Here’s wishing all of you a Merry Christmas or whatever your seasonal holiday of choice may be. Treasure the time with your loved ones, and may all your Christmas wishes come true (who asked for the 1941 Lincoln Zephyr?). Cheers!
Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays From All Of Us At CC!
– Posted on December 23, 2012
And same to you and yours, Paul. Merry Christmas
Paul, I’d like to wish the same for you and yours! It’s been a pleasure coming here everyday to see what find someone has shared for the rest of us. And I enjoy the comments from this family of like minded enthusiasts! Merry Christmas!
Paul, Merry Christmas!
You are doing a wonderful job on this site. I post infrequently (2 kids, 2.5 hr commute and a 50+ hr week), but I check in here every day.
Sometime I’ll get to writing a piece on the 69-71 Chrysler 300s.
Merry Christmas to all the other CCers out there.
Same to you, Paul!
Merry to us, one and all!
Merry Christmas to all from snowy British Columbia!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!
I’ll even throw in an X-mas card.
And Merry Christmas from New Zealand summertime to you Paul, and all the other contributors who keep the Curbside Classic wheel rolling! Here’s to a Curbside Classic-ful 2013!
Merry Christmas to you and yours, Paul. CC has been a lot of fun and I am sure I can speak for a lot of the other guys, I enjoyed my little bit of it. Makes your day a little special.
Now you have to make it to see what lurks beyond the Kanuckistani Kurtain.
Always a good read. Merry Christmas Paul and I hope you finish the DIY marathon soon. Love the site and the commenters are tops.
It gets a bit too hot for the Reindeers down here at this time of year, so Santa has to use alternate means of transport. Merry Christmas from Australia. Best Wishes, Anthony.
Did the XC get a bit hot too? Lol, as an Aussie-Ford fan, I’m loving that pic Anthony! Cheers, Scott in New Zealand. 🙂
No Scott it’s not a mechanical problem, Santa is just checking the oil and water before he heads off. Merry Christmas 🙂
Ah, of course he is, my bad! Probably checking the a/c belt’s on nice and tight too! I have shamelessly stolen this pic and posted it on facebook, it’s been very well received 🙂
There have been sightings of a similar vehicle in the southern US with Santa in it.
Clearly Santa is a Ford Man 🙂
+1 🙂
Merry Christmas, Paul, and to everyone else who stops by here. May your day be full of cheer and all things good!
To all the CC writers and commentators, thank you for taking us back down memory lane each and every day, throughout this past year. Entering the CC time warp is a most wonderful elixir of life, to be taken daily for best results.
May health and happiness be our steadfast companions in the coming year.
All the best.
Fröhliche Weinachten und eine gutes Rutsch in dem Neues Jahre!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Happy Holidays and Peace to all.
I couldn’t resist the Sunfire ad…
Merry Christmas to the editors and contributors to what has become one of my all-time favorite sites. Hope Santa treats you well.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all on CC!
CC has been my warm and happy place for a long time now. I am most grateful for the terrific entries from you, Paul, and other contributors. May you writers, and the rest of you readers enjoy a happy and warm Christmas season.
Paul and everyone who contributes here at CC:
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays back at ‘cha! And from Avantis to Lincoln Zephyrs, thanks for all you do and the happiness you bring all year ’round!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone
A Merry Christmas and a happy New year to Paul and all the contributors who make Curbside Classics so enjoyable to read!
Merry Christmas from Central Florida. It’ll be in the 70’s today and tomorrow here! Hope your day is filled with happiness.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Paul, and all CC contributors! This has become my favorite “breaktime” website, and it helps me get through sometimes stressful days at work.
Thank you all for the work you do to make this such a great site!
Merry Christmas from snowy Oregon!
It’s sunny here this morning, so of course it’s quite chilly. A fine Christmas Eve day, much better than the typical Monday, and a great day on which to send Christmas greetings to one and all, and especially to Paul and family.
Wishing Paul, the other CC contributors and our devoted readers a blessed Christmas. It is my privilege to be in your company here at CC. Tony
Best wishes to everyone for a very Merry Christmas! Hope your holiday is Studebaker-rific!
That’s a fun Studebaker ad. As a bit of trivia, the ad refers to the pictured Studebakers as the Lark Challenger and Commander. This was the first step toward phasing out the Lark nameplate.
Studebaker was thus the first of the Big Five American automakers to ditch its mid-sized nameplates. Most did so as they morphed from compacts to mid-sized cars, e.g., the F-85 was replaced by the Cutlass. However, even a number of cars that started out mid-sized had name changes (Fairlane to Torino and Belvedere to Satellite).
By 1971 the original nameplates for nine out of 10 mid-sized offerings had either been discontinued or relegated to an entry-level model (e.g., Chevelle hung on through the mid-70s as the base Malibu). The Dodge Coronet was the lone original nameplate that didn’t change until 1978.
Might Studebaker feel proud about pioneering such a huge fad in its dying year as a US automaker? Eh. That’s an awful lot of brand equity flushed down the toilet . . . for what purpose? Was the Buick Skylark — or Century — really a better name than the Special?
I’m not so sure I agree with you totally on that. Granted, it does apply to the Studebaker. But the process of name debasement had been going on in Detroit for a long time. The Bel Air was debased by the ’58 Impala; the Bonneville took the top tier away at Pontiac, etc. I don’t think the process of name debasement had anything to do with them morphing from compacts to mid-sizers; it was a rampant thing throughout the industry, and Studebaker was hardly the first.
