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

xwesx

Mr_Shiftright said:

Pretty pricey, though.

No doubt! If you must have one, gently used is the way to go. These things depreciate faster than a rock sinks, so it isn't hard to justify a little pre-owned patina for one of these.

fintail

I was going to add that. Maybe motorhomes are like cars - new ones are much more logical in design and easier to live with, but none have the style of those 70s GMCs - 40+ years later, they still look futuristic.

For obscure cars, I remember I saw a pristine Expo LRV in Nowheresville Indiana yesterday - to have survived in the land of rust and neglect, it must be grandma's baby Sunday driver. There was a first gen Intrepid parked at the A-C-D museum, with WA plates - long drive in that. Saw a 59 El Camino somewhere in Ohio this morning. Otherwise, not much on the road older than 20 years, and I have noticed certain things are skilled rusters. 90s Dodge trucks and pre-08 or so GM trucks seem to be dissolving fast. Early Ford Focus look like Swiss cheese, and Econolines don't fare any better. I saw a sketchy looking Sprinter though, but those are known rusters. I've seen lots of Honda clearcoat fail, too.

Here's another Volo car, this has a fun paint scheme:

xwesx

fintail said:

I was going to add that. Maybe motorhomes are like cars - new ones are much more logical in design and easier to live with, but none have the style of those 70s GMCs - 40+ years later, they still look futuristic.

For obscure cars, I remember I saw a pristine Expo LRV in Nowheresville Indiana yesterday - to have survived in the land of rust and neglect, it must be grandma's baby Sunday driver. There was a first gen Intrepid parked at the A-C-D museum, with WA plates - long drive in that. Saw a 59 El Camino somewhere in Ohio this morning. Otherwise, not much on the road older than 20 years, and I have noticed certain things are skilled rusters. 90s Dodge trucks and pre-08 or so GM trucks seem to be dissolving fast. Early Ford Focus look like Swiss cheese, and Econolines don't fare any better. I saw a sketchy looking Sprinter though, but those are known rusters. I've seen lots of Honda clearcoat fail, too.

I noted that many years ago (1999): Once I crossed the Mississippi river, my truck was pretty much the oldest vehicle on the road by a good twenty-year margin. There was the occasional 80s swiss cheese, but even those were rare sights.

stickguy

Nice. I would love to have a S/C Rambler like that (aka Scrambler).

uplanderguy

I accidentally came across this car while looking at something else today online. I remember us discussing this very car here a few years back when it was on eBay. My memory is that it was bid into the 20's, or that his asking price was in the 20's, and it did not sell, and the general consensus here was that the seller was crazy.

I really like the car...rare, bone-stock, desirable options, paperwork and history from new, one-family ownership. Googling the sale price, supposedly it sold for $130,000 in August at Mecum:

https://www.mecum.com/lots/CA0818-336398/1964-chevrolet-chevelle-300/

Friends of my parents had a six-cylinder version of this car but in light blue metallic, and had a '60 Lark VIII at the same time. I remember kidding the husband about the Lark, and him saying "That Lark will run rings around the Chevy".

That Chevelle is a nice-sized car and looks clean all these years later, which to me shows that simple styling usually ages the best. MHO only.

'64 Chevelle two-door wagon production, six and V8, only 2,710. That's Studebaker numbers, LOL.

stickguy

nice. I like that one.

ab348

I'd say the owner sold at the top of the market. Interesting car, though how desirable it is could be debatable.

uplanderguy

Certainly unusual, and that ranks high in my book. I'd say with that winning bid, at least a couple guys really wanted it!

4-speed. Funny to think that for the first half of the '64 model year, a 220 hp 283 (which is what this wagon has) was as big as you could get in a Chevelle.

benjaminh

Did we already find out what happened with the Mercedes bought by @isellhondas ?

andre1969

On the subject of motorhomes, one of the most space-efficient designs I remember seeing was actually a 1974 Travco 220 that I almost bought back in 2000, when I was on a vintage motorhome kick. I have never seen a motorhome that small, that had its own private bedroom. Heck, I don't think they even make Class-A motorhomes that small anymore. These days, it's hard to even find a Class-C (van-based, mini-motorhome) that short, and I think the rigs that short are pretty much relegated to heavily-modified vans, which tend to run on the narrow side.

