Perhaps this question is a bit unusual but follow me on this.
Last week there was a CC about a Dodge Dynasty I found several years ago in the town of Hannibal, Missouri. But the day I found that Dynasty I also found two Imperials of the same vintage.
Hannibal is a town of only 17,000 people so the automotive population isn’t going to be tremendous. But what is the likelihood of finding two quarter-century year old cars of the same model, a model that didn’t sell overly well when new?
Or is it the town? When I lived there I knew of three Cadillac Allantes and would see them regularly around town.
So do cars have some cosmic magnetic force that causes them to appear in clusters? Or is it simply happenstance? Or might it be the local preferences?
Random factoid: the wheels on the Imperial up top are not steelies as they might appear but actually alloy wheels, and they are fantastically light. The reason I know this is I’m trying to hunt down a set for our circle track Neon.
Never knew this! What other cars used them besides the Imperial?
The sister Fifth Avenue of the same era. And they were optional, IIRC you can find them with steel wheels too. Those are the only ones I know of, and I have absolutely NO idea why they’d put really light wheels (that are more expensive to manufacture of course) on a heavy luxury car, perhaps in efforts to absolutely minimize unsprung weight to make the ride as smooth as possible? That’s the only theory that makes sense in my head. The OEM steel wheels are about 16.5lb a corner, these alloys at 12.4lb from what I’ve read on Neon forums.
So did those alloy wheels also have wire wheel covers attached to them?
Yeah they had covers on them from the factory.
CAFE is the more likely reason for the light wheels. Part of the settings on the dyno are based on the weight of the vehicle and they are done in increments, so every ounce counts when you want to fight in a lower weight class. Make them standard on the base model, then tie the steel wheels to one an option package or 3 so most of the cars go out the door with the cheaper wheels but enough do with the lighter ones so they can be used as part of the “base vehicle” curb weight.
I chalk it up to a variation of the CC Effect.
In the junkyard this is definitely a thing, there are a surprising amount of “pairs”. I at first considered if perhaps the workers were grouping them during prep but then figured that they probably came in that way together, ie a “runner” and a “parts car”. Although by the time they get there they are generally both parts cars or worse. Late ‘70s Subaru Brats and a couple of 50’s Buick’s are the most recent examples I can think of…
My two favorites cities in Missouri for carspotting are Hannibal and Lebanon. Last month, we drove through Missouri, and these towns came through for me… but in a surprising way. Each produced a 1980s Nissan sports coupe… not quite the vehicle I’d expect in either place.
In Hannibal, I found a 1985 300ZX and in Lebanon a 1981 200SX. How odd.
To make it a trifecta, yesterday (and back in Virginia) I saw an ’84 200SX notchback, which may be the rarest of the bunch.
Hannibal and Lebanon are both great for this and both are around 17,000 in population. I just found that same baby blue 200SX. Only got one picture of it, and from a distance.
I got one close-up picture of it… if I remember correctly, it had wire wheel covers from an early ‘80s Thunderbird. At that time, it was parked at King Cash Saver on Jefferson Ave. My guess is that it was parked there when you saw it too.
The corner of 5/Jefferson and 32 West? That’s where it was.
Yes, that’s it!
I haven’t come across this – old cars are rare where I live, and they appear one at a time. These are an exception though – there seems to be a much higher than average survival rate for Dynastys, New Yorkers/Fifth Avenues, and Imperials of this vintage. I chalk it up to the older, wealthier people who tended to buy them new and more likely to pamper them, combined with very common, still-available parts that were shared amongst so many other cars. That and that they’re very pleasant cars to drive and ride in IMO.
Really cool wheels on the first car. Don’t recall ever seeing these wheels before. These Imperials sort of remind me of the 1958 Packard from an earlier article. Not a traditional Imperial. Really nice K-derivatives though.
Interesting correlation with smaller cities. I’d speculate that cities like Hannibal are made up of ‘stayers’, the people who weren’t seduced by the flash and bubble of Broadway or LA. Among stayers, neighborhoods and families develop car preferences. Grandpa liked Fords, so I like Fords. Joe next door is really happy with his Imperial, so I’m inclined to get an Imperial.
I wonder if it might be relate do there being more limited options in small towns, too. Like Smallville, USA has a Chrysler dealership and a Ford dealership, and for anything else you have to travel 50 miles to the Big City. So most people drive Chryslers or Fords. And the well to do residents of Smallville bought Imperials, because that was the nicest car you could get in town.
