One of my favorite search terms on YouTube is ‘passage (très) difficile’. Then you’ll find yourself in France, watching modern big rigs rolling through old small towns.
AubeAgri_Production posted a Volvo FH 6×4 tractor with a tri-axle semi-low loader, hauling logging machinery. No worries ma’am!
Being empty nesters (physically, if not financially) has allowed my wife and I to travel a bit more, and it’s something we very much enjoy. During the Pandemic up until October of 2023, we stayed very close to home. We’d heard good things about Portugal and went for two weeks in October of 2023. We found the country hospitable, interesting and reasonable in terms of cost and did a lot of driving in a never reviewed Renault Captur those 10 days last year. We liked our trip so much that we went back for two weeks in September of this year with the intention of seeing the southern part of the country, called the Algarve, and also driving into Spain for part of the trip.
’58 Ford Custom 300 photo by Stephen Pellegrino.
My name is Rafael Fabius, I live in Uruguay, a small country wedged between Argentina and Brazil; a place a little bit off the usual beaten path of the general Curbivores. Still, I often see CC pics of cars taken in my country that may seem odd to first-world eyes. Curbivore sightings I’m always happy to see.
My earliest memory dates from June 1969, when my grandparents handed me as a gift a beautiful blue ’58 two-door patrol Ford Custom 300 with lights and all. Well, it looked beautiful to me. It was pure plastic, no windows, just the shade-in dies. But the important thing was that, for me, it was exactly the same as Dad’s car –bar the color, the doors, and the generally crappy quality of the model which didn’t allow for any details.
(first posted 3/31/2014) When it comes to the domestic manufacturers, the products of Ford Motor Co taken as a whole rank low on my list of desired models. However, that’s not something any open-minded, well-informed enthusiast can apply across the board, given the multitude of different models, developed at different times, and when considering the automotive landscape of the 1990s, a lot of Dearborn’s cars shot past their domestic competitors. An excellent example is the now forgotten Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique. Nearly twenty years after their launch, they remain some of my favorite sedans of the ’90s, and I’ll try to do them justice.
(first posted 1/17/2019) Trust me to find cars in Venice.
My poor brother thought he’d gotten a reprieve during our Europe trip when we arrived in Venice. No cars for me to stop and photograph and yammer on about. Lucky him! Only, while exploring Venice we stumbled across a parking lot near where busses, trains and, yes, some cars enter the archipelago. I pointed at this little purple hatchback and said, “Look, a Lancia Y10!” Although my brother probably didn’t want to engage me in a long discussion, he did point out that that didn’t look like a Lancia badge. He was right, this was an Autobianchi – the last Autobianchi. Read the rest of this entry »
canadiancatgreen is one of our most prolific Cohort posters. He doesn’t even shy away from visiting junkyards in the depths of winter in Canada. So let’s tag along and see what he’s found, starting with this 1968 Impala sports coupe.
Text by Patrick Bell.
Today we are going to view some hardtops, a favorite for many during the fifties, sixties and part of the seventies. They have the sporty look of a convertible with the top up without the problems of one.
Our first one is a ’57 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket 88 Holiday Coupe with a California plate and is in San Francisco. This was Oldsmobile’s least expensive and most popular 2 door hardtop for ’57 out of the three offered. On the hill to the left is a white ’50 Chevrolet Styline and a white over red ’55 Chevrolet.
To close this Week of Small JDM curios, what could be better than Autozam, a marque whose brief existence personified the concept of strange and petite on this market in the ‘90s? It’s been a while since we’ve had a look at Mazda’s hubristic adventures in brand-creating, which started as a notion to become a Japanese GM and ended up in the company Sloane-laddering their way to near bankruptcy.
1949 Chevrolet Styleline De Luxe / ClassicCars.com
For modern enthusiasts and nostalgists, the popularity of postwar Chevrolet cars (and trucks) is so tied up with the SBC V-8 engine that it’s almost hard to believe that for many years, Chevrolet didn’t offer anything but the trusty Stovebolt Six. Even so, six-cylinder Chevrolets like the Satin Green ’49 pictured above managed to become the best-selling cars in the entire world. Let’s take a closer look at the million-selling 1949 Chevrolets.
(first posted 1/1/2012) For most of us, the turn of the calendar represents a new (hopeful) beginning. A fresh start, if you will, to take stock, begin anew, or re-commit to what’s important. New Year’s Day is life’s reset button. So it was on this day 42 years ago when Ford re-launched a trusted marque that had, in its former life, defined what it meant to be sensible and thrifty. The new “Falcon” that buyers saw in showrooms that day was not in itself a bad car. But with an unclear purpose and a half hearted commitment by a management very much in turmoil, the last Falcon was an endangered species from the moment it appeared on the scene.
(first posted 1/16/2019) I came across the catalogue for a James Bond exhibition which had some great behind-the-scenes images and sketches. This one’s by Michael White for the production of Goldfinger.
Which is as good an excuse as any for yet another mini-series: the James Bond cars that never were.
Inland Steel Complex, East Chicago.
Time to pay another brief visit to Chicago in the early ’70s, a city we have paid a couple of visits to in the last year (Previous posts, HERE and HERE). Once again, the images belong to the UIC (University of Illinois) online collection and were taken between 1971-1975.
For the world at large, Subaru was mostly known as a maker of boxer-engined AWD saloons and wagons. But domestically, the Gunma-based automobile arm of Fuji Heavy Industries (formerly known as Nakajima Aircraft) has always been a key kei car player. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Subaru’s main kei model was the Rex. Today, we look at the final and sportiest iteration of this long-running nameplate.
My curbside friends, I have found the deal of a lifetime for you. Just look at this magnificent specimen from the time when these really big Lincoln Continentals were the top dog in the automotive pecking order. Admit it; when you were a little kid you were just dying to have your dad trade in his 1969 Dart 4-door for one of these. You would have been instantly elevated from being the kid no one sat with at lunch to the one everyone wanted to ride home with, in that magnificent big Continental.
Well, it’s not too late to drastically up your status in life. You think anyone ever notices your 1998 Chevy Lumina? For just $1995 you could be rolling through the ‘hood in this, with “Margaritaville” wafting out the open windows. All those girls that shunned you back then will drop their laundry baskets and turn off “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and come running out their front doors…
Just head to Lou Glutz Motors in Eugene. Seriously.
