Curbside Classic: 1968 Chevmobile Impala
By Paul NiedermeyerNovember 5, 2009 Hybrids are big in Eugene, but some are just plain huge. The Prius is the official new car here, having dethroned Subaru. But here’s a hybrid of a different color: instead of a marriage of two drive systems, it’s a cross between two brands, the engine of one transplanted into another. Back in the day, [...]
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Curbside Classic: 1965 Volvo 122S Amazon
By Paul NiedermeyerNovember 3, 2009 How exactly did the Volvo 122 Amazon achieve its mythological stature? Naming it after the eponymous nation of all-female warriors was a good start. Legendary ruggedness and durability solidified its status. Sporty performance burnished it further. Then there’s the magic belt: one of the twelve labors of Hercules was to secure the girdle of Hippolyta, [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 31 comments
Curbside Classics: Chrysler’s Deadly Sin #1 – 1976 Plymouth Volare and Dodge Aspen
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 29, 2009 While the human Seven Deadly Sins – lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride – clearly play a part in any automaker’s fall from grace, Detroit cultivated its own favorite deadly transgressions. Chrysler’s recurring dirty little habit was premature ejection: spurting cars out of the factory door before they were ready. The shoddily built [...]
Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 77 comments
Curbside Classic: 1985 BMW 635CSi
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 27, 2009 Somewhere deep in the comments to last week’s oft-misunderstood Datsun 210 CC was this: “With all the beautiful cars in the world, why do you insist on picking shit boxes all the time?” Well, it’s not like the streets of Eugene are lined with Delages and Delahayes sitting curbside in the [...]
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Curbside Classic: 1980 Datsun 210 Sunny
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 22, 2009 With what words shall I express my overpowering feelings toward this tin can wrapped in vinyl wood appliqué? Jeremy Clarkson once called the Sunny “the worst car in the world ever” (probably not for the first or last time). To show he meant it, he hurled one to its death from [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 60 comments
Curbside Classic: 1951 Packard 200
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 20, 2009 You would be forgiven for mistaking this modest-looking sedan as a low-end Dodge, Pontiac or Mercury. A Packard? The very name conjures images of exclusive cars from the classic era, like this illustrious coach-built V12, or perhaps its last gasp luxo-boat, the 1956 Caribbean. But finding this lowly [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 46 comments
Curbside Classic: 1960 Comet
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 15, 2009 If this goofy-assed little car showed up at your premium brand’s doorstep and told you it was an unwanted orphan, would you let it in? And keep it as a foster child, or adopt it as your own? That’s the scenario Mercury found itself in with the Comet. And true to [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 42 comments
Curbside Classic: 1978 Ford Fiesta
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 13, 2009 In the depths of the gloomy automotive winter of the late seventies, the Fiesta made a brief appearance that brought a ray of sunshine into our deprived existence. She was like that cute, skinny little German exchange student who appeared one day at High School, and dazzled us with her algebra, physics, gymnastics and fencing. [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 62 comments
Curbside Classic: 1965 GMC Handi-Van
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 8, 2009 Regression to the mean. Lowest common denominator. Thinking inside the box. These over-used expressions are all-too often applied to Detroit iron. But which vehicle most fully lives down to them? Here it is: the crudest, simplest, most wretched-handling and least-safe vehicle made by the Big Three in the sixties. It’s a box with two cart [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 41 comments
Curbside Classic: GM’s Deadly Sin 3: 1991 Saturn SL2
By Paul NiedermeyerOctober 6, 2009 Friends, we are gathered together to pay our last respects to a fallen brother. Saturn was the love child of Roger Smith and Hal Riney; one was the Chairman of GM, a manufacturer of cars; the other, an ad man extraordinaire, a manufacturer of emotions. Let us savor their own words as [...]
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Posted in Curbside Classics | Editorials | 76 comments
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