Captured this red Porsche 944 in the parking lot at the university the other day, and an older Toyota Supra wasn’t far apart. And I shot some others this past fall in this same parking lot, so I thought it would be worthwhile to share them all. For Michigan, there’s a surprising number of survivors.
This 944 sports its most common color paint. This was the Red Porsche era.
These more unusual cars usually show up from April to November while they are replaced by a huge sea of H-Body, W-Body, G-Body, Taurus and truck-related vehicles in the salt season. There are a few exceptions though, like the Saab 900 and that mysterious Scorpio.
This Mercury Grand Marquis has obviously been spared from the ravages of Michigan winters.
It even sports those nice turbine wheels.
The Aero-Tbird only makes very few appearance carrying a great amount of Bondo®, and the first time is in early September 2014. I guess the owner returned to the class happily with his summer project.
Another salt-survivor. These Volares and Aspens had rust issues with their front fenders within a couple of years of being new and had to be recalled. Wonder if these are original?
A very clean Caddy.
Betcha’ this luggage rack has never touched a piece of luggage.
Here’s that Saab 900. The fact that it gets year-round use is evident.
This mysterious Scorpio showed up earlier in summer with an Illinois plate, and it showed up again in February with a local Michigan plate.
The first appearance was on the end of parking lot usually reserved for new enrollment, the change of license plate most likely confirmed it. These cars have become very hard to find anymore.
The Ford Econoline is always near to the construction area, so I suspect if it belongs to one of the workers building a new university housing building.
The yellow Datsun Z, Saab 95 and the Fiat 124 Sport Spider appear to be infrequent visitors. Apart from this Z car, there are many more newer Z cars modified in different levels. ( a set of lime-green rims plus spoiler for example ) I am glad this one looks far more authentic than that.
The end of the line.
Perfect car to drive to school on a sunny day.
The New Yorker only makes brief appearance and it usually occurs on a nice day. It is most likely a survivor after some all-year round usage judged from a reasonable sized rust hole in one of the wheel wells, despite the generous undercoating. It’s not lonely though, because quite a handful of companions show up in the campus besides this 4-cylinder one: Dodge Dynasty, Chrysler Imperial, Chrysler Fifth Avenue just to name a few with more cylinders.
Those cars with manufacture plate are driven by students when they are employed by the corresponding companies, and they appear more often in the summer semester. ( Internship season )
This intern didn’t score as well as the one above.
And this very handsome 1934 Ford coupe was on display for a donation in late 2013. For those GM guys, there are still plenty of old Chevys in the campus and I will try to take few shots before their owners graduating.
There’s still plenty of hope for kids today, at least in a university with a parking lot like this.
Quite the collection. My jaw dropped when I saw the condition of that Aspen – unbelievable.
Oops, Volare. I’m ashamed of that mistake, as we had one.
It’s really common nowadays for people to call many past Plymouth models as Dodge, and it happens to Reliant, Voyager, TrailDuster too. And that car is mine ( but I didn’t add any notes myself as I don’t know where to start with ) The car now resides at my friend’s gravel yard as a backup, and he was asked by his neighbor about why he bought a Dodge Aspen.
The car was original, with minor rust on quarters and door legs. The car was in Arizona probably until ’92 or ’93 then driven for few years in Michigan until it was obviously too slow to follow the traffic ( around ’97 or ’98 ) The whole car is in a 99% properly working condition with the exception of map light below the glove box. I took it in a body shop to repair the quarters and door legs, and few coin-size spots on rocker panel but they decided to paint the whole car. ( probably they didn’t mind pouring more basic paint without clear coat ) Last weekend as a part of course project I patched the decades old undercoating myself with plenty of mess, but it just keeps looking the same through all that.
The photo was taken on the first day I bought it as a backup car. Notice the broken antenna, and brown spots on wheel wells.
