I stumbled into this ad from 1961 and just had to share it with you. The continental spare mount is bad enough ($29.95), but it’s also available with a trailer hitch ($39.95) so that your 42.5 hp 948 cc powered Sprite can haul your boat or Airstream. I’d love to see it pulling the boat up the typical steep boat ramp. Do I smell a smoked clutch?
Doesn’t that lovely line of Volvo 140 butts make you want to say “Man, I remember when cars came in so many different colors!”? That’s been my comment on that scene ever since I took the photo earlier this fall. I mean, look at that! Two kinds of blue, two kinds of yellow (is Butterscotch yellow?), and a deep green. Those were the days, eh?
Nissan’s former reputation for sportiness, dating back to its days peddling Datsuns, is all but gone today. The Maxima died in 2023, but the manufacturer still maintains a well-rounded lineup of sedans with the Versa, Sentra, and Altima, albeit with most traces of sportiness removed.
Now the top dog by default, the current Altima took over from the Stanza as Nissan’s mid-sized model back in 1993. If the state of 5-year-old Altimas around me is any indication, this segment of cars tends to get ridden hard and put away wet by many of its owners. Without the reputation or resale value of, say a Toyota or Honda, to stave off repair bills equaling the value of the car, a mainstream Nissan sedan showing up in a junkyard in such excellent condition 37 years after it rolled off the assembly line is genuinely remarkable.
Photos from the Cohort by Slant Six.
In recent years, I’ve developed a habit of checking on old rock bands to see what they’re up to, especially those I never cared much for and yet were awfully popular. This often occurs after listening to playlists with my wife.
Hey… what happened to those guys?
And more often than not, I’m always surprised when they’re still around. Not only touring but with a bunch of releases I never heard of. Not that I’m gonna check out their new tracks (or old ones), but I always find it nice to see how there’s a space in this world obsessed with newness for an old act playing to an established crowd.
(first posted 11/13/2018) I’ve been perusing another trove of vintage snapshots, and these two, presumably shot on the same day, rather grabbed me. It took me a couple of minutes to identify this splendid superliner, as initially I thought it was the Queen Elizabeth. It’s the SS France, which was launched in 1961, and was the pride of its country. But like all of these liners, it fell on hard times and she was laid up in 1974, and sold Norwegian Cruise Lines, and renamed the Norway. After a long career as a cruise ship, she was sold and resold, with the designs for either refitting or scrapping, but the liner was laid up eventually over environmental concerns. She was finally scrapped in 2008.
And how long did this 1960 Plymouth survive?
(first posted 3/23/2013) Ford may have been first to the intermediate dance (among the Big Three, anyway), but GM came fashionably late and better dressed. Styling, they say, sells cars, and GM’s mouthwateringly crisp, taut lines across its new 1964 A-body line suddenly made Ford’s fast-selling Fairlane look frumpy. Annual freshenings of the 1962 body did no good, and a 1966 restyle helped only a little. So Ford tried again for 1968, presenting this fresh, clean result.
(first posted 11/13/2018) It’s been a little while since I did one of these. Click the links for Parts One, Two, Three, and Four.
Obscure rebadges can result from many different scenarios. Sometimes an automaker needs to fill a hole in their line-up and they don’t have a suitable in-house product. Sometimes a rebadge is the result of a misguided joint venture. Other times, corporate acquisitions give automakers access to product that’s worth keeping around. Today, let’s look at four examples of how these scenarios led to obscure rebadges. Read the rest of this entry »
Whether it’s obscure ancient European racers or one of the myriad JDM sub-models I’ve never seen or heard of before in my life, CC hunting in Tokyo never fails to surprise and, occasionally, delight. Piggy-in-the-middle here, however, has me well and truly stumped.
One of my favourite regular CC posts is Tatra-san’s random monthly sightings where he shows us vehicles many of us have never heard of. With that in mind, let’s turn to some Japanese oddities, such as cars you may not be familiar with. No Skylines this time; even if they are my favourites, they’ve had their day. As always, there are more out there; these are just the ones that have taken my fancy.
1984 Escort wagon photo from the web.
The new Escort was perfectly sized for our growing family and the upright seating position was a vast improvement over our old Pinto. The 1.6L four-cylinder front wheel drive experience was a new one for me. The Escort was much better in the snow than any car I had ever driven –I had even high-centered the Pinto on the drifts in poorly plowed roads more than once, its low ground clearance and light weight over the rear wheels proved unsuited to Upstate NY winter roads.
Initially, we were very pleased with the Escort, it was more comfortable overall and Barbara drove it with the two children. That is until the driver’s seat collapsed when a bolt holding the seat to the frame sheared off unexpectedly while she was driving on the interstate. It was a terrifying experience for her.
(first posted 3/26/2013) There are about 250 million cars on the streets across the United States. Most have not reached Curbside Classic Status, and those that have are often “common” classics such as an SS Chevy or Mustang. In addition, the ravages of rust and time have driven car after car into the jaws of the recycling center. Because of this, our roads are littered with the popular, the common, and the new. Despite this challenge, each of us searches for their own Curbside Classic Holy Grail. It may be a very rare car, an unusual body style, or a car we remember from our youth. My personal Holy Grail is the Toyota Carina. Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 12/19/2011) Ah, the 1970’s. It was the Big decade, a time for big houses, big hair, big families, and big cars!
Despite this being the Malaise Era, status seekers still knew what they liked. Show the world you have arrived with a Fleetwood. Keep up with the Jones’ by buying a Cutlass.
But according to stories I have heard, if you were the owner of a Steak House, or a Car Wash, you drove one of these.
The Lincoln Continental Mark IV. Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 11/12/2018) There are some old cars you won’t be surprised to see still on the roads two or three decades later. Camrys and Corollas, for example. Old pickup trucks. Exotics. Conservative sedans favored by the elderly. One type of car you definitely don’t expect to see is a 1980s hot hatch like this Ford Escort XR3i. Read the rest of this entry »