I’m not arguing that name debasement was invented by Studebaker. Rather that there was a much greater incidence of wholesale nameplate change in the mid-sized field than had typically occurred with full-sized cars.
The Big Three certainly engaged in name debasement with big cars — particularly in the 1950s. And obviously a few brands threw out their entire roster of nameplates, such as Buick in 1959. However, nameplates such as Impala, Galaxie and Fury tended to last a lot longer than Lark, Comet, F-85 and Tempest.
Just as importantly, mid-sized nameplates were much more likely to disappear altogether because automakers tended to gravitate to one overarching nameplate rather than a series of them. For example, in 1971 all of Ford’s mid-sized cars were called Torino (in base, 500, Brougham and GT trim), whereas its big cars had the traditional Custom, Custom 500, Galaxie 500, LTD hierarchy.
When and how a nameplate was changed may have depended upon specific circumstances. For example, the Tempest was reportedly phased out primarily because of the lingering taint of reliability issues. And the Classic became the Rebel because the former was viewed as too stodgy.
I think it fair to suggest that the Lark and Comet in particular were phased out because they were too closely associated with a compact, economy-car vibe. The Comet didn’t sell all that well once it became a true mid-sized car in 1966-67; the 1968+ Montego was a better fit with the broughaming of the mid-sized market.
Festuvus for the rest of us! Merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, and all that stuff. It looks like we will have a White Christmas here in Salt Lake as it is currently snowing quite seriously. My wife just came back from running last minute errands in my Impreza as younger son is out on his own mission in her Forester. So far only my wife has driven my first all-wheel drive car in snow. Something’s wrong with this picture. I could just go out and drive it now but I prefer to sip burbon, watch black and white movies on TCM, and work on the latest car-themed jig saw puzzle that Suzy picked up for the season which is entitled “American Cars”. Something’s funny about this puzzle, some of the steering wheels are on the right side. Could this be the fiendish work of the Joker? Pick up the Batphone, Batman, major problems here in Gotham!
Paul, thanks for this site! It keeps me going through my workday!
Merry Xmas, y’all, from sunny Texas!
Happy Holidays everyone! Here is a Christmas ornament I wish to own someday but do not want to pay for. Obviously, its Taurus related.
Seriously though, thank you all for the kind welcome you’ve given me. Merry Christmas.
Never saw that one before. I do seem to recall a Hallmark ornament of Cousin Eddie’s RV a few years back.
Wish I knew about the Taurus–I would have gotten one last year!
This has absolutely nothing to do with cars but here is a fun piece of Christmas Music – Santa and Isolde. Opera themes and Christmas tunes combined. Amazing how they fit together. Ride of the Valkyries and Jingle Bells – together at last. (Maybe the Valkyries were riding in something that could qualify as a Curbside Classic!) The first minute is slow but the rest is fine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7D8-c_ZuHs
Another version is here: http://performancetoday.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/12/18/santa-isolde/
Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year too.
Honda briefly sold a “naked” version of the Gold Wing called the Valkyrie.
This week finds me in Southeast Michigan, staying with my Grandma in Ypsilanti. I’m currently at a coffee shop in Ann Arbor checking in, anticipating all the Holiday treats my Mom and Grandma are at home whipping up. As much as I dislike the cold and snow, there is no place I would rather be then near the Motor City at Christmastime.
Here’s to looking forward to a wonderful new year of health and happiness for all of us, and lots of up and coming CC’s for us all to enjoy.
So from my house to all of yours, Have a very Blessed and Merry Christmas!
Richard Bennett.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all of the contributors and readers who make this such a fun place to hang out. Reading the great articles and the highly informed comments makes my days. Special wishes as well to the folks who work behind the scenes to keep things running smoothly. There is supposed to be a lot of snow on the way to central Indiana, so we will see.
Oh – to answer the original question, I believe that the ’41 Lincoln was on the Christmas list of the family mechanic. 🙂
From the City of Chihuahua, in the arid and frigid Northern plains of México, I wish all of you Merry Christmas and enjoyable readings as these in CC pages!
Happy Holidays to all. I’m not sure it’s totally healthy to admit this, but I have become addicted to CC in the last few months since I discovered it. But I’m also glad to know that my interest in automotive minutiae combined with nostalgia is shared by others around the world. It’s all been great, but special thanks to the cohorts from Australia, Canada and New Zealand who offer a unique perspective with their Aussie Falcons, Holdens, Laurentians, and Envoys.
This is a remarkable place. I have been fortunate to contribute and send good tidings to all the Curbsiders near and far.
And if you’re wondering what to get me: A finned 300 and two factory techs with a truckload of spares. 🙂
This is, indeed, a remarkable place. To all the denizens of CC, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. And may there be many more wondrous CC stories to share in the New Year.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!
> Who asked for the 1941 Lincoln Zephyr?
Me, me me! Can I have one pleeeeeeeaaaassssseeee?!
Merry Christmas, even if I’m more than a couple o’days late!
Gotta go, carry on please. 😉
I knew it had someone’s name on it. But it’s too late now; you didn’t claim it in time, and Santa has added it to his own growing fleet of unclaimed cars. Sorry!