I’ve no information on the dealer featured in this photo, other than it clearly belongs to a DeSoto-Plymouth-Valiant dealer with a showroom filled with new products. And while Valiant was the new kid in Chrysler’s tent, it’s the DeSoto at center that’s getting all the attention from the ladies in attendance. The brand may have been in its waning days, but at least in this photo, these ladies seem to have been DeSoto fans.
The CC effect can sometimes hit twice; only a couple of months ago this post by Joseph Dennis was published with a featured in-motion ’83 two-door Park-Avenue, followed a month later by my own post of a ’78 Olds Omega (that’s in a seriously sorry state). Well, here’s another curbside find, that is another ’83 Electra Park-Avenue and is also spiraling downwards, condition wise. This, however, is a four-door.
I saw my first Lexus TX in the wild not long ago and I was a bit conflicted about it. It’s a massive crossover clearly on a transverse-engine FWD platform, which isn’t exactly aspirational for us car dweebs. Huh, I thought. Looks like Lexus is finally getting in on the 3-row troop transport game. It lacked the pricey gravitas of an X7 or GLS but looked fully capable of taking on the Q7, XT6, MDX, and LT70x in the suburban status derby.
That last one isn’t a real car, by the way. This alphanumeric naming soup is so overcooked that you can invent a plausible one by just mashing your fist against the keyboard. TR-55e. See?
I wrote about Chevy’s modern-era Impala SS last month. Everyone knows about that popular sedan. What fewer people know about is the fact that GM built one Impala SS wagon but never put the model in production. That car survives and is on the loose, occasionally terrorizing the roads of Minnesota. Here’s how I encountered it. Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 2/12/2013) To continue on the trajectory of early -’60s Oldsmobiles that continues to haunt me, I present this Dynamic 88, which I first met under the cover of night. While I continue my daytime errand-running drudgery, let’s pause to examine where Oldsmobile was in the early 1960s.
(first posted 11/20/2018) The AC name is, or was, well known. Remember the Cobra? A Ford V8 and a Carroll Shelby designed installation in the compact AC Ace body and chassis, which dated from 1953. The resulting car was billed by some as the fastest car in the world in the early 1960s, albeit with a very different heritage and driving experience to a top European sports car. Perhaps it’s best to think of it as a de Tomaso Pantera for the 1960s, not a Ferrari. But it was still hugely charismatic and appealing, and that endures. Read the rest of this entry »
Lancia’s reputation for making extremely advanced and unconventional cars was well established even in the marque’s early years. If one model really stood above the rest in terms of sophistication, it would have to be the Lambda: not only did it represent a significant leap forward compared to Lancias that preceded it, it was arguably the most advanced automobile of the 1920s.
With Christmas Season approaching, the time has come to pay another visit to the mall. And what better way to do so than in the past, thanks to some vintage images?
While digging around in the depths of my digital photo albums for CC worthy oddities, I rediscovered this custom commissioned 1951 Kenworth I found on display outside of the Whitefish, Montana Amtrak station. I can’t add much beyond rephrasing what is known about this machine from the historical marker, which you can read in full here.
The curious “Bruck” name is less mysterious when you realize it is the words “bus” and “truck” smooshed together. It was used between 1951 and 1972 by the Great Northern Railway to replace a defunct short line railway connecting the small town of Whitefish to the larger town of Kalispell, Montana. After national passenger service was federalized under Amtrak, the Bruck was retired and soon found itself in long term outdoor storage at a train scrapyard.
1978 Pontiac Grand Am image from the web.
It was 1990 and the growing joys and demands of family and work left me little time to pursue any automotive adventures. In the meantime, the ’87 Plymouth Voyager was a competent vehicle and versatile family hauler.
However, the ‘78 Grand Am I had bought for commuting had to be babied since there was no prospect of buying a replacement if it failed. All it had to do was get me back and forth to work and I had no desire or intention at the time to work on vehicles. Besides, the shift to electronic ignition, fuel injection, disc brakes, and front-wheel drive on our family fleet meant my experience was out of date and I would be facing a steep learning curve to tackle any issues involving those systems.
(first posted 2/12/2013) In 1966, the American Motors Corporation (AMC) unveiled a pair of radically styled concept cars called AMX (American Motors eXperimental) in an attempt to better connect with the youth and performance markets. The cars generated a lot of excitement, and in 1968 AMC introduced the production AMX, which was available through the 1970 model year. Throughout the 1970s, AMC was in a long, slow slide as it struggled to remain relevant (and solvent) as one of the last American independent car manufacturers. The AMX name would be applied to a number of AMC cars, including our subject for today: the one-year-only 1977 AMC Hornet AMX.
(first posted 8/1/2018) When I found this LeSabre T-Type on Craigslist, I thought two things. Firstly, this was a surprisingly attractive design for an American GM product from the 1980s. Secondly, didn’t our Jim Klein own one of these? Read the rest of this entry »
Today we’ll take a look at cars around trailers, motor homes, and trailer parks. A short collection of images with some neat looking rides that offer glimpses of what life was like around these mobile homes.
Spotted on a Saturday in September, parked a short distance apart. Two black, third gen Mercedes-Benz Sprinter panel vans. Both powered by a 190 DIN-hp turbodiesel and with an RWD drivetrain. Other full matches are the wheelbase (3.67 m), overall length (5.93 m), and the raised roof. And in both cases, a tridem axle trailer was coupled to the van. So far the similarities.
Today’s title may feel a bit odd, considering that the Crown never quite took off in the US market. But elsewhere, particularly in Asia and South America, early generations of the Crown paved the way for buyers of those regions to consider Toyota as a viable provider of accessible luxury. While the ’64 Corona and ’66 Corolla were the models that brought legions of faithful consumers to the brand, the Crown made a case for Toyota being more than a purveyor of mass-market cars.
In those markets, the Crown showed that Toyota could build a refined vehicle with luxury touches at discount prices, offering a nice alternative to semi-premium European and US brands. An international trajectory that rose on the inroads done by the ’62-’67 Crown S40, and on which the ’67-’70 S50 generation built upon. So, when excluding the US market, we can say mission accomplished.
