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

stever

I don't think of Previas as being "sharp" - more of the lozenge flavor. But I think I know the van(s) you are thinking about. Really more of a utility van with passenger amenities added, than a "true" minivan.

fintail

Sharp angles, probably one of these, the "TownAce" in ROW, sold in the US from MY 1984-89, replaced by the Previa for MY 1991.

(the pic amused me)

Tons of these were sold in the PNW, I still see them now and then. They even made a 4x4 model. When I was in grade school, a teacher had a full camper conversion model, a really rare bird even then.

jwm40517

In about 1987, two friends and I drove one of those Toyota vans from East KY to Miami FL nonstop with a complete but apart 409 Chevy engine behind the driver seat. Glad we did not hit something.
The one thing I remember about it was that it idled in really hot weather with a/c on for over an hour and temp gauge hardly moved. American v-8's of that era probably would not do that.

fintail

Those vans were well built if used in areas without the propensity for rust. High build quality, but also probably a vehicle where the front passengers are the crumple zone.

Sightings today - brown MB W113, Brady Bunch era Mopar wagon - couldn't tell what it was as it was on an interstate with a high divider - and earlier I was walking alongside a road and heard something that sounded big coming from behind me - I was amazed to see a 46-48 (I guess) Lincoln Continental cabrio, black with white top, pass by.

texases

Saw a 'Li'l Red Truck" yesterday, always got a kick out of the exhausts:

robr2

I parked next to a pristine 1991 560 SEL in a medium blue. Spoke with the owner who said it's all original. He was transferred to Boston from San Jose last fall. He used to drive it 3-4 days a week out there. He freaked out and put it in storage this past winter and was very happy about that decision.

ab348

Today I visited a restoration shop about 90 minutes out of town. My buddy was using them to redo the seats on his '71 4-4-2 project and I decided to have them redo the front seat of my '68 Cutlass. We pulled the seat in short order, secured it in the bed of his Ford Ranger and ventured forth on one of the nicest days we have had here in months.

The shop is located in the woods outside of a smallish town. The main building is a large well-equipped building with several areas inside including lift areas, paint booths and general work area. In the basement of another building is the upholstery and trim shop. The business started out there and gradually expanded to one of full restoration and customization. The owner is a very nice fellow, a bit of a perfectionist, who has great talent.

What this brought home to me today was just how much money people are willing to spend on their toys. There is a '54 Chevy convertible there, a resto-mod, that has 2000 hours into it so far and is nowhere near done. There is a '58 Impala hardtop there that he figures will top $100K before it leaves, not including the original cost of the car. A Jag XK-120 is there in pieces - he couldn't even begin to tell us what that will turn out to be. Saddest story of the bunch was a '55 Chevy 2-door post that someone bought for $20K believing it to be a solid car that turned out to be a rust bucket. That is turning out to be a multi-year project as the owner's budget allows.

This is not a "production" shop. They do things right, and the owner does not allow stuff to be covered up with lots of filler. If something needs metalwork, they fabricate what is needed. It makes you look askance at the shows on TV where cars are "restored" in a week or two.

The work they did on my buddy's interior was beautiful so my little project should be a piece of cake. I should be getting a call in a couple of weeks. New carpets are going in in the interim.

fintail

Good call on keeping the 560 SEL out of the elements - they don't seem to rot out too bad structurally, but they have typical rust nest areas - rockers, wheelarches, areas under front and rear windshield. 91 is a final run car and one of the better years - they will have dual airbags.

Saw a W124 300CE today, I had to think not just how good they look, but how much better they look than most modern cars. No false pretense.

Michaell

fintail said:

Good call on keeping the 560 SEL out of the elements - they don't seem to rot out too bad structurally, but they have typical rust nest areas - rockers, wheelarches, areas under front and rear windshield. 91 is a final run car and one of the better years - they will have dual airbags. Saw a W124 300CE today, I had to think not just how good they look, but how much better they look than most modern cars. No false pretense.

