American – CARS-YDSE.com

1932 Packard-Like New

On Friday August 16th, the City of Pacific Grove held its annual classic cars on the street. As usual, one of our main streets was the landing zone for about 100 classic and luxury cars and trucks. The cars lined Lighthouse Avenue 4 deep in most of the 10 or so blocks of the exhibition.

To me, one or two vehicles “stole the show” and were clearly heads above the others. That was the case for the 1932 Packard pictured below.

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The gentlemen with the straw hat is the father of the owner who is to his left in a blue shirt. I was told by dad that his son bought the car from a family that owned and stored in a garage for many years. The son did some restorations and cleaning , but not much because the car was in really good shape.

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This car was right out of a film about Al Capone.

Also, I have over 50 pictures from Street Car Day 2019 in Pacific Grove. Just trying to figure out the best way to present them. Stand By.

1948 Tucker, Wow!!!

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Yes, I have cheated again. By that I mean I had originally set up this site to exclude pictures from car shows, museums and the like. I made an exception in 2010 by showing some pictures from a car show in Martin and this exception is also warranted. The car is on display at the Francis Ford Coppola winery near Sanoma California. It is clearly a Car You Don’t See Everyday but I also have some information from a personal friend of my father’s who was a Tucker dealer.

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Sam, my father’s friend and his brother worked at a Tucker dealer in New Jersey. Sam told me about the big promotion Tucker had to get people to put down a deposit on a car. You got a set of luggage which was designed to fit in the trunk of the car which was in the front. This is explained in one of the videos below with a slight twist; Tucker sold luggage and car radios to raise money but the Securities and Exchange Commission stopped this practice. Also, Sam talked about the threat the other car manufacturers supposedly made to the steel companies. If you sell steel to Tucker, we (General Motors, Ford Chrysler etc.) will look elsewhere to buy steel for our cars.

The way Sam told it, the Tucker plant would build cars to show they could actually produce the car and later clandestinely disassemble the cars to build them again to keep the production numbers climbing. I think the accepted number of cars actually produced was 51 cars. This was a very controversial car fighting the established car makers at the beginning of the after the war industrial boom.

This first video presents a brief description of the car and Preston Tucker, the designer.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq54a8yWu50&w=420&h=315]

Also, have a look at this film which does a good job documenting the rise and fall of The Tucker Car Company.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oouOTsFcISE&w=420&h=315]

1955-1956 Packard Patrician

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It was during the summer I went away to Boy Scout Camp that Packard released this series of cars. I lived in a large urban complex right across the river from New York City and one of my friends and my pass times was car hunting. We would ride our bikes around the city and spot the unusual cars as they drove by or were parked. One of the new features on these cars was the Torsion Level suspension and related road leveling technology. This allowed the car to be close to level as it went up or down steep hills. When we found one parked, we would stand on the front or rear bumper and allow the car to lift us up to level the car. Then we would jump of and hear the leveler take over again and move the end of the car back to level again. Luckily, the batteries were good enough to have enough juice left to start the cars when the owners got into drive away.

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This car marked the last car that Packard made under their name. This last-gasp vehicle tired unsuccessfully to save the brand with new innovative engineering and new features. It did not work. The link below has some interesting information on this, the last of the Packards.
Click Here for more information.

The video below concentrates on this era in the life of The Packard Car Company and its demise.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT1l8raV8wM&w=560&h=315]

Also, have a look at the following vedio which centers more on the car in this article. View the 2nd clip in this video it is about the 1955-1956 Packard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgUaSwO0bV8

1979-1983 AMC Concord

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I wish I could say this car is a 1979 or any year up until the 1983 when it was last produced but I can’t tell. This car was the last gasp for AMC and its U.S. designed and built cars. The AMC Concord was an attempt at providing a “Luxury” look and feel with an economical price tag.

AMC struggled for almost 30 years after being formed in the 1954 amalgamation of Nash and Hudson motor companies. By 1983 AMC was no longer credit worthy and Renault acquired a controlling interest in AMC to help fund the company.

This particular car looks like new. It is really in great shape and truly is a Car You Don’t See Everyday.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBwgMNjkmzQ?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

1980 or so Checker Marathon Wagon

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One thing became very clear to me when I researched this car, it is very difficult to tell what year it is. I see this particular Checker series went from 1960 all the way to 1982 with very minor changes in the body style. This car has obviously been semi-restored and so I don’t know if the body has been changed. For instance, there are no side lights on this car; were they removed when body work was done? To me, the semi-professional observer, the car seems to be from the later years based on the interior and the back-up lights, but who knows?

