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

fintail

Wow, a high school teacher of mine had one exactly like that, same color. This would have been in the mid 90s - and by then, thanks to ~15+ years of PNW rain and family abuse, it was looking a little worse for wear. It was apparently a sentimental object for him and his kids. I remember he eventually ended up buying one of those 87-88 Sedan DeVilles with the sport-esque trim, and his wife had a mid 80s Century with faded paint.

That one shows lots of honest age, would probably take a detail well.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, every young man's dream! The ultimate chick magnet! And that simulated wood grain! Now there's passion on wheels! :P

toomanyfumes

I grew up just north of Kenosha, my Dad was from there, he worked for AMC for a while, and I had two uncles who worked there. I remember going by that massive ugly lakefront plant when we'd go to my uncle's for holiday's, later when I was in my late teens we'd go to one of the many nearby bars for cheap tap beers. For a long time you'd see mostly AMC's running around, then the crapbox Alliance/Encore's that were built ther, and finally the Chryslers. Until maybe 20 years ago, you rarely saw an import.

ab348

It's amazing that the Caprice's red interior plastics haven't all faded to various shades of pink. Most of the GM interiors of that era had real problems with the plastic pieces fading to all different shades as the car aged. I guess this one spent most of its time in a garage. Good thing, because that red was a very bright red and it looks bad enough when its pristine!

This is a pretty nice example, but it is a pretty low-option car - power locks seem about it. No power seat, no custom interior, no power windows. The vinyl seats look surprisingly low-end for a Caprice. The seller must have used a gallon of Armorall under the hood.

uplanderguy

Stick shift Citation X-11 with 150K miles:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/California-Original-1982-Chevy-Citation-X-11-100-- Rust-Free-All-Original-A-/171026407107?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item27d1f7dec3

I came very close to considering one of these new instead of the '85 Celebrity Eurosport I bought...less money and identical underneath, even wheelbase. I thought I'd take a bath on resale value though, back when I cared about that.

uplanderguy

There was no Custom interior option on a Caprice wagon in '77. It does have the optional 50/50 split front seat with dual center armrests. It has the following options I can see: Sport wheel covers, digital clock, instrument package (instead of linear speedometer with only a fuel gauge), cruise control, A/C, AM/FM stereo radio, rear window defroster, roof rack, body side moldings, deluxe bumpers, bumper guards, power door locks, remote control mirrors left and right, power antenna, Comfortilt steering wheel, and intermittent wipers.

The only options that are visibly lacking to my eyes, are the 350 engine, power windows, and the third seat. Those wheelcovers were the premium wheelcovers for a wagon that year. The wire covers were only available on the Landau coupe.

uplanderguy

http://www.carsforsale.com/used_cars_for_sale/1979_Pontiac_Bonneville_181916552_- - 2

Beautiful car, and with bucket seats and no Landau top, not often seen.

These cars remind me of the Grand Prix and Bonneville models with buckets and console of a decade earlier...a good thing when the current year Grand Prix didn't do anything for me.

Sweet car IMHO.

Is that a 301, does anybody know?

fintail

Wow, that's pretty cool. No vinyl top, interior not like a bordello, and snowflake wheels. Handsome car. Insane price though.

Mr_Shiftright

Only triple the market price---but it does say 12,000 miles, unless that's a typo. So something that weird, well, you can throw price guides out the window, since it's unpredictable. All you need is one buyer who wants a new 1979 Pontiac Bonneville, for whatever reason. There might be one out there.

stickguy

out locally today, saw 3 BMW 2002s in the space of about 1 mile. And another driving around earlier in the day.

I think the driver was one I later saw parked. Both were a light blue later (bumper model) so I figure it was the same one.

then right down the street at a gas station, 2 parked side by side. Both chrome bumper models. A white and an orange. I have seen the white one there in the past.

3 that close together outside of a convention must be rare.

stickguy

just saw the back, but either a 1st series Shelby Mustang or a copycat. Sat low, sounded nice. Dark blue with white stripes.

and right after that got stuck behind an old-school Jeep Grand Wagoneer. My wife commented that it was ugly. And it smelled a bit. Quite the throwback.

uplanderguy

and right after that got stuck behind an old-school Jeep Grand Wagoneer. My wife commented that it was ugly

My wife has always liked those, although it's been awhile since we've seen one here in rusty NE Ohio. I remember telling her there was a guy who'd advertise in Hemmings that he'd buy, fix up and resell them. I'm thinking his name was 'the Jeepsterman' but that might be another Jeep vendor, I don't know.

omarman

Is that a 301, does anybody know?

Vin shows an X code for engine so for 1979 that's going to be a 350/4bbl. Buick engine maybe?

uplanderguy

Excellent catch! Makes me like the car even more! I've not heard a lot of positive stuff about 301's but I was thinking that by '79 most Pontiac V8's were that. Maybe not though.

