Welcome to the second round of the tour. With a good number of Cadillacs this time, from the early fifties right up to the mid-eighties. The oldest vehicle on display dated back to 1924 and even a saint decided it was a perfect day to check out the event. Let’s roll, starting with a duo of Mopars.
1967 Chrysler Newport two-door hardtop.
1948 Chrysler Windsor four-door sedan.
1978 Chevrolet Impala station wagon.
1962 Studebaker Gran Turismo Hawk.
1952 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe deVille.
1964 Cadillac Coupe deVille.
1975 Ford Thunderbird, imported into the Netherlands as a new car. Almost certainly sold by Hessing De Bilt, a major importer of American cars back then.
1970 Mercury Marquis Colony Park, a monster of a station wagon.
Rough around the edges, quite literally, this 1985 Cadillac Seville.
1959 Pontiac Catalina.
1962 Cadillac Series 62 convertible.
1960 Buick LeSabre convertible.
1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V. Low-profile cruising is out of the question, with or without your hat on.
1971 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, another original Dutch survivor.
1950 Chrysler Windsor four-door sedan.
1957 Cadillac Series 62 four-door hardtop.
1974 Lincoln Continental Coupé. Better not mess with this creature, it doesn’t seem to be in an amiable mood.
1965 Chevrolet Impala.
Ah, there’s the saint! More specifically, a 1980 Dodge St. Regis four-door sedan. Or isn’t this what you expected?
1973 Ford F-100 Custom.
And now for something completely different, a 1962 Dodge Dart 330.
The true senior at the show, yet still going strong, this 1924 Ford Model T pickup truck.
1970 Chevrolet Monte Carlo.
Splendid, the Hessing De Bilt badge is still on the trunk lid. A 1975 Ford Granada with its first registration in the Netherlands.
From Belgium, a 1977-1979 Ford LTD II.
There’s a detail I overlooked when I took a picture of the Ford’s interior, but does anyone know when and where that CC Reunion is taking place?
1976 Chevrolet C10 Silverado.
1964 Cadillac DeVille convertible. According to the information I found, the Series 62 convertible promoted to the DeVille line in model year 1964.
1975 Ford Elite.
Simply majestuous, a 1933 Lincoln KB, powered by the mighty 448 c.i. L-Head V12. This must be the seven-passenger sedan with a factory body.
No delicious dinner without a dessert! I think I’ll leave it at that.
Johannes Dutch, I really like these submissions.
The ’59 Catalina has two items on the back shelf that were once ubiquitous in the USA but seem to have faded away:
1. Dog with bobbing head.
2. Tissue box
I haven’t seen either lately and assume the owner is displaying these as part of the environment in which cars like this were common.
These cars are wonderful memory joggers. The Dart330 and Plymouth cousins were wonderfully light and crisp driving cars compared to their much larger predecessors. The big black Goodyears with poverty caps on this 330 hint at a big block V8 but the 225 slant six was more common, especially in 4 door sedans. Some pooh-pooh the looks of these cars but I find them unrestrained and enthusiastic efforts in design.
Thank you for this post.
Thanks for pointing out those Catalina details, I never noticed!
Lovely bunch of cars. It’s too bad that 1985 Cadillac Seville has the gawd awful over-sized grille on it. I really like that tan Dodge St. Regis a lot.
But the curiosity I have is what’s the tan (Ford/Mercury??) 2 door sitting next to the silver 1975 T-bird? Can’t tell if it’s some form of Mustang or a Fairmont?
That car grabbed my attention too. It’s a 1979 Mustang notchback with the vinyl roof that didn’t last long on the options list. Fox-body Mustangs are such a quintessential ’80s (or early ’90s) car that it’s hard to remember now that when they were new in the autumn of 1978, disco still ruled the airwaves, huge broughams like the ’79 T-bird were still in new-car showrooms, and vinyl roofs were still very popular. The ’79 Mustang made every other Ford in the showroom look ancient (Pintos! LTD II’s!), Fairmont excepted. I can’t see whether the tan car has a rare “2.8” badge on the fender that denoted the Cologne V6 that was discontinued after the first few months of production. Same font as the much-better-known 5.0 badge.
It’s also visible in the article’s first picture. I zoomed in on my original photo and it definitely seems to have a pony on its grille. I’d say it’s a third gen Mustang.
Early Fox-body Mustang with perhaps a vinyl top that is changing the color of the top relative to the body with the exception of the little window louver thingies.
Thanks Jim and Johannes. Not sure why, but it intrigued me.
la673 is the winner, that reply was on hold for a while, now fixed.
Thanks Johannes. I just noticed that comment now and didn’t see it before. Thought maybe my eyes were going bad! haha.
Thanks ia673.
