Build Your Own 50s-60s Dream Car
Mr_Shiftright
Member Posts: 64,481
THE RULES OF THE GAME:
1. You can pick any 1950-69 vehicle, car or truck up to 3/4 ton, no busses, tanks, etc.
2. It can be foreign or domestic.
3. You can match any engine to any car, even if it is ridiculous or expensive, BUT IT MUST BE A 50s or 60S POWERPLANT. No modern hot rods in other words. Also all the components you add must be 50s or 60s.
4. You MUST, however, explain to use why you built the Dream Car you built...I mean, other than "because I wanted to". We'd like to know your rational, goal, strategy, prejudices, etc.
5. You can modify the bodies within reason, such as cutting a coupe that was never a convertible, but not welding two cars together, etc. etc, like Monster Garage.
6. Basically, think of the game this way---you are building the car that no manufacturer had the genius to build for you.
Remember, 50s or 60s components throughout, no Monster Garage stuff, jet engines, etc. This is to be a roadable everyday driver.
Cost is no object. You can have all the Mopar Hemi or Ferrari engines you want.
GIVE A REASON GIVE A REASON GIVE A REASON
1. You can pick any 1950-69 vehicle, car or truck up to 3/4 ton, no busses, tanks, etc.
2. It can be foreign or domestic.
3. You can match any engine to any car, even if it is ridiculous or expensive, BUT IT MUST BE A 50s or 60S POWERPLANT. No modern hot rods in other words. Also all the components you add must be 50s or 60s.
4. You MUST, however, explain to use why you built the Dream Car you built...I mean, other than "because I wanted to". We'd like to know your rational, goal, strategy, prejudices, etc.
5. You can modify the bodies within reason, such as cutting a coupe that was never a convertible, but not welding two cars together, etc. etc, like Monster Garage.
6. Basically, think of the game this way---you are building the car that no manufacturer had the genius to build for you.
Remember, 50s or 60s components throughout, no Monster Garage stuff, jet engines, etc. This is to be a roadable everyday driver.
Cost is no object. You can have all the Mopar Hemi or Ferrari engines you want.
GIVE A REASON GIVE A REASON GIVE A REASON
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A 1965 Buick Riviera Gran Sport with all the interior trimmings. Add the "ride and handling" package (HD shocks and springs, fast-ratio steering), a rear anti-roll bar (dunno if one off an Olds 442 would fit, but there were lots of aftermarket parts that probably would). Adapt the four-wheel disc brakes from a Corvette Sting Ray with a set of Hurst's short-lived but quite nice alloy wheels. Replace the old nailhead engine with a '69 Buick 400 Stage One out of a GS400, and maybe add a Hurst dual-gate shifter. Not exactly a dragstrip scorcher, but an attractive and flexible 'gentleman's express' that would not be embarrassed to show its face in polite society.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Start with a '66 Falcon Ranchero, add K-Code 289 V8 (305hp in GT-350 trim), add Mustang disc brakes, oil cooler, GT-350 gears and rear end, springs and shocks. Some halogen headlights, grille center fogs and a Shelby Blue paint job with white LeMans striping, Halibrand Cobra style mags.
If that's not fast enough there's always the Paxton supercharger set up from the GT-350S.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Leather interior like this, full gauges, custom wheels -- although I think it demands the fat whitewalls.
These were all good ideas so far.
Here's mine:
A '55 Buick convertible, fitted with a medium powered, low compression Corvette engine from the mid-60s, coupled to a TH400 automatic, Camaro disc brakes from I don't know what yet, and GS suspension pieces wherever possible. Baloney whites, spinner hubs, fake stock radio that hides a CD stacker, later GM a/c unit, Corvette p/s steering box. I might also think of imaginative ways to decrease sprung and unsprung weight wherever possible., like inflatable spare tire, and if it saved enough weight, IRS with disk brakes in the rear (lotta work there).
Rear disc brakes were optional (albeit very, very rare) on Camaros in 1968 and 1969. IRS does not necessarily reduce total weight versus a live axle (on a modern Mustang Cobra, for example, the IRS is heavier than the live axle)...the key is to reduce _unsprung_ weight to improve ride and handling.
So here's a perverse idea. A 1964 Checker Marathon sedan...
Let's see, a blocky, sturdy, stodgy taxi cab (actually not at all huge by 60s standards -- a '64 sedan was 200 inches long on a 120-inch wheelbase, with a shipping weight of around 3650 pounds). A small voice screams "Hemi," but how about an Oldsmobile 455 ala Hurst/Olds, with a Turbo Hydramatic and Positraction? Perhaps with a W-30-type fresh-air intake fabricated for the purpose.
