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The only two cars I had with a black interior were my '69 Dart GT (a light beige color) and my '67 Catalina, which is kind of a pale, creamy yellow. I wonder, if the reverse of that would work? A black car, but with a light creme/beige/pale yellow interior? I could see that combo working well on a 50's car, especially with a black/yellow two-toning. But by the 70's, I'm not so sure.
Normally I wouldn't think of a blue interior with a black car, but that '73 Galaxie 4-door hardtop looks decent in that combo.
**Edit: on black cars with yellow interiors: I could see something like a Camaro, Mustang, or other sporty car pulling it off, although I'd imagine the interior would actually be a combination of black and yellow. And I doubt anybody's doing yellow dashboards anymore, unless it's one of those pay-through-the-nose customized jobs.
These days you see lots of black cars and most have black interiors, but a few dealers locally will spec them with beige inside to make it seem less gloomy, so that combo is not too unusual.
In '67, Olds offered a Saffron interior on the Cutlass. I've only ever seen it with Saffron paint which is the same paint used on your Catalina. I don't know if it was available with other paint choices. I like the color and think this interior is pretty cool:
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Then a 72ish Ranchero. Also hopped up. Dark blue with orange stripes and slashes. Maybe a Mets fan? Big rear tires, nice rumble, smelled like running really rich. I think it was a stick too.
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Saw these cars at a tiny used-car lot in Ravenna, OH today.
andremobile--'70 Newport Custom four-door sedan--383 V8; asking $8,300; "original paint"
'68 Riviera--gorgeous styling IMHO, but I didn't notice when I took the pic, the not-great hood to fender alignment. Asking $9,800.
One sort-of negative about the '68 Riv is that it started using the regular full-size Buick instrument panel that year instead of having its own unique panel. This '68 had the brushed metal trim, from the Wildcat I believe, which looked nice. It had the strato-bench seats, used from Caprice on up, any number of models. They look nice, but I recall from a college friend's '68 Bonneville Brougham, those seat backs were hard and thin for a luxury car.
For 1980 it was restyled, and squared up considerably. The coupe was moved to a shorter 108.7" wb (versus 112.7" in '77-79) to make room for the new Cordoba/Mirada coupes. The front-end had a more formal grille that spread outwards at the bottom, below the headlights, and encompassed the turn signals/running lights. It makes me think, just a bit of a '60 DeSoto, the way its grille did the same thing and housed the turn signals. The '80-81 coupes, however, were very poor sellers, and were dropped for '82.
**Edit: Now that I look back and see you mention "straight-up-and-down" quarter windows, I'm almost positive you saw a '77-79. The '80 had a forward slant, more like the opera window on a Colonade Monte Carlo...
Here's a '78 Diplomat coupe with those narrow opera windows...
And here's an '81:
I see now that the car is in the background of the Riviera pic, although not many details can be seen.
Here you go…
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Great colors, very sharp.
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The Riv looks like it has a bad hood hinge on the right side. My Cutlass had a similar problem though not as bad as that and it would go back into the correct position if you pushed it down. Apparently it was a common problem on '68s and maybe the same design was used on the Riv. Also good point on the dashboard change for the '68. The '67 version was better. It might not have been able to pass the more stringent safety regs for '68 though.
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The Newport doesn't seem like *too* hideous of a price, since it does look like it's in really sharp condition. But that Riviera, the $9800 price actually seems fairly reasonable to me! Was there anything else wrong with it that stuck out? It looks pretty nice in the pics to me, except for that hood alignment. I guess in my mind, I'm just looking at the $8300 for the Newport as sort of a baseline, and thinking that surely the Riv has to be desireable enough to warrant a larger price premium than that, over the Chrysler?
It's cool to still see places like that, where you'll see interesting finds like that on a used car lot.
I don’t remember those Diplomat coupes at all. The 81 really isn’t all that bad looking. I guess they would have competed with a Lesabre coupe and/or the Panther coupes?
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That 81 Diplomat looks like it has the same wheels as Andre's 5th Ave. The 78 in the pic appears to have T-tops.
If that Riv is as nice as it looks in the pic, seems like a very fair price.
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Or maybe they were switched when the car had its apparent repair. Need to find a pic.
