Project Cars--You Get to Vote on "Hold 'em or Fold 'em"

andre1969

I found this list of the past winners at http://www.answers.com/topic/motor-trend-car-of-the-year:

2006 Honda Civic
2005 Chrysler 300C
2004 Toyota Prius
2003 Infiniti G35
2002 Ford Thunderbird
2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser
2000 Lincoln LS
1999 Chrysler 300M
1998 Chevrolet Corvette
1997 Chevrolet Malibu
1996 Dodge Caravan
1995 Chrysler Cirrus
1994 Ford Mustang
1993 Ford Probe GT
1992 Cadillac Seville Touring Sedan
1991 Chevrolet Caprice Classic LTZ
1990 Lincoln Town Car
1989 Ford Thunderbird SC
1988 Pontiac Grand Prix
1987 Ford Thunderbird Turbo Coupe
1986 Ford Taurus LX
1985 Volkswagen GTI
1984 Chevrolet Corvette
1983 AMC / Renault Alliance
1982 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
1981 Chrysler K Cars, Dodge Aries / Plymouth Reliant
1980 Chevrolet Citation
1979 Buick Riviera S
1978 Chrysler, Dodge Omni / Plymouth Horizon
1977 Chevrolet Caprice
1976 Chrysler, Dodge Aspen / Plymouth Volare
1975 Chevrolet Monza 2+2
1974 Ford Mustang II
1973 Chevrolet Monte Carlo
1972 Citroën SM
1971 Chevrolet Vega
1970 Ford Torino
1969 Plymouth Road Runner
1968 Pontiac GTO
1967 Mercury Cougar
1966 Oldsmobile Toronado
1965 Pontiac Motor Division
1964 Ford Motor Company (for the Mustang)
1963 American MotorsRambler
1962 Buick Special
1961 Pontiac Tempest
1960 Chevrolet Corvair
1959 Pontiac Motor Division
1958 Ford Thunderbird
1957 Chrysler Corporation
1956 Ford Motor Company
1955 Chevrolet Motor Division
1954 No award
1953 No award
1952 Cadillac Motor Division
1951 Chrysler Corporation
1950 No award
1949 Cadillac Motor Division

Up through 1998, the award was only given to American-made cars, as there was a separate import car of the year award. I still don't know how the Citroen SM made it for 1972, though? I read the article ages ago at the campus library, but can't remember their reasoning. I think part of it may be that, on the US front, there really just wasn't all that much all-new in '72. I think the only domestic car that would qualify would be the Torino/Montego, which went from the old Fairlane/Falcon unitized platform to a new perimeter frame design.

I wonder how the Road Runner qualified for 1969? 1969 was the second year of that body design, and there was a Roadrunner in 1968 as well.

andre1969

That 1970 Dodge Coronet kinda makes me think of the car the father had in that old cartoon "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" Here's a pic from opening credits. Good lord, what CAN'T you find on the internet? :surprise:

Mr_Shiftright

Boy!... from 1971--1990 that's about the biggest list of turkeys I've seen in a long time.

What are these people THINKING?

There are a few others in other time frames that make you cringe

63 Rambler? good lord
93 Ford Probe? uh, yeah, sure...
97 Malibu -- well maybe if you're a rental company...
2000 Lincoln LS--yep, really thrilled us all

There's maybe 6 outstanding cars in that whole darn list....the rest are harmless enough I guess but nothing to write home about that's for sure.

You'd think the "car of the year" would remain memorable rather than induce head-scratching and a "now what did that car look like again?"

lemko

For an even more obscure cartoon reference, there was a show called "The Barkleys" which aired on Saturday mornings in 1972-73. about a family of dogs based on "All in the Family." The father's name was Arnie Barkley and talked like Archie Bunker and had a voice like Caroll O'Connor. His car had a strong resemblance to a 1968 Plymouth Fury I.

I remember that show "Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home" when it was originally aired. It came on at 7PM, but I forget which night. I think it was Thursday. I remember that his car looked an awful lot like a 1970 Dodge Coronet!

qbrozen

hmmmm... when do they give the award?

I could be wrong, but I could have sworn the MT just delivered to my house in the last couple of days has the Camry as the COTY. Is that for '07?

Mr_Shiftright

I guess the primary objective of the COTY award is to make sure readers' yawn.

One could argue that the award is "relative" to other cars of the time, and that might in some ways justify some of the picks from 1975-1990 (the Dark Years) but not from the 60s and 2000s......

british_rover

Yeah the Camry won the COTY for 2007 MY.

Sometimes I think MT is asleep at the wheel for their COTY and SUVOTY and TOTY competitions.

They gave the GL450 the SUV of the Year award for 2007 and it is just not that great a vehicle.

qbrozen

yeah, i'm not sure I understand the award fully.

