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

uplanderguy

Here's a short clip of "Hazel" at the show opening, in a '64 Galaxie 500XL convertible. She sure pulls out of the driveway pretty fast. Seems like every 500XL convertible I can remember was the red-on-red color scheme. I read that Shirley Booth was born in 1898!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqiJt_cdt10

fintail

Red on red suits that car well. I think I have seen one like that, too. When I was growing up, there were a couple of 63 XL convertibles in town - one was burgundy, and one was black. I remember my dad talked to the guy who had the burgundy one - he wouldn't sell it, but never drove it, it just sat under a carport. Several years later, it was gone, and I wondered if it was an estate. I saw the black one a couple years ago, at a yard sale, slumbering in the same spot for 20 years.

uplanderguy

My uncle in Arizona has a light blue '63 Galaxie 500 XL four-door hardtop--they only built that bodystyle on an XL in '63 and '64. I've seen pics but have never seen it in person. A friend of mine whose Dad sold Fords from '64-66 in Illinois feels the '63 and '64 big Fords were the best-built Fords of that era.

uplanderguy

Shirley Booth and Don DeFore were as good a comedy pairing as ever on sitcom TV, now that I think about it. His character was an attorney I think, and Hazel was this brassy maid who spoke like she was from Brooklyn and who didn't necessarily pick up on social cues, LOL.

stickguy

I’m amazed. They made a big show of putting on the lap belts before driving off.

fintail

In that same town, there was a white 64 XL 4 door HT, exactly like this:



It was very nice, and I remember it was once for sale - I think for 3-4K.

The west coast was a good place for old cars then, they were still everywhere.

uplanderguy

I can't say I'm a big fan of the cut of the rear door on those cars, but it's an unusual model for sure in XL form and I like the oddball stuff. I truly can't think of another domestic four-door that was available with buckets and console and floor shift automatic in that era, besides these cars and the Studebaker Cruiser.

fintail

The little notch at the C-pillar always caught my eye, a detail seen on Galaxie HT sedans for a few years prior, I guess starting with the 57 Fairlane. Looking into it, I guess an Impala "sport sedan" couldn't be had with a floor shift with buckets and console?

Speaking of the notch, I like the 60 Galaxie "Town Victoria", too - it's just a little weird in a way:



An Edsel variant would also be pretty cool:

Mr_Shiftright

kyfdx said:

A 911 is pretty good in the snow. A lot of weight over the drive wheels. Older ones have relatively skinny tires, too

A little down on ground clearance, though.

kyfdx

Mr_Shiftright said:

kyfdx said:

A 911 is pretty good in the snow. A lot of weight over the drive wheels. Older ones have relatively skinny tires, too

A little down on ground clearance, though.

Well. We were talking Seattle...

My RWD car does great on winter tires, until I start plowing with the front air dam.

uplanderguy

The first Chevy four-door sedan that could be had with buckets and console was the 1975 Nova LN. I remember years of brochures back then from Chevy, with "bucket seats (coupe only)" on the options page. In fact, the first GM sedan I recall at all that had buckets and console with floor shift was the '73 Cutlass Salon, and also the '73 Grand Am.

I find the '60 Edsel very interesting! I could love a hardtop coupe or convertible. Only 76 convertibles were built, and a friend and coworker, ten years older than me, would remind me how the dealer in his suburban hometown had a red one in his showroom back then.

ab348

Most '60s full-size Fords leave me cold, but I always liked the '60, the '64 and the '66. I too had heard the story that the '64 was the best-built Ford of that era. I always liked their styling and prefer it to the Chevy and Pontiac of that year.

fintail

I find the 60 Edsel interesting, too. The rear end is a little weird, but the front and sides are generally quite agreeable to me (ditch the skirts on that 4 door HT, though). I like the rear quarter stainless/aluminum rocker trim on higher spec 60 Fords, too.

