I spotted an (insert obscure car name here) classic car today!

uplanderguy

My wife would like to live closer to our one grandchild (2 1/2 hrs. south). Our house is big for the two of us, but it's nice when the kids are home for the holidays--everybody has their own bedroom, and a full bathroom is used that she and I never use. But I tell her, "I don't want a house payment in my seventies". Even to downsize, we'd probably be spending money, I'm convinced of that.

She retires in Sept. this year. I feel that will be an adjustment for me too--we've never been together every day without work, LOL!

My Dad died at 67 and one day, so in June, God-willing, I'll pass him up. His mother died at 68. Dad had lung cancer which moved to his brain, and his mother, lifelong smoker, had heart attacks. My mother lived 'til 83, but had circulation problems and eventually, dementia.

stickguy

When we made the big move from NJ to NY that was to be 4 hours closer to family including our son who is now 15-20 minutes away from our current house. Now that they are expecting even happier we did it. I recommend it.

My wife just likes a roomier house and more land. Is nice over the holidays when we have people over but mostly the 4 bedrooms is for resale! We intended to stay here indefinitely but at the rate we are falling apart may not be more than 3 years! Not a big deal to me. Will probably come out ahead financially even with another buy and sell in a few years.

andre1969

Stickguy, do you remember what year it was that we actually met in person, at the Philly auto show? I remember Aextiera (sp) was there as well, and gave us some orange Subaru shirts. I'm thinking one of the Edmund's hosts met us as well, and gave us some white Edmund's shirts? Grbeck and Lemko were there, too.

It actually doesn't seem that long ago, but I'm thinking it was 2005. I just remember looking at an Avalon and mentioning how much nicer it seemed than the previous version, and seemed like a car I'd actually like, but then you said why buy something like that, when the Charger was about to come out!

I swear it doesn't seem that long ago, but when you mentioned turning 63 soon, I was like wow, where did the time go?!

stickguy

I missed the swag unfortunately! Based on how old I remember my son being that sounds about right. That would have made him 13. Could have been a year or 2 earlier possibly.

kyfdx

58 yrs and 4 months for me.. Thought I'd make it until 60. Until I didn't want to, and didn't have to.

fintail

I'm a late run Xer with 50 on the close horizon, working in the private sector. Retirement? lol SS? Maybe something will be left? I am putting a decent chunk in my 401k, but I don't expect to hang em up until I am close to 70, which if I am lucky enough to still be here will be around when the house is paid off. And really I don't mind, so long as I am physically able - I don't want to just sit around and it's not like I will have money to spend months on vacations every year. My maternal grandpa was a fairly pensioned federal retiree who officially retired at something like 60 or 62, but found part time jobs until he was in his early 70s, for spending money (he loved the racetrack and sports team season ticket) and to stay active and out of grandma's hair. I think it did him well. His final job was shuttling rental cars often between SEA and PDX - he seemed to enjoy it, I wouldn't mind such a gig at that point.

Women in my family on both sides often make it into their 90s and some hit 100. Men not so often, maybe as usual for life expectancies by gender - my dad and paternal grandfather both passed at ~70, maternal grandfather made it to 81 (after having a big heart attack at 65 when he was given just a few years to live - kicked the smoking and drinking right then and did ok for most of the time afterwards). I think I will be fortunate to make it to his point. As Andre said, it's later than one might think.

roadburner

68 and done- except the retired judge gig, which will hopefully cover my HPDE habit.

laurasdada

I'm still good to retire 4/30 at age 65 and a few weeks. Our annual goals are due in the system by mid-Feb; should "To no longer be here" be my '25 goal?
Kidding, of course. I'll probably put in something like, "Thanks for 27 years. Especially the 401k match and the Retirement Income Account donations in lieu of the frozen pension!"

ab348

laurasdada said:

I'm still good to retire 4/30 at age 65 and a few weeks. Our annual goals are due in the system by mid-Feb; should "To no longer be here" be my '25 goal?
Kidding, of course. I'll probably put in something like, "Thanks for 27 years. Especially the 401k match and the Retirement Income Account donations in lieu of the frozen pension!"

