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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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BTW, soon after my Intrepid got totaled, one car I looked at briefly was a dark green Olds 88 at a local used car lot. I was actually going up there to look at a 1991 Caprice they had, but then spotted the 88 and went over and looked at it. Unfortunately, it looked like it had been owned by a construction worker. Interior looked like it had been caked with mud and dirt, but they had tried to clean it out the best they could.
The Caprice actually had the same look about it on the interior.
But oddly, now when I see one of those '91-96 Park Avenues (they're still somewhat common around here), they seem pretty small-ish to me, as well. Even though the 1997-05 Park Ave is about the same size in most dimensions, I guess the later style just fills out more, whereas the previous was much more tapered.
Over the years though, my opinion of those '91-96 98s has softened. I wouldn't turn away a nice one today, if I needed a car.
I hope that's a promise
The Achieva, introduced the following year ('92), looked like a downsized 98 to me. I rented Achievas a couple of times, and they seemed competent in every respect.
YES!! I think that's what the problem was! The Acheiva and 98 bore a strong resemblance to each other, but not in a way that was favorable to the 98. In contrast, a Skylark and Park Ave looked NOTHING alike by that time.
I think I liked the Achieva the best out of its brood. The Grand Am was really embarking on that overdone Ribs & Wings motif, and the interiors were becoming horrible. And the Skylark was trying to combine aero-modern and '39 Buick, with all sorts of odd lumps and shapes. But the Achieva didn't look too bad. I thought the Achieva coupe was downright attractive.
I saw an interview with Csaba Csere talking about that mistake, he rants and rants about it.
I thought the dashboard design of the '92 Skylark was creative and interesting, in a positive way. Buick later (maybe in '95 or so) redesigned the dash to look more conventional. The Skylark of that generation was another example of where the coupe looked better and less frumpy than the sedan.
Yep, it was sort of a champagne/driftwood color, with a light brown interior. Very nice looking car...about as sexy as a K-car could get! The interior was actually pretty nice, too. The only area where I thought they cheaped out was that if you got power windows, they put the switches on the console rather than the door panel. And, to cover up the spot where the window cranks would have been, they simply stuck in a little emblem with the Chrysler Pentastar on it!
My uncle bought the car used (it was a 1988) in April of 1990. He went up to the local Pontiac/Dodge dealer (you might know them...Bob Banning in New Carrollton) because he wanted to look at the Grand Ams. Well, he hated the cheap, tacky, plastickyness of the Grand Am, but then he saw the LeBaron on their used car lot, and bought it.
He sold it to me when I was married, and I let the wife drive it. Back then, we only had my '68 Dart, '67 Catalina convertible, a '69 Bonneville that was hard to start, and the DeSoto. So, we needed something newer and more manageable for the wife to drive.
I let her have the LeBaron in the divorce. I think it had about 90,000 miles on it when we split, and had been fairly reliable up to that point. But by around 118,000 miles, it was shot. Bad head gasket, bad turbo, slow leak in one tire, bad a/c, broken antenna, leak in the transmission, and so on. I bought it off her for 90 bucks in early 1998, and she bought two tickets to go see "Faith No More" at the 9:30 club in DC (she had an infatuation with their lead singer). I sold it off for parts. It still had a lot of nice interior pieces, nice wheels, body panels, etc. I pulled out the stereo, thinking it would fit in the 1979 Newport I had by that time, but no such luck.
I still have that radio packed away, somewhere.
I was under the impression that the Fisker was a pure electric car, unlike the Volt that has a gas engine backup.
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This year I'll also miss the annual May South Bend Studebaker Swap Meet, which this year is also a Studebaker Drivers' Club zone meet and there's a speaker at the Museum talking about the Avanti as well as tours of the old Studebaker Body Building in town, one of the few original factory buildings still there and supposedly pretty unchanged inside. Sigh--I have to work in SE PA that week. The body building tour was supposed to happen last year at the International Meet and my hometown former dealer friend really wanted to see it but it got cancelled at the last minute. Sigh (again).