One compromise it made though, was that the front passenger seat was reversible, and doubled as one of the seats for the dinette.

Mr_Shiftright

ab348 said:

I'd say the owner sold at the top of the market. Interesting car, though how desirable it is could be debatable.

Well by the looks of the description this was no ordinary restoration, and probably cost the owner a serious chunk of change. If this was one of those 1500 --1800 man-hour restorations, then the owner might have just broken even. Apparently the car won national show points, so it must be pretty spectacular. Pretty fanatical to resurface the transmission case and replate and match all the bolt heads with proper markings from the factory.

uplanderguy

I've always thought that for '64, anyway, there seemed to be very little difference between a Chevelle 300 and a Malibu. In later years, the differences seemed more obvious.

omarman

According to the seller this is what that car looked like in 1984 after he bought it back and began planning the restoration.

uplanderguy

Definitely a Nomad vibe, but marketed as the bottom-end wagon those years. I don't know if I've ever seen a '65 one in person. I know this--whenever I see a two-door Chevelle wagon, which is almost never, they look like the one in the pic you posted!

fintail

Visited the Henry Ford Museum today, amazing place, that along with the River Rouge tour consumed nearly 6 hours. And here's the star of the show, an early USDM Escort:



And a GLX no less, posh! Nice wheels:



Once everywhere, now gone.

tjc78

My mom has an early Escort in that same color.   Hers was a stripper though.  No air or radio!

explorerx4

The Henry Ford is awesome. It's not just cars. What did they have when you first walk in?
Last time I was there, years ago, they had the 1967 Lemans winner, untouched after the race.
I've always thought the chair Lincoln was sitting in from Ford's Theater was a bit freaky.

ab348

fintail said:

Visited the Henry Ford Museum today, amazing place, that along with the River Rouge tour consumed nearly 6 hours. And here's the star of the show, an early USDM Escort:



And a GLX no less, posh! Nice wheels:



Once everywhere, now gone.

That was believed at the time (1980) to be a very significant car for Ford which may explain why it is there. Replacing the Pinto, it was touted as a true subcompact, with decent space efficiency thanks to Ford USA's first FWD setup. I remember sitting in one like that in the showroom of Wood Motors Ford here in the fall of 1980 and being impressed with the interior. Of course not having driven it, I missed out on the lack of power and driving dynamics. That 1981 model just had a block letter "FORD" name on the top of the grille. The next year it gained the blue oval instead.

berri

I think Ford referred to it back then as their "world car" even though it was many different iterations around the globe in reality

texases

Really wasn't bad for the time. 20:20 hindsight, not so great.

explorerx4

I think the green car next to the Escort is a Nash.

uplanderguy

Speaking of stuff at the Henry Ford, I remember they had a test tube that Henry told Edison to breathe into just as he was dying..."Edison's Last Breath".

The JFK assassination limo to me was something to see. Amazing to me that it was used until 1977.

uplanderguy

An older guy I worked with at the time bought a new white, first-year Escort wagon. He had automatic trans issues with it--I rode in it enough to feel the stall between shifts. At the time I thought it was odd they made a two-door and a wagon, but the sedan wasn't introduced until later. For that price range, pretty nicely-styled I thought. That was a time where in my opinion the Japanese entry-level cars looked dismal and their vinyl and plastics smelled. I drove every make of various rental cars for more than a decade, and none of them made me lean away from what I wanted to buy, LOL.

andre1969

My stepdad had a white 1981 Escort 2-door when my Mom met him. It had a red interior, as I recall. I know it was a stick shift, and I don't think it had a/c. The real tragedy though, is that the Escort had replaced a 1969 Chevelle SS396! But hey, it was the 80's. Oil embargo. We all though the world was going to go out in a Mad-Max style with expensive, scarce gasoline. So that's what people did in those days.

