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It looked a lot like 1979 on my street one Monday morning, but it’s 2014. How did that happen?
Jeep: Perpetual reincarnation. Present-day Wranglers can have decent air conditioning, so the main tell that this isn’t a CJ-5 must be that the cabin enclosure is in place.
Corvette: Love. This C3 was an unplanned street-park; the T-Tops are still in the garage. Somebody’s Sunday night went a lot better than expected.
Volvo 240: Obstinacy. Volvo sold 240s from 1975 to 1993. It may be odd that the 245 is the only model in this lineup that you can’t buy new now.
Fantasy-me will take the Corvette, the polishing rag, and the night out. You??
C3 remains the most important Corvette styling wise. GM lost the will to be creative since the C3:
C4 a flattened C3
C5 a matronly C4
C6 a C5 on diet
C7 a C6 plus flake boobs and ass.
From C3 remains the best lookin’ in my eyes. Too bad it carried over C2’s mediocre chassis then got hit by oil embargoes and clean air acts … the disco vettes had no performance at all.
Well, the disco Vettes performed comparable for their era, a Ferrari 308 from this same era would struggle to get into the high 6’s 0-60, which is comparable to an L82 4 speed Corvette or 4 speed WS6 Firebird from the same time period.
For more money than the same era Corvette you could get a 924 with a wheezy Vanagon motor that struggled to break 10 seconds to 60.
It was still one of the best handling cars available anywhere, even if the chassis was “mediocre”, out handling new and more modern cars.
4 paths if you count the Econoline across the street.
The Acura TSX should hold up quite well, too.
I think the reference is more in regards to long lived platforms and or body styles, the 240, the C3 Corvette, Jeep and the Econoline are all way older than the Acura.
The TSX has already been discontinued. The TSX was a rebadged Euro Accord, so it might live on in its Honda Accord form.
agreed on the Econoline, here is my continuation on the theme
Econoline: function over form; versatility. How many other basic vehicle formats were the right tool for the job for so many different needs as the full-size van: ambulances, campers, repair vehicles, family transport (prior to minivans and SUVs), etc.
Absolutely right. If it were really 1979, this stretch passenger van might have been a luxurious conversion van.
This generation of Corvette is really common on the street. I saw maybe 5 or 6 in St Ignace car show this year, but I saw more than double on the way, including one pulling a trailer. These are so common that I cant think of any other ’70s cars are more common than this. ( Oh, Dodge Aspen, Chevrolet Malibu and Ford Fairmont are so scarce by compare! )
Intersting and maybe true, at least in the rust belt. A vette is much less likely to be driven in winter salt, so many survived at least structurally.
and let’s face it, a clapped-out Corvette is always going to find a wistful new owner who seas himself driving through Corvette Summer when he looks at it–no matter how much of a pile it is. Fairmont Summer? Not so much…so they all get unceremoniously sent to the pick and pull when the next repair is more than their scrap value.
Oh…… That’s true
So, I didn’t really see many people taking photos at the corvette C3 in St Ignace, but there were more crowd surrounding a mint, mint ’83 Ford Escort wagon with stick and no AC! And the owner must be really happy about that little wagon with a plate 83 Escort on front.
But it’s always interesting to see what kind of cars they drive in the winter times. For a mint Ford Tempo kept in garage in winter, a blazer with many rust holes was driven. And a guy drives a cavalier when summer car is an AMC Gremlin. Oh, I drive a ’95 LeSabre with faded paint in winter and I occasionally drive a ’78 Volare in summer. There is a guy in the street drives a Ford Fairmont but I never figure out what he drives in snow though.
The Jeep is an interesting inclusion in the lineup. That particular model is the TJ, made from 1997 to 2006 and the first all-coil-sprung Wrangler.
What strikes me as interesting about it is that it shows just how much larger vehicles (and not just pickup trucks) have become over time. The C3 Corvette and Volvo appear dwarfed by the TJ, but if one were to put a contemporary CJ-7 next to them everything would be back in proportion.
Of course, it’s also interesting that the TJ doesn’t look entirely out of place next to them, either – it’s easy to imagine that if this were 1979, that might be someone’s project Jeep lookalike built onto a Bronco or Scout chassis.
That vintage Corvette does look small in traffic, I saw a white circa 77-78 one on the road a week ago in rush hour traffic, and it almost looked Miata-like around the larger, bulkier modern cars and trucks.
Actually the TJ has nearly the exact dimensions as the CJ-7 of the same time would have, except the TJ has a bit wider track. The outer doorskins have been carried over since ’82 when they facelifted the harddoors that came out in ’76.
The YJ with its square headlites would’ve stuck out like a sore thumb, but the TJ goes retro with a grille that’s a lot more ‘classic Jeep’. The softer interior and the wonky ‘squared off’ rear rollbar are the main tells that this isn’t a CJ.
That is my favorite model Corvette – with the glass hatchback.
I don’t care how they perform – I would love to cruise in one with the t-tops out.
The rear “hatch” glass is fixed in place on all C3s save the 1982 Collector’s Edition, which severely limits the usefulness of the cargo area. Much better than the pre-’78 models, though.
Interesting, I never knew the glass opened on the 82 collector editions.
thats typical GM though, leave it half assed for years, then fix it the year before it gets canceled haha.
Is it only on the Collectors Edition? I thought it was all 1982’s.
And when did they cancel the Corvette? I must have missed that news story.
I think the poster meant the killing off of the C3 Vette. 1982 was the last year of that generation with the 1984 Corvette ready to bow in.
Only the 1982 Collectors Edition got the opening rear hatch. It was outsourced to a company called Cars & Concepts
I know, it was a sarcastic comment.
Thanks for the clarification!
No problem! And Carmine, it was indeed only the Collector’s Edition that had the opening rear glass.
Actually that TJ might look big because it’s the 2.5 year only Wrangler Unlimited. That name now denotes the 4 door abomination applied to the JK Wrangler, but back in 04-06 it was a slightly stretched TJ
Actually I do not think so. I just walked out my front door to compare it to my neighbor’s in the drive way which IS an original Unlimited, this one pictured is a regular one. The real one has about 6″ of bodywork behind the lowest part of the rear fender extension and about a foot in front of it before the door. The hardtop window is almost exactly the same width as the bottom tips of the fender extension, which this one is not.
The original Unlimited also has black diamond plate along the rocker panels.
I think the angle of the photo makes it appear a little bit stretched, that’s all. I should do a write-up on the original Unlimited using my neighbor’s for pix, but know next to nothing about Wranglers…
Jim, you could just do an outtake on the TJ-L. I might just know a thing or two about these beasts to fill in the details….