The Ranger variant of the Starliner was pretty nice looking:

berri

Older ones have relatively skinny tires, too

I always thought the best cars in the snow were either heavy or stick shift with skinny tires.

kyfdx

berri said:

Older ones have relatively skinny tires, too

I always thought the best cars in the snow were either heavy or stick shift with skinny tires.

In the old days, a lot of weight over a small contact patch was the best way to get traction. Didn't do wonders for handling, though.

I'm a big fan of winter tires.. Even a "crappy" winter car can do wonders with the right rubber.

My '77 Cobra II had such bad traction, that I put studded snows on the rear. On dry roads, I was drifting, before that was even a thing...

berri

Growing up back in the 60's it was funny how a Chevy or Ford would throw its tail around in snow, while a Buick would plow right through. A big station wagon was usually a tank in snow.

fintail

Fintail isn't bad in the snow - not too heavy, tires aren't too wide, 2nd gear start without excess torque.

berri

2nd gear start is the way to go, if your tranny lets you do that. Some automatics don't, which I never understood.

kyfdx

Automatic?

omarman

Wonder if this wagon survived in a collection somewhere?

berri

I never really understood why Edsel and Desoto had those very short production runs at the end. You'd think they'd have saved a lot of money just closing it down before the next model year. Who knows?

Mr_Shiftright

I think that Edsel wagon was called a "Villager".

berri

Yes and then the name carried over to Mercury Comet wagons (maybe because Comet was supposed to originally be an Edsel compact brand).

fintail

For the final run cars, I suspect the designs were finalized around 1958, and maybe some parts were already in production long before the fall of 59. Perhaps some suits were hoping for a miracle, and thought a short run might attract buyers, and create demand for more.

It's amazing how much overlap there was between all Big 3 brands. Edsel and DeSoto just make it that much more insane.

berri

Another problem besides the significant '58 recession was that the individual brands began expanding their lineups and aggressively pricing. e.g. You could buy a Chrysler Newport for Desoto prices and for that matter a Newport priced close to top line Dodge and Plymouth models. Some say the only thing that kept Dodge around down the road was trucks. Ironically, or maybe not (no trucks), Plymouth bit the bullet instead. Another thing that seemed to work for Dodge is that it pursued the Pontiac strategy of performance to differentiate from cars like the Newport. Bunkie Knudsen ended up affecting all of the D3. He doesn't get the credit he deserves in the auto history books. btw He was another casualty of Henry the Deuce Ford's sometimes seemingly fragile ego and insecurity. There is a long list of those and most ended up hurting Ford down the road. Think guys like Iaccoca and Hal Sperlich besides Knudsen.

As for Edsel, the idea was to track Mercury upscale against Chrysler and Buick, while using Edsel to combat Olds and Pontiac. Then Lincoln would move up better against Cadillac. I think we've heard that logic much more recently in Detroit. Personally, I miss mid line brands, but I understand that Asia permanently changed that approach.

ab348

berri said:

As for Edsel, the idea was to track Mercury upscale against Chrysler and Buick, while using Edsel to combat Olds and Pontiac. Then Lincoln would move up better against Cadillac. I think we've heard that logic much more recently in Detroit. Personally, I miss mid line brands, but I understand that Asia permanently changed that approach.

All true, along with a lack of divisional discipline. When you have entry level brands coming up with models like the LTD and Caprice, it makes the medium-price segment an even smaller sandbox to play in. Though I must admit that to this day I have trouble thinking of them as anything other than low-line cars.

uplanderguy

All the mid-level discussion reminds me of an ad my hometown Chevrolet-Cadillac dealer ran at least once in the local paper. They had "CHEVROLET" and "CADILLAC" printed vertically in the ad, and in-between it said "There's really nothing in-between". Arguable, but their point was obvious! LOL

Ironically, probably a decade later they added Buick and Olds.

roadburner

I've always heard that the reason Chevrolet built the Caprice was because Chevrolet executives had to drive Chevrolets and they wanted something more luxurious than the Impala- and comparable to the more upscale GM division cars.

fintail

I always looked at an LTD or Caprice as just a trim level of Galaxie or Impala - as that's what they were when the names were introduced. The lack of discipline among execs who wanted a fancier car makes sense too - there wasn't much forethought. The market for that segment was only so big.

ab348

The first couple of years of the LTD, Caprice and especially the Plymouth VIP were very posh cars inside. Nicer than many Mercury, Chrysler, Olds and Buick models.

