(first posted 8/31/2013) Few car names are any better and carry more punch than “Charger”. You know its intended purpose and capabilities in one succinct word. Mustang? You know what horses leave for you. Camaro? That creates no mental image. No, Charger is one of the ultimate names for a car, something that won’t poke your eye out (Javelin), is not a blatant derivation of the maker (Chevelle), and isn’t some acronym (G.T.O.).
(first posted 5/1/2018) Even the hardiest of cars and trucks have to expire eventually and it’s pretty hard to think of something hardier than a simple, old, Japanese pickup. It’s a rare sight to see these old Mitsubishi utes – pardon me, force of habit, we call all pickups here “utes” – as even they have to pack it in eventually. How refreshing to see this one still in use: a simple old pickup towing a simple old boat. How even more refreshing to see a similar pickup just a few doors down.
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1971-72
One of my favorite movie moments is from The Jerk, where Steve Martin is jumping up and down yelling, “The new phone book’s here! The new phone book’s here!” And as hard as it is to believe, there was a time (1980) when getting the new phone book was a pretty big deal. Everyone had a land-line with a rat’s nest for a cord. Almost everyone had a stamped metal, Zephyr Autodesk “Vanguard Model” phone number directory, with the alphabetized sliding stylus and flip-up lid. And if you didn’t have the Zephyr, you just wrote down numbers in the first few pages of the new, free, phone book. Twenty something years after The Jerk, I felt a little silly paying five bucks a pop for some old phone books at the Antique Mall. But boy am I glad I did. My wife and I have gotten so much pleasure from our 1971-72 and 1976-77 Bellingham Telephone Directories, that I wouldn’t trade them for anything. So, sit back and enjoy some random car dealership ads from the seventies, and also a few from mid-century. Read the rest of this entry »
Sometimes when happening upon a CC, you really want to talk to the owner. Other times, it is just as well to let the mystery be and come up with your own story about the car. Most times, you just don’t have a choice as there’s no one to talk to and the car is obligated to tell its own story.
This is one of those cases.
We’re back to the Peninsular section of the T87 picture collection for some choice Italian stallions, in what I’d like to call “Thoroughbred Week.” Let’s kick this off in style with a prancing horse – an older beast, but a unique one. I’m not using that word in jest, either: this is a one-off body. But then, back in those days, the notion of a “production Ferrari” had yet to take shape.
(first posted 5/11/2018) CC reader Peter N. sent me these shots of a Canadian Mercury pickup, which would be a ’65 if its grille is consistent with the US Ford version. I need to convert my ’66 into one of these, to really confuse folks down here.
(first posted 8/1/2013) Eighteen years ago, when John Gallo was all of fifteen and only had a learner’s permit, he saw this ’66 Monaco 500 hardtop with a For Sale sign sitting on the street near San Jose. It was love at first sight, and he just had to have it. Can you blame him? And after being in storage in California for the last fifteen years or so since John moved to Eugene, he and his first love are finally reunited again. We should all hide away our first teenage loves–cars or otherwise– for our later years, especially if they’ve been chosen as well as this one. Read the rest of this entry »
Let’s revisit the theme of female drivers in the past. As I told in the first installment of this series, it’s a topic of particular interest to me since at my home Mom was the sole driver in the family. A curious, but probably far from unique situation.
Photos from the Cohort by robadr.
Let’s pay a brief visit to Canadian Mopars with this find from the Cohort by robadr. A 1962 Chrysler Saratoga, a model that has appeared at CC before thanks to another robadr find. Rather than trying to reword what Paul wrote for that entry, I’ll repeat that the Saratoga was Canada’s mid-line Chrysler, carrying a nameplate that had disappeared from the US marketplace in 1960:
Illustration from the web.
By mid-1977, I had secured steady (“permanent temporary”) employment and had begun to develop my design skills on real-world auto-industry projects as a Product Adaptation Specialist at Volvo of America Corporation. Still living at home with my dad, I took over his mid-1960s mortgage payment, utility bills, and most other miscellaneous expenses. By then, I also enjoyed the benefit of a Volvo daily driver (the “handicap car” referred to in last week’s COAL) as my commuting vehicle.
Not only that, since I had a daily round-trip commute of about 100 miles, –longer than many of my colleagues– I was asked to provide fuel-economy records which were compiled by Volvo’s Technical Center, a group of mostly Swedish engineers located nearby Northvale, New Jersey. They were tasked with reporting quality-related issues (and proposed solutions) back to the mother ship in Gothenburg. As Volvo was paying for my gasoline, I was glad to oblige.
The point of all that preamble is merely to say that with a full-time job and relatively low expenses, I was fortunate enough to have saved a bit of money. How does a confirmed car enthusiast turn a small bank account into an even smaller bank account? Read on.
(first posted 5/10/2018) I had tried on many different hats, sometimes simultaneously, when I was becoming a young adult. It was fun to shapeshift and discover ways in which I was more than just my parents’ kid. Even today, I tend to defy those who would try to put me in some sort of narrow box. A strong sense of individuality and fluidity has been important to me ever since having been subjected to wearing matching (off-brand) Members Only jackets with my younger brother as a kid.
In many ways and after its near-death experience at the end of the 1970s, Chrysler Corporation had very much reinvented itself in the ’80s. Out went the old, RWD, inefficient, indifferent mindset, and in came some new thinking. With the introduction of the K-Car platform and its subsequent variations, Chrysler’s image had pulled almost a full one-eighty by the time our featured car was introduced – a period when Chrysler seemed like it was on such a roll in doing more with less.
(first posted 5/11/2018) Back in 1966, General Motors was riding high, and one of the drivers of that success was the effectiveness of the corporation’s upmarket brands like Buick, which was able to charge premium prices while maintaining strong volumes. Perched at the top of Buick’s range was the Electra 225, a series that whispered “money” and was a “quieter” luxury alternative to the flashier Cadillac. Like the car itself, marketing and press coverage was understated and on-target. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s time for some more armchair traveling. Or is it ‘armchair lodging’ on this occasion? After all, today’s postcards feature hotels and motels from the ’50s and ’60s, with a smidgen of the ’70s. As normal for the times, the cars are colorful and the buildings even more so. Our first image is from the Cabana Lodge in Sacramento, CA.
