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

berri

Anything for a buck!

berri

$200K for an old custom job on a 56 Olds in red and grey. I dunno - but it's Snotsdale in January I guess (and it ain't my money).

fintail

85K for a nice driver quality Ponton cabrio isn't out of line. Real concours ones go for a bit more.

ab348

berri said:

$200K for an old custom job on a 56 Olds in red and grey. I dunno - but it's Snotsdale in January I guess (and it ain't my money).

I would have liked that one a lot more if it didn't have a Chevy engine under the hood. Sacrilege!

ab348

I am having a hard time understanding the money that the M-B 190SL on auction are commanding. But then again Power Wagons and Microbus examples are also bringing ridiculous money.

Maybe I should seek out a pagoda-roof Benz.

fintail

230SLs can be reasonable, but 280SLs have gone a little crazy now too, can't get em for 25K anymore.

Mr_Shiftright

The 190SL gets its stardom from the resemblance to the 300SL; underneath it is a humble 190sedan with no sporting capabilities other than being roofless. I never liked cars that are pretenders.

berri

I would have liked that one a lot more if it didn't have a Chevy engine under the hood. Sacrilege!

Perhaps it is paying tribute to the Chevymobile scandal in the 70's

andre1969

Last week, I spotted this out in my yard...

xwesx

Man, Andre.... you better call the city. People abandon crap anywhere these days, don't they?! How rude; what, did they think you wouldn't notice it with the fresh snowfall?

berri

The snow looks pretty in that Maryland countryside though

andre1969

We got about 19"...just low enough that I could clear it in one pass with the snow blower, rather than having to take some off the top, back up, and then get the lower part.

Here's the view out the door that Sunday morning after the snow finished up...

Normally, it would be more picturesque, but we had a lot of wind, which kept it from really piling up in the trees.

And a shot of the street...


Here's the Silverado, parked at Grandmom's house across the street...

I had intended to get it started, so I could take the lazy way out and use it as a battering ram to knock down the snow banks when the plows came through, rather than dig out. It did that job pretty well back in 2010 when we had a couple blizzards back to back. But, the damn thing refused to start when I put a battery in it, and it was already starting to snow, and I had more pressing matters, like making sure the snow blower would start, making sure the generator worked (they were calling for heavy winds), etc.

Oh, and here's the Buick and Ram...

xwesx

Well, if nothing else, snowfalls like this make for lovely diversions from the monotonous routine of life, so I hope you enjoyed it! We have had a solid two months without any new snow. It's a little disconcerting, really. I mean, I do appreciate the reprieve since it took me nearly six weeks to get my plow back to operational, but this is just getting ridiculous.

fintail

Color me jealous. I would love something like that - it would be armageddon here.

andre1969

It was fun, for a little while. I'm finding that the older I get, the less I like the cold. I'm happy if we have just one snow storm a year that's enough to get us out of work...kinda makes me feel like a kid again. But once we've had that, I just want winter to be over, and get on with spring!

I'm just thankful the snow blower worked...those things really are a life saver! My uncle bought it back in 2003, right after we'd had another blizzard, of similar magnitude. But then, we didn't get another real storm for years, so it sat, the seals dried out, and it needed a carb rebuild. Luckily, we got that done awhile back, so it was ready to go for this storm. And, we make sure to run the thing every once in awhile...whether we need it or not!

ab348

Andre, has most of it melted now? I saw a pic from a friend in NYC on the weekend and was astounded it was all gone there.

PF_Flyer

The things you find when you go looking... We started the task of going through the boxes of loose photos to try and sort them (roughly) by date, and I ran into this group that I must have have stacked together for some reason or other.

Mr_Shiftright

Somebody should start a topic where one person posts old family car photos but everyone else gets to write the captions

andre1969

Yep, it's mostly melted now. Still covering most of the ground, but probably only around 5-6" thick now. And the driveway's a muddy mess. Here's a pic I took this morning...


Back in the late 1990's, one of our neighbors moved to Southern Maryland, into a custom-built home that the husband built himself. I remember the wife saying that all she would need is a paved driveway with a red Cadillac in it, and she'd feel rich. Well, she got the paved driveway, and a red Cadillac (first a DTS, now an SRX).

I wouldn't need the red Cadillac...but when during the winter time, when everything gets wet and messy, I wouldn't mind the paved driveway! Another added bonus is the snow melts a lot quicker, and they're easier to use the snow blower on.

stickguy

Need a few more tons of gravel at least. Though I would bite the bullet and pave that sucker.

explorerx4

@andre1969,
That first picture makes it look like the car has the Continental Kit on the front.

fintail

Ooh a Datsun King Cab 4x4 - those are probably more rare today than Vegas (still see an early Civic around here now and then).

PF_Flyer said:

The things you find when you go looking... We started the task of going through the boxes of loose photos to try and sort them (roughly) by date, and I ran into this group that I must have have stacked together for some reason or other.

PF_Flyer

Well, it was a Nissan King Cab, but yeah. The welds in the bed were steel and the bed of the truck slowly disappeared over time. When I traded it in, a guy in the service department bought the truck, put a new bed on it, and painted it a dark green

PF_Flyer

Mr_Shiftright said:

Somebody should start a topic where one person posts old family car photos but everyone else gets to write the captions

I'm certain I have MANY family photos with cars in them.

That Civic was Dad's first import. And I think the caption for the '73 Vega would be... You're washing it?? Why???

fintail

A late one, 1983+?

Those slowly dissolved even here, seemingly faster than Toyotas or any American truck.