Mr_Shiftright

I remember Caprices with thick brocade upholstery. Seemed very old-fashioned, like grandma's chairs at home.

fintail

I remember looking at 65 Caprice that came up for sale when I was in my teens, It was a beautifully preserved low mileage 396 car, silver with a black brocade interior. Pretty fancy inside, an Impala on the outside.

Funny, I remember my great-grandma had brocade chairs in her living room.

berri

At least back in those days GM divisions used different engines, so if you bought a Buick you got a Buick specific engine. Of course that changed in the 70's.

ab348

fintail said:

I remember looking at 65 Caprice that came up for sale when I was in my teens, It was a beautifully preserved low mileage 396 car, silver with a black brocade interior. Pretty fancy inside, an Impala on the outside.

Funny, I remember my great-grandma had brocade chairs in her living room.

Brocade was quite common on '60s luxo-boats from Detroit. Then it was replaced by velour in the '70s, along with that neat knit nylon "panty cloth" Ford used for a number of years.

The first couple of years for the Caprice it had a unique 2-door roofline, which later trickled down to be used on the Impala as a Custom Coupe body style.

fintail

I remember the 2 door model, there was a red one in town. MY 66 was the first, I think.

This sedan was a 65, silver with a black top (vinyl?), black brocade which I think had silver accents. It was maybe a 50K mile car, and they wanted maybe 6K for it. A bargain no doubt, but I was a teenage student and 6K might as well have been 600K.

An interior material I remember well is plush 80s velour.

ab348 said:

Brocade was quite common on '60s luxo-boats from Detroit. Then it was replaced by velour in the '70s, along with that neat knit nylon "panty cloth" Ford used for a number of years.

The first couple of years for the Caprice it had a unique 2-door roofline, which later trickled down to be used on the Impala as a Custom Coupe body style.

uplanderguy

Sometimes the Caprice interior was frillier than, say, a Bonneville's.

There are a lot of times I'd prefer an Impala to a Caprice--simpler exterior trim, no skirts in the '70's, and tasteful and 'good enough' interior trim. I'd say that changed for me with the '77's.

berri

The Caprice and LTD back then were very nice, attractive cars. But I think an Olds or Buick had a nicer suspension and more sound deadening. For most it probably boiled down to which area they preferred.

berri

I always looked at an LTD or Caprice as just a trim level of Galaxie or Impala - as that's what they were when the names were introduced. The lack of discipline among execs who wanted a fancier car makes sense too - there wasn't much forethought. The market for that segment was only so big.

I think a couple of things may have played into this. At a corporate level, there was significant competition between the brand divisions and money allocations were often affected by the brand contribution to financials. That meant it paid to rob your neighbor sometimes. At the dealer level the brands competed with each other and sales volume often impacted incentive levels from Detroit, so a dealer wanted as wide a product line as possible. It also facilitated keeping customers when they upgraded. Kind of ironic though, because the GM (and others) marketing strategy was to keep buyers in the corporation, but move them up the model brand lines while doing so. What I'm trying to point out is that it may not have been a lack of discipline by execs as much as execs reacting to corporate operating decisions and realities at the top.

uplanderguy

My guess is that the Edsel club knows the fate of the last 1960 model (wagon). Luckily for buffs like me, the last regular-production South Bend Studebaker survives in NOS condition at the Studebaker National Museum; the last Studebaker car of all, with 19,000 miles, also survives in the museum, and the last Studebaker Avanti survives in the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum in Cleveland. The last Studebaker Hawk is in private hands. The last truck I'm pretty sure was a government sale so pretty sure it doesn't survive.

