One Ugly Thunderbird. Ford, 1967.

All-new for 1967, this car is a long, long way from the attractive 1966 "Thelma and Louise" Thunderbird convertible. The T-bird was always kind of an old-man's car, now Ford decided to take the car even more in that direction by making it closer to a Lincoln product. Pretty much any two-door car made by GM or Chrysler in this era is considered a valuable collectable. Ford products, not so much. And it would get worse. The car pictured here is downright tasteful compared to the "bulldog" T-birds introduced later.

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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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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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1967 Oldsmobile Toronado

Folks have forgotten what an admired brand name Oldsmobile used to be. It was for a long time the most popular mid-price car brand in America, with the Olds Cutlass frequently the country's best-selling car. Olds was also an industry leader in innovation: the first car with an automatic transmission (1940), the first car, along with Cadillac with a high-compression V-8 engine (1949) and the first mass-production car with front-wheel drive. That last car was the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado.

There's a long list of technical innovations created just for this car. I'm not going to go over them all, but take a look here. The early Toronados did have an Achilles' Heel - disc brakes were not available until 1967, and then only as an option. Depending on drum brakes to stop a 4,500 pound car with the engine and transmission up front is asking for trouble, and anyone restoring one of these cars includes upgraded brakes. 

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1967 MGB coupe and 1979 MGB convertible

These cars are on the same block and I've no doubt they have the same owner. The coupe is clearly not running. One advantage of living on the posh west side of Queen Anne: you can get away with street-storing your restoration project.

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1967 International Harvester Scout 800

There are quite a few of these in Seattle. Growing up in the midwest the few Scouts I ever saw were very rust-prone, but that's less of a problem out here.
* One of the few vehicles ever offered with choice of 4, 6, or 8-cylinder engine.
* No top - that's a bold choice in Seattle, no matter the time of year.

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1967 Ford Mustang convertible

While not a particularly expensive car, the old Mustangs are survivors. I'm not sure that his car has its original paint, but it doesn't appear to have had any major work done in 51 years. Even those RFK in '68 bumper stickers appear original. If only Bobby were still with us.

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1967 Chevrolet Camaro SS

A very nice restoration, although despite the little badges that have been added, there's no such thing as a Camaro with a 454 c.i. V-8.

    

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Ford Ranchero roundup!

It seems like Ford put an awful lot of expense and effort into their car-truck in the 1960s when you consider that it was never built in large numbers, required a lot of parts that weren't applicable to any other model, and that the Ranchero changed a lot from year to year. In fact, the Ranchero was made in 5 different models between 1965 and 1968.

The 1965 Ranchero (first car pictured below) was based on the Falcon compact. In 1966, it was based on the new, larger Falcon and had two models in the same year. The first had the same front clip as the Falcon, and the second had the front clip from the Ford Fairlane. In 1967, the Ranchero was based on the Fairlane (second car pictured below). Then in 1968 it moved to the completely different Torino platform (the third car pictured below is a Torino-based 1970, and the last car is a 1974) before finally moving to the huge LTD platform in 1977 with the final Ranchero being built in 1979.

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1967 Sunbeam Imp

Never heard of Sunbeam? It's the name that Chrysler Europe chose for the British Hillman in the US. Max's red convertible in Get Smart! was a Subeam Tiger.

Observations:
* These cars were known for poor reliability even when new. The fact that one is still running today is a real miracle.
* Note the twin handles for opening the trunk (that's where the engine is). Love the hatchback rear window.
* This particular Imp was also featured on seattlesparkedcars in 2014.

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1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville

This Cadillac should always be covered in cherry blossoms.

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1967 Ford Mustang fastback

Car enthusiasts celebrated this week the recovery of the missing Mustang from Steve McQueen's 1968 film Bullitt. This 67 Mustang I photographed some weeks ago bears such a remarkable resemblance to the 68 used in the movie that I think it may be deliberate. It's also a green fastback, it also has custom 5-spoke rims, and it's also had the horse-and-corral chrome pieces removed from the grill.

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