Recent Posts
43

1962 Pontiac Tempest Coupe – Badge Engineering On A Very Different Scale

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

Pontiac tempest 1962 fq

(first posted 7/2/2013)    If you’re seeing a whole lot of similarity between the sheet metal (except the grille) of today’s ’62 Cutlass coupe and this ’62 Tempest, you’re not mistaken. In fact, now that I think of it, there’s little doubt that no other two GM cars from different divisions ever shared so much of the same body until we get into the modern badge-engineering era that started with the 1971 Pontiac Ventura, no less. But unlike later badge-engineered GM cars, this one was very different than its body donor under the skin. Read the rest of this entry »

15

Top 10 Obscure Special Editions And Forgotten Limited-Run Models: Jeep-Eagle Edition, Part II

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

(first posted 5/23/2019)       Jeep has been doing special editions since the 1960s and they’ve only gotten more prolific with time – there were at least a dozen distinct special edition TJ Wranglers alone! For Part II (read Part I here), I’ve narrowed it down to another quartet of Jeeps plus a lone Eagle. Read the rest of this entry »

6

Trailside Classic: Yes, There’s A Car In This Photo – But How Did It Get Here?

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

This picture violates CC’s protocol for top-of-post images that I have been pushing all our contributors to follow: The featured car must be prominent in the photo so as to be easily identifiable, especially for the majority of folks who read CC on their phones. But there’s a reason I’m doing this, as I almost didn’t see there was a car here when we hiked by in these very remote woods south of the Rogue River. But the glint of light on the still-chromed bumper and the two front fenders made their presence known, and we detoured off the trail to check it out. Yes, it was the remains of a car. But how did it get here? There was no road in the immediate vicinity.

And yes, I shot close-ups of the remains. But I haven’t yet seriously tried to identify it, so help yourselves.

Read the rest of this entry »

14

Vintage Snapshots: A Gallery Of Volkswagen People – ’60s-’70s

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

For today, we’re giving Patrick Bell a bit of a break and I’ll fill in for commentary. Every once in a while, as a recent post showed, I’m reminded that I’m not the only one who enjoys looking at old VWs, be it they’re survivors by the curbside or featured in vintage photos. And thinking some more about it, it’s been a while since we last paid attention to VW owners of the past. So, let’s deal with that omission and revisit the days when air cooled VWs were the norm on daily roads.

Read the rest of this entry »

15

‘Thunder’ Likes Cruising Around In His 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am!

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

Imagine my surprise when I came across this in the shopping center parking lot!

Read the rest of this entry »

19

Vintage Car Life Review: 1969 AMC-Hurst SC/Rambler – “By George, It Is A Fast Little Car”

By
– Posted on May 22, 2025

 

As automotive conversation pieces go, few speak louder than the 1969 AMC SC/Rambler, a preposterous limited-edition Rambler, concocted by American Motors and Hurst-Campbell, that offered giant-killing performance in a gaudy Captain America costume for a bargain price. Car Life tested the SC/Rambler in May 1969 and dubbed it “an anti-sleeper”: a highly conspicuous budget Supercar that needed very little to be “right up with the wildest street-driven cars around.”

Read the rest of this entry »

23

Car Show Classic: 1955 Studebaker Speedster – A Star (Luxury) Liner

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025

(first posted 5/21/2019)         I’ve been writing about obscure North American special editions and forgotten limited-run models since way back in 2015. Though I’ve travelled extensively in the US and even lived there for a while, I’ve seen a grand total of zero of my featured cars in the metal. While putting together a Top 10 list for the next (perhaps final?) installment – on the independent automakers, coming soon! – I stumbled across some photos I took of a Studebaker I saw at a Cars & Coffee. It wasn’t just any Studebaker, however – it was a rare ’55 Speedster. Read the rest of this entry »

27

Electronic Ignition History – Losing the Points, Part 2

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025

(first posted 5/14/2019)       In the last installment I discussed some of the early transistor ignitions that were offered in the 1960s.  GM, Ford and Chrysler all used similar ignitions where more efficient and faster switching transistors supplemented or replaced the mechanical points.  However, adding transistors to a standard ignition wasn’t the only way to improve upon the weaknesses of the breaker-point ignition.  General Motors Delco-Remy division didn’t put all of its eggs in one basket, and actually made a second electronic ignition system during this time, but one that used a different concept altogether.