There are pics of assembly line workers online, in color, with the last '66 Studebaker. The company ordered no press photos of the last South Bend car, but a spy-shot of it was taken coming down the line, by a South Bend reporter at the NBC affiliate. The footage was shown on Huntley and Brinkley that night.

I'm sure I've told this story, but probably 15 years ago, I was in a nearby Friday's restaurant with a Studebaker National Museum sweatshirt on, and a handsome older guy came over to me and told me he was the guy who snuck in the plant the last day and took the pic with a small 'spy camera' the Chicago NBC affiliate had driven over to give them. He was pretty shocked I had heard that story but no actual person was ever identified. He didn't even know there was a Stude museum but said he did get back every once in awhile for Notre Dame games.

berri

There always has been a pretty strong connection between Chicago and Notre Dame

uplanderguy

Guy said the day before the last day, he offered an employee coming out ten bucks for his employee ID badge. He had a gone a few days without shaving and went in with the throng at the morning shift the last day, December 20, 1963.

He was working for the NBC affiliate in South Bend.

fintail

Fairly obscure (to put it lightly) car spotted just a couple miles from me

Mr_Shiftright

Man, I wouldn't even go near it with that karma attached.

fintail

Doesn't scare me, I am sure the surfaces have all been replaced more than once, from back in the day when everything was over-restored. The car didn't choose its owner, it isn't Christine

That being said, if something like that was to end up here, that's the neighborhood it would be in, and if I was to spend 10MM or so on cars, that's not how I would do it. Although it could be useful for a re-enactment of the underrated hilarious car chase scene from "Rat Race".

Mr_Shiftright

I"m not so sure. There is definitely a kinship between a type of car and the owner. The owner is extracting some feeling or emotion from it. But I guess there are people who collect human skulls and such.

fintail

It's not like the guy drove the car and enjoyed it and loved it. He rode in it, it was an appliance. It wouldn't scare me. I think simply driving a road-going locomotive like that beast would be more intimidating.

Mr_Shiftright

I wonder if it's the one that was in the Imperial Palace Collection in Las Vegas. The owner used to fill a room with [non-permissible content removed] regalia and throw [non-permissible content removed]-themed parties there. He got fined by the Nevada gaming commission for a whoppin' 1.5 million.

Another similar car was sold that turned out to be a phony, attribution to Hitler. That buyer was send bomb threats after spending a large sum on the fake.

So avoiding them altogether might not be a bad idea.

fintail

But the funny thing, there's always a buyer for something like that, a wealthy buyer begging to spend money. Maybe not avoiding, but selling at the right time. I suspect if it was one of Stalin's fake Packards, the superstition (and value) wouldn't be as strong.

For something like this, I'd be more concerned about the motivations of the buyer (like the Imperial Palace case) - put it in a museum. There are a number of cars with similar histories in European museums, without the whine.

Mr_Shiftright

But not with [non-permissible content removed] regalia on them, that's for sure.

No, I get it. Cars are also history. But some history requires somber reflection, not glorification.

The 100th anniversary of the end of WW I is coming up soon. Franz Ferdinand's 1910 Gräf & Stift is, I think, on display in Vienna. This is the double phaeton he was shot in.

There's some great stories about how this turned into a "death car" for anyone who ever owned it afterwards--all of it pretty much nonsense of course, but it does make for a great tale.

So if the owner of that Hitler car is struck down, do let us know.

ab348

Mr_Shiftright said:

There's some great stories about how this turned into a "death car" for anyone who ever owned it afterwards--all of it pretty much nonsense of course, but it does make for a great tale.

So if the owner of that Hitler car is struck down, do let us know.

Maybe it's a "death car" because the only people ever interested in buying it were old rich guys with one foot already in the grave and the other on a banana peel.