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My favorite X-car of that period was the '75 LN, although I remember only a couple at our hometown dealer and never see them for sale, except this one. Now, I'll say up front--there is not a worse color combination in my mind. Period. But it's a low-mileage 350 4-barrel and no A/C. I dislike the console-mounted optional gauges--I'd rather have a car without those. I wish it had the optional Turbine wheels (like Monte Carlo Landau of the same year). But that said, I haven't seen one for sale in many years. If it had been navy blue or maroon, I'd have been more-interested.
The optional body side molding mucks up the clean sides, but of course, most of the cars had them when new. I haven't seen one this original since probably the '80's.
The ad's production info on the V8 can't be right. That number must be for 350 4-barrels in Novas that year. Most V8's I recall had the 262 ("4.3 LITER").
http://topclassiccarsforsale.com/chevrolet/323735-1975-chevrolet-nova-ln-1-of-1138-v8s-built-original-owner-stock-condition.html
When I was a kid, the "rich family" in town ("rancher" - which means somehow acquired a ton of land at the outskirts of town (inheritance I suspect), now slowly selling or developing it and making obscene money, no actual ranch, but nice people) had a Mark V cabrio conversion.
Hint of BMW in the rear-door cutout and vent up on the C-pillar I think. Of course, all four of the similar X-bodies had this styling.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
As for the color combo...I don't hate it, but not crazy about it either. The blue interior is nice, but in those days, silver seemed hard to pull off. I think it's because it would clash with the chrome bumpers and trim. And color-keying the hubcaps to the body color, in this case, is pretty pointless.
Nowadays silver is on everything, but back in those days, it seemed more like a "luxury car" color. And maybe that's part of the problem? I've looked up pics of silver '75 Cadillacs and Lincolns, and the color just seems fine. But on the Nova it just seems off, somehow.
I wonder if it's because a luxury car back then was often a bit showy and ostentatious, so a color like silver helped to tone it down? But with something that's already clean and about as tasteful as the 70's can get, the silver just turns it into a wallflower? It's almost like the car is screaming out for a gaudier color.
For comparison, here's a '75 Granada, in silver:
I'm not a huge fan of the Granada, but the silver here doesn't bother me, and seems to suit the car. But, in my mind, the Granada is showy and ostentatious, with wanna-be luxury car aspirations. So maybe that's why the silver works for me?
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
I recall looking at the Buick color charts when in a store thinking about buying a Buick. The Riviera colors were rich and had multicolor backgrounds due to the flakes in them. The leSabre colors on down were "thin."
In 1989 our Century started to lose pea size spots of silver. The company repainted the top of the car down to the bump strips on the middle of the door. The Buick store paint guy said the paint supplier had told the companies they could get by with two layers, a primer and a finish color coat (and then a clear top coat?). Where previously there was a primer, followed by a binder coat to which the finish coat could bond well but also the binder bonded really well to the primer. I assume the binder coat had color in it.
The paint company paid for the repaint that touched up the Century's silver.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
One thing about silver, it never really looks dirty.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
Speaking of Lincoln Marks. Here is a rare one. Great color for it IMO
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/lincoln/mk-5/2409251.html
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGLWS7glR-w
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/research/you-could-win-this-1966-impala-dream-car-just-for-donating-to-dream-giveaway/ar-AALgRyj?ocid=hplocalnews&li=BBnbfcL
Anyway, Dad bought it used when he got out of the Army. I forget what year that was, but he had it when he met my Mom. And, one warm, late Saturday night on a deserted back road, in 1971, it threw a rod, and he simply abandoned it! I do remember Dad telling me that story a few times.
However, sometimes maybe the past is remembered with rose-tinted glasses. In talking, my uncle also came out with the truth of what really happened with my Mom's '66 Catalina convertible. I had always remembered it as, my Mom didn't like driving around with a baby (me) in a convertible, so she did a trade with her parents for a '68 Impala 4-door hardtop (in "Grecian Green" or whatever that color was, that had come up earlier), and then Grandmom and Granddad traded the convertible in on a new '72 Impala 4-door hardtop. I also vaguely remember Granddad saying that my Dad pretty much ruined the brakes on that Catalina. BUT, then my uncle mentioned that my Dad had cracked the block somehow, and that's the real reason Mom got rid of it!
I dunno...I used to like to think that, somehow, Mom's '66 Catalina might have survived, and is still around somewhere. And that gave me a bit of a warm, happy sentimental feeling I guess. But, now I'm thinking that if my Dad really ratted the car out that bad, it probably got junked pretty early in its life.
Anyway, if they only built 1,856 Impalas with the 425 hp version of the 396 in 1966, I'd imagine the '65 version was pretty rare, as well. Oh, as for the mechanic I had mentioned, he said that the 425 hp 396 was only available in the Corvette, and no other Chevy in '65. So I guess that's why I have a doubt or two, even if the Chevy brochure mentions it.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
It does give sort of a nice horror-movie atmosphere though, I guess. And the dead cicada in the spider web is a nice touch
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At car shows for quite awhile, big-engined cars always seem to be displayed with dog-dish caps and blackwalls. I bet more are displayed like that now than were built new, LOL. If I won this car, I'd have to paint the wheels factory-black as was done on full-wheelcover cars, and put whitewalls and the correct full wheelcovers on it, LOL.
