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

omarman

xwesx said:

omarman said:

If seller claims that 1979 Thunderbird was owned by Elvis then they will need documentation, a witness and a Ouija board. Otherwise we're back to "half that" price.

How would a '79 be owned by Elvis? I'm pretty sure he passed in '77.

Or did he? Elvis sightings Wiki page.

berri

Didn't you know that he and Howard Hughes are alive and hiding out in Vegas

fintail

Kevin!

tjc78

xwesx said:

omarman said:

If seller claims that 1979 Thunderbird was owned by Elvis then they will need documentation, a witness and a Ouija board. Otherwise we're back to "half that" price.

How would a '79 be owned by Elvis? I'm pretty sure he passed in '77.

It was a really early build....

Mr_Shiftright

xwesx said:

omarman said:

If seller claims that 1979 Thunderbird was owned by Elvis then they will need documentation, a witness and a Ouija board. Otherwise we're back to "half that" price.

How would a '79 be owned by Elvis? I'm pretty sure he passed in '77.

You mean.....IF....he really died...... In any event, it does seem to resonate with his known tastes in automotive styling.

uplanderguy

Everybody knows he lives above a Burger King in Kalamazoo, MI. Maybe looking to bring back Checker.

I have actually heard about sightings in Kalamazoo, LOL.

Mr_Shiftright

I dunno...he looked pretty dead in those photos.

xwesx

Mr_Shiftright said:

xwesx said:

omarman said:

If seller claims that 1979 Thunderbird was owned by Elvis then they will need documentation, a witness and a Ouija board. Otherwise we're back to "half that" price.

How would a '79 be owned by Elvis? I'm pretty sure he passed in '77.

You mean.....IF....he really died...... In any event, it does seem to resonate with his known tastes in automotive styling.

Which is to say, really no taste at all! As I understand it, he may have been hard-pressed to fit in anything smaller by the end!

Mr_Shiftright

Livin' large.....

berri

...in multiple ways at the end

omarman

uplanderguy said:

Maybe looking to bring back Checker...

Checkers
3605 Elvis Presley Blvd, Memphis, TN

kyfdx

Every Checker that I've ever been in has been a... well, I can't say it in the forums.

It makes White Castle look like the Taj Mahal.

berri

Memphis - shouldn't we be talking BBQ

Mr_Shiftright

or late night gunfire.

explorerx4

@fintail,
You're just the guy to care take this.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a26590664/1978-mercedes-benz-450slc-for-sale/

Edit,
I only looked at the first picture when I posted the link.
Having 2nd thoughts after seeing some of the other pics.

stickguy

The chrome on the side and the wheels are not attractive. And what’s up with leather front seats and cloth back seat?

Mr_Shiftright

She's kinda young to be driving that car, don't you think?

fintail

Neat story, I suspect that car has been altered with in some ways. It has a unique look, but I would really want to inspect - seems like an heirloom that someone loved and added things here and there over time (I strongly dislike the chrome wheelarch trim). I do like that it is wearing the period correct CA plates, a cool design.

I suspect the cloth seats are stock, and the leather was added later, or possibly could even have been built that way. At the time it was not uncommon to find cars with power windows only in the front as well.

ab348

I mentioned in Cars & Conversations that I had found many seasons of "Bob Vila's Home Again" online and that since I used to be a devotee back in the early '90s, I was watching them to both reminisce and kill time (especially on days like this when the weather is atrocious). In a 1991 episode he was doing a project in Naples, Fl., and was getting squired around town by a comely blonde real estate agent in her '75 Pontiac Grand Ville convertible.

uplanderguy

Big Pontiacs of that era seem overshadowed by the other GM divisions. Personally, I liked the '71 and '72 Grand Villes, before they added skirts, Ricochet Air Rifle-style carved wood door panel trim,and bordello-style seat trim in '73.

ab348

This is interesting: an armored R-R Silver Spur formerly used by the British embassy in Washington. I imagine performance would be rather leisurely. I can only imagine the maintenance nightmare this would be.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1987-rolls-royce-silver-spur-2/?utm_source=dailymail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2019-03-06





Some of the things in the background of the pics taken inside the storage facility are quite interesting as well.

fintail

I think the only value in that car is the provenance, those things are worth very little otherwise. All the fun of maintaining a Shadow, but with more anonymous 80s styling.

stickguy

Thanks for sucking me down the BaT rabbit hole! Good thing I don’t have any money around to bid in stuff.