Our residential close has 18 houses, and at one point had 5 MX-5s of various colours and ages and 2 Giuliettas. So, maybe something’s happening?
Jason, I do believe in the “clusters” thing–maybe easiest to catch in smaller towns. Confluence of devoted local owners, higher initial sales popularity, perhaps a beloved and long-established local dealer, and so on.
I wish there was a way to pull up registration statistics by vehicle; then one of us could do an amusing CC: “How many Buick Fifth Avenues registered to Fifth Avenue addresses?” “How many Durangos in Durango, CO?” You get the idea…
it’s not random at all, trust me.
I used to live in Fort Lauderdale FL, and there was like eight or nine Chevrolet Apaches that were always around at the same time. Was pretty cool to look at.
I have noticed the same effect but I rack it up to just becoming more conscious of that style/model of vehicle.
Case in point. I like to think I’m fairly well versed in cars but when I bought my 3.5rl Acura last fall I had to go look it up as I’d never heard of one. The city I live in is about 80,000+ and I’d seen more Acuras than I could count of all other models.
Since getting mine I’ve met two other 3.5rl owners, both of whom have lived in town and owned their cars longer than me.
I’d have bet my pink slip those cars didn’t exist before last September when I got mine.
Parked next to another third-generation Acura TL in the same color as mine yesterday and thought of this.
Today, I saw three 1989-1993 Cadillac Devilles (two ratty sedans and one nice-looking Coupe) within a mile of each other in Erie, PA.
Saw three final-generation Ford Thunderbirds within half an hour today, also in Erie.
Saw around 20-30 GMC Sonomas on a drive across town.
I mean, I knew Park City was small, but wtf
My condominium that I bought new in 1991 was one of 8 units in that building. The 2 units at the east end of my building were both occupied by middle aged men; one who drove a 1989 Chrysler New Yorker recently inherited from his mother, and the other drove a 1990 Dodge Dynasty. I don’t think there were any other similar Chrysler products in the entire complex. So yes, maybe these Chryslers, at least, do seem to travel in clusters.
In the late 80’s, fellow tenants (the parents of the landlord) had a Dynasty the same color as the Imperial. I found it rather attractive. I still kinda like them.
My personal opinion is that a cluster of similar old cars indicates the presence of ‘The Guy’.
That is; with all these old cars, there is usually one guy in any geographic zone who truly understands a particular make and model, but he is the (name of rare car here) Whisperer and can fix anything at a reasonable price. A sort of Galapagos island situation develops where cars that would be junked in any other environment stay alive.
I still think it has a lot to do with the “CC Effect”, aka seeing a car and having it on your mind, therefore having a higher probability of noticing other examples of it in a short period of time after.
Yup, I was going to say the same thing. Confirmation bias.
For example, I saw a first-gen SLK by the curbside recently and photographed it. Now I keep seeing red SLKs, or at least the same one, repeatedly.
The CC Effect is so very real. Every time I write about a car, I start noticing it everywhere unless it’s something really rare or old.
I’m not sure I agree that this is all there is to it. An example, I always notice first generation Honda Odysseys. I owned one and loved it. I admire every one I see. And I know of one or two that are normally “there”. But there were two of them parked in a store parking lot last evening, two that I have never seen before.
I think there is something to the cluster effect – at least when it comes to cars moving in traffic, they tend to gather in packs of the same color. I first observed this color cluster occurrence sitting on the stoop of my first apartment in Madison WI located where one busy street branched into two one way streets going toward downtown, which is located on a narrow isthmus. The was a pack of 5 red cars, 3 whites, 7 silver, 4 black, etc. Of course, this cluster effect did not happen 100% of the time, but it did seem to appear >75% of the time, especially after dark.
I have seen a car that I haven’t seen in years, like a Plymouth Breeze, than will see a Neon, Cirrus, or other Plymouth, but maybe this is just how our brain will register something – like when a friend buys a Grand Cherokee you see Grand Cherokees everywhere, some with the same equipment or color and you had no idea that there were so many Grand Cherokees.
As soon as I bought my Encore last year I started noticing the 4 others usually parked in my neighborhood. See them almost every day walking off the bus from work.
Not clusters of the same car, but if I had a dash cam I could post a windshield view of a CC Outtake worthy cluster I just followed on the freeway: an Impala SS (aero pre-Holden version), an MG TC, and a Tesla Model S.