It’s still in incredible shape. I’m still amazed. Most of these Volares and Aspens have broken grilles in addition to the usual rust. Got the Slant 6? It’ll probably run forever. Our ’77 Volare was a rustbucket by the time my sister got it in ’84, but we kept that car immaculate. It was as close to mint as any rustbucket got.
Broken grill, yes. The quality of ’70s plastic is rather miserable, and half of them on my volare breaks apart ( I’m glad they didn’t use too much plastic though. The blower switch fell into pieces and it was replaced by all metal one from later models, also true to radio buttons ) the previous owner used super glue probably decades ago to stick back the grill, and the other part of grill is breaking off. I used quite many iron wires and glue to hold them up though, and it’s barely visible in photos.
The Aspen always has been unbelievable.
+1
Excellent finds! Especially the Merkur Scorpio. I’ve only seen one in my life before, out in San Francisco, and unfortunately it was from a moving vehicle.
And the badge was somehow changed to Ford Oval on the front. I don’t see too many more Merkurs neither, and it’s almost as rare as those Eagle Premier/Dodge Monaco.
I rode once in my coworkers’ red 944. What amazed me was its visibility: you could see well in every direction despite its low profile. It puts some modern sedans to shame.
BTW, they were a classic elite Texas couple, with looks & drawl fit for the TV show “Dallas.”
Nice finds! that 34 Ford is stunning!
This is the first time I saw a new taurus with red signal lights in the back.
It’s a prototype. At a far glance, I was wondering why a detective special car was parked right in front of engineering building, but then I saw the manufacture plate.
Part of the police package for some odd reason.
Seeing that Scorpio makes me happy.
My school has Packard #2 in a glass box. They only take it out for parades and have only been doing that since it was built.
Wow–what a selection! The condition of many of those is stunning, especially the early Econoline van and the K New Yorker. That 944 has the flared fenders of the turbo model but is missing the badging–I think the “widebody” was an option on lesser 944’s as well. And a Scorpio…wow. Been ages since I saw one. Thanks for documenting this, and it does give me some hope for the younger generation.
Nope, just a stock 944. They all had the wide fenders. The turbo had a flush front nose and rear underbody spoiler as well. You may be thinking of the 924. The 924 turbo was a narrowbody like the 924 but the 924 Carerra GT had a widebody that became the inspiration for the 944 body.
Yes, that’s plenty of varieties. Apart from them, there is a ’70s Eldorado hanging around, and a ’70s Camaro painted just like in the movie Transformers, and an El Camino, and there are quite handful of Rivieras driven by young kids here ( in all conditions though ) and boxy B-Body still pops up with young owners too. For older men, there are handful of Fairmount and Fury around too. Anyway the variety of cars is pretty rich in Michigan.
I didn’t know there was a college in Southfield.
It’s on 10 Mile Rd and by Northwestern Hwy, but usually travelers may take I-696, US-24 or Northwestern Hwy and it’s hard to see from those roads.
Those gold glass towers do make a distinctive landmark.
I like the Mini, it sort of looks like a quarter scale ’60s Suburban.
Southfield is famous for those landmarks, most probably because it looks different and it’s by major freeway. On the other hand, not many people remember the American Tower which served as headquarter of AMC decades ago.
Mini is spotted in Ferndale, Mi.
I understand these were taken today but seem more like they could have been taken 10-15 years ago with so many old cars around. Even when I was in college, then, these were scarce.
The red Porsche, reminding one of nothing more than Jake Ryan’s ride in “Sixteen Candles” that 80s classic high school romance.
Love the old Grand Marquis, that was my grandfather’s last car. And that van is a thing of beauty.
Great pictures! You brightened a boring afternoon.
In Michigan, despite the extreme salt usage in winter, the number and percentage of older cars are still greater than most other states. In a summer day, sometimes 20+ ’80s Grand Marquis could pop up on the street from morning to night, along with endless Town Car with Windsor engines or boxy GM B-Body. In some areas, LeSabre remains the most common car in town. ( and it’s not Flint ) I can still occasionally see Chrysler R-Body and J-Body around even on freeway in some not so busy sections, and it’s simply not imaginable to most other people.
