Yes! ... View more

The manual transmission models used an hydraulic clutch that had some issues. Pontiac went through several revisions of the slave cylinder and clutch  until they came up with something that worked. And the car had the weirdest parking brake I ever saw - instead of being in the center it was located to the left of the driver's seat. When you pulled it up it set the brake but put the handle right next to your hip; pulling it up a second time made the handle fall back to the floor.  ... View more

I believe NSU had a Wankel powered model for a short time. Although everyone associates the Mazda Wankel with the RX7, the Wankel was also an available option for their small pick-up truck for a couple of years. The rotary engined ones had round taillights, the conventional engine models had rectangular taillights. The conventional engined model was also sold as a Ford. I can't remember the model. Although it never went into production, someone (Ford?) had a mock-up of an atomic powered car on the car show circuit for awhile.  ... View more

Useless. Horses see the world through odor much more than sight.  ... View more

Ah, the Metro! The car with more names than a con man! The only car I know of where you opened the hood by pressing on the hood ornament. Aside from the occasional green one, virtually all of them were red.  ... View more

NSU would have had a hit on their hands with the Prinz were it not for the cars propensity to catch on fire. DKW liked to tell people that their name stood for "Das Kline Wunder" - the little wonder - but I suspect your version is the truth. And I can still remember the Borgward I drove past everyday on the way to high school - nice car. ... View more

People have often asked me the same question, phrased as "what's a good car?" In response I ask two questions: "does the car you have now run, and is it paid for?" If the answer to both questions is yes, I tell them "that's a good car." There is no point at which fixing your existing car will cost more than the payments on a new one; the only real reason to ever get rid of your old car is if the parts become unavailable. And speaking as a California Bay Area native, in California a 36 mile round trip commute is more like a quick jaunt to the store; most people drive at least twice that far to get to work and it's fairly common for people to drive 100 miles or more round trip. Another thing you have to take into account is that at rush hour much of that mileage is going to be done at an average speed of 10 - 15 mph; instead of concentrating on the highway mpg you need to look at how much fuel the car uses when idling. On the other hand, for those who aren't familiar with that infamous stretch of highway 17 in question it's one of those "they said it couldn't be built" roads that winds over a coastal mountain range and was originally built to allow vacationing San Jose residents to drive their Model T's to Santa Cruz. Four wheel drive would definitely come in handy as in winter the road gets a lot of rain and occasional snow storms. And one thing you didn't take in to account is that in the event of a collision there is simply no substitute for brute mass. In the event of a collision he would be a lot safer in the Range Rover, or better yet a Dodge dual cab long bed pick-up.  ... View more

"A Man and A Woman" is one of the greatest films ever made, period. But don't watch the terrible version  dubbed in English, which destroys much of the beautiful dialogue. The subtitled original is far, far better. The film is also notable for introducing what has now become a cliche, but was beautifully done in this movie: a man and a woman running towards each other on the beach.  And the racing scenes really are wonderful.  But the greatest car stunts ever performed, bar none, are in the original, and I stress original, version of The Italian Job, starring Michael Caine and featuring an over-the-top performance by Noel Coward basically playing Noel Coward. ... View more

Love seeing oddball cars like these. For something truly weird from the world of aftermarket bodies, I recall there was a company back then that sold a fiberglass body to convert your Renault Dauphine into a gull wing coupe. I don't remember their name or if they ever actually sold any, but I do remember seeing an ad for them. ... View more

Back in the 80's I handled claims for motorcycle insurance companies, and was in many  dealerships. The profit on motorcycles was very low, something like $100 if memory serves. As one dealer told me "we don't sell motorcycles, we buy service customers." Consequently, it was not unusual for dealers to have quite a few 2 or 3 year-old bikes still in the crate as the dealer considered them to be current models and sold them as such, even though they had been produced a few years earlier. I can easily see how a bike could become forgotten and sit on a back shelf for years.  ... View more

$60,000 times 25 cars equals $1.5 million, a drop in the bucket compared to the $400 million due.  ... View more

My somewhat hazy recollection is that the ramp on the Corvair was actually an option. And having owned an Econoline van I can testify that dragging a water hose across the your lap to fill the radiator was not pleasant, nor was checking the oil. And a special thrill insued when the engine caught fire at 65 mph. ... View more

