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

fintail

I wish states shared data, and one could actually figure survival rates. Some places, UK especially, keep lists of how many of a certain model are still registered.

andre1969

fintail said:

I wish states shared data, and one could actually figure survival rates. Some places, UK especially, keep lists of how many of a certain model are still registered.

Yeah, that would be cool, to be able to peruse data like that. One dumb statistic I remember, from when I was in the National DeSoto Club, when they put out their annual registry, was that the 1961 had the highest percentage of cars to original production. Something like 60 were listed in the registry, and I think they built 3,034 that final year. I guess there was some allure to having the end of the line.

Oh, I was out in Annapolis MD on Sunday with some friends, who aren't really into cars like I am. Still, one of them managed to spot a 1970 Chevelle SS hardtop coupe, before I did, so maybe I'm rubbing off on them. I had to tell them what the car was, though.

Mr_Shiftright

If the survival rate was that high, then yeah, those cars might have been coddled after purchase. Hard to say. The collector car market wasn't very big in 1961.

fintail

I think 1960 Edsels are also like that - there seem to be plenty of them around considering the low production numbers.

It gets tough for foreign cars, as one can often only find data for total production, which included worldwide distribution. You often don't know exactly how many were sold in your country.

andre1969 said:

Yeah, that would be cool, to be able to peruse data like that. One dumb statistic I remember, from when I was in the National DeSoto Club, when they put out their annual registry, was that the 1961 had the highest percentage of cars to original production. Something like 60 were listed in the registry, and I think they built 3,034 that final year. I guess there was some allure to having the end of the line.

andre1969

The survival rate is probably better than that. That was just the number of 1961 DeSotos that were listed in the annual club registry, owned by club members, as of 1988 or whenever. I want to say the most popular was the 1956, with about 200 registered. But out of roughly 110,000 produced, that only accounts for around 0.2% of them, rather than roughly 2% of the 1961 models.

Mr_Shiftright

You have to count anything not crushed or rotting away as a "survivor". So even if it's not on the road, say if it's stashed in someone's garage or barn and is intact, it's a survivor.

uplanderguy

1964 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawks are known in the Club to have a very high survival rate, out of 1,767 production count. The joke is there are more now than there were then. I do think people collected things they knew were to be the last, like '60 Edsels and '61 DeSotos. Out of 108 Studes built at South Bend the last day, 31 were Hawks, way more than the normal production mix of Hawks to Larks. One would suppose, too, that they were 'building out' as Hawks were gone at that point, compared to Larks continuing to be built in Hamilton, Ontario.

I have to chuckle when I hear what constitutes a low production number. 21,000 is indeed low for Ford, but that's a lot of units when you're talking Studebakers of the last decade or so of production. Of course I grew up in a Chevrolet culture, where in one year they built 1,000,000 Impalas (1965)--not even counting Biscaynes and Bel Airs, but just Impalas!

fintail

My first car, a 66 Galaxie 2 door HT, had a production run of 300K units or something like that - I forget the numbers, and don't have the book near me. Definitely not a rare car.

My 220SE fintail was in production from roughly September 1959 until summer 1965. About 66K units were built over the entire timeframe, for worldwide distribution. As they could rust with the best of them, and required maintenance, I wonder what the survival rate is - it can't be too high.

andre1969

The rarest car I ever owned was, believe it or not, my '89 Plymouth Gran Fury copcar. They only ran off 4985 Gran Furys that final year, and that includes private cars, taxis, and police cars. You'd think my Catalina or DeSoto would be pretty rare, but they ran off 10,033 '67 Catalina convertibles and 12,179 Firedome Sportsman hardtop coupes.

I guess my '69 Dodge Dart GT hardtop coupe was somewhat rare. They built 20,914, but my book doesn't break out hardtop coupe and convertible production. I can't imagine more than maybe 2,000 convertibles were built, though.

