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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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And This thing. I even had my camera with me, and snapped a couple:
A Vega Nomad? What the heck is this?
It's for sale...condition unknown apart from the pics...owner wants $400 for it.
I rather like the style of those little Kammback wagons, pity about the execution.
Was in SW Michigan early this week and saw a few different vehicles. Right off I-196 I saw a whole nest of old VW air cooled pickups including split windsheild models. I also saw a TR-3 in Bangor, MI. There was a Merkur Scorpio by the TR-3 and an XR4Ti a few miles further along, an odd double for the day. Was a day for doubles, saw a yellow VW thing (running!) in Minnesota (and a very dead Edsel) on the way to the airport and saw another Thing, also yellow, in South Haven, MI. There was a tired 240Z in that area also.
Also saw a yellow (big day for yellow) '55 Chevy 4-door wagon in Grand Rapids MI. Looked pretty good. That's the only year of '50's Chevy I really like.
Looks like I will see a bit more of SW Michigan, I was there for a job interview...and I nailed it!
Pretty excited, looks like a good opportunity in every way. There's Gingerman Raceway in SOuth Haven too, may have to watch some events or get the Miata out for a track lap night. :-)
Neat resto-rod. I like these, that look totally stock but have more practical mechanicals
Unusual Isetta, with a bit of demand
Really 70s Jensen Healey. There is a normal coupe one of these in my area, can't recall when I last saw this style
Another one for Shifty
Hmmm price seems a bit steep for the zero info present, and the photo which could be from a book. Fake bidder too, for sure
Peugeot 405 wagon has to be rare
110 fintail wagon, appears to be a Binz body. Super rare, pretty cool, and it will get bids
I wish this was in nicer shape. The velour is indeed extremely rare, and from what I know costs a fortune to replace
If a Universal is too common a fintail variant for you, try a hearse
Not really obscure per se...but this design is aging well...not bad for a 24 year old car
An EMW, which is what the Commies did with the old BMW works at Eisenach. Essentially a 1938 car built in 1955
This car is an unknown entity even at home...has to be a tad rarer in Switzerland. Looks to be in beautiful condition
Pretty and pricey little Alfa sedan
As for those '78-80 LeMans coupes, I always thought those would have been beautiful looking cars if it weren't for that ugly front-end! Looked like a Cutlass with a beak. I liked the way the beltline had a bit of a kick-up at the rear-quarter window, and the integrated, plastic-covered bumpers were ahead of their time, although that plastic would warp and distort with age, and a bump or two! I thought they looked really good in 1981 though, when the front end was slicked back a bit, and looked kind of like a '77-78 Trans Am.
On the subject of the LeMans, did Pontiac use that name in Canda for a few more years than they did in the U.S.? I found this link, to what they call an '83 Grand LeMans...http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/418572
Here in the U.S., that would have been called a Bonneville Brougham. For 1982, in the U.S., Pontiac dropped their big cars, and also ditched the LeMans and Catalina names, affixing the Bonneville moniker to what had been the LeMans sedan and wagon (coupes were dropped).
In Canada though, Pontiac kept a fuller lineup, than the U.S. did. In fact, around '77-79 they were running a Laurentian, Parisienne, Catalina, and Bonneville lineup, all concurrently! I know they kept building big cars up there after they did down here, which was how we got the Parisienne in mid-1983, as interest in big cars started to return in the U.S. I wonder if Canada continued to use "Bonneville", "Catalina", and "Laurentian" for a few more years, too?
I do know there was a rebadged Corsica sold as a Pontiac Tempest.
Also, I think I goofed, as far as Pontiac's lineup in the late 70's. I found a few old brochures online, one from '76 and one from '78. Here's the '76 main page: http://www.tocmp.com/brochures/1976Pontiac/index.html
and the '78: http://www.tocmp.com/brochures/Pontiac/1978/Canada/index.html
Looks like in '76, the lineup ran Laurentian/Catalina/Parisienne Brougham/Bonneville/Bonneville Brougham. Sounds kinda confusing to me, as I'd think the Parisienne Brougham and the Bonneville Brougham would compete too much with each other. Except that the Bonneville could be had with a 455 and the Parisienne couldn't, and the Bonneville 4-door was a hardtop.
In the '78 brochure, it looks like the lineup went Laurentian/Catalina/Parisienne/Parisienne Brougham. So I guess a Canadian Bonneville was considered a rare and special treat?
Also kinda interesting that they felt a need to have two low-line cars...both the Laurentian and the Catalina. I guess it's not too different than with Chevy, which kept the cheap Biscayne and Bel Air around for awhile, even though the Impala was really enough to fill that market, and from '76-85 it did, finally getting replaced by a base Caprice.
I think for a long time Pontiac had a lineup of different model names for Canada, which finally stopped in the late 80s. There was also the Pontiac Acadian, which started out as a Canadian style Nova, also offered as an Acadian Beaumont, which was a Canadian Chevelle, and ended up as the Canadian version of the Pontiac 1000 (?)/Chevette. Kind of a sad end, as the earlier cars were far superior.
What is with domestics killing the brand quality of their model names? It's something very liked by GM and Ford especially. I look at Honda and Toyota...their model names end up with equal or even better positions in the market over time. But the domestics don't do it. Look at Taurus...relegated to the bargain bin. Look what happened to Impala, Fairlane, Galaxie, etc. Stupid brand management IMO, kills long term image.
