In comments on the Cadillac in Europe post, Johannes Dutch left a link to a forum (amerikaanseautopagina.com) with a number of even more extreme examples of such contrasts. I just had to pick out a few of them, but head on over to see the rest. The Fiat 500 would make a nice hood ornament on this Imperial.
Renault Twingo meets Olds.
Renault 4 meets Cadillac ambulance.
’59 Caddy meets Mini, from the same era.
Fiat 126 meets Caprice.
Dinkey Toy meets Cadillac.
Euro-size parking lot meets Buick.
Buick Estate Wagon meets its little neighbor, whatever it is.
And Suburban meets Suzuki Alto.
I think the 2 funniest ones are the little blue Suzuki next to the big Cadillac, the absurdity of it made me laugh, the other one is the one with the red convertible 73 Buick Centurion in the parking lot full of tiny hatches, “Nobody in here but us chickens!”
Shorty after the 3rd picture was taken, the Cadillac ambulance constricted the Renault 4 and slowly digested it.
I lol’d at the Sueby… as for the Buick,
“One Of these is not Like The Others”
At least one pic was made in a town called Nijmegen.
Nijmegen will be familiar to American WWII buffs, for its importance in the failed Allied airborne/armored offensive, Operation Market-Garden.
Brig. General James Gavin: So that’s it. We’re pulling them out. It was Nijmegen.
Lt. Colonel J.O.E. Vandeleur: It was the single road getting to Nijmegen.
Lt. General Horrocks: No, it was after Nijmegen.
Lt. General Frederick “Boy” Browning: And the fog, in England.
Maj. General Stanislaw Sosabowski: Doesn’t matter what it was. When one man says to another, “I know what let’s do today, let’s play the war game.”… everybody dies.
Alistair
That Fiat is a 126.
I believe you are correct.
The 127 is a smaller FWD hatchback that came out around the same time as the 128, its larger, FWD sibling.
The 126 was an updated rear engined RWD 500, essentially the same drivetrain, but with an all new body and interior.
I meant to write that, but my finger didn’t cooperate. Fixed.
Coincidentally, the small black car next to the Buick is a Suzuki Alto as well, only the 2009 model.
This reminds me of when you see a really tall guy with a really short woman, you just kind of scratch your head and wonder…
I have the opposite problem,all my boyfriends were shorter!Would really like to see more of that Oldsmobile.
It’s a 1975 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale convertible.
(I checked the plate: ZX-95-BX)
You can also tell it’s a ’75 by the rounded areas (for the quad round headlights) on the front clip. The ’76 went to quad squares and had a flatter front clip, but that taillight style is shared by the ’75-76 Delta 88s.
Plus, no Olds convertible for ’76. 1974 models had horizontally-bisected tail lights, like this one:
I was driving behind an old Cinquecento recently ( they only come out for highdays and holidays) and even on Irish “A” roads it looked tiny.
Crazy that American cars have shrunk so much, while European cars get more and more obese.
Interestingly, both sides of the Atlantic now have roughly the same size cars! Used to be that when a Euro car came to the US, it was MUCH smaller, not so much anymore for the most part, thanks to globalism.
Though I would say proportionally you see more large cars in the US than in Europe. Nevermind trucks. To the average European a Fiesta/Focus is an average sized car, where in the US Fusion/Taurus is considered more the standard.
Yes, the Ford Focus-Volkswagen Golf-Opel Astra etc. are the “mainstream” cars. But the smaller models are getting more popular.
So a Ford Fiesta instead of a Focus and a Volkswagen Polo instead of a Golf. (Rabbit)
Car models seem to grow every new generation. A new VW Polo is as big (or small) as an old model Golf for example.
You are correct cars in Europe are getting longer and wider. Streets and parking spaces are not. My Golf hardly fits in my garage. Something in Europe is not working!
Exactly. While cars here have definitely balooned in recent years, the average size of a car in Europe is still much smaller than in the US. Here a Focus is considered a suitable family car, while there it’s considered a small second or third car.
“Large” cars (such as they were then) started going out of vogue when I was young. People wanting a comfortable motorway cruiser stopped buying things like the (European) Ford Granada, Vauxhall Carlton etc and went instead for better spec’ed models of their smaller siblings (Sierra, Cavalier etc.). The trend just continued with buying preferences moving steadily down the scale as the cars themselves have crept slowly up in size.
Add to that the fact that we European types will happily bimble about in really tiny cars like the Toyota Aygo or VW Up! which are smaller than anything on the roads in the US and it all brings the average size down, even when like-for-like models (Ford Mondeo here = Ford Fusion there for example) start reaching size parity.
Strange but true,Dad had 2 US Ford Falcons,an Australian Valiant and a Dodge Dart compact cars the size of a Ford Zodiac/Vauxhall Cresta.I’m sure a VW Golf is around the size of my Aunt’s Neon
You just don’t hear people say they were like “Mutt and Jeff” anymore .
What would today’s Equivalent be?”hmm
Very cool set of contrasts, I’ll say.
I love that Olds convertible, simply because it IS a convertible, and it’s red, but not a fan of that iteration of that model, it’s too plain looking, Give me a mid 70’s Colonnade (75-77) Cutlass Supreme over this for styling any day.
And while the behemoths certainly had style, how the hell did we maneuver them all over the place?
I’ve owned anywhere from large (Ford Galaxie) to tiny (Fiat X 1/9), and I still laugh remembering how small my AMC Hornet and BMW 2002 seemed back in the ’70s when compared to the rest of the road. Recently I drove my brother’s big girl Ram 2500 and I was nervous nellie the entire time….
With ease if they had power steering!My Vauxhall Cresta had manual steering and I found it hard to park in small spaces.When I learned to drive a bus it was easy with power steering
Old and new Fiat 500s:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/k-dj/2770110452/in/faves-12458821@N08/
The second to last pic is a Gen 2 Renault Twingo, which is very ugly!
What’s funny is it probably has similar amount of space inside as that humongous red Olds. Twingo is a marvel of space efficiency.
You have a point. The length of the hood and trunk makes the Olds H-U-G-E. But once inside it might be an entirely different story.
Love the big brutes, especially the ’71-’73 Estate Wagon! I have to admit, that original Mini is quite a sharp little car though.
I’m sure the little classic Mini is big fun to drive. A go-kart with a bodywork.
Sorry in advance if this offends anyone, but the only thing I could think of when looking at some of these pictures is…
There is always at least one “fat chick” hanging out with a group of “hot chicks”.
In this case I wouldn’t mind being the wingman for a friend if I got to take the Buick, Olds or Cadillac home.
Here’s one. Isn’t that little truck just the cutest? 😉
Speaking of trucks….here are 2 Euro Fords from the seventies.
The biggest and the smallest, a lovely couple.
That’s a Suzuki next to that blue Caddy? Quite the handsome looking little car.
Here’s my battlecruiser parked in front of a smart car
that mean black imperial looks like the 500 bodyguard 😀 !
Here’s a picture of my ’68 Fleetwood surrounded by its attendent remora. Sorry about the quality of the shot.