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

andre1969 · October 2020

"Powerfully styled hood". Although, he does slur his speech a little. Comes off to me like "Puurr-fully styled hood" And there's a bit of static at that point, too.

explorerx4 · October 2020

My speakers are over 25 years old!

andre1969 · October 2020

Speaking of the 1970 Lincoln...

Michaell · October 2020

andre1969 said:
Speaking of the 1970 Lincoln...

Was this in Mad Magazine?

explorerx4 · October 2020

@Michaell,
If you read the text, it must be Mad Mag!
Today, it would be The Onion.

andre1969 · October 2020

I dunno. It was originally done by someone named Cris Shapan, who apparently is known for that kind of spoof art that almost looks like it could be real. Someone had posted it on Facebook last week. Honestly, I had to Google Ruth Buzzi to find out who she was (or rather "is", since she's still alive)

stickguy · October 2020

I was thinking Ruth was an odd person to be hawking a Continental, but she was popular back then. I knew it had to be a scam when I got to the bit about being stuck in the seat.

man, that car is a barge. Must be like driving an expedition or an F250 these days.

omarman · October 2020

Cris Shapan

omarman · October 2020

xwesx · October 2020

Agreed. "Powerfully-styled hood."

xwesx · October 2020

explorerx4 said:
My speakers are over 25 years old!

Not nearly as old as the ears!

xwesx · October 2020

omarman said:
Zblorft

Oh, man.... that's hilarious! "Runs on inexpensive paint thinner!"

fintail · October 2020

https://youtu.be/07vdtBMG4Kg

xwesx said:

omarman said:
Zblorft

Oh, man.... that's hilarious! "Runs on inexpensive paint thinner!"

fintail · October 2020

Oh yeah, and the Zblorft is a barely-modified German Ford Taunus from the mid 50s.

uplanderguy · October 2020

Hey andre, got the ad copy for the '70 Mark III 'Jo Anne Worley' edition?! LOL

uplanderguy · October 2020

That '70 Lincoln is nice-looking I think. The late-'70's ones seem so blunt in front, blunt in back, bolt-upright, and slab-sided, even though I know it's basically the same body. Wasn't a fan of the oval opera window behind the rear doors either.

I think not long ago someone posted an instrument panel pic, which also seemed less flat and blocky than the later '70's ones.

andre1969 · October 2020

I thought Ford did a good job in general, of updating these cars...not just the Lincolns, but the Fords and Mercurys, as well. I used to think the '69-72 Ford/Merc and '73-78 were two totally different designs, but supposedly the '73 is just a very heavy facelift? Same with Lincoln for '70-73 versus '74-79.

One detail I didn't care for, in '77, was when they went to the narrow, taller grille. I thought it looked fine on the Mark V, but not so much the regular Continental sedans and coupes. This is a nit-picky thing, but I didn't care for the placement of the headlights. Instead of being centered between the edge of the car and the edge of the grille, they were too far outboard. It was most likely an artifact of the wider grille they had for '76 and earlier, which would have had the headlights further out. But with the narrower grille, it just seems a bit off to me.

It's a bit curious, that Lincoln never embraced 4-door hardtops the way Cadillac and Imperial did. I believe they only offered them for '57 and then '58-60. But, the "pillared hardtop, with the slim, somewhat recessed B-pillar was still an attractive car.

uplanderguy · October 2020

In the full-size Fords and Mercs, I like the '71 and '72 better than the later ones. Just seem a little trimmer or something, and not quite so blocked-off. A Merc I find interesting and not-often-seen, is the Monterey from '71 and '72.

I'll have to look at the brochure, but I know you could get buckets and console in an LTD in at least '71, and maybe '72, after Chevy had given up on them in a full-size after '69. I wonder if a full-size Merc could be had with them in '71 or '72.

The LTD, if I'm remembering correctly, had a fair amount of woven vinyl in the buckets. More comfortable, but I always associate woven vinyl with the bottom-tier Chevelle Deluxe of '73 and base Novas of generally that time period.

texases · October 2020

I don't know any cars that survived 5 mph bumpers with their looks...

uplanderguy · October 2020

Yeah, that certainly didn't help. I think the '73 Cutlass did about the best job I can think of on the front bumper that year...at least in metal bumpers and not the soft, squishy type like on Laguna and Grand Am that year.

sda · October 2020

Olds did a good job incorporating the 5 mph bumpers by curving the bottom edge of the grille to meet the bumper, minimizing the gap between the body and bumper. The grille was hinged so it would swing away if the bumper was hit and the return back to its original position. Pontiac, on the full-size cars looked the worse. The bumper looked like a bench bolted to the front. Dad had a 73 Catalina and we would use the front bumper as a seat!

uplanderguy · October 2020

I'm thinking the Cutlass front bumper was sort-of a 'blade' type too, instead of a battering ram!