Mr_Shiftright

Well aside from the association with British royalty, I can't imagine why anyone would want this slug. I suppose it will go into a museum filled with cheap trinkets capitalizing on this poor woman's death. Swell.

ab348

Mr_Shiftright said:

Well aside from the association with British royalty, I can't imagine why anyone would want this slug. I suppose it will go into a museum filled with cheap trinkets capitalizing on this poor woman's death. Swell.

The comments keep making references to gang members and other assorted types operating outside the law.

Mr_Shiftright

Well between the anemic performance, high visibility factor, and extremely poor reliability, it's not the best choice for a getaway car, that's for sure.

uplanderguy

Long story short, but my daughter is getting married in May, a couple hours south of us. If she were getting married here, I'd use our '66 Studebaker Cruiser as a car from the church to reception. I wanted an old car for the duty, and had a sixties Lincoln Continental four-door in mind. Could only find one place in Columbus with an old car available, and they had one--a '61 white Bentley. We've rented it.. Not nearly as expensive as I thought. I think the image is over-the-top, but the son-in-law-to-be was OK with it. It's going to be a surprise for my daughter (she never reads this forum, LOL). Includes a driver, of course.

ab348

Found a way to scan some old slides. Some car pics but not as many as I expected so far, but much more to go over.

Here is one I actually remember, a shot of our rust-prone '74 Maverick LDO. I guess this is 1975 because I don't see any rust here. Or it could be '77 after the repairs were done.



I remember this because after taking this pic I realized I had locked the keys inside. I had to hike up a long hill to get to a phone booth to call Dad and have him bring his set to open it up.

fintail

Couldn't find a white Maverick LDO? ab348 knows one!

Wedding thing sounds cool. In Europe, especially in the UK, it is a longtime tradition to use a vintage car, usually in white, in a wedding fleet. Old Rolls-Royce/Bentley models are often in this service. Ones of that era used a GM transmission, IIRC.

uplanderguy said:

Long story short, but my daughter is getting married in May, a couple hours south of us. If she were getting married here, I'd use our '66 Studebaker Cruiser as a car from the church to reception. I wanted an old car for the duty, and had a sixties Lincoln Continental four-door in mind. Could only find one place in Columbus with an old car available, and they had one--a '61 white Bentley. We've rented it.. Not nearly as expensive as I thought. I think the image is over-the-top, but the son-in-law-to-be was OK with it. It's going to be a surprise for my daughter (she never reads this forum, LOL). Includes a driver, of course.

tjc78

I wanted a white 70s Continental Limo or 60s Suicide Door Lincoln.... wife did not.

We had an Escalade stretch limo that fit the whole wedding party. :@

I mean what's cooler:
This



Ot this:

ab348

fintail said:

Couldn't find a white Maverick LDO? ab348 knows one!

Don't like our white '74 Maverick LDO? That's OK, neither did we.

How about our '62 Chevy farm truck? Thing was near end of life so we didn't take it very far off the property even though it was registered and supposedly inspected as safe for the roads.

uplanderguy

I'd have loved a '61-63 Lincoln especially, or even a '64 or '65, despite the Kennedy associations people have with them, although that was an elegant era of course. But none available. Just personal taste, but I just didn't like the '66 and later Lincolns as well.

uplanderguy

I used to know every detail in identifying a '60-66 Chevy truck, but now I can't recall if the '62 or '63 was the last one with wraparound windshield. '64-66 were easiest to identify by the location and shape of the front fender "10" emblem (on pickups).

Maverick LDO--my high school crush, little red-haired girl with great hair and who was a cheerleader, had one in a silver blue color and a 302. It was a '73.

ab348

uplanderguy said:

I used to know every detail in identifying a '60-66 Chevy truck, but now I can't recall if the '62 or '63 was the last one with wraparound windshield. '64-66 were easiest to identify by the location and shape of the front fender "10" emblem (on pickups).

1963 still had the wraparound, which went away the next year. Different grilles between '62 and '63.

uplanderguy said:

Maverick LDO--my high school crush, little red-haired girl with great hair and who was a cheerleader, had one in a silver blue color and a 302. It was a '73.

