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I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today! (Archived)
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2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
https://classiccars.com/listings/view/861806/1993-mercury-topaz-gs-5-spd-coupe-for-sale-in-canton-georgia-30115
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
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2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I won't make any claims that the Tempo was a beautiful drive, but I have to keep fond memories of it - maybe as it defied expectations with its longevity, or as I drove it a bit when I was a new driver.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2021 VW Arteon SEL 4-motion, 2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech
My wife (before she was that) after college bought a 1984 Horizon. That was a luxury car in comparison. Cloth seats, PS, automatic (the family cars were both 4 speeds) and the big 2.2l motor. That was actually pretty quick for the day. and still the best car I ever had for driving in the snow.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I suspect the fintail might be faster 0-60.
I think my stepdad's was a GL trim level. I do remember it having some alloy wheels that I didn't think were very attractive. For some reason, alloys that are designed around a 4-lug pattern always seem a bit off to me. It was white with a gray lower body. I actually don't remember it seeming cheap inside, at least not in the sense of a Chevette or base level Fairmont. But overall the car was just nothing to write home about.
I rented an Omni for a week back in '84 when I was touring the midwest, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois. It had the 2.2 engine and it could scoot quite well. I liked it fine, although I remember being unimpressed by the interior/dash design. But it drove really well.
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Remember up to maybe the mid-or-late eighties, whatever model Chevy had, there was an equivalent at Ford, and vice-versa. That got a bit muddied up later.
I used to drive all kinds of X-cars as rentals. I did like the utility factor (exterior vs. interior space) and differentiation of styling among divisions. I hated K-cars--nothing wrong with the utility, just basic-box styling.
For all the grief people gave Omnis and Horizons (and I had done my share), I drove late ones as rentals and I was pretty impressed with the acceleration, all things considered. My friend was a Chrysler zone service rep at the time and he said the body dies were wearing out, meaning the newer cars had air and water leaks compared to the earlier ones. He also said AMC Kenosha built better Fifth Avenues than Chrysler did, LOL.
The rental cars I hated the worst? (And this is when I travelled 26 weeks a year)--Renault Alliance and Encore. "The One To Watch", indeed.
Not a fan of Tercels back then either. Some scoot, but they revved all the time it seemed, looked like someone stole the hub caps, and the vinyl smelled funny.
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2015 Subaru Outback 3.6R / 2024 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX Prestige
I suspect the wheels you mention are these, which I agree are not exactly beautiful:
The ones to find are these TRX wheels, which I have never seen in person, but have seen in numerous period promo shots. I'd quickly have converted our car to these if I had found a junkyard set back in the day, tire issues included:
I know I have mentioned it, but my dad had a Horizon, and loved it - claimed it was the best snow car he ever owned, it was reliable, fast for the day, practical. Replaced by an S-10 Blazer which he eventually didn't like at all.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Chevy sure milked the "Concours" name, and Cadillac used it later. I always liked the '75 Nova LN a lot better in the small details. But that's another story.
This sounds like one for andre!
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IIRC the first car with a digital clock I remember was an early K-Car with a "Chronometer" clock, I remember riding in the car when I was maybe 5 years old and the car was new, it belonged to someone my parents knew.
"There isn't much you can add to make the Tempo Luxury GLX a more completely equipped car"
Brochure pic is interesting too, for comparison to our car. Ours was a very late build (9/85) and had a factory CHMSL and 1986 style steering wheel, a 4 spoke rather than the "A" shape shown in that pic.
Source was Allpar.
2025 Ram 1500 Laramie 4x4 / 2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic
Anyway yeah, the 1981 Aries/Reliant sedans and wagons did have stationary rear door windows, with flip out vents, similar to GM's downsized intermediates. However, the K-cars didn't give you the hollowed out door panels and recessed armrests. When the 1982 model year started, they stayed stationary, but in the middle of the model year, they made them roll-down.
I do recall reading that Chrysler did a cost-benefit analysis, and over the volume they were building the cars, they weren't saving any money in making them stationary. However, I have a few other theories. 1) When the Dodge 400 and LeBaron came out for 1982, I believe they had roll-down rear windows right from the get-go. So, that might be one factor that made it more worthwhile to simply make them all roll down, as it was the same basic design. 2) While GM got away with those stationary windows for the life of that generation of A/G body, they were also sold at a higher price point, and more likely to be equipped with air conditioning. The K-cars were supposed to be cheaper compacts, sold at a lower price point, and less likely to be purchased with a/c. But those stationary rear windows almost make air conditioning mandatory. That might have hurt their sales some. In fact, I've read that Chrysler did botch the launch of the K-car in 1981, by offering mostly fully-optioned models when it first hit the showroom floor. And, in the middle of a recession.
