The tires were by Uniroyal - they still have a line of Tiger Paws! ... View more

To help reduce the confusion over the tigers used by ESSO and Pontiac I offer the following;   Best I can tell is that the ESSO 'Tiger in Your Tank' ad campaign started in 1959 with a cartoon tiger - I cannot find where they ever used a tiger tail as an advertising gimmick. But it would have been a good idea to have a furry tail hanging from the gas filler.   The Pontiac Tiger campaign started in 1964 and continued through 1967 (?).  The following link has photos of a couple of suitably striped Pontiac GTO's with a tiger tail coming out of the trunk,  https://www.pontiacv8.com/blog/2019/9/8/pontiacs-tiger-themed-marketing-campaign-when-did-it-start   Hope this helps - - - ... View more

From Great Lakes Dragaway up in Union Grove, out to Byron Speedway, down to Route 88 in Sterling, back east to Oswego and Route 66, a stop at US 30 in Hobart and a hundred run-what-ya-brung not so legal tracks in between, the summers of the mid/late 60's were spent twisting wrenches and scrounging parts in our trying to run with the big dogs. A handful of cheap trophies and a ton of memories are all that is left of those Chicago area summers. Wouldn't trade them for anything. ... View more

Beg to differ with you on the reliability of the TR6. My wife bought hers new in '75 and shipped to our home in Alaska; it has since followed us to Florida. She has driven the car for these 45 years and only once did it fail her - my fault for not changing a questionable heater hose. My '58 MGA and '60 Healey 3000 followed the same trend. Come to think about it, the only non self-inflicted roadside failure we have experienced was an '87 Subaru that spit out its timing belt - warranty issue.   My thought is that many of the roadside failures are the result of 'over-tinkerng' by owners who really have no business under the hood or other 'wanna be' mechanics. I cannot count the times I was asked to help out a friend with a XXXXXX car (fill in the blank with any model of your choice) only to find out that they had adjusted the XXXXXX (fill in an adjustable part) or failed to reattach a ground wire that morning before the failure.   Properly maintained these cars were as good as any. ... View more

We lived in 'rural' Alaska during the 70's and 80's. Subaru's were everywhere, mostly wagons. My wife was fed up with driving my CJ5 and wanted something 'nicer'? On a trip to Anchorage we stopped at a few car dealers and I swear that bronze-ish colored BRAT (as pictured above) winked at her. That little car went everywhere she wanted to go without objection. I fabricated a trailer hitch for it and could tow two snow machines with ease. Heck that BRAT even pulled my F250 out of a ditch. We kept it for 11 years and it was still running great - although I did replace the CV joint boot covers and front fenders as the rust worm got to them. I think we paid about 5K for it and sold it for 2K, not bad for 11 years. ... View more