Today I saw a nice 68-69 Nova, a 58 Ford retractable, and a c.65 T-Bird convert with sequential signals...those are very cool.
re: Jensen-Healey: the 70s sportscar that can't get no respect. Still cheap, still unloved, and really, once you get the engine squared away by modern machining and lubricants, not a bad car. Pretty quick, too. I think it's the styling and the sterling Lotus reputation for reliability (turn on sarcasm detector NOW) that is holding this car back.
re: Rolls -- a chandelier bid if I ever saw one.
re: 110 wagon -- he's nearing retail. the car isn't that sharp.
re: Lloyd---oh, it's a Lloyd ALEXANDER--now that makes all the difference--LOL! Still, kinda cute. I'd bid on it if it were local. I need to round out my Lloyd collection.
Definately a "couldabeen" car. I think you hit the problems Shifty. Particularly the styling as real Loti seem to do alright in spite of their exquisite ownership experience. Of course one wonders what an Elan Sprint would command on the market if they were sturdy and easy to maintain.
Saw a remarkably clean AMC Pacer today, a runner at that, with little or no rust (in Minnesota!).
I realize it is hearasy but I actually do not mind the style of the first ones. Kinda' fresh and cute at the time. The later grill was nasty.
Feel free to toss veggies!
Off to Michigan for a house hunting trip tomorrow, should see something of note.
Also saw 4 BIG people in a little Nissan Platina at a rest stop on I-8. That one had Sonora plates on it...
Does a gold chain around your neck cause blindness or what?
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I wonder how hard it would be to do a sequential signal conversion.
regards,
kyfdx
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regards,
kyfdx
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Oddly I can't envision what it might have looked like in car form, nor can I resurrect what it may have been called as a U.S. car, so possibly kydfx is correct. Unless it was sold as a Sapporo. Just guessing at this point.
Remember the Omni O24 and the Horizon TC3? They were the sporty versions with completely different bodies. Now that my memory has been jogged, I'm pretty sure this is what the Rampage was based off of.
At first, I was thinking the Arrow, because it was rear-wheel drive. I think the Sapporo would have been much too expensive a car to work from. If I recall, they were in Honda Prelude territory, pricewise.
regards,
kyfdx
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I'm not sure what wheelbase the Rampage rode, but Omni-Rizons were on something like a 99.1" wb, and the TC-3/0-24 were on a shorter 96.6" wb. They didn't have any Mitsubishi input, but they did have some VW and Peugeot input! The first models had an enlarged VW SOHC 4-cyl that was 104.7 CID (1.7L?). later models used a smaller 97 CID engine that came from Puegeot, and eventually, they just gave up and made the 2.2 standard across the board. By that time though, the 2-door models may have been dropped.
One should buy it back and fix it themselves, if it is a total.
I see a demon relation occasionally. Someone took a gen 1 Voyager, and chopped the roof (behind the seats) off to form a pick up truck. They even fabricated a plywood bulkhead behind to front seats to sorta finish it off. Pretty nasty loking, but unique, and definitely homemade.
What's that saying about too many beers in the garage near the power tools?
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DeSoto also used the Seville nameplate in 1956, on the Firedome 2- and 4-door hardtops, but that time, it was on a value-line of stripper models that were a rung or two below a regular Firedome.
In '57-58, it was really easy to spot the Firesweeps, versus the "real" DeSotos like the Firedome and Adventurer, as the Firesweeps used Dodge fenders, chrome "browed" headlights, and grilles that jutted out a bit too far. In '59 though, they look much more closely related. The Firesweep is 4" shorter between the front wheel and front door than the bigger DeSotos, but with a car that big, it's still not that obvious!
The suspension components were also supposed to be very easy to upgrade for stunt work, compared to Ford and GM cars. I don't know why, exactly, but have been told this by several different people. Maybe it has something to do with the leaf springs and longitudinal torsion bars?
R-bodies were also popular as police cars during their run, anyway, so maybe there were just more of them around to smash up than police Chevies or Fords from that era? As I recall, the Chevy Impala did so poorly in testing for 1980 that the CHP disqualified it, on the spot!
I remember catching an episode of "The Golden Girls" once, where there was an exterior shot of a police station. It had both an R-body and a '79 Catalina police cruiser parked out in front! I wonder what jurisdiction the picture was taken in? I know they made them, but the only time I've seen a Pontiac police car was in the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies. Well, okay, a few years back, our county got some '94 or so Grand Prixes with 3.1's, but those don't count! ;-)
2 Alfa (164?) sedans!
Ferrari 308 GTS (Tom Selleck wannabe?)
Whole nest of Corvairs, both series, Converts., sedans, couple of vans, a wagon.
In other rear engined, air cooled mania, a pack of older VW's on the Ryan expressway in Chicago. Two older bugs with cloth sunroofs, a Karmann Ghia convert and an early "beak nosed" microbus.
On the nausea front a Maxima with a pimpy vinyl roof and two minutes later a CTS with the same. Also a first series Seville in Pepto-abysmal pink with collosal gold wires (Ooooooh!), straight from the mothership. Oh, almost forgot, a nasty racerized Sebring convertible.
Sure I'm missing some but those were some highlights.
Oh, a 2004 Viper (first I'd seen) and a CTS-V.
Various episodes of Naked City from '61-'62 are now available on DVD. They are a treasure trove of old car sightings from Volvo 544s to RR Phantom Vs, not to mention great slices of the nitty-gritty side of New York before it became Glitz City.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Weirdo time again:
Sadly neglected fintail isn't really rare per se, but the strange AC unit in the thing is odd
OLD OLD Hudson that looks like it just came off the assembly line
I can see the "micro" but I can't see the "car"
I posted a Simca like this before. This one is far superior, looks very cool
Dual Ghia
I could see Shifty in this. Appears to have Dutch (?) plates...who knows
But maybe this is better for him
Now this Adenauer is nice
I think this is neat and should be saved
Bond Equipe...strange proportioning
Brits got the Chevette too
Export model Chevy can't be common