#1970s
QOTD: Youthful Recollections of Superbly Disappointing Automobiles?
Last Wednesday we recounted the cars of our youth — specifically, the first car we could recall which really impressed. Though few of you could top my example of the superbly fresh and fun Dodge Neon, everyone put in a good effort.
Today we’ll flip the question, and consider the first vehicle we recall as a disappointment to our youthful car enthusiast selves.
Rare Rides: The 1982 De Tomaso Deauville - Quattroporte Meets XJ?
Rare Rides has shown several vehicles which owe their creation to retired racing driver Alejandro de Tomaso. Among those were two which wore his logo: the Guarà Barchetta and the Longchamp.
Today’s car is the only four-door De Tomaso ever produced: the Deauville.
QOTD: Youthful Recollections of Cool Cars Gone By?
Today we take a little trip down memory lane and consider the cars which impressed us most in our youth. And not the part of youth which contains a driver’s license and costly insurance, but the more formative experiences before that. Let’s talk foundational cool cars.
Rare Rides: The 1977 Bitter CD - Elder Bitter
Rare Rides featured its first Bitter last year, when a golden SC coupe from 1984 graced these pages. In that article we mentioned we’d return when the company’s first model, the CD, turned up for sale somewhere.
And today’s the day! Let’s take a look at Bitter’s initial product offering.
Junkyard Find: 1977 BMW 320i
Rare Rides: A Stunning 1978 Pontiac Bonneville Coupe
Pontiac is one of the most featured marques of the Rare Rides series, and to date there have been seven of its models represented here. Today’s Rare Ride was in showrooms the very same time as the odd and short-lived Sunbird Safari Wagon, but was intended to entice a much more traditional customer.
Let’s have a look at the upright and respectable Bonneville coupe.
Rare Rides: The Extra THICC 1970 Mercury Marauder X-100
We all recall the Panther-based Mercury Marauder as the last gasp of large, sporty motoring from Mercury. Today’s Rare Ride is the predecessor everyone forgot — the 219-inch Marauder X-100.
Rare Rides: A Ferrari 365 GTC/4 Spider From 1972
The original and well-known Ferrari 365 was a V12 grand tourer in production from 1966 to 1971. Its primary successor — the 365 GTB/4 (Daytona) also made a name for itself in short order.
Sitting in relative obscurity, however, was the Daytona’s ignored cousin, the 365 GTC/4.
Junkyard Find: 1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham Hardtop Sedan
Buy/Drive/Burn: Compact and Captive Pickup Trucks From 1982
In the last edition of Buy/Drive/Burn we pitted three compact pickup trucks from Japan against one another. The year was 1972 — still fairly early in Japan’s truck presence on North American shores. The distant year caused many commenters to shout “We are young!” and then claim a lack of familiarity.
Fine! Today we’ll move it forward a decade, and talk trucks in 1982.
Rare Rides: 1968 Toyota Corona Coupe - an End of Luxury
Today’s Rare Ride hails from the first two decades of Toyota’s North American tenure. The Corona line was midsize, luxurious, and the pinnacle of the company’s offerings on this continent.
Come along and experience Corona.
Rare Rides: The 1971 Tatra 2-603 II, East Germany's Stasi Transport
Today’s Rare Ride has a checkered history, as it served as quiet shuttle for secret police and terrorist spies alike. Let’s find out more about this rear-engine Czechoslovakian V8 luxury car.
Rare Rides: The Luxurious 1972 Fiat 130 Coupe
Rare Rides has featured a couple of Fiat coupes lately, their special, swoopy bodies representing redesign work carried out by Allemano and Vignale. Today’s Rare Ride comes to us from Pininfarina, and though it’s not as swoopy or special, I like it even more.
Junkyard Find: 1973 Volkswagen Super Beetle
The air-cooled Volkswagen Beetle was pretty well obsolete when North American sales took off during the late 1950s, and so this mid-1930s design had become shockingly obsolete by the 1970s. Still, Americans understood the Beetle as a comfortably known quantity by that time and the price tag was really cheap, so Beetles and Super Beetles still sold well in 1973.
In the parts of the continent where the Rust Monster remains meek, plenty of these cars still exist, enough for them to be fairly common sights in the big self-service junkyards. Here’s a ’73 Super Beetle in a San Francisco Bay Area yard.
Rare Rides: A 1974 NSU Ro 80, in Convertible Form
Today’s Rare Ride was a relative revolution at the time of its introduction. With smooth, aerodynamic styling and a rotary engine, NSU’s Ro 80 made big promises. Years later, one man decided he’d create the convertible that was missing from the Ro 80 lineup. Let’s check out this one-of-two NSU.
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