Ooooh, I bet she was fast! With the 302, I mean. Ours just had the 6. Hers would have had nicer colors too.

thebean

uplanderguy said:

I used to know every detail in identifying a '60-66 Chevy truck, but now I can't recall if the '62 or '63 was the last one with wraparound windshield. '64-66 were easiest to identify by the location and shape of the front fender "10" emblem (on pickups).

Maverick LDO--my high school crush, little red-haired girl with great hair and who was a cheerleader, had one in a silver blue color and a 302. It was a '73.

Your name isn’t Charlie Brown, by any chance, is it?

uplanderguy

Well, your after-the-fact offers of the Maverick LDO and '62 Chevy are mighty generous, but I think the Bentley is going to have to do!

explorerx4

When I got married my best man got a Bentley to bring my wife and her parents to the church.
I didn't know he was going to do that.
Got a ride in it after the wedding, looked great, but it didn't ride well.
Here's a pic.
That's the chauffeur, not me.

fintail

In the 2nd pic, that 62 pickup looks pretty decent, but of course rust can hide.

uplanderguy

Your name isn’t Charlie Brown, by any chance, is it?

No, but "my little red-haired girl" comment is a nod to him!

She is 60 and still cute (at the last reunion).

ab348

fintail said:

In the 2nd pic, that 62 pickup looks pretty decent, but of course rust can hide.

Apparently rust claimed the original box so that is why it had the stake bed. I remember that the cab corners inside were showing some rust.

My greatest memory of that truck: it burned oil when we first got it so my older brother, a capable home mechanic who at that time was racing a Mini at a local road course, offered to refresh the 235 6-cylinder engine with new rings and valve seals. But we had to get it to his garage which was maybe 25-30 miles away from the country place. One evening the trip was set so off we went, him driving the truck with Dad and myself following in our car. In the dark we were treated not only to the cloud of blue smoke it emitted but also an absolute shower of sparks coming out of the tailpipe, as years worth of carbon buildup was released from inside the combustion chambers during what must have been its longest and most demanding road trip in many years.

roadburner

ab348 said:

Found a way to scan some old slides. Some car pics but not as many as I expected so far, but much more to go over.

Here is one I actually remember, a shot of our rust-prone '74 Maverick LDO. I guess this is 1975 because I don't see any rust here. Or it could be '77 after the repairs were done.



I remember this because after taking this pic I realized I had locked the keys inside. I had to hike up a long hill to get to a phone booth to call Dad and have him bring his set to open it up.

Ugh, bad flashbacks to my mother's 1974 LDO. A dog's breakfast, as the Brits say.

fintail

Do modern trucks rust so quickly there? I remember when I was in the upper midwest a few months ago, I saw lots of post-2000 trucks rusted beyond redemption. Seemed to be the worst in Michigan.

Oil burning reminds me of the fintail way back when. It smoked when I bought it and I knew it needed some freshening, but as a student, money went elsewhere. Finally a couple years later, it started fouling a plug. I knew something bad was taking place, I took it to the little shop where I'd get advice, and the old guy who ran it quickly diagnosed it as a broken piston ring. That wasn't a quick fix.

ab348 said:

Apparently rust claimed the original box so that is why it had the stake bed. I remember that the cab corners inside were showing some rust.

My greatest memory of that truck: it burned oil when we first got it so my older brother, a capable home mechanic who at that time was racing a Mini at a local road course, offered to refresh the 235 6-cylinder engine with new rings and valve seals. But we had to get it to his garage which was maybe 25-30 miles away from the country place. One evening the trip was set so off we went, him driving the truck with Dad and myself following in our car. In the dark we were treated not only to the cloud of blue smoke it emitted but also an absolute shower of sparks coming out of the tailpipe, as years worth of carbon buildup was released from inside the combustion chambers during what must have been its longest and most demanding road trip in many years.

andre1969

ab348 said:

uplanderguy said:

Maverick LDO--my high school crush, little red-haired girl with great hair and who was a cheerleader, had one in a silver blue color and a 302. It was a '73.

Ooooh, I bet she was fast! With the 302, I mean. Ours just had the 6. Hers would have had nicer colors too.

