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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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Where Pontiac lost it though, in my opinion, was the details. I never liked the front-end treatment on the '55-56, where it looks like the tops of the front fenders are peeled back, and the headlights a little too jutting. The '57 is a lot more chromey and heavy-handed in some respects, I guess, but for me, the style works, and I find it appealing. The only thing I don't like about the '58 is, again, the headlights. They seem too far forward in relation to the grille, and a bit bulging and swollen.
As for the X-frame, it was my understanding that with X-frame cars, they actually did beef up the body structure, to account for the lack of side rails. Interestingly, Pontiac/Chevy and Cadillac used an X-frame for '58, but Olds never used it. I don't think Buick did for '58, either. And, Pontiac went to a perimeter frame starting in '61, so maybe their designers knew something? Oddly, Buick held onto the X-frame, in the Riviera, through 1970!
I know that '59 Impala versus '09 Malibu head on collision that NHTSA did a few years back went down in infamy, but I have a feeling that a Pontiac, Buick, or Cadillac that was X-framed would have fared better. A 4-door '59 Impala V-8 had a base weight of 3620 lb, while a 4-door '59 Catalina (standard V-8) had a base weight of 3955 lb. The Catalina was bigger, but not *that* much bigger. And while a 389 V-8 sounds huge compared to a 283, the Chevy unit was always considered to be quite heavy for its size. It always got credit for having low reciprocating mass, but historians conveniently forget that, for overall weight, it was actually a bit of a porker. I'd imagine that a '59 Catalina had some beefing up, compared to a '59 Impala.
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The wide Pontiac theme works with the flat top/vista roof anyway.
At a traffic light, I was able to get ahead of it, and get it in the mirror...
And a MB beside you too, looks like a W212 E-class.
I've always liked the 61-62 GM A-pillar.
Chevy was working on a 6 nipple theme in '61.
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It seemed like it was in decent shape, for the age. It wasn't ultra-shiny and didn't "pop" like a brand new one would have, but it was also a bit dirty/dusty. With the 2019's already in some showrooms, it could be a 33 model year old car at this point. And heck, didn't that design first come out in 1979? Yet, it doesn't look "old".
For perspective, my '57 DeSoto was 34 model years old, as the '91's were just coming out...and it looked like an old car at the time..not just "old", but more like "from a galaxy far, far away". Actually, even the 1980 Malibu my Mom gave me when I started driving, in early 1987, seemed "old" at the time. But, by that time the Taurus was out and it pretty much made everything seem old. In some ways, even the 1982 Celebrity made my Mom's Malibu feel old...at least, at the time. Now that time has gone by, and cars have advanced well beyond those, they don't seem so far apart, anymore.
It's interesting how perspective can change, over time. I used to work with a guy, who's since retired, who asked me which of my two cars was older...my LeMans or my New Yorker. I told him the LeMans was a '76 and the New Yorker a '79, and he thought that was odd...to him, the New Yorker looked older! But, back in 1979, just about any new car on the market would have made a 1976 LeMans seem "old". At least, that's how they seemed at the time. My Mom had a '75, and as soon as stuff like the '77 GM big cars started becoming common occurences on the streets, it suddenly seemed outdated. And I can still remember when Mom bought the '80 Malibu...at the time, it made the LeMans seem downright ancient!.
When I was a bit younger, I noticed that cars are aging differently as time moves on. I remember in 1996, I took a road trip in my uncle's reasonably nice 1986 Taurus. I remember thinking this is a 10 year old car, but it doesn't look or feel that old. I thought to myself that had I taken a similar trip in 1986, in a 1976 car like a Granada, it would have felt like a much older car. Design evolution is much more gradual since the late 80s, and maybe the last big shocks were the downsized angular cars of the late 70s, and the aero of the 80s. I have to imagine my mom's big T-Bird really felt like a bit of a dinosaur by 1985, when it suffered some kind of malady, and was retired. Even when I was a little kid, I could tell my dad's Horizon was more modern. Today, 10 year old cars generally don't look old to me at all, but part of it might be that I am getting older, too
First, this bustleback Seville was residing in the driveway at a place one of my friends is renting a room at...
I don't know the year or the engine, and neither does my friend. But, as soon as I showed an interest, he perked up and was like "want me to find out!?" I told him no...just curious about the car, I definitely DON'T want to buy it! It's kind of sad to see this car, which probably had a purchase price that would inflation-adust to a cool $60K or more today, just sitting there, rotting away, becoming a driveway ornament. But, truth be told, same thing is happening to the house. This model is called the "Country Clubber", and once upon a time, was the most prestigious home offered in Bel Air at Bowie, Md, back in the early 60's. The house, alas, is aging like the car.
Oh, and speaking of houses, I'm in the process of buying another one. I went through a walk-through today, with the seller, with her asking if there was anything on the property I'd have an interest in, so she didn't have to haul it away. Well, this was one of her lawn ornaments...
It's a 1970 Cougar, that was a parts car for a 1969 they had. And, don't worry...it's already been spoken for, and I have no interest in it! Plus, I need the space for my own non-running cars!
