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

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andre1969

thanks for the confirmation on that Dino. It turns out that the car my buddy really wants is just one of these...



Only name I've ever known these as is the Spyder. Seems like they were all over the place back when I was in high school and even my first year or so of college. Can't remember the last time I've seen one now, though.

kyfdx

In the later models, they dropped the 124 designation... That one looks like late '70s, early '80s?

I had a chance to buy a '71 back in '77 and passed it up... I still wish I had bought it.

regards,
kyfdx

stickguy

that would be the Fiat 124 Sport Spyder. There is one that I pass regualarly parked infront of a house (so it probably runs). Looks a little tired, and is painted a nasty beige color (reminds me of a '79 Malibu), with painted wheels and cheesy hub caps. Not the best way to present it.

The Dino is IMO a neat car (if a money pit). One was featured in the auction results section of the latest issue of Automobile magazine (I think an auction in Switzerland). Sold for about 38K IIRC, but looked really nice. Actually, you could role out that styling today and it wouldn't look out of place.

andys120

between the 124 Spider and the Dino Spider especially in the shapes of the windshield and the interior. That's hardly surprising since the 124 was introduced in '66, the Dino in '67.

I've always felt that if the 124 had the glorious swooping fenders of the Dino they'd have sold in the millions.

Only Maserati spells Spyder with a "Y". Ferrari, Alfa, Fiat and Lancia all spell it the same way we do with an "I" in the middle.

lemko

...account for the demise of MG. British Leyland decided to pour its resources into Triumph at the expense of MG. I have heard of a revival of MG but haven't seen any recent cars bearing the MG badge.

wimsey1

I always liked the 124 Spider myself, nearly bought one also, was just out of my price range, very nice to drive. I think the style was great just the way it was, aged very gracefully.

Lemko-there are some MG sedans marketed in europe now, kinda ugly stuff IMO.

The owner of the company I just started with has a '70's RR Silver Shadow and I just got a look at it today. White, seems to be in good shape.
Whaddayathink guys, will it appreciate or is it a dead end?

seminole_kev

I believe modern MG's are basically rebadged Rover's that are a little more "sporty". Not sure if they still sell the MGF (?) roadster that wasn't a Rover.

lemko

...warned me to stay far away from a 1986 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit that a man was selling for $26K. Does that apply to any 1970s Rolls as well? I'm not sure, but did the Silver Shadow debut in 1963 or 1965?

seminole_kev

Here are the websites for

Rover:
http://www3.mg-rover.com/rover_GB_en/static/index.html

MG:
http://www3.mg-rover.com/mg_GB_en/static/node199.html

andys120

It looks like the MG-F has been refreshed and relabeled "MG-TF". It seems to be the only true MG, the sedans being rebadged Rovers albeit w different engines. I believe one of the sedans can be had with the Ford 4.6 V8 under the hood.

andys120

awkwardly named MG-X Power that has a 32-Valve
5 liter V8. Could this be a DOHC version of the Ford 302? Or a bored/stroked 4.6?

Mr_Shiftright

RE: Rolls Royce.

Yep, lemko, you're right, the Silver Shadow goes from 1966-1976.

Any postwar WWII Rolls 4-door sedan with factory body (as opposed to coachbuilt bodies) is basically a losing proposition. While the 1940s Silver Wraiths are more valuable and might even appreciate as time goes on, the later Clouds and Shadows are beset with mechanical issues and are punishing in their repair and maintenance costs. And they aren't worth very much to begin with. There's just no upside. Old tech,mind-numbing complexity, lots of trouble, they are basically 1938 Buicks with much nicer seats and dashboard and another ton of metal. They suck gas like a whale eating krill, too. A routine brake job is $6,000! So a Shadow is definitely a dead end car. Getting one FREE wouldn't even work out financially I don't think. If you got one free, just drive it carefully and sell it when it stops running, which will be soon. I love to sit in them, though. The smell of the leather and wood is wonderful. I can see why people are so tempted to buy a cheap one. But the chances of a happy ending are remote.