About 15% of my comments seem not to show up immediately. There was a notice here awhile back not to try posting it again, and that it’s the result of Akismet’s overzealous spam protection getting confused by something, and a forum moderator will remove it from the spam folder and post it soon if it’s real, just be patient. I’m not sure what I’m doing that’s confusing the software into thinking i’m a spammer.
Anyway, if you’re wondering how I know it’s a ’79 and not a similar-looking ’80 or ’81, it’s because of the subtly different trunk lid which doesn’t have a small built-in spoiler that was added in 1980. There’s a discussion about this with comparative pics here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1979-ford-mustang-a-fresh-start/ . There were a few easier-to-notice small differences on the inside too, like the inside door latches and lock buttons being in strange places.
I’m impressed that when I searched for “1979 mustang trunk lid”, Google Search also highlighted a thread with “boot” rather than “trunk” in it, just in case…
That is a perfect 65 Impala.
Biggest shock – the LTD II – just WHY?
Thanks for this outstanding collection of American pie Johannes. And all the trouble of supplying front and rear three-quarter views, in order. Some interesting paint colours, that weren’t too common during their original era. Like seeing that F-100 in canary yellow.
I recognized the St. Regis, from the owner’s YouTube channel. He has clips with dog dish hub covers, and a roof mounted rotating red light. And later videos with full period-correct Dodge wheel covers. You can tell, he loves his St. Regis. As he appears to own several other ’70s/’80s American classics/barges, as well.
Sometimes a fence, hedge or even a whole family (in relax/picknick mode) hinder a clear, rear three-quarter view 🙂
Consistently, very nice work. A true automotive connoisseur.
I notice the cowl vent is open in the ’50 Chrysler. Good to see that modern drivers still know how to use non-microchip features!
Amazing! As another non-American, looking at some of these cars, I found myself asking “Why?”. An American car, yes, I quite understand, but some of these choices I found more than a little odd – and that’s what makes the show all the more interesting. Heel erg bedankt, Johannes!
A stellar cross section of American cars, in both parts. I’d go to this show in a heartbeat. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Lots of cool cars there. I like all three Mopars for sure. I’m a fan of the 66-68 years. The Studebaker is interesting as there is a fairly nice 54 Champion Deluxe Starlight for sale near me falt head six and all. The St. Regis catches my attention because, one, I saw a 86 Dodge Lancer Turbo for sale in great condition and, two, who imports a St.Regis or any K car variant? Then the 74 Lincoln reminds me of the beautiful 73… oh never mind CAS is starting to set in and I better be careful.
Oh, so much here – almost every one of these is really, really interesting. Random thoughts:
The GT Hawk is a 4 speed. But I think I agree with Brooks Stevens that the roof painted a contrasting color (as was the style then) does the car no favors, which is why that option was never offered.
I still love the 74 Lincoln – it is the last of the really elegantly styled big Lincolns (please ignore the bumpers) before the baroque-ification took hold in 1975.
I never liked that orangy-tan interior Ford was offering in the late 70s, but always appreciated the way they located the window crank up high on the door so that you didn’t need to lean way down to operate the window as was the case with the GM cars.
The 1974 Lincoln was one of my favorites. It’s enormous for sure, but the dimensions and its whole stance are spot on. The wheels are not tucked away, like on the Thunderbird/Mark V.
That LTD II interior is kind of luminous…
Lot of great cars at the show! Thanks for sharing. I particularly enjoyed the ’52, ’57 and ’71 Caddies.
The 2 that stood out for me were the ’50 Chrysler Windsor 4 door and the LTDII.
The former because my Mother learned to drive on a new ’51 Windsor that my Grandfather bought with semiautomatic (my Mom still prefers a full automatic, has never been comfortable with a manual, though she did stop driving last year). I think she might have taught my Grandfather after learning at a driving school. My Uncle inherited it after my Grandfather passed in 1966, driving it through his undergraduate days, it almost made it all the way but had a bad head gasket that my Uncle had no time for such that he junked the car and bought a new ’69 LTD 4 door hardtop as he was within weeks of graduating.
The LTDII was probably the most common rental from our Hertz location where I worked as a transported in ’77 and ’78 (prime years for the II). Back then Hertz seemed to specialize in Fords, and the large ones were still pretty popular, despite fairly recent fuel shortages at that time. I think the first trip I made was up to Dorval airport in Montreal which was a pretty common trip it turned out…it was only about 90 miles from our location. Another was Harold’s Gulf in Montpelier…I tried to find it recently on Google street view and it was odd timing, going down 1 street the building was closed but still there, and the view on the next street (it was on a corner) showed the building missing. I has been over 40 years since I lived in Vermont, don’t know what I expected, since it is going on 45 since I was last at Harold’s but it’s gone now. Many of the places we picked up cars were small service stations (like out in Lake Placid a few years before the ’80 Olympics, didn’t realize how small the place was) such that we spent a fair amount of time (pre-GPS of course) just trying to locate small service stations that also served as car pickup/dropoff points in smaller towns.