Its trip computer would lie to you though. Would tell you 400 miles to empty right as you ran out of gas. And yes, unfortunately, I know that from experience.
At the time, I thought luxury/personal coupes should be bigger, but that said, I don't think there was a bad line on the car. For some reason, I remember them in a two-tone light/dark 'briar' brown color, not unlike what you always saw '83 and '84 Rivieras in. I like that combo, myself.
The later ones you mention, for some reason I remember in a bright aqua color. The first ones were more handsome IMHO.
Yeah, a personal luxury coupe *should* be bigger, but I thought they pulled it off quite handsomely. It's also a car with a lot of overhang...they're about 185" long, on a short 100.3" wheelbase, but I thought they still looked well-proportioned.
In comparison, something like an '88 T-bird/Cougar was probably around 198" long, on a 104.4" wheelbase. I think GM's Monte Carlo/Grand Prix/Cutlass/Regal were around 200-202" long, on a 108.1" wb.
And the downsized '86-89 Olds Toronado was only 187.5" long, but on a longer 108.0" wb.
I'll have to see if I can dig up some old pics of my LeBaron and scan them in. I do remember taking some pics, just before the tow truck came and took it away. And I'm sure it showed up in some of my honeymoon pics, as we drove it out to Washington State.
One thing that really struck me, is how tiny these cars look today. At around 180" long on a 103.4" wb, you wouldn't think they'd be *that* small. But, cars back then were a lot narrower and lower than today. It was parked next to a current-generation Camry, and the Camry, not really a big car itself, looked positively monstrous in comparison.
Had to check online to figure out which car Malloy was talking about. Except for the quoted hp, that performance would be like a Camry today I guess.
Over at Oldsmobile, once the N-body came out and they started using the Calais name on it, I think they dusted off the "Salon" name, to replace it in the Cutlass Supreme lineup. I don't think Pontiac had a model that directly matched up, although they the Grand Prix did have an "LE" trim level slotted between the base and Brougham. However, I think you had to pa extra for bucket seats/console, sporty wheels, etc.
http://adam12code3.com/adam12code3_allcars_580_338.jpg
As for a modern Camry, the 3.5 V-6 puts out 268 hp net. That's probably about 350-360 gross!
For some reason, I always remember these cars being (IMHO) the odd combination of beige and navy blue. Do you remember this color scheme on them?
It could also be the Matador. The 401 in that car is in my book as 330 @5000 rpm. That's pretty close.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
http://www.seametropolicemuseum.org/cars.html
http://classicchryslercars.com/
The prices on most everything are nothing short of ridiculous, but it would be a cool place to visit to just stroll around and pretend you are on a used car lot from 25 or 30 years ago.
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Although, an '80 Regal was several hundred pounds lighter than a '76.
I'll say this, my sister and her husband bought a new '75 Buick Century Special. I remember that thing having the roughest idle of any car that size I'd ever experienced, and the six made noises that shouldn't have come out of a car as pretty as a '75 Buick Century coupe. I also remember the grille was plain gray plastic--no bright surround, no emblems on it, etc. I thought it seemed really cheap, although the interior was a nice-quality vinyl with a center armrest in front.
Just after that, a Dark Green built up Nova that looked really nice.
Oh, MT tested a 1981 Grand Prix with the Pontiac 265, and got 0-60 in 14.9 seconds. That was with 120 hp. So again, I'd think the Buick 231, with 110 hp, less torque, but less weight as well, would be similar.
I had an '82 Cutlass Supreme for about a year, 1993-94. From a stop, it was pretty gutless. But, if you were loafing along around 40-45 mph and suddenly needed to punch it, it took off quicker than you might expect. And, it was an excellent highway cruiser. Much better than my old '80 Malibu, which had a 229 V-6 and 115 hp. However, I've heard the Chevy 229 only had around 170-175 ft-lb of torque, compared to 190 for the 231-2bbl.
