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

stickguy

Vette weekend. first a 75 ish yellow coupe. Plastic bumpers front and rear, flat window. Then today, driving down I95, a C3 convertible. Dark blue, white top. early chrome bumper model. Sharp looking.

roadburner

My favorite was the 1973; smooth nose with the split rear bumper. Put a 400 hp crate motor in it and a five speed and it would be a hoot.

fintail

Out in the small town today - 67 Camaro convertible, ~65 Cutlass coupe, Citation (brown of course), early 80s formal roof Regal sedan, late 70s Cutlass coupe, forlorn apparently non-running MB R107.

stickguy

roadburner said:

My favorite was the 1973; smooth nose with the split rear bumper. Put a 400 hp crate motor in it and a five speed and it would be a hoot.

a smog motor era C3, with a crate motor and select under the skin updates (suspension/steering/brakes/tranny) is high on my list of toy projects if I ever get the money to do one!

texases

Shop near me has a '70ish Torino, lighter looking than the '72, which I also like.

roadburner

texases said:

Shop near me has a '70ish Torino, lighter looking than the '72, which I also like.

My dad had a 1970 Torino GT- 351C 4V- just like this one except Dad's had the shaker hood:

stickguy

pretty cool for the day. a neighbor that we were family friends with had a Torino of that vintage. Not a special model. I recall it was silver with I think a black vinyl roof. Fastback maybe? I rode in it a few times I know.

tjc78

At Home Depot I saw a mint 81 Town Car Signature. Silver, Burgundy two tone. Gorgeous.

I saw owner getting in it, and if not for Social Distancing I certainly would have chatted him up.

andre1969

I always had a soft spot for the '70-71 Torino. My Dad had a light green '71 4-door sedan for a few years. He inherited it when Great Granddad died. It wasn't anything special, just a 302 V8, automatic. Dad got a bit lucky with the timing, as he and my Mom split around that timeframe, and neither of the two cars we had belonged to him. Mom had her '75 LeMans coupe, and we also had a '64 Galaxie 4-door sedan. Granddad had gotten it for us, but I think he kept it titled in his name, rather than actually gifting it to Mom or Dad.

My Dad moved to Florida, in '78 I believe. I think that Torino eventually threw a rod, and Dad simply abandoned it. I think it might have been the "500" trim level, but not sure.

fintail

On the road home today, spotted an early-mid 70s Fleetwood with a sticker on the back window that read "Christian Cage Fighter" - that's a new one. Also a 59 Ford retractable, top down on I-5, which impressed my 9 year old niece. Quite warm today, which might be keeping some oldies off the road,

stickguy

drove through a neighborhood near me that has a house that might be a relative of RB. There is a white 2 series in the driveway, and in the side yard a couple of 2002s, and an early 320i (I think it is the 2nd version of that series, so E30?). Anyway, someone likes BMWs there!

fintail

Not sure we ever got an E30 320i, but we did get it as an E21. Of course these days, grey market cars are not unknown.

stickguy

yeah, I know the 320 was just the first version. This one was smaller front, so a later model. I just did not get a good enough look to tell which vintage. And only saw the nose so no clue what numbers on it!

kyfdx

Early E30s were 318, then 325 (in the US)

kyfdx

stickguy

I like the house.

uplanderguy

Obviously hate the wheels and tires, fact that the body side molding has been removed, and that it has the 8-6-4 or 4.1 engine according to the fender emblem (I can't tell), but I always thought the basic styling was trim and inspired by the razor-edge '67-70 Eldorado styling. I like that it was a FWD V8 so the center passengers had some space, and I liked the frameless door glass. Beautiful interiors IMHO, even in the small details. Before the age of flat-plastic-colored turn signal levers, door handles, etc.

uplanderguy

A FB friend posted this, speaking of Eldorados:

"Reminds me of that old Arnold Palmer joke about getting his Eldorado washed in the city. Kid cleaning the carpet picks up a few golf tees and asks Arnold what these are for.
Arnold says "They hold my balls when I drive"...
Kid says "Those Cadillac people think of everything!""

kyfdx

Seemed like it was in pretty good shape for the year... disregarding the rims.

fintail

At least it's still on the road and someone cares for it.

andre1969

The wheels on that Eldorado aren't as bad as some of the aftermarket conversions. Hopefully they haven't muffed up the suspension in the process, though. And, actually, I like that house, and the landscaping, too!

uplanderguy

The white with copper roof '77 Seville we talked about earlier here on BaT, sold for $17K.