FIAT 124: My personal favorite in this line is the fuel-injected Spider 2000, which I believe was available in 1980-81. The FI improved the overall driveability and reliability of the car. Be wary of the turbo model though. While it is more valuable and quite perky, working on it is miserable, and the heat and power from the turbo really seems to stress everything.

TR7-- I knew the British car industry was dead when I started reading recommendations that the best way to seal the head on a TR7 was to use three head gaskets on top of each other.

jrosasmc

Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious...I've heard that joke about the Lotus marque so many times.

On the other hand, Shifty, what would an early '70s Plymouth Barracuda be like as a daily driver? My friend/neighbor wants to purchase a '72 340 coupe to just tool around in during the remainder of the summer. He told me about it but I haven't seen the car in person yet.

Mr_Shiftright

Now you have some respect for Lotus, ya hear?
A Lotus may not run very long but properly set up it will give lots of grief on the race track to cars with 3X the horsepower.

Oh, a 340 Cuda' should be a pussycat. I mean it will have the typical over-boosted steering and marginal brakes of a 70s American car but the engine is not so ridiculously strong or ornery to actually kill you as a Hemi or a Wedge would be likely to do. Also I think Mopars handled better than a GM or Ford product of those days, but of course none of them are sports cars by any stretch.

Radial tires, beefy sway bars, good aftermarket shocks---there is help out there for 70s domestic iron.

Biggest difficulty will be watching the numbers flipping by at light speed on the digital gas pump. A 340 automatic in the city is going to cost you (in California) about .20 cents a mile to drive.

For a very nice 340 coupe he should be paying $12K-15K, and for a show car maybe around $20K. Gotta be careful not to get caught up in the current "muscle car craze" because unless you own a very rare car of limited production, these high prices are going to crash soon enough.

jrosasmc

But how come my other neighbor was able to sell his '70 Cuda 440 6-bbl for $51k?

andre1969

called "firm feel" power steering, which is what most police cars had. It gave better road feel, and you had to throw a bit more muscle into it than the typical turn-it-with-your-pinkie power steering.

I think it was pretty rare outside of police cars, but I'd imagine a musclecar would have a better chance of having it than the run-of-the-mill family car.

I'd imagine that GM and Ford had some rough equivalent to it, but I dunno what theirs was called.

andre1969

displacement can make all the diffeence in the world. A numbers-matching 440 6-pack is a rare, desireable car. A 340 is still a great performer, but much more common, and as a result is going to be closer to the slant-six and 318 models in pricing than the big-blocks.

Also, a 340, and the later 360 are awesome engines, and the Darts, A-body Barracudas, Dusters, and Demon/Sports that had them were some of the fastest cars around, but they were also lightweights compared to a 70's Barracuda/Challenger. These cars were actually based on the midsized Mopars, so they were heavier than a compact-based Camaro or Mustang.

Mr_Shiftright

They only made 1,992 Cuda 440 6-paks over the course of two years, so that's why. Still, that's a hell of a good price. It must have been some exquisite car for that money and well-documented.

"It has to be rare, and someone has to care".

wimsey1

Hoping to get to a Brit car show near Kalamazoo on Sunday-featured marque is Lotus. Should be fun.
I have always admired Chapmans engineering just to bad he didn't have a better detail clean up person.
Thanks for the thoughts on the Rolls, kinda what I expected.

Mr_Shiftright

Chapman was a very interesting man. Probably not too likeable, but brilliant.

I always liked the story about his first trip to the Indy 500. He watched the race and said something like: "These cars are monsters. I can build a car to beat them".

And by god he did--I think within two years. It was about 1/3 the size and was rear-engined, and that was the end of front-engine cars at Indy forever.