I mean, I can understand wanting to award a vehicle for fulfilling alot of needs, but then I'd name it appropriately, like "The car of the year that we'd most likely buy if we were concerned with value, seating room, and efficiency," or some such descriptive title.

Honestly, how the heck can a Camry win "Car of the Year" over the Cayman S (for example)?? Its just ludicrous. BUT, of course, it can win the title I described above.

andre1969

seems more like Consumer Report's pick for Car of the Year, rather than Motortrend's! :P

lemko

Motor Trend should really have another category for the Camry as "Appliance of the Year." I heard it beat out the legendary Maytag washing machine and an awesome Amana refrigerator.

qbrozen

Although I think the Amana has better brakes.

andre1969

And the Maytag gives smoother performance over washboard-rough surfaces.

lilengineerboy

When I was a wee lad my folks had a '71 Corona like that. The sun ate the inside of that car. I remember trying to clean the inside rear-view mirror and housing crumbling to dust in my hand. I think that car rolled its odometer twice. I remember it saying something like 7500 miles when my folks got rid of it (which might have been in the 90s).

qbrozen

I think having him pay me $50 to use my AAA membership to tow this thing out of there is a reasonable offer.

Hey... wasn't someone looking for a diesel benz doner car? Boomcheck?

Doesn't look bad.

"I am flexible with the price." Gee, ya think??

Wow. Someone who actually doesn't think his SHO is a valuable collectible.

If this wasn't an auto, it might be pretty sweet.

lilengineerboy

Check the VW fan sites for how much a 21 window goes for. If you can get the hemp residue out of the thing they are worth quite a bit.

qbrozen

For one that's rusted out?

I'd have to check to be sure, but I believe BJ had one or 2 last year. As we all know, BJ is overpriced, but even those perfect showroom examples didn't break $20k. So $12k for one that needs what sounds like alot of work sound pretty crazy to me.

qbrozen

YIKES!!

I stand corrected:
http://www.barrett-jackson.com/auctionresults/common/cardetail.asp?id=181887

The crazy, nostalgic hippies have way more money to burn than I thought.

andre1969

this could be heaven or hell, depending on your definition.

qbrozen

that's scary.

Maybe worth the opening bid if the dogs are included.

Mr_Shiftright

Well that's just an example of how people don't really look at the BJ cars, only the prices they bring.

To take a 21 window VW bus and make it THAT nice and THAT perfect would cost a fortune. First of all, a high-dollar VW window bus would have mirror-straight body panels...and that is MIGHTY hard to do with thin high-sided metal walls.

Then you have to remove ALL the glass and put in new seals (and maybe new glass)!!!. Then a complete new interior, re-chrome everything, straighten the floor pans, and of course rebuild every mechanical component, all new tires, and at least an $8,000 paint job. And we haven't even talked about new wiring harness and headliner.

So there's really a vast world of difference between what you might see as a #1 BJ car and what you see on craigslist.

hpmctorque

Circling back to the MT COTY Award, I think a good part of the problem is that there is not a truly remarkable new car introduced every 365 days. Truly remarkable cars are introduced at less frequent intervals. Therefore, I agree with what I interpret Shifty to have indicated in his Message #7689; that is, the yearly winner is selected over the runner-ups on a relative basis rather than on an absolute basis. Also, price is a consideration, so that the Camry doesn't compete against the Cayman Turbo. But just for fun, I'd be interested in knowing which cars some of you would have selected during the dark years of the '70s and '80s. I must confess that I would have selected many of the same awful choices that MT made (okay, not the Citroen SM). Why? First, because their designs tended to be innovative when price is factored into the equation. Second, shortly after the cars were introduced, I wouldn't have known just how bad they were. For example, the gremlins (with a lower case "G") hadn't yet surfaced at the time MT selected such cars as the Tempest, Vega, Aspen/Volare, Alliance. Each of these was either innovative and/or had appealing features in its class, and considering price and what else was out there in those respective years, they were reasonable choices, in my view.

Andre, thanks for listing all the MT COTY. My recollection that MT selected the Celebrity as COTY for '82 was innacurate.

xwesx

I think having him pay me $50 to use my AAA membership to tow this thing out of there is a reasonable offer.

A '71? That grille is from a 69/70 - I am fairly certain they switched to the turn signals in the bumper for 71 and 72 with the checkered grille (with center bowtie). In 69/70, the bowtie was on the front of the hood. So, basically, this thing is a project that has already been hacked up quite a bit and does not look like it has a drivetrain installed. From the look of it, I would be hard pressed to pay more than $200 for it, and I would actually like to have a 4x4 project like this! :P

Looking again, it does have good glass though, so I might consider coughing up $500.

xwesx

Makes sense... after all, the magazine is called "Motor Trend," not "Motor Quality." It is easier to look back and see which vehicles impacted trends than it is to look forward.