I'm thinking the seller would be pleased.

fintail

Saw a pre-86 2 door Celebrity on the road today, pretty thin on the ground now.

uplanderguy

I bought an '85 two-door Celebrity Eurosport new, in the dark plum color...not silver below the side moldings like so many were. Only car I ordered.

I will say it accelerated and cornered nicely for the time--2.8 MFI V6 and Goodyear Eagles from the factory.

Other than the '77 Impala coupe I got from my parents, it had the most liveable back seat of any two-door I ever owned--high seating, no center hump, large quarter windows. But for a two-door, the doors weren't very long and it was acrobatic climbing back there, over or under the shoulder belt set up.

That's the era GM decided to make their two-doors look like the four-door, just with two less door openings, sigh. Remember the first FWD Electra two-doors? Ugh!

andre1969

According to the EPA's specs, the Celebrity 2-door was actually slightly roomier inside than the 4-door. 98 cubic feet versus 97. I just looked up the specs from the 1982 sales brochure, and it looks like the 2-door gave up 0.1" of rear headroom, and 0.3" of rear legroom, but had almost an inch more shoulder room, compared to the 4-door. It's been ages since I've seen a 2-door FWD A-body. Was the armrest area of the 2-doors scooped out a bit, since it didn't have to accommodate a roll-down rear window? On the RWD '78+ A/G coupes, the armrests were recessed, just like they were in the back doors of the sedans and wagons. But, at the window sill area, which is where they most likely measure shoulder room, it was still bulked up.

For comparison, the '78-81 Malibu coupe gave up a lot more compared to the sedan...96 cubic feet versus 102. I thought it would have given up a lot of headroom, since the coupe looked lower. But, the sedan isn't as upright as it looks. 54.2" versus 53.3" for the coupe. Most of the loss is in back seat legroom, which goes down from 38.0" to 35.1" For comparison, the Celebrity dropped from 36.4" to 36.1". Shoulder room dropped from 57.1" to 55.6". In contrast, the Celebrity 2-door's gain took it from 56.2" to 57.1"

Incidentally, the Malibu coupe sold about 35,000 units in its last year, 1981. In 1982, the Celebrity 2-door sold 19,629 units. It would peak out in 1984-86 with around 29,000 annually, before tapering off again. It's amazing how quickly the market for midsized (and full-sized) 2-door cars died off. The personal luxury coupe segment carried on for awhile longer, with cars like the Cutlass Supreme, Thunderbird, Monte Carlo, etc. But with lower-priced, more mainstream models, they fell fast. Mopar gave up the M-body (LeBaron/Diplomat) coupes after '81, and Ford gave them up after '82. When the small LTD/Marquis came out for '83, replacing the Granada/Cougar, they dropped the 2-door. And GM themselves had dropped the Malibu/LeMans coupe after '81, so if you wanted a midsized 2-door from '83 onward, and didn't want a personal luxury coupe, the A-body was the only game in town.

According to my old car book, Buick, oddly, kept the Century 2-door around through 1993. It only sold 627 units in '92 and 566 for '93. Even Olds had gotten ride of the 2-door Ciera after '91. I wonder what Buick/Olds' rationale for keeping the 2-door around for that long was. Chevy dropped the Celebrity 2-door after '88, even though the sedan/wagon were built in '89/90. Pontiac gave up the 6000 2-door after '87. Pontiac had pretty good luck with the Grand Am coupe in those days though, and the Chevy Beretta was pretty popular. So that might have prompted them to drop the Celebrity/6000 2-doors sooner. In contrast, I don't think the 2-door Skylark or Calais were all that popular.

