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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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I have some car mag from the time, and they commented that the '64 Hawk was the oldest body still being used in the domestic industry, but added something along the lines of, 'such is the intelligence and beauty of the '53 body, as the Hawk is a highly attractive and competent automobile'. Stude itself knew it was 'old'--they frequently used the term 'classic styling' in its advertising!
In a dark color, with full instrumentation and floor shift, there's not a Studebaker I like any better.
I do think the weakest angle is straight-on from the back...it's there where the conflicting lines of the curvy body and square roof make themselves noticed.
I still hope to own one in my lifetime. They were made a 'Milestone Car' when they were something like ten years old.
Back in the day when there were a million individual options on any car and they could truly be custom built, no doubt the sky was the limit for price. The cars (and sometimes even household appliances) of today lack the visual charm of the old days, but they are sure easier to live with.
The styling fools the eye, but the Hawk was actually on a 1.5-inch longer wheelbase than an Impala of the day.
Thanks for spell correction. I just watched an hour show on her life on E! Thursday out of boredom and some curiosity after her American Idol appearances. OMG. Note I didn't even remember how to spell her last name I was so impressed.
As for the Metro and refrigerator similarity, you've got me seeing the pink duo and then this in terms of my old time ago art appreciation prof in undergrad school talking about how things should look like and be what they are supposed to be. Mr.Shiftright parallels autos and appliances and it clicks.
There is a subconscious link here with appliance quality.
My art prof hated things like hula lamps with little grass skirts that swirled make them not look like lamps. Cars should look like cars.
But then there is that 60-Minutes show in the 90's about the auto psychologist who was consulted by more than one auto company to study what subconscious link people's brains make with the appearance of automobile's "faces." So now we've got all these cars with aggressive insectlike faces to threaten others when they see us coming.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I really liked my GT Hawk and I always got the best compliments. It was a very reliable car, but this was the time when I just got tired of the clumsiness of American cars and their front-heavy "push" around corners and their fuel appetite, so I moved into fussy foreign cars for a while, embracing even further obscurity than a Studebaker more often than not.
Eventually I settled into a nice compromise with Porsches, where sport, comfort and reliability finally emerged in the same vehicle.
I remember that the first thing I taped the first night I had it was a semi-car related movie: Hooper, with Burt Reynolds.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
I don't think I could deal with this staring back at me:
Not always done to intimidate (although some cars have leering eyes, sometimes in inverse proportion to their capability), much of it is to be cute.
To be balanced, I know the '96 and later Pontiac Sunfire had a silly grin up front, too.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
But how often does something break that is catastrophically expensive?
In my last three vehicles, the only things that have broken/worn out have been mechanical (drive axles, exhaust, suspension) - nothing related to complex components.
Among the five most popular Edmunds forums right now, is one called "Nissan Pathfinder Transmission Problems". It's apparently about '05-10 Pathfinder trans and radiator issues. In about thirty seconds of looking, one post is "I'm out six grand".
That's the kind of thing I'm talking about, although I haven't experienced any expense of that magnitude myself.
Nope but they're not complex items to replace and don't need to be serviced like rear diffs had to. Further, I replaced drive axles at 100K + miles. Cars from the 70's wouldn't see 100K without many more repairs.
With cars that didn't go extinct, the companies just stopped making replacement parts, or most dealers discarded them. Nobody wanted to "save" a '79 Lincoln because there was going to be an '80 Lincoln.
So unless you are fortunate enough to benefit from NOS parts, or a lively aftermarket manufacturing network, you're often hard up to find parts for older cars. You can probably build an entire Mustang or Chevelle from a catalog but try and find Lincoln door panels.
My 1980 Malibu needed two new rear axles around the 79,000 mark, when it was about 8 years old. I remember they were something like $145 apiece, plus the labor to put them in.
And, awhile back, I asked my Mom what prompted her to trade in Grandmom and Granddad's old '68 Impala on her new '75 LeMans...did she just want a new car, or was something wrong with it? She said that the rear end was starting to go. Now, I dunno if that was just the center carrier with the gears needed replacing, the axles, or what. Her uncle, who worked at a transmission shop, informed her of the problem.
As for more modern cars? Well, I don't know all the details, but one of my friends has a co-worker who bought some used car, I think a 2007 GM something-or other, and over the course of 3 months, it needed $9,000 in repairs. Part of it was engine and transmission problems, I think. Well, she traded it, for something like $2,000, and I think bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee or something like that.
