Land of the Giants: 1962 and 1973 Lincoln Continental in the Central District

There's plenty of parking in Seattle's Central District, and it's where I spot a lot of vintage Detroit iron. The older car pictured here appears to be a daily driver, but it looks like the later Lincoln hasn't moved in a year or three.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Merry Christmas! 1949 Studebaker 2R Pickup Truck

This truck arrived in 1948 as Studebaker's first new post-war design. Well, the cab and bed were new but the solid-axle chassis and flathead motor were already very old. This design lasted through 1953, then was actually brought back for 1958-9 as the Scotsman. This same truck finally got a new cab in 1960 and new ohv 6-cylinder engines and a new bed in 1961, but the old-fashioned chassis was made all the way until Studebaker closed operations in Indiana at the end of 1963.

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1959 Crown Supercoach School Bus

School bus? Cool bus! Designed for school districts that could afford the very best, the Supercoach pictured was built virtually unchanged from 1949 all the way to 1991. From curbsideclassic.com: "What made Crowns so special?  In a word – toughness – these buses were legendary for their strength, robust construction, and longevity.  While most of Crown’s competitors used 45,000 psi steel, Crown’s floorpan and framework were constructed of 90,000 psi ultra high tensile steel sheathed with heat-treated aluminum bodywork.  The Super Coach’s double-walled steel body structure was both bolted and welded to outriggers on the main chassis which was built using nested channel frame rails and cross-members."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1968 Ford Galaxie 390

Big Fords just don't draw the same interest from collectors that cars from GM and Chrysler do. I'll probably spot ten Chevy Impalas before I spot another Galaxie like this one.
* This car was available in two distinct body styles: this fastback as well as a "formal" coupe.
* The Galaxie was available with hidden headlights, but this car doesn't have them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1968 Ford Mustang GT convertible

"LFS GOOD" reads the license plate. Yes, life is good when you own a Mustang GT convertible, well-optioned with a center-console and fog lamps. This car has the 289 V-8. Late in the model year the 289 was replaced with the 302. The 302 was made all way up to December, 2000.

Hmm... I think this is not an authentic GT. I think it's a regular Mustang with GT wheels.

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1962 Studebaker Champ pickup truck

 

From Hemmings.com: "Faced with certain extinction near the end of the 1950s, Studebaker clung to solvency by building new cars and trucks out of the stuff already in its parts bins."

"Without the resources to design an all-new truck, Studebaker passed the ball to the Lark. Using the front half of a Lark sedan body with a unique grille and bumper, South Bend created a pickup cab that fit remarkably well with the edgy styling direction Detroit had taken. Inside, the Lark's dash added a civilized touch to the workaday hauler. Unfortunately, almost everything else about the truck was still very much a rolling representation of a bygone era.

While Detroit's haulers rode on independent front ends, two-wheel-drive Champs used straight front axles with leaf springs as well as leaf springs in the rear. In 1960, Studebaker's six-cylinder truck engines were still flathead designs dating back to the 1930s. The Champ's box, too, was a throwback to the previous model, and those pontoon rear fenders that looked so right on the 2R in 1949 didn't blend well with the Lark-derived Champ cab. Even the Champ's brake and clutch pedals seemed old fashioned poking up out of the floor, as swing-style pedals had become so common everywhere else. 

For 1961, Studebaker did its best to bring the Champ into the modern age. The flathead six-cylinder engines were discontinued and the smaller 170-cu.in. six was brought back with overhead valves. (Both V-8 engines remained in the lineup, the 259 as well as the 289.)

The most visible change was the addition of smooth bedsides, but rather than design and build its own bedsides for the Champ, Studebaker purchased tooling that had been used to make Dodge's "Sweptline" boxes. Studebaker's Dodge-derived "Spaceside" box was more modern looking than the old fender box, but it was disproportionately big for the Champ's cab. The body creases in the Champ's doors didn't jibe with the Dodge's bedsides either, further making the combination look cobbled together.

If the Champ had an advantage in the light-truck marketplace, it was its low price. In 1962, the Champ half-ton, with a 6.5-foot box and six-cylinder engine, was the most inexpensive hauler in its class, weighing in with a base price of $1,870.

The Champ soldiered on, more or less a footnote in South Bend's proud history, until December 27, 1963, when Studebaker pulled the plug on civilian truck production."

