1983 Toyota Starlet drift car

Somebody is rebuilding this Toyota Starlet from the ground up, and the reason seems clear: with its tiny wheelbase and rear-wheel drive, the Starlet is the perfect drift car. And despite being Toyota's cheapest model, its reliability is legendary.

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1962 Dodge Dart 440

Dodge used the Dart name on four different cars between 1960 and 1963. From '63 on, the Dart was a compact; we spotted this '65 in Fremont last year. For '62, the Dart was a near copy of the original Plymouth Valiant, one of which we spotted in SoDo. This Dart is for sale - the owner wants $25K! Wishful thinking I'm afraid.

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1968 Volkswagen Beetle

Unlike the '59 we spotted in Georgetown, this Beetle has a speedometer and a gas gauge.

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Ford Pinto Roundup: Our Most Explosive Post Ever!

Yeehaw! Howdy pardners! Let's corral them Pintos, but don't you ride 'em too close unless you want a facefull of burning gasoline! Yessir, the Pinto was right at the top of the list of American cars of the 1970s that caused folks to switch to imports and never look back.

The "exploding Pinto" story is a long and complicated one, but here's a short summary from Time: "The Ford Pinto was a famously bad automobile, but worse still might be Ford's handling of the safety concerns surrounding the '70s-era subcompact. Before the car ever reached the market, concerns emerged that a rear-end collision might cause the Pinto to blow up — the positioning of the fuel tank sparked fears it could be punctured in a crash and cause a fire or an explosion. But instead of fixing the Pinto's design, Ford, in a bit of morbid calculus, determined it would be cheaper to settle any lawsuits resulting from the Pinto's flaws. After several lawsuits and criminal charges (Ford was eventually found not guilty), the automaker recalled 1.5 million Pintos in 1978, retrofitting the fuel-tank assembly with additional protections to prevent the Pinto from going up in flames."

While the above summary is more or less accurate, many have noted that the accusations made against the Pinto may have been wildly inflated. From jalopnik.com: "the total number of Pinto fires, out of 2 million cars and 10 years of production, stalled at 27. It was no more than any other vehicle."

The three Pintos pictured below are a 1972 Runabout, a 1971 wagon and a 1979 hatchback. Besides the hatchback and wagon pictured, the Pinto was also available as a "Cruising Wagon" that included one of those small round windows you often saw on conversion vans in the 70s.

I'm of course curious what would motivate anyone to go to the trouble and expense of keeping these cars on the road. When it comes to what folks find endearing in vintage cars, to each his own I guess. But in the case of the last Pinto, I really have to wonder, at least about the original owner. What would drive a person to spend their hard-earned money on a new Pinto after the exploding gas tank controversy came to light?

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1964 Sunbeam Alpine

You may remember it as the car that Max drove in Get Smart!. The British-made Alpine managed to produce 93 horsepower from an engine of only 105 cubic inches. But that of course was not enough for anything considered a sports car in the US, so in 1964 Carol Shelby began selling them here with Ford V-8s as the Sunbeam Tiger. Shelby also put Ford V-8s into the legendary AC Cobra.

Last July, we also saw a Sumbeam Imp.

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1989 Chrysler TC by Maserati

Remember the Chrysler LeBaron convertible? Well imagine if it had only two seats instead of four, at double the price. Sound good? Behold, the Chrysler TC by Maserati!

Sure, Lee Iacocca saved Chrysler, but he did it by giving the company a reputation for being dull as dishwater. From allpar.com: "The basic idea was to add some glamour to Chrysler (and some profit to Maserati); at the same time, various high-performance, turbocharged Dodge Daytonas and other vehicles (such as the Spirit R/T) were being launched to spice up the company’s reputation."

