CARS-YDSE.com – Page 5 – Cars You Don't See Everyday

1954 Cadillac 62 Sedan

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The ’54 Cadillac was a major body style change from the 1953 and represented a physical change as well. The wheelbase was increased by 3 inches and the car sat lower on the road.

THIS IS A BIG CAR.

For several years this particular car often parked around and near Deboce Street in San Francisco. I have not seen it lately.

The car had many other features as indicated in this article.

Many appearance improvements marked the 1954 Cadillacs. They included

* a lower, sleeker body,
* a new cellular grille insert,
* inverted gull-wing front bumpers
* tapered dagmar style bumper guards.

Round, jet-style dual exhaust outlets were incorporated into the vertical bumper extensions and the rear bumper was entirely redesigned.

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This car was spotted on a drive from San Francisco to Napa California in 2006. When Nash and Hudson merged in 1954, it was the largest corporate merger in history. American Motors was the odd car company when I grew up because of it’s styling and size. GM, Ford and Chrysler were all making larger cars and the styling was quite different. The “little round thing” was what we called my aunt’s Nash convertible.

Now, at least to me, this car looks fine and is right up to date with some of the cars on the road today.

American Motors was formed from the merger of Hudson Motors and Nash-Kelvinator. The deal was the largest corporate merger up to that point – worth $197,793,366 – but was just one phase of a planned megamerger of Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, and Packard. The combined company would cover all segments of the market, and their size and ability to share engineering would amortize costs nicely; at least, that was the plan of Kelvinator’s George Mason, whose company owned Nash. The name “American Motors” originated with Mason, who started working on the plan just after World War II (thanks, Dan Minick.)

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1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4

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This Ferrari is certainly a car you don’t see very often on the street; at least here in San Francisco. I took a look at some sites and think this is a 1967 but I may be off. If you know, please leave a comment below.
According to the website below, there were between 280 to 330 of these cars produced. The article below sites one car sold for over $1,000,000 in 2007. Not bad for a car that costs $11,500 new in 1967.

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A Rose By Any Name, Revised

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This is an update to a post made back in 2009. While reading the San Francisco Chronicle this weekend I saw an article that reminded me of this car. It is in a Sunday section called “My Ride” and I read it every weekend. Anyway, this weeks story was about a person who bought a 1975 Rolls Royce and had it overheat on the ride home. In reviewing this post, I see that I wrongly classified the year of this model. This actually looks like a 1962 Silver Clod Salon car.

Rolls Royce is a very special car. It looks so elegant and timeless and is shown here in my neighborhood, just parked at the local grocery store. I think this car is a late 1980 or so, but this is just a guess.

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© Fred Winograd copyright 2009, 2011

1953-1957 Mercedes Sedan

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Less than a decade after WWII, Mercedes introduced the model 180 sedan. This was a precursor to the “C” class introduced in the early 1980s. This particular car was in exceptional shape and had a “Club” on the steering wheel to prevent theft.

The Ponton models were replaced by the W110 “Fintail” models beginning in 1961. The 180 was the first ‘small’ Mercedes, it can be thought as the C-class of that era. Mercedes-Benz would return to this market segment in 1982 with the 190E. The W121 190 was the E-class of the time. All the ‘Ponton’ generation models looked very similar in appearance, one could not clearly identify even a 220SE from a 180, only after seeing its larger size and chrome touches was it possible to identify it as a different model. This was the only generation in which all models looked incredibly similar, though the 300 was exclusive.

The form and body of the car changed little during its production run. However, in 1957, a year after the introduction of the 190 sedan the Mercedes star at the front of the car was made detachable: reports at the time indicated that this was either to pander to the requirements of certain export markets, notably Switzerland or to reduce the risk of pedestrian injury in the event of an accident.

