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

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, sort of a man cave decorative art piece? That's an interesting idea.

Mr_Shiftright

And some poor slob got stuck with a car with bogus VIN plates, somewhere out there.

isellhondas

explorerx4 said:

This person is really trying to 'sell' it, with the flag and a kid's scooter in the picture.
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5289672983.html

Yep, rebuilt title included!

texases

Add in a V6 instead of a V8 to the rebuilt title, why bother?

Mr_Shiftright

Maybe $1500.

fintail

I went out to the MB Classic Center in Fellbach today, to search for an elusive fintail part (a small clip that is used to attach the rear fender chrome trim at the fin). No dice, I was told pretty much the same thing as the US parts people have told me - there is no record of the clip being kept in stock, and was likely discontinued when the fintail went out of production. It's hard to stump MB when it comes to an old part, but I did it. They had no data on an interchangeable part, but the guy here recommended an aftermarket supplier. I will look into it.

The Classic Center was interesting - they had a lot of old paperwork you could actually handle, several cars on display, and in a case, this rare NOS model badge - this is the "framed" badge for a W112 300SE fintail, has to be a hen's tooth:

explorerx4

Try and find the nose piece for this.
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5322234051.html

Mr_Shiftright

Shoot, you can just buy the whole car for probably $8.5K or less and drive it home. No body work required.

http://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/pontiac/grand-prix/1674686.html

explorerx4

People from Illinois don't think too highly of people from Connecticut.
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5321155617.html
Don't they know Wayne Carini lives here?

Mr_Shiftright

Cheaply made "little" car from the 60s, but you know, it'll get you around the Hamptons.

explorerx4

Is that a 'thing' now? I really don't know the mindset of the 'Hamptons' residents, other than there is a lot of money out there.

Mr_Shiftright

Oh yeah, drive a "classic" convertible car around, wear a big straw hat, the whole bit. Or buy a Jeep "beach car" and leave it out there for when you take the helicopter shuttle from Manhattan.

stickguy

odd for me, but I kind of like that Pontiac. the done one. Seems like a pretty good deal for one so clean looking and low miles. If you really need to have one!

Mr_Shiftright

It is a good deal as an "entry level" collectible. Don't expect to get rich keeping it for 20 years though. Another case where rarity doesn't translate into value.

stickguy

oh, if I ever bought something like this, it would have to be to serve as a driver with some usability. Not a garage queen.

andre1969

I always thought those Pontiac Grand Prix 2+2s were kind of lame. They use the same 150 hp 305 that would've been in a regular midsized cars. So it wasn't the 180 hp version the Monte SS used, or even the 165 hp version that went in a Caprice, Parisienne, or pickup truck. I think they had a 3.55:1 axle, so that might have made them a bit quicker than stock. I think the regular midsized cars just used a 2.56:1 or 2.73:1

Also, oddly, that rear window was totally different from the piece used on the Monte Carlo SS Aerocoupe. It must have been expensive for GM to cobble that thing together for just one year of production and ~1242 units.

The interior even uses the same door panels from the cheaper model. The nicer Grand Prix models had a piece ahead of the latch handle that swooped upward, similar to the '77 and earlier models.

For a brand that was trying to reestablish itself as Pontiac's performance division, I always wondered why Pontiac never bothered to put out a "true" high performance model of the Grand Prix, similar to the Monte SS, Cutlass 442, or Regal T-type/Grand National? Regardless, that $8500 example does look nice.

isellhondas

I had one only it was white. I bought it for 100.00 back in the seventies when the gas shortage hit just to have an extra car. an old lady owned it and she said she had bever once put the top down. I never did either out of fear it would rip or get stuck.

I kept that little Rambler for several months until the gas shortage ended. I was told that it used a quart of oil every 300 miles and had done this for years. It became automatic for me to add a quart every thime I filled the gas tank. It didn't leak and it didn't smoke it just used oil. It cruised the So. Calif freeways at ease at 70 MPH. I ended up selling it to a gal named Claudia Nash and it became Nash's Rambler.

She went to college in San Diego and drove it back and forth to Palos Verdes every weekend for three years without incident. Oil consumption always stayed the same! Just a great little car!

Mr_Shiftright

Did it have the old flathead engine?

isellhondas

Nope, it had the overhead valve six.

It ran like a top and was a nice little car to drive. It had a perfect body and a decent interior too.

It would be fun to have it today.

Mr_Shiftright

For some reason I remember that car differently than you do. I remembered it as a very cheaply built car. I remember that the instrument panel had decals for labels and that there were no carpets only rubber mats. Oh I know what the problem is. I'm talking about the very base model which did indeed have a flathead engine and you probably were riding around in the deluxe model.....which had the overhead valve engine and better appointments. The base model American was the lowest priced American car made at the time

isellhondas

Oh, I remember the very basic ones too and they didn't even have armrests as I recall I also remember the flatheads that they used I think, into the 60's. Mine was nothing fancy but since it was a convertable it was probably the higher end model. I just remember it alwas started right up and unlike the VW beetle I owned at the time, the heater actually worked!

