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A longtime friend and co-worker had new '85 and '87 Thunderbird Turbo Coupes. The '85 was black and the '87 was a charcoal-blue (dark) and the interior was navy blue...I loved the interior. I like the '87 and '88 styling better than the '83-85--the 'wedge' profile, and the covered taillights.
I think the '89 was a cow. I remember reading that whomever was President of Ford at that time was mad at introduction time, how much it came in over budget in weight and cost.
1984 T-bird: 92/15 (passenger cabin/trunk volume, cubic feet)
1984 Cougar: 92/15
1987+ LeBaron coupe: 90/14
1984 Monte Carlo: 97/16
1984 Grand Prix: 97/16
1984 Cutlass Supreme Coupe: 98/16
1984 Regal coupe: 98/16
1983 Cordoba/Mirada: 100/17
1981 Thunderbird: 93/18 (for Lemko's benefit!)
I threw the '87 LeBaron in there, because I viewed it as a contender in the personal luxury coupe field The '82-86 2-door was just a boxy little sedan, although it came in at a relatively spacious 96/15, but the '87+ just seemed like a more serious attempt. I also thought it looked a bit T-birdish in the roofline. Also, I used to own an '88 LeBaron turbo coupe, so I have it as a reference point.
I always knew the '83-88 T-bird was a bit small inside for my tastes, but I was surprised to see just how small the '80-82 was, as well!
I was also a bit surprised that the old Cordoba/Mirada were that big inside. I've sat in a few, and they don't seem especially huge. Legroom is good, but they're low-slung. IIRC, they had a lot of shoulder room as well though. And, these were pretty big cars as well. Probably about the least-downsized of any personal luxury coupe. 112.7" wheelbase, about 210" long. In contrast, the GM coupes were on a 108.1" wb, and around 200" long. I think the '80-82 T-bird was on a 108.4" wb, and around 202" long.
Another thing I always wonder...when they measure trunk volume, do they take the spare tire into account? For instance, if a car is listed at 17 cubic feet, does that mean you can really get 17 cubic feet of luggage in there, or is it actually 17, minus whatever the spare tire takes up? Most cars these days have the spare tire under the trunk floor, so it's probably a moot point today.
I wouldn't mind getting an '85-87 model with the Chevy 305.
Monte Carlos back then seemed to be hit or miss, with regard to the interior. I didn't mind my Mom's '86, which was just a base model with full cloth. It seemed presentable enough. But I've seen some earlier models with a combination of cloth and vinyl, and they just seem a bit tacky to me.
In contrast, a Cutlass or Regal seemed like a pretty nice car, even with the most basic material. My old '82 Cutlass was just a base model, but it was still pretty tasteful inside, a combination of a mostly cloth that looked like corduroy, but was fairly soft to the touch, and some vinyl on the seatbacks, seat bolsters, and top of the door panels. And even though it was vinyl, it was nice, for vinyl!
However, I hated the instrument panel on the Cutlass and Regal. The standard Cutlass gave you this narrow strip speedometer that seriously compressed the central numbers, but if you got optional gauges, they looked pretty small and hard to read. The standard speedo on the Regal had these huge numbers on it that you just know were designed so that old people could still read them. You could get a digital display, but I think it only included a speedo, tach, and fuel..it wasn't a full-gauge setup. I don't think the Grand National even had full gauges, at least not at first. I'm pretty sure the GNX did, though.
I don't know about the GNX, but I had a HS friend that had an '86 T-Type and it only had a goofy looking digital tach and boost gauge. No temp, volts, or oil pressure.