PF_Flyer said:

Well, it was a Nissan King Cab, but yeah. The welds in the bed were steel and the bed of the truck slowly disappeared over time. When I traded it in, a guy in the service department bought the truck, put a new bed on it, and painted it a dark green

xwesx

LOL yeah, they did! My grandparents had one (Nissan king cab, brown w/ tan highlights). They had it from ~1986 until the early nineties, and it was getting pretty rusty by then. It replaced the '76 F250 as my grandfather's daily driver up until he retired in 1991, at which point my grandmother bought him a new Dodge power wagon. He didn't take to that one at all, and it mostly just sat until they sold it a few years later (1994 IIRC).

I think they sold the Nissan in 1993, and I saw it on the road up through the late '90s when I was working down there in the summer months. The outer bed just kept rusting away, but the inside looked perfect thanks to being permanently capped since new.

PF_Flyer

1984 and the color was called Orange Mist
I think they started using aluminum welds in 85

fintail

One of those in mint condition would be a special interest car now, might bring a little money. I know a mint 84-87 Toyota 4x4 Xtra cab isn't just a used car anymore.

PF_Flyer

I do miss having a pickup

Mr_Shiftright

PF_Flyer said:

I do miss having a pickup

I'll trade you my Dodge Dakota 4X4 for one of yours---I'm looking for a 2001-2005 Porsche Turbo Carrera.

fintail

Today spotted a late run W124 E300 Diesel, an E320 cabrio with possible Lorinser accessories, and a W140 400SE - rare car.

On another thread the middle-highline Hyundai was mentioned - I saw 2 (!) Hyundai XG today, a forgotten model.

kyfdx

fintail said:

Today spotted a late run W124 E300 Diesel, an E320 cabrio with possible Lorinser accessories, and a W140 400SE - rare car.

On another thread the middle-highline Hyundai was mentioned - I saw 2 (!) Hyundai XG today, a forgotten model.

Local guy has a 300D for sale. $2995. I'll have to see if I can find the craigslist ad..

kyfdx

Here we go..

http://cincinnati.craigslist.org/cto/5401231190.html

Mr_Shiftright

Oh yeah, right...turn up the turbo boost on a 300,000 mile engine. What could possibly go wrong?

fintail

Decent enough for the mileage, average asking price. Most unusual feature is that it is a later run car.

Mr_Shiftright

With that much mileage, one should pay half that price IMO. Its life is statistically over.

texases

Mr_Shiftright said:

With that much mileage, one should pay half that price IMO. Its life is statistically over.

Nah, them there diesels are just gettin' broke in at 300k, right?

edit - the readers over at NPOCP had to make up reasons another MB diesel required a replacement engine at 'only' 180k
http://jalopnik.com/this-1979-mercedes-benz-300sd-asks-6-800-has-more-mil-1756348758

iluvmysephia1

Nah, them there diesels are just gettin' broke in at 300k, right?

Right.

andre1969

iluvmysephia1 said:

Nah, them there diesels are just gettin' broke in at 300k, right?

Right.

Is that "Broke in" or "Broken"?

lemko

Those diesel semi trucks go a million miles or more. I guess 300K miles wouldn't be too bad if it was a Kenworth.

xwesx

lemko said:

Those diesel semi trucks go a million miles or more. I guess 300K miles wouldn't be too bad if it was a Kenworth.

Quite true, but the nature of their miles makes it a much less surprising feat. Namely, they can put 6,000 miles a week on them, which means a lot longer runs, more consistency in internal operating temperatures, etc. When my mother and her husband were team-driving, they received a new truck from the company after 250,000 miles, and they received a new truck every 11-12 months! Their truck typically had more than 250, but less than 300K, on it. After that, the company used the trucks for solo drivers until they were just short of 500,000 (normally another two years), then they were sold. IIRC, the factory warranty period on these trucks is four years or 500,000 miles!

In addition to the mechanical wear, the interior wears more per mile in the cars because there is more entry and exit, and the exterior ages more as well due to time. So, 300,000 miles is a high number for any passenger car that doesn't see maybe a quarter of those miles annually.

To compare, the 1997 F350 powerstroke I drove to Oregon in 2007 had just over 50,000 miles at the time and looked new. Now, it has about 330,000 miles (and did as of 2012), and yet the truck still looks a lot nicer than many (perhaps most) of its peers with only a 100,000 on them, and that was mostly because of how quickly those miles racked up.

fintail

With a lot of those vehicles with legends around them, like old MB diesels, maintenance still applies. If you don't do it by the book, odds become poor of hitting that huge mileage on an untouched engine.

Mr_Shiftright

lemko said:

Those diesel semi trucks go a million miles or more. I guess 300K miles wouldn't be too bad if it was a Kenworth.

Yeah but those truck engines are as large as a Smart car.

PF_Flyer

Photography is one of my hobbies, and I'm involved with the National Geographic YourShot community. Ran into this photo challenge just now. She also has other pics of older iron scattered throughout her posted photos from Turkey
http://yourshot.nationalgeographic.com/profile/9412/

stever

What's the challenge? To see how many retinas you can burn?

PF_Flyer

I wonder if it's a Mary K-Car

stickguy

Nice early adoption of high mounted brake lights.

Mr_Shiftright

Takes guts for a man to drive a pink car in Turkey.

PF_Flyer

Since the trunk lock is painted over, I'm assuming it's NOT an OEM color

explorerx4

Isn't that an old New Jersey plate on there?