bad little car. Did they not know how Fiats held up back then?

andre1969

is that they actually gave the St. Regis a "4" (very good) for interior workmanship, and a "5" (excellent) for exterior workmanship! Now, as much as I love these cars, I'd be the first to admit that they had their faults. The '79's were the worst, with sloppy workmanship, chrome-covered aluminum bumpers that were prone to peeling, doors that didn't fit right, etc. They improved them for '80-81, but I would still have expected them to be among the worst of the Big-Three at the time for fit-and-finish. This is sad to say, but Chrysler really didn't start improving in fit-and-finish until the debut of the 1981 K-cars. But then they were bad in other areas. Whereas the RWD cars were basically just sloppily-built cars with mechanicals that would usually last forever, the FWD models were put together better, but opened up a whole new can of worms with mechanical problems.

And yeah, that reading was very entertaining! Thanks, Fintail, for posting it!

stickguy

those acceleration times are a good reference for when some folks on these forums make it seem like the sky is falling because some cars are so underpowered, that they are a menace to drive. A Mazda 6 V6 only has 220HP! 0-60 in about 7 seconds! How will we survive!

andre1969

that cars nowadays might seem underpowered, is that a lot of the masses just haven't figured out how to drive cars with OHC engines. Here's one good example...a former co-worker of mine, his mother used to have a 1994 Intrepid with the 3.3 pushrod V-6. Back then, it had about 161 hp/181 ft-lb of torque, and is still used in minivans today. She traded it for a '99 Intrepid with a 2.7 with 200 hp/190 ft-lb of torque. The catch, however, is that you have to rev it up to about 6000 rpm to hit that 200 hp, whereas the 3.3 hit its peak at 5300. And for torque, the 3.3 hit its peak at a fairly leisurely 3200 rpm, versus close to 5000 rpm for the 2.7.

As long as she owned that car, all she did was gripe and moan about how it was slow, and not nearly as powerful as the '94, and so on and so on. But then, it's hard to re-teach someone who's in their 70's how to drive a car. You could just tap the pedal on that '94 and it would take off, whereas you have to stomp the '99, as well as most newer cars, to get anything out of them. Cars today don't lunge forward like angry jungle animals the second you put them into gear like they did back in the day.

I had to go through the same thing when I went from an '89 Gran Fury police pursuit to my '00 Intrepid, but I learned to adapt. I have a feeling a lot of drivers still need to learn to adapt...

Mr_Shiftright

Problem with EPA tests is that they are done in a large ROOM with no air resistance. Given the cinderblock aerodymanics of most early 80s American cars, you can imagine how disappointing the real world was going to be.

andre1969

aerodynamics aren't going to mean squat at most of the speeds the EPA tests their cars. For instance, on the highway cycle, the EPA only gets the cars up to 60 mph at a maximum, and the average speed for the whole trip is only 48 mph. Probably not accidentally, that's also roughly where most cars are going to hit their peak fuel economy. Around the 45 mph mark has been that "sweet spot" for decades. But who drives 45 mph on the highway?

Aerodynamics might be important for racecars, tractor trailers, and such, but with most cars, things like gearing, tires, wheels, how much power the driveline saps, etc, is going to play a bigger role than the coefficient of drag.

Some GM exec put aerodynamics into perspective years ago, showing why it's important to the automakers. If a company's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) is below the standard, then they get fined $5.00 for every 1/10 of an mpg they fall below that average, multiplied by however many cars they sold that year. So in 1980, GM might have sold 5 million cars. If their CAFE number was just 1 mpg below that standard, they'd stand to get fined $250,000,000! Automakers go into a frenzy when something will cost them an additional 3 cents per car, so you know damn well they're going to jump at something that costs them $5.00 for every tenth of an mpg!

The main reason a lot of those old 70's and 80's cars got worse mileage in the real world than they did in testing was tall gearing. It's all fine and dandy if you drive leisurely, but if you want any performance out of the thing, you have to keep your foot into it more. And it's going to rely more on lower gears when you have to pass, come to an incline, etc.

I was on the EPA website though, and found out why they adjusted their averages lower. It turns out that when they took off 22% for highway mileage and 10% for city mileage, they got a figure that much better reflected the real world, instead of the laboratory results they were publishing previously. I still don't know what year they switched over, though, although by 1985 they had. But that 1981 St. Regis, which was rated at 17/26, would be more like 15/20, which is probably a more accurate representation. By 1985, GM's big cars were around 17/24, aided mainly by a lower weight to begin with, and 4-speed overdrive transmissions.

andys120

Smaller more efficient engines generally need more
radical throttle openings to deliver their power.
It's amazing how many drivers seldom if ever use the last third of the pedal travel.

fintail

No problem. That book is pretty good...it should be reprinted. The options stuff is also interesting...even in 81, it appears you could pretty much order a car as you wanted it. Lots of individual options, few groups.