The '73 Chevelle Deluxe and Malibu front bumper was enormous, too. Looked like a railroad tie. I liked the headlight design and simple grille, but that big bumper, made worse by silver-gray filler between the bumper and grille on any color car, made it look enormous. Midway through the model year the filler was made body-color, which helped IMO.

I didn't mind the Laguna front end, but I hated how the rear bumper was body-color as well.

texases · October 2020

And remember, the '73 was a 2.5 mph bumper, the full 5 mph standard started in '74.

fintail · October 2020

What bumper? It barely sticks out at all:

You can hardly see it!:

But if you remember "Casino", these bumpers can take a bumping.

texases · October 2020

Folks would remove them on the Mk. 1 GTI and put fog lights in the holes.

Michaell · October 2020

fintail said:
What bumper? It barely sticks out at all:

You can hardly see it!:

But if you remember "Casino", these bumpers can take a bumping.

Yeah, the Eldorado she kept slamming into certainly took the brunt of the damage.

andre1969 · October 2020

I'm not sure, but I think that thanks to bumper standards, the 1973 Imperial might have been the longest regular (non-limo) car ever built. 235.3" long. It had been 229.5" for 1972. Chrysler got caught with their pants down when it came to bumper regs, so they ended up just putting these big black rubber blocks that looked like awkward bumper guards on the cars. I think they were enough to pass by 1973 standards, or at least, the feds looked the other way, but for '74 they had to come out with a "real" crash bumper.

One casualty of the crash standards was rear bumpers with the taillights built into them, such as the big '73 Chevies and the '73 Dart/Valiant. I would think that actually built into the bumper like that, they'd be better protected, but apparently not. For '74, both of those styles ended up with a jutting rear bumper, and taillights mounted in the body, above and ahead of the bumpers.

uplanderguy · October 2020

"And remember, the '73 was a 2.5 mph bumper, the full 5 mph standard started in '74."

The '73 bumper was 5 mph in the front; 2.5 in the rear. In '74 it was 5 mph in the rear too.

ab348 · October 2020

And when enough people and manufacturers complained, the law was changed so that now even the most minor of impacts can cause thousands of dollars worth of damage.

stickguy · October 2020

andre1969 said:
I'm not sure, but I think that thanks to bumper standards, the 1973 Imperial might have been the longest regular (non-limo) car ever built. 235.3" long. It had been 229.5" for 1972. Chrysler got caught with their pants down when it came to bumper regs, so they ended up just putting these big black rubber blocks that looked like awkward bumper guards on the cars. I think they were enough to pass by 1973 standards, or at least, the feds looked the other way, but for '74 they had to come out with a "real" crash bumper.

One casualty of the crash standards was rear bumpers with the taillights built into them, such as the big '73 Chevies and the '73 Dart/Valiant. I would think that actually built into the bumper like that, they'd be better protected, but apparently not. For '74, both of those styles ended up with a jutting rear bumper, and taillights mounted in the body, above and ahead of the bumpers.

still shorter than most F150s.

omarman · October 2020

Michaell said:

fintail said:
What bumper? It barely sticks out at all:

You can hardly see it!:

But if you remember "Casino", these bumpers can take a bumping.
Yeah, the Eldorado she kept slamming into certainly took the brunt of the damage.

That Caddy saved Lefty Rosenthal's life from a car bomb too.

"You Can Kill a Horse but not a Cadillac (1905)"

edit to add: interweb says it was an '81. Decontented and all.

fintail · October 2020

Decontented? 81 was a V8-6-4, that's extra content if I've ever seen it!

I think I recall the story behind that car being a metal plate under the passenger compartment or something similar. Been ages since I've seen the movie, lots of cars in it.

Fun pic, I think today that clamshell Buick wagon would be the most valuable of the three.

uplanderguy · October 2020

Yeah, I can't think what would be decontented in an '81 Eldorado.

uplanderguy · October 2020

From a FB page this morning, Found recently by a garage while this Imperial was being worked on. Old cars are indeed time capsules. What a very neat find.

Sorry for the photo. My cheapo tablet with no mouse, and/or FB, seems to no longer have the choice to 'download' a photo directly, even though there was a 'share' option to put it on my own FB page (which I did).

Bogie and Bacall were married at Malabar Farm near Mansfield, Ohio. The tour of the home is pretty cool.

I can just hear her deep voice, "Fill it with premium young man", LOL.

andre1969 · October 2020

fintail said:
Decontented? 81 was a V8-6-4, that's extra content if I've ever seen it!

I think I recall the story behind that car being a metal plate under the passenger compartment or something similar. Been ages since I've seen the movie, lots of cars in it.

