1950 Dodge Wayfarer

Believe it or not, there used to be a market for full-size cars with only one row of seats. Traveling salesman bought them. This was probably the cheapest car you could buy from the Big 3 automakers. You might call it The Willy Loman Special, except that Death of a Salesman specifically mentions Willy driving a Studebaker.

This car had Chrysler's Fluid Drive. This was a hydraulic fluid coupling placed between the engine and an otherwise totally conventional manual clutch and transmission. From a practical standpoint, this meant that if you were stuck in traffic, you could just put it in second gear and drive it like an automatic.

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1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser

This one is close to my heart because it's the exact car we had when I was kid. Imagine 2 adults and 4 kids driving from Iowa to San Diego and back, with camping gear. And yes, usually one us was stretched out all the way in the back. I guess they don't let kids do that any more.

These cars, and their Chevy, Pontiac and Buick equivalents used to be everywhere but virtually none survived. See the odd vent windows on the second set of doors? Well, those were there because the windows on those doors didn't go down. On a sweltering Iowa day, that was less fun.

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2022 Greenwood Car Show: General Motors

After a two-year absence, the Greenwood Car Show is back and the weather was perfect. I'm going to do all my favorites in a few posts. Here are the GM cars.

I think this 1969 Camaro SS is a "tribute" car. It's done up like the very rare Camaro SS 427 sold by Yenko Chevrolet, but I see a number of things about it that don't look authentic.

 

1969 Pontiac GTO.

 

1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS 396. This looks completely authentic.

1970 Oldmobile F-85 Cutlass Rallye 350. A budget muscle car featuring GM's forced air induction system (makes car go fast).

 

   

1970 Oldsmobile 442. Top of the line.

 

A rare 1957 Chevrolet delivery sedan.

 

1957 Chevrolet Bel Air.

 

1967 Pontiac GTO.

   

1955 Chevrolet Bel Air

 

Probably the most desirable Sting Ray. 1963 split-window coupe with fuel injection.

 

1967 and 1968 Camaros. The convertibles have the Rally Sport package, denoted by the hidden headlights.

 

1962 Chevrolet Corvette.

 

1967 Pontiac GTO.

 

1969 Pontiac Firebird.

 

1954 Pontiac. Sometime around August 1954, GM built its very last straight-8 engine.

    

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1971 Ford F100 Pickup Truck

The Ford F100 with a straight 6 engine and a three-on-the-tree transmission was as basic as a truck could be. The only factory option I see here are the upgraded side mirrors. There's a Ford from the 70s on just about every block in Seattle, but this one is particularly nicely restored.

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1965 Chevrolet Chevelle Station Wagon

Old wagons are rare. Plenty were built, few survived. Go look for '55 Thunderbird. A search will quickly turn up dozens for sale. Then try to find a '79 Olds Cutlass wagon for sale. There aren't any.

A fair number of Chevelle wagons have survived; it's a pretty cool car. This is a base model Chevelle, it is not the more common Malibu trim. It appears the owner has dropped in the top engine from that era, the 396 V8. Pretty sure it did not come from the factory with that.

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1957 Chevrolet Corvette fuel-injected

At least $150,000 worth of ultra-rare Corvette just sitting in the parking lot at South Center Mall. With the 4-speed no less. No armed guards or anything. If it were mine, I wouldn't let it out of my sight for a second.

 

 

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1969 Dodge Charger Daytona

After a two-year absence, the Greenwood Car Show is back and the weather was perfect last Saturday. This car was probably the biggest "wow" moment for me. So if you've got at least $250K to spare, you should be able to pick up one of the few '69 Charger Daytonas still in circulation. That year, Nascar required that 500 copies of a "stock" car be made for it to qualify for the track, so Dodge dropped either the 426 hemi or 440 V-8 engine into 502 copies of the Charger, then added a fiberglass nose and outrageous rear spoiler. I've heard the reason why the spoiler was so high was that it was set at the height needed to allow the trunk to be opened. In 1970, Nascar increased the minimum production for a stock car to qualify for the track from 500 copies to 2,000, so Chrysler built 1,920 Plymouth Road Runner Superbirds very similar to this car. The following year Nascar dropped the whole "stock cars have to be actual stock cars" requirement.