Tell me about frozen pensions. Mine has been essentially that way for 10 years even though the funding ratio has been bouncing around either side of 100% that entire time. The ironic thing is that it was done by our province's Minister of Finance, someone I used to work with. He even came to my retirement reception after he was no longer our Minister, and I consider him a friend. He got bamboozled by some of the investments execs at the department after the 2008 financial crisis when markets tanked, who convinced him that the department could be on the hook for unfunded obligations to the pension plan if things stayed that way. Of course (a) they didn't, and recovered well, plus (b) a govt pension is unlike one in the private sector, since provincial/state governments are unlikely to go broke and leave the plan hanging. But no matter. He passed legislation that meant the plan had to be 100% funded in order to even consider any indexing, and even in the best circumstance where it was grossly over-funded, we could only get 50% of what the normal COLA amount would be. Essentially, he panicked in the depths of the crisis and never went back to fix that. Way to go, buddy.

kyfdx

Same here on the frozen pension. Ultimately, cost me $900/month (for life!) in exchange for $50K lump sum. 😕

But, what can you do?

uplanderguy

fin, mostly for you, on newspapers.com found these couple articles about my hometown Stude dealer getting M-B--Nov. '57:

fintail

Surprising to me that such a small town would get a franchise, but maybe it was near others or a crossroads, and you have mentioned there's at least one college around - many MBs were kind of professor/engineer cars.

Speaking of all that, probably something more for the Stude page due to who sponsored the ad, I saw this one lately, from 1960 - I wonder if anyone could have dreamed what these cars would be worth 60 years later:

uplanderguy said:

fin, mostly for you, on newspapers.com found these couple articles about my hometown Stude dealer getting M-B--Nov. '57:

uplanderguy

Just yesterday at the big Scottsdale auction, one went for $1.5 mil I'm pretty sure it was. I was expecting more.

When I look at those, I don't believe I could get out of one! Into, OK--kind-of 'fall into it'. LOL

When I read that article on Filer signing for M-B, and that he was an early signer, I gotta wonder if someone at his district was helping this along maybe due to his being with Stude for over 30 years by that time, and/or his having sold a new Caribbean the year before.

fintail

That price was lower than I would have expected - maybe out of economic issues or that it was an aged restoration. Roadsters can bring that much - and I remember when roadsters could easily be had for 250K in the late 90s. If you can handle the Vette I bet you could handle one of these

I wonder if profits from Filer's MB venture exceeded any costs.

uplanderguy said:

Just yesterday at the big Scottsdale auction, one went for $1.5 mil I'm pretty sure it was. I was expecting more.

When I look at those, I don't believe I could get out of one! Into, OK--kind-of 'fall into it'. LOL

When I read that article on Filer signing for M-B, and that he was an early signer, I gotta wonder if someone at his district was helping this along maybe due to his being with Stude for over 30 years by that time, and/or his having sold a new Caribbean the year before.

Michaell

I was flipping through the channels yesterday and watched a bit of the auction.

Gave up after about 20 minutes when I realized that everything was selliing for north of 6 figures - I had forgotten that Saturday brings out all the best cars.

stickguy

need to tune in on the opening Thursday early afternoon to watch the hoopties and budget friendly (relatively speaking) stuff run.

Michaell

stickguy said:

need to tune in on the opening Thursday early afternoon to watch the hoopties and budget friendly (relatively speaking) stuff run.

Yep.

uplanderguy

I saw ‘25 C8 Z06 vin 001 bring 3.7 mil yesterday, but it was donated by Chevrolet 100% for Red Cross relief efforts in NC and CA. Rick Hendricks bought it. Corvette Chief Engineer was there.

thebean

stickguy said:

need to tune in on the opening Thursday early afternoon to watch the hoopties and budget friendly (relatively speaking) stuff run.

Tuesday action is even better. Lots of affordable cars Tues & Wed. This year, they had a ton of movie/TV cars - mostly replicas from the collection of an oncologist in NJ that died last year. I was shocked at how much this guy must have spent on these pop icon replicas. I’ll have to ask my oncologist if he makes as much scratch as this guy. 😄

ab348

What channel was it on? Canadian cable is more screwed up than it has been for a long time with a bunch of channels shutting down and only crap replacements. The only part of the IMSA Rolex race I could see were the bits that were on big NBC, and I didn’t see the B-J listing anywhere.

thebean

I believe it was FYI.

