Posts from ‘Classic Cars’

1942 Oldsmobile 66 Special Club Coupe
Note: The following story was excerpted from the February 2019 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine
The 1942 Oldsmobile brochure proclaimed that the cars were “Better Looking . . . Better Lasting . . . Better Built Than Any Oldsmobile In Forty-Four Years.” Playing off the “B” in “better” and 44 years, all 1942 Olds wore a B-44 badge. This ’42 Series 66 Special, owned by Dave and June Simon of Gardena, California, confirms Olds’s boast of quality and durability. The club coupe has covered 76,000 miles and is mostly original. It has been repainted in its original Metallic Mist Blue, although the engine compartment and trunk retain the factory paint. The tan ripple-weave Bedford-cloth-and-broadcloth interior is original.

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.

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.

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.

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.

1998 Lincoln Town Car Touring Sedan
Note: The following story was excerpted from the February 2021 issue of Collectible Automobile magazine.
For decades, the prototypical American luxury automobile was a full-size sedan often utilizing body-on-frame construction. Cadillac’s last of the type was the 1996 Fleetwood. Lincoln stuck with the recipe and offered Town Cars through 2011. For a while, 1998-2002 to be exact, one of them was the warmed-up Touring Sedan.

1964 Mercury Marauder
Say the word “hardtop” and any vintage-auto enthusiast knows what you’re referring to: a closed-roof car with a pillarless roofline (i.e., no door posts to break up the flow of the styling). Though there were earlier examples of the basic concept, General Motors kicked off the hardtop as we know it by introducing a pillarless-coupe body style in its Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile product lines midway through the 1949 model year.