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

fintail

What was the reason for the 260? V8 smoothness in a small low output malaisey package?

CL round up:

Seldom preserved, give it 10 years and this will have special interest value

"of course"

If Jim Rockford drove a Camaro (quite the upholstery)

I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time

These look much more handsome with the passage of time

Dragon

Made in Yakima

90s flashback, good if you like having your car stolen

Never see these anymore, maybe a fair deal

Resist the urge to customize

The only way to travel is Cadillac style

Neat, dear, but how fast?

ab348

I remember when I had my '64 Skylark with the Buick 300 V8 in the early '90s that some old-timers told me to watch out as the '60s small-block Buick V8s had a reputation for spinning bearings due to oiling problems. I never had an issue and it was actually a nice engine. The 231 V6s were problematic as you note. One thing I was told was that the oil pump could wear away the aluminum piece it was mounted on causing loss of oil pressure. It always seemed like a poor design.

texases

Re that Chevy-is the 5.3 LS a good engine for nitrous, etc? Why not use a 6.0?

edit - more than you probably want to know about the 5.3:
https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/power-per-dollar-5-3-ls-engine/#:~:text=Just about any 5.3L is acceptable. They're found,(from the same time-frame) as your 4L60E trans.

tjc78

The Caddy ‘vert is pretty bad.

The two door Lesabre is a very rare site these days. Good running cars. Sharp with those wheels.

Ford truck is awesome. Those will only go up in value. I’d like to have one and swap a Coyote into it.

These Grand Cherokees used to be everywhere. Anyone remember the Orvis edition? Hunter green over beige with gold trim. The 90s personified in an SUV.

qbrozen

tjc78 said:

The Caddy ‘vert is pretty bad.

The two door Lesabre is a very rare site these days. Good running cars. Sharp with those wheels.

Ford truck is awesome. Those will only go up in value. I’d like to have one and swap a Coyote into it.

These Grand Cherokees used to be everywhere. Anyone remember the Orvis edition? Hunter green over beige with gold trim. The 90s personified in an SUV.

Orvis? Sounds like a regional rebranding of the Eddie Bauer edition.

tjc78

I’m sure it was in response to the Eddie.

kyfdx

qbrozen said:

tjc78 said:

The Caddy ‘vert is pretty bad.

The two door Lesabre is a very rare site these days. Good running cars. Sharp with those wheels.

Ford truck is awesome. Those will only go up in value. I’d like to have one and swap a Coyote into it.

These Grand Cherokees used to be everywhere. Anyone remember the Orvis edition? Hunter green over beige with gold trim. The 90s personified in an SUV.

Orvis? Sounds like a regional rebranding of the Eddie Bauer edition.

Orvis is a big purveyor of high end fishing equipment and clothing.

kyfdx

Orvis edition interior

https://www.jeepgarage.org/attachments/interior-orvis-completo-jpg.11460/

kyfdx

fintail

CL time:

Excuse me?

Seller needs to review what "Tudor" means and who used it

Same price as a new one, cooler

Def Leppard or Whitesnake in vehicle form

Thin on the ground

Side skirts and whitewalls

Highly optimistic seller but you seldom see these so nice

These days you could probably do a lot worse for the money

Getting rare, shame about the bump

Once everywhere, now getting rare, only took 30 years

Nice to see that someone drove it

If I had spare time, money, space, sanity, and more money, I'd be into this

8 track player contains Donna Summer or ABBA, too bad it's not a t-top car

Cheaper than a new one I guess

Interesting hubcaps, when my dad bought the 66 Galaxie, it had these same caps, which I believe are off a 70s F series or earlier 70s full sized cars

Meep Meep

Sports sedan

Truckster

Big green machine

Thing on the roof really ties it together

Lots of style for the money

ab348

Oddly enough the ones I like best here are all Fords: the red ‘93 pickup despite the miles, the ‘79 T-bird, and the ist-gen T-bird, which seems really nice for the price.

oldfarmer50

fintail said:

CL time:

Excuse me?

Seller needs to review what "Tudor" means and who used it

Same price as a new one, cooler

Def Leppard or Whitesnake in vehicle form

Thin on the ground

Side skirts and whitewalls

Highly optimistic seller but you seldom see these so nice

These days you could probably do a lot worse for the money

Getting rare, shame about the bump

Once everywhere, now getting rare, only took 30 years

Nice to see that someone drove it

If I had spare time, money, space, sanity, and more money, I'd be into this

8 track player contains Donna Summer or ABBA, too bad it's not a t-top car

Cheaper than a new one I guess

Interesting hubcaps, when my dad bought the 66 Galaxie, it had these same caps, which I believe are off a 70s F series or earlier 70s full sized cars

Meep Meep

Sports sedan

Truckster

Big green machine

Thing on the roof really ties it together

Lots of style for the money

I think my favorite would be that 67 galaxie convertible but that Lincoln Continental would be a close second.

I have almost no interest in anything from the malaise era 1975-90.

bhill2

oldfarmer50 said:

fintail said:

CL time:

Excuse me?

Seller needs to review what "Tudor" means and who used it

Same price as a new one, cooler

Def Leppard or Whitesnake in vehicle form

Thin on the ground

Side skirts and whitewalls

Highly optimistic seller but you seldom see these so nice

These days you could probably do a lot worse for the money

Getting rare, shame about the bump

Once everywhere, now getting rare, only took 30 years

Nice to see that someone drove it

If I had spare time, money, space, sanity, and more money, I'd be into this

8 track player contains Donna Summer or ABBA, too bad it's not a t-top car

Cheaper than a new one I guess

Interesting hubcaps, when my dad bought the 66 Galaxie, it had these same caps, which I believe are off a 70s F series or earlier 70s full sized cars

Meep Meep

Sports sedan

Truckster

Big green machine

Thing on the roof really ties it together

Lots of style for the money

I think my favorite would be that 67 galaxie convertible but that Lincoln Continental would be a close second.

I have almost no interest in anything from the malaise era 1975-90.

I have a quirk. That generation of Lincoln was so large that in some states it had to be licensed as a truck. At that size, a two-door coupe just seems grotesque. Discuss among yourselves.

oldfarmer50

bhill2 said:

oldfarmer50 said:

fintail said:

CL time:

Excuse me?

Seller needs to review what "Tudor" means and who used it

Same price as a new one, cooler

Def Leppard or Whitesnake in vehicle form

Thin on the ground

Side skirts and whitewalls

Highly optimistic seller but you seldom see these so nice

These days you could probably do a lot worse for the money

Getting rare, shame about the bump

Once everywhere, now getting rare, only took 30 years

Nice to see that someone drove it

If I had spare time, money, space, sanity, and more money, I'd be into this

8 track player contains Donna Summer or ABBA, too bad it's not a t-top car

Cheaper than a new one I guess

Interesting hubcaps, when my dad bought the 66 Galaxie, it had these same caps, which I believe are off a 70s F series or earlier 70s full sized cars

Meep Meep

Sports sedan

Truckster

Big green machine

Thing on the roof really ties it together

Lots of style for the money

I think my favorite would be that 67 galaxie convertible but that Lincoln Continental would be a close second.

I have almost no interest in anything from the malaise era 1975-90.

I have a quirk. That generation of Lincoln was so large that in some states it had to be licensed as a truck. At that size, a two-door coupe just seems grotesque. Discuss among yourselves.

Only overly large in comparison with current cars. Back then it was merely gigantic.

tjc78

A crew cab short box full size pickup is longer and they are everywhere

fintail

There's a lot of rose-colored glasses hindsight for malaise material these days - nostalgia from those who remember the cars in childhood but seldom had to live with driving them, perhaps. I'll admit there are a number of malaise cars I like (maybe that rotary Mazda included, very interesting cars to me), and then things like the bustleback, and the 80s were a golden age for highline Euro brands and MB in particular.

Back in the day, my dad was strongly against almost anything from the mid 70s to mid 80s. I suppose his Horizon was one of the safer choices of the era in terms of reliability, and we got lucky with the Tempo. He wasn't happy with the S-10 Blazer. I remember a family friend had a maybe 82-83 Stanza, this was around 1990, so it wasn't too old, but it had a rough running issue. We lived an hour from the dealer, and this friend would ask my dad to take a look at it. Miles of plumbing under the hood, he absolutely hated even thinking about it, but couldn't say no. I recall him examining it, but I think all of the junk under the hood was just too much for him to actually work on. I can't what remember what she replaced the Stanza with (I am pretty sure it replaced an ex-police or public sector fleet early 80s Malibu), but I am pretty sure my dad encouraged her to get rid of it.

oldfarmer50 said:

fintail said:

CL time:

Excuse me?

Seller needs to review what "Tudor" means and who used it

Same price as a new one, cooler

Def Leppard or Whitesnake in vehicle form

Thin on the ground

Side skirts and whitewalls

Highly optimistic seller but you seldom see these so nice

These days you could probably do a lot worse for the money

Getting rare, shame about the bump

Once everywhere, now getting rare, only took 30 years

Nice to see that someone drove it

If I had spare time, money, space, sanity, and more money, I'd be into this

8 track player contains Donna Summer or ABBA, too bad it's not a t-top car

Cheaper than a new one I guess

Interesting hubcaps, when my dad bought the 66 Galaxie, it had these same caps, which I believe are off a 70s F series or earlier 70s full sized cars

Meep Meep

Sports sedan

Truckster

Big green machine

Thing on the roof really ties it together

Lots of style for the money

I think my favorite would be that 67 galaxie convertible but that Lincoln Continental would be a close second.

I have almost no interest in anything from the malaise era 1975-90.

gsemike

Interesting that the GEO tracker with it's ridiculous price and that Red ford truck with its reasonable price seem to be on the same lot

That tracker looks like some junk you'd see on Dallas Car Sharks to me. Buy it at auction for $800. Overnight paint job and then the wheels. No one that has watched that show would ever buy anything from any of them

qbrozen

wow on that tracker.

Reading between the lines:
"this is a steal" [us stealing your money]
"will go fast" [because the taller tires means taller speed]

explorerx4

Tracker can only be test driven in a straight line on a smooth road.

oldfarmer50

explorerx4 said:

Tracker can only be test driven in a straight line on a smooth road.

I was thinking the same thing. How would you turn with out rubbing the tires.

Wasn’t the Tracker really a Suzuki? Where would you get parts?

stickguy

Japan?

texases

Plenty of Geo Tracker parts on Rockauto.

gsemike

Since when is 140k miles on a tracker low miles?

qbrozen

Having been looking through JDM these days, I can tell you it is a Suzuki Jimny.

xwesx

Back in the early 90s, I loved the Tracker. /sigh

Michaell

We owned a tracker for about 5 weeks in 2002.

Stepson turned 16, and we found a 1996 Tracker 4 door in a yard with a for sale sign on it. 60,000 miles, owned by a retired GM exec. $8k and it’s ours…

5 weeks later, on the way home from school, he loses control and rolls it into a field. Totaled.

xwesx

Michaell said:

We owned a tracker for about 5 weeks in 2002.

Stepson turned 16, and we found a 1996 Tracker 4 door in a yard with a for sale sign on it. 60,000 miles, owned by a retired GM exec. $8k and it’s ours…

5 weeks later, on the way home from school, he loses control and rolls it into a field. Totaled.

Well, at least he lived to tell the tale!

Michaell

xwesx said:

Michaell said:

We owned a tracker for about 5 weeks in 2002.

Stepson turned 16, and we found a 1996 Tracker 4 door in a yard with a for sale sign on it. 60,000 miles, owned by a retired GM exec. $8k and it’s ours…

5 weeks later, on the way home from school, he loses control and rolls it into a field. Totaled.

Well, at least he lived to tell the tale!

His sister got a free helicopter ride to the hospital; she spent 4 days there with a moderate concussion.

xwesx

Ouchies. Hadn't considered passengers!

I had some high school friends who performed a similar stunt: The driver, my classmate, had a 1981 Subaru GL wagon. She drove her younger sister (two years junior) and brother (five years junior), as well as another high school student, to and from school daily. One afternoon, for no particular reason, she just spaced out or was distracted and let the car drift onto the edge of the road. Our rural Oregon roads didn't really have shoulders (and certainly not paved shoulders) back then, so there wasn't any room for error.

She jerked the wheel, overcorrected, and sent the car spinning into the field on the opposite side of the road. Thankfully, she wasn't speeding, per se, so no massively excessive forces at play. Nobody is sure how many times it rolled, but the general consensus among the survivors was six. Amazingly, no casualties. The worst injury was the unrelated HS student: He nearly had his thumb severed, to the point that it never worked properly after that.

/sigh How the heck did any of us ever survive those years of our lives?! Haha

oldfarmer50

xwesx said:

Ouchies. Hadn't considered passengers!

I had some high school friends who performed a similar stunt: The driver, my classmate, had a 1981 Subaru GL wagon. She drove her younger sister (two years junior) and brother (five years junior), as well as another high school student, to and from school daily. One afternoon, for no particular reason, she just spaced out or was distracted and let the car drift onto the edge of the road. Our rural Oregon roads didn't really have shoulders (and certainly not paved shoulders) back then, so there wasn't any room for error.

She jerked the wheel, overcorrected, and sent the car spinning into the field on the opposite side of the road. Thankfully, she wasn't speeding, per se, so no massively excessive forces at play. Nobody is sure how many times it rolled, but the general consensus among the survivors was six. Amazingly, no casualties. The worst injury was the unrelated HS student: He nearly had his thumb severed, to the point that it never worked properly after that.

/sigh How the heck did any of us ever survive those years of our lives?! Haha

For all the crazy stuff we did as kids I was never involved in an accident (although I had a few near misses) myself. I was in a friend’s car once and he driving through a park at night. He was pitching the steering wheel back and forth for some reason and didn’t notice a huge wooden post. It put a perfect U in the front grill and busted in his radiator. No injuries.

I was following another friend on a snowy road and he started deliberately fishtailing to show off his LSD. He cranked it a little to far and took the bumper off a parked car. He panicked and ran. We had to convince him to return to the scene after sitting in his living room while he explained it all to his father. I guess he wanted us as witnesses in case his dad tried to kill him.

Michaell

@xwesx - sadly, he was speeding, and it was an unpaved road not two miles from our house.

There also was a passenger in the back seat (daughter was riding shotgun). No broken bones, which is a major miracle given the beating the car took.

andres3

Nearly had a bad wreck once in the Neon with me driving. Would have been bad news; even worse for my passenger probably.

However, nearly got killed by what likely would have been a fatal wreck by a friend in their car - I think a Ford Probe (more like an acquaintance or friend of friends really) that was driving recklessly showing off and was LUCKY to have been a near miss given his driving skills were not good enough to show off. The semi-truck he danced around didn't seem to care, and let our luck and fate decide what happened. As we finished his spinout the semi just went on about its business at the same speed it had been going before the drama started. Most definitely the closest I've come to dying. That was the last time I rode in a car with that guy driving.

fintail

Another CL menagerie:

Price is falling

Speak of the devil. I see flaws, but for the money and being the best year, not terrible

Future 4-4-2 clone perhaps

That blanked out dash looks weird

Resale value

Unusual, optimistic

Floor shift

Very early car, I've seen early cars on whitewalls before, nice that someone drove it a bit

This one has a radio that only gets ELO or Bee Gees, price seems fair

For the money, why not

Spectacular - condition and price

Getting to be pretty uncommon

Someone put in some work

I remember when M5s were barely more expensive

stickguy

Cutlass looks like a money pit basket case.

Love the Alfa. Not the price.

Nice GTI. might rather have the Fiat 2000 convert he also is selling! Somebody needs cash.

ab348

I agree with Stick, that ‘68 Cutlass is a borderline parts car. They are not rare/expensive enough to justify the cost of a restoration.

The ‘80 Seville is sort of intriguing for short money.

oldfarmer50

I know that 1998 Ram is a diesel but could they have sold for $34k even new?

Those corporate twins convertibles might be fun bop around hoopties but I already have one of those that’s newer, less miles and cheaper.

oldfarmer50

For you Prelude lovers:
https://youtu.be/BSguArt2h2Q

Spoiler alert, he wants $13k for it once it’s done.

stickguy

that was really cheap. Hard to believe the owner could not have found a local buyer for better than that. Even with 200K and a filthy interior!

qbrozen

So he spent $16k on the GTI and duct taped the seat. Huh.

texases

Yeah, my thought exactly. Just getting the seats recovered would have made a huge difference. And I’d have to get those wheels back to stock look. One of my favorite wheels.

fintail

Out on a smoky Saturday, summer is coming to a close, can feel it in the morning now - will be making an appointment for the car to go in for annual service next month. Car ran fine with no issues, got a couple compliments. I am hearing a slight rattle from the front of the engine area, I suspect an accessory pulley or belt or bearing needs attention:

xwesx

In 1995, this car had no idea it would end up so pampered one day....

fintail

Sometimes I tell the car (jokingly of course, don't want to have a Christine-type episode) "If it wasn't for me..."

Seems to be the life of these cars - either they were treated like babies, or used up and thrown away 30 years ago. Mine was driven a lot earlier in its life, but the past couple decades especially have been pretty gentle.

xwesx said:

In 1995, this car had no idea it would end up so pampered one day....

tjc78

Your long ownership with the Fintail makes me kick myself in the rear for ever selling my 89 Town Car. If I still had it ownership would now be at 22 years.

sda

Same with my Cadillac DeVille convertible.

kyfdx

If I'd have kept my '84 911, it would be at the 32 year mark now, and worth twice what I paid for it in 1990.

bhill2

We got 26 years with our '85 380SE, If it hadn't gotten destroyed by one of California's famous fires, we would still have it at 31 years.

oldfarmer50

If I’d kept my 74’ Charger by now I’d be able to carry it around in a bucket because it would have rusted right into the ground.😵‍💫

stickguy

for sure up here. In HS I bought a Duster. I got it in 1979, and I think it was a '74? but the rear fenders had already rotted off, right up to the center crease. I think the rest of the body was OK though (no clue what the underside looked like though!) I doubt it was lasting another 40 years without massive work.

we pop riveted some sheet metal and primed it white. never bothered to finish up the work (sanding/filling/painting) but it did not look too bad like that!

fintail

bhill2 said:

We got 26 years with our '85 380SE, If it hadn't gotten destroyed by one of California's famous fires, we would still have it at 31 years.

You might still need another old MB or something similar. It may not really compare, but it might be soothing. 126s are slowly but steadily appreciating.