As you point out, the problem is that cars have become a long term asset and investment. People now buy cars with the unspoken subtext that "this may be the last car I ever have to buy," even if they are only in their forties. And paradoxically, making cars safer has made them more dangerous; driving a car of the early sixties at freeway speed was a fulltime job, and most people didn't dare drive much over the speed limit. Today, the lowest priced model of almost any make can cruise noiselessly and effortlessly at 80 all day long, and unlike the cars of the past, still do it when the car has 150,000 miles on it. ... View more

Absolutely brilliant engineering.  ... View more

Great article!  ... View more

If the truck is that old the serial number is probably stamped in small and nearly invisible letters on the firewall. Sometimes it's stamped somewhere on the frame rail. Try the left side near the front axle for a start. Also common at one time for it to be on the floorboard just below the dash. Or on the left door lock pillar, or buried on the hinge pillar where you can hardly see it. If the truck has a glove compartment the inside of the glovebox door is a popular spot for all kinds of info. If you can find the serial number, no matter how old the truck is Mack (or Peterbilt, Kenworth, etc.) probably has a record of it. The only company that keeps better records is Caterpillar.  ... View more

I was a heavy equipment damage appraiser in the 80's and 90's. One of the reasons that all truck manufacturers, not just Mack, keep a line set ticket for every truck is that there's really no such thing as a "standard" model. There were such a bewildering amount of options and changes available that you had to have the ticket to know what the truck came with. The old ones were a kick - you might have a modern 13 speed, or you might have a 4 speed transmission with an auxiliary 3 speed "Brownie Box" and a 2 speed rear axle, Hendrickson rocking beam suspension, no suspension, airbag suspension installed 20 years after the truck was built, and two feet of frame welded on to the rear to turn your dump truck into a logging truck. Not to mention the Jake Brake and the Luberfiner. The one piece of equipment that almost never still worked was the speedometer - "I just drive by the tach." Good times. ... View more

That was an aftermarket item sold by one of those Spencer House type catalog outfits. Really was some ugly stuff. To get custom upholstery back in the 50's you drove down to Tijuana and went to one of the many shops there that specialized in one-off upholstery jobs. "Tuck and roll" was a top seller. ... View more

Southern California is a little more friendly to car culture and eccentric people in general. ... View more

The Cars & Coffee in Scotts Valley (between San Jose and Santa Cruz) was also the victim of its own success; discontinued because it simply got too big. Great show. The best car show in Monterey is the Concours deLemon; free, doesn't take itself too seriously, and cars you will never see elsewhere. I refuse to go to the auctions at Monterey because I'm not about to pay $50 to sit in the cheap seats and watch rich people bid on cars. ... View more

Location is everything - in the desert or in the middle of a forest this kind of place is magical. Put the same exact collection and buildings on a similar sized lot in the average suburb or small town and by the end of the week it would be smothered with abatement notices from the city. ... View more

Car interiors are a lot safer now, but not nearly as pretty as in the days of metal dashboards painted in a complementary color, chrome all over the place, radios with big pushbuttons, and a choice of 7 or 8 different interior colors. ... View more

I had one long ago in college. That interior really made you feel special, and the wrap around rear seat was pure elegance.  ... View more

In a special catagory are the restorers who are so obsessive that they deliberately duplicate the mistakes that were made by the factory, like the overspray on the inner fender panels of certain year Corvettes, or the orange peel paint on the front valance panel of some 70's Porsche models. ... View more

You would have just about needed a station wagon to haul around what passed for a car phone in 1968. It was a radio phone and the radio portion of it pretty much filled up the trunk of a full sized car. Beautiful ads.  ... View more

I worked for a substandard insurance carrier for 10 years and we had the same problem with insurance. Someone who couldn't get insurance because of their driving record would have someone else add the car onto their policy - usually a girlfriend but sometimes  just a relative, or an employer. ... View more

VW: nobody wanted to spend that much money on a car with VW's track record of high maintenance and poor reliability . Mitsubishi GT3000 - every time you got into a relatively minor accident involving the front end it wiped out one of the intercoolers. But Mitsubishi's main problem has always been their lack of dealerships.  ... View more

My recollection is that the Hodaka had an unbelievably high revving engine. I think the cruising speed worked out to 7,000 rpm. When it was doing 35 mph it sounded like it was going for the land speed record. Back when they were brand new and Hondas were ubiquitous I can only remember seeing one Hodaka; I can't believe there are any left.  ... View more

Striling Moss and Jimmy Clark - the best there ever were. They both raced in an era when cars were dumb and drivers smart, when the only sensor the car had was the driver, when a driver could tell if one tire had 2 psi less pressure than the others. And both sportsmen of the highest degree. ... View more