Mystery car pix

andys120

explorerx4

Joseph Abboud edition

stephen987

Is that a '49-50 Frazer?

lostwrench1

49-50 Kaiser Virginian

andys120

That's right Lostrench1 but can you tell me if that's really a convertible?

qbrozen

I was thinking the same thing ... but upon closer inspection, it does appear to have creases where the bows would be. So if its just a vinyl top, they went through alot of trouble to make it looks like a vert.

lostwrench1

Good question.
I believe all the 49-50 Virginians were made to look as though they were convertibles but were not. However, this picture shows what appears to be ribs supporting a convertible roof.
There were a few 49-50 Kaiser 4-door convertibles built. I never knew of their being Virginians. Perhaps the picture shows a clone?

texases

I'm going to guess it's a fake convertible, based on the smooth line the roof makes as it goes into the rear fender, the possibility of the front of the roof just being separated by a chrome trim strip from the window frame, and the apparently distortion-free large rear window. I've seen fakes where they put in those ribs to make them look like a convertible.

stever

That's the "special edition" answer I was looking for.

Extra points if you knew who in the world Joseph Abboud is.

Weekly Top Three: Silliest Special Editions (Edmunds CarPool)

kyfdx

Fashion designer... I think I owned one of his neckties.. (which had to be a long, long time ago...)

andys120

986 1950 Virginians were faux convertibles complete with fake bows and black vinyl covering to simulate a ragtop.

Seen from the front or side they are pretty convincing but not so much from behind>



Hemmings says 60 real convertible Frazer Manhattans like this were built in '49-'50 (note four doors)>

andys120

kyfdx

'62 Pontiac wagon.. were they
called Safaris, then?

jwilliams2

And of course a 1959 Buick....I can't tell if its a LeSabre, Invicta, or Electra. Maybe a Pontiac or Caddy in front of it?

Mr_Shiftright

next to the bus? The front fender wheel cut-out looks very familiar.

stickguy

'58 caddy eldo?

and wait, how did these RWD cars get out of the driveway with all that snow? There are people today (some posting on Edmunds!) that would swear that is physically impossible!

kyfdx

How true!

wgrafer

The white car is a '65 Cadillac convertible. And (with a wider view) it looks
like a '61Pontiac Tempest behind the '59 Buick.

All my early cars were rear-wheel-drive, and everyone just kind of got used
to them as there really was no other choice. I remember the annual Winter
tradition of swapping regular rear tires out for snow tires (maybe even studded
ones until they were outlawed for harming asphalt pavement) and putting a
couple of sand-bags in the trunk for extra traction.

Mr_Shiftright

Ah, too late for THEM to be in the Greatest Generation!! The little whiners. Why, I used to drive in NY winters in an MGA! Sure, I carried a shovel, sand, flares, a first aid kit and survival gear, so what's your point? :mad:

stephen987

I did pretty well in a rear-engined Fiat 850 in the few snowstorms we had in SC--even learned a few things about power-on oversteer that would've been impossible to learn in that car under any other circumstances. But the heater was inop, so it wasn't what I'd call a pleasant experience.

Mr_Shiftright

I always wondered why my British cars could generate enough heat in the cooling system to melt steel but somehow could not transfer that heat the extra 6 inches through the firewall into the passenger compartment. :confuse:

magnette

It's something about the stiff upper lip, never complain about the cold etc I expect - heaters were still optional here until the late 50's, early 60's in some cases, and it was only because the cars we then exported had to have them to compete that these were eventually fitted - although obviously they were standard on better cars earlier. (ie MGs Jags etc...)

I never had a car that had a decent heater for years either, apart fro a Ford Escort, and that was always overheating, so I had to have the heater on in Summer to cool it down...

Mr_Shiftright

My friend helped me install a heater from a Bedford truck and that worked great. Not the tidiest of installations however, and I wouldn't do that to an MGA today.

I suppose that any island nation whose inhabitants play tennis in the rain really don't worry about things like this.

andys120

Why, I used to drive in NY winters in an MGA

Peter Egan, your colleague at Road & Track wrote a column about how much fun it was to drive little sports cars in the snow (he lived in Wisconsin!).

The lightness and weight bias of those little roadsters made for huge fun when the going got slippery even if the heaters and defrosters didn't work well. You had plenty of traction, good brakes and steering and if you got stuck you needed only one person to push you out.

I never even got around to buying snows for my Fiat 124 Sport in seven NYC area winters (including the blizzard of '78).

Mr_Shiftright

That's true. I used to pull the choke cable out, let the engine rev in gear and push the car out by myself......crazy but I got away with it.

One of my best snow cars was an Olds Toronado, 1966, with enormous studded snows on the front. I didn't "go through" the snow---I just sat there, floored the gas pedal, and *destroyed* the snow.

stephen987

Here's a different sort of snow car:

berri

That's a Chicago CTA trolley bus.I guess the weather depiction is accurate!

stickguy

sports cars? whimps.

More fun was winter in Upstate NY (the hilly, snowy part) in a duster with semi-bald bias ply snow tires. Donuts for everyone, at any time!

Drum brakes too.

and by far the best snow car I ever had was actually the Horizon my wife had when we got married. 2.2l and the AT, and whatever skinny all season tires came on it.

absolutley unstoppable. And the simple 3 speed floor shift worked like a seqeuntial, since it had 1-2-D settings. Just put it in low on a hill, and it was like the snow wasn't there. Up or down hill.

Just a touch better than my Colt with the turbo suspension/tire package (but sadly no turbo!) with the summer Yoko A008 tires. Basically a showroom stock tire, with "tread" that resembled a golf ball surface. Like driving on 4 sleds in the snow.

fintail

When I was a little kid, my dad had a Horizon (4 door, stick) that he swore up and down was the best snow car he ever drove.

Mr_Shiftright

Snow was different then. With cleaner air, modern snow is more slippery :P

Dr. Shiftright
Slick 50 Representative

ateixeira

You guys are nuts.

My Miata stays in the driveway if the pavement even LOOKS wet.

Same if there's snow in any neighboring STATE.

It does have summer tires...

andys120

You live in the DC area and like everyone else there have no idea how to drive in snow.

Wienie!

fintail

You should see Seattle in the snow. Armageddon.

If it's sticking to the roads, I'd rather not drive the E55 in the snow either.

berri

In DC they have trouble finding the exit until they are right on top of the sign, then its stop and try to get over to the right. I swear a lot of their traffic problems are driver created.

jlbl

never complain about the cold etc

LOL. You called my memories on some freezing winter in England looking astonished to tiny skirted girls (and short sleeved boys) coming out of the pubs every saturday with enough fuel inside as to burn the world! And the Sunbeam convert equipped with a blanket that a friend of mine used to lend me or in which she pick me in for Sunday morning ridings among the snow in those narrow roads. :shades:

Regards,
Jose

lostwrench1

I spent a winter in the Seattle area and one morning awoke to find 2 inches of snow on the ground. Being from New England, I never before saw such distress by a local populace over 2 inches of snow.

fintail

2 inches is about what it takes for the world to end. An inch can be workable, so long as the roads don't ice up, 2 inches causes chaos. Three inches would likely cause my street to close, especially with ice...and then I get a snow day :shades:

The area has a disastrous combination of poor all-round driving skill, and laughably ineffective road clearing ability.

texases

Dallas shuts down, but that's partly because it's usually ice. 1/8" is enough. Then they toss out lots of sand/gravel, usually as things are warming up enough to melt it anyway. My '79 Scirocco kissed a curb when I failed to slow to a crawl on an icy day, bent the lower control arm (luckily easy to replace).

Mr_Shiftright

I often hoped for snow in San Francisco. I planned to rent beach chairs at the bottom of big hills. But alas, the best we could do was about 1/2" in 1978.

Although I haven't driven in snow much the last 20 years, my skills are still good from the combat training in New York. One time on a ski vacation I was the only person in the Bay Area group who could drive a complete day without getting stuck, needing a tow truck or shaving years off passenger's lives as they cringed in abject fear.

magnette

I think that is an ARO, although I wouldn't know the model. They were made in Romania - perhaps they still are (?) - and also licence built in Portugal.

As this one appears to have Romanian numberplates I presume it is from there.

magnette

It is quite varied in Britain - in the north, or in Wales where I'm from, there is snow most years - every year as far north as Yorkshire, Scotland, etc, and so people get used to it.

Down here in London it's a rarer event to have snow and the place comes to a halt if we have 2cms.... Thanks to useless local government, when we had a little snow two years ago they had to take all the buses off the streets as they hadn't got any grit for the ramps out of the bus stations - this is from a city which didn't suspend buses thriugh the worst of the bombing in WW2 - sad really.

It is amazing how people go out drinking dressed just about the same even in the depths of winter, though!

andys120

stephen987

That would be, I believe, a Renault 17 Gordini (could be a 17TL or 17GTL though).

stephen987

Quite correct, magnette--the "snow mobile" is an ARO 244 from Romania.

jlbl

I have a couple of friends in Wales and other in Edinburgh, but that winter was a particularly cold winter in Oxfordshire.

Regards,
Jose

lemko

My Mom had a light blue 1987 Dodge Omni. That car could go through snow better than most SUVs. While other cars were buried in snow banks or otherwise immobilized, Mom's Omni was effortlessly traveling the snow covered streets.

lemko

Shoot, you should've seen Philly this past winter! We had over two feet of snow for several days. My Mercury Grand Marquis stays on the street and I didn't think I'd see it until April! It took me eight hours to dig out my ride. Surprisingly, I was able to get around despite the car's RWD configuration.

andys120

Caption doesn't say if it's a Gordini or not but yeah it's a Renault R17, the Fuego's predecessor.

ateixeira

You live in the DC area and like everyone else there have no idea how to drive in snow

Actually, the important thing is I know WHAT to drive in the snow - our Subaru.

stephen987

Wouldn't this be an interesting vehicle for snow?