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

berri

Growing up as a kid in then latter 50's and 60's (and in Chicago with WGN so there were reruns of older shows) I only remember the car sponsors from a few shows. The show I remember most didn't even have cars in it. It was Bonanza sponsored by Chevrolet and always opening with Dinah Shore singing "see the USA in your Chevrolet, America is asking you to call". The reason why, and this is really dating me buddy, is that each fall they would introduce the new year Chevy's on it and a friend of mine had a color TV! Almost no one did back in those days. The picture tube was kind of rounded and the colors weren't always all that accurate (often a bit washed out) but it was something pretty cool for a kid. His dad knew I liked cars, so he'd invite me over for the introduction each year. Another neat thing back in those days were the often very unique TV show theme songs and advertising jingles.

berri

PS - you know what that 60 Ford is missing, at least in the Chicago area back then? An awful lot of 60 Ford owners cut red reflective tape and filled in the mirror image tail light stamping on the bumper with it. Sounds kind of hokey today, but I guess it was considered kind of cool back in those days. Another status thing a few years later was replacing the parking lamps with the new amber colored ones that came out - I'm thinking around 63 or so.

Mr_Shiftright

How much is gasoline now in Germany? Seems it would be a brutal day at the pump filling up that car.

berri

The 62 Plymouth's were kind of an unique duck too. But I doubt you'll find many in today's cars shows. They weren't popular sellers new and were therefore cheap used cars. As a result, many were converted to race vehicles because of the Mopar drivetrains and the car's light weight. I actually kind of liked their uniqueness, but you know I'm also a 59 Chevy fan!

andre1969

There was at least one episode of Leave It To Beaver where they'd show stock footage of a '60 Plymouth turning into the driveway, but then in the closeup, you'd see Ward getting out of a '61!

On the subject of useless trivia, in that shot of the rear of the '60 Ford, you can see Sam and Darren's garage, off to the right.

I like both shows, but I find Leave it to Beaver to be more endearing, I guess. In fact, I sort of wish the show had run a bit longer, so we could see Beaver in high school, and Wally in college. With "Dennis the Menace", I think they ended it at just the right time, as Dennis was really getting too old to be acting like that. I guess you could argue Beaver was getting a bit old to be acting the way he was as well, but somehow, I could buy his naivety and innocence. With Dennis, he would've just gotten annoying as he got older!

I had a substitute teacher in high school who looked like a dead ringer for Joseph Kearns, the first Mr. Wilson.

andre1969

I don't like the '62 Plymouth at all, but find the '62 Dodges to be oddly entertaining. And you're right; I hardly ever see a '62 Plymouth at a car show, but do see an occasional '62 Dodge. Seems like from '62-64 in general, the Dodges seem more common. I wonder if they were more popular when new?

I know that for 1960, the Dodge Dart lineup (Seneca, Pioneer, Phoenix) outsold the full-sized Plymouths (Savoy/Belvedere/Fury). Plymouth as a whole outsold Dodge, thanks to the Valiant. But I wonder if that bias towards Dodge carried over to the shrunken '62-64 models? And IIRC, they punched the shrunken Dodge wheelbase out to 119" for 1963, while Plymouth had to contend with the stubby 116" wb until the new C-bodies arrived for '65.

For some reason, I have a bit of a fascination with the 1962-64 Dodge 880, as well. I thought they were more handsome looking than the '62-64 Chryslers. And, of course, Plymouth had nothing like them in that timeframe.

fintail

I think I've seen that, I remember an episode where the car changes. Now that I think of it, Leave it to Beaver has at least a couple car-centric episodes - one where Beaver and a friend are playing in the Dodge and it rolls into the street, and one where Wally and the Boys borrow it without permission and get stuck in the mud. In the final season, Ward had a 63 Fury 4 door HT.

I like Dennis the Menace for the supporting cast, esp Mr. Wilson. It really kind of got played out after Joseph Kearns died, and I think it lasted only a year or so longer.

Another good 60 Ford shot, and the garage too. I think this car might be two tone blue. My dad's Country Sedan was red body with white top:



IMCDB is great for this stuff, the random pics are entertaining...these cars are almost extinct now:

fintail

I think it is averaging around $7.50/gallon there - such a car would be a Sunday driver no doubt.

fintail

I remember someone once told me the mirror image taillight bumper feature was where reverse lights would be - but as one can see on the Sunliner, the (optional) reverse lights were circular beside the taillights. I suppose the red tape might look interesting on a red car. Ford should have used that bumper area for exhaust cut outs.

andre1969

I have a friend who had an experience similar to Beaver and his friend playing in the car and having it roll into the street. In this case, I think the car was a 1968 Catalina, which I believe was the last year before GM started putting ignition interlocks in cars to lock the steering and gearshift. I think it was 1970 for Chrysler, as my '69 Dart's didn't lock.