Mr_Shiftright

A VW bug heater was like a mouse panting on your foot.

isellhondas

They had that little knob on the floor that you had to turn about 25 times.

When you got to your destination 30 miles away you MIGHT be able to feel a tiny bt of warmth coming out of the vents. If you had an exhaust leak guess where the fumes went?

At least on the later models they had a tiny fan which helped a bit. I still can't believe we survived.

Mr_Shiftright

I remember when living in snow country how I'd pass a VW coming the other way, on a frosty morning, and all I'd see is a small clear spot on the windshield where the defroster vent was on the VW---about the size of a human hand, if you were lucky.

You could buy gas heaters, wherein a spray of gasoline from your gas tank would be ignited in a heating canister by means of an ignition coil. Yeah, that even *sounds* scary, much less actually flipping the switch.

I've heard, though, that if you didn't explode into a fiery mushroom cloud and die a horrible death, that it worked pretty well. Corvairs had this option as well.

andre1969

Towards the end of its time with me as a daily driver, I remember the HVAC fan in my '68 Dart shorted out, so all you got when you put the heat on is whatever hot air sort of drifted from the heater core. I'd always keep a towel or old t-shirt in the car to defog the windows when needed.

Once the car got warmed up, it didn't seem too bad inside. You could feel it getting warmer when stopped at a traffic light, but then once you got moving the warm air would dissipate. I also learned to dress accordingly.

Sometimes it's easy to get nostalgic for the "good old days". But now that it's getting colder, and I'm thinking back on those days, I'd rather not re-live them!

stever

I had a SuperBeetle in Anchorage the first year I was there. My girlfriend/now wife got real sick of scraping the inside of the windshield. Got a beater Datsun wagon after the first winter. The Bug would go anywhere in the snow and ice though.

I'd usually defrost the car well (it lived in a carport) with a little heater I'd plug in. If you weren't driving too far, the residual heat would last long enough to get you to town.

stevedebi

Mr_Shiftright said:

..

You could buy gas heaters, wherein a spray of gasoline from your gas tank would be ignited in a heating canister by means of an ignition coil. Yeah, that even *sounds* scary, much less actually flipping the switch.

I've heard, though, that if you didn't explode into a fiery mushroom cloud and die a horrible death, that it worked pretty well. Corvairs had this option as well.

Yeah, I had a '72 type 2 wagon for a while that had the gas system. Used the fuel, but they actually made use of that mechanical clock VW installs - it had a timer so that you could activate the gas heater before you came out in the morning. I didn't use it - this was in 1981 and I didn't want to risk it.

Funny story about that. I got it used, and one of the first things I did was put in a couple of speakers that I wired under the dash. When it got cold I discovered that the car just wouldn't warm up. After a lot of work trying to fix the heater, I discovered I had accidentally looped the wire holding in the speakers through the vent closure piece - so it was letting in that icy German air. I changed the wire location and the car got pretty toasty. That was a Euro spec car, of course. I can't speak to how a US version would work.

explorerx4

So what exactly is for sale here?
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5324172450.html
Now I see, the shell of a car.

isellhondas

Mr_Shiftright said:

I remember when living in snow country how I'd pass a VW coming the other way, on a frosty morning, and all I'd see is a small clear spot on the windshield where the defroster vent was on the VW---about the size of a human hand, if you were lucky.

You could buy gas heaters, wherein a spray of gasoline from your gas tank would be ignited in a heating canister by means of an ignition coil. Yeah, that even *sounds* scary, much less actually flipping the switch.

I've heard, though, that if you didn't explode into a fiery mushroom cloud and die a horrible death, that it worked pretty well. Corvairs had this option as well.

I once had a buddy that vought an old Corvair that had the gas heater. I remember it used up a ton of the "trunk" space. On a VW there wouldn't have been much room for anything else I wouldn't think.

I don't think he ever tried using it.

xwesx

explorerx4 said:

So what exactly is for sale here?
http://hartford.craigslist.org/cto/5324172450.html
Now I see, the shell of a car.

I think he already posted it at the "right price" for all of the extra parts. At least that way, if the project fell through for the buyer, they wouldn't be hopelessly upside down before the even spent their first dollar on it.

stevedebi

isellhondas said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

I remember when living in snow country how I'd pass a VW coming the other way, on a frosty morning, and all I'd see is a small clear spot on the windshield where the defroster vent was on the VW---about the size of a human hand, if you were lucky.

You could buy gas heaters, wherein a spray of gasoline from your gas tank would be ignited in a heating canister by means of an ignition coil. Yeah, that even *sounds* scary, much less actually flipping the switch.

I've heard, though, that if you didn't explode into a fiery mushroom cloud and die a horrible death, that it worked pretty well. Corvairs had this option as well.

I once had a buddy that vought an old Corvair that had the gas heater. I remember it used up a ton of the "trunk" space. On a VW there wouldn't have been much room for anything else I wouldn't think.

I don't think he ever tried using it.

Not sure where they put it, but mine was the station wagon (so it didn't take up room in the rear) and the front trunk seemed quite spacious.