I definitely like the Regal and Cutlass back then, but so did the thieves. My buddies T-Type got swiped at a shopping mall and my MIL had an '82 or so Cutlass that was stolen twice in the same month. The 2nd time they didn't find it. They replaced that with an '85 Diplomat that was so ugly, they didn't need to worry about it being stolen;)
I bought a 1984 Turbo Coupe to use as my work beater back in 1993- a manual of course. It was actually a pretty nice car. I sold it to a friend's son and he still has it.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I did not like renting the Olds or Pontiacs from Alamo. The late model Hertz T-Birds were so much nicer driving than the GM offerings. I was really upset when Hertz dropped the T-Birds. At the time I was renting a car 3 out of every 6 weeks. Did that for about 8 years. The time spent in Hawaii I rented a lot of Mustang convertibles.
IIRC, Uplanderguy once had a Monte Carlo get stolen, as well.
Initially, I thought these cars were stolen so often because the frameless windows made them extra easy to break into. But, that wasn't necessarily the case. Back in college, I worked at Denny's for awhile, and one of the managers had a Bonneville G, which had framed windows just like all of GM's 4-doors by then. She mentioned that it was easy to break into, and that she even had to do it herself a couple times when she locked the keys in it.
I just detested the woodgrain inside the '81 and '82 Monte Carlo (of which I owned two). I didn't mind the standard cloth and vinyl inside. My '82 had the interior that in '83 became called the "CL"--deep seats and a lot of velour.
My '81 was stolen; and my '82 was nearly stolen. I climbed in it once and the seat was the whole way back and the steering column was in a hundred pieces all over the front seat.
My parents had an '80 and '84 Monte Carlos. I particularly liked their '84, but their '80 was a nice color IMHO--a deep metallic military green with gold painted pinstripe from the factory, and the optional belt moldings.
The T-Bird talk reminds me of my dad, looking at a loaded Tempo coupe around 1986. It was very plush, and he called it a "mini T-Bird" or something to that effect...I think he was maybe trying to convince my mother of something.
He also has a low mileage 85 SS, which was his baby, but then he got married, and it too went to the back burner.
IIRC, didn't they even show Ahh-nold doing this trick to a ~1979 Caprice wagon in the first Terminator movie?
One thing that's really amazing is just how easy cars were to steal before locking steering columns became the norm. I had a friend whose Dad showed me how to start my '68 Dart without a key. It's been ages, but IIRC, you just ran a wire from the positive battery cable to the positive side of the ignition coil, touch something else wtih a screwdriver, and the car starts right up.
Of course, you still had to break into the car, but that was easy in those days. And many cars still had outside hood releases until well into the 1970's. My '76 LeMans being one of them.
Did the government end up mandating inside releases, I wonder? Or did the auto makers just finally figure out it was a good idea? The other day I caught an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", and they showed a man pulling an inside release to open the hood on a '57 Mercury. Pretty impressive, I thought, for the time. But, with having the hoods open forward like that, I wonder if that made an inside release necessary?
I actually preferred their Sable for that reason. Far more spacious, and my own door.
As a kid, I would have chosen a Regal T-Top instead. lemko beat me to it.
A friend of mine in high school and college had a 1985 Cavalier that had a "CS" badge on the trunk. I have no idea what kind of step-up, if any that represented, because that car was dirt-cheap inside. Plastic slabs for door panels, and thin cloth seats that were originally black, but faded to a purple-ish hue.
One thing it had that was odd though, was a stereo with seven pre-sets. It only had four preset buttons, but if you pressed down on two adjacent buttons at the same time, it let you set another station. My grandmother's '85 LeSabre, which had what appeared to be the exact same stereo, didn't have that feature, so it was limited to four FM, four AM stations.
Seems keeping the ignition on the dash might ward off some of those issues. Fintail has an inside hood release, but I remember all the old 60s Fords my dad had did not.
I just got my license, but my folks let me drive that to prom. I left the door open on purpose for my date to hear it. LOL
My parents liked it OK, but it had engine troubles and ran on 5/6 cylinders for the later part of its life. He sold (almost gave) it to a friend who was a mechanic and could fix all the things gone wrong.
Honestly the Sable was just a much better car all around.
Ours was an Olds Custom Cruiser model.
And hey, of all things to survive the Rise of the Machines, this kinda makes me proud...
