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What is the pull knob on the bottom of the dash left, below the ignition switch and to the left
of the turn signal knob. It looks like an add on by the way it's coming out through a
chrome holder that screw onto the bottom lip of the dash.
Overdrive knob? Car has an automatic transmission.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
What was a bit odder in my mind than the ignition on the left, is how Ford did two shafts down from the steering wheel. I'm thinking '61 or '62 was the last year of that.
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Oh--the Impala Custom Coupe had no additional trim inside or out from other Impalas, except from '71 on, you got wheel opening moldings standard on the Custom Coupe that were optional on all other Impalas. The 'Custom' only indicated the formal top.
We bought a '74 Impala Sport Coupe. Very traditional styling. In '75 I'd have looked for one but they didn't appear much, at least at my hometown dealer, by then. I like this brochure one, although don't like the optional skirts:
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
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
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
@kyfdx
I believe our 1960 Ford with a 6-cylinder engine had a manual choke, while the V8s had an
automatic choke.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Almost nobody had AC in a house either - that's changing fast, as the summers there are a lot hotter than decades ago.
When the fintail was introduced, MBs didn't have an option for factory AC - always dealer-installed.
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
My AC hasn’t been off since before Memorial Day.
2023 Mercedes EQE 350 4Matic / 2022 Ram 1500 Bighorn, Built to Serve
I couldn't live without it now.
My parents never did have A/C in their house.
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
Reason I'm asking, is I was watching an old "Barnaby Jones" episode the other night, and Jed Clampett was looking through the trunk of a Ford Maverick. They showed him going through the motions of accessing a spare tire under a cover, and at one point, in a close-up, it looked like he was actually lifting a cover.
My first thought was wait, that CAN'T be right?! As small as these cars are, I can't see any way there would be enough room to have the spare AND the gas tank in that space under the trunk floor. The Dart and Valiant got away with it because they had more rear overhang, and even then the spare tire well and gas tank overlapped. The gas tank has a scalloped-out spot in the top so that it can fit around the spare tire well. And modern cars can do it, even with a short overhang, because they put the gas tank under the back seat. But I don't see any way they could try that trick on a Maverick.
Having the spare under the floor mat like they did on the Dart and Valiant was a nice feature for the most part, except that it made the trunk really shallow. If I still had a Dart to take to car shows, I'd have to downsize my beer cooler! Or keep it in the back seat. Although, even as is, I have to position it just right in the 5th Ave, and my '76 LeMans, and put a towel over it because if it shifts in the slightest, it will rub up against the underside of the trunk.
Oh, as for '62 Fords, a guy at work bought a '62 Galaxie 4-door sedan, back around 2008. I remember it being light green. It had the 292 and a 2-speed automatic. He didn't keep it long, though. He got bored with cars really fast, and soon sold it, and bought one of those '60's Volvos that looks a bit like a 2/3 scale '55 Chrysler. Amazon, I think it was called? It was a wagon, and a beige color. I don't know how long he kept it, as he moved to a new project at work soon after.
I'd be a bit suspect of that 28 cubic foot trunk volume, but who knows? Those Fords did have a lot of lateral space, even if they were shallow. I remember Consumer Reports mentioning that an early 60's Ford (forget the year, but I'm thinking '61 or '62) had more rear seat legroom than a Cadillac!
I found this picture that contradicts the brochure as well. The brochure said the 292 was 170hp, this shows 160hp. Perhaps there were different versions? My 62 with the 292 did not have that sticker on the air cleaner.
2018 VW Passat SE w/tech, 2016 Audi Q5 Premium Plus w/tech, 2006 Acura TL w/nav
Underneath the mat was the infamous Ford "drop-in" fuel tank, the top surface of which acted as the trunk floor. Safety first!
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
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
Connecticut closed all their tolls because a GM wagon got hit in the back, it burst into flames and the family inside burned to death. It could have been the same result another brand.
correction, it was NBC that faked the crash, not a law firm:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-10-mn-1335-story.html
Oh, and yeah, GM's downsized '78+ intermediates were also implicated in a few fiery deaths from rear-enders. I can even remember, as a kid, seeing a chain reaction rear-ender, where one of the cars was a '78-79 Malibu, and I can remember it leaking fuel.
