There are some old cars that were built in quantity that you never see on the road. Sometimes that's because they weren't very durable. The Jaguar XKE comes to mind. Then there are cars like the third and last generation of the original Dodge Charger. You never see them because every guy who owned one drove it like Mad Max.
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.
I've never seen one of these before, not even in a museum. The N600 was the first Honda imported into the US. According to californiaclassix.com, "Informed sources claim that of the circa 35,000 Honda N600s sold in
North America, there are fewer than 1,000 extant, and most of those do
not run." The N600 was succeeded by the slightly sportier Z600 (I've never seen one of those on the street before either). Then in 1973 the first Honda Civic arrived, and the rest is history.
You have to stand next to this car to appreciate how truly tiny it is. Then engine is 598cc (hence the model name '600'). In today's dollars, this car cost about $9,700.
Here's a guy living his best life. He's got two unrestored Chargers for daily drivers, both in pretty decent shape. The Custom 880 probably has the big 361 DeSoto engine. The Dart is also considered a classic; easy to maintain although the grass growing around this one suggests it hasn't been on the road in a while.
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."
A rare vehicle in the US, the original Land Rover (eventually called the Defender) was not sold here officially except between 1993 and 1997. Retired after 2016, Rover has reintroduced a new Defender for 2020. The 4-cylinder engine in this vehicle only has about 50 hp. Hard to imagine how it gets this thing moving. I'll be featuring the red Triumph in the last photo in the next post.
