Author Archive
Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast
Whether you drive a car, need a car, or just occasionally bum a ride with friends, you’ve come to the right place. Join the editors of Consumer Guide Automotive as they break down everything that’s going on in the auto world. New-car reviews, shopping tips, driving green, electric cars, classic cars, and plenty of great guests. This is the Consumer Guide Car Stuff Podcast.
Great Wall Futurist
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.
Classic Car Ads: Luxury Cars of 1985
1985 Chrysler Town & Country
For the most part, we identify luxury vehicles not by price, but by make and model. For example, an Oldsmobile 88, to most people, was not a luxury car. But an Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight… we can pretty much agree that the senior Olds was a luxury ride.
Songsan Motors SS Dolphin
A pair of hard-working Las Vegas showgirls are friends, co-workers, and roommates, and each has custody of a much younger sibling. That’s the premise of a short-lived Garry Marshall-produced TV show called “Who’s Watching the Kids.” And in predictable sitcom fashion, often no one is watching the kids—and hilarity ensues.
Classic Car Ads: Electric Cars
General Motors EV1
A fun fact shared often in the automotive media is that electric cars fairly handily outsold gasoline-powered vehicles in the earliest days of the automobile era. Around the turn of the century, 40 percent of American automobiles were powered by steam, 38 percent by electricity, and just 22 percent by gasoline. (Granted, we’re only talking about a few thousand vehicles here, since the entire industry was in its infancy.)
Not ready to make the switch to a plug-in-hybrid or pure-electric vehicle? That’s okay with us. However, with gas prices cresting over $5.00 a gallon, you may be thinking about driving something more fuel efficient than your current set of wheels.
Classic Car Ads: Cheap Cars of 1983
Cheap Cars of 1983
Affordability is a relative thing. But odds are, if a manufacturer is sharing the price of a product in advertising, the thing being sold is probably a good deal. Of course, in the case of automobiles, the listed base price is subject to any number of asterisks and fine-print notations—especially back in the Eighties, before regulators were paying especially close attention to auto ads.
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.