I seem to recall that the incident that raised eyebrows on the GM design was a 1980 Malibu sedan in Texas. It stalled out on a lonely country road, towards dusk. The driver, a woman, got out of the car, but left her two small children in the back seat where they were sleeping. Along came a stake truck that plowed into it at fairly high speed, sent it airborne, spinning it 180 degrees, and it burst into flames. The two children were burned alive.
Then there was an instance of a 1983 Cutlass Cruiser that was stopped at a toll booth. Someone ran into it, supposedly at highway speed from what I recall, and it blew up.
One thing I can't remember...when GM downsized their intermediates, did the get rid of the most rearward crossmember of the frame, figuring the rear bumper was enough for support? It's been awhile since I've been underneath any of my cars, but I seem to recall that on my '76 LeMans, there is a crossmember at the very back of the frame. My '89 Gran Fury copcar was unitized, but still had sub-frames, and I'm pretty sure it had a crossmember back there, too.
With GM's saddle-tank trucks, again I'm just going from memory here, and I've noticed my memory ain't what it used to be. But I seem to recall that the crash that caused all the sensation with that one involved a Chevy Citation blowing through a stop sign at 73 mph and t-boning a Chevy pickup on the driver's side, right at the saddle tank. At 73 mph, I'd imagine the driver was probably dead before it blew up.
I'm not sure, but i think the fuel tank was outside the frame rail, whether you got a single tank of dual tanks. I remember Granddad's '76 GMC crew cab had two twenty-gallon tanks, one on each side. That little bit of knowledge actually left me stranded once, because I just presumed that his '85 Silverado also had two twenty-gallon tanks. One day in the late 80s, I had driven it to college, and on the way home, on an up-grade, it suddenly stalled out, and wouldn't re-start. I knew about how many miles it had gone since its last fill up, so I figured there was no way in hell I ran out of gas. It had died a few hundred feet from a Shell station. I ran down there, where they had a tow truck driver on duty, and asked them to come tow it. It was on a fairly busy road, rush hour was starting up, and it was creating a traffic jam. So, the tow truck driver comes up, but before he hooks up, he says, "are you sure it's not out of gas?" Then he flipped the switch on the dash, it started drawing from the other tank, and it fired right up. I felt like an idiot!
When I got home, I mentioned to granddad what happened, and said something like "damn that truck gets lousy mileage, going through a 20 gallon tank like that!" He looked at me like I was an idiot and said "It has 16 gallon tanks, not 20." D'oh!
So I guess it was just the larger crew-cab trucks that got twin 20-gallon tanks? Or maybe they had changed the standard between '76 and '85? Anyway, I think if you only got a single tank, it was larger, and on the driver's side, but still mounted outside of the frame rail.
I'm fuzzy on the timeframe now, but I do remember GM sending my grandparents (it was just Grandmom by this time though) a voucher, where if they traded the truck on a new GM vehicle within a certain amount of time, they'd get an extra $2,000 on top of the trade, I think it was. The offer dropped to $1000 after a certain time threshold, and then to $500, and then went away. At the time though, there wasn't anything GM was building that really enticed us to trade in an otherwise perfectly good truck. And none of us felt particularly unsafe driving it.
In later years, I heard that police departments tried to file lawsuits against Ford for the Crown Victoria. Apparently, they were starting to blow up when rear-ended. Those vertical gas tanks that allowed for the deep well trunk, were getting pinched between the trunk well and rear axle and breaching, IIRC. Anyway, the truth came out that it was cops who had people pulled over on the side of a highway that were dying. They'd be sitting in the car, and get rear-ended at 70+ mph by some distracted driver, and the car would blow up. So it wasn't exactly gentle taps like what you saw in the movies!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngtALzDAIcU
But, nobody ever went after the Maverick with high profile lawsuits as far as I know, so I guess they did the job for the most part!
As for drop-in gas tanks, didn't some of the unitized Lincolns in the 60's use them as well? I seem to recall reading some incident where a top Ford executive was rear-ended in one, and the tank breached and it caught on fire, but he was able to get out of the car alive.
The center filler is always a problem. I remember in the mid-70s being on vacation and spending the night in Brewer, ME. We went out to get dinner and witnessed a '71-'71 Charger get rear-ended at a stoplight, probably at 30 to 40MPH. Gas just spewed out from under the car and made a small lake on the road. I was amazed it didn't ignite.
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6
I do remember the Crown Victoria fire stories. Supposedly other vehicles weren't doing the same, although at that point, most other police vehicles were probably SUV's.
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
2017 Cadillac ATS Performance Premium 3.6