CARS-YDSE.com – Page 7 – Cars You Don't See Everyday

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?

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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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I’ll Bet You’ve Never Seen This Car Before!

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I was on a walking tour in San Francisco climbing and walking down endless pubic staircases. About a block of the trail, we made a wrong turn and wound up in this cul-de-sac. Well maybe it was fate because there was this car, a Toyota, I think. There were about 15 of us on the trek. Most thout this car was “Way Cool”.

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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.

1974 Citroën SM

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Apparently, this car design was started in 1961 and was designed by Citroen’s head style designer, Robert Opron. It was based on the DS which was Citroen’s basic sedan but was clearly targeted at the luxury buyer. It was first shown at the Geneva Motor Show in 1971 as a concept car. The car had advanced styling and suspension as well as a Maserati power-plant and drive train.

Many of the details reflect Opron’s American background, notably the vestiges of ‘fins’ at the rear. Opron worked on aircraft body design and aerodynamics while in the USA, and the SM benefited from this experience. It was unusually aerodynamic for its era[2], with a very low drag coefficient of 0.26[3]. The SM was one of the first production cars to benefit from extensive wind tunnel testing during its design phase[citation needed], and as a result aerodynamic efficiency influenced the final design of many details including the shape of the side mirror, the method of windshield sealing, and the underbelly of the car which featured active aerodynamics, effectively sucking the car to the road at high speed. Even the ventilation intake is located in a “neutral” area on the hood, which makes the ventilator fan regulate the interior ventilation at all road speeds.

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[2] More Information, click here

1985 Maserati 228 – Cash For Clunkers?

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All right, so it’s a cliche’ now but, I ask you; when was the last time you saw one of these cars on the street? It was touted as a luxury sports coupe and did perform pretty well. It did the quarter mile in about 15 sec at 85 mph. Not bad for a drive in the country. It had a double turbo V6 engine and would be outclassed by today’s luxury sedans. I found this article recently.

Man trades in Maserati as ‘clunker’
GOLDEN, Colo., Aug. 16 (UPI) — A Colorado car dealer got a shock when a man drove in with a trade in the cash-for- clunkers program, a 1985 Maserati BiTurbo.

The car is in almost pristine condition, KUSA-TV, Denver, reported. There are only 18,480 miles on the odometer.

While the Italian sports car stands out among the battered trucks and SUVs other people have brought to Go Subaru in Golden, it qualified under the program. The owner got a $3,500 rebate on a new Subaru Impreza.

Wes Guthrie said the owner complained the Maserati would need work after being driven for 10 minutes. He had been trying to sell it for months and finding no takers.

However impressive it looks, the Maserati is destined for the same place as the other clunkers traded in to Go Subaru. Since the goal of the federal program is to remove gas-guzzling older cars from the roads, the engine will be disabled and the car crushed.

“Its one of those cars where you go, ‘Wow, I wish it didn’t have to be crushed, but unfortunately it does,'” Guthrie said.

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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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