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

berri

Good picture. And it is a great color combo for that car typical in this area.

...and I'll bet that MC doesn't have one of those darn black steering wheels and dash!

fintail

A handful of those vans were sold here around 1989-90, I think, I vaguely remember them. They are old enough for private import now, too - tons of Delica 4x4 have been seen on the roads in BC for the past decade.

Similar looking and even less common are the Nissan vans, mostly 1987-88 I think. I believe there was some kind of buyback on them, but a few escaped.

Forgot to note, saw an Alfa GTV on the road on a pretty (if not a bit rough) Druid Hils street this morning.

sda

I saw these today at the Charlotte New Car Auto Show. With the crowds and with them parked so close together I couldn't get good pictures. The '72 Cutlass is the same color combo that mom had, Nordic Blue. It had the CS script with the black vinyl roof just like this picture. I believe this is the same color, though in better shape than the '71 Monte Carlo fintail shared. I dig glass covers on the '65 Chrysler.

roadburner

Yes, the Chryslers of that vintage were slick.

ab348

I love the '65/'66 Chryslers.

tjc78

Saw this Pontiac out on RT 42 this morning

tjc78

uplanderguy

I like '65 Chrysler best of all Chryslers, too. I like how the New Yorkers that year had clear lenses and red bulbs; ahead of the curve on that.

I see an Avanti in the pic near the Chrysler. This weekend at the Muscle Car and Corvette Nationals in Chicago, they are having a pretty large Studebaker performance display, with supercharged Larks and Avantis, including an Avanti that ran at the Bonneville Studebaker record-setting runs in '63. One guy told me if I still had my white R1 (non-supercharged) Lark Daytona with sunroof, I may well have been invited to show it there, which is fun to think about.

That red Pontiac is a '65 Catalina or 2+2--my favorite year full-size Pontiac.

stickguy

brave man, taking that on 42.

I saw out around local roads a nice looking 57 Chevy wagon. 4 door. Teal with white roof/spears. Mag wheels, looked slightly raised in the back. Would have liked to see it up close.

and at the bagel store, a C3 vette convertible. Red, stick shift. top down. Not sure what year, but chrome bumper.

abnormally warm today, but going arctic tomorrow. So probably last day of the season a lot of these cars will be out and about.

fintail

My grandpa had a new 65 Chrysler, a more ordinary Newport rather than a fancy NYer 300 etc. I know it had a 383, per my uncle, but I don't know much else, as it was long gone many years before I was born. I know it was apparently a very reliable car, and was replaced by a green fuselage model that wasn't as reliable. My uncle says the instrument cluster was very cool for the time. A couple pics when it was a newer car (my grandfather was a devoted fisherman, I don't have any pics of it without a little boat on the roof, and it is Seattle after all):

ab348

Cool pics, Fin. My dad's cars had those roof racks on almost permanently, at least during the summer. He bought a new set in the late '60s or early '70s that were made out of stamped steel which at highway speeds made an eerie UFO or horror movie "whooooo" sort of sound which drove us nuts. Wrapping them with duct tape cured it.

berri

65/66 - practically everything looked good then

uplanderguy

I think that red was called "Spanish Red" and where I grew up, it seems I saw more that color than any other color. I like the color; sort-of a precursor to the later GM "Firethorn".

stever

Those look like Quick-and-Easy towers on the racks for the red car. They've been around forever and work great.

tjc78

@stickguy , yeah kind of stupid no doubt.

fintail

Funny thing about the roof rack pieces. I don't know what he did about hauling a boat afterwards - by the time I was a little kid, I think he just kept a little boat at the spot he most liked to go fishing. I haven't seen later cars with anything on the roof.

Mr_Shiftright

The weight rating for those racks is very small.

explorerx4

I may have posted this picture, a nice mid 60's Chrysler. On closer look, it may be a 300.

stever

Mr_Shiftright said:

The weight rating for those racks is very small.

Actually the gutters will fail before the racks.

Ask me how I know.

The consensus at NRS is that the Quick and Easy's are good for 400 to 500 pounds.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, that's pushin' it. I'd venture an opinion of 300 tops unless you get into hillbilly mathematics.

uplanderguy

That is a '65 300. Beautiful. That's the same color as the '65 Newport convertible with bench seat and factory 4-speed I saw for sale at Hershey last month.

fintail

Out on the road earlier, saw a Jeep Commando and a maybe 72-73 Cougar. Yep, back in the PNW.

sda

A '60 black Chevy Biscayne 4dr on a flat bed truck. Looked like a barn find and was just being hauled away. Rough looking, ie. dirty, but all intact. A white '01? Mitsubishi Diamante LS, clean. Its been a long time since I've seen one of those.

berri

Those six windows weren't as neat to me as the flattop, but still nice looking for the day.

sda

My dad's best friend bought one just like this, new. 440 six pack, 4sp, fiberglass lift off hood. Same color, wheels. I remember riding with dad and his friend just after he bought it. I was sitting in the back seat, no seat belt, of course, and he was pressing the pedal. What a rush! How things change--in '73 during the gas crunch he traded the Super Bee for a new Mazda (not rotary) station wagon with automatic and a/c. At least it was red.

http://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AAkB22T.img?h=373&w=624&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f

Like the red one, not a rotary but piston engine.