My uncle briefly owned one of those early '82 Reliant sedans, back in 1989. At the time, he had a 1980 Chevy C20 pickup with a 350 that was a guzzler. He wanted something more efficient, and knew someone who had a couple old cars they wanted to sell. One was the Reliant, the other was a '66 Catalina. I never did get to see the Catalina, but heard it was a teal/aqua color. Anyway, guess which one I was rooting for? NOT the one he ended up getting!
He only had it for a few months. IIRC, he paid something like $600-800 for it. It died on him, and he put $400 into it. Then it ran into other issues, and I think he dumped it for $200. I rode in it a few times, and drove it once or twice. I don't remember much about it, except that I timed it once with a stopwatch from 0-60, and it was somewhere in the 25 second range. And, while it did feel like a small, cheap car with not much bulk to it, it was actually pretty wide inside. Now I'm pretty sure this isn't how they measure shoulder room, but out of curiosity, I took a tape measure to it, and door panel-to-door panel, measured where the armrests bolted in, it was something like 58". I think my '80 Malibu coupe was about 57" up front, and my '68 and '69 Darts were only 56".
It still felt like a small car to me, but, I guess the tape measure doesn't lie (unless you let it sag
I remember that. Double digit inflation, unemployment and interest rates along with K cars loaded with window stickers rising upwards of $10k. I think it was Channel 10 news that went out into new car showrooms in Columbus to get reaction of both sales staff and customers to the K car release. I read a comment by one of the dealership salesmen who was quoted in the Dispatch as saying, "We're hoping that gas prices keep going up." His logic being that when pump gas prices go up, people spend crazy money on smaller cars with better MPG.
The issue about the rear windows always struck me as odd. I get that people didn't like them not rolling down but I rode in the back of our '78 Grand LeMans a lot and it wasn't a huge deal. Any by then many 2-door models had fixed rear glass already, like the GM Colonnade coupes, so you would have thought people would be used to it. Evidently not.
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I think the scooped-out armrest area in the door could've been made more useful if the rear area of the cutout wasn't made diagonal, but straight-down. Always seemed to me those armrests were too-far-forward to be of much use.
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My grandparents had almost always bought 4-door cars, although I think they had a '52 Buick that was a 2-door sedan. Still, they were accustomed to cars with roll-down windows in back. Their '68 and '72 Impalas were both 4-door hardtops, so they were really accustomed to that open-air feeling. They had pretty much missed the first wave of downsizing, and the personal luxury coupe craze, which is what pretty much eliminated roll-down rear windows in 2-doors. so to them a 4-door car with stationary windows was a shock.
I think with 2-door cars, the transition to stationary rear windows wasn't that big of a deal, because many people bought a coupe for the style, and not the practicality. Or they bought it because they had small kids and didn't want them opening the rear doors. And as personal luxury coupes became more common and a/c more affordable, that closed-off-from-the-outside world style, with small opera windows and huge C-pillars, became all the rage.
I bought my first old car, a 1969 Dodge Dart GT hardtop coupe, in the fall of '89. I remember most of my friends being amazed, at a 2-door car having roll-down rear windows, and no B-pillar. It's amazing how quickly something that was once so common can be looked at as almost a freak show, once it's been out of the public mind for a few years. And in 1989, it's not like hardtop coupes and sedans were exactly rare sights. They were becoming less and less common as the years went by, but they were still out there.
I've wondered though, if that was in relation to a window that could fully roll down? Or, the windows in the cars, as they existed, if they had been designed to roll down? As it was, the models that had the flip out vent in the C-pillar had a huge rear door window that would have only been able to roll down a few inches. The more formal-roof models, and wagons, that had the vent in the trailing edge of the door, had a window that might have been able to go down about half way.
Looking back on it now though, those roll down windows just don't seem like that big of a deal. On my Dad's '03 Regal, where they actually do roll down most of the way, one of them quit working. I think it started working again intermittently about a year ago, but then stopped. Naturally, in the down position. I jiggled around with it some, and did get it to roll back up, and then it quit for good, again. When the weather is nice, I'll usually crack the front windows, and roll down the one good rear window an inch or so, to get better air flow and less buffeting.
One of the back windows on my '79 5th Ave quit working years ago. I never bothered to get it fixed. However, I should add, that the 5th Ave doesn't get driven that much, only on nice days here and there, and once a year to Carlisle PA. And in Carlisle last year, that was the last time someone even sat in the back seat. Same with my Regal. It's rare these days that I have someone in the back seat.
My house mate bought a 2017 Murano last April. I went with him when he test drove it, and rode in the back. But y'know, even though he's had it almost a year, I couldn't tell you if the back windows roll down all the way or not. I'm sure they go down at least most of the way, though. In more recent years, cars have been going back to higher beltlines and smaller windows, so it's just easier to make a window go all, or most of the way down.
