Mystery car pix

stephen987

Good guess but no, it isn't a Pug.

The styling seems to have a vaguely Pininfarina flavor. But the taillights sort of remind me of either an early Peugeot 504 or a generic GM sedan.

andys120

You're right about the Pininfarina part, that should narrow it down.

magnette

Lancia Flavia, I think - mid sixties. This one appears to have been registered in early 1967.

andys120

Yep, it's a 1965 Lancia Flavia Cabriolet.

andys120

magnette

Well, it's a Buick, and I am never sure about the variations or confident with the year, but I think it is a 1962 Wildcat.

imidazol97

Is it an Invicta . 1962.

fintail

I think it might just be a hardtop with a white top :P

andys120

You're right Magnette, it's a '62 Wildcat, and for the record it is a Hardtop.

andys120

stephen987

Chrysler Valiant Charger, from Australia, mid-70s I think.

lemko

andys120

Yep, it's a '74.

andys120

'54 Mercury Sun Valley, nice piece of brochure art.

lokki

kyfdx

AMC Matador coupe... Guessing '74

lemko

Correct! It's the Mercury counterpart to the glass-roofed Ford Skyliner before that name was attached to a retractable hardtop. I imagine Sun Valley drivers must've baked in the summer!

lokki

Exactly right 74 Matador Coupe. One of the ugliest cars in a sad, sad, era.

I never understood what happened to AMC styling in those years. Just a few years before, they'd had really beautiful cars - like this:



At one point in the late 60's I thought AMC might even stage a come-back

imidazol97

There are one or two of the Sun Valley Mercuries that show up at cruise ins around here (the first cruise in starts Friday--relief at last!!!).

berri

Those AMC coupes were supposed to be on a smaller chassis, but cash shortages and dumb management forced the larger and rather ungainly result. I've seen pictures of them on the compact chassis and they actually looked decent. You're right, the Javelins were good lookers in their time, but sales were hurt by AMC image as an economy car company and their financial situation.

berri

Good call on the 62 Buick coupe. For some reason even though GM Fischer bodies were probably the tightest of the Big 3, GM convertibles always had loose, floppy looking convertible tops that tended to puff up in the wind compared to Ford and Mopar back then.

davethecarnut

AMC was doing pretty good in the late 60's. The AMX/Javelins, Rebel Machines and the Scramblers (SC Ramblers) were pretty hot cars. It was the Matador [non-permissible content removed] Pacer/Gremlin era that did them in, IMO.

dougb10

That Mercury Sun Valley brings back memories from 50 years ago for me.

I was in college in the late 50's (yeah, I'm 70 now, so put the calculators away)

I had a 1954 Monarch Sun Valley (the Canadian equivalent of the Mercury).

It was white with a green top....the glass roof had a zip-in fabric liner to shade things if it got too hot inside. This car was very cool...with duals and a great sound that had all the power stuff too....including windows and seat.

If you could not get "lucky" in this car....you must have looked like Quasimodo!

Those were the days my friend!

Doug

stephen987

If you could not get "lucky" in this car....you must have looked like Quasimodo!

Hmm. The only time I ever actually tried to get lucky in a car, I came out looking and feeling like Quasimodo. Then again, it was a Fiat 850. . .

Let the games resume!

stephen987

magnette

That's a Muntz - circa 1949/53. I think they built about 25, and they were mostly powered by contemporary Cadillac V8s..

stever

[Spoiler - yep, it's a plug for a Straightline story. You guys are needed to set some folks straight].

andre1969

I think if they had thrown a few extra bucks into the Matador coupe and sprung for hidden headlights, it would have made a world of difference. Either have them hidden in the grille, or pop up above it, but getting rid of those awful bug-eyed headlights and their associated bulges would have cleaned up the car immensely.

One nifty feature those Matador coupes had was roll-down rear windows. With a/c becoming so popular, most people probably didn't care anymore, but it was still a thoughtful touch, and one becoming increasingly rare in 2-door cars.

kyfdx

The weird thing about the Matador coupe is that it looks nothing like the Matador sedan.. It's like they gave the same name to two completely different cars...

Now that I think about it.. Hyundai is doing the same thing with the name Genesis... :surprise:

stephen987

My info places the total number of Muntz Jets closer to 400. The first few were Cadillac powered, but Lincoln V8s propelled the rest.

Shame about that two-piece windshield. . .

stephen987

Aston Martin DB2/4 Mk III, I believe.

bhill2

Well as berri mentioned about 10 posts back, the coupes were supposed to be on a smaller chassis but it was second-guessed. This is not the first time that AMC did this. The original concept for what became the Marlin was on the American chassis (called the Tarpon) and looked really good. The idiot CEO, Roy Abernathy, nixed that idea because you couldn't put a V-8 in it, and forced it onto the larger Classic chassis. Everyone knows the result, both visually and financially. Ironically, within a couple of years they were putting their new V-8, which came in displacements up to 390 ci, in the American. If they had stuck with the original plan, the Tarpon/Marlin would have been a pretty credible competitor to the Plymouth Barracuda which, although not a blockbuster like the Mustang, had a fair amount of success. This decision was only one of many by Abernathy which supported a diagnosis of recto-cranial inversion and, I think, contributed greatly to AMC's downfall.

stever

Yep a Aston Martin DB2/4 (dunno about the Mark III). It belongs to Bernie Madoff, or did, and there's a NY Times article saying that it's a 1964.

So the year is in dispute.

fintail

I wonder if falsifying the year somehow benefits the crook and/or his accomplices.

stever

I think it's just a simple fact checking error. Either the paper is wrong or they've confiscated so much stuff, they're rushing to catalog it for sale and transposed some numbers.

stephen987

I wonder if falsifying the year somehow benefits the crook and/or his accomplices.

I would guess that a 1964 DB5 would be worth more than a 1954 DB2/4.

stever

lol, yep. It would cost a fortune to find all the tooling or recreate it from scratch.

fintail

I am sure it is just a typo...but with Bernie and his minions, you never know

andys120

magnette

Fiat Barchetta - circa 2002 onwards. They have sold this here, but sadly not RHD, so it has never been a big seller. It's a nice little car, in the price bracket that years ago would have been the Spitfire or Midget/Sprite, slightly cheaper than an MX-5.

andys120

Magnette is correct it's an '05 Fiat Barchetta.

andys120

imidazol97

1951 Oldsmobile Super 88 Deluxe, 1950 Studebaker. 1951 or 52 Pontiac

andre1969

Don't forget the creme car, which I think is a '49 DeSoto. Can't tell which series, but I'm guessing a Custom, with the big whitewalls. Isn't the black car a '49-50 Chevy?

imidazol97

How 'bout a 1952 Plymouth Cranbrook. That cream car is a DeSoto.

berri

I think you may be right about that Plymouth. I'm not sure the last car is a Pontiac because I thought they all had that streamliner chrome decorating the middle of the hood back then? Maybe an Oldsmobile instead?

imidazol97

You're right. The 53 or 54 Pontiac had that cross piece on the grill similar to the picture IIRC. The crosspiece is what I keyed on. It's an open elongated oval. What cars had that? The emblem with the 12-18 inch chrome line through it looks like Pontiac rather than Oldsmobile...

andys120

A larger version of that photo reveals that the black car on the extreme right is definitely not a Poncho. link. It looks like a '50 or '51 Chevy to me, the Olds had different headlight surrouds.

My Grandpa owned an Olds similar to the 88 in the pic, not sure if it was the same year.

andys120

imidazol97

The black car is a Chev. Andre1969 ID'ed it as a 49 or 50.

The car under the ARVIN sign is the one I thought was a Pontiac. But it's not.

Can you post a link to the larger picture?

That last car has an unusual upper grill bar which made me think it was a Pontiac. But maybe it's a Chrysler product?