I wonder if the stylists at Mopar realized that was going to be the way of the future? They seemed to move them down a bit with Chrysler and DeSoto, although they also made the grilles taller, and the hoods didn't come down as far, so that made them a bit more flat-faced. And Imperial moved them pretty much all the way down, although it left a bit of a gap above.
Oddly, Ford seemed to embrace that trend with the Edsel in '59, but not the Ford and Mercury. Ironic the the brand doomed to failure would be the trendsetter. Mcrcury and Ford sure caught up for '60, though. And the '61 Lincoln probably looked downright futuristic when it was new.
But, I wonder if an 18 year old, for example, would pick up on the differences, see my Dad's '03 Regal, and think it's "ancient"? One thing that might tip them off is all tech that's common these days. Nav systems, touch screens, the sophiticated sound systems, and so on. Heck, my old man's Regal still has a tape player! Oddly, no CD. I figured they would've been pretty much standard by 2003, but apparently not. My '00 Park Ave had a tape player and CD, but it was a high-end car in those days. My '00 Intrepid just had a tape player standard, but I had the dealer throw in a 12 disc CD changer, with remote control...seemed pretty futuristic, back in November 1999...
Hmm...did she have anything else from the 70s dressing up the place?
I wonder though, if it might have been a situation where the studio bought the hearse, and kept it on hand and used it for a variety of roles and tv shows, whenever a script called for one? I know movie studios, even with big budget movies, will cut corners to save costs whenever they can.
For instance, in the 1974 movie "Earthquake", most of the cars that get smashed up were older, like 5-6 years old, if not more. But, I remember them having a '74 Caprice that had damage...and that would have been a brand-new car at the time, so it seemed a bit out of place, seeing that one. But, according to the IMCDB, there was a Six Million Dollar Man episode around the same time that used a '74 Caprice, same color, and it got banged up pretty good. So, they might have still had that on hand, and used it as a prop.
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So, I'll keep the current place for a bit, at least...at least until I can get a new garage built, plus, start going through stuff, to downsize. It's actually a bigger house than what I have. However, my uncle will probably end up coming to live with me. He's living in my deceased Grandmother's house, and we have a lot of crap to go trhough in that house, as well. Her house has been in the family since 1950, and mine has been in the family since 1916. The property has actually been in the family since before the Civil War (sometimes to be a jerk I'll call it "The War of Northern Aggression"...but people tend to get more offended by that, as time goes by), but the current structure just dates back to 1916. Still, throw in a bit of Depression-era hoarding mentality, that I inherited a bit of from my grandparents, and it adds up to an awful lot of stuff!
One thing that's a bit sad, though, is that when I do finally sell, there's a good chance my house and garage will simply be torn down, and the property subdivided. It's 4.28 acres, and can be subdivided, so there's a lot of value in that. The house is old, needs work, and is really close to the road. When we do finally pull up our roots and sell, the old saying "you can never go home again" will really ring true.
Our neighbors went through a similar thing when they sold, back in 2000. Property had been in the family since probably the 1920's. The husband was into classic cars, and was probably a big factor on getting me into them. He helped me with some stuff on my '57 DeSoto, and helped me repaint my '69 and '68 Darts. I remember the wife saying she would feel "wealthy" when she finally had a paved driveway and a red Cadillac. Well, they had some land down in Southern Maryland and, in the late 90's had a house built on it. WITH a paved driveway. And, she got her red Cadillac...a 2000-2005 generation...I still call it "DeVille", but by then it might have been "DTS"?
Anyway, once they ended up selling the place up here, the husband said he never wanted to see the area again. I guess it changed so much over his life, that it burned him. In a lot of respects, this area has taken a turn for the worse...increased crime, low-income housing, crowding, traffic, and so on. The icing on the cake was probably in 1995, when a 17 year old girl named Julie Ferguson was murdered, and her body was dumped about 500 feet up the road from my house. And that murder, as far as I know, was never solved.
I remember I rented a Regal back in 2011, pretty nice car, and I remember I got a compliment on it from a random stranger.
Good luck with the house. I can kind of live vicariously through people living in less insane markets, but then again, maybe not having access to land and a large garage is a good thing, last thing I need is my own junkyard.
XJ6 too, you gotta rescue that one.
I always thought the styling of the Regal then was pretty good, as it had a hunkered-down look to it and a good overall stance and design. I remember not long after I got it I was leaving the office at lunch one day when a group of ladies that worked there were coming back in, and one of them commented on it by saying to me "I like your car, it looks like it just wants to put its arms around you and give you a hug", which I took as a compliment coming from her (she was quite attractive and fun).
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As for the 57 Mopars, Virgil Exner led the design on everything from 1954 into 1962, when he took the fall for screwed up mahogany row decisions. He was involved with the early postwar Studebakers too, which are always credited to Raymond Loewy. Very creative, but I think also restless designer.
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Last year I took a drive looking for it and it was totally changed. Not only was our old place gone but so was the little private road that gave access, along with most of the forest. In its place was a late 1970s subdivision layout filled with split-level bungalows on a couple of different streets. I suppose from a boat on the lake I could have spotted our old property but not from land. It made me really sad to see.
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As luck would have it, I have pics from that trip on this machine, here's my rental: