Attractive Older Cars and Why You Think So

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  • timz58timz58 Member Posts: 44
    All time.........40 Chev Convertible Classy simple uncluttered lines.
    Volvo 122s. Neat and clean design.
    66 Pontiac LeMans Coupe
    51 MG TD
    50 Chevy Hardtop Coupe
    49 Olds Rocket 88 Coupe
    69 Z-28 Camaro
    73 Mach 1 Mustang
    67 Mustang Convertible
    59 Austin Healy 100-6 two place roadster
    56 Corvette
    Fastback 60s series Mustangs
    Mercedes SSK Roadsters - Mid 1930s version
    39 Mercury 4 door convertible
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Nice list. I think the '66 Tempest coupe is actually a bit cleaner than the LeMans--it doesn't have that big chrome molding on the taillight panel--but they're all great designs, especially the GTO's mailslot taillights.

    The '73 Mach I is an interesting choice. I was watching Diamonds Are Forever last Saturday night and there was James Bond driving a red early '70s Mach I (with whitewalls). Nice chase scene.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    The mother of all torpedo styling. They're still using some of these styling cues.

    http://www.cedep.net/~makdecont/streamliner/buickYjob39ter.jpg
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    I'm not that interested in pre-war cars but this one has some intriguing lines. I guess the flathead V12 was a miserable engine but the transmission had nice close ratios.


    http://www.cedep.net/~makdecont/streamliner/lincolnzephyrcoup37.jpg

  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Wonder why this one never caught on like the bathtub Merc?


    http://www.cedep.net/~makdecont/streamliner/lincolncosmo49bis.jpg

  • pablo_lpablo_l Member Posts: 491
    Still one of the most beautiful car designs ever...


    http://wwwsg.daimlerchrysler.com/vMuseum/Galerie/zzm_Typ230SL_1963_67.jpg


    Of course, another of my all time favorites, and you can still buy it...


    http://www.rolls-royceandbentley.co.uk/bentley/picture_gallery/bentley_4.jpg


    Yeah, it's got a decent interior, I guess...


    http://www.rolls-royceandbentley.co.uk/bentley/picture_gallery/contrint_a.jpg


    Another beautiful car...


    http://www.jag-lovers.org/xjlovers/XJC_V12.JPG


    I think jag should still build 2-door XJ8-type cars... can you imagine the XJR in a 2 door version? I'd buy it on the spot...

  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    http://www.car.lt/cars/cars463.asp?car=66
  • danf5danf5 Member Posts: 38
    I noticed that early on in this discussion someone nominated the '65 Corvair 4 door hardtop. Lovely things, and about the best-handling series production car of their time. I once asked Don Yenko what he did to the chassis to make his Stingers handle so well. He claimed that all he did was replace the stock shocks with Konis, the stock brake linings with metallics, wider wheels, racing tires, and that was it. Original springs, bushings, geometry, and they'd outcorner race prepared 2 liter 911s.

    Has anyone suggested the Lotus M-14 (that's the original Elite, with fiberglass monocoque and 1216 Climax) or the Lola Sport (Lotus 11/15/17 killer) or (only a slight stretch) the Reliant Scimitar coupe (not the GTE) as great beauties?
  • jrosasmcjrosasmc Member Posts: 1,711
    1965 Chevy Van. (No; just kidding)

    Seriously, though, I'd go with the original Jaguar E-Type and Volvo P1800, both introduced in 1961.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    How did you manage to utter those two cars in the same breath :)

    Tail fins on a sports car? Well, if you really gotta have 'em...
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Hey, it worked on the Alpine. British sportscar meets 1957 Chrysler. Be grateful they didn't copy '59 Cadillac fins.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    ...called the Charles Townabout? Supposedly it was a cross of VW Karmann Ghia with DeSoto tailfins grafted on. I have an old auto encyclopedia that mentioned it, in a brief blurb, but never saw a pic. Sounds intriguing, though!
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    sppedshift, YOU think it worked on an Alpine :) I think the fact that you can still buy a beater Alpine for about 50 cents says that the public has rendered its verdict; however, if you want to have fun in an old droptop for cheap, it's not a bad car. Just don't be nuts enough to restore one, unless this is certified therapy to keep you out of prison.
  • badtoybadtoy Member Posts: 343
    was pretty awkward, I thought -- kinda femmy, although it was a pleasant looking car from the A-pillar forward. I did like the series 2, though -- they pretty much eliminated the fins, greatly improving the proportions of the car. (That's the one they used for the Tiger).
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Tiger MK II is my favorite, especially since it doesn't have a Sunbeam engine in it.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    as the most attractive compact. I know, the competition isn't too stiff, but this one is clean and it's not a clean sheet design like the others, just a restyled '58 sedan.


    http://www.ritzsite.demon.nl/Lark/Lark3.htm


    Also available with a V8 before the others.