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/078_Mazda-RX3-Wagon-640x426.jpg

Mr_Shiftright

Oh yeah...wasn't that Mazda called the.....818 or something like that?

fintail

A Rotary Wagon (even badged as such) would be a cool and rare thing today.

Saw a couple 7 series Volvos today, still soldiering along in traffic.

Mr_Shiftright

You rarely see a rotary wagon anymore. They sold very few of them.

Michaell

I remember my dad looking at Mazdas in 1973, before he bought the Toyota Corona mom drove for about 8 years. Don't remember which models, might have been the RX-2 and RX-3.

When was the RX-4 introduced?

uplanderguy

In our little hometown, a kid who was a year ahead of me in school drove one his countrified, portly parents had bought new. He must've "sold" them on it. I remember getting a thrill ride in it once. It was fast. Didn't they have poor long-term durability?

fintail

A Rotary wagon survivor showed up on curbside classic - this would be something to find:

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curbside-classic-rotary-wagon/

Survival rate has to be minuscule. Pretty cool rig. I think there was also an RX-3 wagon sold here too, I swear I have seen one before.

ab348

Back in the late '60s I was a subscriber to Road Test magazine. If anyone remembers it, they tried to be "not beholden to manufacturers" and took no ads like Consumer Reports, but supported themselves through retail sales rather than memberships. I don't think it went very well because eventually they started to take advertisements and eventually went bust.

They were very high on the early Mazdas, and had a glowing review of the piston-engined version of the RX-3, the 818. Being the car-crazy but naive kid I was, I persuaded the parents to go look at one at our only Mazda dealer, which was in a facility that was not much bigger than a gas station. They were looking for a wagon and the dealer had a few, but they really failed to impress people who were coming out of full-size Detroit cars. Dad eventually bought 2 different Volvo 144s over the next few years which was as small as he was willing to go.

fintail

On the road this afternoon saw a decent original looking ~66 Sedan DeVille (I think) in that creamy yellow color that seems pretty common, keeping up with traffic, a very clean earlier 7 series Volvo turbo (pre composite lights), "Turbo" in script, maybe 1986, and a clean looking 84-85 Civic "wagovan" as I think they were called, not a 4WD.

fintail

On the way to holiday fun yesterday, I saw a ~73 Olds 88 4 door post moving down the road, definitely not a perfect car but still out there. It was kind of a yellowy beige color.

In the traffic grind after yesterdays's gorge-fest, spotted a no doubt modified Rabbit (with typical dopey jerk no-signal exit):

https://youtu.be/PBChQNAj78w

And an Aussie-built Capri:

https://youtu.be/JUVSbdNcXLk

Forgot to get a clip of the Olds before the camera overwrote it.

iluvmysephia1

Hey, fin, were you on I-5 or I-405 filming those clips above? HOV lanes?

fintail

Those were both on 167. HOV open to all after 7pm (and few seem to realize this).

iluvmysephia1

Those were both on 167. HOV open to all after 7pm (and few seem to realize this).

Oh, I spent most of my time in Snohomish and Skagit counties...down in the city I certainly spent some time being lost...no Google maps until lately. We sold our Burlington, WA, house in May of 2003 so I could begin my "post-Boeing" career in Allied Health. Began at a small college in Rolla, MO, in August of 2003.

fintail

Burlington to Boeing, although a nice straight shot, sounds like it could be a hellish commute. I don't like that straight stretch of I5 around Arlington - seems to bring out the stupid in people. This was south of the city, videos were in the Auburn/Kent area.

explorerx4

On the way back from getting bagels this morning, a black SSR.

fintail

Bellevue after dark - ~67 Mustang and an extremely nice Vanagon Westfalia.

explorerx4

You probably haven't seen one of these before.
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5865876222.html

Mr_Shiftright

A Suzuki Swift! Circa 2000???

aka Chevy Cruze, Subaru Justy (in some countries).

texases

Even smaller, right? 3 cyl. 550 cc engine?

Mr_Shiftright

1000 cc I think. It was also called the Cultus prior to being the Swift. This platform was used all over the world apparently in different forms and badges.

stever

'62 Chevy driven by four young guys in Demming, NM. The glass was so clean we wondered if the rear glass was missing. Nicely patinaed body otherwise.

fintail

On the usually boring streets of downtown Bellevue this evening, a couple of older guys in a 66 Toronado, and not more than a minute later, a mid 70s 911.

fintail

Saw a nice 68-69 El Camino this evening - it pulled right out into swift moving traffic and dawdled. I initially thought it was another clueless entitled eastside driver, but now I am thinking it is probably a cold blooded old car that will stall if you give it too much gas when cold. Maybe time to save the old girl for Sunday drives, not boomburb commutes.

stickguy

oh man, I love those El Caminos. I still want one. A 69 350 4 speed please. Blue with white stripes.

Mr_Shiftright

Drove this yesterday. The old girl still gets up and goes but you'd think for $85,000 they would get rid of the engine misfire. Also, way too tight for a 6-foot driver. Were people really smaller in 1967? This is a Series 1, 4.2 coupe.

ab348

Perhaps in the interest of originality they retained the misfire it had from the factory.