I like that idea though, taking something stodgy and conservative and turning it into a monster. Another car I always thought would be a good candidate for that would be a '67-69 Valiant 2-door sedan (or maybe a '67-68 Dart 2-door sedan). Something like this you wouldn't even need a big-block...a 340 would do just fine! Maybe upgrade it to the 4.5" bolt pattern, so that you could put some 15x7 copcar rims on it with the little dog-dish hubcaps.
Making a Dart or Valiant into a monster is not all that tough. There were at least 50 '69 Darts built with Hemis, for example, although they weren't very driveable on the street. If you don't want to sweat, a 340 is the better bet--a 383 crowds the engine bay very badly (it took Chrysler engineers two years to work out a new power steering pump to allow p/s to be ordered on 383 Darts and Barracudas), and a 440 has wider heads that basically rule out power steering or brakes. The 340 also weighs 90 pounds or so less than the 383, and it doesn't have so much torque that traction becomes a major problem.
There was also an earlier prototype '53 Panther with another close-coupled roofline & an enormous rear deck. Let's go with a Chrysler Crossram 413 and a TF727 in that one.
I like both these designs because the proportions are so different than anything else & I prefer long deck/short hood designs. They're both sleek & 'jukebox' at the same time.
I also really like the '55 Packard Request because the front end is so wonderfully intimidating & beautiful. (I have no idea why I am gravitating towards Packards tonight). Perhaps I'd go with Pontiac power in that one- a nice '64 421 HO and a 4-speed, a Dana 60 rear and Buick aluminum drums. Or.... maybe drop the Request body on the chassis of a '58 Fury and keep the 305HP/350 & pushbutton TF727 Fury powertrain.
The '63 Chrysler Turbine is a pretty clean design too, lots of 'thrust' in it's lines. I'd get a good-performing turbine plant in there, alter the front finned headlight bezels to free-wheel in motion, do the same for those giant back-up light bezels (electrically driven?). The wild contour of the rear deck is awesome- nothing like that has ever been done automotively since. But the car needs to be dropped evenly a good 2-3 inches and it also needs a good 2-3" chop & no vinyl top. The interior is fantastic as is. Bigger wheels/wider tires.
On the other hand, I am building something that almost follows these rules to a T: '59 Buick Invicta coupe, '72 Buick 455, Stage 2 aluminum heads (aftermarket), '59 aluminum drums with Kevlar shoes, TH400, Dana 60, ladder bars, nosed, decked & shaved, period interior, dropped & raked.
The only things I'd do other than what I am (budget restrictions) is go with a 4L80-E (TH400 with electronic OD), an underhood blower on mild boost and angle-chop the top (1" lower in the back & 2.5" lower in front). Bodywise I'd visually extend the rear deck by shortening the greenhouse. And scratch-build a 4-bucket/full-console interior in the vein of the '60 300-F.
This one I like because it's the angriest car ever penned and I identify with that. A rip-snorting performance car should LOOK as mean as it's fast. The '59 Buick is graceful and well-integrated overall, yet the front looks like a stainless steel ramming device. That's good.
The interior would feature bucket seats from a late 1960s 4-4-2, while the exterior would boast the styled steel wheels that Oldsmobile offered in the late 1960s on the Cutlasses. Chrome would be kept to a minimum, with no hood scoops, stripes, etc., to clutter up the design. And, of course, no woodgrain along the sides.
Next...street legal Lola T70 with 302 Chevy.
A non fender flared / non hood scooped / non side piped 427 Cobra except pitch the 427 and use a Boss 302 (a 1969 one, of course).
Hmmm...maybe a 1955 Porsche Speedster, except built like a Baja Bug. Raised, 2 liter VW engine (maybe a type IV if I can if those were around in really late 1969), tall wheels and tires, cage, etc.
How about a 1969 Ford (Mercury, whatever) Capri with a Cosworth V8...there was a road racer built with this setup back in the day.
...a 1969 Monteverdi 375 with Paxton-blown 426 hemi.
We all know that Pontiac's GTO shared its name with the famous Ferrari. I was thinking, "what else do 60's Ferraris and Pontiacs have in common?"
So here's the recipe:
- Take one 1963 Pontiac Tempest Custom sports coupe. (I prefer the exterior of the Custom to the LeMans, except perhaps the LeMans three-bar grille -- I think the LeMans horizontal taillights are dowdy.)
- Remove slant-four engine and transmission. Install:
3.3L DOHC V-12, driveshaft, and 5-speed transaxle from a mid-60s Ferrari 275 GTB/4. Yup, that's right, the Colombo V-12, all alloy, twin cams, six Weber 40DCN carburetors. It was claimed to have 300 hp, but from what I've read 260 or so was more likely -- no matter.
