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

uplanderguy · October 2013

Meant to post this earlier, but a couple days ago saw a bone-stock '73 Cutlass Supreme coupe, that factory lime green with black vinyl top, moving smartly down the road. Still a nice-looking car I think. I thought Olds handled the big bumpers much better than Chevy did that year.

fintail · October 2013

Saw a nice 560SEC on a car hauler today, along with an unfinished ~34 Ford 5 window rod, ~66 Plymouth sedan, ~60 GMC pickup

stickguy · October 2013

first, on a back road in Princeton, a very sharp looking Jag E type hatchback. Actually driving around. A chrome bumper car, but I couldn't tell how early it was.

on 287, a nice C3 blue convertible Vette. Also a chrome bumper car (both ends). and a red T Bird. A '63 with a hardtop on it.

uplanderguy · October 2013

For a long time, I wouldn't cross the street to look at a C3 'Vette, although when the '68 came out and I was a kid, at the time I thought it was a styling improvement.

A week or so ago, in a parking lot, I saw a very clean, dark green, bone-stock-looking '71 or '72 Corvette. In a sea of today's dullsmobiles, it stood out and I have to say I admired the car.

Mr_Shiftright · October 2013

At least a '71 or '72 Vette would still have some guts.

fintail · October 2013

To me, the 68 seems like it would have been pretty exotic when new, although I have no first hand experience with those olden days

I'm ashamed to admit I kind of like the later (like 78+) malaisey disco era models.

Mr_Shiftright · October 2013

you can still buy those cheap.

fintail · October 2013

For good reason, I bet. I doubt I would like to drive or own one, but I don't find them visually offensive - maybe because I am growing more tolerant of some 70s stuff.

uplanderguy · October 2013

When the '78 came out, I thought the roofline was an improvement.

uplanderguy · October 2013

One magazine writer back then called the C3 "The Flying D***o". I've always remembered that and to this day, when I see other cars with a pronounced curve or arch over the front wheel opening (I'm thinking some RX-7's were like that), I think of that name.

A friend and coworker had a '77 Corvette. I remember that for as nice as the seats looked, they were the thinnest/flattest bucket seats I had ever sat in.

fintail · October 2013

For me, the E-type coupe matches that design type best.

Not a really obscure car, but the family members I am visiting right now have a teenage son with a 92 Corsica that was gifted to him. 90K miles, maybe 80% of the paint still on the car, didn't age well but apparently runs OK. I am trying to talk him into making some kind of blacked out bomber out of it.

uplanderguy · October 2013

We had a '90 Corsica that sat out all the time, but apparently it was a color (charcoal metallic) that didn't have the paint issue. I've seen plenty that did though of course.

uplanderguy · October 2013

I've wondered if the Corsica paint issue was limited to one plant or not. Virtually all that dealers around here got were built in Wilmington, DE, but ours was built in Linden, NJ for some reason. It was a stick and maybe that was the difference in assembly locations, who knows.

andre1969 · October 2013

I've always remembered that and to this day, when I see other cars with a pronounced curve or arch over the front wheel opening (I'm thinking some RX-7's were like that), I think of that name.

I guess perverted minds think alike! FWIW, for awhile I was thinking the same thing of much of Mazda's current lineup. Although to keep it a bit more G-rated, they were also making me think of a handpuppet shaped like a snake. Especially something like a Mazda 3 with that big, gaping mouth of an air intake. I do like the more recent Mazdas though, with the more trapezoidal grille. A bit more sexy, rather than sex-shop!

fintail · October 2013

This car is dark blue, 3.1 automatic. Maybe I'll snoop around it and see where it was built. The area I am in is dry and sunny most of the year, which might not help the paint. The kid doesn't like the car - but he spends all the money he makes on other things, so that's how it goes.

texases · October 2013

Passed a W124 coupe on the way to work, see a lot more sedans:

(the one I saw was a E300, of course)

imidazol97 · October 2013

The paint problem in that era sourced to the supplier IIRC. The paints originally used something like a primer, then a coat to have the color layer stick to the primer, then the color layer. IIRC the supplier said they had a primer and color layer where only two layers were needed. And it didn't work well in some cases.

I don't believe they were using a topcoat at that time.

fintail · October 2013

You can simply touch the paint in some areas, and it literally falls right off. Sure, it is a 20 year old car exposed to the elements, but it still looks bad. You're right, it's like the paint doesn't stick.

fintail · October 2013

Sedans probably sold 10:1 or more, so coupes are rare.

That lowline E200 would have been something, looks like it even might have a cloth interior.

imidazol97 · October 2013

I believe the supplier helped pay part of the repairs to the paint for a time. I heard some dealers were more open to helping pick up some of the cost of repair for known customers--sort of like certain foreign brands did in the good old days. The first sign was a little spot smaller than a dime coming loose just like there was silicone from wax causing it not to stick.

The paint used probably varied with the color as well as with the plant and whether it was being updated with the water-based paints for the future or being phased. Pollution requirements of the environs where the plant was located also played a part.

