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

Michaell · April 2

@xwesx said:
Speaking of 307s, I have been somewhat idly considering some upgrades to my C20... I'm considering putting a limited slip differential in the rear axle and possibly doing some engine modernization. Right now, it has a stock 307, two-barrel carburetor, points, etc. In other words, all original. I have an electronic distributor that I have just never installed, and I was considering perhaps an EFI system. Good or bad? Again, this is currently an all-original pickup, 1969 C20 long-bed step side.

I'm thinking that these changes wouldn't be a value hit, but would, say, swapping out the 307 for a modernized 350 be a better move? I've owned this truck for nearly thirty years now (June of 1997), so I'm not all that concerned about value at the moment. But, I do enjoy originality and keeping vehicle character.

I know my dad swapped in an electronic ignition on his ‘70 C-10 with the 350.

kyfdx · April 2

I don't know the difference in money, but swapping for a 350 sounds like a great idea, while the other stuff seems not worth it.

texases · April 2

The EFI + electronic ignition would greatly improve driveability and reduce maintenance without harming originality (just put all the old stuff in a box). Do you need the extra kick of the 350? At that point you're on the 'slippery slope', why not a 383? And a performance trans? That might need upgraded this that and the other thing....

roadburner · April 2

andre1969 said:
Lemko just reminded me, over on facebook. Happy Walter P. Chrysler Day!

It's also my birthday, which sometimes makes me wonder if that's one reason I've tended to have good luck with Chrysler products. Oh, and I'm also planning to announce my retirement at work today. I figured that would be a nice birthday gift to myself. Sort of a birthday, Christmas, and Independence Day all rolled into one!

Congrats!

kyfdx · April 2

texases said:
The EFI + electronic ignition would greatly improve driveability and reduce maintenance without harming originality (just put all the old stuff in a box). Do you need the extra kick of the 350? At that point you're on the 'slippery slope', why not a 383? And a performance trans? That might need upgraded this that and the other thing....

But, you can get a new 350 in a crate/box.

xwesx · April 2

texases said:
The EFI + electronic ignition would greatly improve driveability and reduce maintenance without harming originality (just put all the old stuff in a box). Do you need the extra kick of the 350? At that point you're on the 'slippery slope', why not a 383? And a performance trans? That might need upgraded this that and the other thing....

Yeah, good point. I love the 4-speed Muncie transmission, so I am not going to change that out! As for performance, the LSD is my #1, because I just cannot explain how annoying it is to basically be 90% of the way to stuck any time I am on a non-paved surface. A one-rear-wheel-drive vehicle that weighs about 3,200# with most of the weight up front is just not a great recipe for mobility.

Even with everything stock, it is rather fun to drive (and pretty spunky on acceleration) with the low-geared manual transmission.

texases · April 2

Here you go!

laurasdada · April 2

Congrats @andre1969 ! I'm T-28 days to retirement; I gave notice around the first of the year.
I share similar feelings regarding the big life change. Especially since my 401k hasn't been made great again... was so much greater in early January.

Wife is ready for me to join her in retirement, four days after my final day, we're off to Aruba. Then back to Vegas in June. She's taking up golf, I'll reacquaint myself with the game not having played in at least 10 years. I'll likely volunteer at the local Red Cross blood bank, being a regular donor.

And sleep.

kyfdx · April 2

Nice!

uplanderguy · April 2

I get electronic ignition, but I’d leave the 307. But then I like original and feel it’s often the easiest to sell—not that you should make your vehicle all about that.

explorerx4 · April 2

Here's a Chevelle discussion regarding 307 and 350 options.
https://www.chevelles.com/threads/best-way-to-add-power-to-a-307.873873/

xwesx · April 2

Thanks for all the suggestions!

imidazol97 · April 2

@andre1969
Congratulations on the retirement. Just keep moving..., doing something. As an old longtime friend of mine says, "Everyday I do something that's FUN."

explorerx4 · April 2

@andre1969,
If you are interested in watching some Mopar porn if you have more time, watch this series.
I had a 70 Sport Fury hardtop with a 383, so nothing like this but not totally different.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSU6A4QnrPQ

stickguy · April 2

that a live look in at QB's garage project car?

fintail · April 2

uplanderguy said:
Fly off the line--I think that was a GM thing then. I remember thinking my parents' new '84 Monte Carlo 305 4-barrel felt like an absolute hot rod in that way....but I owned a V6 and my parents were coming off of a V6 Monte too. My Dad, in his mid-fifties then, said, "Boy, that's a light touch".

Years later, when I drove my friend's M-B (don't ask me the model, LOL), I remember thinking I really had to push on the gas pedal to go. It wasn't the engine, it was the pedal.

My W126 was like that, it wasn't so much the travel required to gain speed, it was pressure - like stepping on a brick.