I saw one the other evening that I hadn't seen in years....Barney comes back to his high-school reunion and finds a sad bit of news (I don't want to give too much away, LOL). He shows up in town in a '58 Edsel, the Ford-based model, two-door hardtop, that backfires and he tells Andy it's a '60 after Andy says "'61?". Barney says "It has a '61 grille". He also says, "I'd have bought a new car, but figured I'd let somebody else take the first six years of depreciation", LOL.
The color episodes seem to rely less on knee-slapping comedy, but gentle comedy with a bit of bittersweet in them, especially the ones where Barney returns.
The episode I mention is in season six. He won an Emmy for that episode. He won his final, fifth Emmy as 'Barney Fife' for the season seven episode where he comes back to visit and escorts a starlet whose new movie is premiering in Mayberry, her hometown. The epilogue in that episode in probably the best of any I've seen.
I retire on Aug. 27 and at some point I wish to go to "Mayberry Days" in Mt. Airy, NC. My wife has no interest, and that's OK. "Thelma Lou" (Betty Lynn) actually lives there now and pre-Covid, anyway, made a monthly visit into town for autographs and photos. She will be 95 this year.
It's an old plotline, I know. There was a similar episode of "Leave it to Beaver", where Beaver and Wally started hanging out with the trash man's kids, and each got a taste of the "Grass is always Greener" lesson.
I wish someone would put the old "Mayberry RFD" episodes into circulation. I know there are plenty of episodes that I've never seen before, and even those I have, I haven't seen in ages. I know it's no replacement for the Andy Griffith Show, but honestly, with the crap they're putting out these days, I'd prefer seeing some old tv show, even if it's a mediocre one, that I haven't seen in ages. Or, in some cases, never saw at all. For instance, Antenna TV showed "The Joey Bishop Show" for a few years, just taking it off earlier this year. Before they showed it, I'd never even heard it before, so it was totally new to me! As I recall, it was one of the few shows to go from black and white to color, to BACK to black and white! For its last season, it got canceled, but another network picked it up, but shot in black and white to save on production costs.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
"Mayberry RFD" is not available for free on Amazon Prime on TV, but they are available for pay.
I found this online--the very first episode of "Mayberry RFD", where Andy and Helen get married.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4tew6q
The season two episode called "The Mynah Bird", the last in which Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) appears, features her own 1966 Studebaker Daytona Sports Sedan in several scenes. It's cleaned up--even the whitewalls. Algonquin Green with black vinyl top. Only 873 of that model built. Howard Sprague is seen driving a light blue '69 Dodge Coronet Deluxe 4-door in that episode--as appropriate as Aunt Bee driving a Studebaker, LOL.
Although, admittedly, my attitude toward him got swayed by a one-time character he played on an episode of "Archie Bunker's Place", where he was pretty skeevy. It's weird, how sometimes just seeing a person play a one-time role, can alter your impression of them. Even knowing it's just an actor playing a role.
That’s how you can tell a good actor in many cases. I mean can Anthony Hopkins ever not be Hannibal Lector?
It’s also tough when actors go from one iconic role to another. An example; Michael C Hall went from a damaged funeral director in Six feet under to a serial killer in Dexter. First season was hard to forget it.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
He gets on the bus to the airport at the end of his leave, and then he sees Andy and family and Goober pull up in a '66 Coronet station wagon, back from their fishing vacation. Of course, they don't see him on the bus. It was actually a bit sad!
Car I remember most in Andy Griffith was driven by Otis, who had a 33-34 Ford cabriolet - watching that when I was a kid, I was astounded that such a car was seen as an obsolete jalopy.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'd like the car better without the hood scoop, but still, nice, interesting car.
Even as a kid, I remember thinking "The '65 looks more like the '63 than the '64". Of course, that's before I realized that I was comparing the '65 mid-size with the earlier full-sizes.
My sixth-grade math teacher had a firethorn-like '65 Satellite convertible I always admired in the school parking lot. About three years ago, I saw one like it in my hometown's big car show, and I walked to look at the owner's name and it was hers! She wasn't there but spoke to her husband. It had been a college graduation gift from her parents. She, and the car, were originally from Long Island but she went to school about 25 miles from my hometown and married and stayed in the area. What a culture shock that must've been from Long Island to Greenville, PA.
The rim selection is good to my eye. It brings back memories of what people did to dress up their cars then.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Dodge, in contrast, seemed a bit more cohesive during that period. The '62 models, with that Turbine-car-inspired styling seemed really odd and off-the-wall, but then the later versions just seemed like a toned-down evolution of it, whereas I got the vibe from comparable Plymouths that they just didn't know what they wanted to be.
GM tends to get credit for "inventing" the musclecar, with the '64 GTO, but in my opinion, they really just popularized it. And perhaps, their marketing department coined the term. But I think the shrunken '62 Dodges and Plymouths, while they weren't the first either, still beat GM to the market by two model years, with that type of car. I'd imagine these cars with the 413, or even the 361, were a force to be reckoned with.
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport; 2020 C43; 2021 Sahara 4xe 1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica Wife's: 2015 X1 xDrive28i Son's: 2009 328i; 2018 330i xDrive
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
Why do I like this?
If anyone objects to a Tiktok link or can’t view them I’ll stop but I see a good bit of content that we would all appreciate here
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMdUEUMX9/
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/this-rare-color-video-footage-of-the-sunset-strip-in-1963-is-going-viral/vi-AALle0r?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531