  • badtoybadtoy Member Posts: 343
    Funny -- reminds me of my first car, which my next door neighbor friend's dad gave us to tool around in. It was a Studebaker Lark station wagon, kind of a beige color, and it had seen better days. But it was freedom for two 16-year-olds, and we did have fun in that pelican....
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Okay, fire away...


    http://www.motorbase.com/picture/pid/-521300970.html

  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    ...was that it offered a hardtop body style (didn't they have convertibles too?) before the Big Three competition. The Corvair didn't have a hardtop until '65. I think the first Valiant/Lancer hardtop was in '61, and the first Chevy II was '62. Not sure about the Falcon though. My guess though, is that the Rambler probably beat everyone to the compact hardtop market.
  • badtoybadtoy Member Posts: 343
    Full-size hardtop, most definitely not. My folks bought a 56 Pontiac Star Chief designated by GM as a "Convertible hardtop" in 1957, and I imagine Chevy, Oldsmobile and Pontiac had the same thing in 1955, if not before.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    ...yeah, that's what I meant, compact hardtop. The earliest big hardtops I've seen were '46-48 era Chrysler woodies, convertibles that just had a permanent metal top attached. I think they only made a handful of them each year. GM had the first mass-produced hardtops for 49, but I think it was only Buick and Olds that had 'em.

    For the most part though, Detroit looked at compacts as just cheap, economy throwaway cars, so I guess that's why hardtops were a rarity in those markets, at least until compacts in general gained in popularity.

    Strangely enough, the '95-99 Neon was still considered a hardtop! They called it a "pillared hardtop", which is a contradiction if I ever heard one! The Chrysler R-body was classified as this too. In fact, they even have their own code in the serial # for it! "41" meant 4-door hardtop, "43" meant 4-door sedan, and then in '79 they came up with "42" for the "pillared hardtop" nonsense, which is really just a 4-door sedan with frameless windows.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Yes, the Lark hardtop came out the first year, 1959. And you're right, the first generation Corvair didn't have a hardtop, although it had a convertible from 1962. The Falcon Futura hardtop came out in 1963.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Why the 1959 Lark looks good to me.


    http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1816235620&r=0&t=0

  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Ah, I see it's ugly AND has rust and needs paint, a "tune up" and a new a/c unit.

    What a bargain for $3,000.

    Woof! woof!
  • ghuletghulet Member Posts: 2,564
    The 1949 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, if I'm not mistaken, along with the aforementioned Buick and Olds derivatives (Roadmaster and 98, I assume).

    Andre, 'pillared hardtops' are nothing new. Cadillac made Sedan de Villes and Calais in '65-70 that would qualify (no door frames, but 'B' pillars present), and Ford sold lots of four-door Galaxies, LTDs, Mercurys and Lincolns from about '70 (for the Continental) to '78 as 'pillared hardtops'. I don't get it either.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    ...is actually kinda cool. NOT exactly beautiful, but still kinda cool. The front-end makes me think of a '57 Chrysler grille mated to a '58 Pontiac. The way the crease over the front wheel well carries over to the grille is also definitely Mopar-ish.

    As for "pillared hardtops", I don't mind them if the windows at least roll down all the way. But when the windows are still partially up, and you slam the door, it just gives me the impression that the window would be easy to break. A few years back, I did see a guy slam the door on his mid-70's Lincoln sedan, and the window shattered into a million fragments!
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Andre, you are too, too kind. The car is a mutt, let's face it. It's a totally tortured design from top to bottom. Looks like a madman designed it. It went over like a lead balloon in 1958 and I don't think it's improved any. Hideous car to my eyes. It's painful to look at.

    RE: 2-door Hardtops --Most auto historians award the "1st pillarless hardtop" to the 1949 Buick Riviera I think the biggest problem with them was not windows breaking but the rattles they would produce. Also I think the safety issue in rollovers killed off that design for a time.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    What's amazing is that the Lark is based on that '58. Same "hard points" as I think they call them, but a quick and very effective restyle.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Well, the Lark's cartainly no beauty, but at least it's proportional and functional enough, and the two halves of the car look the same. It's "coherent" to my eye. The '58 looks like people just started gluing parts on.
  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    ...actually, I think that's what they did in '58! It's not TOO bad on the Stude, but then look at the Packard in comparison!


    http://islandtime.com/autogallery/packard-58.htm


    While the '58 Stude makes me think of a '57 Chrysler, the '58 Packard looks like a horribly disfigured '58 DeSoto! But from the back, it looks like they have two sets of fins grafted on, one over top of the other. And to make the 4-headlight setup, they had to literally graft a little pod onto the side of the front fender so the wider headlight opening would fit!


    I think we might've dissected this car earlier in the Ugly Cars forum, because I remember remarking that the dashboard was actually quite attractive, compared to the rest of the car!

  • ghuletghulet Member Posts: 2,564
    Yes, the first hardtops produced rattles. Now it's fifty-odd years on and sans any hardtops, American cars still have them (-:. Anyway, hardtops were all the rage from '49 (Buick Riv, Cadillac CDV) til at least the mid-60s, and they existed in pure form til the mid-70s. In spite of your speculation (or maybe it's fact?) of their bad rollover tests (if those were even conducted then? If so, lemme know), there was never a point at which any safety issues 'killed off that design for a time'. Hardtops went 'whole hog' from '49 on.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Really I don't know but given the much stricter passenger compartment requirements of the mid 70s on up, it seems that the disappearance of convertibles and hardtops about that time was not a total coincidence. This is not to say that safety alone killed these designs (American convertibles were not longer made because nobody bought them, is the main reason), but I'm sure the new safety regulations mitigated the decision to eliminate what was undoubtedly a costly design to build. Also rattles and leaks were certainly an issue.