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1948* Cadillac Sedanette (Fastback)

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*Addendum

I got the following correction and updated the post. The original post titled this as a 1949.

lars Says:
March 13, 2011 at 10:02 am e
This is a -48, you can see that in the frontgrille and parklights, it is more chrome in the front on a -49. Also the 3 chrome moldings under the rear lights is -48, -48 should have only one backup lamp also, but this one have two, probably series 62

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I took this picture about seven years ago and it stayed in my archive until today. Today, I started to research the car and started looking for a similar car on-line. I could not find one exactly like his one. The taillights on the 49s I found were much simpler. The three chrome strips below the taillight are the unique feature I can not find other examples of. I’m pretty sure it’s a 1949 but am not sure of the model. If you know, please leave a post I’d love to know more about this car.

If you know more about this car, please post and let us know. This, to me , is an amazing car that’s over 60 years old and still looks pretty good to me.

1979 Lancia Beta Spider Zagato

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Yes, this is a rare car indeed. I have seen a few Lancias in town but none had the convertible roof like this one, it’s a spider. I’m making an educated guess about the year because of the different wheels on this one. I did find some pictures and some stories that made me realize the wheels were upgraded on my picture.

Click to see an example

Here is an example of Lacia after the takeover by Fiat.

Lancia was not closely associated with any other manufacturer until the late 1960s. By this time, the company’s expensive, high standards of production had become unsustainable. In aiming to produce a product of the highest quality, company bosses had sacrificed cost-effectiveness and when Fiat launched a take-over bid in 1969, they accepted. This was not the end of the distinctive Lancia brand, and new models in the 1970s such as the Stratos, Gamma and Beta served to prove that Fiat wished to preserve the image of the brand it had acquired.

Click to see the article from Wikipedia

I’m really glad this one was parked just a few blocks from my home.

Alfa-Romeo-2000-GT-Veloce 1971

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In 1969 my cousin was working as a salesperson for a Fiat dealer. I was looking for a more reliable car than my 1965 Corvair and went to have a look at the Fiats. I really liked the 124 Sport Coupe’ and since I had a new job that paid more than minimum wage, I bought one. The car came in about three weeks later and I was thrilled. The Fiat ran perfectly for about 18 months and then, almost literally, fell apart. The water pump quit and I had to be towed over 100 miles to get home. Then a series of defects showed up climaxing in the car bursting into flames minutes after the car passed the strict New Jersey Motor Vehicle inspection in 1974.

That’s when I first saw the Alfa GT-Veloce and thought about purchasing one of these to replace my Fiat. As it turned out, reliability was a bigger driver of the purchase than style and so I decided to fix up the burned out Fiat and kept it running until I replaced it with a 1978 Toyota Celica. But I still wonder if I would have been happier with the Alfa? I snapped this Alfa in my neighborhood. It is in great shape.

1940 Ford Opera Coupe’

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Click on pictures to Z O O M in.It’s a long time ago but things have changed. This Ford has almost the identical model name as the 1941 Chevy that is also a part of this collection.Click Here to see the 1941 Chevy Special DeLuxeI don’t think Ford/Chevy would do this today. Anyway, this 1940 Ford is in really great shape. It has been restored and is all set to go. I captured this one just outside a custom body shop here in San Francisco. I don’t know if the shop did the work or not but it is well done.

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A “Running” Cougar Convertable – 1969

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This site has been up for over a year and now gets enough traffic to spot some trends. One of the most popular cars on the site is a 1959 Dodge Custom Royal. I don’t know if it’s the car or the photo, but it gets a lot of hits. Today’s picture was taken on I-280 just south of San Francisco, the same place I took the shot of the Dodge. Let’s see how this 1969 Cougar does in the popularity race.

The third year of production, 1969, brought several new additions to the Cougar lineup. A convertible model was now available in either standard and XR-7 trim. These highly anticipated soft tops proved quite popular and today are considered, by many, among the most desirable of the ’67-’70 production run.

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Also, below is a link to a 360 degree video of a similar car I found on YouTube.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RYjBXy2oHs&fs=1&hl=en_US]