Good observation about the pedal travel issue. I can't stand a car with an oversensitive gas pedal. the Olds 98 (1987 or so I think) that my gran had when I just started driving was terrible in that regard. You'd barely touch it, and the car would fly away. I am sure she thought it was a hot rod.

Out on the roads today I saw a good car for ya today as well...56 Dodge Royal Lancer 2 door hardtop. It was a light grey-ish color and white. Restored, beautiful.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, I think aerodymanics are significant at 45 mph. If you don't think so, you need to stand up on a motorcycle at that speed sometime (no, really, don't do that).

At 45 mph with a bit of a headwind, your car is going to differ signficantly from EPA. Driver habits is a whole other issue.

I think cruise control use eats gas too if the roads aren't level.

56 Royal Lancer---I owned that same car. Rescued it from a wrecking yard. Hemi engine, little tiny automatic shifter sticking out of the dash. Drove it all over Colorado.

wimsey1

Even at 30mph aerodynamics have an effect on mileage. On the other hand there are not nearly as many real "windsocks" out there any more other than pickup beds & convertibles. And you are correct about cruise control, I saw a study years ago(BMW?)that showed that a constant throttle opening was best for mileage, but everyone behind you on the hills hates you. The same study (I think) said that accelerating with large throttle openings but shifting at low rpm was more efficient than crawling up with little throttle opening (longer time spent in crucial acceleration zone).
One of the real big energy wasters is thermal losses. Some estimates put energy losses through the radiator and exhaust at a third or more of the total combustion energy. If my memory serves.
Energy lost braking is also a biggy.

wimsey1

Item 1. Either a Sunbeam Alpine or Tiger, too much snow and too little time to tell.
Item 2. A clean looking low/no rust VW Bunny Truck. I thought every one in Minnesota had been sacrificed to Ferrous-God of Rust.
Item 3. Scooby Doo SVX. Haven't seen one in awhile, are they any good? I assume their resale value is low.
Question. Last week I saw a black Toyota T-100 with with a V-8 badge on the tush. Did they ever make one factory? Do I have to hunt down Badtoy for this? Or is it someones little projectmobile?
It was weird, saw it twice, 4 days apart on I-90 near Madison WI.

andre1969

but I still haven't seen one in a few years...Isuzu Vehicross. Remember those suckers? It was probably the forerunner of SUV's with "in your face" styling like the Aztek and Element. IIRC, they were basically Isuzu Amigos with what they thought at the time was futuristic sheetmetal, and Trooper engines.

As for cruise control, I can guarantee that on some newer vehicles it's going to kill your fuel economy on the up-grades, although it's going to mainly hurt vehicles with engines that have to work harder and get their peak power at higher reves. Set the cruise on my NYer at 75 mph, hit a mountain grade, and it practically coasts up the hill. It's probably loafing at around 2000 rpm or so. Try it on my Intrepid and it'll downshift the second it hits the up-grade, struggling to keep the speed. Shifting down to 3rd at that speed is going to put the revs up to about 3750 rpm.

As for aerodynamics, well I did stand up in the back of a convertible at around 60-65 mph once, so does that count? ;-) I lost my baseball cap, and probably won't do it again, unless I have my cap turned around backwards!

Still, how much effect wind resistance has on an object is going to depend on both surface area and weight. Of course, with a person, it's not going to take much wind resistance for you to feel it. It doesn't take much to have an effect on a person that only weighs 150-250 lb or whatever, with limbs and joints that flex. But with something like a car, I still maintain that compared to friction, gravity, weight, gearing, etc, aerodynamics is the last thing that's going to affect the car, at least until you get to higher speeds.

You can take a relatively brick-like 70's car with tall gearing, let up on the gas, and it'll coast for a good long while. Try that on a newer car with shorter gearing, and no matter how aerodynamic it is, it's going to start losing speed quicker.

Mr_Shiftright

Well i don't know enough about physics to speculate further on that but I have ridden enough bicycles to know that a head wind is not a nice thing. My gut feeling is that a modern car would coast a lot better than an old one given a level course. It would be interesting to experiment on that. I know my Mercedes 300D refuses to coast at all....I swear it loses speed downhill (well not quite but...).

fintail

My fintail is that way too...let off the gas, it almost stops itself. The 126 is less like that.

