(first posted 5/18/2019) When the future Mrs DougD left University in 1995, she exited the world of bicycles and buses, and needed a car to get to her new nursing job. Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 4/3/2019) Ford’s luxury division is in the midst of its fourth reboot this century. No car exemplifies the constantly changing winds of Lincoln’s design and marketing direction than the 2006 Lincoln Zephyr. Although its name meant a soft, gentle breeze, the Zephyr was blown away after just a year. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s time to take another look at vintage cars around the globe with a series of highlights from our Cohort contributors. I’ll start with this ’91-’96 full-size GM B-body wagon, a survivor from a nowadays dead branch in the automotive tree. Notice I’m saying B-body, as its identity is a bit in flux; it’s officially a Buick Roadmaster, as the wood appliqué and front bumper tell. But the grille is Caprice though, and the headlights too?
No matter, it’s a very CC find in all its “gotta keep it on the road, at any cost” glory.
Welcome to the import section of our little tour. Let’s jump right in and ogle some 55-year-old fiberglass in the shape of a lovely Lotus Elan. I must have gone past that car dozens of times, but never saw it because it was always under a tarp. Then, one fine day…
As has been oft-repeated, the A-body GM midsizers were all new for 1968, with swoopy, near-fastback styling in all Chevy, Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick flavors. We’ve all seen umpteen fake SS454s, fake GTOs, and fake 442s–and maybe even a real one or two!–but I am here to tell you that, yes, Buick did produce a version. And no, it is not “some weird kind of Chevelle.” However, it seems that Flint’s version of the good ol’ A was kind of lost in the shuffle. Read the rest of this entry »
By the mid-1960s, performance-minded buyers’ interest was rapidly shifting away from big cars, but that didn’t stop Ford from giving the full-size sporty car theme one more shot with the 1966 Galaxie 7-Litre, powered by the new Thunderbird 428 engine. Car Life tested the 7-Litre in January 1966 and came away more impressed with its stop than its go.
(first posted 1/14/2014) As my father could have told you, I never was very good at listening to advice. I really appreciate all the great suggestions and tips in response to my quandary as to how to replace our poor old dying Forester. There’s 163 comments so far, and all of them good ones. So what do I do? Sit down and carefully mull them over with Stephanie? Not me. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s not to like about them? They’ve had decades to perfect it.
While passing through a neighborhood in San Diego I stumbled across an oddity: a Land Rover Defender. Well, not exactly an oddity in the sense that it’s still on the road, but that it isn’t a US spec one. A reality immediately evident by the plate and the right-hand drive configuration for even the layman to see. So what was so special about this one to pay for its travels to a land an ocean away from its home country?
Well, for starters, the coolness factor alone is enough for them to pay for themselves; it’s simply an icon of the British automotive culture. I suspect that’s why this one made it overseas; after all, its street tires and suburban residence doesn’t speak to off-roading.
Text by Patrick Bell.
Fantastic Fords are our feature for today. We have many fine photos full of Fords from the sixties, with one from the seventies for extra fun. So all Ford fans gather around, and we shall move forward.
Our gallery today will begin with two models from 1960 in Getz’s Restaurant parking lot, which apparently was in Cumberland, Maryland. The first one in the foreground was a close to new blue Fairlane 500 Town Sedan with a couple of passengers who looked like they were ready to go. It was the most popular full size trim for that year, beating out the basic Fairlane 4 door sedan by more than 40,000 units. In the background, a white Falcon Deluxe 4 door wagon, the first year for the new compact. In front of the Fairlane is a ’54 Chevrolet, and on the other side of it a white ’57 Oldsmobile Super 88 4 door sedan, blue ’57 Buick Special or Century, and out in the street perhaps a green AMOCO tanker truck. Next to the Falcon is an aqua ’57 Chrysler.
Well, well, well, it’s come to this again – all the quick sightings yours truly has had over the past three months, curated, sorted and conveniently located within a few posts. I’m aiming at just three, this time: today’s rather big JDM edition, followed by a couple of posts to deal with all the imported stuff. We begin, clearly (and oh-so-cutely), with a Honda S800.
I first found this double-ended Coronet police car in Eugene in 2011. It sat here for sale for the following 14 years. I had planned to rerun its story again today, so yesterday (3/31/25) I drove by to confirm it was still there. No more! But through some luck and sleuthing, I managed to track it down, and it’s finally found a loving home, which I will reveal at the end. Meanwhile, the remarkable story of how it came to be deserves to be told once again:
Sometimes cars are stranger than fiction, not to mention the people that cause them to happen. I feel humbled and privileged to share with you what is undoubtedly the most awesome find ever at Curbside Classic. This 1973 Dodge Coronet had been hidden away for decades in an Oregon State Police storage facility, but due to the state’s current budget deficit it has been designated as surplus property and is now being offered for sale. How it came to be, and why it only served for a few months before being banished from Oregon’s highways is a remarkable story that can finally be told.
There’s no “April fooling” when I say that this may be it. This may possibly be the year that I get corrective lenses. Again. Almost immediately following my move to Chicago from Florida’s bright, sunny vistas over twenty years ago, I found myself in the office of my new optometrist faced with the reality that I needed glasses. Initially, I was doubtful of this, as my eyesight had seemed completely fine when I was in Florida and had driven everywhere. Still, there was scientific, factual evidence right in front of me, demonstrated for me as I looked through the giant contraption as Dr. Cheryl had parroted, “Which one is clearer… One or two?”, as she flipped through the comparative lenses.
(first posted 3/30/2019) Welcome, one and all, to the Grand Finale of this edition of Italian Deadly Sins. And I’m not using the term lightly. This is truly going to be a fireworks display of Deadly Sinnitude in all its Italicisation. Well, with quite a lot of non-Italian contributions along the way, too.
(first posted 3/29/2019) Kia’s first attempt at a minivan was a commercial success. Just two years after its launch, it became the best-selling minivan in Australia. In the US, it quickly outsold established but second-tier vans like the Mazda MPV and Nissan Quest. So how did Kia, a neophyte when it came to people carriers, manage to achieve this kind of instant success? It wasn’t because the Carnival/Sedona was particularly good. No, Kia achieved rapid sales growth the old-fashioned way: by offering lots of metal for the money, and very little money at that. Read the rest of this entry »
For quite a few years, the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors had a job to do. Its job was to recall the Division’s great bygone days as the company’s standard bearer for performance by bringing to market a hot road car that would make the buff books go into a swoon.
But all too often, once the buff books turned their GM-provided test vehicles back into the promotional fleet, the buzz went away and Mr. & Mrs. America would go on to buy other cars in great numbers. Sometimes this was because Mr. & Mrs. America were too dense to buy the really good stuff. But other times – it was the car.
