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1948 Buick Super; Let The Experts Tell Us. (they did)

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This is an exceptional car in pretty good shape. I’m pretty sure it is a 1947 but I’m not too sure. Anyway, you can tell this car is a post WWII because it looks like its built like a tank. In retrospect, this car had nice lines and was a popular model after the war.

Here is a bit of information I could find on this car and era.

The Buick Super was a full-sized automobile produced from 1940–1942, and from 1946–1958; it was on Buick’s longer wheelbase shared with the Roadmaster. It and the Roadmaster were replaced by the new Electra in 1959. The 1950 Super came with a single two-barrel carburetor on a 263 cid I8. This setup produced an HP rating of 112. The car was able to achieve speeds over 90 miles per hour (140 km/h) with its Dynaflow automatic transmission which, rather than changing through gears, used the torque converter to couple the motor to a single gear ratio.

More Information, click here

If you do know the actual year of manufacture for this car, please leave a note in the comments below. We all would appreciate it.

1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk, Wow!!!

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I was walking in the one of San Francisco’s biggest tourist areas, Fisherman’s Wharf, and spotted this sleek 1957 Golden Hawk. To me, it still looks like more modern design than most of the other cars of its time. After all, this car is 53 years old. From what I have read, it was not very well engineered and had a very heavy front end that hindered its handling and kept sales figures down. Too bad for Studebaker that went out of business a few years after the Golden Hawk was discontinued.

Just look at the front of this car, very neatly done for a ’57.
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Here’s a little history on the Golden Hawk.

From 1956 to 1958, Studebaker’s top-model was the Golden Hawk, which was available only with the Paxton supercharged 289 cubic-inch overhead valve V8 that offered 275 horsepower at 4800 RPM. There was a Flight-O-Matic automatic transmission and four-wheel hydraulic drum brakes. The hardtop versions of the Golden Hawk, Sky Hawk, and Flight Hawk were based on the original 1953 Starliner body.

The five-passenger Gold Hawk was Studebaker’s sports car putting it in competition with Chevrolet’s Corvette and Ford’s Thunderbird.

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1958 Plymouth Belvedere

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Here’s another in the long line of Chrysler’s “Skip Year” cars. This one is a 1958 and that was the year that really hurt Chrysler sales because of the decision to skip several years of testing in 1957. Sales dropped as many cars had very bad reliability levels. See the previous article here.

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But you can see that the cars sold because of the look of the line. Too bad they didn’t test these cars more, Chrysler could have been a big winner.

1957 would be a banner year for the Chrysler Corporation, and Plymouth was no exception. Plymouth’s design was so revolutionary that Chrysler used the slogan “Suddenly, it’s 1960!” to promote the new car. The Belvedere line once again included the Fury. This year a new 318in³ V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors was the standard engine in the Fury, and it was available on all Plymouths.

The Belvedere would once again return as a top level trim for 1958. Styling was evolutionary from the sleek 1957 models. Quad headlights were new, as was a big block 350in³ V8 with dual four-barrel carburetors dubbed “Golden Commando.”

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1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme

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On a walk to get some morning coffee recently, I almost literally ran into this Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. It’s a 1971 and coincidentally, the year the owner (pictured) was born. She was just returning from the coffee shop and we had a short conversation about her fantastic car. She has owned it for 17 years and really takes care of it. The car looked like it was a year old instead of a having almost four decades of time on it’s side.

The 1971 model shared much of the same exterior sheetmetal as the 1970, but with a new hood, grille, and headlight assemblies, as well as new bumpers and taillights. Four new exterior body colors were offered, Viking Blue, Lime Green, Bittersweet, and Saturn Gold.

The famous “Rocket” V8 continued in several different sizes and power options, with both the large 455 and ‘small block’ 350 available with either 2 or 4 barrel carburetors. This was the last year for the 250 cubic-inch six cylinder engine, as it had not been a very popular offering in Olds intermediates. In 1971, all engines came from the factory with hardened valve seats, preparing for the upcoming mandate for unleaded gasoline that took effect with the introduction of catalytic converters on 1975 models. The 1971 Olds engines also featured lowered compression ratios and designed to run on regular leaded, low-lead or unleaded gasoline with a research octane rating of 91 or higher (equivalent to 87 octane by today’s octane measurements).

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLWCfW_vz1Q&hl=en_US&fs=1]

I Broke My Own Rules, But What A Car!!

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This Website is all about cars you don’t see everyday. It’s done, for the most part, as I walk around San Francisco getting some exercise and taking some pictures along the way. In fact, I have a rule that I don’t post pictures of cars in organized car shows, this time I violated that rule. I think you will be glad I did.

