Restoration Shop in Ballard

It's easy enough to sink tens of thousands of dollars into your classic car. When I checked out these vehicles at the restoration shop in Ballard, it struck me that each had some good points and some bad points for your restoration dollar.

1951 Chevy 3100 Advanced-Design truck
Pro: Everybody loves it. Easy to maintain.
Con: Hard to drive.

1962 Ford Thunderbird
Pro: Well-built and powerful. Makes a statement.
Con: Old man's car. Kind of tacky.

1982 Jaguar XJ-S
Pro: It's a V-12 supercar. Surprisingly affordable.
Con: It's surprisingly affordable because it's impossible to keep running.

1981 Fiat 124 Spider
Pro: Fun.
Con: Not very reliable.

1980 MGB
Pro: Fun.
Con: Not very reliable.

1958 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
Pro: Wow power, easy to maintain the drivetrain.
Con: Kind of a money pit - it's got power everything with 1950s wiring.

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1958 Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, 1973 Volkswagen 181 Thing

It was not a coincidence that these VWs were parked together; turns out it was a family picnic of VW fans. The Karmann Ghia was built virtually unchanged from 1955 to 1974. I think this is the oldest one I've seen. The 181, known as "The Thing" in the US, was only sold in the US in 1973-4 before safety regulations killed it here.

 

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Concours d'Lemons: 1958 Edsel Villager

The Concours d'Lemons is a car show, "Celebrating the oddball, mundane and truly awful of the automotive world." I've wanted to get an Edsel on this blog for a long time.

The Edsel is widely considered the greatest American product failure of all time. By the time Ford cancelled it in November of 1959 (two years after its launch) the Edsel had lost $350 million, or $3.2 billion on today's dollars. (In dollar terms, GM's Saturn cars were an even bigger failure, but that's a story for another day.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Edsel was not a terrible idea. In the mid-1950s, one out of every four cars sold in a America was one of GM's mid-priced brands: Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick. To compete with those cars, Ford had only Mercury, a brand that didn't sell a lot of cars.

What went wrong? Everything.
* The car was not very attractive, and it had a stupid name.
* A lot of executives at Ford never believed in the project and didn't help to make it succeed (these kinds of internal struggles were always a problem with the Detroit automakers).
* Despite the incredible investment, Edsel had no dedicated production lines; the cars were added to assembly lines already making Fords and Mercurys, so the production line workers kept having to change assembly routines while building cars at the same pace. This resulted in poor build quality.
* Whenever Detroit shows off a new car to the press, they make sure the test cars are perfect. That didn't happen with Edsel; some of the test cars fell apart and gave it a bad reputation on day one.
* The US economy went into recession just when the car was launched in late 1957. Car sales plummeted, particularly upscale cars like the Edsel.
* The Edsel was a big, expensive car launched just when buyers were taking their first looks at the Volkswagen and other smaller, more practical vehicles.
* Ford promised the Edsel was going to be a whole new kind of car - something revolutionary. It wasn't. Edsels were just mild variations on the cars Ford was already selling.
* Edsel did however have a lot of gee-whiz, push-button technology. Technology that didn't work right. For example, instead of a shift lever for the transmission, the more expensive Edsels used electro-mechanical buttons in the center of the steering wheel to change gears (see the pic below). This was one of several gimmicky, unnecessary features on the car that proved unreliable.

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No wonder the communists called us 'decadent' - 1958 Oldsmobile 88

They say form should follow function. Well, apparently General Motors of 1958 did not agree. The design of this Oldsmobile suggests they asked ten people where they should bolt chrome pieces from a Buck Rogers spaceship onto the car, then they accepted all ten suggestions.

Almost everything about GM's 1958 cars were unique to that year. Despite the designs being all-new for '58, GM immediately decided to scrap them and copy Chrysler's "Forward Look" cars. Those cars, lead by the '57 Plymouth, were lower, slimmer, and somewhat less tarted-up with a lot of ridiculous chrome doo-dads.

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1958 Cadillac Eldorado. For Those with Money to Burn

The 1950's were the era of the status symbol, when social norms forced men to all wear the same gray suit and hold the same gray opinions. Buying an Eldorado made the bold statement, "I have money to burn." A Cadillac Series 62 coupe cost $4,800, while this Eldorado cost $7,300. That's a difference of $22,00 in inflation adjusted dollars. And yet, what was the difference between the Series 62 and this car? Not much.

Come to think of it, not much has changed. A new BMW 530 starts at $54,000. Yet is it really dramatically more capable or luxurious than a $24,000 Toyota Camry?

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The Beautiful 1957 Ford Thunderbird... and the Hideous 1958

Ford replaced the two-seater Thunderbird in 1958 with a four-seater that looked like a mutated catfish. And it was wildly successful, far outselling the previous model. Unbelievable.

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1958 Dodge Coronet

Go home, 1958. You're drunk!

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1958 Glas Goggomobil

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's the Goggomobil. Boasting 15 hp, this car was the pride of Bavaria's other auto manufacturer, Hans Glas GmbH. In 1961 Glas built the first car with a flexible timing belt as well as the first overhead camshaft; inventions so important that BMW bought the Glas company in 1966 just to get hold of their patents. Amazingly enough, this car from the Greenwood car show is not the only Goggomobil I've seen in Seattle. The last picture below is one I spotted in an Aurora Ave shop.

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1958 Mercedes 190D

Older, diesel-powered Benzes are very popular here. This is the oldest one I've seen. In the 40s and 50s, Mercedes was a company that made simple products in a country rebuilding from the war. Now in the late 50s, it was once again becoming a technology leader. That doesn't particularly show in the old 190D here, however, it was in 1959 that Benz introduced the first car with front and rear crumple zones to absorb kinetic energy. Known in the US as the 220, I'm sure that car will be making an appearance on this blog.

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