Mr_Shiftright

In some ways it's similar to commenting on a war 25 years after it happens. Knowing how it all turns out makes us great critics, but the people at the time didn't know the future, and were often confused or mislead about stuff.

My recollection of "The Dark Years" was that the American auto industry was getting so desperate that every new-ish car was "Detroit's Great Hope"...which of course was delusional in that just because Americans BOUGHT these mediocre cars didn't mean that Detroit was going to get back its market share (which they never did).

I'd say the only domestic cars worthy of any kind of "award" without the room bursting out laughing might be the Buick GNX, the Corvette C4 (for all its faults) and....and....and....um....maybe maybe the Ford Taurus because it at least attempted to give an American car a coherent and pleasing design that wasn't a parody of excess...maybe a "good taste" award?

Probably for furrin' cars we'd have to give an award to the BMW 325, which really started the whole market for entry level luxury sports sedans....(don't even say the numbers 320i or I'll barf)....and of course for 1990 the Lexus LS400, which proceeded to beat the stuffings out of Mercedes market share on the high end....definitely a "watershed" car.

also I'd give an award to the Saab 900 Turbo, since Saab put turbocharging on the map for mass-production sedans...a worthy achievement even if the car was less than good.

But most cars of the 70s and 80s that come to mind don't stand out...they were "okay" and "pleasant" and all that, but they never contributed ten cents to the betterment of the science and art of the automobile, that's for sure.

hpmctorque

Hmmm, if the criterion is "the betterment of the science and art of the automobile", then for sure the frequency with which a qualifying candidate debuts is extended. Maybe only the Prius and the Mercedes Bluetec diesel qualify so far this century, under that set of rules. But since MT is free to set its own rules, which calls for selecting a winner each year, the hurdle is considerably lower. That's why some winners will just be interesting, or appealing, or somewhat innovative, or some combination, but not ground breaking.

I agree with you that the first generation Taurus qualifies, because in addition to the attributes you listed, it was a smashing success in the marketplace. I would also assign some credit for the Taurus' smashing sales success, even though it had some serious quality deficiencies (eg. problematic transmissions and 3.8 engine).

Mr_Shiftright

Well they can be styling or design criteria as well. The Prius for instance, is technologically interesting but it's a chore to drive one and they are unattractive.

hpmctorque

Right, the Prius is interesting but unappealing to me.

andre1969

but I've ridden in one or two. What about them makes them a pain to drive? If they made the Prius look more conventional, I might be intersted in one, but I just can't get past the looks. I thought they were pretty comfortable though, both in the front and back. It's classified as a midsize, but really too narrow for 3 across seating. But it's probably a more comfortable 4-seater than many larger cars out there.

One thing that also bugs me about many hybrids, like the Accord and Camry, is that the conversion ends up giving them puny trunks. The Prius's trunk is still something like 16 cubic feet, most likely because it was designed from the get-go as a hybrid, and not a regular car that was converted.

Mr_Shiftright

the Prius is clumsy...if you get the least bit sporty, you end up tense trying to drive it that way.

andre1969

the Prius is clumsy...if you get the least bit sporty, you end up tense trying to drive it that way.

Is it the tires, perhaps? Or does it have a really numb steering?

british_rover

I think it is all of the above and then the battery pack makes the weight distrubution all funky.

Mr_Shiftright

I think it's just a high roll center or something. Sure, better tires and shocks and sway bars would do it wonders...but that's not what you get.

Well actually they do make a "touring package" for 2007, which helps the car, but it's hard to find and they didn't make many of them.

I don't think Prius owners would buy the Touring package anyway. The Prius isn't really for folks who relish driving I don't think.

andre1969

that anything that firms up the driving experience of the Prius, especially wider tires, would hurt its fuel economy?

qbrozen

The title conned me into looking.

qbrozen

I guess if it lasts 4 months, it beats a car payment.
all cars under $1k

Mr_Shiftright

Doesn't say much for domestic car resale values does it?

RE: Audi "cream puff" -- try $300.

andre1969

I can't quite tell for sure, but is the white thing in this picture:


a full-sized Blazer or a pickup with a camper shell on it? I'm guessing it's a Blazer, and the way it's sitting up it's most likely 4wd.

And wow, here's what my '79 New Yorker devolved into:

I kinda like the Dodge Spirit, although if it has the 4-speed automatic I'd be VERY leery.

lemko

...I could always get the 1984 BMW 3-Series and the Mercedes and claim I own both a Bimmer and a Benz! Shoot, some of these cars could actually be worth the risk!

michaellno

Shoot, some of these cars could actually be worth the risk!

Funny, that's what I was thinking about those 2 Saturns ... but, it makes you wonder what kind of mileage they have.