I dunno what kind of nightmarish fabrication would be necessary to make this fit. The Colombo V-12 is actually about six inches shorter than the Pontiac engine, and somewhat lighter, but beyond that...well, since I'd be selling my soul to the devil to make this happen in the first place, why not?
- Some judicious modifications to the suspension and brakes. I don't know how much could be done with the handling, especially the Tempest's miserably slow steering box. '63 Tempests I think had an improved trailing arm rear suspension (ala '63 Sting Ray or '65 Corvair), but they're still pretty hoppy. Best available radial tires, alloy wheels.
- Custom interior with a full set of gauges replacing the awful Tempest dash, and some proper bucket seats.
- A liberal helping of "GTO" badges for the exterior.
Why would I do such a thing? Sheer perversity. This is a sick idea, but it makes me giggle just thinking about it, and the looks of horror on the faces of purists in both the Poncho and prancing-horse cults alone would almost be worth it.
The biggest problem I see with this "Tempari", aside from the expense (let's see...maybe $15K for a rebuildable 3.3 V-12 and another $30K to really do it up), would be how to keep a Pontiac Tempest on the ground at 170 mph.
I'd expect you'd want to gear it down differentially and fiddly with the aero considerably.
You might not win a 0-60 with a big block but you could kiss them goodbye at about 115 mph.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Why? It's perhaps one of the most beautiful cars Ford ever made, and with the supercharged engine, it'll move, even if handling and braking aren't up to 2003 standards.
The biggest problem with that Temparri would be that cruddy rope of a driveshaft Pontic used. Maybe you could use the Ferrari one, I'm not savvy about adapting driveshafts.
Fun topic Mr. S, even better than the Mink test.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
I figure to make the unholy V-12 Tempest, the Ferrari driveshaft would be adapted -- since the engine on one end and transaxle on the other would be the Ferrari parts anyway. The driveshafts on the Tempest and the 275 had very different design philosophies. On the Tempest, the shaft was deliberately somewhat flexible (hence the "rope drive" nickname) to absorb the massive, unbalanced vertical shaking of the big four-cylinder engine. High revs were not a priority (maximum usable rpm was well under 5,000). On the Ferrari, after the earliest production models they adopted a rigid tube to enclose the driveshaft. Because the Ferrari engine was much higher revving (and, being a 12, didn't have the same secondary forces), what was a big problem was that if the driveshaft alignment wasn't precise, it could shake things loose in a very expensive and dangerous manner.
The difference between an engine with an 8,000 rpm redline and a 4,600 rpm redline...
Basically you'd have to lift the body off and put it on some other structure, like with a funny car.
Oh, yeah, 55-57 T-Birds would be excellent candidates for a powertrain transplant. Don't forget to insulate the passenger compartment against engine heat, which Ford did forget to do.
then get a 3800 twin turbo out of a GMC cyclone P/U. Then reinforce the Yugo with about 500lbs of titanium boxed tubing, tub the rearend, and move the drivers seat to the back. Then find the biggest disc's you can hang on that baby along with a parachute on the back just in case... oh, ah, shoot I was just getting to the good stuff..golly this isn't a 50-60s..darn
hudnut2: The Rambler American first offered a V-8 in 1966, when it became available with AMC's new thin-wall 290 V-8. AMC did offer the 343 V-8 in a few special-order 1967 Rambler Americans, but, as Mr. Shiftright noted, those engines were too much for the body. I don't think that was a problem with the 290 V-8.
Of course, the American was never designed for a V-8. The car was originally only supposed to be available with the straight six. Post-1963 Americans are pretty good looking cars, especially the hardtops. The previous two generations - 1958-60 and 1961-63 - are pretty homely, but have a kind of goofy charm.
This was actually done back in the day, most famously by race driver P.L. Newman (Joanne Woodward's husband).
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Ironically it's much easier to bolt a VW engine into a Porsche, which some people used to do, since rebuilding the Porsche engine (which is really not like a VW engine at all if you had them side by side) often costs as much as the entire car.
I've seen Corvair engines installed in VeeDubs, mostly in busses and pickups, which is great EXCEPT you have to remember that the Corvair engine turns in the *opposite* direction of the VW engine, so that if you don't flip the VW pinion gear over, you'll have a car with one forward speed and four reverses---LOL!
(Oh, it's been done, many times).
I agree. A 356 engine is not the one you want to be trying to turn into a powerhouse.