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1985 Toyota Supra

There's an old joke among car enthusiasts that the shortest book in the world is "The Book of Collectable Japanese Cars." That isn't true any more, if it ever was. This Supra is a fun, easily-maintained classic. And it looks brand new; someone has been taking great care with it for the past 35 years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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America's best-selling car: 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass

The Olds Cutlass was the best-selling car in America 7 times between 1975 and 1983, despite being a fairly large, mid-price vehicle. This is the base model, not a Cutlass Supreme. The Supreme got a whole different grill and front-end treatment. It probably has a V-8, though it's possible it's got a Chevy inline-6. Beginning in 1977, the Buick V-6 became the most popular choice for these cars. This car is parked outside a garage full of collector cars in Interbay. Why is it being saved? Perhaps it was garaged-kept for many years and has very low miles.

 

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1992 Honda Acty Van (Two of 'em)

Your American minivan is a land yacht compared to the Honda Acty. This vehicle has a 656 cc engine mounted in front of the rear axle. How small is that? Well, it's just over one-third the size of the engine in the Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. I spotted one of these Thursday afternoon and the next one Friday morning. This should give you an idea of the growing popularity of right-hand drive, made-for-Japan vehicles in Seattle. Because they don't meet American crash standards, they can only be imported once they're 25 years old.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Welcome to Budget Germany: 1971 Prosche 914, 1965 Volkswagen Type 1 Beetle

I have never featured a Porsche on this blog before. There's a reason for that: I think vintage Porsches are junk. And I drove enough of them in my valet parking days to know. Consider the famous Porsche 911. When Road & Track reviewed it in the 1960s, they found the car's handling so poor it was dangerous to drive. So Porsche fixed this... by dropping two 40-lb. steel weights into the front bumper. Even after a couple of generations of improvements, the 911 was still known for dangerous over-steer, stalling when cold, and (from drivetribe.com), "the early 4-speed manual transmission had exceptionally tall gears, making the driver be careful with shifting gears". What the heck does that even mean? I also drove Porsche 944's made in the '80s, and was shocked at the poor build quality. This is a premium-price supercar?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yet the old 911 and 944 really are supercars compared to the lowly Porsche 914. From jalopnik.com, "The problem (with the 914) was that the engine they went with was the air-cooled 1.7-liter, 80-horsepower flat four from the Volkswagen Type 4 sedan. This was in no way a performance engine, and it showed. Even in the 914's lightweight body, 0-to-60 mph came at a lofty 13 seconds, giving the driver plenty of time to wonder if his or her purchase was really good idea.

But perhaps the 914's biggest problem was one of perception. With all of its VW components, many enthusiasts refused to accept it as a "real Porsche." It also suffered from a poor shift linkage, somewhat awkward styling and cut-rate quality that reflected its low-cost, parts bin origins. The car was not well received by the motoring press at the time."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1952 GMC Advanced-Design Series Pickup truck

Sold at GM dealerships in towns without a Chevy dealer, the GMC at this time didn't really have a model number. It was just the "General Motors Truck". This series was built from the spring of 1947 to the spring of 1955, and it's virtually impossible to tell the earliest and latest trucks apart. The Chevy version got a new grill in 1954, but the GMC did not. A chrome grill was a option on this truck. It could also be ordered with a black or white grill or one color-matched to the body.

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1966 Ford Mustang straight 6

You rarely have to drive more than a few blocks in Seattle to spot a first-generation Mustang that's never been restored, but is still in excellent condition.

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Dude, You're Weird. 1985 Fiat Bertone X1/9, 1967 Rambler American, 1967 Ford Bronco

These are all examples of classic vehicles I've seen before in Seattle, but all owned by the same person? That's some diverse taste.
* This Fiat is identical to one I spotted in Queen Anne.
* This Rambler is also nearly identical to another I spotted, also in Queen Anne. Note Ramblers were not sold new with cool Magnum 500 rims like those on this car.
* I've spotted any number of vintage Broncos; this one has tires that are orders of magnitude larger than those it had when it came from the factory.

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1977 Chevrolet Malibu Station Wagon

Kids today strapped into their booster seats will never know the the pleasure of carefree summers spent lounging in the back of a full-size station wagon. The Malibu of course is only "mid-size" and dwarfed by the King of the Road: the Caprice Estate wagon.

 

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Afternoon traffic with a 1929 Ford Model A Coupe

 Nothing unusual in Seattle!

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1972 Triumph TR6

Triumph sold a lot of cars in the US back in the day - between 20 and 30 thousand TR6's and Spitfires per year in the mid-1970s. As a British sports car, was it unreliable? No, no more than anything else built in those days. It appears to belong to the same owner as the Land Rover featured in my last post, and you can see another Land Rover in the garage.

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