Fun pic, I think today that clamshell Buick wagon would be the most valuable of the three.

I'm just going on memory here, but I think that there was some kind of inherent vibration with the V-8-6-4 that they just couldn't figure out how to get rid of, but putting a metal plate under the passenger compartment dampened it out.

I don't know if all V-8-6-4 Cadillacs got it, or just the Eldorado?

uplanderguy · October 2020

I hadn't heard that about the '81 V-8-6-4, not that I would have.

First thing I remember hearing about them, is the first one the Chev-Cadillac dealer in Clarion, PA, where I'd gone to college, got in, supposedly caught fire when an employee took it for a drive out on I-80.

A buddy of mine who grew up on a steady diet of Cadillacs and has a couple now, has said they weren't that bad and I guess it was possible to disconnect the variable aspect of it, to make it a V8 all the time. Has anyone else heard that?

tjc78 · October 2020

Just got a chance to watch the 70 Continental video. I think the 70 is a nice looking car but, my favorite of the 70s is the 77-79. Many people feel the 77 is the best since it has the new waterfall grill, no skirts and the true Lincoln dash. In 78 they went to the Grand Marquis dash layout.

andre1969 · October 2020

Yeah, I'd heard that about the V-8-6-4, that it was just a matter of disconnecting a couple wires, and it would run on 8 cylinders all the time. I had always heard that the biggest problem was when it was in 6-cyl mode, but looking on the internet, it seems most complaints were in delayed engine response, in switching from 4 or 6 cylinders back to all 8. And, there were customer complaints about the engine being rough in 4 or 6 cyl mode.

Supposedly, the engine also had issues around the speeds of 45 mph and again at 68. At those particular speeds, it was more likely to "hunt" between the cylinder ranges, and apparently wasn't too sophisticated about it.

My 2012 Ram has cylinder deactivation, but it only goes from 8 to 4 cylinders. The shift is almost imperceptible, but if you want to know when it's coming on, you can toggle through and it will display "ECON ON" or something to that effect, where the odometer/trip odometer/outdoor temperature display is.

I wonder, in the real world, how much cylinder deactivation really improves fuel economy, anyway? I have a feeling it's one of those things that looks good in a laboratory test, and helps boost EPA and CAFE numbers, but the typical driver doesn't really notice. For instance, if it boosted your highway mileage from, say, 21 mpg to 22, it's not going to save you much. But, if it helps GM save $millions in fines, they'll do it. And, over enough sales volume, it does help somewhat, with dependence on fuel.

It also seems like there's just something "magical" about 45 mph. I remember that was the speed where GM's earlier 4-speed automatics tended to hunt around between 3rd and 4th. And even on my '79 5th Ave, which just has a 3-speed automatic, it hates cruising around 45-50 mph, under level road, light load situations. It will grumble a bit, and almost beg you to either stomp on the gas and go faster, or manually downshift to second.

Here's a pretty good write-up of the V-8-6-4: https://blog.consumerguide.com/cadillac-v8-6-4/

uplanderguy · October 2020

45 is a speed where I find myself driving a good bit. I remember the early '80's GM's with the lock-up torque converter (3-speed automatic) were annoying around that speed. There was actually a TSB where GM addressed the things it was doing there, calling them 'chuggle' and 'bump' and saying it was 'normal', LOL.

I also remember my dealer telling me about my first 4-speed automatic, "around town leave it in 'D'", to avoid 'hunting'.

I did like that GM gave you that option on the selector, which of course went away later.

uplanderguy · October 2020

That link andre posted showed a pic that reminded me that in '80, I'm pretty sure it was, Caddy finally started offering a Fleetwood Brougham coupe, something I always wished they'd had done for more than a decade before. I'm not a fan of big padded tops and tiny quarter windows, but there was magic in that 'Fleetwood' name I thought, and the interiors were pretty nice IMHO.

omarman · October 2020

That link says it all, Hello 1981! "The V8-6-4 was a $325 credit option in the Seville which came standard with a diesel engine." Would have been nice to see the previous year 6.0 as a extra cost option + gas guzzler tax but oh well. At least Cadillac would have the new High Tech 4.1 V8 available the next year to save its reputation.

What could go wrong?

andre1969 · October 2020

Yeah, it was 1980 that the Fleetwood coupe first came out. I could see the rationale for not offering a Fleetwood coupe in earlier years, because it tended to strike me as a car for someone who wanted something more ritzy, and roomier, than a regular sedan, but still smaller than a full-blown limo. But still, more of a car that you were driven around in, rather than one you drove.

But, when they downsized for '77, much of that distinction was lost. The Fleetwood had a nicer interior, and that tapered B-pillar, but it was no longer any bigger than a DeVille. And for '80, when it lost the tapered B-pillar, even more of the distinction was lost.