Anyway, this Catalina was sitting in a driveway, with no tags, in a neighborhood where they have covenants up the wazoo...even back in the old days! They got it into neutral and it rolled out into the street, blocking it. Someone called either code enforcement, or the police, and the car got impounded!

As for that "Bewitched" garage, I always thought it a bit odd that the garage was built, free-standing, before the house. In "Dennis the Menace", and one or two other shows from that era, you can sometimes spot it in the distance. I think it popped up a couple times in "Donna Reed". Maybe an early episode or two of "Hazel" as well.

I kinda miss those days of outdoor, location shooting for sitcoms. It gave a bit of realism to them. I was just thinking of that the other day, when I caught a "2 1/2 Men" episode, where Alan and Jake took a road trip to the Grand Canyon. You could tell it was shot on a soundstage with the background all CGI'ed in...and none-too-convincingly.

At least in the Brady Bunch, they actually went to the Grand Canyon, which I thought was cool. Until they lost Bobby and Cindy, that is...

qbrozen

My sister rolled my parents' Ford van into the street once. She would have been about 5 or 6 at the time. I remember trying to grab the door handle and hold it in place. Apparently, I was only about 2 years old, according to my mom and the year we moved out of that particular house.

Luckily, nothing bad happened. My mom came running out of the house just as it touched the curb on the other side of the street.

Would love to post a pic, but the img button has vanished again. The van looked like this, but brown in place of the blue:
http://images.forum-auto.com/mesimages/207405/1974_Ford_Econoline.jpg

Mr_Shiftright

$7.50 a gallon---okay, so figure a Sunday drive would cost you about.....39 cents a kilometer/ .63 cents a mile. So Berlin to Leipzig and back $140 bucks in gas.

lemko

One of the janitors in my middle school in the late 1970s had a white 1962 Dodge Polara . I thought that car was so bizarre it was cool.

texases

And it's not just the old German cars - latest CandD compares the RS7/CLS63/Gran Coupe...test mpg was 9 to 10!!! And Audi was the 9 mpg, surprisingly.

lemko

Is that the back of a 1957 Cadillac near Dennis' head in the first picture?

Michaell

On the latest episode of "Fifth Gear", the team test was the Mazda 6 2.2D.

One of the tests was steady state MPG at top speed. They compared it to the Ford Mondeo (Fusion) diesel.

Mondeo was about 19MPG (bounced between 17 and 21) at 125MPH.

Mazda 6 was getting 21MPG at 135MPH.

hpmctorque

Maybe at those prices for gas one could justify a used Tesla one day.

Mr_Shiftright

Yep, presuming the cost of a kilowatt doesn't go up accordingly---because what drives most power plants? Natural gas.

I'm not sure exactly how expensive gasoline would have to become to "justify" spending $40K on a used Tesla, because gasoline cars are not going to stand still while Tesla improves.

Besides a used Tesla is not going to be purchased cheaply as a "fixer-upper" unless you are a pretty clever tinkerer.

I could even see used Teslas being converted into street rods with crate engines.

fintail

Yep, it was seen in a few episodes, probably a studio employee's car. Here it is again:

texases

Nope, coal is still #1. To the extent it's reduced, electricity costs will go up:
•Coal 37%
•Natural Gas 30%
•Nuclear 19%
•Hydropower 7%
•Other Renewable 5%
•Biomass 1.42%
•Geothermal 0.41%
•Solar 0.11%
•Wind 3.46%
•Petroleum 1%
&#149;Other Gases < 1%

fintail

Of course, if you're laying down 50K on a disco era bahnstormer, $140 for a day of fun is a drop in the bucket. Germany has a very active old car scene, which doesn't seem to have been harmed by fuel prices - lots of old American cars there too.

fintail

I think the 6cyl X5 I rented didn't hit 15mpg in town, and it wasn't close to a performance vehicle. My old E55 would do 12-14 in city traffic.

Mr_Shiftright

Americans, for all our brilliance, are not good long-term planners. This perhaps sets us apart from some other industrialized countries. We tend to continue doing what works ("if it ain't broke, don't etc etc.")

the only problem with doing what you have always been doing, is that you end up with what you've always been doing.

Hey, I just gave the compressed version of US automakers in the 70s and 80s!

I'd love to fix up an old EV, even if it only went 40 miles on a charge. But I wouldn't pay too much for it.

fintail

A childhood friend of mine did something like that too - in eastern WA, a lot of people had "yard cars", as many residential lots were large, and old cars survived well. In the 80s, this family had a ~1955 Ford pickup in very decent shape sitting on their property. The kids would play in it, and one day the stars aligned and it rolled into the street. No harm done, but the kids weren't allowed in it anymore.

