Coming at ya!
In 1974, ABC broadcast a made for prime time TV movie about a hot rodder who squares off against a sadistic small town Sheriff.
It starred two human actors. Martin Sheen as the hot rodder, and Vic Morrow as the Sheriff. However, the real star of the movie was the ’34 Ford Hot Rod coupe.
(first posted 6/4/2014) Chevrolet made a few mistakes with the Corvair, but the biggest was in not seeing its full potential as a sporty coupe right from the beginning. Americans weren’t interested in a stripped Corvair coupe with a cheap and drab gray interior. The 1960.5 Monza version of the coupe was rushed into production as a direct response to auto show attendees who saw a prototype, and went a long way to rectify that, but why Chevy didn’t offer a proper hardtop coupe, analog to its Impala/Bel Air coupes, has always been a mystery to me, even back in its day, and it’s one that I’ve long wanted to rectify. Having found a suitable body-builder (CC reader Dan Moran), we’ve teamed up and finally built what Chevy failed to do: a gen1 Monza hardtop coupe. And it’s not the only version we built; just the most beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 9/10/2018) Once billed as GM’s “We Build Excitement” division, to many who grew up during the brand’s wonder years, Pontiac will forever rank high in their memories as a builder of muscle cars and performance-minded everyday cars of the 1960s-mid 1970s, and the wonderful Fitzpatrick/Kaufman promotional artwork that went along with it.
The original Gran Am was indeed a product of this golden age of Pontiac, first appearing in 1973 as a premium luxury/performance companion offering to the Pontiac LeMans. A product that actually brought excitement and specialness to the table, this is the idea of Pontiac that so many enthusiasts remember, cherish, and embrace. Nonetheless, to those of us born just a bit later, the perception of Pontiac can be quite different.
I had to pause for these shots uploaded at the Cohort by Mike Hayes. A trio of orphan makes caught by the curbside in a California parking lot, all in disabled spots and looking rather well preserved. A 1990s Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser S wagon, a ’96-’00 Saturn SL, and an early ’00s Mercury Grand Marquis.
This remarkable old photo from the USSR was posted in a comment by Big Beat. It shows a 1955 Chevy sedan that was updated with ’59 Chevy front clip. These kind of modifications were not uncommon in the USSR at the time as those affluent enough to have bought something as rare as a ’55 Chevy or other prestigious car, European, American or Russian, could afford to have the bodies updated since there was no way to trade this in for a real ’59 Chevy.
And just how was the significantly wider ’59 Chevy front end grafted on? A close look at the grille shows that.
The word ‘Lamborghini’ conjures up a very specific image – a low-slung, wedge-shaped hypercar with a mid-mounted engine, often being revved outside of a nightclub by an owner with more dollars than sense. And though Lamborghinis have been this way for decades now, they weren’t always so formulaic. In fact, for the first ten years of Lamborghini’s existence as a carmaker, they focused primarily on grand tourers.
It’s the type of car the company’s founder liked, after all. And here we have an example of an often-forgotten car from the early days of the Raging Bull that falls into said category. But just because it’s ignored that doesn’t mean the Jarama isn’t important. Would you believe that, out of all the cars his company made, this one was Ferruccio Lamborghini’s favorite?
I’ve been an AMC fan since adolescence, starting around the time I had received my first copy of the Encyclopedia Of American Cars by the editors of Consumer Guide. As I had mentioned in a previous post about a ’75 Matador coupe I had wanted to purchase as a teen, the AMC section of that large book with (I’m guessing) over 800 pages had become yellowed and dog-eared from my many returns to read and re-read it. I found AMC fascinating and endearing to learn about.
Doing so had given me an understanding of its origins as the product of a merger between independent automakers Nash and Hudson, and of its initial success as a manufacturer of compact cars. There were subsequent struggles in the marketplace and almost perennially limited funds, as well as various innovations, both successful (its pioneering use of AWD in its Eagle line) and not-so-successful (a longer list). No matter how you feel about AMC’s products throughout the years, I feel like most could agree that many of its vehicles were interesting at the very least.