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1964 Lancia Flavia Vignale Convertible

The Greenwood Car Show will be back in a few days after a two-year absence, so I'll get to see some more cars I've never seen before. Lancia is one of the oldest automotive brands and used to sell hundreds of thousands of cars per year. Yet this example at Greenwood a couple of years ago was the first Lancia I'd ever seen. Unlike other Italian brands, it's never been sold here even in small numbers. The Flavia was Italy's first front-wheel drive car, and this model was designed by Pininfarina.

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1979 Lincoln Continental Town Car

Well if we're gonna have inflation like it's 1979, let's have a car from 1979. People, the 1970s were very brown. Does anybody still sell a car this color?
* This was the largest car made in the world at that time.
* Engines getting smaller - This car had the 400 c.i. V8, as compared to the 460 in the previous generation. By 1981, it would be the 302 and in 1991 the 281 engine that would carry the Town Car all the way to its final edition in 2011.

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1967 Pontiac GTO

Gotta love Seattle, where seeing the greatest cars of all time on the street is an every day occurrence. In 1967, this car got its first 3-speed automatic transmission. This GTO also has the optional Hurst Dual-Gate shifter. Gotta love 60s car culture, when GM could say, "Look we know you're going to street race, so we'll help you out." The left side of the shifter has a normal shift pattern. For drag racing, you can bring the car to a stop, then move the shifter to the bottom of the right side. What happens next? From drivemag.com: "Placing the lever at the very back at 1 for first gear, you accelerated peal to the metal. The trick was for the driver to keep its cool up until the red line. With tires screeching, this was the moment to punch it into second gear. Usually, this meant the car tried to spin out of control and kill you. If you survived, you got to repeat the performance for third and final gear. After this, it was smooth sailing until the police caught up with you."

 

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1966 Pontiac GTO

From outwards appearances, the '66 and '67 GTO were the same. But beneath the skin, in '67:
* The old 389 c.i. V-8 was replaced with a new 400.
* A new 3-speed automatic replaced the old 2-speed.
* A new 4-barrel carb meant the end of the "tripower" intake of 3-linked 2-barrels. This car has the tripower setup. Harder to tune but more fun.
* I can see that the owner of this car has upgraded the master cylinder. In '66 master cylinders (for brake fluid) were still single-chamber but all cars went to 2-chamber in '67.
* Other interesting options on the greatest muscle car:
** You could order a GTO as either a hardtop like this one, or as a fixed-pillar coupe with full door and window frames. The coupe was less popular, but the stronger body made it a better car.
** If ordered automatic transmission, and you didn't order the optional center console between the front seats, you got a shifter on the steering column. With the console, the shifter was on the floor.

 

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1966 Chevrolet Nova Super Sport

 

 

Lots of interesting things to say about this one.
* Chevy did a great job of making its smallest, cheapest car upgradable in ways that made it a classic muscle car. You could get a Ford Falcon with a V-8, but few people think of those as collectable cars (although the Mustang is a re-bodied Falcon).
* "Super Sport" was just an appearance package - you got some neat badges and the nicest wheel covers; that's it. Although this owner has replaced the spinner wheel covers with the dog dish hubcaps.
* Novas were available with 4, 6 and 8 cylinder engines. On this car, the 327 V-8 was the biggest you could get. But the next generation Nova went bigger.
* Note it's a "Chevy II". For some reason Chevy thought that was a clever way of distinguishing the Nova from the full-size Chevy. 1968 was the last year for "Chevy II".

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1955 Chevrolet Pickup Truck

Known as the 3100 and as the Task Force, this was GM's first new pickup since 1947. V-8 engine, 12-volt electrical system and all kinds of other new stuff. Note the wrap-around glass on the front and the back of the cab; GM was very proud of being the king of glass technology. This truck was introduced in March of 1955; for the first half of the model year, Chevy and GMC were still selling the old Chevrolet Advance-Design Series truck.

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