Despite the errors on the part of the chemists at the paint companies, the car companies caught the crap for the problem.

uplanderguy · October 2013

A guy I worked with had an awful bright blue '92 Corsica that started doing this in the first three years or so. His dealer did repaint the car, but was sloppy (IMHO) about placement of the nameplates on the car, which is a thing that I'm absolutely psychotic about on a car and I see great paintwork on cars daily with emblems in the wrong place. Isn't the idea of good bodywork so that no one can tell? LOL

I told the fellow who restored my white Lark that I was a nutcase about this and those individual "LARK" letters on the front fenders better be in the right place. He laughed. They were perfect when I got the car back.

ab348 · October 2013

It did seem to vary by color. Some Dodge/Plymouth Neons painted in the bright pastel shades they offered had the paint peel off in sheets. OTOH, two neighbors had identical Neons in the ubiquitous dark blue/green/teal metallic that about half of all of them came in and neither had paint problems.

Writing this post I just realized that I almost never see 1st-gen Neons on the road any more. They used to be everywhere not long ago.

fintail · October 2013

I saw this piece of the 80s today - other than the cheapo hubcaps, it was pristine:

Saw a MB W116 that looked like it was doing duty as an oversized load pilot car, what I think was a late 50s Triumph TR-10 sedan, and speaking of early Neons, a decent enough looking coupe.

berri · October 2013

Hey Fin, I actually liked the looks of those Mopar GTS cars when they came out and still think it's the best looking of all the K car based vehicles they produced. IIRC there was a Chrysler and a Dodge version.

andre1969 · October 2013

Those are actually my favorite K-derivatives, too. I think Chrysler called them the H-body, but can't remember now. The Chrysler version was LeBaron GTS and the Dodge was the Lancer. There was no Plymouth version.

They actually got pretty good press for the time. I remember some reviewer calling them "What the Tempo and Topaz SHOULD have been!" Although those commercials where they played "Over There" and tried to position these cars as fighting off the premium German cars of the era might have been a bit too ambitious...

Oh, I saw a Dodge Dynasty today, on the DC Beltway. One thing that really struck me as how TINY the car looked, in today's traffic. And that wasn't just because it was behind a semi, and I was in my Ram. At one point, a newer (but not the latest iteration) Beetle was beside it, and I swear the Beetle made it look small!

berri · October 2013

Dodge Dynasty - now that's "square"!

andre1969 · October 2013

Dodge Dynasty - now that's "square"!

I had to laugh too, because the driver reminded me a bit of the mother of a girl I used to date back in college. And she made me think of that old joke, that went along the lines of, "You might be a redneck if your mother doesn't need to remove the Marlboro from her lips before telling the State Trooper to kiss her hoo-hah!"

Back in those days though, her mother drove a '71 or so Lincoln 4-door, green, pretty beat up. The girl I dated drove a black Olds 98 4-door sedan...either a '78 or '79, with a 403.

uplanderguy · October 2013

I liked those Lancers and GTS sedans too, especially the black, upper-model ones with the gold pinstripe and 'swiss-cheese' aluminum wheels. My best man was a zone Service Rep for Chrysler in Pittsburgh, then in WV, at the time and he always had two cars on order at all times, since he put so many miles on them.

He was the guy who said that AMC built Fifth Avenues better than Chrysler did!

Back to the Lancer/GTS--I never liked two vent windows up against each other, though. Ford always seemed to do that.

lemko · October 2013

grbeck called me and told me the parking area was like a swamp. I wasn't planning on going anyway, especially with the weather like that.

The only car-related thing I did this weekend was take my DTS to the Cadillac dealer for state emissions/inspection and an oil and filter change before I put it away for the winter. I was looking at a loaded XTS-4 in the showroom. MSRP was $71K! Yikes!

lemko · October 2013

I think of Dirk Diggler's ride from "Boogie Nights" when I think about that era Corvettes. The car was pretty beat by the end of the movie when Wahlberg's character was spiralling down the drain.

lemko · October 2013

I recall guy who was getting his Cadillac Brougham repainted asking me for the measurements for the namplate locations on my car since it's all original.

texases · October 2013

" His dealer did repaint the car, but was sloppy (IMHO) about placement of the nameplates on the car, which is a thing that I'm absolutely psychotic about on a car and I see great paintwork on cars daily with emblems in the wrong place."

I think Honda just recalled a number of Odyssey minivans because the rear name plate was in the wrong place, Honda didn't want the owners penalized by the appearance the van had been in an accident.

berri · October 2013

Do you remember there was a short-lived stretched K car called the Plymouth Caravelle or something like that?

fintail · October 2013

It was also badged Dodge 600 and Chrysler E-Class. Funny, as the 600 badge very much resembled a MB badging, and the E-Class maybe was a premonition of the "merger of equals" coming in another 15 years.