And, as for that early 80's RWD Regal Somerset, the main color I remember was a beige or gold, but now that you mention it, I seem to recall blue being associated with it. So maybe it had beige sides and a blue roof/hood/trunk?
My 1985 Consumer Guide has a Regal with the 231-2bbl in it. They don't list a 0-60 time, but in the text it says that 0-60 comes up in "about 13 seconds" Even though it had the same 110 hp as a 1980 Regal, I'm convinced that GM, and the auto industry in general, was finally getting their engine management and emissions controls more or less right, and that was improving the driveability of the cars. So, even if the hp/torque and gear ratio specs stayed the same, the cars simply made better use of the power. They probably had less hesitation, stalling, bucking, etc, and that helped them get up to speed better.
To use one example, I remember years ago, Fintail scanning in some old Consumer Guide tests from 1981. One of them was a Bonneville with an Olds 307 and the 4-speed automatic. 0-60 was around 14.1 seconds. Yet by 1985, CG tested a Delta 88 with the same setup, and got a more reasonable 12.0 seconds.
I always thought it was interesting that Chrysler started pouring money into the R-body for 1981, only to dump it half-way through the model year. Not huge improvements, but in the details. For instance, the '81 5th Ave has MUCh nicer, if pimpier, seats than the '79-80. However, all they did was swap them. Those '81 5th Ave seats were what was the leather option in the 1979-80 regular New Yorker, while what had been the 5th Ave seats for '79-80 became the leather option in the regular NY'er for '81.
But oddly, the standard cloth seats on the base '79-80 New Yorker are the same pattern as the leather in the 5th Ave.
Also for 1981, they switched the trunk from gas struts to more conventional torsion bar/gooseneck hinges. They also improved the pull handles on the door. On the two '79's I have, I try to grab the armrest itself to pull the door shut. Or the window sill if the window is down. the pull handles are that flimsy. But in '81, they beefed them up, considerably.
I wonder what a reasonable price would be for that '81? This might be the beer talking, but if I could get it for around $6-7K, I'd be seriously tempted!
I also like the fact that in '81, they gave you a few color choices for the 5th Ave. "Designer Creme" over "Designer Beige" with a creme interior gets old after awhile.
Even sounded quiet.
They did. In fact, even to this day, even though cars in general are rustproofed much better, I'd say that you're more likely to see rust on a ~10-15 year old Honda (or any Japanese car) than most domestics. But again, seeing rust on ANYTHING around that timeframe is still pretty rare these days.
My uncle's 2003 Corolla has a little rust coming out on the passenger side, just ahead of the rear wheel opening. I think it's partly his own fault though. He parks it on the grass in front of the house, right under a big Maple tree, so it spends a lot of time in the dampness.
I saw an odd sight yesterday...a BMW 5-series that was looking pretty rusty in the lower regions (rocker panels, quarters, around the rear wheel opening) and missing the fuel filler cap. However, this was also the 1988-96 (or '89-95 in the US, I guess) generation, so it was no spring chicken, to begin with!
I think the coating became common in the early 90s or so. I remember seeing 2 years old Hyundai Excels with rust in the pre-galvanized days.
That BMW doesn't surprise me, especially as you mention, it is old. Some German cars of that era can get rusty. One of the rustiest modern cars I have seen was a 1990 W126 300SEL - bubbles and problems everywhere - all rockers and fenders and even around the sunroof. But to be fair, it was from eastern Canada. That 1976 model I looked at a few days ago had a lot less rust, none of it structural. I am lucky in that my fintail barely has any - and those cars can rust. I have just a few bubbles that I am not tempted yet to fix.
When I was out in Ohio one year to do my annual amusement park trip (either 2010 or 2011, because in 2012 we went to Canada's Wonderland), I remember seeing a black Park Ave, same vintage as mine, that was so rusty that you'd think it was built with the same attention to rustproofing as a '57 Plymouth, '71 Vega, or '76 Volare!