(first posted 6/3/2014) The Corvair story is an almost endless book; it’s way too long to completely encompass in one chapter. I’ve been writing it since I got behind the wheel of my first car, a 1963 Monza four-speed. Many of the chapters have been put to word here at CC, and I’ll give links to them as we go along and at the bottom. But I’ve never encountered a genuine Curbside Classic™ Monza Coupe, which is really the most important chapter of them all. The Monza coupe was an accident, and a very happy one, as it saved the Corvair’s bacon, turning it from an unconventional but dowdy economy car into the inspiration for the whole sporty car boom of the sixties. And I’ve been ruminating about its roof line for a long time… Read the rest of this entry »
(first posted 9/7/2018) This nondescript compact hatchback was supposed to be a Talbot. It was developed as the successor to the 1978-1987 Simca/Chrysler/Talbot Horizon. But the artificial reincarnation of the old Talbot brand name, after Peugeot took over Ma Mopar’s Euro-car division in the late seventies, was an utter failure and led to nothing. Instead of Talbot Arizona, it was renamed Peugeot 309. An unusual number in the automaker’s model naming structure.
These galleries of old photos of cars and trailers traveling across the US usually seem to open up many memories for our readers. And why wouldn’t they? It’s the perfect mix of vintage cars, open roads, landscapes, and, occasionally, curious setups.
This ol’ and fully loaded Volvo wagon has been around, especially in recent times. According to the years listed on the windshield, it’s an experienced Carbage Run participant.
Some curbside finds fill one with an overwhelming sense of excitement at first sight, others with awe and wonder. Sometimes it’s the setting and circumstance, other times the vehicle itself, and best of all of course is a combination of both. And then sometimes the find seems almost inevitable, as in this case on the south side of Phoenix, as if it’s obvious that it would be where it was when it was. A moment of indecision and then I crossed most of the street from where I was on the other side to get some shots; after all, not every curbside find is actually curbside so it’s got that going for it. Read the rest of this entry »
This week we will explore a category of cars that is relatively difficult to find nowadays, despite there being many examples of their occurrence. “French Four-door (or Five-door, in this case) Fails” is the motto, and therein lays the issue: cars that didn’t sell too well in the distant past, be they French or otherwise, are by nature pretty thin on the ground now. But I still have a few goodies from my summer 2023 stint back in the home country, where I found this perfectly preserved R14 – a perfect embodiment of French automotive failure.
(first posted 9/8/2018) Most major Japanese manufacturers had a small minibus in their lineup in the 1960s and 70’s; Toyota’s Coaster, Nissan’s Civilian, Mitsubishi’s Rosa, and Isuzu’s Journey are good examples. These were small forward-control buses built on a truck chassis – front engined – seating anywhere from 22 – 30 passengers. Mazda had one also, the Parkway, but could boast its bus had something the others didn’t… Read the rest of this entry »
“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.”
(First posted 9/9/2018) Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a lot of things: a statement on how the baby boomers failed to create a safe and stable world for their progeny; an exploration into the value of failure; a deconstruction of the hero’s journey. But above all, the film wrestles with the notion of forsaking old ideas and institutions in order to move forward. This is paramount to the relationship between a dejected Luke Skywalker and Jedi acolyte Rey, who struggle to understand each other amidst a galaxy in crisis. In the film, writer/director Rian Johnson made a clear statement about the creation of art: moving on from established norms is necessary but impossible to accomplish without borrowing elements from the past. The Last Jedi succeeds as the latest entry to the Skywalker saga and a message to Star Wars fans that the franchise will lose its relevancy if it isn’t allowed to change.
The 2006 Ford Fusion also attempted a clean break from what came before. And the story of how Ford created the car is a real world example of exactly what Rian Johnson attempted to explain throughout the film: that the past influences and surrounds us whether we’re aware of it or not.