Not a huge obscure car day for me...which is unfortunate, as it was a beautiful day. Saw an Opel Wagon, a V6 Tempo, saw a Suzuki Samurai that had some kind of V8 in it, got waved to by a guy driving an old 114 Mercedes while driving my fintail...that's about all I recall.

The guy that owns the place where I have my fintail has a habit of accumulating horrible old cars and leaving them around his place until they all mysteriously vanish. Here's an interesting assortment:

From right to left, a once-immaculate lowline 110 190D fintail that was hit hard in the front, Volvo P1800, old Mopar sedan - doesn't appear to be an old cop car from the inside, although the exterior has that look, and a Mercedes 123 that I think is a runner, it is decent

Same cars, different angle. They are quite an oddball grouping.

And just a pic that would have been better if not so dark

wimsey1

last week. You won't mistaken that for anything else.
andre-afraid I do have to disagree on a couple of points. Weight does have an affect (a big one) while accelerating or going up hill. when driving on the level at a constant speed its effect is negligible on the vehicles power requirements. Weight has no effect on wind resistance at all. Aerodynamic drag is purely a function of the frontal (not surface) area and the drag coefficient of the vehicles shape.
Frictional losses in the drive train and rolling resistance are signifigant but really do not change much vs. speed. Air drag on the other hand has an exponential relationship to speed. As a result it is very small at low speeds but increases rapidly. I will admit that I can't tell you if air drag or mechanical loss is larger for a typical car at 30mph but air drag will have a measurable effect on mileage at that speed.

lancerfixer

I know it's been mentioned before, but those E-code headlights make your newer car look 1000% better over the POS DOT lights.

fintail

It's ebay time again

Would be good if this escaped the rodders torch

Can't be many of these this early in the US...the pillarless rear side window is nice

These are very classic

It may not have big fins, but it's still pretty cool

Nicest one of these I think I've seen

Nice fintail, expensive fintail

The name of this car alone killed chances of real world success

A miniature 402...nice austere/streamlined styling

An awesome choice for narrow crowded German streets

Very neat

The mintest Fuego left

This Fiat was a nice looking car. I wonder if they were sold here

Interesting old Audi

I certainly agree about the lights. And mine had the slightly better 2nd generation DOT lights...the first ones, with ugly inset rectangular bulbs, destroyed the styling of the car. Now it looks as it was meant to look.

Mr_Shiftright

Boy the guy with the fintail is pretty dopey the way he set up his auction....."no reserve" and yet a staggering opening bid of $10,000!! Recipe for failure if I ever saw one. Strange thing, too, it is supposed to be "showroom" yet he says that you have to vacuum the dust out of the trunk and steam clean the engine! Now why wouldn't he do that himself and not mention these easily corrected negatives? Bizarrre ad. Would be an interesting story though about the car. Wonder if the automatic has seals as hard as cheerios by now.

I really like that Desoto wagon. Pre-"Curse of Virgil", certainly rare, not all that valuable because of dowdy looks and no wood, but still... Seems like it is already at the top of its value even though long time to go for the auction. Probably very slow car. Non-original engine, but maybe doesn't matter on a car like that.

The Peugeot 403 is a good buy at $3,500 but not too much more. Might go for $5K??? Good car!

I like Traction Avants but you have to be careful with them, they like to break first gear if you romp on them too hard.
 A seductive car that can bury you. Looks like it will sell market correct price. The inclusion of new wheel cylinders and a hub-pulling tool isn't encouraging however.

andys120

of those Fiat 2300Ss but only a few were ever brought stateside AFAIK, I've never seen one of those Audi 100Ss with the fastback styling except in photos. Rather nice looking for it's time IMO.

andre1969

on that '53 DeSoto, bragging about the rarity of the 6-cyl wagon. "Rarer than the Hemi", it says. Umm, that's not exactly an advantage!

As for acceleration, I remember reading an old Consumer Reports test, or somebody similar that said when the DeSoto Hemi came out, it knocked the 0-60 time down from 21 seconds to 17, so with either engine it's not going to exactly be a screamer!

Still, a buddy of mine had a '50 DeSoto sedan, and it had no trouble keeping up with highway traffic. Where you'd feel the strain was if you had to suddenly accelerate to merge onto the highway, or if you wanted to pass a slower car on a 2-lane road. It would get to those higher speeds, but just wouldn't do it quickly!

fintail

10 grand is crazy, if the car is mechanically good and is cosmetically as nice as the pics, it might hit 5-6, but that's it. It's a nice car, but few fintails are worth 10 grand, and most of those prices are in Europe.