I've heard that those early SL series can go incredible amounts of miles.

andre1969

it has that damned 301 under the hood, I'm not crazy about the silly paint job, and I need another one like I need a hole in the head, but this 1977 LeMans coupe might go for a reasonable price. Current bid is $105, and the buy it now is $3K.

xwesx

Tough to tell, though my impulse is to say Blazer because there is no apparent separation between the shell and the 'B' pillar.

Oh, yes, it is a Blazer for sure - this photo makes it clear:

lemko

Yes:

1993 Buick Century provided it has 3800 V-6.

1996 Buick Skylark, also provided it has 3800 V-6.

1988 Honda Accord provided it isn't a total rustbucket.

All the Saturn SLs look good. I had a psycho neighbor with a green one who beat the snot out of it yet it still endured.

No:

1988 Chevrolet Blazer - looks totally shot.

1991 Dodge Caravan

1992 Ford Bronco - looks solid but afraid of worn 4x4.

1993 Chevrolet Cavalier - it's been hit and looks beat

1993? Ford Explorer - 4x4 out of warranty = $$$$.

1995 Chrysler LHS - afraid of troublesome early 2.7 V-6 and transmission.

1996 Ford Aerostar - 3.0 V-6?

1996 Ford Taurus Wagom - 3.0 V-6 and troublesome tranny.

Maybe:

1989 Chrysler New Yorker - The car looks good from what little I see of it, but I don't know how ther reliability of Chrysler/Mitsubishi V-6s from this time period.

1989 Pontiac 6000 - If it has the same 3800 of my Park Ave's vintage it's a plus, but the car looks like it's been hit - a big minus.

1993 Dodge Spirit - I see a lot of survivors, but don't know how well these cars hold up over time.

1996 Oldsmobile Ciera - as long as it doesn't have the crappy 3.1 V-6 that my girlfriend's 1999 Olds Cutlass had!

Blue Jeep Wrangler - might be willing to take a chance on it.

Obvious wastes of money, but worth the risk if you're a gambler:

1983 Mercedes-Benz 300D.

1984 BMW 3-Series.

Please, God, put it out of it's misery:

Is that sad-looking pink car a Porsche? Good God! Who would paint a Porsche pink and use electrical tape for racing stripes?

fintail

I suppose it could be a decent driver if it isn't rusty

Not a project car per se, but I think it's cool, for MB people these are a classic

andre1969

1993 Buick Century provided it has 3800 V-6.

1996 Buick Skylark, also provided it has 3800 V-6.

Lemko, I'm not positive, but I think the 1996 Skylark was using a Chevy 3100 V-6 by this time. And I think the '93 Century had either a Buick 3300 (reduced displacement 3800, so still a solid engine) or a Chevy 3100. Or possibly a 3400. I think they quit putting 3800's in the A-bodies once they started using them in the W-bodies. Didn't want too much competition, I guess.

qbrozen

put me down for another vote on the saturns. When i first looked, those were the only vehicles I thought worth a shot (and look! the '93 is a stick!).

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the '65 ... well, i'm not sure what it is. Maybe a Falcon?

lilengineerboy

Ohhhh 500E very nice :P I think I must have grown up in the 80s because I love fender flares like that. The same look with the E30 M3, E28 M5, Audi Quattro, etc. Even now the styling survives with the M roadster and coupe.
As far as the 500E...hmm midsized car, big V8..sounds like a hot rod to me.

andre1969

I was too impatient and didn't wait for the pics to load up at first...wow, he does have a lot of them. Yeah, that white '65 thing is a Falcon.

I found another pic of that '88 Blazer:


Looks to me like the front-end doesn't fit right. Now that I think about it, didn't GM do a minor facelift to the Blazer, Suburban, and the heavy-duty trucks around 1988? I know the lighter-duty trucks were totally redone and all-new, but I thought they did a minor restyle to the holdover designs, with small, horizontal quad headlights mounted over the turn signals? Maybe that was a couple years later though.

this is the style I'm thinking of:

xwesx

Considering it is the "box" style, that Suburban you linked looks quite nice. I do not think I have ever seen one that actually looks that good! Anyway, I think it was for '88 that they went to that style front end. Either that or '89, but it did not take them too long to convert all their large trucks to the redesigned body.

I had not looked at the year marked on the front of the Blazer until you mentioned it.... I just assumed it was a '70s model! It does indeed look well worn for an '88. As for the Bronco, though, it looks to be in real good shape for $1000. The worst trouble spot on those is the rear lift gate - they are horribly prone to rust.

xwesx

(and look! the '93 is a stick!)

Indeed! There was a time that these Saturns were a favorite amongst RVers as they were cheap, light, generally reliable, and could be towed behind the RV with a triangle. A classic throw-away car. :P

Mr_Shiftright

Best way to buy a $999 is take it out for a road test and just drive the snot out of it for 15 minutes..if it doesn't blow up, or lose the brakes or steering, and there's no smoke or leaks, it's probably okay. Cripples won't last 15 minutes at high stress.