(first posted 1/14/2014) As my father could have told you, I never was very good at listening to advice. I really appreciate all the great suggestions and tips in response to my quandary as to how to replace our poor old dying Forester. There’s 163 comments so far, and all of them good ones. So what do I do? Sit down and carefully mull them over with Stephanie? Not me. Read the rest of this entry »
What’s not to like about them? They’ve had decades to perfect it.
While passing through a neighborhood in San Diego I stumbled across an oddity: a Land Rover Defender. Well, not exactly an oddity in the sense that it’s still on the road, but that it isn’t a US spec one. A reality immediately evident by the plate and the right-hand drive configuration for even the layman to see. So what was so special about this one to pay for its travels to a land an ocean away from its home country?
Well, for starters, the coolness factor alone is enough for them to pay for themselves; it’s simply an icon of the British automotive culture. I suspect that’s why this one made it overseas; after all, its street tires and suburban residence doesn’t speak to off-roading.
Text by Patrick Bell.
Fantastic Fords are our feature for today. We have many fine photos full of Fords from the sixties, with one from the seventies for extra fun. So all Ford fans gather around, and we shall move forward.
Our gallery today will begin with two models from 1960 in Getz’s Restaurant parking lot, which apparently was in Cumberland, Maryland. The first one in the foreground was a close to new blue Fairlane 500 Town Sedan with a couple of passengers who looked like they were ready to go. It was the most popular full size trim for that year, beating out the basic Fairlane 4 door sedan by more than 40,000 units. In the background, a white Falcon Deluxe 4 door wagon, the first year for the new compact. In front of the Fairlane is a ’54 Chevrolet, and on the other side of it a white ’57 Oldsmobile Super 88 4 door sedan, blue ’57 Buick Special or Century, and out in the street perhaps a green AMOCO tanker truck. Next to the Falcon is an aqua ’57 Chrysler.
Well, well, well, it’s come to this again – all the quick sightings yours truly has had over the past three months, curated, sorted and conveniently located within a few posts. I’m aiming at just three, this time: today’s rather big JDM edition, followed by a couple of posts to deal with all the imported stuff. We begin, clearly (and oh-so-cutely), with a Honda S800.
I first found this double-ended Coronet police car in Eugene in 2011. It sat here for sale for the following 14 years. I had planned to rerun its story again today, so yesterday (3/31/25) I drove by to confirm it was still there. No more! But through some luck and sleuthing, I managed to track it down, and it’s finally found a loving home, which I will reveal at the end. Meanwhile, the remarkable story of how it came to be deserves to be told once again:
Sometimes cars are stranger than fiction, not to mention the people that cause them to happen. I feel humbled and privileged to share with you what is undoubtedly the most awesome find ever at Curbside Classic. This 1973 Dodge Coronet had been hidden away for decades in an Oregon State Police storage facility, but due to the state’s current budget deficit it has been designated as surplus property and is now being offered for sale. How it came to be, and why it only served for a few months before being banished from Oregon’s highways is a remarkable story that can finally be told.
There’s no “April fooling” when I say that this may be it. This may possibly be the year that I get corrective lenses. Again. Almost immediately following my move to Chicago from Florida’s bright, sunny vistas over twenty years ago, I found myself in the office of my new optometrist faced with the reality that I needed glasses. Initially, I was doubtful of this, as my eyesight had seemed completely fine when I was in Florida and had driven everywhere. Still, there was scientific, factual evidence right in front of me, demonstrated for me as I looked through the giant contraption as Dr. Cheryl had parroted, “Which one is clearer… One or two?”, as she flipped through the comparative lenses.
(first posted 3/30/2019) Welcome, one and all, to the Grand Finale of this edition of Italian Deadly Sins. And I’m not using the term lightly. This is truly going to be a fireworks display of Deadly Sinnitude in all its Italicisation. Well, with quite a lot of non-Italian contributions along the way, too.
(first posted 3/29/2019) Kia’s first attempt at a minivan was a commercial success. Just two years after its launch, it became the best-selling minivan in Australia. In the US, it quickly outsold established but second-tier vans like the Mazda MPV and Nissan Quest. So how did Kia, a neophyte when it came to people carriers, manage to achieve this kind of instant success? It wasn’t because the Carnival/Sedona was particularly good. No, Kia achieved rapid sales growth the old-fashioned way: by offering lots of metal for the money, and very little money at that. Read the rest of this entry »
For quite a few years, the Pontiac Motor Division of General Motors had a job to do. Its job was to recall the Division’s great bygone days as the company’s standard bearer for performance by bringing to market a hot road car that would make the buff books go into a swoon.
But all too often, once the buff books turned their GM-provided test vehicles back into the promotional fleet, the buzz went away and Mr. & Mrs. America would go on to buy other cars in great numbers. Sometimes this was because Mr. & Mrs. America were too dense to buy the really good stuff. But other times – it was the car.
What picture does that title conjure up for you? A 1960s Scrooge McDuck style money bin? A strong room entered through a foot-thick door and lined with safe deposit boxes? Maybe a secure facility with open shelving, lined with cobwebs? Mine is closer to that last one.
On my two-month hitchhiking trip to the West Coast in 1972 I saw many new things for the first time, but one of the more puzzling ones were these COE (Cab Over Engine) trucks that had a bizarrely long wheelbase. I knew that West Coast trucks were bigger and longer, due to less restrictive length regulations; that’s why long-nosed conventional trucks like the Peterbilt and Kenworth were such common sights. But why these COE trucks with all that wasted space behind the cabs (this is a Freightliner)? They just looked so odd too.
Was there a good reason?
Is this the grandest Grand Prix? If you could poll every living Pontiac fan, the 1969 GP would stand a good change of coming out on top for its balance of style, swagger, and speed. The contemporary automotive press loved it too — and none so much as the editors of Car Life, who were so impressed that they gave Pontiac a special Engineering Excellence Award for it. Here’s their February 1969 road test of the most desirable 1969 Grand Prix, a Model SJ with the rare 428 H.O. engine.
(first posted 3/29/2019) This one is a real tear-jerker. A lovely little sports car with a sweet-looking body, orphaned from birth, fights for its life amid competitors that dominate it in terms of price and displacement. The plucky orphan outshines them, but dies before managing to create a dynasty. Fade to black, roll credits. OK, so that was the pitch. Want to see the whole thing? Get the popcorn, it’s about to start.
(first posted 7/8/2011)
Here we have the Y chromosome-rich brother to the rather fem 1962 Styleside: a plain no-nonsense work/utility truck like the tens of millions that before and after it. In fact, if this pulled up in front of your house three months after you called the cable company, you probably wouldn’t be surprised. But it did have a bit of a surprise for me when I popped the hood. Read the rest of this entry »