As for legroom, you'd think that dropping from 112.7" to 108.7" in wheelbase would result in a pretty big loss of legroom, but these coupes weren't all that space efficient to begin with. The only statistic I could find was a '79 LeBaron coupe, which listed back seat legroom at 34.0". I found 30.7" for the '76 Aspen coupe, which was on the shorter wheelbase from the get-go. I would think the Diplomat and LeBaron coupes, once they were moved to the shorter wheelbase, would be similar, but perhaps not. The more formal roofline might have allowed them to push the back seat a bit further rearward, to offset the loss in wheelbase.
It's a bit ironic, I think, that they moved the Diplomat and LeBaron coupes to the shorter wheelbase so they didn't compete so directly with the Cordoba and Mirada. But, when they shrunk them, they made them look even more like personal luxury coupes than the '77-79 models!
I had always thought of these cars more as upscale compacts, a reaction to the Granada, although they sort of became midsize-by-default. But, a few months ago I found this old dealer training film on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaIy6XK8bcU
Looks like right out the box, the Diplomat coupe had its sights set on the personal luxury car market. And to be fair, a lot of midsized 2-doors were so space-inefficient that the EPA classified them as compacts, so a Diplomat or LeBaron coupe probably could pass off as a nice alternative to a Monte Carlo, Cutlass Supreme, or T-bird. Or, to Mopar's chagrin, a Cordoba, Charger SE, or Magnum...
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Anyway, at 34.0" of rear legroom, it does stack up pretty good to cars like the T-bird (32.7", although I found that in a Cougar brochure), Cordoba (32.1") and Monte Carlo (32.9"). Although sadly, a Granada/Monarch, which I always thought of as one of the worst when it came to space efficiency, is 33.9"
The Granada comes up short on front legroom though, at 40.6", whereas a T-bird/XR-7 was 42.1", Monte Carlo was 42.4", and the Cordoba was 42.6"
So I guess if you want to think of the Diplomat/LeBaron coupes as personal luxury coupes, maybe they were sort of a baby-step towards downsizing/improved space efficiency, although nowhere near as radical as the '78 Monte Carlo et al. Or the '80 T-bird/XR-7.
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Can’t get more obscure than this: a mid-1950s Eshelman.
I wonder if that Accord belonged to a member of the crew, or something? Here's a pic of it from the third season...
The pale blue Firebird next to it seemed to show up a lot, too. I think that might be a 1977-only color.
I think the GTO Ramp Car showed up sometime in Season 2. In the first season, while they did have car crashes, they tended to be more realistic, and cars didn't go airborne, but in season 2 they started that. I also recall a Dart Sport or Duster being used as a ramp car for a bit, but I seem to remember in one of the stunts, it took some serious damage, so that might've been when they went to the GTO?
I think they still had that GTO around by the end of the 6th season. At least, I remember one of the final episodes, "Things that Go Creep In the Night", with Rich Little, there was a pretty spectacular pile up at the beginning, and I think that GTO was involved. I also remember towards the end, Rich Little was trying to evade the cops in a '62 Cadillac hearse that, mercifully, turned into a '64 when it went over an embankment. (I say mercifully, because I've always had a thing for the '61-62 Caddy)
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https://firebirdtransamparts.com/redsky/ladybirds.htm
They're pretty interesting in that the Sky Bird seems aimed at the female market, whereas the Red Bird looks a bit more macho, at least enough that a guy wouldn't be afraid to drive one. The Yellow Bird sort of is between the two.
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There is a GM 'reminder' look of the front of the Diplomat IMHO.
When my Dad was deciding on whether to buy a new '77 Impala in the fall of '76, I remember him looking square-on at the front of a new '77 Impala wagon and saying, "The front does look pretty nice". I like the '77 Impala's front styling too...simple, better than the frou-frou front of the Caprice to my eyes.
MHO is that usually, the first year of a body style has the most cohesive styling all-around. Subsequent years were changed for the sake of model-year change. One exception that jumps into my head is I think the '56 Ford is a lot nicer than the '55 it is similar to.
