Posts from ‘Plymouth’
1986 Chevrolet Corvette
In terms of general statistical sexiness, brake performance has long taken a backseat to acceleration. Horsepower numbers are fun, 0-60-mph and quarter-mile times are fun. But braking? Most car guys know that reaching 60 mph from a stop in less than 6 seconds is an impressive feat. How many folks, I wonder, know what a decent time would be for coming to a complete stop from 60 mph?
1957 Plymouth
In his 2012 book Fractured Times: Culture and Society in the Twentieth Century, historian Eric Hobsbawm noted, “In terms of literary pedigree, the invented cowboy was a late romantic creation. But in terms of social content, he had a double function: he represented the ideal of individualist freedom pushed into a sort of inescapable jail by the closing of the frontier and the coming of the big corporations.”
1988 Volvo 780 Bertone
Let’s get one thing straight right away: The Chevrolet Monte Carlo WAS a personal-luxury car. I have received at least a dozen emails and instant messages on this issue, mostly from car guys who insist that a personal-luxury car must come from a luxury brand. Not the case. For anyone who would like to spend time learning about the origins of the term, Wikipedia has a nice entry on the topic.
1957 Ford Ranchero and some of Collectible Automobile Publisher Frank Peiler’s “what-if” designs.
By Frank Peiler
Back in 1956, Ford was preparing for the introduction of their all-new 1957 models, and what an introduction it would be! Not just one line of cars, but two. The large cars were the Fairlane and Fairlane 500, which were built on a 118-inch wheelbase They were available as four-door hardtops and sedans, two-door hardtops and sedans, and a 500 two-door convertible. Later in the model year came the Skyliner retractable-hardtop convertible.
1985 Dodge 600 ES
The bad news is that fewer than one of every hundred cars sold in the United States is a convertible. (I will spare you the fractional math required to pass along the number of manual-transmission-equipped convertibles sold on our shores last year, but it’s fewer still.)
1985 Buick Riviera Convertible
While styling, performance, and rarity have been the traditional tickets to collectibility, vehicles that offer features—styling or otherwise—that are monuments to their era or simply aren’t likely to reappear also have a shot. It’s why we believe cars of the Fifties are so treasured today; their chrome, tall fins, and sheer mass so perfectly characterized the jet-aged optimism of the time, and it’s almost certain their likes will ever be seen again.
1956 Studebaker
We have shared classic wagon advertisements before, but the bounty of great ads out there has compelled us to revisit the subject.
1984 Chrysler Fifth Avenue
It’s a maxim, a song title, and something your friends might have tried to tell you before a blind date: It’s what’s inside that counts. For a car dealer trying to maneuver a would-be car buyer into a test drive, it’s all about the cabin experience.
1950 Packard
As you likely already know, the manual transmission is all but dead. Nothing drove home this point better than the news that in 2019, pure-electric vehicles outsold vehicles equipped with manual transmissions in the U.S.
1970 GMC Jimmy
We can pretend that this whole crossover thing came out of nowhere, but that really isn’t the case. In reality, utility vehicles have been with us nearly as long as the automobile has–it’s just that the “trucks” were generally marginalized as commercial vehicles and mostly dismissed by the average family-vehicle consumer.