At one time I really wanted a Scorpio and made my goal harder to hit by adding in a manual transmission (which I understand was available in the U.S.). When I lived in Memphis in the 90s and 00s, there were still 2 or 3 Scorpios on the roads and a look at Craigslist in that area occasionally turns up an XR4ti…almost always with an automatic transmission.
Probably the only vehicle in this story I haven’t seen recently is the Econoline. Econolines from the 90s are “findable”, older ones are nearly impossible to find.
Lawrence Technological University, my alma mater, along with John DeLorean. I spent many a day and night there over the years.
Yes, it’s LTU. And indeed many days and nights.
RE: the Volare; the rust issues fell to the first year ’76s and maybe the ’77s; the one pictured is a much-improved ’78 or ’79 and by then, the bugs had been worked out and they had actually improved into good cars but their reputations had already been tarnished.
The Volare is rather a good older car for someone wants something older from the ’70s without sacrificing the economy ( especially MPG ) and still comes with necessary options ( AC, radios, power brake power steering ) Mine is a ’78 with amber taillights. I consider it the same mechanically as Plymouth Gran Fury only in a ’70s styling ( and many of them come with slant six so it’s more fuel efficient ) Lemon wise, I think the remaining ones are well-built enough to hang around this long, even though the fit and finish is still rather sloppy.
Thanks for the additional notes for some cars ( to a contributor adding descriptions on cars as Grand Marquis, Cougar and so )
That’s my 944! It’s a 1984 944 NA in India Red that I just bought late last year. I’m also an engineering student at LTU. I’d love to meet the person that spotted my car! 🙂
Here’s my car at Pasteiner’s Cars and Coffee this past weekend.
It’s very nice you are enjoying Pasteiner’s Cars and Coffee every Saturday morning! ( I either struggle too hard to wake up that early on Saturday, or I am in the remote Northern Michigan countryside stepped by cat paws to wake up ) I am thinking by summer my schedule will change for the weekends.
Your car is pretty nice and it’s easily recognizable in the campus. I think you can leave a note on my car if want to meet in person. ( or can I leave you a note? )
Hopefully, I can spot you sometime. But if I don’t, please leave a note on my car! You’ll almost always find my car parked somewhere in the same lot you took those pictures in. 🙂
The Econoline may be the most amazing vehicle featured. That’s a ’68-’74 model – in trade van form. A vehicle like this would normally have been used up by the early 1980’s. This must have sat in a warehouse unused for 40 years. Even the wiper blades appear to be the original bright metal style.
Probably among the older cars, original bright metal wiper blade frame is hard to keep, and by ’80s it was mostly replaced by black frame and people tend to replace them altogether. It took me one hour to get both rubber blades replaced on the volare, and usually for a similar year Diplomat, they are using black arms already most likely just to skip the hassle.
I shot a nice yellow Econoline that’s parked nearby recently. (I’m in SoCal, so it’s not particularly unusual.) I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I am thinking about a CC comparing it to some of the newer Euro based vans. What I notice most (besides the top-mounted headlights on the Dodge-Fiat vans) is the lack of tumblehome on the new vans. That and the size: the Econoline is probably closer to a Transit Connect than to the new full size vans.
There’s something seriously funky going on with that white Taurus, the taillights aren’t right, there’s a mysterious offset black circle on the trunk lid, and there’s something funky going on with those tail pipes. I’d be curious to know what’s going on under it’s skin.
I just found this page! I know most of these cars from my lot patrols.
I spotted this one today. Its either a visitors car or a freshman.
Bad quality but heres another pic of the Camaro
I WANT THE ECONOLINE!! I WANT THE ECONOLINE!!!. It’s beautiful.