andre1969

Here's a dumb question...why would they change the size of the fuel tank fractionally, when a different engine is ordered in a car. I just looked at the '82 Celebrity brochure again, and it listed the fuel tank as "15.7 gallons*"

At the bottom of the page, it shows " *16.4 gallons (gasoline V6), 16.6 (Diesel V6)"

The most logical difference I can think of, is that it's actually the same tank, but there's a different fuel pump, or something else actually in the tank, that takes up more space? But then, why would the 4-cyl use more fuel tank space than the other two engines? And something that takes up an additional 0.7-0.9 gallons seems like it would be pretty substantial.

tjc78

Exhaust or suspension differences?

uplanderguy

In the rear of a FWD car, I wouldn't suspect 'suspension differences'. I bet (only that) andre's guess of fuel pump is it.

uplanderguy

I didn't remember that Buick built Century coupes that long. I like the smoother, though no doubt less-roomy, roofline of those last Century coupes.

Those numbers are almost hard-to-believe for GM. Geez, that's low production even by Studebaker-levels in the last year of 1966--really.

ab348

Did those last-run Century 2-doors have the same slightly faster-looking rear window that the Ciera 2-doors received?

andre1969

I liked that roofline that they started using on the Century/Ciera, as well. Oddly, according to the 1988 Buick sales brochure at least, interior room didn't suffer. Headroom was 37.9", same as the 1982 Celebrity coupe. In the sedans, it also stayed the same, at 38.0". Legroom in the coupe was also the same, at 36.1". For some reason though, the sedan was listed at 35.9" for the '88 Century, down from 36.4" for the '82 Celebrity.

Just to do a Century-to-Century comparison, I looked up the '82 Century. It had the same legroom listed for both 2- and 4-door models...35.7". I wonder if that had something to do with the Century having better/thicker seats, or something like that? Headroom was listed at 38.0", for both 2- and 4-door. Now that could just be a simple rounding error. Or a slip of the tape measure!

uplanderguy

I could've lived with one of those cars, in a particular couple of colors and judicious use of the options list, which of course you could do back then.

roadburner

A friend of my father owned the Chevy dealer in my hometown. In 1983 when he heard I was buying a Bavaria he told me he'd give me a good deal on a new 1984 Celebrity Eurosport.
With a straight face.

andre1969

I always liked the Cutlass Ciera. One of my friends said he despised it, because it represented everything that was wrong with GM in general, and Oldsmobile in particular. It was competent enough when it came out, but just went on for too long, without enough change, and over time the bulk of its sales were most likely rental companies and old people. Rental companies don't have that big of a profit margin, and old people usually don't buy cars often enough, so if that's your biggest market you're ultimately doomed.

But, I liked it because it just seemed to be a good "jack of all trades". When equipped right, it could be pretty luxurious, but I never found it to be as stuffy and pretentious as the Century. And I think the 6000 is the car that started off the "Ribs & Wings" concept of sportiness. I always hated the 6000's dashboard, too. I thought it marked the beginning of Pontiac's trend toward plasticky, visually unappealing interiors. Most of the Celebrities I've seen were always pretty cheap looking too, although I know there were nicer trim levels available. I never cared for the Celebrity dash, either.

Oh, I also just realized something...it was '89 that the Century/Ciera went to that more fastback roof. I was thinking it was '88. So, those figures I quoted for the '88 Century were pretty much unchanged from '82, because it was still the older, boxier roofline. I couldn't find an '89 brochure, but according to www.automobile-catalogue.com, the '89 coupe had 35.9" of rear legroom and 38.3" of rear headroom. So, a very slight loss in legroom, and strangely, a boost in headroom! I figured that swoopier roof would have cut down on headroom a bit.

andre1969

ab348 said:

Did those last-run Century 2-doors have the same slightly faster-looking rear window that the Ciera 2-doors received?

Yep, the Century/Ciera both got that roofline for 1989. I had erroneously thought it was '88. '89 was also the year that they revised the rear roofline for the Century/Ciera/6000 sedans. They left the Celebrity alone, though. 1989 was the last year for the sedan, as the Lumina was supposed to take over, so I guess they figured it wasn't worth updating.

kyfdx

In the '80s, my girlfriend owned a Celebrity, then was given a Century as a company car (still hung on to the Celebrity).