The price is crazy though. I'll tell you, I'd buy it at half the price. So would a lot of other people I think though.

uplanderguy

RE.: '77 Caprice Estate wagon--you're right about no power seat; good spotting!

It's relisted with a BIN of $3,500, which doesn't seem insane to me.

I'd feel better if it had the 350 which got you out of the THM 200 trans. I'm not certain if wagons had that trans, but the 305 coupes and sedans did.

ateixeira

We had one in our fleet at work, when I was in college. It was awful, wandered all over the road and had more rattles than Babies R Us.

Of course ours was base with no options, and you could get those nicely equipped. I'm sure consumer models were nicer.

uplanderguy

When you get right down to it, a Grand Wagoneer started out as a Wagoneer, which was introduced in the '63 model year and only updated here and there for the next twenty-odd years! Probably the oldest design still out there at the time of its retirement.

ab348

I agree, at $3500 it's hard to see how you could go wrong. It is a nice car and becoming pretty rare. Those were nice drivers.

explorerx4

to spot a pristine Ford Tempo.
Drove down to Manhattan today to have brunch with some family, about a dozen of us.
Parked 20 yards from the restaurant was a shiny gold Tempo. Even the wheel covers looked new.
Funny thing is on the way home on I-87, while driving at about 65 mph, I got passed by a ratty blue one going about 80. It looked like it was about to crash any second by the way it was weaving around trying to stay in it's lane.
Parked on the top deck of Home Depot parking garage, near Stew Leonard's, a black Checker.

fintail

Out for a few hours today - lots to see in off and on rain: saw a few 60s Beetles - must have been a meet somewhere, a mint ~72 2002tii, decrepit BMW Bavaria on a flatbed, nice W116 zooming down I5, ~72 Ranchero, very nice bustleback Seville, 85 Camry, SWB W140 S320, pristine looking W123 of some kind, early 50s Caddy limo sitting outside an old building, ~59 Mopar 4 door HT sitting by an old barn, nice looking black early 60s Continental convertible on a flatbed, immaculate late 70s Chevy deluxe passenger van, ~46 GMC pickup, beat up looking W124 500E.

andre1969

I never was much of a fan of GM's FWD A-body, but of the permutations, I liked the Ciera the best. The Celebrity just seemed cheap, and tacky on the inside. The Pontiac 6000 seemed like a poor attempt at a sports sedan, and I hated their dash displays as well (although I've heard that the STE AWD models were pretty good cars for the time). And, the Century just seemed like the first step of Buick's transformation into an old people's car.

But, Cutlass Ciera just seemed to have some sort of honesty about it. It didn't try to be anything but an honest, wholesome, middle-of-the-road type of car. Not too old, not too young, not too sporty, not too fogey, not to cheap, not too flash-in-the-pan, not too dull, et al.

andre1969

That particular engine is a Buick 350 (distributor in the front). IIRC, the Pontiac 350 was dropped entirely after 1977. For 1978-79, it was replaced by a Buick 350 in full-sized cars, and a Chevy 350 in the Firebird. In California/high altitude areas, the Buick 350 was replaced with an Olds 350.

Back in the late 1990's, I looked at a base level (vinyl interior, crank windows, etc) 1979 Bonneville that a local guy was interested in getting rid of. It had a Buick 350. I drove it, and was unimpressed. At least, it wasn't enough to convince me that it was a better car than the '89 Gran Fury ex copcar I was driving at the time. Main reason that I was concerned about it, was that at the time I was worried that the Buick 350 was every bit the turd that the 231 had been in the '82 Cutlass I once owned. But, in later years, I learned that, while you can trace the Buick 231 and 350 back to the same source, at one point their histories forked and went on wildly different paths. The Buick 350 was always a good engine (although not too powerful in its later years), while the 231 pretty much shook off its turdiness in 1985, when the lesser engines were beefed up in the same fashion as the turbo block.

Had I known that at the time, I might have been a bit more forgiving of that '79 Bonneville.

BTW, if you're curious, the VIN code for the 301 was a "Y". I remember it by thinking "Y did they do that?" :P At least, "Y" was used in 1977-79. Not sure about 1980. That was the year the Olds 307 came out. It was used in Bonnevilles and Catalinas in 1981, which was their last year. At some point, the 307 started using the "Y" VIN code, but by then I think the 301 was history.

michaellno

But, Cutlass Ciera just seemed to have some sort of honesty about it. It didn't try to be anything but an honest, wholesome, middle-of-the-road type of car. Not too old, not too young, not too sporty, not too fogey, not to cheap, not too flash-in-the-pan, not too dull, et al.