Like ab mentions, old MBs have their own throttle response setup. In the fintail, the first third or so of travel doesn't do a lot, especially off the line with its second gear start. It's a lot less "heavy" than some others though.

Speaking of bricks, today's sighting was a late 70s Volvo sedan, 4 round lights. Driver may have been retired.

Michaell · April 2

fintail said:

uplanderguy said:
Fly off the line--I think that was a GM thing then. I remember thinking my parents' new '84 Monte Carlo 305 4-barrel felt like an absolute hot rod in that way....but I owned a V6 and my parents were coming off of a V6 Monte too. My Dad, in his mid-fifties then, said, "Boy, that's a light touch".

Years later, when I drove my friend's M-B (don't ask me the model, LOL), I remember thinking I really had to push on the gas pedal to go. It wasn't the engine, it was the pedal.
My W126 was like that, it wasn't so much the travel required to gain speed, it was pressure - like stepping on a brick.

Like ab mentions, old MBs have their own throttle response setup. In the fintail, the first third or so of travel doesn't do a lot, especially off the line with its second gear start. It's a lot less "heavy" than some others though.

Speaking of bricks, today's sighting was a late 70s Volvo sedan, 4 round lights. Driver may have been retired.

I concur with the throttle issues. My mom's '72 220D had the same thing. I remember driving it from LA to Sacramento on a family vacation - I-5 through the Central Valley with no cruise control really hurt my ankle.

explorerx4 · April 3

Saw this out of the garage for the first time while out for a walk.

fintail · April 3

Out on the highway saw a late 80s Bonneville sedan, getting to be a little thin on the ground now. Driven by an older gent at what appeared to be at least a little under the limit.

fintail · April 4

Spotted the neighborhood Lucerne with the chrome wheelarch trim - it's a 4-holer.

uplanderguy · April 5

With chrome wheelarch trim--I'm guessing that's aftermarket.

Around here, I used to see that on the latest Crown Vics and Grand Marquis cars a good bit.

I'm a purist about factory looks--because usually I can spot it right away on a clean car.

I never liked when people put that bright metal thingy at the top of each of their side windows. I saw plenty of that around here on all makes and models.

I never minded an otherwise stock-looking car, sitting on blackwalls and Cragars; used to be seen often and can be reversed easily.

andre1969 · April 5

uplanderguy said:
I never liked when people put that bright metal thingy at the top of each of their side windows. I saw plenty of that around here on all makes and models.

Do you mean those things that are supposed to deflect rainwater, so you can roll your windows down a bit further in the rain? Back in high school, I knew someone who's Mom had a '75-76 Pontiac 4-door hardtop. I can't remember now if it was a Bonneville or Grand Ville. Anyway, I remember her saying she wished it had window frames on the doors, so she could put those deflectors on it!

uplanderguy · April 5

Yes, that's exactly what I mean!

RE.: '75-76 Pontiac--recently, when I've seen clean examples online, I like, probably the '76, more now than I did then. Seems like you rarely saw them compared to the other divisions; the grille was a nice, simple design; I like the two-door roofline; and I thought the interiors were luxurious but toned-down from like the, say, '73's, with really heavy woodgrain that reminded me of 'Ricochet' air rifles, and the seat trim with all the diamond designs in the back. EDIT: Just looked at the brochure...the Brougham still had the diamond patterns on the seat backs. Make mine the standard Bonneville.

You could get that Bonneville seat trim, in a Catalina with the 'Custom Trim Option'. So andre, you could get the Catalina coupe roofline you like, with the Bonneville seat trim. Pontiac was great about that kind of thing in the '70's. Chevy, you usually got what was offered, and that was it.

fintail · April 5

uplanderguy said:
With chrome wheelarch trim--I'm guessing that's aftermarket.

Around here, I used to see that on the latest Crown Vics and Grand Marquis cars a good bit.

I'm a purist about factory looks--because usually I can spot it right away on a clean car.

I never liked when people put that bright metal thingy at the top of each of their side windows. I saw plenty of that around here on all makes and models.

I never minded an otherwise stock-looking car, sitting on blackwalls and Cragars; used to be seen often and can be reversed easily.

Yeah, I think aftermarket - it's thin, unlike the wheelarch trim often applied to 70s-80s MB SLs. The car doesn't appear to have chrome wheels or any other "Florida Package" appendages. Something like this:

I call the window trim pieces "smoker's vents", as it allows the window to be opened just a little while keeping rain out - these are seen a bit in the PNW.

andre1969 · April 5

I was going through some old pictures, and came across a pic I took of the '91 Civic rental car I had when I was in California for Spring Break back in 1992...

Anyone recognize the location?

explorerx4 · April 5

I've seen that with a red Dodge Dart in the pic instead.

andre1969 · April 5

explorerx4 said:
I've seen that with a red Dodge Dart in the pic instead.

Bingo!

