Author Archive
Classic Car Ads: Coupes of 1981
1981 Ford Granada
My dad was a coupe man, though I cannot say he owned coupes on purpose. He was a bargain hunter, and a car’s door count was less important than its price. Nonetheless, my sister, mother and I never complained about having to squeeze into the back seat. For the most part, my dad’s Chevrolet Nova 2-door, and multiple Oldsmobile Cutlass and Pontiac Ventura coupes, offered sufficient rear-seat space, provided you didn’t mind negotiating the path past the folded front seat—and for the most part, we didn’t mind.
Classic Car Ads: Sedans of 1980
1980 Chrysler LeBaron
According to website Statista, light-truck sales—which include crossovers and SUVs—have risen from about 2 million in 1980 to almost 12 million last year. One needs only to look around to see that coupe and convertible sales have fallen to all-time lows, but it’s the humble sedan that I am most worried about.
Forgotten Concept: Plymouth Pronto
Plymouth Pronto
This is an installment in a series of posts looking back on show cars that we feel deserved a little more attention than they got. If you have a suggestion for a Forgotten Concept topic, please shoot us a line or leave a comment below.
Forgotten Concept: Ford Mustang RSX
Ford Mustang RSX Concept
This is an installment in a series of posts looking back on show cars that we feel deserved a little more attention than they got. If you have a suggestion for a Forgotten Concept topic, please shoot us a line or leave a comment below.
1983 Cadillac Seville
The song “Driver’s Seat” would be British pop band Sniff ‘n’ the Tears biggest hit. Released in 1978, the tune would chart in several countries, and would provide period top-40-radio listeners with a needed reprieve from the disco music which then dominated the airwaves.
Dealer markup sticker on a 2022 Jeep Grand Wagoneer Series III
It’s no secret: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the related supply-chain issues, new-vehicle transaction prices have shot upward over the last couple years. Stories of jaw-dropping dealer markups—especially for popular vehicles—are now commonplace… so much so that some sort of markup on a new vehicle is more or less the rule, rather than the exception. On a recent Sunday road trip through Western Illinois, I came across a small-town Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep-Ram dealership with a few brand-new vehicles on its lot, so I decided to do a little boots-on-the-ground research. What I found was this: This particular dealer is asking full sticker, full sticker plus $5000, or full sticker plus $10,000 for the new vehicles it has in inventory. And, there isn’t very much in inventory.
Rivian EDV delivery van
A little over a year ago, my neighbors and I lamented the construction of an Amazon delivery facility not more than three blocks from our homes. To our relief, the now-operational warehouse and delivery center has not diminished our quality of life in any meaningful manner. It’s a big sucker, though, boasting nearly 200 loading docks and serving as home to maybe 200 delivery vans. About those vans…
1941 Ford, and a clown
I don’t know when it was that stand-up comics began telling clown jokes. I want to say I was fully an adult before it was brought to my attention—by those stand-up comics—that the whole clown thing is pretty weird. I recall a local shock jock dedicating considerable attention to the whole clown-as-a-career thing.
1979 Chrysler Cordoba 300
The American auto industry’s “Malaise Era” is generally defined as the 1973 through 1984 model years, and it was by and large a bummer for car enthusiasts. A confluence of several sobering factors—more-stringent emission standards, the introduction of low-lead gasoline, and rising auto-insurance rates—rather suddenly put the kibosh on horsepower, and as a result, on fun.