If you ever get a chance to see some vintage racing, watch a well-driven Lotus romp through the pack.

andys120

-A Saab 99 4-door, yeah you still see these in New England but not everyday. This one looked in fair shape, faded dark brown paint.

-TR-3A, top-down in shiny bright Red, obviously a repaint as I know from experience how fade prone Triumph's red was.

-Chevy pickup, ca.'50-'54(?), also in a shiny bright red repaint with one of those funky 50's style sun visors over the split-V windshield.

-A later Chevy K-10 p'up 4X4 from the late 70s (?) that wouldn't be noteworthy except it was glossy black with custom purple "shadowing" and matching purple spoked wheels. Nice truck, looking much better than it reads on the page.

Watching the short owner climb into this tall 4-by was worth a chuckle.

nolid5

Similar to this one



Does anyone have a guess?

tarik

I drive my all-original 340 'Cuda every day, and have no problems at all - but I live in SC and do rarely have to contend with ice and snow. Actually, even then the car behaves, as long as you let the carburetor shed its unwillingness to feed consistently until the engine warms up - and the tires better be near new. And boy, is that 340 enough to move the car, it is not considered the "little Hemi" for no reason...

Shifty's assessment For a very nice 340 coupe he should be paying $12K-15K, and for a show car maybe around $20K. sorta falls in between two categories. It does not quite hold true for the '72 models, yet the '70 and '71s (as your friend found out) will return more than that. Color combinations also determine to a great extend how well those cars do in a sale.

If a '72 is what your friend is contemplating, he will be able to score one for relatively little money, and as a daily driver it might just be enough to satisfy his needs. Switching from a healthy 440-6 to an emission-restricted '72 is, like, five steps down, though.

Mr_Shiftright

I'd guess a '72 340 would be worth about $3,000-$4,000 less, that's true.

When it comes to the value of domestic "muscle" cars, or even their pretenders, the more the HP the bigger the price.

andys120

Looks grat Tarik (I assume that's yours). Love the color, always have.

tarik

...hp and cui set the prices on muscle cars.

Thanks, Andy, the hue is called SC clueless green, heh (actually it's F4 iridiscent green). It's an all-original (numbers matching) a/t a/c car, green on green, born in 11/69. Maybe not the most sought-after combo, yet times were wild and colors were there to be used!

I could never get myself to painting her red or orange and swapping the interior for a black one, even though these changes could land a good sale. A car is only original once (even though mine has been repainted before), and that's the way it should stay. There's nothing wrong with changing options and colors as one wishes, but use a non-original car, ferkrissake...

andys120

I didn't spot the actual car but I did see it watching BBC Americas rerun of an original The Avengers episode. You can catch the lithe Elan roadster and it's even more lithe owner Emma Peel/Diana Rigg every Friday night at 8.

For P1800 Volvo fans Roger Moore's The Saint follows and the strange but intriguing
The Prisoner airs at 11.

tarik

...right next to a black Cadillac CTS-V the other day. Somehow imposing, but in an AMG or M5 kinda way. It looks slick - I liked it.

Second sighting this week, actually twice, the Dodge Magnum. Once in red, the second one in black - those are real lookers for the supporters of the hunkered-down hot rod stance.

ghulet

....it drives me nuts when someone takes an original (and valuable) car and completely bastardizes it by changing the engine, interior and paint to match what they like. Obviously it's their right, but if you want a red or black car, buy one that way. I really like some of the more strange period late '60s-early '70s colors (like your green, or some of the strange browns and golds). Weren't these called 'earth tones' back then?

fintail

That's a Vixen motorhome...I remember those being advertised in Automobile Magazine when I was about 9 years old.

I had about a 250 mile highway drive earlier today...not a ton caught my eye. Early Honda 600 going very very slow, 64 Nova SS hardtop, sad looking 65 Galaxie sedan, IROC Camaro convert, very clean shiny black W114 240D driven by a distinguished looking old man in a golfing cap and neck brace, and a showroom looking 450SEL in a strange light mint green - almost a whitish green that I have never seen before - sitting on immaculate bundt wheels and whitewall tires.