I don't understand why some people don't better prepare their cars for sale. It's like the idiot who puts his old car for sale in front of his house or on a corner, and doesn't clean it up first. If a car isn't worth washing...that's not a good sign

I'd like a traction roadster, very pretty car.

I've never seen a DeSoto like that wagon. It's a big tank slug of a car, but it does have a charm to it. You'll probably be the only one like it at a show, even a mopar show.

I've never seen a Fiat 2300 of any kind. I like the sedans too. I can imagine they rust so fast that the decomposition is actually audible, though.

andre1969

my Granddad had a '53 DeSoto Firedome sedan. He bought it when I was 8, and sold it just before I turned driving age. I think part of the reason he sold it was because I had my eye on it and wanted it, and he didn't want me driving something that I'd be bringing back to him to fix, every time it broke down. So I ended up with my Mom's old '80 Malibu, which I brought to him every time it broke down! ;-)

I've been to a lot of Mopar shows, and I don't think I've ever seen a '53 DeSoto wagon. Almost half of the DeSotos built that year were Firedome 4-door sedans, and if there's going to be any '53 DeSoto at a given show, it seems like it's one of those that shows up.

Here's another eBay DeSoto...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item- =2461686838
I always thought these were pretty looking cars, although this one's over-priced for the condition it's in. But still, Virgil Exner at his finest...

Oh yeah, speaking of Exner...Shifty, the '53 models were where Exner started having his influence. That was the year that he modernized Plymouth and Dodge, although the results were a bit stubby looking. He also cleaned up DeSoto and Chrysler/Imperial that year.

1953 was either DeSoto's best year or 2nd best year in sales. I forget which, whichever it was, 1950 was the other. The '53's were good looking cars, even compared to competing Olds, Buick, and Mercury models. Unfortunately, when the '54 Buicks and Oldsmobiles came out, the DeSoto (and Chrysler) suddenly looked ancient.

andys120

I don't miss tailfins but I'd love to see wraparound windshields come back.

Mr_Shiftright

I find it hard to use the word "cleaned up" and "Exner" in the same sentence, but i'll take your word for it, thanks! I like all those old "steel" wagons from the early 50s a lot.

It was a great day for Chrysler when they booted old Virg in 1961 IMO---their sales got a lot better as I recall, so that should tell us something. The '55 Chrysler 300 was pretty okay though. That's about all he can brag about.

andre1969

before Chrysler would really see the light at the end of the tunnel. And in all fairness, the recession, quality control, and corporate in-fighting did more damage to Chrysler than anything Exner could've done. Well, okay, there was the 1960-61 Plymouth, and it don't get much worse than that!!

Chrysler would see improved sales, but it was still a long, rocky road. When they downsized Dodge and Plymouth for '62, it was a disaster that ensured Pontiac would pretty much stay in 3rd place in sales for the rest of the decade. Chrysler division did see steadily improving sales, but then you have to remember that all of the rival Mopars were eliminated. DeSoto was gone, and by that time Dodge was selling mainly Lancers and Darts. The more expensive, mid-priced Dodges were victims of the recession that also claimed Edsel and DeSoto, and put the final nails in the coffin Nash, Hudson, and Packard. From '62-64, all Dodge really had anymore was the Custom 880, but those only sold in a comparative handful to the old Royal/Custom Royal, or even Matador/Polara. It really wasn't until 1965 that Chrysler was really coming on strong again.

And don't even get me started on Mopar styling in the 50's, now ;-)

andys120

'57 or '58 when the fins got really exaggerated and cartoonish. Of course by '58 there wasn't anything coming out of Detroit that I liked, even then.

I thought Mopar styling in '55 and '56 was quite nice,the 300-B ('56) is about my favorite 50's car.

Mr_Shiftright

Yeah but THREE-tone cars? Not too many other companies went down that road.

I guess most American cars were pretty junked up by 1958-59, that's true, you can't blame just one person. I'd say 1958-1962 were uniformly bad and for some reason in 1963 all kinds of good things started happening. Must have been the water in Detroit or something.

andre1969

had a 1955 DeSoto Fireflite Coronado, which was one of the first triple-toned cars. It had a turquoise colored body, white roof, and a black spear down the side. Basically, picture that '55 I posted in #2610 with the white spear on the side painted black. All things considered, I thought it was pretty tasteful. It took two of the most inoffensive colors there are, black and white, and threw them on a body painted up in a color that would look good on any 50's car. The interior was done up to match, with cloth seats

Now I could see if they started combining orange, blue, and brown, or some other color combination, that would be pretty hideous, but all in all, I thought the Coronado was pretty classy. They could also be had in turquoise with a black roof and a white spear. There's one in that scheme in a junkyard about 2 hours south of me in Culpeper, VA. I've also heard that you could also get them in other combinations, such as a white body, turquoise spear, and black roof, black body, turquoise top, and white spear, etc, but dunno if that's true or not. So far, I've only seen them with the turquoise body.