I hated that Escort, but in retrospect it was a decent effort for the time. Remember back then, its primary domestic competition was the Chevette at GM, and the Omni/Horizon at Mopar. I think Isuzu pretty much taught GM how to build the Chevette, although they dumbed it down for the US market. And Mopar patterned the Omni/Rizon after the Rabbit, to a degree. Most of the Japanese competition was still RWD (Corolla, 210). The Accord was FWD, but much more expensive. The Civic was closer in price, but smaller inside. I think I actually have more respect for the Escort now than I did when they were new.

tjc78

We had a Horizon and an Escort in the family.  I was only a kid, but seem to remember the Horizon being the nicer car.   

imidazol97

explorerx4 said:

The Henry Ford is awesome. It's not just cars. What did they have when you first walk in?
Last time I was there, years ago, they had the 1967 Lemans winner, untouched after the race.
I've always thought the chair Lincoln was sitting in from Ford's Theater was a bit freaky.

I would like to go back to Greenfield Village, adjacent to the Ford Museum, to see the chair again where Edison sat when he came to the dedication of the building in his honor. It's nailed to the floor where he sat.

roadburner

When I was car shopping in 1980 a Ford salesman begged me to wait for the "fantastic" 1981 Escort.
I passed.
Thankfully.

explorerx4

@imidazol97,
I have been to Greenfield Village and enjoyed it a lot.
They have several houses from Connecticut.
Basically, I like Heritage/History stuff.

imidazol97

explorerx4 said:

@imidazol97,
I have been to Greenfield Village and enjoyed it a lot.
They have several houses from Connecticut.
Basically, I like Heritage/History stuff.

They have the Wright Brothers home from Dayton that someone sold to them that should be
returned to Dayton!

So the local Aviation History Museum with the bicycle shop and museum
has a nearby lot with the foundation remnants showing as the home of the Wright Brothers.

We took our son through both Ford and Greenfield when he was young. We also visited Fairlane with all its technology and its own electrical generator!

jpp75

My dad had a 1981 Mercury Lynx for a company car, total stripper. Manual, no A/C, AM radio. I remember it had a problem with leaky heater cores and we constantly kept a rag in the passenger side floor board to catch the coolant. As others have said it was OK for the times I guess, better than a Chevette for sure, although pretty much anything was better than those. I remember a friend of his had an Accord and I was always jealous of it.

fintail

Oh yeah, I know the Escort is a relatively significant car, and wasn't bad for its era - I compare cars relative to its peers at the time, rather than modern standards.

Henry Ford is really a museum that happens to have car exhibits. They have a number of more ordinary cars, which I appreciate. Here's a fun exhibit, an ode to the dinosaurs:





My grandpa bought a fuselage Newport HT before I was born, also green (but I think a different shade).

omarman

jpp5862 said:

My dad had a 1981 Mercury Lynx for a company car, total stripper. Manual, no A/C, AM radio. I remember it had a problem with leaky heater cores and we constantly kept a rag in the passenger side floor board to catch the coolant. As others have said it was OK for the times I guess, better than a Chevette for sure, although pretty much anything was better than those. I remember a friend of his had an Accord and I was always jealous of it.

Back then a friend of mine had a Mercury Lynx which seemed to ok to me. But he told me that after he first bought it and read the owner's manual about the timing belt he wasn't too happy. He said he took his car back to the mercury dealer for an explanation. They assured him that it was a normal maintenance item for that type of engine and that the expected cost would be around $400 when it reached the 60k service point. At that time $400 seemed like a lot of money for maintenance cost on a cheap econobox but it wouldn't need it until 60k miles.

I remember when the early Pinto had a 1.6 liter engine but I don't remember hearing about Ford interference engines until the Escort/Lynx "world car."

ab348

fintail said:

My grandpa bought a fuselage Newport HT before I was born, also green (but I think a different shade).

I think about half of Chrysler's production from 1969 to about 1974 was some shade of metallic green.

andre1969

omarman said:

I remember when the early Pinto had a 1.6 liter engine but I don't remember hearing about Ford interference engines until the Escort/Lynx "world car."

I was curious so I googled it, but the only info I found was on a message board and it was a bit conflicting. Someone said they replaced broken cam belts a few times, which would imply a non-interference to me, but then others said that when the belt broke, it ruined the engine.