Mr_Shiftright

funny, I just saw a 450SL in that same green color. I rather like it, with a tan top.

I think it's fine for people to put different engines or disk brakes on an older car, but changing the color is a rather irreversible decision UNLESS you take that sucker down to bare metal inside, outside upside and underside...a rotisserie job, frame-off, every nut and bolt.

also, I'm more or less against chopping metal on old cars. Anything you want to BOLT ON, well fine.

Saw a nice 1947 Lincoln Continental V-12 that could be bought for $15,000. Pretty straight car, too and ran well. These aren't worth very much even though they are rare.

fintail

That color didn't look bad on the 116 either, but I am sure the condition of the car helped.

I am surprised those old Continentals go for so little compared to how upscale and elegant they were at the time. Most I see are projects, are they hard to restore?

Ebay time:

Nice little commuter car

Reserve is laughable, but not many of these around

Never heard of this fake...looks better than most

You don't see electric Dauphines every day

I've never seen one of these in person

Ambitious project

There was talk of Fiat Spyders earlier...here's a nice one

Little car for Shifty

"Does not currently run, but it did before storing" - yeah, like when it left the assembly line

Fiat 2100, I like these. I remember the pretty black one on ebay some time ago. I think that car was worth it

A nicer open ponton

A bit less than a new Impala, with a million times more appeal

Same here

Mr_Shiftright

STARCHIEF: He might make reserve. It is a four door, which is bad for business, but I did see a Starchief convertible sell for $75,000, so when that happens, the flashy models tend to pull up the "plain janes" or "plain johns" if we want to be PC. I think he'll get his price and a bit more.

Simca Etone: who cares?

FIAT 124: Yeah, but an AUTOMATIC, oh, god--that just about defeats the whole purpose. Well, all the seller needs is one Fiat-loving arthritic with a bad left knee.

Fiat 500: It is phrases like this that make me think of a Stephen King movie:

"the floorboards have been patch incorrectly and need to be redone, (OH, NO PROBLEM!) the battery box is rusted. A new battery box is included (WHY THANK YOU!). The engine and electrical is in good condition but the gas tank needs help. (ER...WHAT DOES THAT MEAN EXACTLY?)

Packard Woody: Lessee now...on the upside, for a totally 100% correct restored Packard Woody, if you sell it on a good day in an auction populated by drunk millionaires, you might get $60,000. Hmmm....risky and given what the car is, one might put all this money and energy into a drop-top instead, or a more popular and valuable Woody like a Ford or Chrysler Town and Country. Well, if someone gave you this car and you were an expert woodworker, welder and mechanic, then MAYBE.

FIAT 131: "this could be a restoration"????!! What are you nuts? Just go out and buy a nice one for $750 and be done with it. I think that fact that 4 days into the auction the bid is up to $102 rather says it all.

FIAT 2100: Okay, now stay with me here. The car is advertised as an "8 cylinder" with "automatic" and then he says:

"inline 6 need some body work but im all there i run but need some engine work the car was a charity donation. i probably need a clutch"

Okay, aside from needing engine work, body work and a clutch, is the car okay? LOL!!

64 IMPALA -- nasty color. Something about the car isn't right but I can't place it. All my internal alarm buttons are going off here.

andys120

Boy does that '65 look about a billion times better than the preceding '64 (or '63 for that matter)? Chevy styling was quite up and down in the '60-'65 era.

I saw a similar '65 or '66 Pontiac Bonneville HT the other day, it looked like new from a short distance, quite nice in tan metallic.

This AM, I got a glance of a '49-'52 Ford sedan that was a nice shiny black contrasting nicely w chrome accents, I also got a glimpse in a wrecking yard of a '58 Olds wagon. IMO those were about as ugly as any 50s cars but if you're looking for something that really looks Fifties this is it with two-tones, wraparound windshield and the most chrome ever applied to a motor vehicle.

I once rode in a '58 sedan with 8 other people, they were BIG!

fintail

I was out this morning and saw a fintail I have never seen before. It was a 220S "automatic" badged (=1965, end of production) with Alaska plates. It was dark gray, and the cool thing is that it had a set of 4 factory mudflaps. These are very rare and I have wanted a set for some time. I've never seen them before in person.

I mistyped...I meant the buy it now on that Pontiac was high. Not a bad looking car though.

That 64 Impala has the wrong engine and it is sitting wrong. I am partial to those cars...I really wanted a 64 Impala for my first car. Back about 1993, right before I got my license, there was a decent 64 SS for sale locally, red, 327/4 speed. The guy wanted $3500 for it, but my dad thought that was way too much and wouldn't touch it. Of course, it sold pretty fast anyway...nice job, dad. The decent 66 Galaxie I got for $1000 wasn't too bad though, save for mileage.

That 65 is a beautiful looking car, I love the colors. You could do a lot worse for the money, if you could get it for around 10 grand. Lovely car.

I suspect that 2100 is quite rusty underneath. When that immaculate one brought a mere $4000 on ebay a while back, you know there's no upside. An actual car that the fintail beats for such potential.

Here's a 'fixer upper' 58 Olds for ya

andys120

Can you image the expense of replating the chrome on that '58 Olds?
Then there's the tedium of insuring there's no rust in the myriad of mounting holes!

Mr_Shiftright

That Olds is rare--it has two motors! The famous Oldsmobile Bi-Motore 88. I knew it would turn up someday!

QUIZ TIME!

Quick, name two auto manufacturers, both still making cars today, that built cars (not trucks) with two motors. One company only raced the car, the other automaker actually sold it to the public. Both of these two-motor cars have living examples around today.

Hint: These automakers reside in countries with adjacent borders.

andys120

One of them was Alfa-Romeo, IIRC their Bimotore was a pure racing car, never sold for the street.

I remember a twin-engined VW Scirocco that had one engine in front driving the front and another where the rear seats should've been driving the rears but I doubt it was actually sold by VW so I'm stumped on the second.

ghulet

22 grand for a four-door SEDAN '58 Pontiac. Lord, those cars are attractive, and I realize the Bonnevilles are super pricey, but c'mon.

Shifty, funny you should mention 'alarm buttons' about that '64 Impala (it does have the first year tilt wheel option, fairly rare, I imagine), because I was thinking the same thing about the '65: right off the bat, I noticed lack of wheel well trim, incorrect later GM remote outside mirror, incorrect antenna, ill-fitting trim (left front turn signal bezel and rear bumper for starters) bondo-y looking lower RF fender and incorrect (year, I think they belong on a '66) hubcaps. Also, they mention 'factory air', which this car doesn't have (factory air cars have vents in the dash, this one has underdash dealer or aftermarket air). I'm also pretty sure 'real' Impala Super Sports have 'Impala SS' rather than 'Chevrolet' insignia on the grille, though I could be wrong. Kinda makes me think this car could be a fake, though for this particular year, regular Impalas aren't worth a whole lot less than the SS. Pick, pick, pick! Little things, I know, but since there are several obvious ones, it makes me wonder about the more major details. A very presentable car overall, but at $15k for a hardtop, I'd expect little better (there was a light yellow one on eBay last week that was ten times nicer than this blue one).

I can't believe anyone would even SUGGEST restoring a Fiat 131, let alone an automatic. They're completely worthless even in mint condition. My parents had an '80 Brava (a gussied up 131), which fortunately had a 5-speed and thus supposedly fun to drive when it ran, but was otherwise a miserable car.

Mr_Shiftright

A Fiat 131 would make a nice artificial reef for fish.(please remove all toxic materials prior to launch).

Two-Motor Cars: The other one I know of is a Citroen 2CV. They did it to achieve 4WD.

Here's a little info about it:

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.mv?file=car.mv&num=1870

fintail

You're right about the grille on that Impala, ghulet. I looked through some material, and the pics I saw say "Impala SS" on the grille as well. Maybe it's a fake. Things like that set off alarms for me too.

When I was younger there was a Fiat Brava wagon in my town, still in reasonably decent condition. I bet there's not many of those left.

ghulet

...it would be a bit strange (and fairly useless) to 'fake' a '65 Impala SS hardtop, since literally ~216,000 were built (highest production year). The only things that make the SS 'special' as opposed to any other Impala HT are the interior (buckets/console), minor exterior trim and hubcaps, and sometimes the engine/trans combination. The cool thing is, any engine/trans could be ordered for nearly any full-size Chevy, so ordering 'SS' wasn't necessary if you just wanted speed; of course, 'status' was a different thing altogether. Supposedly, only 282 409 engined cars were built for '65 (discontinued in favor of the new 396), so those are the cars to have.

OK, I checked the VIN, and according to my source, this is an 'actual 'SS', just with a weak restoration, IMO. Like I said, they made 216k hardtops alone, you'd think they could at least get a grille or at least the grille badges, the hubcaps, wheelwell trim and outside mirror (not unique to SS) from one. Yawn.

fintail

Some people see SS as real special, so that could make one want to take it. I am sure we've all seen a 90s Caprice tarted up to look like an Impala...there are at least 2 like that in my area, anyway. I'd have to now wonder about that car if such small and easy details like a grill badge and hubcaps are wrong.

Speaking of the 396...in about 1996, a Chevy dealer in a neighboring town had a 65 Caprice for sale. It was a 4 door hardtop, black and grey with a silver and black brocade interior. It had a 396 and just about every option I can think of. It had like 60K on it, but it was so nice, it looked like it could have been 6K...they even had it in their showroom. They wanted $6995 for it, which seemed really steep, but wouldn't have been awful for a clean highly optioned car, I guess.

wimsey1

Hit a brit car show at the Gilmore museum yesterday and stumbled on a car show in South Haven on Saturday. Saw a lot of great/odd stuff, will report it in a day or two when I have a moment and have sorted it all out.
Cheerio!

lemko

...a 1966 Plymouth Fury convertible. I'm sure there's not that many of them left compared to Ford Galaxies and Chevrolet Impalas of the same vintage.

ghulet

....actually, $7k for a really nice first year Caprice (which was actually a trim option for the Impala 4-door hardtop only, not a separate series) sounds pretty cheap these days, if it's loaded and in great shape.

andys120

Upon pulling into a local service Station I spotted what appeared to be a '58 Ford Ranchero, apparently in pretty fair shape 'tho hardly concours.

At least I was pretty sure it was a 1958 model based on the four headlights but walking around to the back I saw two large round '57 tailights, not the four small ones you'd see on the back of a '58 sedan or wagon.

I still still sure the four h/ls meant this car was a '58 so the pump jockey checked the reggies in the glovebox and said I was right, it was a '58.

Back in the 30s Ford Pickups were a year behind, a '34 P'up wore the fenders, grille and windshield of a '33 car. Could they have been doing something like this in the 50s with Rancheros, which like 1930s P'ups were cars with truck beds?

I'm pretty sure '58 Ford wagons had the full complement of (four)t/ls so they could easily have adapted the wagon tailgate for Ranchero duty.
Can anybody solve this little mystery?

bhill2

Yes, the '58 Ranchero did have the '57 back end. I haven't a clue why, because as you mention the wagons had the four tail lights.

fintail

These days, I think that Caprice would be a steal. Too bad I was 19 at the time, and with the fintail, didn't have 7 grand to ink into a gas guzzler. It really was nice, and I wonder what became of it. They had it for a few weeks, and I never saw it again.