andys120

IMO the '61 and '62 GMs were quite nice, particularly Chevies (some of the best ever) and Buicks. I'd say the '61-'63 period was the Golden Age of GM styling, they were one or two styling waves ahead of Ford and Chrysler at that time. Billy Mitchell, who took over from Harley Earl gets the credit, I suppose.

andre1969

and say Ford and GM started shaping up in 1960! Ford never really hit rock bottom though, like GM and Chrysler did. Honestly, I think the '57 Fords and Mercurys are uglier looking than the '58 or '59's. About the only thing really nasty that Ford made was those grotesquely overblown '58-60 Lincolns.

Actually, in a twisted way, we have Exner to thank for GM's '59 lineup, although Mitchell was the man who created them. Once the GM stylists realized how outdated the '57 Mopars were going to make their own cars look, it forced them to push that much harder to rush something else out that looked even more futuristic. The original plan was for the '59 GM cars to be facelifted '58's.

Mr_Shiftright

When did GM stop making the "panel delivery"? These were, as I recall, basically station wagons with steel sides instead of glass?

andre1969

but I have seen '58 Chevies. They were actually called "sedan deliveries", even though they were really 2-door station wagons with all the rear side windows steel-ed over. I think it was to differentiate from another style called the "panel truck" or "panel van", which was really a 2-door Suburban-type vehicle, again with no rear side windows.

I'd guess that Chevy dropped them whenever they stopped making full-sized 2-door station wagons. 1960-61, maybe? I think Ford offered them too. Plymouth never did, as far as I know, although I have seen a few 2-door Plymouth station wagons converted to sedan-deliveries. I believe the last maker to offer them was Ford, which ran them in the Falcon lineup for a few years.

andre1969

and I think 1960 was the last year. I found a pic of a '60 Chevy sedan delivery...

but couldn't find any pics or any info on any '61's.

In the background of this pic is a '56 Plymouth 4-door hardtop. It's probably a Belvedere, because I don't think they would've offered a 4-door hardtop in the Savoy series, and definitely not in the strippo Plaza series. This was the first year for a Mopar 4-door hardtop. They were kinda neat because when you rolled down the back window, it took the little quarter-window in back down with it.

lemko

...for sedan deliveries. Not sure when panel trucks were discontinued. Maybe it was about the same time the Chevy Van based on the Chevy II/Nova platform debuted. Anybody remember the unusual rear-engined CorVan truck with the ramp for side loading?

6thbeatle

hey, that's one cool-looking wagon!

wimsey1

panel deliveries the way the minivan slammed the old station wagons.

ajvdh

The Shelby American museum has a Falcon based sedan delivery that was used as the "parts getter". Great little sleeper - It's plain-jane white, and has a built up 289 under the hood.

Now I'll see if can induce a facial tic from Shifty - I actually saw a TR7 moving under its own power on Saturday. It was a convertiable in that ugly mustard color, and appeared to be unrestored. The non-matching front and rear wheels were a nice touch.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, man, TR7s...the only car I can recall where they recommended layering THREE head gaskets at once to get the head to seal.

I suppose that gave you low enough compression to run on kerosene??

More like a blinding headache than a facial tic.

What really cranks me up about this car is that THIS car was chosen over the MG, which was killed to pay for the TR7.

fintail

1981 Consumer Guide on the TR8:

"There may always be a Britain. If our Triumph is any indication, there may not always be a British auto industry."

Mr_Shiftright

Well in a sense there isn't. Their marques are mostly owned by someone else.

wevk

Mr Shiftright wrote:
"I guess most American cars were pretty junked up by 1958-59"

The pinnacle of junked up?

http://www.ev1.pair.com/buick/buick_1.html

WVK

Mr_Shiftright

The car makes no sense. It looks like a desperate act of some kind, as in "quick, make something before they come back!"

wimsey1

C'mon, you got Morgan and TVR and Caterham and ...
You faithless cretins! Argh!
Breath slow buddy, relax... ;-)

Mr_Shiftright

Hahaha...okay, I kneel in respect, but somehow the words "Morgan" and "industry" seem a bit ambitious.

 You know, Toyota...Chevrolet...Volkswagen....Morgan....Ford....US Steel...WalMart...TVR...Microsoft....Exxon....Caterham...etc. etc.

wimsey1

Maybe, "cottage industry". Some how I could picture them gluing up the door frames on the kitchen table. Chuckle.