Full disclosure: I did NOT drive the Civic down the embankment to get there, like Dennis Weaver did! There's a dirt road that goes down to that spot (the way he drove out of that spot, once he thought the truck was long gone)

uplanderguy · April 5

Orange Valiant but you definitely knew the spot!😀

I see most places online say it was red, so I must be color-blind.

I remember watching it first-run.

andre1969 · April 5

I always thought of it as "reddish orange." I remember awhile ago, trying to look it up on a color chart. I think Plymouth called it "Tor Red," and Dodge called it "Hemi Orange." I think whether it looks red or orange depends not only on your eyesight, but whatever kind of lighting you see the color in. Plus, if you're seeing the movie on tv, or pictures on the internet, those can vary, as well.

There's a "Duel" fan page on Facebook. I also posted the pic there. I remember a few months ago, people were getting into an argument over whether the Valiant was orange or red!

I've always been kinda curious to see what a first-run version of "Duel" would be like, for the pacing and such. I've only seen the later version, where they stuck in about 16 minutes of extra footage to pad it out to feature film length. They also sprinkled in a couple of cuss words to give it the "street cred" of a PG-rated movie as well.

It's weird to think that the movie was about 21 years old when I took that picture (1971 vs 1992). But now, that picture is 33 years old!

uplanderguy · April 5

It was on “ABC Movie Of The Week”, 90 minutes including commercials. I’m thinking they were on Tuesday evenings. Another one of those I loved at the time was “The Screaming Woman”, with Olivia DeHavilland and based on a Ray Bradbury story.

fintail · April 5

andre1969 said:
I was going through some old pictures, and came across a pic I took of the '91 Civic rental car I had when I was in California for Spring Break back in 1992...
Anyone recognize the location?

Civic appears to have plate frames, any memory if they were from the rental agency or a retail dealer? I remember rentals back in the day could be more conspicuous before fleet operators realized that such things can make people targets, but also there can be fleet issues where an operator buys from retail lots, I remember seeing this a lot during covid and I think it still happens in a more limited amount.

andre1969 · April 5

One of my earliest tv memories is one of those ABC Movies of the Week. My Mom and Dad let me stay up to watch the first few minutes of 1974's "The Killer Bees." All it ended up doing was giving me an unhealthy fear of bees, wasps, hornets, etc, at a very young age. Here's a clip of what I remember...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ePmdG8ReBU
To be honest, even to this day, I still find it kind of creepy. I think it's the music score that sells it. You just gotta look past the cheesy superimposition of the bees, the fact it looks like it was shot at two vastly different times of day, in several different neighborhoods, and cars usually don't blow up that easily!

andre1969 · April 5

fintail said:
Civic appears to have plate frames, any memory if they were from the rental agency or a retail dealer? I remember rentals back in the day could be more conspicuous before fleet operators realized that such things can make people targets, but also there can be fleet issues where an operator buys from retail lots, I remember seeing this a lot during covid and I think it still happens in a more limited amount.

That, I don't remember. I forget the name of the company I rented the car from, but it was in Las Vegas, near the airport.

As for conspicuous, in Aruba, the license plates on all the rental cars started with a "V". One year, I got a Kia Opirus (Amanti) for a rental, and its license plate was simply "V1"! I probably have a pic of it somewhere, but that was before I had an iPhone, so most of the old pics I took with digital cameras are buried on a backup drive somewhere. But, here's a pic of a Wranger I had for a rental in Aruba, in 2013...V-2241, so it was a bit higher up!

explorerx4 · April 5

Correct, it was a Plymouth Valiant.
I probably thought Dart because my mom had one at the time.

uplanderguy · April 6

"...The Killer Bees"--I'd not heard of nor seen that.

LOL!

uplanderguy · April 6

Fin, I saw that Jay North passed today. He was only 73.

uplanderguy · April 6

andre, looking at this '67 Grand Prix hardtop for sale, I noticed something I had never noticed on another '67 full-size Pontiac, inside.

This car has no A/C, as it has the "Grand Prix" nameplate at the top-center of the instrument panel, instead of an A/C vent there.

You had pointed out to me before, that non-A/C cars had a wider glovebox door and no vent to the right of the door.

This car has that vent.

I have to assume since this was the first and only '67 full-size Pontiac with no vent windows, for passengers to get face-level outside air if desired, these cars got the vents at both ends of the dash.

I think I learned something today, LOL.

fintail · April 6

andre1969 said:

fintail said:
Civic appears to have plate frames, any memory if they were from the rental agency or a retail dealer? I remember rentals back in the day could be more conspicuous before fleet operators realized that such things can make people targets, but also there can be fleet issues where an operator buys from retail lots, I remember seeing this a lot during covid and I think it still happens in a more limited amount.
That, I don't remember. I forget the name of the company I rented the car from, but it was in Las Vegas, near the airport.