It does annoy me a bit though, that mine lost its stand-up hood ornament at some point in its life, yet this old beast saw the downfall of human-kind as the world fell into total chaos, yet still shows that ornament with pride!
I have a feeling she didn't sing the praises of that car for long, though...
In the movie "Logan's Run", in one of the Washington DC scenes, you can see one car off to the left, overgrown with weeds and such, but a windshield still intact, sun glaring off of it. It's been awhile since I've seen it, and you can only catch it on the widescreen. The old TV pan and scan cuts it out. I think it was around a 1969-70 GM B-body, or maybe a Mopar fuselage car.
Somehow, I don't imagine an abandoned car still having much resemblance of its former self in the year 2274. Wouldn't it pretty much decay away to nothing by that time?
Was it a mechanical or electronic dial? My 84 Cavalier had an all electronic radio and I don't remember that feature. Then again, I pulled the radio out shortly after buying it and installed an aftermarket.
My '86 Monte Carlo also had a similar radio, although it had a little 5-band equalizer built in too. I can't remember if the Monte had the seven presets or four. I only had it for 3 months...Mom gave to me in March of 1998 and I got t-boned in it in June of 1998. By that time, I had my station preference down to about 2 or 3 anyway, so a bunch of preset really didn't matter anymore.
These days, it's gotten to the point I rarely even pre-set a station anymore. The two I listen to the most are very close on the dial...100.3 and 100.7. Both classic rock stations, although one is in Rockville MD and the other is a bit north of Baltimore. My new Ram has Sirius with a 1-year subscription, but I really haven't played with it much.
Man, even my stick-shift, crank window, no power locks Cobalt has satellite radio, and I am sold on XM/Sirius. I love it! Worse thing I do, though, is change the stations; there are so many to choose from! I mostly listen to 32, which is '60's-'70's mellow rock/singer-songwriters, then alternate between 26 (classic rock) and 6 and 7 (sixties and seventies, respectively). I even like 4 (forties) every now and then.
I don't have any terrestrial stations preset, but I do with Sirius stations. I've been thinking of not renewing when my contract is up in June, but man would I miss it.
He recently got a new unit installed though, and I think it has the Sirius built in.
One thing that I don't like about it, is that sometimes I'd find a station that had a song I liked, but then they'd follow it up with some obscure Cicada of Rock and Roll...some old song that you haven't heard in about 17 years, and would be happy if you didn't hear it again for another 17!
We did rig up the portable thing in my '76 LeMans once, and that was kind of amusing. Except that the radio has a short in it, so sometimes it plays, sometimes you hit a bump and it goes out, and then eventually comes back on at random. We had it cranked up pretty loud at one point and then it went out. Forgot about it, until about 20 minutes later when it came back on full-blast. I still remember the song, for some reason...Black Water by the Doobie Bros. Gave me a bit of a scare when it came back on. And for some reason, I remember this particular XM station playing the theme music from the Match Game...the extended cut!
Thanks.
Mine looked like that although it didn't have a fade - I didn't opt for rear factory speakers. I don't recall the extra pre-sets, then again lots of brain cells fell victim to vodka and cranberry back then.....
Over the 3 years I owned it, I must have upgraded the system 3 or 4 times. IIRC, the last head unit was a Sony with an equalizer and wired remote.
Maybe not quite as impressive as one might think.
My 1941 Dodge D-19 3-window business coupe had hoods (yes, hoods... There was a right and a left hood, and they opened from the car's side) and both were operated by pulling a handle inside the car, located up under the dash on each side.
My '63, '64, and '66 Studebakers all had inside hood releases. I have to believe that all Larks did (back to '59). I believe all Hawks did too (back to '56) but should really check into that.
I had two high school friends who got new V8 '75 Monza 2+2's. I was very jealous at the time! Both had external hood releases, which seemed odd on a Chevy by that time. Of course, I don't think there was much room for anything else under those hoods. Vegas had inside releases and opened from the windshield side; Monzas did not.