Anyway, this car is a great example of the classic Checker wagon. One other note, notice the cell phone cable on the front seat, this was clearly not an original offering.

If you do know what year the car is, please leave me a comment.

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I found this video on the Checker Wagon.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo74UeLsQrE?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

1970 AMC Gremlin

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Yes, I know this car does not look showroom new. Look at the beginning of the next post down (previous post) to read why.

Back in the early 1970s is when the Japanese and German car makers began to dominate the U.S. market. The VW bug and the Toyota Corolla and others from Datsun and Opel sold almost one million vehicles that year. That’s when the American Motors Corporation introduced The Gremlin, the first American sub-compact. AMC tried numerous tactics to get a piece of the market. They made a high-performance two seater version and offered a 12,000 mile warranty but they had disappointing results.

Here are some photographs of a Gremlin survivor I spotted in San Francisco. Yes, it is a rusty hulk but still has most of its original “charm”. It probably still gets over 20 MPG. By the way, notice that the hubcaps are all original American Motors.

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Here is a video I found that describes American Motors strategy for releasing the Gremlin in 1970 1/2.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivX48OcZE_Q?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

1956 Mercury Montclair

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When I started this site in August of 2009, I setup some rules about where I would source the photos from. The stated policy I came up with is that I would not snap photos at car shows or similar gatherings. To me it was too much like shooting fish in a barrel. Also, I stipulated that I would shoot photos of rare cars regardless of the condition and update those cars in bad shape and replace them with better examples as they came along. I have not yet gotten one in of these in better shape yet but I have included the photo below as a reference.

capri_as_junkyard_sign

This particular car/home has been parked around the San Francisco Best Buy for about ten years. I have no idea why all the duct tape but I guess it was waterproofing. Perhaps I’ll see one in the near future. Also, I saw this post on Pinterest that was my inspiration for posting this Mercury now.

Long And Low, click here to see a great retro version.

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1970 Mercury Capri

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As I thought about the cars I’ve seen over the last few years, I knew there was one car that seeems to have virtually dissapered, the 1970 Mercury Capri. My sister bought a brand new Capri from our cousin. Bruce worked at a Long Island Mercury dealer and “got her a great deal on this marvelous new car”. Now I know Bruce did not manufacture the car, but my sister never forgave him as the car proved very un-reliable. In fact, the picture below is of a Capri positioned as a junk yard sign, my sister would agree with this use of the car.

capri_as_junkyard_sign

In retrospect, this was a pretty neat car and handled quite well for its size and price. The one thing that does seem questionable is why one rarely see an early Capri on the road now a days.

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1963 Lincoln Continental Convertible

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There it was, the mammoth 1963 Lincoln Continental Convertible parked right across the street from our restaurant. This car is enormous with a wheelbase of over 123 inches and an overall length of 213.3 inches. The present record for the longest production convertible is the 1934-1935 Cadillac V-16 at a length of 222.0 inches.

There were over 31,000 of these 1963 cars sold but I don’t have the figures by model (2 door, convertible etc.). This is a rare car in really great shape. It was a pleasure to see this car you don’t see everyday.

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Click Here for more information from Wikipeadia

Click here to see a great example of this car on Pinterest

2012 Fisker Karma – Why Don’t We See More Cars Like This Everyday?

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Why Don’t We See More Cars Like This Everyday? I’m pretty sure the $100,000 price-tag has something to do with it but, seriously why not? I am old enough to remember the first “oil crisis” and the long lines for gas stations in the early 1970s. Detroit tried again to popularize the compact fuel efficient car. My guess is that 75 cents a gallon was just not enough to have the US driver change his/her ways.

I saw this car on the street a few weeks ago and thought about fuel efficiency and how 5 dollar a gallon fuel might have an impact. At least none of the Presidential candidates is talking about coal burning cars. But at over 25 thousand premium over a BMW, it still cost too much to change people’s habits.

I found several Videos on the Net but this one is less “salesy” and gives a well rounded review of the car.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m5RRJ3-Cr0?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

The Chevy Volt and the Nissan LEAF could well set things on the way to real change.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4a7GG8_2V0?feature=player_detailpage]
Also, the Tesla may also have an impact. But back to the Karma, this is one great looking Car You Don’t See Everyday. At least for now.

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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAbBD06c9Wk?feature=player_embedded]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvHTN0Yi1t4?feature=player_profilepage]