Oh, and Ford built about 198,000 Galaxie 500 hardtop coupes in 1966...so it was rare compared to an Impala, maybe!

stever

Not sure what this little guy was today.

stickguy

I would guess by far my rarest car was my 1975 Opel Manta. Only year with FI, and last year of the German Opels thru Buick. No idea how to find sales though!

ab348

Early 1960s Austin Mini, complete with sliding door windows. My brother had several in his younger days.

uplanderguy

Just for comparison, my '63 Lark Daytona Hardtop was one of 3,763 built and my '64 Daytona Hardtop was one of 2,414 built. Add Skytop and Avanti power to my '63 and it was one of fourteen '63 Studebakers so equipped. I know this myself as someone else had recorded all the serial numbers of '63 Larks with Avanti power, and my wife and I personally went through those 628 two-door sedan, two-door hardtop, and four-door sedan build sheets to record how many had the sunroof.

One of the rarest Chevy models I'm somewhat familiar with, is the '68 Chevelle Concours coupe. I've seen one in my life and have seen a few others on the internet. They're not mentioned in either the brochure, the big showroom album, or even most coffee-table Chevelle books I've seen. There is some discussion that a fire in the upholstery plant that made Malibu trim resulted in these Concours coupes being built with either Cutlass Supreme or Skylark Custom interior trim. The one I remember had the Cutlass Supreme's notchback front seat.

berri

I liked the looks of those Opel Manta's and would see a few on the street in the Chicago area back then, but don't recall seeing older ones as time went by, so not sure how they held up in the cold rust belt. But I didn't see them while stationed in the South. Don't know if that was just coincidence since I don't think they shipped those many of them to Buick dealers (and Chicago was a huge GM dominated market back then proportionately compared to much of the rest of the country). Never drove one, but a buddy had an Opel GT a few years earlier. Kind of a fun car.

stickguy

by the standards of the day, it was a fantastic handling car.

found one reference book online, that said they couldn't even come up with numbers because GM pulled Opel part way through the model year. They guesstimated maybe 15K total sales of all Opel Models, but that may have included carryover 1974s? In any case, they never sold big numbers, and at the end, barely at all.

my short experience, dealers had no clue what to do with them, before or after the sale.

kyfdx

stickguy said:

I would guess by far my rarest car was my 1975 Opel Manta. Only year with FI, and last year of the German Opels thru Buick. No idea how to find sales though!

An acquaintance won an Opel Manta in a raffle. It was a pretty nice car.

fintail

My rarest cars would be the C43 and E55. I don't think more than a few hundred C43 were brought each year for the 3 years they were sold, same for the old style E55 - I read there were something like 20 sold in the same color as mine. The fintail is pretty uncommon these days - fintails aren't insanely rare, but not many are 220SE.

The 60 Ford Country Sedan my dad had in the 90s is a real rarity - low survival rates. They probably made like 30000 of them, but there are almost none out there.

berri

Fin, that's spelled "tin worm". The rocker panels just couldn't take the rust belt.

kyfdx

My "rarest" car was a '67 BMW 2000CS. No idea how many, but going to guess that very, very few were imported to the US. (I bought it in 1985).

My current ride ('06 BMW 330Ci ZHP coupe) had a total US run of around 3000 for all three years it was available (2004-2006).

Also, had an '84 911 Carrera Targa. Not that many, I wouldn't think.

roadburner

According to the Jeremy Walton's 3 Series Enthusiast's Companion BMW sold 21,370 tis in the US from 1995 to 1999. The number of 1995 Club Sports sold is quoted at 200.

tjc78

I don't think I've owned a rare car.  If I had to guess since my 79 Continental was a Coupe that probably had the lowest production.    Heck, maybe my 09 Genesis had fairly low production numbers too.  