I like the real shooting locations,too. I am going to be in LA in November, and I have a day set aside for Universal Studios, and a couple other days to stalk other filming locations. I'm kind of a Back to the Future geek, so I will have a lot to see. Brady Bunch house is on the list, too.

lemko

I was in Los Angeles one time and got to see the "Beverly Hillbillies" mansion and the "Happy Days" house. I wonder if the Brady's house is still in a nice neighborhood or did things change and it became "the 'hood" making the Bradys even more out of place?

qbrozen

I just recently saw an episode of Chasing Classic Cars where he drove and electric car from... boy, I think it was 1908?? I don't remember the name, but it was a tiller steering wheel. What I thought really ... well, unbelievable... was his claim that it would go something like 70 miles on a charge. OK, granted the thing probably didn't weigh very much, but it also didn't have a whole lot in the battery dept. Looked to be 4 or 5 standard car batteries to me.

Mr_Shiftright

70 miles. Not bloody likely. More like 40 miles at 25 mph with a tailwind.

Still, for 100 years ago, you can't say that EVs have made a great leap forward.

fintail

The Brady house Zillows at about one and a quarter million so the neighborhood is probably OK.

Some of these locations are kind of bucket list sites for me, especially ones like the Poltergeist house. Things I've been mildly obsessed with since I was a kid.

And speaking of electrics, this wonderful 1916 Baker was in a great episode of Dennis the Menace:



The plot is about a raffle where a new Falcon (product placement) is the prize. Mr Wilson is selling tickets, and has a bunch left over. A little old lady comes by to buy one, which Dennis randomly picks out of the pile. Of course, it wins. Dennis tells the lady that his mother needs a car, and she gives him the electric. Dennis hides it in the garage, and surprises his parents with it - but they expected a different car, another Falcon (or Comet) that Henry Mitchell bought for his wife.

fortee9er

I think that was a Baker, part of Jay Leno's collection.

fortee9er

I don't know about a Tesla but I have thought about the Honda Insight (2000-2003). These sell for less than $2k at auction but you need to add the cost of a new battery pack, plus any other repairs. I have a friend who bought a non running Prius replaced the battery pack and now runs it as his daily driver. Off course he is a "tinkerer" and did all the work himself.

andre1969

My old coworker took a trip to LA a few years back. I had given her the address of the Brady house because she was curious to check it out. I think it's 11222 Dilling Street, Los Angeles CA if anyone's curious. Anyway, she took some pics of it, and I remember there was a Caddy Seville in the driveway, similar to the one you once owned! I think it was even White Diamond! However it, had one of those fake carriage roofs on it.

Zillow.com puts an estimated value of around $1.25M for the house. And looking at the Google street view, it seems like it's a really nice neighborhood. You just won't see too many late 60's Toronados driving past anymore, or blue Barracudas or '72 Impala convertibles turning into the driveway these days.

I've heard another awesome studio tour to take is the Warner Brothers VIP tour. I had heard about it, told my coworker, and she did it...said she loved it.

fintail

Sounds like the Universal VIP tour too - it's pretty expensive, but I am mulling it. I am not big on theme park rides, but the VIP tour gives you better access to back lots and the prop room. What all was filmed at Warner? Not sure if I want to pay for two of these.

andre1969

You'd probably like Universal the best, then, especially since you're a Back to the Future fan. The main things I remember being shot at Warner Brothers were the Waltons, The Dukes of Hazzard, and V: The Series (the 1984-85 one, not that rehash they had a few years ago). There's an old town square that was used in all three, and featured heavily in the Dukes of Hazzard.

Here's a website for the VIP tour: http://vipstudiotour.warnerbros.com/
Looks like it's $52.

Incidentally, the court house from "Back to the Future" is featured somewhat prominently in the pilot episode of "The Twilight Zone" entitled "Where is Everybody?" It was the only episode shot at Universal. I think the rest were shot at MGM or Cayuga or something like that? That first Twilight Zone episode is pretty cool because you can see how much that backlot has, and hasn't, changed over the decades.

qbrozen

actually, according to my interweb search about the episode, it was a 1914 Rauch & Lang.

fintail

Not bad...$52, and just a couple hours, maybe I will work that into my schedule. The Universal VIP tour is an all day event and costs several times more.