As a kid, I remember an ad for the restyled '80 Cadillacs, bragging about how the DeVilles now had 2" more legroom in back than the year before. My guess is that with the more upright C-pillar and rear window, they were able to move the back a bit further back? Or, I wonder if they simply did something cheap, like give the DeVilles thinner seats and cushions, while the Fleetwoods were more opulent and thickly padded?

Wow, you can find just about everything these days...here's the ad! 1980 Cadillac magazine ad.

At first, I was thinking the 15/23 fuel economy rating they quoted for the standard 368 wasn't bad...I seem to recall my grandmother's '85 LeSabre was 17/24 or something close to that. But then, I remembered that for '80 they published raw laboratory numbers, but around 1984-85 they rounded the window sticker numbers down a bit, to try and reflect "real world" driving, so the two aren't directly comparable. Still, for comparison I think my '79 5th Ave was 14/22, for a 360-2bbl.

It's a shame that Cadillac didn't try to keep the 368 around longer, rather than depend on that little aluminum 249. They would have probably had to pay CAFE fines, but it would have saved them a lot of grace, considering the reputation that 249 got! And, the 368 would have improved with time, as improvements in emissions controls came out, and 4-speed automatic overdrive transmissions.

andre1969 · October 2020

On the subject of 1981, and it sort of becoming a major turning point in Cadillac's history, Curbside Classic has a great writeup here.

One of the reviews they show is a C&D test of a 1981 Sedan DeVille with the V8-6-4. 0-60 came up in 11.6 seconds. Oddly though, there's a test of an '81 Seville in there, with the V8-6-4, and it came up at a more leisurely 15.3. Odd that there would be so much variance. The cars were similar in weight (4100-4200 lb), and both used a 2.41:1 axle. Consumer Guide tested the Seville, though, so maybe their drivers were feeling a bit more leisurely that day!

Either MT or C&D tested a 1980 Seville, with the regular 368, and got a more spirited 10.6 seconds.

If you were really feeling cheap, and masochistic, the 252 Buick V6 credit option on a Fleetwood would get you from 0-60 in 22.6 seconds!

uplanderguy · October 2020

That link has pics of three Cadillacs I always much-admired (and mostly, still do, despite my aversion to enormous cars in general): the Seville (still beautiful to my eyes and different from the competition), the '79 Eldorado (still like it a lot), and yes, even the '71/72 Fleetwood Sixty-Special Brougham, to my eyes the last domestic flagship that had styling cues that heralded back to another era--the 'B' pillar done the way it was, and the separation in the body between the front and rear doors.

A bail bondsman in our small town had a new '74 Fleetwood Talisman, bought at our local Chevy-Cadillac dealer. I bet their district guy was happy about that. At the time, I thought I'd never seen an interior more magnificent--a car that size, with seating for only four, LOL. It was dark blue with white top and blue interior. I have since seen that for $2,400 extra, you could get an all-leather-inside Talisman, in '74 only. Now THAT is an impressive interior, LOL!

uplanderguy · October 2020

Back to my earlier post--I am still wowed by the receipt supposedly found by shop workers while working on that Imperial, that indicates the car had been owned by Mrs. Humphrey Bogart. If the current owner didn't already know that (I'll assume he did), that car has suddenly become more desirable.

Makes me wonder where the receipt was found. If in a door panel, it probably wouldn't be in as good condition. Maybe down the defroter vent on the dash? Behind the glovebox liner? Beneath carpeting at the upper edge?

UPDATE: Someone asked the question. Original poster's response today: "It's a customer's car at my shop, having some interior work done and found it crumpled under the seat. The owner had no idea of its history until yesterday."

uplanderguy · October 2020

Zillow for the address on the gas receipt--$30.3 million.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/232-S-Mapleton-Dr-Los-Angeles-CA-90024/20524395_zpid/

ab348 · October 2020

uplanderguy said:
Zillow for the address on the gas receipt--$30.3 million.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/232-S-Mapleton-Dr-Los-Angeles-CA-90024/20524395_zpid/

Not much in the way of curb appeal but it's nice that the road painters commemorated Bogie's old home.

uplanderguy · October 2020

Darn it Greg, I can't see/open that image! As I've said, I have a cheap, loser tablet, LOL.

stickguy · October 2020

I looked at satellite view. Some big honking houses on that block.

andre1969 · October 2020

Wow...just the property taxes alone on that place are about $8500 per month! ($102K in 2019).

In contrast, this is about as close as I'll ever get to being able to pull off the illusion of luxury. I was trying to ape those old car ads where they'd park a car out by the swimming pool for a glamour shot.

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

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