PF_Flyer

I never saw one of these car carriers on a train, but it would have been interesting. They shipped Vegas this way because they could fit 30 on a train carrier instead of 18, which cut the shipping costs. Now if you could find one of those train cars fully loaded that someone parked on a siding and forgot about, you'd have have an instance of the Vega having value

fintail

I'm sure that's it. I've heard Fords of that era were susceptible to heavy rust. Had the car not been in this mild climate, it probably would have been junked by 1970 like they were everywhere else.

berri said:

Fin, that's spelled "tin worm". The rocker panels just couldn't take the rust belt.

uplanderguy

Verti-Pac, those were called. Vegas were only built in one place, and that was Lordstown, OH, about 40 miles from where I live now, and about 40 miles from where I lived then, just on the other side. It is easy to forget that the Vega was the darling of all the car magazines then. It's funny, Cosworths and V8 rods are what seem to be on eBay the most, but when a clean, original non-Cosworth is on eBay, they frequently are bid to as much if not more than Cosworths! I could like a red, '75 or '76 GT Kammback, with the white side striping. It's cool to have something that no one else thinks lasted! LOL

Mr_Shiftright

More Targas than you'd think----over 19,000 produced from 84-86.

I'd say by American standards, anything under 10,000 is fairly rare. By European standards, perhaps anything under 1,000. It's rather arbitrary after all.

I once owned a Mazda RX-3 station wagon (loved that car), and to this day I've never seen another one. But perhaps the rarest car I had was a Peugeot 304 convertible...at least rare in the U.S.

kyfdx said:

My "rarest" car was a '67 BMW 2000CS. No idea how many, but going to guess that very, very few were imported to the US. (I bought it in 1985).

My current ride ('06 BMW 330Ci ZHP coupe) had a total US run of around 3000 for all three years it was available (2004-2006).

Also, had an '84 911 Carrera Targa. Not that many, I wouldn't think.

kyfdx

Mr_Shiftright said:

More Targas than you'd think----over 19,000 produced from 84-86.

I'd say by American standards, anything under 10,000 is fairly rare. By European standards, perhaps anything under 1,000. It's rather arbitrary after all.

I once owned a Mazda RX-3 station wagon (loved that car), and to this day I've never seen another one. But perhaps the rarest car I had was a Peugeot 304 convertible...at least rare in the U.S.

kyfdx said:

My "rarest" car was a '67 BMW 2000CS. No idea how many, but going to guess that very, very few were imported to the US. (I bought it in 1985).

My current ride ('06 BMW 330Ci ZHP coupe) had a total US run of around 3000 for all three years it was available (2004-2006).

Also, had an '84 911 Carrera Targa. Not that many, I wouldn't think.

Interesting... wonder how many of those were US bound? '84 was a new model, so I'm sure it was popular.. just thought the price might have kept the numbers down. (I bought mine used, 7 years later... still pricy).

Mr_Shiftright

For 1984 model year, 2,260 Porsche Targas came to the U.S.

kyfdx

Mr_Shiftright said:

For 1984 model year, 2,260 Porsche Targas came to the U.S.

Wow.. that's a lot!

sda

Fintail, here is a kindred spirit. I tried to capture the pictures, to no avail. It is listed in ListingAllCars website.





1963 MERCEDES-BENZ 190
- See more at: http://listingallcars.com/details/1963-Mercedes-Benz-190-Used/6865104219936592595?mode=photos#sthash.SOfsy0F6.dpuf

fintail

Looks like a nice car. Interesting that it is a lower line (4cyl, W110) car with leather - but it could be ordered. Great color for it, that pastel green is correct and suits the car well. Not cheap, but you couldn't turn a heap into that car for the money, and it would be a bargain at that price in Europe.

sda said:

Fintail, here is a kindred spirit. I tried to capture the pictures, to no avail. It is listed in ListingAllCars website.





1963 MERCEDES-BENZ 190
- See more at: http://listingallcars.com/details/1963-Mercedes-Benz-190-Used/6865104219936592595?mode=photos#sthash.SOfsy0F6.dpuf

fintail

Not a classic, but I saw a Lexus IS Sportcross today - those are almost a hens tooth.

kyfdx

fintail said:

Not a classic, but I saw a Lexus IS Sportcross today - those are almost a hens tooth.

Kid up the street has one... Only regret is that they only came in automatic. It's still a pretty cool looking car, even over a decade later.

stickguy

I loved the sportcross version. I test drove the sedan and it was great, but too tight. the hatch, perfect. But no stick except in the 4 door.