Read the rest of this entry »

10

CC Find: 1985 Jeep Grand Wagoneer – Placeholder Cream Puff

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025

As some of you may have gathered, I’m in the middle of an ‘80s binge and this is American car week. The issue with ‘80s American cars is how unfamiliar I am with them, so some of the ones I thought I’d cover this week ended up being, well, not from the ‘80s. But there’s always old faithful, the Jeep Wagoneer. I usually have a couple of those in the cooler to break out in case of emergency.

Read the rest of this entry »

17

An Oldsmobile Dealer In Seattle – Images From The ’40s To The ’80s

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025

Text by Patrick Bell.

We have a short history lesson of a long time Seattle Oldsmobile dealer for today’s feature; Riach’s. A lesson prompted by the image above, which seems to have been recently unearthed. Since I have been employed at several dealerships, and hung around at many more, I find this quite fascinating.  So climb aboard for a ride to twentieth century Seattle.

Read the rest of this entry »

25

2003 Honda CR-V: Desperate Car Shopping in 2025 – A Hopeless Hooptie Adventure

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025

I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time detailing my friends’ cars and sometimes fixing / breaking them. They’re largely hand-me-down desperation-mobiles, but that makes their stories even more CC-worthy. You see, budget car shoppers are much more likely today to end up with, say, a 2000s Lexus than my own thrifty choice of an 80s diesel Mercedes. These cars may not be pretty, but if you dig deeper, they can offer the same sort of social commentary as those of true classics still doing daily driver duty that appear frequently in these digital pages.

Read the rest of this entry »

46

1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Landau Vs. Chrysler Cordoba – Personal Luxury Coupes For The Disco Inferno

By
– Posted on May 21, 2025
Composite photo showing left side views of a Dark Red Metallic 1975 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Landau and a Frosty Green Metallic 1975 Chrysler Cordoba with a landau vinyl top

Mecum Auctions (Monte Carlo) and Bring a Trailer (Cordoba)

 

Although The Trammps’ hit “Disco Inferno” wouldn’t drop until Dec. 28, 1976, the fire was already burning by 1975: Disco and funk were warring with easy listening and classic rock on the Billboard charts, and bell bottoms and crushed velour were everywhere. Flamboyant personal luxury coupes dominated the automotive market, and Chrysler challenged the reigning champion Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a new intermediate personal car called Cordoba. Let’s take a look at how the 1975 Chrysler Cordoba compared with the 1975 Monte Carlo.

Read the rest of this entry »

138

Curbside Classic: 1986 Renault Alliance – Patina Royale

By
– Posted on May 20, 2025

(first posted 8/29/2011)    It’s been transformative to bounce along the dusty byways of New Mexico this week and stumble upon well preserved “bucket list” cars that have long since been claimed by rust and neglect back home. I had another brush with automotive serendipity today when an empty lot next to McDonald’s in the town of Los Lunas became host for a car that I simply haven’t seen in person for years. I didn’t have to scan deep in the memory banks for this one. One glance told me that the owner of a Renault Alliance had finally gotten tired of its, um, “eccentricities” and put it up for sale – cheap. Before it’s snapped up by some unwary buyer, I had to get some pictures and maybe even a little background. This rig has what the boss likes to call “patina”. Duffel bags of patina.

Read the rest of this entry »

37

Curbside Classics: Two Long Life Cars, or Suddenly It’s 1985

By
– Posted on May 20, 2025

(first posted 5/21/2019)        These two highly durable veterans from another era hang out a lot at this corner, sharing stories from the 1980s. I know the MR2 is a 1985, from its license plate, but I’m having a bit of trouble pinning down the exact year of the Volvo 244. 1979? 1980? It was a transitional year, between the single large round headlights and the quad rectangular ones.

In any case, these two have a lot of stories to share, if only they could talk.

Read the rest of this entry »

16

1957-1958 Fiat 1200 Spyder – Pre-Pininfarina

By
– Posted on May 20, 2025

(first posted 5/10/2019)        This caught my attention in traffic heading out West 6th Avenue, and I was just barely able to peel off a couple of Hail Mary shots, as it wasn’t moving and my lane was. It’s a car I’ve never caught in the wild before, and not likely to do so again: a Fiat 1200 Spyder, from about 1957-1958.

It’s not exactly a styling gem; in fact, I’ve never really liked it all that much, as it’s clearly aping an early-mid-50s Cadillac, with the chrome leading edge of its bulbous hips and wrap-around windshield. A Fiat Series 1.2 Convertible.

Read the rest of this entry »

Older Entries