I had it painted the original grey color it wore from the factory, and had the interior done in a mohair-lookalike, similar to how it came as well. I was never able to locate an original accessory heater for anything near a reasonable price, but I did find a OEM Motorola AM radio in Hemmings, which i bought. I sold it in 1997 to an older guy who was bitten by the nostalgia bug (he had owned a D-19 Dodge during WW II) and simply had to have the car.
He used to take it around to local car shows, and I'm pretty sure he would tell folks he did the restoration.... People are funny like that...
Frankly, it was much more fun working on the car than driving it. If anyone can tell me how to upload a picture and post it here, I'll scan one and show the actual car.
Read more: http://www.autonews.com/article/20130418/OEM01/130419891/toyota-to-shift-lexus-e- s-output-to-kentucky#ixzz2QqiXw13Y
For posting the pic, you need to park it somewhere, like flickr.com or tinypic.com. Then you can grab the URL after you upload it to a hosting site, and either link to the URL or use the IMG button to paste the image in a post.
The journey is usually more fun than "arrival".
Saw this "Subaru" this afternoon:
It's a Polaris out of MN, except they are now a subsidiary of Fuji, who owns Subaru.
My favorites stations include 4 (which goes beyond the 40s when singer and music expert Jonathan Schartz takes over as DJ from noon to 3 each day), 60s on 6, 70s on 7, 19 (Elvis—sometimes I need a dose), 28 (the spectrum, with an eclectic mix of stuff), 32 (mellow rock), 33 (1st wave alternative of the 80s), 35 XMU (contemporary college alt rock and pop), 42 (reggae, since sometimes the days need to mellow out mon), 49 ( R & B of the 50s-70s, Ray Charles, etc.), 56 (Willie Nelson's Roadhouse, which has classic Western of the Patsy Cline Willie Nelson variety from the 50s on), 70 (BB King's Bluesville, because sometimes you want to hear someone who has had a worse day than you've had sing about it), 72 (Siriously Sinatra), 74 (NY Met Opera), 76 (Symphony Hall), 118 (BBC World Service, because sometimes I need those British accents to tell it to me like it is with panache), and the online only channel 710, with 24 hour playing of the 100 shows Bob Dylan made for the Dylan Themetime Radio Hour. Bob Dylan is probably the greatest DJ in history.
For c. 25 cents a day (with the discount at the top) it's definitely worth it to me. For a little more you can add online access and listen on your computer too. It's annoying that you have to threaten to cancel to get the better rate, but it's always worked for me, and I've been listening for something like 8 years.
I really enjoyed XM in my 2005 GMC PU. I renewed one year for $76 and the next year they would not budge, so I let it lapse. I liked many stations, country, Blues, Classical, Bluegrass, Jazz and older R&R.
From my experiences with them, they are one of the most difficult companies for subscribers to deal with, but the last time I had to actually speak with a customer rep I thought I saw improvement. Maybe I was just lucky that day.
Success. This was a bike I built when I was 16. Can anyone determine the make and size engine?
Give me a day or so and I'll post some pics of my 41 Dodge...
None. At that time, I was living in GA, and motorcycle laws were quite lax.
No front brake, horn or speedometer required. Or blinkers. The bike had to have a working headlight, tail light and brake light. And the rider was required to wear a helmet.
If you look closely, there isn't a seat on the bike. And, the front wheel you see in the picture was temporary, as I was in the process of lacing a smaller rim to a new hub. The seat was in the process of being shipped to me from CA.
My mom snapped that picture while it was sitting outside. Me, being a stupid kid, didn't think to take pictures as I went along building the bike. Thats the only picture I haven of it.
My dad was dead-set against motorcycles, but he saw the value I would get from building one from the ground up. This was the early 1970's, after all, and everyone was crazy about stretched out bikes due to Easy Rider being in the movies...
Photo is grainy so it's hard to tell.
Pretty good guess, though.