You could cram a Porsche 911S engine into a 914---that would be scary and mighty quick.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Just the THOUGHT of combining the natural tendency of mid engine cars to spin visciously (once they get started I mean), added to the viscious early 911 turbo lag (often coming on when the car is totally imbalanced in the turn) and you'd have, probably, one of the scariest cars ever built.
I once researched putting a 1973 Porsche 911 engine into a 1966 Porsche 912. That would have been a sweet car, because I could have left the "912" emblem on it and cleaned up every British sports car in the county.
The reason I would not use 60s 911 engines is because the Porsche Webers are a pain to tune and the 60s fuel injection (mechanical only) is rough running and cranky.
I like the looks of the Flair 'birds, basically for the opposite reason I like the '63-'65 Riviera. The Riv is actually tasteful; the T-Bird is not, but it's such an astonishing pastiche of 60s styling cliches (fake scoops, fake landau S-bars, fender skirts, the 'sport roadster' tonneau) that it's a wonderful period piece. But it's SO awful dynamically that it'd be hard for me to live with one without extensive working over, I suspect. This is a car that was decried for its ghastly handling and brakes _by the standards of 1964_, an era from which the BEST American cars generally handle like drunken shopping cars.
I have a strange affection for the Kaiser Manhattans of the early 50s, especially the '53 in lavish Dragon trim -- with "bambu" vinyl. Not a sexy car, but certainly neat-looking.
Although I like the blue ones better (Kaiser specialized in unusual and distinctive paint schemes).
Kaiser designers penned a true hardtop Manhattan, but KF's finances didn't allow that, or a convertible. But it would've been a nifty-looking car, and a pillarless coupe with bigger side windows would've eliminated the heavy door frames that are arguably the most jarring visual element of the design.
So make me a '53 Manhattan hardtop coupe. The other problem with Kaisers is that they didn't have money for a V-8, and the old L-head six struggled to make 112-118 gross horsepower (the last few '54-'55s got a McCulloch supercharger for about 140 hp, but they also tended to blow up). The Kaisers weren't that heavy (3100-3200 lbs), but they could barely get out of their own way. Substituting a later lightweight V-8 would probably help. This isn't a muscle car, so perhaps a Mopar 273 in 4-bbl (235 hp) form. It could use more brake, of course, and if there was some way to install a better, faster ratio power steering box, that'd be nice, too. It would certainly be an attention-grabbing car, but in a sort of laid-back and funky manner.
There is in this scenario a question that I have always wondered about, however. The engine that came in that car (327/270) had made the '57 Rambler Rebel a major player in the performance arena. In fact I remember reading that in '57 only the fuel-injected Corvette could stay with it. So how quick was my dream car in stock form? Maybe I shouldn't mess with the drivetrain, and should concentrate on the other stuff. I'll have to think about that.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Bendix "Electrojector" fuel injection (developed with Chrysler and advertised for 1958 Chryslers) was shown at auto shows and in ads, claiming 288 hp, but it's not entirely clear if any were actually sold that way.
A Rebel did 0-60 in 7.2 seconds and topped 115 mph at the Daytona Speed Week trials, although I dunno how stock it actually was, and I suspect that was probably with stick shift (and a high numerical axle ratio). Given the Rambler economy car image, more Ramblers were sold with three-speed or overdrive than most other domestics, but I imagine most V-8 models had automatic -- in '57 that was still the GM controlled-coupling Hydra-Matic, which Nash called "Flashaway."
Funky lookin' thing, to be sure.
Back in the closet!!!!!
Please! Put it back in the closet!!!!
That thing is........BAAAHHHHHH!!!!!
(This coing from a guy who likes '59 Cadillacs!)
Every year a former Nash/AMC dealer in Orbisonia, Pa. (about 70 miles northwest of Harrisburg in a VERY rural part of the state) puts on a show of Nash and AMC products at his home in the mountains. Last year he had several very clean Nashes and Ramblers for sale. Unfortunately, his asking prices were way out of line, even for original cars in #2 condition. If I had a scanner, I could post some of the photos I took at the show...although they might give rea98d a good scare.
I always kinda likened the '87-91 Camry to a '60's AMC product...it had the same clean, appliance-like lines. The current Camry is more like the '57 Rambler. Upright, roomy and efficient, but not too pretty to look at ;-)
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Not substantively less weird than the '57, I think, and it wasn't until '63 that the bigger Ramblers lost the awkward reverse-canted C pillars.
The smaller Rambler Americans looked considerably less peculiar. This '59 actually looks a lot like a Volvo PV544 to me --
Or maybe a ?65 Riviera with the same 4-wheel Corvette disk brakes, later Buick suspension, and a 455 stage one with all power options and AC.