    But to come up with any one reason--I don't know--I don't really have one.
  • andys120andys120 Member Posts: 23,675
    The 8 series (840/850i) were pillarless hardtops.

    2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93

  • ghuletghulet Member Posts: 2,564
    But did the rear windows roll down on the 840/850? If not, the window itself acts as a structural agent, IIRC.
  • andys120andys120 Member Posts: 23,675
    I wouldn't think glass would be suitable as a structural "agent".

    2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93

  • andre1969andre1969 Member Posts: 26,088
    The back windows in the 8-series BMWs did roll down; I remember seeing one, and remember it because that's was something I'd always wondered about 'em. Now I don't remember if they rolled down all the way. They might have stuck up a little. And I'm almost positive I've seen this thing with the back windows rolled down...


    image


    As for why hardtops and convertibles disappeared, I think air conditioning and downsizing did them in more than any roll over standards that might have been enacted. However, GM did away with hardtops and convertibles in their midsize lineup for '73 in response to proposed government regulations that were never enacted. I guess it was a rare case of GM moving too fast for a change? ;-)


    As tthe '70's moved on, cars were moving in directions that were making it harder and harder to accommodate hardtop and convertible body styles. First, hardtops usually aren't as roomy inside as their more upright pillared counterparts. I remember a Consumer Reports test around 1972 where they had an Olds Delta and a Buick LeSabre, among other cars. I forget which was which, but one was a hardtop and one was 4-door hardtop and one was a pillared sedan, and the one with the pillar had more room inside (headroom mainly, I think).


    Later in the '70's, cars got taller too, with more glass area, but at the same time, smaller doors. It just got to the point that there wasn't anyplace for that window glass to roll down into. In those downsized B-bodies, GM could hardly get the sedan windows to roll down 1/2 way (even with the help of a spacer window), so just imagine how awkward it would've been to design a hardtop!


    As for window glass being a structural "agent", I've heard that it'll help a little bit in a rollover if the windows are all the way up, versus rolled down. I'm sure the effects aren't that great, but every little bit helps.

  • mudflatmudflat Member Posts: 47
    I used to have a '54 Buick Super Riviera hardtop (series 56R), and it didn't rattle except on rough roads when the windows were partially down.
  • rea98drea98d Member Posts: 982
    I beleive on modern Unibody cars, the front windshield is a structural piece. Naturally, it's not going to take on near the load steel does, but it does offer some rigidity to the structure that would have to be taken up by steel otherwise, and since you're going to have a windshield anyway, why not use it and save a little bit of weight. Sure, eleminating a few ounces of steel from each car might not save much per unit, but you add it up over the production life of the car, and it really adds up bigtime.
  • sonofrust1sonofrust1 Member Posts: 1
    Jaguar XK 120 hands down best looking car of all time. Like my Indian motorcycle, doesn't even have to run; a pleasure to own and simply look at.
  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    One of the loveliest postwar sports cars ever made.
  • stickguystickguy Member Posts: 53,648
    drove by a local repair shop today. They had a 50ish/early 60s Jag out front front (maybe a mark II? The real curvey sedan). Other than the major lower body rust (you could see the body panels curning up form 50 feet away, through a chain link fence while driving by0, a very nice looking car, even if it was painted poo poo brown.

    2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.

  • Mr_ShiftrightMr_Shiftright Member Posts: 64,481
    Time for the wrecker on that one. Bust it up and use the parts on a good car.
  • pieracpierac Member Posts: 43
    Has to be the old Ford Cobra 427 boss. Nothing comes close even today.
  • andys120andys120 Member Posts: 23,675
    always have.

    2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93

  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    Would tend to agree. I think the 427s look a little over the top and of course they really are way way over the top. That's a big part of their appeal to many. But the smallblocks look more classic to me.
  • speedshiftspeedshift Member Posts: 1,598
    http://www.carrera.demon.co.uk/550.htm
  • jrosasmcjrosasmc Member Posts: 1,711
    I'd say a really attractive car would be the 1964-71 Mercedes SL roadsters. Beautiful styling.
  • isaaclisaacl Member Posts: 7
    The Porsche 959 was the most graceful car I have ever seen. However I grew up watching the Transformers and lusting after 3rd gen F-bodies in the 80's. Still the 959 was striking in my opinion. Very smooth......even without the incredible technology under the hood...er trunk/undercarriage.


    Just a litle info for who would want it.....
    http://www.fortunecity.com/silverstone/lancia/58/959/959_9.htm

  • boodog3boodog3 Member Posts: 1
    Gota go with an 87 GNX...at twilight with the running lamps only...hunkered down and twitching in anticipation....all the Regals were sharp if they were kept up, but the GNs and GNXs were tops.
  • andys120andys120 Member Posts: 23,675
    any number of contemporary cars were better looking than those boxy Regals and GNXs

    2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93

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