When four of us took a trip to Florida, we rented a Sedan DeVille.

uplanderguy

I will say that after driving my Celebrity Eurosport (same platform, engine and tires as the magazines' lovey-dovey 6000STE), and I drove my friends' '84 Monte Carlo that was a really nice car (I still like the maroon inside and out that year, with buckets and console), I tried to take a corner in the same manner I would normally in my Celebrity and I felt like I was about to roll over the Monte Carlo!

In the year 2020, I would take a Monte Carlo just on first-impression stuff over the Celebrity though, hands-down.

uplanderguy

andre, you mentioned the dash in the Celebrity. I'll admit, pretty uninspiring, but I did sort-of like the brushed black panel on the Eurosport with the red nameplate. I ordered the optional instrumentation on mine and it had gauge needles that looked like stereo equipment of the time. I liked that. I also ordered the "Extended Range Sound System", or "Speaker sytem", I can't recall what they called it, but that gave you an extra little emblem ("ERS") over above the glovebox too, which I liked at the time.

I did not order a tilt wheel, as I was the only driver (not married yet).

The fat steering wheel blocked the speedometer from about 15 to 80, where I put the driver's seat (5'8" tall and with short legs and long torso). I regretted not getting the tilt wheel. I did order aluminum wheels (dealer said 'on backorder' and I said if it came in without them I wasn't taking the car), PW, PDL, A/C, cruise, tinted glass, floor mats, standard interior with bucket seat option and console in same plum color as the exterior.

I had heard center-mounted brake lights were coming on the '86's and thought that would look stupid, so I ordered my '85 about as late as I could (it was delivered to me on 6/3/85). I didn't like the '86 front-end styling as well as the '85, and also didn't like how they re-did the "Celebrity" nameplates in and out, either (Big capital "C" and lower case everything else, instead of all letters the same size as in '82-85). As you no doubt know by now, little stuff like that sticks with me, LOL.

fintail

The Celebrity I saw was a normal model, with disc hubcaps. It looked to be in decent condition. I recall riding in a few Celebrities when I was younger - the dashboard numeric font bugged me for some reason.

I recall my 5th grade teacher had a Pontiac 6000 2-door, can't remember when I last saw one of those. I recall riding in it once, I think it was a plusher model.

uplanderguy

RE.: Font--one does get used to the way a manufacturer does that. Growing up Chevy, as a kid, whenever I climbed in a Ford or Mopar, it usually struck me that the speedometer and odometer numbers looked goofy, and also the window cranks and door armrests, LOL. I also never liked the shift indicator tacked on to the steering column, which GM had gotten rid of by '65 in the big cars and '66 in the mid-sizes (at least at Chevy). I'm certain others felt the opposite.

ab348

The font used on the Celebrity gauges was very '80s-ish. I don't know if Chevy used that on other models in that period or not.

I know that in more recent years the chunky italic numbers they used in their speedometers and elsewhere irritated me every time I got behind the wheel.

It's funny in that back in the '60s when GM divisions had much more autonomy, not only were things like speedometer fonts more or less standardized throughout all GM makes, but even the speedometers themselves seemed to be shared sometimes across divisions. The 1960s GM strip speedo seemed pretty much the same in a lot of GM cars back then.

uplanderguy

I do remember how in '75, on full-size Chevys, they made the strip speedometer 0-100 instead of 0-120 like they had been--but in the same space. So there was a lot of space between numbers. I didn't like that. You could get a gauge package that had a "Fuel Economy Gauge" and I think a temp gauge, that crowded the numbers together much-more. That's the panel I would've had to have then.

