On the advice of more than a few people, I didn’t expect to see many Curbside Classics around Baltimore. In fact, one Wednesday afternoon when Bryan and I were sitting on the front porch, sipping Yuengling Black & Tan, he said that his own 1987 LTD Crown Victoria might be as good as it got. Since I do love a challenge…
“Well, there’s an Impala that lives on Beech” was all else Bryan could give me. Since I’d already missed the bus downtown, it was too late to head to D.C. for the evening, so I returned to where I was staying.
Well, I did find an Impala. I posted its picture to his Facebook profile, captioned This Impala?. Well, not exactly: A few weeks earlier, my host, Patrick, had caught a 1965 Impala on the block where I was staying. Still, it amounted to more than the nothing I’d been told to expect.
Waiting at the body shop with the Impala was this glass-encased 1963 Dodge Polara. Sadly, the only free time I had never coincided with the shop being open, so this is as best I could do. Luckily, this wasn’t the only Dodge Brother I captured within a short time frame.
This forlorn 1955 Coronet hovered in that precarious position between being a candidate for restoration or a parts car. It seemed closer to the former, having no serious surface rust and generally not looking like it had been on a jack stand for 25 years–or so I hoped. Before sunset, I managed to get the Lincoln shot at the top, after which I called it a day.
The conference I was attending didn’t allow me time to scope out many other classics, but I was able to catch a few, including this DS21 being driven on Eutaw Street.
During lunch, I was able to catch this oh-so-elegant XJ6 on Federal Hill. Although it was at least 25 years old, this Jaguar looked right at home in its elegant surroundings.
True to form, most of the local GM cars of a certain age are A-body roaches. Still, I couldn’t help but snap a picture of the car that led to Oldsmobile’s decline parked among the urban decay of East Baltimore. I know how much these gutless Cutlass Supremes are beloved around these parts, but I still have as great an appreciation for them as snobby Baltimore natives have for formstone.
Before I pack, I’ll leave you with this pair of fenced-in Plymouths. I keep a little Mopar hope alive for them, as I do the aforementioned Coronet. In the end, Charm City presented me with a cavalcade of classics–and they, along with the best meatloaf I’ve ever had, have me checking my calendar to see when I’ll be able to return.
Great pictures…
Love the Lincoln
Olds decline? They sold over 1 million cars in 1988…hardly a decline until the mid-late 90’s.
Love the dodges
Scary how the DS21 and Pious look like they are related…
The RWD Cutlass was Olds’ peak car. The decline was trying to replace it with cars that had no true identity. And by the time the Aurora and Intrique came out, no one cared anymore.
Olds slapped the Cutlass nameplate on three different car lines (Calais, Ciera and Supreme) at one point in the late 1980s. Buyers couldn’t figure out exactly what a Cutlass was supposed to be.
For a brief time during the 1988 model year, it was really four: N-body Calais, A-body Ciera, G-body Supreme Classic, and W-body regular Supreme.
The most puzzling of this bunch, and the one that really pushed the dilution of the Cutlass name past the tipping point, was the Calais. The G-body was in the process of being phased out, and the A-body and W-body were logical successors to segments of the earlier G-body lineup. But the N-body wasn’t originally badged as a Cutlass, had no predecessors that had ever been badged as Cutlasses, and wasn’t even in the same size class as the other Cutlasses. The only logical reason to call it a Cutlass Calais was that, before the introduction of the N-body, the Calais name had been a Cutlass subseries, so there was some history of calling cars by the “Cutlass Calais” name.
I don’t think the Ciera should have badged as a Cutlass, either, but that at least made a little more sense.
I don’t know when the decision came about to name them Cutlass Cieras, but when the first batch of 1982’s arrived at our local GM dealership, none f them had Cutlass badging on them. They were simply called Oldsmobile Ciera (a dumb name in itself).
You certainly did better than I did on my last visit home. But then, I was in Towson, populated by endless beige Camrys and Altimas. I haven’t taken a drive through the city in a few years, but in years past, there would often be some excellent car-spotting.
A DS in Baltimore; who would have thought. And that shot of the DS with the Prius is great: the two most aerodynamic cars of their times.
Any crabcakes?
No Crabcakes. Or Crab, or Crab Pizza, which seems to occur at a frightening rate in Charm City.
I was told by everyone not to bother. Maryland crab season is over, so anything I’d get would be imported from Louisiana or Vietnam. Plus crab season just opened here in the Bay Area, so I’m working on my traditional Thanksgiving Gumbo today.
The picture of the DS and the Prius is interesting – one angles down from front to back, while the other angles up.
Great photos…. good eye for composition, color and setting. Please do more.
Thank you.
If you enter “Laurence Jones” in the “search by google” box on the upper right hand corner, it will take you to a cornucopia of Laurence’s many excellent photo essays. Do check them all out.
The Lincoln Continental, Citroen, and Jaguar continue to look elegant and modern. It is a tragedy that Ford turned Lincoln into a letter series with no distinctive styling or class. When I think downfall of Olds (another tragedy) I think Omega. There are quite a few of these Cutlasses in well-preserved (or tricked out) status here in LA and I still enjoy seeing them. My cousin had a ’55 Dodge as his first car back in the ’60’s – still love them. Great finds and pictures – thanks!
I wouldn’t apologize for the photo of the Polara. Be glad that the shop wasn’t open. The reflection in the window plus the ceiling in the showroom provide a vanishing point that makes the car seem to jump forward, while the reflected “square” around the left headlight is the detail that makes the whole thing work. Great image.
Yes it has a great ghostly quality, almost like it was a double exposure
Great photos! I believe that 1963 Dodge Polara is a convertible. Even the Polara hardtop coupes from that year are rare cars.
Nice hunting, Laurence. You found some very interesting things. That 63 Dodge Polara reminds me of how I almost bought one one evening at an eastside Indianapolis car dealer tent sale in the early 90s. Slant 6/3 speed sedan (beige, of course) that was nice and original other than a fairly recent re-upholstery job done with modern fabrics. I made a cash offer on the very low edge of reasonable, but they would not deal. I’ll bet that guy really wished he had taken my money before the weekend was over.
Nice photo essay…I’d repeat the kudos of earlier commenters on Laurence’s photography.
A facebook friend who lives in Baltimore somehow manages to maintain a 1971 Dart and a 1974 Comet as regular drivers, and to keep them looking in approximately new condition.
I’ll take the Fury over the Belvedere in that cage match. 🙂
A DS and Prius great 2fer
Omar comin’…
That Cutlass is the last one I’d consider owning. Downhill after that.
Ahh, Yuengling… my hometown beer. I grew up 20 miles from the brewery. One hell of a modern-day success story. One of the few old-line local breweries to make it through the 1970s, they were down to about 40,000 barrels per year. Thanks to the introduction of the Yuengling Traditional Amber Lager in 1987 (based on an old recipe supposedly dating from around WWII) and some very savvy marketing, they’ve grown to over 2 million barrels per year as of last year, and now are the largest American-owned brewery. They sell more beer in the approximately 15 states they distribute in than Sam Adams sells worldwide.
When visiting relatives in the Philadelphia area, there was always some Yuengling in the fridge. I like.
Great shots and hopefully your next series will catch Barry Levinson’s fleet pulling out of the Fells Point Diner @ dawn!