My uncle had an E-class, I remember it had one of those lucite/plexiglass hood ornaments that interested me when I was a kid:

Funny memory of the Caravelle - when I was a kid, I already knew what a Renault Caravelle was, as there was one in my town. I saw a Plymouth Caravelle, and assumed it had some kind of French connection, I guessed it was a Canadian model.

berri · October 2013

I remember the Renault Caravelle. It was a decent looking Karman Ghia competitor. I don't think they sold many here though. Probably because of the poor reliability of the Dauphine.

andre1969 · October 2013

Yeah, the 103.3" wheelbase E-Class, 600, and New Yorker came out for 1983. I think the E-Class was supposed to be sort of a replacement for the old Newport...a car for those who wanted something New Yorker sized, but less luxurious. It wasn't a very hot seller though, so for 1985 they rebadged it as a Plymouth Caravelle, and it was sold through 1988. It didn't sell much better as a Caravelle, though. They only sold around 30-40K per year for the most part, down to around 15K in 1988.

For 1989, it was replaced by the Plymouth Acclaim. The 600 was replaced by the Dodge Spirit. The Dynasty-style New Yorker had come out for 1988, but I believe they held the older style over as well that year, and offered it only with the turbo. I think 1988 was the last year of the LeBaron GTS and Dodge Lancer, as well.

cooterbfd · October 2013

GOD!!! It rained for like 26 hrs solid, from 2pm Thurs to 4pm Fri. Prior to, and after that, it was on and off showers. Harrisburg had over 9 inches of rain. There were sinkholes in Palmyra. The Hershey HS baseball field was completely submerged in like 5 ft of water.

tjc78 · October 2013

My Stepdad had an 83 E-class with the Mitsu 2.6. It wasn't a bad car, I actually learned to drive on it. We got rid of it around 1996 and we saw it around town for years after.

The best part about that car was of course the fact that it talked!.....

Michaell · October 2013

The best part about that car was of course the fact that it talked!.....

The one that tried to tell everyone that it was able to transform a solid object into another?

"Your door is a jar"

tjc78 · October 2013

That's the one! Little known fact, there is a hidden switch up behind the glovebox on old Mopars to shut it off.

tjc78 · October 2013

Interesting story here.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24088340/alfred-morris-gets-his-199- 1-mazda-bentley-back-after-restoration

imidazol97 · October 2013

>"Your door is ajar."

I had one of those as a loaner, I believe. Maybe a New Yorker? Not used to anything that luxurious with my lowly Buicks.

It talked all the time: windshield washer fluid was low, door ajar, trunk ajar, floor mats out of place, etc..

I started it inside the garage to go to work the next morning, turned the key, and it said, "The sky is overcast and chance of showers." I thought, "How the 'heck' did it know what the weather outside was. Of course, I was a little dopey from not having been up too long and no coffee til I get to work.

Turned out I just hit the short weather comment on the radio station when I turned the key to ON, and I thought it was the car with yet another of its messages. Talk about a Smart Car.

Michaell · October 2013

floor mats out of place,

Something that Toyota and Lexus should have taken advantage of.

fintail · October 2013

Spotted this rare wagon in a middle of nowhere eastern WA podunk tiny town today:

(couldn't get a front shot)

stickguy · October 2013

I like that; I had a 1991 626 stick shift, so man, the interior looks familiar. Mine was the deluxe model (LX?) so nicer trim, etc. and of course, the 5 door hatch.

I loved that car. other than the rat belts.

uplanderguy · October 2013

That's a '55 Studebaker station wagon. Not sure if they called them 'Conestoga' in '55 or not, as they did in '54. Sixties Studes are what I know pretty thoroughly. Pretty rare.

jljac · October 2013

This yellow six-cylinder 1955 Conestoga wagon is a daily driver in Santa Monica. It is parked in the street all the time but is still in pretty good shape. It is driven by a semi-famous guitar picking man named Cooter.

http://i1095.photobucket.com/albums/i480/JLJac1/pic008_zpsfc5d4c06.jpg

I cannot post images here anymore. There are no icons. Anyone else having that problem or know how it fix it?

imidazol97 · October 2013

>how it fix it?

Yes. Open a second window of the forum with the normal reply window that is NOT in response to a particular post. Paste your link in there, click the IMG button to apply the html symbols, and then copy that into the first window where you are replying to a particular post.

bhill2 · October 2013

Open a second window of the forum with the normal reply window that is NOT in response to a particular post. Paste your link in there, click the IMG button to apply the html symbols, and then copy that into the first window where you are replying to a particular post.

Is there any news about when we will get our buttons back so that we can dispense with these elaborate workarounds (including the one I had to use to italicize the text above)?

jljac · October 2013

Somebody went and fixed something that was not broken. I don't see any buttons for italics or underling and cannot post images here. How do I,

"Open a second window of the forum with the normal reply window that is NOT in response to a particular post." The italics got lost when I cut and pasted the text and there is no italics button either.

This was such a cool site before. I usually downsized images I posted here to make them look good without taking up much space. I cannot figure out how to do those things now. There are no buttons or icons although I am writing an original message and not a reply.

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

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