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122

Curbside Classic: 1968 AMC Ambassador SST – When Borrowing Is A Deadly Sin

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(first posted 4/30/2014) Automakers have always been happy to borrow ideas from their competitors and proudly claim them as their own.  It’s a trick even the proudest of parents have pulled when conceiving a new model, and one which has given birth to a Deadly Sin on more than one occasion.  AMC, whose struggle has been well documented on Curbside Classic, found itself an unenviable position after the departure of its inimitable chairman, George Romney, who made hay by poking fun at the “dinosaurs in the driveway” produced by the Big Three, and exhorting the industry to make smaller cars.

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Junkyard Classic: 1993 Eagle Summit DL Wagon – Soaring No More

(first posted 10/16/2018)        This week, while looking in a local junkyard for a part for my newest COAL (yes, you knew it had to happen sooner or…uh, ok, sooner), I came across this often forgotten sibling of the Mitsubishi Expo LRV.  You can be forgiven if you forgot about the Mitsubishi as well as they didn’t have a hugely successful career on the sales floor either.  This particular one is a 1993, they were offered in the US between 1992 and 1996.

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Vintage Dealers: A Rambler-Hillman Dealer In The Early ’60s

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Curbside Classic: 1969 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Sport Coupe – Work In Progress?

It’s Patina Week in the Land of the Rising Sun, and of course, the Detroit representative wears a rusty bowtie. Chevrolet is the number one American marque here, after all. I did write a post a while back grouping a half-dozen customized Chevies – this one did not make the cut, as it’s not really heavily modded. It’s just well-worn. Or undergoing some work.

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16

CC In Scale: Off To The Races!

Ferrari 275P

Racing cars have never been a major interest of mine. I have trouble coping with loud noises, and racing cars do tend to be noisy, of course. This made negotiating my teenage years unusually challenging; after a while I stopped going to the movies, and my musical tastes veered toward quieter styles. A few friends who understood stuck with me. And I never went to the races. Quite frankly, it simply never occurred to me as something I might do.

I do like seeing cars moving fast and being handled skillfully though, which means that though I’ve never been trackside for a race, many times over the years I’ve watched them on TV. The last few years have seen me building one while Bathurst is on, and just looking up to catch the replays. So not much of a motorsport fan either, I guess.

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23

Curbside Classic: 1975 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow – Stuck In The In-Between

In December of 2011, I came across this car, one of my most momentous Curbside Classic finds up to that time.  I can remember when Silver Shadows were sometimes seen on television, and (rarely) in my midwestern version of IRL (what my kids used to say instead of saying “in real life”).  By 2011, you almost never saw a Silver Shadow either on or off screen.  So, you can imagine my excitement, as a guy relatively new to the constant hunt for CC material, at finding this genuine CC-quality Roller.

And then the problems started.

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Vintage Road Test: Car & Driver Tests The New 1964 Rambler American, Rather Unhappily

Rambler American 1964 C&D 001 crop

(first posted 1/22/2014)    A not uncommon accusation around these parts is that folks who haven’t driven a certain car have no right to write articles or comment on them. There’s some validity in that, but then owners of certain cars are all-too often lacking in any objectivity too, especially when it comes to their beloved older cars. Of course, the criticism can go the other way too.

I happen to have an intrinsic soft spot for Ramblers, but don’t have a lot of seat time in them. Whereas the earlier Ramblers from the late 50s were generally considered to be decent to good handling cars compared to the wallowing Big Three cars of the times, by the mid sixties, they were generally being left behind. The few I have driven from that era felt clumsy, with very slow steering and general dullness. Were my perceptions colored by Rambler’s frumpy image? When I stumbled upon this old Road Test from my April 1964 Car and Driver, it gave me a reality check: Apparently not. Read the rest of this entry »

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Curbside Classic: 1963 Studebaker Champ Long Bed Pickup – I’m a Chump for This Champ

(first posted 10/16/2018)          Life is full of unexpected twists and turns. I’ve had my fun with the Champ, suggesting one of the stepside versions be turned into a horse-drawn wagon, and calling another one out for “The Most Ill-Fitting Bed Ever”.  But that second one was from the Cohort, and it had the short 6.5′ bed. Then this summer I found myself walking around a neighborhood in Portland one evening, and I stumbled into this Champ with the 8′ bed. And a light went on! This is a Studebaker I could really use, and even want. I have a thing about big, wide 8′ beds but short, compact front ends, even if the combination ends up looking a bit unbalanced. But so am I.