As for the hollowed out area in the rear doors of the '78 models, I think GM probably made that area as big as they could, given the shape of the doors. GM also used that little space efficiency trick of shoving the rear seat back, further over the rear axle, which increases the rear legroom measurement, and maintains the shoulder room measurement, but at the cost of 3-across seating comfort. Doing so makes for a bit of wheel well intrusion, which forces the outboard passengers to lean inward. Also, shoving the seat further back like that does move you further away from those hollowed-out armrests.
In retrospect, GM probably could have just gone with regular armrests, as those downsized '78 intermediates still had more shoulder room than any similar-sized car on the market. I've seen them listed at something like 57-57.5", depending on the trim level. The more luxurious models, with plusher door panel trim, would be a bit narrower. The personal luxury coupes were a bit narrower though. Despite using the same basic dash, I remember my '86 Monte Carlo having no gap between the edges of the dash and the door panel trim, while the gap on my '80 Malibu was about a half-inch on either side.
I think pretty much any sedan based on the Ford Fox, as well as the Mopar F/M body, had about 56" of shoulder room. The '75-80 Granada, I believe, was only around 54-55". So, GM was already at the head of the pack. But, I think GM was trying hard to come as close as possible to the '77 Colonades, trying to come close in some dimensions, and even improve, where they could. So, they hollowed out the door panels, in an attempt to make 3-across seating as comfortable as the '77's. And they went with those space saver spares, to boost trunk volume, even though the more squared-off bodies already gave you an improved trunk. The '77's were around 14-15 cubic feet, depending on which brand you bought. I think the LeMans was actually the worst. The '78's were around 16-17 cubic feet.
Another aspect of the '78's that I didn't like at the time, were the shrunken standard engines, like the Chevy 200 V6 and Buick 196. They really were dogs. But at the same time, I'm sure they were an improvement over a '77 Chevelle with a 250-inline, or a LeMans with a 231 V6. And when you figure that Ford was putting 4-cyls and 88 hp 200's in their Fairmonts, the 250 in the Granada was a real dog, and the Mopar slant six was going into "compacts" that in some cases weren't that much lighter than a downsized '77 Impala, it probably made sense, at the time.
The '79 Malibu Classic could be had with a 4-barrel 305 in the coupes, new for that year, but that wouldn't make me look for one now over a '78. I like the diagonal-cut taillights on the '78.
Also, I know we've had this discussion before, but I can't remember the outcome...but, wasn't the Chevy 350 actually available in the '78 Malibu, for at least part of the model year? Back in high school, one of the substitute teachers drove a '78 Malibu coupe, a two-tone brown over beige as I recall. He said it had a 350, and it came from the factory that way.
I know you could get them in Malibu police cars, at least through '82. I have a book on Mopar police cars, from something like '79-'02 or whenever it was published. It always listed the Michigan State police test results that came out every year. I remember the MSP testing an '82 Malibu with the 350, and an '83 with the 305. Strangely, I don't think the 305 was that much slower than the 350. And a 350 Malibu wasn't much quicker than a 350 Impala, despite the lighter weight. However, in those days they were trying to balance fuel economy and performance, even in police cars, so I wonder if they stuck the Malibu 350 with a taller axle than the 305, or the Impala 350?
I think GM was doing that with civilian cars a lot, as well. My grandmother's '85 LeSabre had an Olds 307-4bbl and a 2.73:1 axle, but if you got a Cutlass Supreme in that setup, I think they stuck you with a 2.41:1 axle, and the end result is that it was really no quicker, despite losing a few hundred pounds. I think my Mom's '86 Monte Carlo, with its 305, also had a 2.41:1 axle. It felt a bit quicker than the LeSabre, but I think another problem is the transmission liked to upshift earlier with the LeSabre. I wonder if it had something to do with the 305 hitting its peak torque and hp at a higher rpm than the 307? I also recall that Grandmom's LeSabre was a LOT livelier, when I shifted it manually!
I can say with a pretty good level of certainty, that no '78 or '79 Malibu coupe or sedan came with a 350 (not counting police package). I am almost just as certain that engine was available in Malibu wagons though. That could have been interesting!
I'll look in the brochures after work. Taking a little break now!
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edit to add: Although I liked the mini-Camaro looks of the Vega better
Two high school friends of mine got new '75 Monza 2+2 V8's and I was extremely envious. It took me until Feb. to see one at our dealer. I loved the styling, in and out, but it had to have had THE most-cramped rear seat ever put in a domestic car, LOL.
The one friend was the son of a Chevy-Buick Service Manager from a dealer about 25 miles away. The friend ordered the front fender tags that said "5.7LITER", just to have them.
Ironically, while he's not a friend anymore, he still has that Monza and he also has a 13K-mile '75 Cosworth Vega which was the only one my hometown dealer got in.
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1988-dodge-aries/
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