But in person, I just don't care for it, and it's hard to say why. Part of the problem is that there's just TOO much blue, like up in the taillight trim, grille inserts, etc. And I think the wheel pattern has too much silver in it, that the light blue just washes out in it. Also, that's not a design that's more deep-set like a Pontiac Rally 2, where I think the contrast might work better.
Actually, looking at this pic, I can put my finger on it I think...
In this light, it has more of a pastel look to it, which seems out of place for the late 70's. It might have looked good on a 50's car, maybe even some very early 60's models, but it just seems like something that would have been better suited to something that had wide sidewalls.
The whitewalls might be something that's throwing me off, too. They just seem out of place on a car like this. Maybe if the car had blackwalls, and some blackout trim here and there, I wouldn't mind the color so much.
I like the red the best, and if forced to choose that one would be my choice. But even the yellow doesn't seem too bad. That blue just seems out of place to me, though.
**Edit: I don't know why, but when I thought of a car that blue would look on, my first thought was a '55 Oldsmobile. Well, lo and behold!
Granted, it's not exact, but it has a strong similarity, at least viewing through my monitor (and admittedly, my eyesight which isn't quite what it used to be!)
I don't know how Mopar managed to do it, but somehow they seemed to get the M-body fairly right, from the start. The Apen/Volare were trouble-prone from their launch. The Omni/Horizon had a bunch of issues, and I think they were amplified by it winning Motor Trend's Car of the Year...that put them under even more scrutiny, and made them (and MT) a bit of a laughing stock.
Then the R-body, as much as I love them, I'll concede their build quality was pretty bad the first year. Same for the J-body (Cordoba/Mirada). I think the '81 Imperial would have been okay, if it wasn't for the fuel injection which was troubleprone. And then, naturally, the K-cars were pretty bad at launch.
The only rationale I can think of for the M-body being a cut above, is that I believe it came out in mid-1977. It was heavily based on the F- (Aspen/Volare), but was beefed up. And the Aspen/Volare themselves went through a fairly major quality control correction in mid-1977, so the ones after that aren't nearly as bad as the '76/early '77 models. The M-body had its issues, no doubt, being a product of the 70's, but at least it was among the better offerings in that range of car.
Don't recall the source though
I find it odd that I have no recollection of ever seeing one locally. It's not like they were ultra-rare.
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Beautiful 1966 Pontiac Bonneville.
of course, he also has a early 80s F250 that I never saw move out in the road, and a 1970ish El Camino too. Plus an Allante, late 70s Fleetwod, and a C3 Vette in the driveway under ratty covers.
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RE.: The "(fill in the blank) Bird" Firebirds--so much for not looking at the brochure I guess. Of the half-dozen total I probably saw in the last 40+ years, all were velour inside but apparently vinyl was available.
I went back to the little dealer and got pics of the Diplomat. I didn't hang around long as felt I was going to be bothered by a salesman in no time flat. The "WARRANTY/NO WARRANTY" sheet on the window said "1979 Dodge Diplomat Salon". Somewhat bland interior, but not bad. $8,999 asking price.
I've noticed a Mercury Lynx sitting in a driveway in the neighborhood, kind of a weird color - looks like plum almost, but could be oxidized dark grey. It hasn't moved in ages, but today was out on the parking strip, maybe being hauled off. Either being saved by a fan of the old and mundane, or off to the parking lot in the sky.
Regarding light blue cars, there's a facelift first gen (MY 86-87) Tempo sedan in the area, kind of a powder/pastel blue. Also appears to not be on the road much.
https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/cars-for-sale/ford/thunderbird/2519627
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Tempo was like this I guess, couldn't find a great pic as these seldom were saved.
"Salon" was the middle trim level that year, with "Medallion" being the top dog and the base just being "Diplomat". Looks like the interior is fairly standard...even the basic cloth in these cars wasn't bad. Well for entry level at least. Crank windows, but the position of that steering wheel makes me think it might be a tilt. I'm pretty sure the landau roof was optional, though. I'm starting to wonder, if perhaps they only offered the narrow opera window with the landau roof in '79? I tried googling pictures, and the only '79 I saw with the large triangular window was a model with no no vinyl covering at all.
But good lord that price! Either I'm extremely out of touch, or someone's overly optimistic. Or both.