"Unfortunately, the building and promotion of semi-drivable pre-production examples could not make good the TC's intemperately announced introduction as a 1987 model. The subsequent two-year delay in getting the car into actual production was a monumental public relations and marketing blunder, especially since rather than preceding the Chrysler LeBaron convertible — and lending its prestige to that vehicle — it ended up being introduced afterwards. That meant that, rather than the LeBaron being seen as inheriting cues from the high-end TC, the TC was seen as being too similar to the run-of-the-mill (though attractive) LeBaron."

 Only 7,300 were sold.

   

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1973 Mercury Marquis

Nothing says '1973' quite like a huge, brown car from Lincoln-Mercury. We've already spotted a '73 Lincoln Continental, and guess what? It's brown! In the 90s, I read that this particular car, and similar Lincoln models, were the top choice for Illinois demolition derbies. Now that's some real Detroit iron. Here's another '73 Marquis on curbsideclassic.

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1950 Dodge Coronet

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1959 Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle - when there's no gas gauge

Early model Beetles had a lot of quirky features, none more strange than the "reserve fuel tap" to compensate for the fact that they did not have a gas gauge on the dashboard.

The regular fuel tank was 10.6 gallons, and the reserve tank was 1.3 gallons. From the owner's manual: "For vehicles with a fuel tap, the operating lever should be set at "Open". If the engine begins to "shutter" due to lack of fuel, just turn the lever right to "Reserve."

The owner of an old Beetle described what this meant in practical terms: "Of course, there was no way to check the gas level while you were driving, which meant that you could be straining down the freeway at 65 MPH one minute and windmilling down to zero the next when you ran the tank dry. So the VW designers gave the driver a little valve next to the foot pedals that you could work with your toe, which turned on a reserve fuel supply good for about 30 miles, which they figured was enough to get you to a gas station. So when the engine quit, the drill was to leave the engine in gear, cut into the slow lane, flip the valve with your foot and pump frantically on the gas pedal to restore the flow of gas. If everything worked, the engine started up again after about 5 seconds of terror; if unsuccessful, you cut onto the shoulder and coasted to a stop."

 

 

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1968 dodge Charger 383

   

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1991 Honda Acty - minitruck roundup

All of the big carmakers in Japan make this same truck: very small engine mounted forward of the rear axle under the bed, full-time 4-wheel drive, manual transmission. The Acty engine is 547 cc; an engine that size would not be considered large in a motorcycle. These trucks do not of course meet American standards for safety and emissions, but it's legal to drive vehicles on the street that don't meet those standards once they are 25 years old. The other two trucks below are a 1990 Mitsubishi Mini Cab with dump truck bed, and a circa-1990 Suzuki Carry 660.

 

   

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2003 Chrysler PT Cruiser with woodgrain paneling

Yes, for only $900 your PT Cruiser can look as good as this one. In the 60s and 70s, faux-wood trim was common on all kinds of cars. I presume this PT Cruiser is the last time we will see this highly-questionable accessory.

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Magnolia Car Show: 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass SX convertible

I'm a big fan of the Cutlass, but I had never heard of the SX before I saw this one. Made only in 1970 and 1971, it was GM's response to rising insurance rates for muscle cars. Normally, the VIN numbers of cars include a digit that varies according to the engine code (size of the engine).

From Hemmings: "In 1970, Oldsmobile blew one right past the insurance industry by stuffing its torque-monster 455-cu.in. V-8 into a Cutlass Supreme SX. By not giving it a unique VIN, new car buyers in 1970 and 1971 avoided paying increasingly high insurance premiums." "Total production numbers were low, with 9,374 hardtops and convertibles built. The rarest Cutlass Supreme SX was a 1971 convertible; just 357 were made."

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1985-6 Peugeot 505S and 505GL station wagons and sedan

Once upon a time, the French car makers found a market in the US for cars that, unlike American models, combined luxury and sophistication with fuel efficiency. That market has mostly been absorbed by German and Japanese luxury makes, and neither Peugeot-Citroën nor Renault has sold cars in the US since the 1990s. Renault has however been very successful here with the Versa, a co-production with Nissan.

 

 

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