Cable/satellite systems are really going in the garbage, much to my dismay. You can easily spend more on the various streaming platforms than you ever did on cable/satellite. I hate that the Chili Bowl (midget sprint car race in mid Jan) moved to streaming last year. I believe this particular platform (Flo Racing) is around $40/month. 😫

ab348

thebean said:

I believe it was FYI.

Cable/satellite systems are really going in the garbage, much to my dismay. You can easily spend more on the various streaming platforms than you ever did on cable/satellite. I hate that the Chili Bowl (midget sprint car race in mid Jan) moved to streaming last year. I believe this particular platform (Flo Racing) is around $40/month. 😫

Yeah, Flo racing is really dreaming in technicolor with their pricing for some pretty low-level/fringe events. Lots of complaints about their signal going down/freezing on their most popular events as they apparently have issues scaling up.

thebean

I had not heard about the signal issues. Man, that would really hack a guy off during a race. Thanks for the info.

I verified that the early week B-J shows are indeed on FYI network.

uplanderguy

I saw the Beverly Hillbillies Oldsmobile truck sell. $110K I think it was. I know it was designed to look like cr*p on purpose....but it does. Included poor-replica dummies of all the Clampett family riding in it!

stickguy

I kind of understand that for the original. But a replica, seems odd.

ab348

stickguy said:

I kind of understand that for the original. But a replica, seems odd.

Old liquored-up guys with lots of money are easy pickings for the auction hype machine.

texases

Any idea where this license plate came from?

uplanderguy

Pretty sure the “…Hillbillies” truck was indeed the one used in the show. I still wasn’t very wowed.

andre1969

That "DC" license plate looks made up, to me. I'm pretty sure it's not a Washington, DC plate. The really old ones always said "District Of Columbia" on them. By the 60's, I think they said "Washington DC" across the bottom, and had "Nation's Capital" across the top.

texases

andre1969 said:

That "DC" license plate looks made up, to me. I'm pretty sure it's not a Washington, DC plate. The really old ones always said "District Of Columbia" on them. By the 60's, I think they said "Washington DC" across the bottom, and had "Nation's Capital" across the top.

Yep, I looked up DC plates, they look like you described. I couldn't place it with another country, either, so I guess it's like you said, made up for some reason.

thebean

ab348 said:

stickguy said:

I kind of understand that for the original. But a replica, seems odd.

Old liquored-up guys with lots of money are easy pickings for the auction hype machine.

Steel (or fiberglass) Viagra. The wives are sitting there calculating how big a diamond she can buy with what the husband spent on his toy.

TBH, I don’t understand why you would spend anything over $100K for a car at auction. I would be afraid to drive one costing $250K and up. I call those “lookin’ cars” rather than “driving’ cars”.

fintail

Cuda has a plate from Norway.

Considerable amount of American cars in Scandinavian/Nordic countries.

texases

Ah, good to know. I'll let the folks over on Cartalk know.

andre1969

Oopsie! Found this on a facebook forum...
Talk about having a Bug up your...

uplanderguy

Yeesh. The original Avanti had a nose-down 'rake', but nothing like that! LOL

I still don't like '68 Chevys with that 'formal top'. Skirts too, yuck.

uplanderguy

I think we discussed this car a couple years ago. 1976 Chevelle Malibu. 31K miles. It showed up recently on "Low Miles, No Miles" FB page, which may be becoming my favorite FB page.

I like oddball stuff. I am not fan of four-door Colonnades, but what a goofy car this is. Although, clean and original, the way I like cars. Ordered new with six, 3-speed, tinted windshield, optional Deluxe bumpers (strips) and guards, body side moldings, Exterior Decor Group (wheel opening and roof drip moldings), full wheelcovers, and clock. I remember reading a couple years back, that it was ordered new by a prof at a small CT college. Too bad he didn't get a Malibu Classic.

The Malibu interior--at least, the seating--is egregious. It's like the 1973 'Deluxe', although it does have carpeting. I always thought there should've been a model between the Malibu and the Malibu Classic.

Still, interesting to me...a real throwback even in '76. The new owner is proud of it.