As for conspicuous, in Aruba, the license plates on all the rental cars started with a "V". One year, I got a Kia Opirus (Amanti) for a rental, and its license plate was simply "V1"! I probably have a pic of it somewhere, but that was before I had an iPhone, so most of the old pics I took with digital cameras are buried on a backup drive somewhere. But, here's a pic of a Wranger I had for a rental in Aruba, in 2013...V-2241, so it was a bit higher up!

Interesting, I suppose Aruba is a bit safer than IIRC Florida, which had the issue with rental cars being targeted maybe 25-30 years ago.

That also jogs a memory, I remember being in Zurich in 2009 and I got behind an Opirus in traffic - I was flabbergasted that one sold there (they were hilariously ambitious with pricing in Europe, IIRC priced at the same level of a base E or 5er) and I had to believe the car was owned by a dealer or corporate.

fintail · April 6

uplanderguy said:
Fin, I saw that Jay North passed today. He was only 73.

Damn, RIP. Apparently of all the main characters, Margaret is the only one still with us.

Lots of good car spotting in those shows, and some decent humor - the performance of Joseph Kearns is strongly underrated IMO.

stickguy · April 6

in a driveway nearby, a Cougar from IIRC the late 80s. The vintage where the T Bird had the nice curves, but the Cougar got a weird formal roofline with the reverse C pillar. Always looks awkward.

andre1969 · April 7

That's sad to hear, about Jay North's passing. I always enjoyed "Dennis the Menace." Good, innocent, escapist type stuff with, for the most part, just kids being kids. I also like the fact that, even though the show was sponsored by Ford, there was always a good variety of background cars. At least, I'd presume it was sponsored by Ford, since the Mitchells and the Wilsons always had Ford products. But, they weren't featured all that prominently, so it's not like you saw them in a new one every season.

andre1969 · April 7

stickguy said:
in a driveway nearby, a Cougar from IIRC the late 80s. The vintage where the T Bird had the nice curves, but the Cougar got a weird formal roofline with the reverse C pillar. Always looks awkward.

I thought that reverse-slant quarter window looked pretty good on the '83-86 Cougar. But for '87-88, it was just too exaggerated.

uplanderguy · April 7

At the time, I dated (for a brief while) a very cute gal at work. A coworker said she'd like me to take her out and I doubted it, as this gal was a cutie! LOL (my wife later referred to her as "Marcia Brady"). So we did. She was pretty hot but a dim bulb...really.

She bought a new '87 Cougar which I drove. The car was a very light non-metallic gray, blackwalls, and the standard wheel covers. V6. I don't remember much about it, but she said she liked all the 'cat' stuff associated with the car.

I'm not a fan of that funky '83-86 quarter window, although I know it was used on Avanti and Gremlin before. On Avanti I can like it as I think the huge wraparound back window offsets it some, but there's still a real big C-pillar.

But I agree, the '87 and '88 Cougar quarter window is just too big.

thebean · April 7

If she could see you now in the Vette, she’d be wanting to rekindle that relationship. 😁

uplanderguy · April 7

lolol

fintail · April 7

Yeah, the Ford sponsorship of Dennis the Menace wasn't too loud, heck, in early episodes they even put Mr. Wilson in a few year old car:

It was replaced by a more basic 59 Ford. The Mitchell family car was also a 59, a Galaxie.

re: Cougar, I never loved the reverse angle C-pillar, the 87-88 was really weirdly exaggerated. I remember a 5th grade teacher had an 83-86 style, was a late model car then.

uplanderguy · April 8

RE.: Joseph Kearns--he was great as Mr. Wilson, if not a little effeminate. He was only 55 when he died! But his "DENNIS!" is priceless. Ironically, Gale Gordon, who played his brother in the later episodes, was nowhere near as good but looked more like the comic strip character.

I thought Gale Gordon was good as "Mr. Mooney", but Kearns was the definitive "Mr. Wilson".

Seems like every neighborhood had one....but the one in our neighborhood (Mr. Myers) had no redeeming social aspects, LOL--just a perfect lawn and flowers and a ball that landed in his yard got scooped by him. His wife, as nice as "Mrs. Wilson" was on 'Dennis...', would bring it back over with "We don't mean to be bad neighbors....".

andre1969 · April 8

Wow...Joseph Kearns died five days after his 55th birthday. Today is 6 days after my 55th, so I'm officially older than Mr. Wilson!!

I actually don't mind Gale Gordon, as the second Mr. Wilson, but you couldn't replace Joseph Kearns! I liked how they actually did make references to the first Mr. Wilson a few times on the show, even after he was gone, so at least it kept his memory alive.

fintail · April 8

I wonder what was really in Mr. Wilson's "nerve medicine"

This is a good image for remembrance:

kyfdx · April 9

'60 Ford

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

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