This was Volvo’s bold step away from the boxy shapes that had defined the brand for decades, and back in 1999, the sleek new S80 looked like a very different kind of Volvo. It was also a very good car, even if it wasn’t particularly my kind of car. Volvos have never been the cars that leave the biggest impression on me (Sorry), but I still remember the 1999 S80—and oddly enough, it’s the stereo I remember most. It turned out I wasn’t the only one who remembered it.
(Updated 10/07/2026) Car-based pickups will always cause me to look twice… but one with fake wood trim? Well, that’s enough to slam on the brakes and take some pictures. Which is just what happened when I came across this 1973 Ford Ranchero Squire. This is perhaps the quintessential odd vehicle… straddling the line between car and pickup, though really neither, but then donning the Di-Noc woodgrain trim then popular with large station wagons. Even its name is a mixture of disparate elements. Ranchero – a Spanish (and southwestern US) term for a rancher – combined with Squire – an English country gentleman.
Any well-known carmaker’s first car should always be a cause for celebration. Many are too old or rare to be readily encountered on the street, of course. It’s not exactly convenient to drive an Oldsmobile Curved Dash or a 1904 Rolls-Royce in today’s traffic. This tiny oddball is just serviceable enough to be out and about 60-plus years after it rolled off the production line, enabling us to get up close and personal with the very first Mazda car.
Occasionally, I’ll find a 1955 Chevrolet that makes me stop and reappraise why it’s probably the best thing General Motors ever made. Too many are lowered, repowered, billeted, and otherwise modified, and while I understand the appeal, it’s not my thing, so I walk right on by. But a stock Bel Air Convertible? Really stop and look at it again: It’s perfect. Harley Earl and Company didn’t get a line wrong, it’s the perfect size, and it’s powered by the first edition of the legend, the 265-cubic-inch small-block Chevy. There’s not much to not like, and this one is being auctioned on Cars & Bids in Lincoln, Nebraska.
My Alfa Romeo 164 3.0V6 Lusso was approaching 100,000 miles and my wife now had an Alfa 164 Twinspark as well. My 30,000 miles a year needed something reliable so at last, as there was a dealership near my office, maybe it was time to buy a SAAB. After all, the long in the tooth classic 900 had recently been replaced by the all new NG900 series.
Buick’s 1971–1973 “Boattail” Riviera has always been controversial, but its 1974–1976 successor remains a non-entity, a car you could easily forget had existed at all. That’s not just a latter-day judgment: Back in 1976, Road Test tried the bustleback ’76 Riviera and found it an undistinguished big coupe that seemed to have suffered “a detuning of the personality.”
(first posted 10/6/2014) Say hello to the Tercel from Hell. As this old California plate indicates, it’s been in use for a very long time, and as all this rust shows, it’s been running around Bloomington–or outside California, at any rate–for quite a while. I’ve seen this car driven regularly since moving here over a year ago, so I have to imagine its owner just sends payment to the California BMV regularly and its registration is current. Or, our local cops are missing out on an opportunity to fine someone. Maybe, like me, they wouldn’t have the heart to impound the thing.
(Updated 10/6/2026) It seems like a fairly common thing for specific makes and models of vehicles to be associated with certain products. The combination that comes immediately to mind is Red Bull energy drink and the modified Mini Coopers that were used to promote it. I’m not sure if Chicago had a higher concentration of these Minis than other cities, but for a while, it seemed as though these Red Bull-mobiles were everywhere for a while, giving “wings” to people in the form of free cans of this beverage being handed out by peppy youth.
When I had first moved to the Second City in my late twenties, I was doing the whole Red Bull-and-vodka thing at night on weekends before learning that drinking that really bad-for-you combo was like setting off a bomb in one’s heart. I have had the occasional energy drink in recent years when on a long-distance drive somewhere, but that’s usually about it. With all of that said, I feel that Red Bull chose wisely when selecting these perky Mini Coopers as a promo tool.
My personal favorite of the 2026 ‘Heart For DAF Days’ event, held on October 3 and 4, must be Cattoor’s DAF truck and trailer combination. Sure, the classic stand-alone tractors were really nice, but nothing beats a complete big rig; as if the driver can leave the virtual adjacent truck stop diner any minute to continue the business trip.
The fact that both the straight truck and the full trailer were built by the same manufacturer was the cherry on a large and tasty cake.
Text by Patrick Bell.
Oldsmobiles were the middle rung of the General Motors ladder, and their rise in popularity began in the 1950’s and culminated a couple of decades later. Today we have a nice variety of models from that decade, mostly the kind you could see everyday while you were out and about.
Despite its reasonably strong collector popularity, some find the second-generation Plymouth Barracuda to be a little too close to its parent Valiant’s hard points to be a truly beautiful pony car. That doesn’t stop it from being my favorite of the Barracudas, and its humdrum production figures make it all the rarer today. One of the rarest of the bunch is the Formula S Fastback featuring a 383 and a four-speed. While this example has had a few modifications from factory stock, it’s a perfect driver example of a big-block pony car the way they did it in Highland Park, and it can be found on Hagerty Marketplace in Grenada, Mississippi.
Introduced during the 1961 model year, the Oldsmobile Starfire was a flashy, well-equipped sporty version of the full-size Olds 88. It survived through 1966, but by the end, changing buyer tastes — and the intriguing new FWD Toronado — had made the big Starfire all but irrelevant.
(Updated 10/5/2026) Spotted during a dreaded visit to Target last spring, this Hudson Wasp resulted in my partner going inside while I snapped pictures. If he never had to touch or see another car again, he’d be perfectly happy, and that’s why meet-ups like this are so important. Otherwise, you’re left all on your lonesome with an appreciation of all the aspects of what make cars so amazing, and it’s not uncommon for me to feel just like this Hudson, by itself at the back of the parking lot. Speaking of which, many other shoppers, scurrying on and off the premises in their Outbacks and Jettas likely didn’t even notice this green beauty. Read the rest of this entry »
(Updated 10/5/2026) When Chrysler introduced the Cirrus in 1995, it looked like an awful lot of car for the money. My father thought so, too and he was one of those people intrigued by the Cirrus’ high-content-to-price ratio. When he was looking to replace his 1989 Civic in early 1995 (the seats were killing his back), he mentioned to me that he was considering the Cirrus. I had a business trip to South Florida coming up a few weeks after our conversation and arranged to rent a Cirrus so he could take a closer look outside of the confines of a dealership and I could give him my opinion as well. The agency gave me a white Cirrus with about 10,000 miles on it, but it felt like far more. There were numerous squeaks and rattles to go along with the droning V6 and rough-shifting four-speed automatic. After finishing my business in Miami, I headed up to my parent’s house with the intention of telling Dad to avoid this car. When I pulled into the driveway, there was an identical white Cirrus. Damn.
Let’s revisit some of Chevrolet’s prime years with another gallery of vintage dealer postcards from the 1960s and 1970s. Along with plenty of models to check out, these postcards capture the colorful dealership signs and promos, distinctive architecture, and all the little details that made a trip to the local Chevy dealer a fun event.