Funny thing about Dukes, I've been to the town where the early episodes (and several other shows) were shot, Covington, GA. A friend of mine lived there for a few years, and I visited a couple times - a funny coincidence as I was happy to be able to visit the sites. Here's the courthouse from the early years:

berri

"find the '62 Dodges to be oddly entertaining"

Like Jane Hathaway's convertible in the Beverly hillbillies! But I agree the Dodge is nicer, particularly the interior. But it does have that odd two tiered front end which for some reason they carried over on the 63. Of course, the 62 Plymouth has the odd concave front end. I think those cars would have carried it off a bit better if they weren't suddenly downsized. The 63/64 Chrysler kind of shows that, but in a much more conservative manner I think. But then those cars seem a bit controversial for many Mopar fans as well. Of course, I've also got to admit to being a fan of the original Valiant too! Although I think most people aren't really very fond of anything Exner did in the 60's.

I know car preferences can be regional at times, but I don't recall many 62's on high school or college campuses years later. I know the 62 2 door's often seemed to end up at local race strips in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas, but I don't know about the 4 doors; maybe they became parts cars? Now the 63's I saw more of down the road. But then I never really saw a whole lot of 62/63 mid sized Fairlane's either. Funny, but just a couple of years later midsized cars became very popular. While Chrysler lost their shirt on those downsized 62's, I believe the underpinnings went on to spur the very successful Dodge Coronet, so perhaps they got well over time.

berri

If you go to Universal, I think you'll find the one in LA is much better than Orlando unless you're just a ride fan.

berri

Here's another regional variation. I recall seeing far more big Plymouth's than Dodge's back then around Chicago. I think maybe the Plymouth dealers were just stronger there.

The 880 was an interesting "rush" job. I liked the 64 Plymouth and Dodge even though it was a one year styling theme. Too bad they didn't bring that look out in 63, but they were still transitioning to Engel then and the 63's were also rush jobs.

fintail

Yeah it kinda looked that way when I was in Orlando 2 weeks ago - I saw nothing there that made me want to devote a day + admission and fees to it. I'm not big into rides - and I hit all the big ones when I was at WDW. I saw the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, that's enough for me.

Only thing I wanted to see but missed Was the ship from "Flight of the Navigator", now sitting forlorn with a bunch of castoff stuff at Hollywood Studios. But I wasn't going to pay $80 admission to see it.

qbrozen

haha. We must be near the same age. I didn't know it was back there and clicked off a couple of shots when I saw it.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8215/8332682561_2614c87da9_z.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8496/8333746076_5414b9d53a_z.jpg

My son was pretty excited, too, since I had recently turned him onto the movie.

fintail

Cool! I wish I could have seen that. I like that movie...made when I was 9, we had it on VHS, and watched it countless times with my siblings and friends. Lots of fond memories. I've seen it again relatively recently, and enjoyed it - it's a really good piece of the 80s, good soundtrack, watchable plot.

When I was in Florida last year, I visited a few sites from it:

The family's 1978 house (in a beautiful area of Ft. Lauderdale)

The family's 1986 house

The bridge from the end fireworks scene

fortee9er

I was talking about the Chasing Classic Cars show or was it the show with that guy with the handlebar waxed moustache???

stickguy

the handlebar guy is on 'my classic car". he does not buy or sell, just visits car shows and has a few on-set segment (pitching products, stuff like that).

Wayne Carini on CCC is the one that owns a big classic car dealership and travels around buying and selling (and restoring).

qbrozen

i actually find My Classic Car unwatchable.

qbrozen

Ah, well that would actually make you my wife's age. I was 12 when it came out.

A couple of years ago, I bought the blu-ray for my 6-yr-old. He watched it probably half a dozen times.

qbrozen

I have never seen this before, but I dig it!

paint looks pretty horrible, actually, and I gotta wonder if a replacement part for that dash could ever be found. But the interior looks pretty nice otherwise. Would make a super cool rod, I think.

lemko

The fullsize '62s became the midsize '65s which I found kind of bland.

Mr_Shiftright

Paint looks awful. Let's see what we have here:

Runs well
Lousy paint
Worn chrome
Cracked steering wheel and dash
Nice interior
Not used in many years

Soooo, sounds like a car in "fair" condition, perhaps a #4. Certainly not worth restoring, but could probably be patched up and used for fun, for maybe a couple thousand dollars (brakes, tires, glass, fluids, hoses, belts, tune-up)

Or you could strip it down and make a cool rod out of it, and then it would be worth more than if it were kept stock

Given all that,, I would think top bid here is going to be around $5500 at best.

qbrozen

that much, huh? I guess that does sound about right given the oddity factor. Ah, well, damned thing wouldn't fit in my garage anyway. haha.

Mr_Shiftright

I'm presuming that the ad is forthright, and that you can hop right in and drive it 5 miles, as it is. If not, then deduct accordingly. I picked $5500 as top dollar because after that I think you've spent too much. Ideally, it should be bought for the bid as it is now, around $3200, but the auction has 6 days left, which leaves people plenty of time to get silly on eBay.