I would think a 302 Maverick would be pretty quick, but I ran across this article, from Consumer Guide, and they list a 1972 Comet 302 needing 12 seconds to get from 0-60!
http://blog.consumerguide.com/the-9-fastest-cars-of-1972/

Something really seems off to me, about that. Especially since the car is so lightweight (2786 lb) and has a fairly quick axle ratio (3:23:1) I would think the car would be a LOT quicker than that?

Some of those other numbers seem slow to me, as well. For instance, the quickest car they show is a 1972 Coronet sedan with a 255 hp 400, Torqueflite, and a 3:23:1 axle. They also have it listed as "only" 3580 lb, which seems a bit light for a big-block in a midsize that was really starting to bloat up. They list 0-60 in 11.4 seconds.

One road test I always remember, as sort of a benchmark, was a '72 Impala that Consumer Reports tested. It was a 4-door sedan with a 165 hp 350, automatic, and 2.73:1 axle. Yet, it managed 0-60 in 12 seconds. To me, that seems reasonable, given the power, weight, gearing, and size of the car. But some of these Consumer Guide numbers just seem off to me.

texases

Does seem slow, I have a 0-60 time for a '74 Maverick 302 at 10.5s. I'd expect the lighter '72 to be faster.

stickguy

Wasn’t the mopar 400 actually a small block?

kyfdx

Tiny little 2-bbl carbs.

I had a Cobra II with the 302 V-8 and four-speed manual.
I could hang with a 305 Camaro up until around 40 mph, but after that, not enough air, and third gear was too tall to keep up, once I red-lined in 2nd (around 45 mph, IIRC)

Don't forget low-traction 13" tires, too.

ab348

fintail said:

Do modern trucks rust so quickly there? I remember when I was in the upper midwest a few months ago, I saw lots of post-2000 trucks rusted beyond redemption. Seemed to be the

How much they rust depends largely on how they are cared for. I saw a work truck parked last week, a F-150 of the style that came out in 2009. It was suffering from rust around the rear wheel openings and elsewhere, and was dinged up with rust on those spots too. Obviously nobody was taking care of it and it was considered disposable, but that is a worst-case situation. Maybe 10 years ago you would see a lot of rust on truck boxes, especially where the inner wheelhouse was welded to the backside of the box sides. It was especially bad on Dodge trucks then. Chevys also seemed to require replacement boxes frequently. I don't notice it so much now.

Mr_Shiftright

I sometimes watch the South Main Auto episodes on YouTube. Very clever tech explains how he solves problems in his garage. However, his shop is in upstate New York and every time he gets the camera under one of this cars, I have to shudder. They are all rusty. Just about every component he works on in every car he touches is all crudded up, even the clamps on the battery or the little nuts holding the radiator shroud. The poor guy lives in a Ferrous Oxide mine. I've seen him poke holes in a Subaru frame with his finger!

omarman

Maverick/Comet didn't come with 13 inch wheels/tires. None of these cars ever got 4-speed trans or limited slip either. And the automobile catalog site recorded a 12.7 zero to 60 mph time for a 1972 Comet 200 six with a 3-speed manual.

My oldest brother got a new '72 Maverick Grabber 302/automatic. SAE rated 143hp I think. Not a sports car but no way was it as slow as the Consumer Guide 4-door test Comet.

andre1969

stickguy said:

Wasn’t the mopar 400 actually a small block?

Nah, the Mopar 400 was a slightly bored-out 383. I think the 400 actually has a slightly larger bore than the 440! FWIW, the 350, 361, 383, and 400 were the "B" block, which first came out in 1958. The "RB" block (raised deck version) had a 383, 413, 426, and 440 CID configuration, and first came out for 1959.

It was odd that they actually had two different 383's, but I think they did that to give Chrysler some exclusivity at first. The 1959-60 Chrysler Windsor and Saratoga where the only cars to use the RB 383, while the other divisions used the B 383.

For 1961, the Newport was introduced, with a 361, the Windsor went with the B 383, and the Saratoga was dropped.

Now the Chevy 400, was a smallblock. Although for a few years in there, they had the 400 smallblock "Turbo Fire", and the big block "Turbo Jet", which was actually a 402, but marketed as a 400 some years.