A friend of mine was the organizer of a great little Car & Boat show in Marin County just north of our home. I decided to visit the show and took my camera along. After seeing the collection and seeing which car won the “Best In Show”, I decided it is clearly a car you don’t see everyday and what a fine car it is. It’s a prime example of a red 1941 Cadillac convertible, owned by Al Engel of Richmond California, I hope you like it.

Also, I posted some other pictures here, Click-To-View

P.S. I saw this picture on a site recently and, to me, this 1938 Buick inspired the look of this 1941 Cadillac. What do you think?

Have a look, click here
copyright 2010

OMG, It’s a 1957 DeSoto

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I did a post about a month back about the 1957 Doge that exemplified the radical move Chrysler made that year by skipping a few years of design and testing.
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This piece on the 1957 DeSoto just adds fuel to the fire of the people, who in hindsight, say Chrytler should never have skipped the testing and quality control of the ’57 line of cars.

1957 was a good time for DeSoto. It was also a tragedy. Corporation-wide quality problems resulted in some horribly built cars. It’s said that DeSoto four door hardtops built at Los Angeles leaked so badly in the rain that occupants were wise to exit the car to avoid drowning. One 1957 DeSoto Adventurer was incapacitated for four of the total 18 months it was owned by its first owner. The car went through four transmissions, three power steering units, two new double point distributors, new valve guides and a new radiator. Reportedly, it took considerable effort and the attention of Chrysler’s Chairman of the Board to have the car corrected.

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1960 Plymouth Valiant

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This car was designed to look “European” and be economical to run. The car had a new slant-six engine and that allowed for a longer intake manifold and a lowerer transmission tunnel.

Aside from its somewhat radical styling, the new car would have a number of mechanical innovations, capped off by its slant-six engine. It would be called the Valiant and initially be offered for sale at both Plymouth and Dodge dealers.

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The “Skip Year +1” 1958 Dodge

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I remember the 1957 Chrysler products. I was thirteen years old but “loved” cars. The Chrysler cars, namely the Plymouth and Dodge were completely re-engineered in 1957, they skipped a year and delivered the 1958 cars in 1957. That’s what I remember and I looked on the Web and found some substantiation for this.

Apparently, Virgil Exner, who was driven far beyond just a take charge individual, used the corporate chaos to swiftly move into his own designs. He had completely scrapped three years of design work that had been spent on the entire line of the planned 1957 models, instead going right to designs that were said to be planned for the 1960 model year. The dealers were told to be ready for the most powerful set of car model designs that Detroit had ever seen.

More Information on the 1957 gamble
This was a great sales year for the Chrysler corporation.

The ads trumpeted: “Suddenly – It’s 1960!” and “1960 — Now, Plymouth is three full years ahead.”
“In one flaming moment,” read another, “Plymouth leaps three full years ahead—the only car that dares to break the time barrier! The car you might have expected in 1960 is at your dealers today!”

More Information on the 1957 gamble
But the gamble only lasted a year, the quality problems nearly brought the company down.

Chrysler had spent $300 million to bring the 1957 models to light, but in the long run they paid a terrible price for their victory. The cars, without a doubt, were some of the best designs turned out by Virgil Exner and his stylists. If they had truly been intended as 1960 models, they hit the showrooms without a full complement of testing. This, combined with breakneck schedules to meet demands, saw

Here is a graph of sales for that period of time.

by Jim Benjaminson. Copyrighted by Jim Benjaminson. Originally published as a printed book by Motorbooks International.

Wow, 1969 Chevy Chevelle

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I was walking around the Lower Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco and spotted this gem Almost enough to send me back to the 60’s and the Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company which were popular right around the time this car was released. That’s about thirty years ago. This neighborhood has not changed much since then.
Wickipedia had these comments about the car.

The Ford Comeback
The Chevelle was intended to compete with the similarly sized Ford Fairlane, and to return to the Chevrolet lineup a model similar in size and concept to the popular 1955-57 models. Early design photos show what would eventually be the Chevelle wearing Nova nameplates; the name then being used for the top trim level in the smaller Chevy II series. The Chevelle was the basis for the Beaumont, a re-trimmed model sold only in Canada by Pontiac dealers.

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1946 Ford Model 69A 73B Super De Luxe

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This is a “Just After The War” 1946 Ford. Ford kept the style of the 1941 until 1949 and then introduced the car I remember as a kid. This 1946 Ford was in “car show” shape but was just sitting in a parking lot at the beach in San Francisco. It’s a real classic.