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Comments
Yeah, that's just it...you start adding up enough options, and those prices jack up pretty quickly. I think my '57 DeSoto Firedome hardtop coupe had a base price of $3085. I spec'ed it out once using one of those American Standard catalogs, and by the time you threw in power steering/brakes, 3-speed automatic, heater, AM radio, whitewalls, two tone paint, etc, I got it up to around $3800. There's a '61 DeSoto 4-door hardtop that I see from time to time at local car shows that MSRP'ed for a whopping $5,000 when it was new! That's Cadillac territory! I think its base price was $3167, but you still had to add on the automatic transmission, power steering/brakes, most likely a heater as well, plus this one was pretty luxurious, with air conditioning power windows/locks, and I think a power seat as well.
You ain't kidding. Back in the '50s and '60s, at least for the 'low-priced three', the base price did not even include a heater and had manual steering and brakes. In some of the lower trim levels you had to pay extra for armrests and a right-side sun visor. It was kind of a game to allow them to advertise a lower price, since they sold very few cars without these options (a few with manual brakes, or even steering, but not many since these cars were awful without them.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
Spotted a bluish silver Mercedes 190D at Levick and Tabor in NE Philly. The car looked to be in pretty decent shape.
Fintail 190D or 80s W201 190D?
Today I saw a red Karmann Ghia, a pristine looking ~91 Cutlass Supreme sedan, and a very well kept looking 92-95 or so Bonneville.
base price did not even include a heater and had manual steering and brakes. In some of the lower trim levels you had to pay extra for armrests and a right-side sun visor
I learned to drive on a basically stripped 3 on the tree 60 Ford. But as basic was that car was, a neighbor had a 58 Chevy Delray which was pretty much as you described. Made the old Fairlane seem loaded
Just saw a Vanagon style VW double cab pickup - from Canuckistan, I bet.
Regarding the earlier posts about pricing in the early sixties--I think car prices didn't go up a whole lot between the early-and-mid-sixties, until around 1970 or 1971. Then, throughout the '70's, the prices jumped like mad from year-to-year. I always remember your basic two-door hardtop Impala V8 with automatic, ps, pb, whitewalls, wheelcovers, AM radio, stickered for around $3,600 for several years when I was looking at them. That started changing with the '71 model year, and it really became crazy in the mid-and-late seventies.
I think prices even came down for awhile in the early 60's, although it wouldn't last forever. In 1957, for example, a New Yorker 4-door sedan base priced at $4,173. By 1959 it was up to $4,424. Trimmed a bit to $4,409 for 1960. Then there was a noticeable cut in 1961, to $4,123. The '63 was down to $3,981. It wouldn't get back above 1957 levels until 1967, when the price hit $4208.
To use a GM example, a '57 Sedan DeVille started at $5,256, while a '67 was $5,581. A small boost in price, but not too huge.
And yeah, I think it was the early 70's when prices really started jacking up. My maternal grandparents' '72 Impala 4-door hardtop was about $5,000. About the only thing it had over those '57/59 Fords and '63 Mercury that my paternal Grandparents had was air conditioning. Oh, and it probably had an AM/FM radio rather than just AM.
But then, by 1975, Mom bought a '75 LeMans coupe for $5K, and my grandparents (Dad's side) bought a Dart Swinger, also for $5,000. And both with a/c. So in just 3 short years, the money that would have gotten you a full-sized car was only good for a compact or intermediate.
In 1980, Mom bought a new Malibu coupe, for about $7,000 out the door. It was equipped about the same as the LeMans had been, with one exception...a 229 V-6 versus a 350 V-8.
As for that '72 Impala? It gave way to an '82 Malibu Classic Estate wagon that, if memory serves me right, cost something like $11,000. That was when my grandparents first truly discovered sticker shock. But at least it prepared them for their $16,000 LeSabre in 1985!
'72 Lincoln Coupe (not Town) was around $8600..
Same car in '76 about $10K
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Just saw this one last night on TV. It's the road rage scene from Marathon Man: Fintail vs. 1970 Chevrolet Impala
I remember seeing that movie in my beautiful little hometown theater...now gone, of course. Thanks for posting.
@re movie
That blue Fintail looks familiar from somewhere.... Where have I seen something similar before? Hmmm?
The Fintail sure didn't stand much bumping--that trunk like plumped up like a Pillsburg buscuit.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
We think of road rage as something from only the last ten or fifteen years, and I think this movie is from '73 or so IIRC (too lazy to check).
We think lots of stuff is recent. We just didn't hear about stuff before the internet!
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Road rage has been around a long time. I recall driving through Kentucky on I75 at peak travel times for holiday traffic. You should have seen all the angry folks from Up North (and some with FL plates) who felt traffic wasn't going fast enough in "their" lane, the left one. There were only two lanes through almost all of KY at that time. I've actually seen folks pass on the left and the right berms after tailgating and honking their lights and flashing their horns at drivers daring to go only 10 over the speed limit.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Saw a couple of squarebirds languishing in a field in an agricultural-industrial area south of Seattle.