But then, a bit further down in the thread, someone mentioned that, while that Pinto 1.6 was an interference engine, sometimes you get lucky and it "misses". I guess sometimes the valvetrain stops in just the right spot so that the pistons can't come into contact. There was a 2.0 option, in the early years, that was non-interference, at least from what I got from the web.

texases

I thought the 1.6 was a pushrod engine?

sda

A high school friend of mine special ordered an '81 Escort. It think it was the L model, very plain non-pleated cloth interior, a/c,pb,ps,cruise, rear wiper, sunroof, tilt and gauge package. I never understood why he didn't order the GL or GLX. Can't remember what wheels came on it. It did have the 4speed trans. It was slow, relatively quiet, good ac and rode better than most cars that size.

Michaell

When I was in college, I was involved in an accident in my '79 Sunbird. As the accident wasn't my fault, the other parties' insurance set me up with a rental, and it was a mid 80's Escort. I remember driving it, but not much else. I'm sure it had AC (my Sunbird didn't) as this was Phoenix in the summer.

A couple years later, the Sunbird was totaled in a second accident (this one my fault), and I almost took the proceeds of $2000 and used it as a down payment on a new '85 Escort diesel. I remember it would have been $150/mo, and the first payment wouldn't have been due for 90 days, after I graduated.

My folks squashed the deal, as I didn't have full-time employment set up after school.

ab348

Did you drive the Escort diesel first? I cannot imagine that would be a very satisfying car.

uplanderguy

That '73 Newport reminds me that Harry Truman's '72 Newport Royal is still in the garage at his home in Independence, MO.

My goal is to visit every presidential home, although I've only gotten Washington, Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, and Harding down so far. Of those, by far, Hayes' home is the most impressive and an hour-plus tour.

Back to Truman--I remember when the "Royal" was introduced. A "Newport Royal" was actually a lower-priced model than just the "Newport".

fintail

Sadly, the Henry Ford lacked a Tempo, but they had some other normal cars.

Back to Volo, I know some people like Skylarks, this is obscure. Price seems optimistic:

Mr_Shiftright

@ fintail----yeah, I guess, as in 100% optimistic.

uplanderguy

I believe those tops were made by the same manufacturer as the earlier Studebaker and M-B tops--Golde. GM also offered that top on Novas and Pontiac Venturas.

I like that era of Skylark; on a minor note it's too bad that the front bucket-seat reupholstering resulted in the head restraints being chucked.

ab348

That price on the Skylark is beyond optimistic - it's delusional.

Michaell

ab348 said:

Did you drive the Escort diesel first? I cannot imagine that would be a very satisfying car.

I'm pretty sure I did. Coming from an Iron Duke Sunbird, I don't really remember much of a difference.

omarman

That's funny and sad at the same time! I remember the early 80's when GM saw fit to drop the Iron Duke in everything from the Camaro to Fiero.

texases

I saw my old car (Mk 1 GTI) on Wheeler Dealer last night. Only difference, theirs had a blue interior, mine was red. Fun to watch them work on it, fix the 'old age' problems (hard O-rings in the fuel distributor, leaking axle seals, broken sunroof, worn out interior). Only performance mod was installing a Mk 2 throttle body and grinding the intake to match. They then added a Euro grill and bumpers, along with the required body work (I'd do the bumpers, but I like the US grill).

thebean

I really miss Edd China on that show. Ant is OK, but he's not Edd. The more screen time they give Brewer, the worse the show is to watch, IMHO.

texases

I agree, Brewer time is lost time, except when he's in some shop watching an expert rebuild something, like last night with the fuel distributor. And now they seem to be taking longer and longer drives after they're done. No time last night was spent on the complete interior re-do.

ab348

Edd was discontented the last number of seasons which was fairly obvious when you watch them in retrospect. The last year he was there it was extremely apparent, and in fact he wasn't even there some of the time, which led to more screen time for Brewer. That was also the worse season of the show by far. I think it has improved somewhat with Anstead's arrival over what it was the prior 2-3 years. Peak time for the series was seasons 7 though 10 IMO. All downhill from there once they started traveling to the USA to find cars and then moved the entire operation here when Discovery bought the concept from the creators and took over production. I liked the British production much better.

explorerx4

I liked the original show where they would work on a lot of vehicles you cant get here.
Not sure if it is broadcast in Europe, but I wonder if they like it because they get to see lots of vehicles you can't get over there.