My wife wanted a Cutlass Ciera when her kids were younger. She ended up with an '86 Tempo instead, which she kept for 10 years.

uplanderguy

I always thought calling the 'Ciera' a 'Cutlass' was hokey though. At one time, they had three completely different car lines they called a 'Cutlass'.

andre1969

For some reason, tacking the name "Cutlass" on the Ciera never really bothered me. But when they started calling the Calais "Cutlass Calais", I thought that was too much.

Oh, for one brief moment in 1988, they actually had the Cutlass name spread across FOUR different lines! They built about three months worth of the RWD Cutlass coupe, which they called Cutlass Supreme Classic. They also had the new GM10 FWD Cutlass Supreme coupe. Then, there was the Cutlass Ciera. And, 1988 was the first year they tacked "Cutlass" onto the Calais.

lemko

The Cutlass moniker lost all its equity when Olds put it on this ugly Malibu clone. It is mediocrity personified:

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My wife had one of these for a mercifully short time. I told her not to judge Oldsmobile by this car which was an Olds in name only. It definitely wasn'y my father's Oldsmobile which was a glamourous 1955 Ninety-Eight Starfire convertible nor even my 1979 Ninety-Eight Regency.

robr2

Marketing plain and simple - Cutlass was the best selling model in the US for a few years. Olds was just trying to keep customers from defecting.

texases

Speaking of old Olds, I saw a 'real' Cutlass Supreme, 1980-ish, yesterday, like this:

andre1969

I still see a couple Cutlass Supreme coupes in the neighborhood on occasion. In fact, there's a guy at work who has one...either an '87 or '88...the style with the composite headlights. I think he has over 200,000 miles on it, but it still looks fairly good.

ateixeira

Saw one for sale on Clopper Rd, off I-270 in the Gaithersburg, MD area.

Unfortunately could not stop to check it out. Looked clean from a distance.

fintail

We had a Tempo and Ciera both in my family. The Ciera was certainly the plusher smoother car. The Tempo was iffy in some ways, but seemed more modern, and somehow seemed to age better cosmetically.

Speaking of cars from that era, saw an immaculate looking Buick Somerset sedan this morning.

uplanderguy

Although around here those smallish frames tended to rust through, it seems like I saw a good number of those '80's GM 'luxury intermediate' RWD coupes that looked like folks cared for them, for a long time. I'll admit to still liking them.

My friend, who's a M-B guy now, bought a slightly used '87 Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe way back then. He said he looked at one recently and didn't like the way the doors sounded when closed, etc., but I reminded him he had to look at other things at that same time, similarly priced, and I think the Monte would look better.

Right now, I could very much like an '87 or '88 Monte Carlo LS, two-tone dark over light maroon, V8, and those checkerboard wheels. There's a gray one down at the end of our street, checkerboard wheels and all, but the lower body (doors, etc.) is so rusty it's depressing.

BTW, I'm with lemko on those '97 Malibus and Cutlasses. I did not see one redeeming thing about them, then or now.

tjc78

BTW, I'm with lemko on those '97 Malibus and Cutlasses. I did not see one redeeming thing about them, then or now.

They are sort of in the realm of the just phased out Impala. Nothing really wrong with the car, but nothing really great either. My cousin had one of those Malibus and he drove it pretty hard up and down through Philly for a few years and it was very reliable.

ab348

I remember when the Malibu came out in '97 (?) that they just looked extremely bad to my eye. Seemed too narrow for the height, or something similar in terms of mis-proportion. And of course they personified the GM "Sea of Gray" interiors that were just becoming prevalent. Then they had crummy engines and lots of mechanical issues too. All in all a very depressing, unhappy car. Fortunately the Cutlass version of this was not sold in Canada, mostly because almost all Chevy dealers here were paired with Oldsmobile, so the badge engineering would be just too obvious.

andre1969

BTW, I'm with lemko on those '97 Malibus and Cutlasses. I did not see one redeeming thing about them, then or now.

I can think of a few redeeming qualities. The 1997 Malibu was a MUCH better car, IMO at least, than the Corsica it replaced. I thought it was better than the Lumina in some respects, as well. It had better legroom, both front and rear, than the larger Lumina, and a similar sized trunk. However, it was narrower, so shoulder room was more compact-like. I also thought the interior was nicer than a Lumina or Corsica. Not necessarily more upscale or plush, but better fit and finish, higher quality, etc.

But, for one brief moment, that Malibu actually seemed competitive. However, the competition moved quickly, and GM didn't, so the Malibu just sort of got left behind.

As for the Cutlass, I thought it was a sham to put that name on that car. But, I think GM simply figured that the type of people who would buy it were those who bought Cutlass Cieras. I thought it was a step down from the Ciera, though.