Those 300CE coupes stickered for something like $75,000 new, correct?

stickguy

out driving around last weekend, a 2-tone blue over silver Plymouth Prowler. haven't seen one of them in ages.

and on a flatbed in I295, a 50s something Chevy PU.

fintail

The cabrios did - the coupes were in the 50s, I think. The cabrios were insanely expensive.

Michaell said:

<
Those 300CE coupes stickered for something like $75,000 new, correct?

fintail

Some oddities out in the rain this afternoon - 3x MB W123, XJS cabrio, 86-89 Integra 2 door, definitely not restored Mk1 GTI, 70s Beetle, decent looking earlier Lexus SC, early 90s Cavalier Z24.

uplanderguy

Sorry for the lack of details, but in beautiful and somewhat-remote Oxford, Ohio last weekend, where our older daughter attends Miami University and our younger daughter will attend this fall, I saw a truck with late-model cars on it, but on top was a creamy yellow M-B convertible--I'd guess a '50's but it still had the separate front fenders like a prewar car, and it appeared to be a two-seater, although that may have been the way the convertible top looked to my eyes. I've seen them before but not in a long time.

fintail

I assume it was like one of these - these are both postwar cars:

uplanderguy

It was very-much like your top pic.

andre1969

I know it's not the same car, but that top one, because of the color, makes me think of the one in "North By Northwest."

"Oh, Roger! You didn't borrow Laura's Mehr-ceh-dehs?!"

uplanderguy

I love 'North by Northwest'.

I've probably mentioned this before, but my 86-year old friend who with his Dad was our town's Studebaker-Packard-Mercedes Benz dealer, still says it MURR-si-deez.

andre1969

Around these parts, I've seen nesting hawks, buzzards, sparrows, robins, etc. Never saw a nesting falcon though, until today...

uplanderguy

Good one. Let me know if you see a Lark or Hawk.

Mr_Shiftright

I think we identified that one as an Aussie Falcon, back in the "Mystery Car" topic.

fintail

That's an early 50s 220 cabrio, healthy values these days, easy 6 figure car in good condition.

uplanderguy said:

It was very-much like your top pic.

fintail

A car like the one in North by Northwest is actually in the lower pic - it's in the middle of the group, the white car, a 220S/SE cabrio.

Now that I look, it appears the car in the top pic is in that lineup too, at the end, beside what appears to be an Adenauer convertible.

andre1969 said:

I know it's not the same car, but that top one, because of the color, makes me think of the one in "North By Northwest."

"Oh, Roger! You didn't borrow Laura's Mehr-ceh-dehs?!"

andre1969

Mr_Shiftright said:

I think we identified that one as an Aussie Falcon, back in the "Mystery Car" topic.

Oh, yup...I didn't even notice that the steering wheel was on the "wrong" side. Something about the type of tree that it was in, though, made me think it wasn't of the United States. One of the secretaries at work sent this to me, with part of the message saying something like "I'm only sending this message to my older friends, because younger people may have never seen a Falcon in the wild such as this" and then you actually had to click a link to see the pic. As I'm reading that "older friends" part, I was thinking geeze lady, thanks a lot!

andre1969

This is kinda cool...I don't think I've seen a Plymouth Fury on a movie poster since "Christine" way back in 1983...

explorerx4

I had a '70 Sport Fury that same color with houndstooth pattern vinyl roof.
Are there 2 girls kissing in the back seat of that car?

stever

Not according to the spoiler. Although the blonde's movie name is Jay.

andre1969

Y'know, it does look a bit like two girls in that pic. But, it was a guy and a girl. And, what went on in that '75 Gran Fury's back seat was just a tad bit more PG-13 than that!

I am kinda curious as to where they found that particular car, though. A '75 Gran Fury was pretty rare to begin with, and they made a whopping 11,292 examples of that Custom 4-door hardtop. It looked like it was in really good shape, too, so somebody appreciated it enough to have taken really good care of it. I wonder if it belonged to someone associated with the movie. The director of the movie was inspired by "Halloween" and "The Evil Dead". IIRC, the guy who did the original Evil Dead put his own '73 Delta 88 in it, and made sure a '73 Delta was in every sequel (although the remake a few years back had a '74).

fintail

Spotted a Volvo 122/Amazon wagon with California black plates today. Also a BMW E23, a car I now associate most with George McFly.

berri

I thought the 75 Grand Fury was a handsome car, along with it's fellow Dodge and Chrysler. I also liked it's little sibling, the 75 Fury.

stickguy

fintail said:

Spotted a Volvo 122/Amazon wagon with California black plates today. Also a BMW E23, a car I now associate most with George McFly.