Not to be too nitpicky, but ya gotta love how the drivers both notice the oil truck at 3:29, and slam into it around 3:35, giving them a good six seconds to stop. But they both just open their mouths and gasp, and pretty much go full-force into it. And, somehow I don't think home heating oil is quite that volatile. Unless you attach a model rocket launcher to it. Maybe Dateline NBC's pyrotechnics crew learned something from this scene?
Kinda sad seeing that Fintail and the Impala bite the dust, but at the time they were just a couple of old cars. Also, if you pause it just as the Fintail slams into the trunk, you can see just how well the crumple zone worked on that car.
Ha, I missed your post - still haven't mastered the new system I guess.
Great scene, and it really does show the crumple zone at work. I even commented on that video ages ago. Hard to tell the identity of the fintail, but it is likely a pre-1963 220S or SE, wearing an incomplete rear bumper.
Funny to see the old [non-permissible content removed] insulting the Chevrolet, too.
Just saw a white 77-78 Toronado on the road, and the same powder blue 65 Mustang fastback I see now and then.
On the subject of old cars in movies, yesterday I watched the old gem "Day of the Triffids", and there was one of those French Pastry Citroens in it.
One thing that struck me as a bit odd though, is that it had two bands on the radio dial, which I would presume would be AM/FM? Unless the French had some other band? I'd imagine AM/FM would be pretty rare for a c1962 car?
I thought some European radios also had a shortwave band...
I know Studebakers first got AM/FM radios midway through the '63 model year.
Spotted an oddball today - an orange Volkswagen Corrado on Street Road north of Philly. The car appeared to be in pretty nice shape. These cars made a brief appearance a little over 20 years ago then vanished.
A Corrado with the VR6 would be a fun car. With the I4 "G-Lader" supercharger, not so much...
Blaupunkt offered car radios with FM in 1952.
Yeah, shortwave was sometimes seen in higher end radios. I've seen old MBs with it,too.
That car reminds me of a crazy random street scene I happened upon years ago, the kind of thing probably only seen on the west coast. A fintail driving down a street with a Citroen wagon, GTO, and VW 411/412. No, the pic wasn't taken in 1974 either, it was well into this century:
That's a really cool pic...especially looking out over the hood of your Fintail! I have some old N-gauge model trains and accessories packed away, and among the stuff is a couple of scale VW 411/412's.
I took my drivers test on my grandmothers 412 wagon. Evil, evil car. Just awful.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
I think the view from inside period MBs won people over - there is something about it. For not a huge car, it has presence, behind the wheel, too.
Some of those old N scale things might have a little value. Here's an N scale set with some 411/412s
I always liked that gen Citroen, sedan or wagon. When I was a kid we had a chemist who rented a home down the street from ours while his new one was being built somewhere. He had that version sedan and gave me a ride in it one day. Two things caught me back then; how smoothly it rode and how modern the interior seemed for it's day.
I think I started seeing N gauge model trains around high school. Back then model railroading was actually pretty popular and there were some neat basement layouts around us. It's funny, because a few years earlier HO started taking over from O gauge and people were complaining how small HO models were - but N made HO look kind of big.
The other big things kids liked to do back in those days were model cars and airplanes, putting together radios and building sets like Girder and Panel or American Plastic Bricks. You guys are making me feel like I'm a kid again - Love It
I had a Girder and Panel - didn't remember the name until your post. After playing with it for at least a year, I discovered the "big" pegboard base hiding under the cardboard on the bottom. Lincoln Logs were more fun though. Funny, I'd never want to actually live in a log house now although a skyscraper apartment might be fun. Driving a Lincoln would be okay though.
After playing with it for at least a year, I discovered the "big" pegboard base hiding under the cardboard on the bottom
LOL - must have been interesting how you built things without that base. Of course, thanks to that experience you can probably build with the best of some of those Yoopers - just kidding! After G&P, do you remember that they came out with a complimenting Bridge and Turnpike set to go with those G&P skyscrapers? Lincoln logs, you must have been into cowboys. I was a suburban kid, so those plastic bricks were more my speed (and they had green cardboard material in the box for roofs
. Some years back I got a copy of an old Sears Christmas Catalog - lots of neat toys in that.
Oh, it had a couple of little squares in the kit. I saw the big base on the cover of the box but just assumed that was an optional accessory. I made a lot of tall skinny stuff and lots of Southern "dogtrot" skyscrapers. Legos would have been more fun but never saw them as a kid, and the only other real option in my area was Erector Sets. Never saw the Bridge and Turnpike set. I'd probably graduated to slot cars by then.
I'm sure Legos are fun, but a lot of the stuff doesn't look real. The old American plastic bricks actually looked like red brick. They included white colored foundation pieces and had casement and picture windows, as well as garage doors. Only thing was, for whatever reason the roof material was only green colored. We lived in a brick ranch house back in those days that had casement windows (but they were metal so if anyone put their tongue to it in winter - oh, oh).
Oh sure, now I remember. Those were the ones that hurt when you stepped on them barefooted.