I looked at Malibus on the same day I bought my Intrepid, but the Malibu just seemed like a major step down. Of course, it was a smaller, and cheaper car, so that wasn't a fair comparison. My Intrepid would have been more comparable to an Impala. The few Impalas the dealer had on the lot, however, were pretty well-loaded, and around $25-26K...about $4-5K more than my base-level Intrepid.

I remember they also had one Dodge Stratus on the lot, for about the same price as my Intrepid. But, it had leather and a sunroof. It was a nice car, but I went with the Intrepid because it was bigger.

Back to the Malibu...I also thought the 2004 was a huge improvement over the 1997-03 style. But, it just wasn't enough, as everybody else was improving as well. And there was just something a little extra awkward about the 2004-07 Malibu's style, I thought. It really seemed too tall and slab-sided, and ill-proportioned. The '03 and earlier seemed downright tasteful in comparison!

fintail

Out in the fintail today - saw a very nice W126 300SD with a little old lady behind the wheel, car was an early 80s style kind of bright gold, later series wheels, looked immaculate. Also got pointed at by a guy driving a Peugeot 505, and a thumbs up from a guy in a 70s 911.

lemko

The 3.1 V-6 in that Cutlass was crummy and had cooling issues to boot! My wife, (still girlfriend at the time) quickly ran out and bought that car without bringing me along. The salesmen who sold her that turd must've been laughing up a storm when she drove off the lot.

wevk

Only $74,998

http://harrystoys.com/2008-Cadillac-XLR/Used-Convertible/Milwaukee-WI/5152/26187- 90/Details.aspx

lemko

I'd have been happier if she'd have bought a Ciera instead. The best way to describe the 1999 Cutlass was "Classic American Rental Car." If she wanted an Oldsmobile, she should've got an Intrigue. Now, THAT was a nice car. I often mistook them for the higher-end Aurora at a glance at the time.

lemko

AAAGHHH!!! Change it, Butthead! Change it!

hpmctorque

I saw a Fisker Karma being driven Saturday, as it was pulling out of a service station. That was the first time I'd seem one in operation. It may be the last time too, since the future hardly looks promising for that company. Strange that it was coming from a gas station, since the power train is similar in concept to the Volt's. Striking looking car, though.

andre1969

If she wanted an Oldsmobile, she should've got an Intrigue. Now, THAT was a nice car. I often mistook them for the higher-end Aurora at a glance at the time.

I liked the Intrigue and Aurora as well. Unfortunately, I've heard that the 3.5 V-6 and 4.0 V-8 could be troubleprone, and expensive to fix. But, there's an Edmund's member (unfortunately, his handle eludes me at the moment) who had a 2001 or so Olds Intrigue, and I think he got good service out of it.

I had a 2001 Malibu rental. I think by that time they got a bit more power out of the 3.1, maybe 170 hp versus 155 or something like that? And, essentially, that's about what it was...a classic rental car. Nothing horrible about it, but nothing really redeeming, either.

Oh, back in 1999 I had an Olds Alero coupe for a rental. That sucker was a nice car, I thought. Had the DOHC 4-cyl, which was a descendant of the old Quad 4. I thought it had a lot of pep to it. It definitely seemed to perform better than that Malibu did, even though the Malibu had a larger, more powerful engine.

stoneowl

I saw a truck with a nose cone-like front grill on it and it looked really sweet--it was an older model, probably 1950's What was it?

lemko

Was it a Seagrave? This is a 1950s vintage fire engine:

ateixeira

Kill it with fire!

tjc78

If she wanted an Oldsmobile, she should've got an Intrigue

I was very close to buying an Intrigue in January 1999. It was a very nice car, especially for the times. I wanted the 3.5 (which had more power) but I was told by quite a few people to get the 3800.

As I was shopping I saw a loaded up leftover 1998 88 sedan, burgundy/beige that I was offered an outstanding deal on. I decided to buy it. That was a nice car, not quite as sedate looking as the LeSabre, or as gaudy as the Bonneville. Well, it turned out to be a mistake as that car leaked water inside and they could never fix it. Always wondered how the Intrigue would have treated me.

Andre, I used to get Aleros as rentals and they were always pretty nice. In that time period the Oldsmobile models seemed so much more upscale than the other GM brands.

stoneowl

No, not at all--sorry...

andre1969

Shame your 88 ended up being troublesome. I always liked the 88 from that era for exactly the reasons you mention...it sort of struck a tasteful middle ground between the LeSabre and Bonneville.

Did they ever offer the supercharged V-6 on the 88? Or am I just imagining things?

tjc78

Yep, the 88 LSS got the supercharger. I don't think think many were made, as I've only ever seen a few.

lemko

I really liked these when they came out in 1991. Others have described it as "Nash-like" but I thought it was cool: