Mystery car pix

fintail

Yep, I think it would be a Taunus 17M "Turnier".

stickguy said:

lots of beetles and benzes.

is that a Ford Taunus wagon turning down the aisle?

bhill2

Mr_Shiftright said:

That was pretty funny---almost could be taken for satire. It's hard to believe the writer is serious. I especially like the emphasis on the positive amenities, such as hood ornament and a sun visor. I mean, that's luxury!


Shifty, do you by any chance remember the satirical road test,supposedly of a British car magazine reviewing the 'Deinbeigh Super Chauvinist' with its desperate attempts to find something good to say about the car? I think it was done by Car and Driver. The passage I remember best is 'The driver's hand works the shifter of the ultra-close ratio 3-speed transmission as quickly as skill allows, trying to find a passing hiccough of torque'. IIRC, the summary of the test consisted of commendation of 'the very competent hooter and well-shaped boot'.

Mr_Shiftright

No, never saw that one. Sounds like a "hoot" to read. I might have to track that one down!

I remember when Saab yanked all their advertising from Autoweek Magazine when Satch Carlson called their convertible "Coyote Ugly". He was a very funny guy. I think he ended up as Editor of "Roundel" (BMW mag).

bhill2 said:

Mr_Shiftright said:

That was pretty funny---almost could be taken for satire. It's hard to believe the writer is serious. I especially like the emphasis on the positive amenities, such as hood ornament and a sun visor. I mean, that's luxury!


Shifty, do you by any chance remember the satirical road test,supposedly of a British car magazine reviewing the 'Deinbeigh Super Chauvinist' with its desperate attempts to find something good to say about the car? I think it was done by Car and Driver. The passage I remember best is 'The driver's hand works the shifter of the ultra-close ratio 3-speed transmission as quickly as skill allows, trying to find a passing hiccough of torque'. IIRC, the summary of the test consisted of commendation of 'the very competent hooter and well-shaped boot'.

kyfdx

Mr_Shiftright said:

No, never saw that one. Sounds like a "hoot" to read. I might have to track that one down!

I remember when Saab yanked all their advertising from Autoweek Magazine when Satch Carlson called their convertible "Coyote Ugly". He was a very funny guy. I think he ended up as Editor of "Roundel" (BMW mag).

Satch Carlson lost his job at AutoWeek, because he was accused of some sort of inappropriate contact with a minor. He is the current editor at Roundel.

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/17/us/schools-and-police-battle-over-search.html

Mr_Shiftright

"His conduct was regarded as ''repugnant and professionally reprehensible, "

He would have liked that!

kyfdx

Mr_Shiftright said:

"His conduct was regarded as ''repugnant and professionally reprehensible, "

He would have liked that!

Yeah.. if he hadn't been a school teacher and that wasn't his student, it might have almost been funny..

He is lucky, times have changed... if that was this year, he would be in jail.

Mr_Shiftright

Actually no laws were broken, due to the age of consent law in that state. He dodges yet another bullet.

stever

I was in Anchorage during that fiasco. He was a very popular columnist with the local paper at the time in addition to teaching school. They changed the laws after that mess (informally named after him) and after a few years absence, he moved back to town.

Mr_Shiftright

He was a good automotive journalist at any rate. He was at Autoweek when I wrote a piece on the Tucker, which he said he liked. I wish I had a copy of that one. It was called "I Ain't Afraid of No Tucker's Ghost".

stickguy

mystery dash.

lostwrench1

Well, it's an Oldsmobile, but which year?
I'll put 2 chips on 53.

bhill2

stickguy said:

mystery dash.

Hmmm. Olds, I think. Maybe early-mid '50s.

stickguy

you are both correct. Just haven't nailed down the year (not sure you can from this pic) or the model.

bhill2

stickguy said:

you are both correct. Just haven't nailed down the year (not sure you can from this pic) or the model.

Well, Lostwrench said '53 and I can't argue with that. I'm going out on a limb with regard to the model, but with the chrome upper dash and the emergency brake light I'll hazard that it's a 98.

stickguy

it is a '98. But a 1954.

bhill2

stickguy said:

it is a '98. But a 1954.

OK, I'll accept partial credit.

berri

I like those interior shots! There is always so much attention to exteriors, that it is a nice change to focus on some interior stuff sometimes.

grahampeters

G'day

That shot could be pretty much out of any 1950's Holden, so I presume that GMH lifted the key details straight across to Australian production. I love the provision for Right Hand drive nations.

It also prompted a query; what was the last car with a column mounted manual gear change. The Renault 16 that Dad owned in the 1970's and I drove for some years had one, but I cannot recall anything much after about 1980. Any ideas?

Cheers

Graham

kyfdx

grahampeters said:

G'day

That shot could be pretty much out of any 1950's Holden, so I presume that GMH lifted the key details straight across to Australian production. I love the provision for Right Hand drive nations.

It also prompted a query; what was the last car with a column mounted manual gear change. The Renault 16 that Dad owned in the 1970's and I drove for some years had one, but I cannot recall anything much after about 1980. Any ideas?

Cheers

Graham

Seems like I drove pickup trucks in the '70s with column shifters (three on the tree), but can't remember if they were early '70s or late '60s models.. We didn't get a lot of small Euro models in the '70s... don't ever remember looking at a new car then with a manual column shifter.

andre1969

kyfdx said:

Seems like I drove pickup trucks in the '70s with column shifters (three on the tree), but can't remember if they were early '70s or late '60s models.. We didn't get a lot of small Euro models in the '70s... don't ever remember looking at a new car then with a manual column shifter.

A 3 on the tree was "technically" available on the V-6 versions of the Malibu, LeMans, Century, and Cutlass non-wagon models up through 1981. However, my guess is that the vast majority of them were built with automatics, and if you wanted a 3 on the tree you had to special order it, and pray that the factory didn't reject the order. For 1982, the automatic became standard on these cars.

By that time, similar-sized cars, such as Ford's Fairmont and Granada, were using a 4-speed, which I'm presuming was a floor shift. At Mopar, the Diplomat and LeBaron had an automatic transmission standard. Smaller cars, like the Citation, Celebrity, and K-cars, used a 4-on-the-floor. And on full-sized cars, I think automatics had been standard since the early/mid 70's.

As for pickup trucks, 3-speed manuals persisted well into the 1980's. The EPA's website is still showing "M3" as one of the transmission choices for the C10 pickup. And I'd presume most 3-speed manuals were column shift, while the 4-speeds were usually a floor shift?

Mr_Shiftright

This is the first one of these I have ever seen. I wonder what the little door is for? Auction reports that there is a theory about that.

kyfdx

I had a '76 Jeep CJ-5 that had a 3-speed, but it was still a floor shift.

fintail

That handsome blocky grille has to be a Diamond T, just postwar I guess. Some kind of heavy duty fancy ice cream truck?

Mr_Shiftright said:

This is the first one of these I have ever seen. I wonder what the little door is for? Auction reports that there is a theory about that.

explorerx4

@Mr Shifty, Looks like an armored car. My guess is they could pull up to a window at the bank to transfer the money using the little door.

lostwrench1

USO coffee and donut truck?

Mr_Shiftright

close, close. The consensus from all the resident commercial vehicle professors at the auction is that it was a milk truck--based on the dual wheels. (aha, didn't notice that, did you?)

Pretty rare piece, I have never seen one like it. The truck failed to sell at auction---apparently it was a lot rougher than the photos suggest. Seller turned down $28,000 !!! (If, in fact, that was a real bid or an auction "chandelier bid").

grahampeters

G'day

Okay, this is going to take a bit more skill than normal.

A colleague and I are arguing about John Candy's ride in the Blues Brothers. We both know that it ends up in a truck "Car....55... We are in a truck!" but what was the car and what was the truck. It is at about 1:46:00 through the movie

I say a 1977 Dodge Royal Monaco. Phil knows that it is a truck.

Cheers

Graham

andre1969

It's been ages since I've seen that movie, but I just found that clip on Youtube....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgzMNQjQVHk

All I can tell is that the police car is a '75-77 Royal Monaco, the style with the hidden headlights. I had to look up the truck. It's identified at IMCDB.org, but I'm not going to give it away, in case anyone more knowledgeable wanted to give it a stab.

stickguy

I'm guessing it is a Kenworth.

andre1969

My first thought is that the truck was one of those International Transtars that seemed common back in the 70's and 80's. I always remember one of them offing Slim Picken's character in "White Line Fever"....


But, it's not an International. Nor a Kenworth

stickguy

I looked it up. Would not have guessed that either.

robr2

stickguy said:

I looked it up. Would not have guessed that either.

I forgot that manufacturer was once in the heavy truck business.

fintail

I guess Munich 1962 was a tougie - in with all the MBs and VWs is a cigar T-Bird, although it isn't easy to see.

This is Munich again, a used car lot in 1969 (be sure to click to enlarge). I think there's an American car here.

stickguy

is that a '65 Chevy and a Taunus in between a Fintail and Ponton in the front?

and something that looks to me like a 67ish Rambler full size (American?) in the far back right, backed int.

grahampeters

G'day

I am impressed. Of course, there were drinks involved in asking this question, Friday evening being the end of our Financial Year and Halloween, a good enough excuse for after work drinks in a nearby bar,,, which led to someone asking "Who wants an Orange Whip?'' , "Orange Whip? Orange Whip?, Three Orange Whips''. About half the attendees remembered snippets of dialogue. I left before things really degenerated.

The Blues Brothers achieved cult status here in the 1980s, being shown at Midnight Screenings at the Valhalla Cinema with a very generous level of audience participation; I've never seen so much toast in my life, dozens of fake Elwood and Jake Blues (occasionally a plastic gun carrying "Mystery Woman") and even someone who had imported an ex Chicago cop car and parked it outside the cinema. It was a fun way to round out an evening.

Cheers

Graham

fintail

It's either a Chevy or one of the Opels of the era that were heavily influenced by Chevy styling. It's hard for me to tell in the pic, as I can't make out the headlights.

I see that AMC product in the back, too. Kind of an oddity, but I know they were exported or maybe even built under license, I think.

stickguy said:

is that a '65 Chevy and a Taunus in between a Fintail and Ponton in the front?

and something that looks to me like a 67ish Rambler full size (American?) in the far back right, backed int.

stever

I've never seen so much toast in my life, dozens of fake Elwood and Jake Blues

I thought toast at the midnight movies was just a Rocky Horror thing.

"Hi! My name is Brad Majors, and this is my fiancee, Janet Weiss. I wonder if you'd mind helping us. You see, our car broke down a few miles up the road." (I could be at a screening right now - don't ask me why it started at 7:30 pm though).

stickguy

Steve, Toast was part of a classic scene.

"4 fried chickens, and dry white toast"

grahampeters

G'day

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was the alternative to the Blues Brothers at the Valhalla for the Midnight Screenings. The audience participation was a lot more worrying - there is an absence of black suits in Rocky Horror!

Cheers

Graham

stever

@stickguy, thanks, that does ring a bell. Belushi, right? Don't tell Fintail but I'm not much of a movie buff.

stickguy

Belushi and Ackroyd. A true classic. You have to see this one.

stever

Oh, saw it, but it's been years. (It's been years for Rocky Horror too, but I saw that one about 20 times).

Michaell

Oh, you guys.

The scene in the diner (with Aretha Franklin) had one of the brothers order "Four whole fried chickens, and a coke", while the other wanted "just dry white toast, ma'am".

Can't remember which was which.

stickguy

Jake ordered the 4 chickens. Elwood got toast. Then aretha called them hassidic diamond merchants.

I love that movie.

magnette

The Rocky Horror Show is on at a West End cinema somewhere about once a month I think - the people going to that look distinctive when boarding the tube train in the suburbs - although no-one would notice by the time they get to the centre of town...

bhill2

magnette said:

The Rocky Horror Show is on at a West End cinema somewhere about once a month I think - the people going to that look distinctive when boarding the tube train in the suburbs - although no-one would notice by the time they get to the centre of town...

OK, without looking what car were Brad and Janet in at the beginning of the movie? Oh and while we're at it, what was playing on the radio (hint: it wasn't a song).

stever

LOL, no clue even after all my viewings. Was there a "meatloaf" ad on the radio?

bhill2

stever said:

LOL, no clue even after all my viewings. Was there a "meatloaf" ad on the radio?

No, it was actually a news event. I like your thinking, though.

fintail

I am not a buff so much as a geek for certain movies, and I like to visit filming locations. I greatly prefer Blues Brothers to Rocky Horror - the latter of which I never really "got". I'd like to visit Chicago sometime and visit movie locations there, as it was the homeland for John Hughes films.

Speaking of Blues Brothers, when I was at Universal Studios last year, I was snooping around, and behind a high fence, spotted these things:



Pic taken from cameraphone zoom held above my head, so you take what you can get.

stever said:

@stickguy, thanks, that does ring a bell. Belushi, right? Don't tell Fintail but I'm not much of a movie buff.

grahampeters

G'day.

The one on the left is the Bluesmobile, which was a 1974 Dodge with the 440cid motor. Apparently that body type is now incredibly rare due to people ctetaing fake Bluesmobiles .

Is the one on right Shaggy's Van from Scooby Doo. I can't tell if it has a Hibachi in the back?

Cheers

Graham