I always remember, the rare times I'd see a '70's GM with column 3-speed, how the shift lever is straight, instead of having that gentle curve the cars with automatic transmission had.

andre1969

I like that '76 Malibu a lot, from the outside. That shade of blue kind of reminds me of my '80 Malibu. And, I'll never admit to having mainstream tastes when it comes to cars, but I actually prefer the Colonade 4-doors to the coupes! I think it's because I like the big, open, airy look of them. The roofline almost looks futuristic to me, in contrast to the likes of what Ford and Mopar were putting out, with their beltlines that kicked up in rear door area, and those thick C-pillars. It seemed like the Colonade sedans tried to open up the world to you, whereas the coupes tried to seal it off.

But inside, meh. That seat insert almost looks like cheap kitchen linoleum. And I never really cared for the Chevelle/Monte Carlo dashboard. Just looks too big, blocky, and just waiting to crack. Still, it's cool that it survived all these years, and was well cared for.

I'm sure with the 250 6-cyl, that Malibu has got to be a dog. But, it might not be a bad car for leisurely driving. I wonder how it would compare to an Olds 260 V8? Consumer Reports tested a '77 Cutlass Supreme sedan with the 260, and I think its 0-60 time was around 21.6 seconds! It probably had air conditioning though, which would add weight and drag, compared to that '76 Chevelle.

uplanderguy

The coupe that year looks nice I think; still has the triangular quarter window the Colonnades were born with, but I just cannot get past that interior. I also miss the Classic's wide rocker trim. I wish they would've made the Classic interior optional on the Malibu that year.

I don't care for the dash either, other than the clock is where it ought to be, and I like the cubby hole on non-AC cars. But I remember being astounded at the flimsy glovebox door on those cars when I first looked at a friend's parents' '74 Monte Carlo. I can't say I've seen a lot of cracked dashes, but I certainly have on the '78 and later cars.

That sedan roofline is a bit of a throwback to the '59 and '60 sedans, with a separate quarter window behind the rear doors.

Just noticed two more options that car has..."Courtesy Lights" (light the floor in front), and the vinyl interior was also a nominal-cost option over the standard cloth--which didn't look any better. LOL

stickguy

Roof on that bug held up pretty good.

uplanderguy

Admittedly dumb question—did Beetles in the late ‘60’s have disc brakes? That Impala could have, but I bet most were still drums at all wheels.

texases

I don't think any air-cooled beetles had disc brakes.

stickguy

They did earlier in Europe ((1967). And apparently in the US in the super beetle.

andre1969

That Impala looks like it has 14" wheels. I don't know if the '68 disc brake setup was the same as '69, but I learned from experience, that a 14" wheel won't fit on a '69 Bonneville with disc brakes. Years ago, I had a '69 Bonneville 4-door hardtop that I bought from my cousin for $400. I tried swapping its wheels with the Catalina, but the Catalina's 14" rims wouldn't fit on the Bonneville, because the brake discs were too big.

I guess it's possible the Chevy setup could be different, though? You'd think things like brakes would have been fairly standardized, but with GM, ya never know!

uplanderguy

Just looked at the 1968 full-size Chevrolet brochure. All disc brake cars had 15-inch wheels.

texases

stickguy said:

They did earlier in Europe ((1967). And apparently in the US in the super beetle.

From what I found only the '72 Karmann Ghia got discs for the US, drums for the US Beetle until the end.

http://vw-resource.com/years.html

uplanderguy

RE.: Beetle’s roof holding up—seems I’ve heard that the arc shape of the original and ‘New’ Beetle bodies are naturally sturdy. It also has a B-pillar which the Chevy, being a hardtop, doesn’t.

stickguy

texases said:

stickguy said:

They did earlier in Europe ((1967). And apparently in the US in the super beetle.

From what I found only the '72 Karmann Ghia got discs for the US, drums for the US Beetle until the end.

http://vw-resource.com/years.html

maybe that was European SBs

roadburner

A friend of mine rolled his bug on a subdivision street (long story). He and some friends rolled it back on its wheels and he drove off.

texases

Yeah, the European VWs always got the good stuff!

uplanderguy

In 1968 we were visiting my mother's sister in Howard Beach, NY, along with other maternal relatives. My uncle's wife (in her twenties), with her '64 Pontiac Tempest, ran into a Beetle in an intersection. I don't recall whose fault it was. The Tempest had very little damage, and the Beetle was on its roof. It was near us and we ran to look at it. There was broken glass as the windshield of the Beetle came out, but I remember my uncle saying they were designed to pop out....don't know if true or not. But I remember thinking the Beetle looking like if you could push it over it would probably drive away.