Mr_Shiftright

I went to look at a 1959 Mercedes 220S "Ponton" for a gentleman back East. Not a bad car, but being the carb model, not the SE, it was cold-blooded on start-up. Paint was average at best, with chips and a few light body dings. Chassis underneath unrestored. Interior wood not bad at all. Upholstery incorrect but nice. Ran pretty well down the road, very solid, although the steering was way too loose. Had some floor patches in the footwells, pretty well done for a patch. I called the car "average", a 20-footer.

Pontons are getting hard to find, and when you do, most are really trash. I suspect to find a really nice one, all restored, with solid underpinnings, excellent chrome and interior, etc, would put you in the $25K category. Which means that whoever restored it, took a bath.

fintail

Just like a fintail, spend 40K to get 20K if you're committed enough to get into a restoration.

Mr_Shiftright said:

I went to look at a 1959 Mercedes 220S "Ponton" for a gentleman back East. Not a bad car, but being the carb model, not the SE, it was cold-blooded on start-up. Paint was average at best, with chips and a few light body dings. Chassis underneath unrestored. Interior wood not bad at all. Upholstery incorrect but nice. Ran pretty well down the road, very solid, although the steering was way too loose. Had some floor patches in the footwells, pretty well done for a patch. I called the car "average", a 20-footer.

Pontons are getting hard to find, and when you do, most are really trash. I suspect to find a really nice one, all restored, with solid underpinnings, excellent chrome and interior, etc, would put you in the $25K category. Which means that whoever restored it, took a bath.

imidazol97

tjc78 said:

I don't think I've owned a rare car.

I wonder how rare my 1970 Mustang Grande was? 13581 is a fairly large number so not so rare.

1979 Mustang Pace Car 4-cylinder turbo? 5970 sold. So that was a fairly rare car.
http://www.mustangspecs.com/specialty/79pace.shtml

roadburner

My first car was a 1970 Grande equipped with the 351W 2V. I pretty much demolished it.

Mr_Shiftright

Sometimes it's good to remember that a lot of cars were "rare" because nobody wanted them in the first place. Now that could be because of price, or it could be because they were just mediocre cars.

fintail

Saw an XLR today, attempt #3 from other makers to compete with the SL.

Regarding Mustangs, my dad had a 1970 when I was born. It was a small engine model, I don't think it was a Grande. I've been told the transmission started acting up around the time I was a few years old, and he let the car go (by that time it was over 10 years old, and cars wore out faster then I guess). Next car: Horizon.

stever

One for @fintail:



And one for me:

stickguy

Back in the day when Toyota still had some quirky Japanese styling and engineering going on.

stever

I guess the SAD shaft was a bit quirky but those Previas really got miled up.

fintail

I think the Previas also had sketchy crash test results, but they look cool. And a supercharged AWD future pod van? Now we just get aggressive silly faces and dumb slogans.

I will guess the W123 has 278K miles on it.

explorerx4

I hate those Previa's. Got in a big accident with one once.
Saw a rare sight tonight. MGB with the top down, in December!?

iluvmysephia1

MGB with the top down, in December!?



Nice. But in Dec.?

stickguy

it's so warm in the NE right now, why not? Supposed to push 70 in Philly the next 3 days. I know my moonroof will be wide open when I take the car out!

tjc78

80s day!  
Toyota Corrolla not sure of the year, guessing 85ish
86-87 Monte SS looked nice
Showroom looking black 88 Town car Signature

Not Classic obviously but obscure enough was a white Skyline with the loudest exhaust I've ever heard on a modern car. 

Mr_Shiftright

That's generally how vintage British car owners are. My experience has been that they are not fair weather drivers.

explorerx4 said:

I hate those Previa's. Got in a big accident with one once.
Saw a rare sight tonight. MGB with the top down, in December!?

stever

Porsche 1600. Kirstie got the shot while we chatted the owner up. He drove it out to LA from Atlanta; too cool to lower the top much though.

imidazol97

stever said:

Porsche 1600. Kirstie got the shot while we chatted the owner up. He drove it out to LA from Atlanta; too cool to lower the top much though.

And people complain about the low window height on the Camaro affecting visibility?