Did it get the 2nd coat of wax?

fintail

https://youtu.be/bqIaElSw8Iw

stickguy said:

Did it get the 2nd coat of wax?

omarman

stever said:

Not according to the spoiler. Although the blonde's movie name is Jay.

Ha! That is funny. I don't know anything about the movie except that it's a horror story. So maybe the producers liked the "Fury" model name as a sign of things to come later in the story. If they were shopping for 1975 era cars I guess they could have used a VW Scirocco if they could actually find one.

And then I looked back at the poster image to see the blonde named "Jay." I wonder what kind of buzz the movie might get with rumors that the blonde could be Martha MacCallum and maybe the other was Rachel Maddow? Probably wouldn't sell any tickets like that!

andre1969

I was surprised they dug out a car as old as that '75 Gran Fury for this movie, as it was set in modern times, rather than being a period piece. The Fury also wasn't all that prominent in the movie, so I thought it was interesting that they put it on the poster.

There was also a light blue '87-90 Caprice wagon that made a few appearances in the movie. It had some slight body damage, but in some scenes looked a bit worse off than others, and in one close-up of the front, it was an '86. Guess they had a backup car or two, in case one of them broke down or wouldn't start.

omarman

andre1969 said:

I was surprised they dug out a car as old as that '75 Gran Fury for this movie, as it was set in modern times, rather than being a period piece. The Fury also wasn't all that prominent in the movie, so I thought it was interesting that they put it on the poster.

Maybe the Gran Fury was featured in the poster simply to allude to the most famous Plymouth Fury in movie history? First came "Christine" and then "It Follows"! Movie posters are like book jacket designs...trying to draw as much interest as possible in a visual with a limited amount of space.

When the movie Bullit was first released, I'd never heard of it but saw the movie poster in front of the old Cinema on the Nerk Courthouse square and bought a ticket right then. No car graphics on the poster that I saw, just McQueen looking like the coolest guy in the universe with a shoulder gun belt. But after seeing that Mustang/Charger chase, I sat through the whole movie twice just to see that part again!

robr2

"It Follows" takes place in an unspecified time. From an article I read it notes:

clothing is from the 70's or 80's
the characters watch a B&W TV with a 13 channel dial
a character has a clam shell book reader that looks like nothing ever offered
a character calls her Mom on a cell phone
they use corded phones

I watched the trailer and every car was from the 70's or 80's. In the opening of the trailer, the girl has Polaroids tucked in her mirror.

Just found another article where the writer/director said he wanted the timeframe to be ambiguous. The film is based on a recurring dream he had as a child and he wanted to create the effect of a dream, to place it outside of time where people wonder where they are.

andre1969

Interesting...I didn't realize they were trying to be vague about the timeframe. I did notice a lot of older, mostly Domestic cars, but I just figured that was because it was filmed in Detroit!

There were a few newer cars, though. At the beginning of the movie, a frantic, distraught girl hops into a fairly new small import...like a Versa or something similar. She drives out to the beach and then calls her father on a cell phone. In another scene, a fairly new F-150 backs out of a driveway and in front of the Caprice wagon. There's also a Malibu parked in front of Jaye's house, a sandstone color, but I can't remember if it was a '97-03 or '04-07.

I did notice some things like the clothes, the portable tv sitting on top of the bigger tv, etc, but I just thought that was because they were poor, working class people! Hope that doesn't make me sound like a trust fund baby. Heck, I'll confess I can remember as a kid we had a 25" console tv that didn't work, and a portable black and white sitting on top of it!

fintail

Saw a few things out on a beautiful warm spring day today - Porsche 356, ~66 Chevelle, 55 T-Bird, ~51 Buick 2 door sedan, Prowler, ~62 Comet, 450 SLC and C140 S600.

