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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1980 Cadillac Seville

"That is the ugliest car I've seen." That was my father's reaction upon seeing the new "bustleback" Cadillac Seville in the fall of 1979. I'm sure that was an exaggeration. After all, dad could remember a lot of Detroit ugly, like the 1958 Dodge.

I haven't seen one of these in quite a while. They were built on the same reliable front-drive platform as the Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, but most of them had truly terrible engines: the Olds diesel or Cadillac's failed "variable displacement" V-8. Weirdly, both Chrysler and Ford decided to copycat this car in the form of the 1981 Imperial and 1982 Lincoln Continental.

 

 

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Old Cars in Fremont

The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle has long since ceased to be affordable for ordinary human beings, but it retains some of its quirky character in the form of a lot of old cars and trucks.

This 1949 Ford F-1 has been nicely restored. That's a pretty nice chrome grill for a working pickup from this era.

 

 

The mid-80s Chevy El Camino, still a fairly common sight on the west coast.

 

This 1976 Datsun 280Z was the first car in the series with fuel-injection. It was way ahead of the dinosaurs Detroit was offering at the time.

 

1987 Dodge Ram. Far less common that the old Ford and Chevy trucks you see on every block here.

 

1980 Toyota Celica. One of the few cars from that era that is hard to kill.

 

And finally, right in front of the Ford F-1, quite a contrast: A 1990 Mercedes 560 SEC. This car cost around $85,000 new. That would be over $200,000 in 2024 dollars.

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1980 Jeep DJ

From the mid-1950s through the mid-1980s, the DJ delivered most of America's mail.
* "DJ" stands for Dispatcher Jeep. The Jeep now called the Wrangler was sold for decades as the CJ, or Civilian Jeep.
* The vehicle is very different from CJs of the same era. It has a lighter frame, rear-wheel-only drive and a DJ-only 5-slot grill. A lot of them had transmissions from Chrysler, and they had engines from several sources.
* I have no idea what that extra radiator/cooler attached to the grill does.

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1980 International (IHC) Scout II

Without a doubt, the nicest Scout I've ever seen. 1980 was the last year for the Scout, and it's too bad, because the market for this kind of vehicle really took off in the 80s. International had the next generation model ready to go, but financial troubles ended production.

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1980 Pontiac Firebird Yellow Bird

Trying to explain anything from the 1970s can be challenging. Like the fact that the enormous, garish vehicle pictured was what General Motors was marketing to women. You see, the Pontiac Firebird was considered the epitome of cool in the late 1970s, most especially in the form of the black Trans Am model. So GM decided that what the ladies needed was the same car in color-coordinated "Sky Bird", "Red Bird" and "Yellow Bird" editions.

Why were cars like this so popular? How did Ford manage to sell 352,000 gargantuan, land-yacht Thunderbirds in 1978 in the middle of an energy crisis? I guess one might as well try to understand why men wore leisure suits.

Observations:
* Most of these were sold with V-6 engines making only around 100 hp, so I hope you're not in a hurry.
* GM sold a vast number of cars with these expensive t-tops. I have seen someone driving around with their t-tops off about once in my entire lifetime.

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1980 Fiat 2000 Spider

Another Seattle "time machine." The 2000 Spider was not a car known for its great durability. Indeed, Fiat pulled out of the US market in 1983 specifically because its cars had earned a reputation for poor quality. And yet here's a 2000 Spider stored outdoors that looks almost brand new.

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1980 Chevrolet Citation

No product in automotive history has ever made a spectacular debut followed by an even more spectacular crash quite like the Chevy Citation.

Introduced into a weak market, the Citation nevertheless sold a staggering 810,000 units in it first year. GM factories couldn't keep up with demand, and the Citation was named Car and Driver's Car of the Year. Car makers like to call everything they make "revolutionary", but the Citation could actually make some claim to that title. Lightweight and fuel efficient, the front-wheel drive Citation was completely different from what Detroit had been selling.

Then the problems began. GM's existing 4-cylinder engine was ill-suited for the Citation. The cars became subject to constant recall, and, from Car and Driver,

"While staring down 60-month payment books, Citation owners were having trim bits fall off in their hands, hearing their transmissions groan and seize, and finding that if they listened closely enough they could hear their cars rust. At times it seemed the suspension in some X-cars wasn’t even bolted in correctly, as the ride motions grew funkier and funkier while the steering developed an oceanic on-center dead spot.

As GM’s first front-drive compacts, the X-cars were significant vehicles: They slaughtered GM’s reputation for a whole generation."

Furthermore, Wikipedia, regarding the Citation's early, very positive reviews notes that,

"Car and Driver and several other car magazines at the time were duped when GM lent them specially modified versions of the X-body vehicles in which heavy torque steer (for which they became infamous) had been engineered out. Patrick Bedard of Car and Driver said that they were completely surprised by this when they drove a production version some time later." More here.

On top of all that, as soon as this car was introduced in 1979, GM began getting complaints of rear brake lock-up and cars spinning-out in sudden stops or on wet roads. GM finally issued a recall of 1980 X-cars to fix the problem... in 1983. One has to wonder what percentage of 1980 Chevy Citations were even still on the road by that late date.

Indeed, the Citation caused many to abandon American makes for good just when the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord were redefining what high-quality, inexpensive cars could be.

Even 25 years ago, it was uncommon to see a Citation on the street. It must take real mad courage to try and keep one running now.

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