So is this the most compact 8′ bed wideside bed pickup ever? Read the rest of this entry »

15

Vintage Snapshots: Driving And Sightseeing In The ’50s-’60s

For today, a few random images captured by travelers of the past as they crisscrossed North America. As is often the case with these online-sourced images, no dates or locations were given. Of course, that’s part of the fun; dates can be inferred through cars and fashion. Locations; some are more than obvious, while some will be slowly guessed and revealed in the comments section.

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Vintage R&T Feature: Development And Evolution Of The Mustang, 1960-1973 – Ford’s Response To The Corvair Monza Showed Its Falcon Chassis Roots But Was Highly Successful

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the origins of the Mustang and evolution through 1973, but this R&T feature encapsulates very concisely, especially its origins as a response to the surprise success of the Corvair Monza. That caught Detroit off guard,  and Lee Iacocca in particular. No wonder he disdained the Falcon; it cannibalized sales from the big Ford whereas the Monza brought in a flood of new buyers into Chevy showrooms. He wanted in on that action, desperately so.

So a group of Ford Execs started informal meetings at the Fairlane Inn Motel and set out to remake Ford’s dowdy image, starting with bucket seats in the Falcon and then semi-fastback rooflines on several models. But those were just the warmup act; the grand finale would be the Mustang. And it succeeded way beyond anyone’s expectations; in sales that is. R&T was a bit disappointed about its rather flaccid standard suspension and slow steering. But that was just fine with 90+% of Mustang buyers; it was the looks and image that counted most of all. And a bit of straight line performance from a V8 under the long hood was icing on the cake.

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Curbside Classic: 1963 Volkswagen Karmann-Ghia – Patina Overachiever

The lure of the mythical barn find is strong, no matter where you are. Every car nut has a dream of unearthing something old and valuable sleeping under a tarp, retrieving it from a cobweb-filled garage, fixing it up just enough that it can go back on the road and keeping it “as is,” preserved forever in its originality.

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13

My ’68 Opel Kadett & ’72 Chevelle, Plus Others – A Tale Of Too Many Cars

’67-’70 Opel Kadett, image from the Cohort by Hannes.

 

Text submitted by Harry Case. 

The only drawback to my Chevy van was its consistent 12mpg thirst. The only cure was to park it and find a more economical commuter vehicle.

The winter of ‘77 was truly brutal and as the snow melted in the spring, a ‘68 Opel Kadett (B) appeared in the parking lot of my apartment complex, apparently after hibernating all winter. When I went door to door to inquire about it, my neighbor told me he parked it because the brakes were bad and he didn’t want to mess with it. I offered him $50 and it was mine. My baby sister named it “Oliver” because she thought it was both cute and a rattletrap –after all, to us it was basically a tin can.

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Curbside Classic: 1957 Rambler Super- The Rambler of Many Firsts

57-Rambler-Super

(first posted 1/22/2014)     Sitting in a San Pedro Service Station parking lot, this little car looks somewhat unremarkable. Despite that, this 1957 Rambler Super V-8 marks the beginning of a very successful venture for American Motors.

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CC Capsule: 2008-14 Lancia Delta – The Chrysler That Never Was (Except In The UK & Ireland)

(first posted 10/14/2018)         At the 2010 North American International Auto Show, just six months or so after Fiat initially bought into post-Chapter 11 Chrysler, a lone Lancia Delta sat on display in Cobo Hall wearing Chrysler badges and a Chrysler grille. There was no press release or press conference. The rebadged Delta didn’t even get a proper name: officially it was simply called the Chrysler Design Study. And indeed it was just a design study, perhaps never intended for sale as a Chrysler in the US and merely a way of showcasing the American automaker’s new Italian ties. It did, however, become a Chrysler elsewhere. Read the rest of this entry »

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Curbside Find: 1967 Chevrolet Impala – Fastback By The Roadside

Photo from the Cohort by Ralf K. 

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