I saw this morning on the "All Original Cars" FB page, a '70 Chevelle Malibu Sport Sedan (four-door hardtop) in that light turquoise we had talked about here a week or two ago, although the name is escaping me right now. I sure never saw many GM mid-size four-door hardtops of that period. It looked nice. And I didn't remember the mid-sizes having crank-operated vent windows then. I always thought that was a small but classy touch on GM's of the time.

andre1969

It's funny how time seems to soften perceptions. Now, when I look through the Celebrity brochure, the dash doesn't bug me so much. At the time, I think the problem was that it just looked too angular, and cookie-cutterish. Like they just took a squared cookie cutter and stamped out spaces for the various components. Just too many rectangles and squares all over the place. And I didn't care for the way the gauges were spread out in that thin, long strip. Then, there's that plastic square slab at the leading edge of the door panel, where the handle, lock, and window crank (or power window switch when so equipped). But, that square slab was endemic to all the A-bodies, I believe, so you couldn't escape it by moving to an Olds, Buick, or Pontiac.

stickguy

There’s an original (but tired) chevelle like that near me. I see it on occasion. Used to live in a driveway I passed often.

ab348

My ’68 Cutlass has crank vent windows. That was the only year for them on 2-door hardtop and convertibles as they lost the vent windows in ‘69, but other models kept them. Prior to ‘68 I don’t think any A-body had crankable vents. I know my ‘64 Skylark didn’t.

fintail

Speaking of fonts, the GM odometer font seemed to be the same or at least extremely similar from the 50s until well into the 70s or maybe even later.

I know MB and BMW used the respective same fonts for some time, too. MB started using more italic numeric fonts in the late 90s, and it became common across the board by the early '10s. I suspect a focus group said it looks more "dynamic" or some other marketing babble.

Speaking of vent window winders, the 66 Galaxie I drove as a teen had those, they always amused people.

uplanderguy

Our '67 Chevelle four-door didn't have crank vent windows, but my grandparents' '67 Impala Sport Coupe (Plum Mist) did. '68 mid-size GM's must have had them across the line, and as you said, vent windows disappeared on two-door hardtops in '69.

sda

The last car that dad bought, and one of the very few that he bought new was a 95 Cutlass Ciera SL. It was the top of the line model that year. All power, remote keyless entry, V6, garnet red. It was roomy, comfortable, peppy, boring. Olds no longer offered a handling suspension upgrade, so it had narrow 14” tires and you took curves and corners cautiously otherwise the tires would cry for mercy and the car wanted to keep going straight. Dad gave the Ciera to me when he could no longer see well enough to drive. I drove the Ciera for over a year as my daily commuter. When the ac failed and was going to cost more than the car was worth I traded it. Funny story, Mick Mulvaney, yes that Mick, was walking thru our neighborhood campaigning for a Rep seat. I had just finished washing the Ciera. He walked up to me, talked a minute, pointed to the car and said I took drivers ed in one of those.

andre1969

Those 4-door hardtops weren't that common, in the midsize range. My old car book doesn't break out production numbers for the 1970 Chevelle; it only says that 354,855 total were built. But, for '71, they do break out production.

Here's a few stats:
Chevelle 4-door sedan 6-cyl: 6621
Chevelle 4-door sedan V8: 9042
Malibu 4-door sedan 6-cyl: 4241
Malibu 4-door sedan V8: 37,385
Malibu 4-door hardtop V8: 20,775.

The big seller, naturally, was the Malibu hardtop coupe V8, with 180,117 units sold.

As for pricing, the 4-door hardtop doesn't seem like it was too much more: $3052, versus $2947 for the pillared sedan, when equipped with a V8 (which was standard on the 4-door hardtop).

Considering it was a relatively small market, it's surprising that Ford decided to offer a 4-door hardtop for the Torino/Montego in '70-71. For '71, Ford sold 12,724 500 hardtop sedans, and only 4408 in the Brougham trim level.

Usually, a 4-door hardtop will have less interior room than a pillared sedan. It's not that big of a loss in a full-sized car, but I wonder, with the midsizers, it made for an interior that was smaller enough, that it compromised utility? And, I guess in those days, midsized car buyers were a bit more price-conscious, and if they wanted a 4-door, they just wanted utility. If they wanted a bit more flair in a family car, they'd get a full-sized 4-door hardtop.

ab348

I always found the 4-door GM A-bodies somewhat tight inside for whatever reason. The doors seemed slightly small and the front seat travel seemed restricted.