Another memory: at the beginning of winter, my landlord called me over and put two 20 kilo sacks of deer food, one over each of the front wheels. I never had any handling problems that winter!

Mr_Shiftright

Oh, did you have that little VW squareback wagon? I really liked those cars. Very practical, good on gas, fuel injected, nice compact size, easy to drive.

stevedebi

Mr_Shiftright said:

Oh, did you have that little VW squareback wagon? I really liked those cars. Very practical, good on gas, fuel injected, nice compact size, easy to drive.

Yup, the Type 2, which was wider and better looking (IMO) that the more boxy Type 1. I'm not sure if they imported that one to the US.

Mr_Shiftright

I think they did.

texases

stevedebi said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

Oh, did you have that little VW squareback wagon? I really liked those cars. Very practical, good on gas, fuel injected, nice compact size, easy to drive.

Yup, the Type 2, which was wider and better looking (IMO) that the more boxy Type 1. I'm not sure if they imported that one to the US.

Now you got me confused, the Type 2 was the Vanagon, the Type 1 the Beetle, the Squareback was the Type 3, right?

Mr_Shiftright

Oh I didn't think he meant actual VW "type" but rather was describing a "type" of body style. Both the squareback and fastback are "types" of Type 3.

There is also a Type 4, called in America either "411", "412" or piece of crap, depending.

I think stevedebi might have been describing the 411 Type 4.

ab348

Mr_Shiftright said:

Oh I didn't think he meant actual VW "type" but rather was describing a "type" of body style. Both the squareback and fastback are "types" of Type 3.

There is also a Type 4, called in America either "411", "412" or piece of crap, depending.

I think stevedebi might have been describing the 411 Type 4.

I remember my Dad and I, just before I got my license, visiting the VW dealer here in town when he was looking to downsize to a smaller car from the '71 Monaco he had bought and found too big (I, of course, loved the Monaco). So this would probably have been 1972, or 1973.

He drove both of those, a "Squareback sedan", and a 411. Hated them both. I remember thinking the Squareback seemed a bit buzzy, but I recall rather liking the space inside the 411. But he really disliked it. No sale of course. He later bought a Volvo 144 to replace the Monaco.

andre1969

I've always been curious about the 411/412. I have a bunch of old N-scale model railroad stuff from when I was a kid, packed away somewhere, and I remember some of the little cars were either 411's or 412's. I don't know if I've ever seen one in person, but as a kid, I thought the little scale models were kinda neat.

Now that I think back on it, it seems like the N-scale stuff was a lot more detailed than the HO-scale stuff I've had. The N-scale stuff was actually made to look like real cars, whereas the HO-scale stuff was more generic.

Mr_Shiftright

The 411 "idea" was okay but the execution pretty awful. I'm sure somewhere out there, someone loves them.

stickguy

I took my drivers test on my grandmothers 412 wagon. Awful car. Just evil. Made the junky 1st year Hyundai excel look good, and that was crap brand new.

Mr_Shiftright

Slow, foul-handling, bad brakes, you name it.

stickguy

I never how they got a light, rear engined car to have such heavy steering. And man it was slow!

Mr_Shiftright

Same way I guess GM got the Fiero to feel like a Peterbilt.

fintail

I was thinking, didn't the 411/412 have some dangerous handling traits, and maybe prone to fires in some circumstance? Odd design and looks. I still see one or two around here, as old cars can have long lives in the PNW.

berri

I actually knew two fellow lieutenants when I was in the military that drove those VW's and both seemed to have to see their VW dealer far too often. I thought they were kind of neat, or at least different looking though.

stickguy

Yes there were some fire issues. I think related to the heater set up.

xwesx

Mr_Shiftright said:

Same way I guess GM got the Fiero to feel like a Peterbilt.

Build a mid-engine coupe and put an engine called the "Iron Duke" in it, and things are destined to not turn out well.

andre1969

berri said:

I actually knew two fellow lieutenants when I was in the military that drove those VW's and both seemed to have to see their VW dealer far too often. I thought they were kind of neat, or at least different looking though.

Even though it was an N-scale model, rather than an actual car, those little 411/412 VWs from my train set might have been the first time I had seen a 4-door hatchback. So that might have made it seem a bit exotic in my childhood mind.

xwesx

Wow, my poor, poor plow truck.

It decided to disintegrate a u-joint that connects the front axle to the transfer case last night. So, lots of snow, but no truck with which to plow. Hopefully there will be something in stock at the local parts stores so I can get it back to running tonight.

I had back-bladed a large, heavy pile of snow into the middle of my neighbors' driveway when this happened, so I didn't want to leave it this way or else they were sure to be trapped at home today. So, I went home, brought my snowthrower over there, and proceeded to clear the pile, got about half-way through it, and then my thrower's self-propel mechanism came apart. As it was 0100 by this time, I just threw up my hands, drug the thing off to the side of their driveway, and walked home.

Oh, and I found out this morning that my best friend from HS died in a bad way yesterday. Some days, I tell ya.

Mr_Shiftright

Oof! Get undressed, put on your pajamas, hit "reset" and crawl back under the covers.