I've tried to get my friend to get the details, because I'm curious as to what car could need that much in repairs in such rapid succession. But, he knows very little about cars, and apparently his friend knows even less. And at this point, I think it's a sore spot to bring up in conversation.
All of a sudden, the ~$3300 that my 2000 Park Ave has cost me over the past 8 months doesn't seem so bad!
Actually, a lot of people DID want to save a '79 Lincoln, and precisely because of the 1980 Lincoln that was destined to appear. As word got out that those big mastodons were going to be downsized, and the end of an era was approaching, people did start holding onto them. As a result, it seems like '77-79 Lincolns, and '77-78 New Yorkers, have a fairly good survival rate today.
I think what happened is once GM downsized their big cars, while they were immensely popular, there were still an awful lot of people who wanted something that was old-school big. The result was that these mastodons saw a bit of a resurgence in sales, and with the GM cars downsized, there were fewer to choose from. And, in those days, wherever GM went, everyone else followed, so buyers knew it was only a matter of time before the Ford and Mopar products got downsized as well.
Of course, Ford, Chrysler, and GM wanted people to buy their new products, so they were still going to discontinue parts after awhile
Seems like '77-78 LTDs and Grand Marquises hung on for awhile as well. But, being cheaper cars than the Chryslers and Lincolns, I guess they simply got used up and discarded over time. The last mastodons that Dodge and Plymouth put out were the '77 Royal Monaco and Gran Fury. Most of those were police cars and taxis, so they got used up fairly fast. And those that were sold as civilian cars, the majority probably fell into taxi duty as they were bought up as used cars.
Once word got out that GM was downsizing their cars, some of the big '76 models saw a surge in sales as people rushed out to snatch up the last of the big ones. I believe the '76 Electra and Ninety-Eight in particular benefited from this, even though the '77 models would go on to sell even better.
With GM, it happened again in 1985, once everybody knew the LeSabre, Delta 88, and Toro/Riv/Eldo/Seville were being shrunk for '86. In fact, my grandparents even jumped on that bandwagon. There was a guy at our church who had an early 80's Electra coupe that my grandparents really liked. But when they went to look at them and found out it had been downsized and converted to FWD, I think Granddad said something along the lines of "well dammit, we better get a LeSabre quick, before they @*$& up that one, too!"
Of course, in the overall scheme of things, I don't think it means much for value. But it does mean that, since a lot of people bought these final big cars and held onto them, and took care of them, nice, low mileage examples to crop up fairly often these days.
It's easy to just keep what you have---there is no additional outlay of money or labor.
Not always...remember, these are 70's cars we're talking about. They'll break down and need money poured into them even under the most loving conditions! :P
But yeah, I understand what you're saying...anybody who wants one of these things is most likely going to seek out the nicest example they can find, rather than some beater that needs a total restoration.
So that explains why my '79 New Yorker waited until I was in front of a tractor trailer to stall out one time, and a speeding Fed-Ex truck just yesterday! Damn thing's trying to kill me!
As an experiment I tried to drive the thing to work every day this past week. I got it back from the mechanic the previous week. He replaced the starter, played around with some wires and such, but then asked me for approval, before getting really deep into it. So I told him I'd pick it up, see how it behaved, and take it from there.
On the plus side, the car now starts every single time in the morning. Not always on the first try, but about par for the course for a 70's car. And, every time it has stalled out on me, it's always started right back up on the first try....so that has to count for something, right? It also hasn't left me stranded at work. That used to be the big thing. I'd drive it to work and it would be just fine, but then come quitting time, I'd come out and it would turn over but refuse to fire up. So I'd get a ride home, bring another car to work the next day, try out the NYer, and it would fire up on the first try. Drive it home, get a ride back to work.
That got old after awhile. And the last time it left me stranded, I broke my cell phone trying to get it re-started. Had it in my front pocket, leaned over too far into the engine bay, and cracked the screen.
And, the stalling out is still a bit random. It always gets iffy when I first put it into drive, but if I feather the gas pedal just right, I can keep it running. The other day I had to slam on the brakes when somebody stopped suddenly in front of me, and surprisingly, it didn't cut out on me. Usually sudden stops or fast turns at slow speed are where it's troublesome.