I was in Seattle this morning, while on foot, within 10 minutes of each other, I spotted these - first:

- 1966 (I guess) Datsun 411 SSS wagon, obviously upgraded and cared for, old time Florida plates.

Then I randomly turn a corner and happen upon this:



Toyota Sera, probably 1990 - those are gullwing doors. As time has finally moved along to a point where archaic 25 year private import regulations allow in some cool odd cars, things like this will pop up here and there. I've seen an E30 Touring on the road in my area.

andre1969

yesterday in Wheaton, MD, I spotted a late 70's Opel Kadette in a driveway. Didn't get a chance to take a pic of it, but Google Maps is definitely your friend. Found it on the street view today and took this screen capture...


Looked like it was in really good shape, so somebody apparently cherishes it.

roadburner

andre1969 said:

yesterday in Wheaton, MD, I spotted a late 70's Opel Kadette in a driveway. Didn't get a chance to take a pic of it, but Google Maps is definitely your friend. Found it on the street view today and took this screen capture...


Looked like it was in really good shape, so somebody apparently cherishes it.

Yes, at the time GM thought that real Opels were too expensive to sell well in the US, so they introduced the "Opel by Isuzu"- kind of like "Cadillac by Daewoo."

stickguy

Looks tiny next to that accord

robr2

Here's tiny:

fintail

Funny, as we eventually got "Cadillac by Opel", which came after "Cadillac by Chevrolet".

That little Kadett is a rare survivor. I still see an Isuzu badged 4 door model around here now and then.

roadburner said:

<

Yes, at the time GM thought that real Opels were too expensive to sell well in the US, so they introduced the "Opel by Isuzu"- kind of like "Cadillac by Daewoo."

uplanderguy

I gotta believe that Rabbit pickup picture has been doctored.

robr2

It must be but let's compare:

Dimension VW Tundra Delta
Height 56.25" 76.4" 20"
Width 64.5" 79.9" 15.4"
Length 171.5" 247.8" 76.3"

andre1969

I'm convinced there's some kind of trick photography going on there. For one thing, that's an F-250 at the right of the pic...shouldn't that thing dwarf the Tundra? I think there's a bit of forced perspective with the position of the trucks and the camera, and maybe a little stretching at the edges of the pic.

kyfdx

Definitely photoshopped..

ab348

Read the article in Collectible Automobile last night about the 1950s Mercedes-Benz Adenauers. I remember seeing a few of those locally years ago but haven't seen one in the flesh in ages, and I never even knew they made them in a coupe, which was very handsome indeed. There was even a picture of a custom-bodied station wagon version found in New York City. They were quite advanced for Euro cars of the 1950s with automatic transmissions (albeit the heavy and inefficient BW autobox), air conditioning and power steering available. The last versions built were what we would consider 4-door hardtops. Fascinating cars - I wonder how they drove? The article was sadly short on any sense of that.

Mr_Shiftright

Nope, no Adenauer coupes. Only 4 door sedans, 4d limos and 4 door cabriolets (quite rare). Weight about 4000 lbs, HP around 115, 0-60 maybe 18 seconds. Slow and rock solid steady. The cabriolets can bring big money in the 6 figures, the other ones are pretty hard to unload, unless historically linked to someone, because they are viewed as formidable money pits. So maybe $40K for a restored one, hardly worth doing.

fintail

I'm pretty sure the 300S/Sc coupes and cabrios are considered Adenauers, they are on the same chassis.





These bring home the point about values Shifty mentions - a 2 door car will cost as much to restore as a 4 door, but values are stupendously higher - these cars are the secondmost valuable postwar MBs aside from the 300SL. A 300Sc cabrio has to be worth an amazing amount of money today, at least 100 billion dollars, given the rise in SL prices.

I don't know how they drove, but they were very modern even with their traditional looks. The hardtop models had FI, too.

Mr_Shiftright

The Adenauer Club does not consider the coupes as such, and most books I've read exclude them from that listing. They are all model 300s though.