(Updated 11/2/2026) The Carina was a somewhat curious addition to Toyota’s lineup in 1972, as it squeezed into the rather modest-sized gap between the smaller Corolla and larger Corona. Presumably not a lot of folks in the US thought that gap needed filling, and the Carina was a relatively modest seller, and only offered here for three model years (1972-1974).
The Metropole Druten car and truck museum in the Netherlands is the only museum within walking distance of my place. How convenient! Late October, some owners of old and not so old heavy trucks and tractors showcased their classic vehicle in the yard next to the main building. The weather was far from nice, but as they say, you can’t have it all.
Let’s do the ‘Ten favourite kits’ theme again, but this time we’ll look at kits of fifties cars. We all like the fifties, don’t we?
It’s impractical and expensive to buy everything you want, such as a 1977 Buick LeSabre, especially if it’s only because your grandpa owned one and drove you to elementary school in it after making you breakfast and introducing you to coffee. When you were eight. (I still remember the jitters today, and I still have the habit.) Regardless, I’d like to sit in this similar LeSabre Custom Coupe just to smell the interior and bring back those mid-1980s memories of my dear, long-departed grandfather, who sang silly songs for the entire ride. If you’d like to actually buy the car, it’s posted on eBay at Druk Auto Sales in Ramsey, Minnesota, with a reasonable asking price of $8,980.
It took a little while, but we got there in the end. Back in 2019, a few months after having landed in this country, I encountered my first S50 Skyline – a late-model 4-cyl. car, which was all sorts of lovely. A couple years later, I found a 2000 GT (i.e. with the 2-litre six), but that was the tame “A” version. Finally, a grand red-carpeted welcome for the Prince of Princes, the true icon and racetrack star of the mid-‘60s, the Skyline 2000 GT-B.
(Updated 11/1/2026) There was a sad and dark time in the 1980s when the world was shrinking, and the big American sedan was forced to shrink with it. The conventional wisdom was that the only way the traditional sedan would survive would be to reduce to 60 percent of its former self, but in a way that left the proportions of the traditional car largely intact. DeVilles, Park Avenues and Ninety Eights held their breath, tightened their belts and switched their drive wheels, but lived to cater to their graying customers another day (or decade).
(Updated 11/1/2026) Sometimes the best press cars are the ones you never asked for. I originally requested a Land Rover Discovery for a 500-mile family-moving expedition, but the press-car gods had other plans. Instead, I ended up with a 2001 Volvo V70 T5, a nearly $43,000 turbocharged luxury wagon that turned out to be a rather excellent substitute—and a reminder of why Volvo knew a thing or two about building station wagons. Read the rest of this entry »
If there’s one conversation from my college days in the early 1990s that I still vividly remember, it’s one I had with my classmate Michelle. “Have you seen all those teal new cars that are around? Boy, talk about a color that’s going to feel soooo 1990s!” Yep, Michelle, you certainly called that one!
Now, thanks to a bunch of junkyard finds uploaded to the Cohort by canadiancatgreen, we can continue our 1990s automotive tour from last week, this time devoting the whole gallery to that very ’90s thing called teal. Or tealish, in the case of a few of these cars. You know, just to keep things fun.
Just about everywhere, there are old roads that have fallen into disuse or lost their relevance as newer, more efficient routes came along. No blame there; we all like getting to our destinations a little faster. But whenever I come across one of these old roads, something of a time traveler awakens in me. Somewhere in the back of my mind (and sometimes not so far back), I start wondering what that road meant in its day, the places it connected, and the journeys that once took place along it. Roads are more than just ways of getting from one place to another. They’re a means of connection, and forgotten roads often tell the story of places that were once important, and of communities and gathering spots that may have since faded from view.
There are still places on the California coast where one is not surprised to find something like this: a 1964 Buick Electra 4-door hardtop with its roof hacked off pulling a vintage travel trailer. The beach has always attracted those that didn’t readily fit in, and it used to be easy to live cheaply on the California coast. The challenge is to keep that lifestyle going in the 21st century; some manage it in a variety of ways. And a few even do it in style, but then a certain style or panache seems to come rather easily with this crowd; an old VW bus is always in high style. As is this Electra and its trailer; one might almost think it was there for a photo shoot for a hip clothing chain or such.
But a closer look in its interior rather suggests this is the real thing; someone’s living the genuine beach bum lifestyle.
New year. New car. Same me. January 2014 in Portland, Oregon.
Sometimes you see a new car come out and immediately think, “I want it!”
Then you see the sticker price. “I’m not going to get it.”
But after depreciation kicks in, you learn you can turn “I want it” into “I got it.”
Sometimes, a dream car is merely a dream deferred.
(Updated 10/31/2026) Only one picture exists of this find by canadiancatgreen, but luckily it’s of its more visually interesting posterior aspect, showing off both its roll-down opera window and hockey stick taillights. No, it’s certainly not a beautiful car, but as an example of one of Mazda’s most legendary nameplates, it deserves some attention (though its preservation seems completely accidental).
(Updated 10/31/2026) Where have all the old hearses gone? There was a time when these body haulers were a common alternative to the VW bus (conveniently displayed in the back) if you wanted to hit the road as a group, or just collect a group as you rolled along. Plenty of stretch-out room, and gas was cheap. Throw some mattresses in the back, and scrounge some cans of left-over paint to redecorate the outside. Go somewhere, do something. Riding around in a hearse was a perfect way to express one’s youthful immortality. Have kids stopped being immortal? Read the rest of this entry »
There aren’t many cars that can compete with a Beetle when it comes to fun displays. A pumpkin-themed Halloween getup? Well, naturally, it suits the model just fine, particularly when it’s a Super Beetle with its more bulbous nose. This one is clearly ready for some Halloween fun, along with a little after-hours partying and surfing, judging by the other items on its roof rack.
Text by Patrick Bell.
Our feature today is a gallery of vintage experiences that for the most part were not fondly remembered, but were part of our lives nonetheless. Thankfully, technology has largely eliminated this type of “fun” in our daily lives. If you lived during these times you will instantly recognize many of these activities, so let’s hit the road and see what kind of trouble we can find.