This is never a car I'm going to restore to get to primo show quality. If I wanted that, I'd just go and pay for the nicest R-body in existence. But I do want to keep it running, at least. And, with having a somewhat rough one, I figure if it ever does get totaled, I'd cry less over it than if it was some #1 condition example.
I think it's interesting to note, that with Studebaker's many divisions, only the Automotive Sales Division closed. They had authorized dealers and Parts Depots, run by Studebaker out of South Bend, until summer 1972. I found out at the Stude Museum that after my hometown dealer friend shut down in Dec. '68, the Chrysler-Plymouth-AMC dealer immediately picked up the factory Stude parts and service franchise through '72.
The current mechanic said he'd look into it, if I was interested. Supposedly, to do the conversion away from Lean Burn, you don't even have to replace the intake manifold. You do have to drill a hole in it though, to run a vacuum advance, as the Lean Burn's advance was electronic.
The car really is a contradiction in many respects right now. While it will sometimes stall out when stopped at a traffic light, I'm convinced that, given enough distance, it would idle itself up to 40-50 mph without even touching the gas pedal.
If I wanted to turn this thing into a daily driver, and intended to keep it a long time, it might be worth it to do the conversion. And, I'm sort of leaning that route. There's someone who wants to buy my '85 Silverado, and a friend of mine is interested in my Park Ave. I figured if I got rid of the two, I could probably depend on my 2012 Ram and the remaining old cars for most of my driving needs. The only iffy situation is that I usually go into DC every weekend, and often parking can be a problem. Not so bad with the Park Ave, but the older cars, I worry about. They're bigger, plus I don't want to subject them to that kind of city abuse. And the Ram is something like 231" long, sits up high, and is very hard to parallel park. Even my uncle, who drives big trucks for a living, hates driving my Ram. To be fair though, people who drive dump trucks usually don't take them to the shopping mall, have to parallel park them, etc.
But, to solve that problem, my uncle said that, if I sold the Park Ave, I could use his '03 Corolla to take into DC, and he'd drive my Ram on the weekends.
Did you find a girlfriend and it's now jealous? Did she almost choke to death eating a hamburger at the local drive-in as the interior lights suddenly grew bright? Did a bunch of your enemies suddenly end up dead with dark blue paint chips embedded in their carcasses? :P
If it's done right, the car should run like you were driving someone else's! :P
My grandpa held onto his big old 70s Chrysler well into the 80s - longer than he owned any other car, and my parents kept the big T-Bird for a long time too - and even when it died, my dad initially didn't want to part with it. End of an era for some people.
Also, by the time I get just to the Metro station, I'm already half way to DC!
some of those Metro lots and garages overnight even if I was certain it wouldn't be towed.
Some public garages, in Bethesda, for example, allow you to leave your car without charge during weekends, beginning at 10:00 pm. If you park your car earlier than that, just make sure the meter is loaded until 10:00 pm Friday, and you don't have to worry about it until Monday morning. I did that a couple of times, when I traveled to New York for the weekend. Those garages are well lit all the time, and nothing happened.
The public garages near Metro stations out your way may have different rules on weekends than Bethesda's.
No doubt, but my point was that if someone is writing an article, don't wing it, particularly on a fairly major point. Someone WILL call BS!
But of course, once something is in print it becomes fact forever. LOL
Chevy Chase Chevrolet became Chevy Chase Acura a few years ago, and more recently Chevy Chase Nissan was added. There's no longer a Chevy dealer in Chevy Chase, MD.
It was a buttery crème color, and looked like it was in great shape. Haven't seen in around before.
That makes me a little nostalgic. i owned a '81 Rabbit Diesel (although not a pickup). It was the most honest car I ever had; noisy on the road, sounded like a can full of ball bearings when cold, and couldn't have pulled the cork out of a champagne bottle, but it ran like a champion and got 40-45 mpg. I lent it to my stepson who half killed it trying to get it to accelerate. I finally sold it to a co-worker who was retiring and moving to Baja California with her husband. Apparently diesel fuel is next door to free there. Last I heard, they were happy as gophers in soft earth with it, partially because it had A/C that worked (although you pretty much had to choose between A/C and acceleration; with the A/C on all that matting the accelerator could do is make it stop slowing down). There are times when I still miss that car.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Those VWs have a cult behind them, I see a few now and then around here.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])