I had a girder and panel set - bought it at a yard sale when I was maybe 11, around 1988. It was pretty cool - a large set that probably has minor collectible value now, but I played with the hell out of it, and it gave it a good life. I remember those bases too. I was very into legos, so the old set had interest for me, too. The girder and panel might have worked well with 1:43 (Corgi/Dinky or similar) toy cars, where I used lego for Matchbox layouts.
Come to think of it, I found this at a sale over the summer, along with a bunch of HO train stuff I sold on ebay (was hoping to triple my money, was only able to double it). Kind of like girder and panel, unfortunately not very valuable, but I thought it was cool.
I am at home today, Dennis the Menace on TV. Mrs. Elkins and Mr. Wilson (Gale Gordon) had a fender bender, involving a 62 Ford and 62 Mercury. What a coincidence!
Speaking of model train accessories, here's one for andre's set!
55 Chevy WOW, what a history!
http://autos.yahoo.com/news/same-car-different-movie-5-movie-cars-ve-145409803.html
So that's how Ford and Mercury merged into commonality! Actually, I think it started during the 61 model year. In the 60's, Merc's really seemed to be gussied up Ford's with a beefier standard engine and bit better suspension. A decade or so later they really just became styling tweaks apart until Mercury died. Wonder if Lincoln can really pull off a Cadillac down the road?
Yep, almost exactly when Mercury became a fancy Ford. And thanks to imcdb, here's a pic:
Loosen up some parts, pretend crash:
That Mercury has to be pretty rare today. There's a black 61 Mercury 4 door HT in my area that I see once in a blue moon - even rarer.
The revitalization of Caddy took money (and time). If Ford doesn't spend, it won't get a similar result.
I always liked the rear treatment of '61 Mercurys...sort of like late '50's Lincolns. I always wished they'd have offered a "Starliner"-like fastback roof on them. When I was a kid, my mother's friend Marie had a light yellow '62 Monterey convertible I can remember riding in.
As I recall back then, that 62 Merc rear end was a bit controversial when it came out and people tended to either like or dislike it, with little in between. Sometimes that's not a bad statement on a styling effort though.
The taillights of the '62 Merc remind me of an animal "feature" that I'd best leave further unexplained.
Those are jet exhausts. The jet plane imagery was really prevalent in the late 50s and 60s. That was probably before your time?2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Uplander knows from jet exhausts, from bullet-nose Studebakers in the early 50s.
50s---jet aircraft motifs
60s -- animals
80s -- faux Europe
Wow, just up the street from Sam and Darrin's house, although in that era, I think just the garage was there, but no house.
And yep, '61 was the year that Mercury returned to its status as tarted-up Ford. The '57-58 and '59-60 Mercurys were on their own unique body that were shared with neither Ford nor Lincoln, although the larger '58 Edsel Corsair and Citation models were based on the Mercury.
Mercury had been moved upscale for 1957 to make room for the Edsel. However, the Edsel failed, and the larger, heavier Mercury didn't sell well either. So for 1961, with Edsel gone, Mercury moved back downscale, basically into Edsel's place...which was about their positioning from 1956 and earlier.
IIRC, if Edsel had stayed around, what ultimately became the 1960 Comet was supposed to have been an Edsel model.
I thought that the '59 Merc Monterey 4dr HT we had was a kind of cut-rate Lincoln because it was so ginormous and such an ill-handling pig.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
It wasn't ginormous compared to the Lincoln, though. The '58-'60 Lincolns were so large that in some states they had to be licensed as trucks.
2009 BMW 335i, 2003 Corvette cnv. (RIP 2001 Jaguar XK8 cnv and 1985 MB 380SE [the best of the lot])
I think that was actually the 1960 Ford. IIRC, there was something about the way those gull-wings hung out in back that made it something like 80.5" wide, and in some states, anything over 80" had to be registered as a truck. I think the states agreed to look the other way for one year, so long as Ford did something about it for 1961.
As for the 1959 Mercury Monterrey, it was probably the biggest car in its class that year. 126" wheelbase, and IIRC around 219-220" long. Weight started at 3914 lb for a base 2-door sedan, 3985 for a base 4-door sedan. And this was a car that had a base price starting around $2800.
That was about the same starting point as a Buick LeSabre, and a bit less than an Olds Dynamic 88, cars on a shorter 123" wb. Pontiac's Catalina was about $100 less, and on a 122" wb. The closest equivalents at Mopar would have been a DeSoto Firesweep, which started at $2904, Dodge Royal, which started at $2934, and notably less than a Chrysler Windsor, which started at $3,204. These Mopars were all on a 122" wheelbase.
The Monterrey was sized more like the senior models in those ranges, which were around 126-126.3", the likes of the New Yorker, Fireflite, Electra, and Ninety Eight. I think the Bonneville was on a 124" wb.
I forget how long the Lincolns of that era were. The '57 was 227" long, and the '58-60 were longer, no doubt. They also weighed in excess of 5,000 lb, and one notable difference between a Lincoln and a Mercury...the '58-60 Lincolns were unitized, versus body-on-frame for Mercury.
The 1959 Mercury was supposedly an all-new design, although it never looked it to me. It just didn't seem that radically different from the 1957-58. Just longer.
I like it. it kind of reminds me of the taillight treatment on a 1962 Imperial.