CC has told the Nissan Exa’s story before; here it is again from the JDM perspective – it was pretty different in Japan, and not just because the steering wheel was on the other side. In October 1986, Nissan launched the Pulsar-based Exa at the Tokyo Motor Show and the crowd went “Ooooh! What a cool concept! A coupé that could be turned into a shooting brake and a convertible? Where do we sign?”
GM’s Detroit Diesel division’s legendary “Jimmy” two-cycle diesels were a genuine game changer in the transition to diesel engine adoption in trucks and buses starting in 1938-1939. They were powerful and durable, but also expensive. In the early sixties, the GMC Truck and Coach Division released a completely unrelated line of lower-cost diesels, four-stroke engines based on their new 60 degree V6 gas engine. It was called the Toro-Flow, and although it had a lot of promise and hype, it largely failed to live up to its expectations. There’s still huge numbers of DD “Jimmys” in service today; good luck finding a running Toro-Flow anywhere.
Well, I have, and there’s some video if it further down. Before we get to that, let’s take a deep dive in the history, technology and the limitations of the not-so-legendary GMC Toro-Flow.
1950 Nash Rambler Custom Station Wagon in Champagne Ivory / Volo Auto Sales
This little wagon is 75 years old today: Nash introduced its compact Rambler Custom Station Wagon on June 23, 1950, advertising the well-equipped, upscale subcompact wagon as “practical as a clothespin—sophisticated as a diamond clip.” Although the Nash Rambler story is a familiar one, in honor of its birthday, let’s take a closer look at a rare early survivor.
For what was once the best selling car in the land, the first generation Taurus has become mighty scarce. Apparently, these are not turning out to be long-lived even here in Curbsidelandia, unlike all of the Mercedes W123 and 124s around, never mind all the old Volvos and Toyotas. This one brings back vivid memories, as it’s exactly like the one my dad bought, the only car he ever bought based on my recommendation. Which means it was by far the nicest car he ever had. Read the rest of this entry »
This is why I live in Eugene: So that I can run into an ancient VW Transporter with a heavy load of wood at the lumberyard, just a half-dozen parking spaces over from the 1986 Caprice Brougham del’Patina. No wonder I look forward to picking up supplies while Alec stays behind and does the heavy lifting. Both of these vehicles are poster-children for the essence of CC: old original cars and trucks dripping with patina and still earning their keep. And why exactly do I have such powerful feelings for them? Read the rest of this entry »
An abundant Volvo meal was served on September 28 and 29, 2024, at the Autotron event center in the Netherlands. Most of the ingredients will speak for themselves. Smaklig måltid!
Text by Patrick Bell.
We have some more in transit images today, with interesting cars and a closer look at some of the transport equipment and methods. Nearly all American makes are represented, so enjoy this look back in time.
Although CC is doing as well as it ever has, setting a new record last year with over 12 million pageviews, our current success does feel somewhat fragile. I’m not paranoid, but there are some serious threats out there, and not just to CC. The web is evolving and not in a good way, and it may soon get much worse.
The two image examples above are representative of the two main threats: garbage sites that optimize their headlines so as to appear catchy (“Click bait”) on Google Discover and drown out legitimate sites like CC and Google’s new AI Mode, which threatens to destroy the vital search links that millions of web sites depend on for traffic.
1940 Oldsmobile Series 90 Custom Cruiser touring sedan with Hydra-Matic / Barrett-Jackson
Although Hydra-Matic Drive was developed and manufactured by General Motors, GM’s Detroit Transmission Division also sold Hydra-Matic transmissions to outside automakers, including most of the U.S. independents and even Lincoln. Here’s a rundown of the many users of the early Hydra-Matic.
(first posted 4/21/2013) Zing! That word encapsulates the RX-7. The only vocabulary the little coffee-can rotary had was zing! (snick) zing! (snick) and zing again! Sooner rather than later, it zinged you for a couple of Gs when its rotor seals gave up the zing! But that didn’t come as a surprise, and it never zinged you for anything else. That is, unless you got a little too frisky in certain corners, and the live rear axle might toss you a nasty little over-zing. As long as you could live on a torque-free diet, the RX-7 was one of the best friends an enthusiast driver could hope for in its day. And there are still loyal devotees of Zing-Buddhism today. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s Cohort find by Roshake has been featured before at CC. So, “still looking good” is being used in a very deliberate form in the title, as this 1990 Buick Skylark doesn’t look a day older than when previously captured in 2021. Someone in Budapest does love this N-body Buick.
Why did folks buy black cars in the pre-air conditioning era? Surely they must have understood the basic physics involved as to how much hotter a black car gets than one in a lighter color. This potential torture chamber reminds me all too much of our black 1962 Fairlane, which in 1965 was finally confiscated by the Iowa Child Protective Services, thus forcing my father to buy a sand-colored ’65 Coronet. Did folks really like torturing themselves that much? Read the rest of this entry »
Text submitted by Steve Walton.
I bought a 1986 Volkswagen Cabriolet new and still own it. Here’s my story.
Between 1945 and 1947, Chevrolet developed an advanced postwar compact called the Cadet. Originally intended as a “light car” that would sell for less than $1,000, it quickly evolved into one of the most ambitious and sophisticated U.S. car designs of the postwar period — only to be canceled in 1947, before more than a handful of prototypes had been built. Here is the complete history of the Cadet as presented by Karl Ludvigsen in Special Interest Autos magazine in 1974, supplemented with additional technical illustrations from lead design engineer Earle MacPherson’s March 1947 patent filing.
(first posted 6/5/2013) Superlatives make great headlines; backing them up is another story. But is it even necessary, in the case of the W124? What other car designed thirty thirty-five years ago still looks so fresh and contemporary? And whose all-round capabilities even come close? And whose obvious influence on just about every modern car is so widespread? Need I go on? It’s not really necessary, but maybe there’s a few doubters…
