#1970s

In all of my decades of visiting junkyards, one thing has remained constant: I’ll see a handful of Fiat 124 Sport Spider s and MG MGB s every year, about the same number in 2018 as I saw each year in 2001 or 1987. Here’s the latest: a red ’76 convertible in a self-service wrecking yard in California’s Central Valley.

Saab was always a fan of the number nine, and it proved its dedication to the special digit by using two nines for their pre-900 era compact executive car.

Let’s take a look at a little blue Saab 99.

Yesterday’s QOTD post by youthful scribe Steph Willems got me thinking about the cars of my youth, as intended. But the thoughts weren’t about the cars I would’ve had on my (non-existent) posters, but rather those I fully ignored in those days.

Little did I know.

Rare Rides has featured a couple of Peugeot vehicles before, like this 106 from Canada or this 405 from The America. But both of those were sporty cars from the Nineties. Today we have a look at a Peugeot from the Seventies which is most definitely not sporty.

It’s a stunning 504 with a diesel engine, from 1975.

On the Junkyard Find post at the start of this week, conversation turned to vehicle models which resisted change from the designer’s pen (or ruler) and the engineer’s… tools. Today we talk about the good old days, and how sometimes things stay the same.

Today’s Rare Ride fits squarely in the I Didn’t Know About This file. It’s a military-grade Volvo from the 1950s, which the company transformed into a civilian vehicle nearly three decades later.

Presenting the C202 Laplander.

In a Question of the Day post earlier this month, Matthew Guy inquired about the manufacturer which had the greatest number of great cars in their company’s history.

Today we’re going to flip it, and talk about all the awful things. Prepare your fingers for the incoming salt.

A few months ago we selected a General Motors C-body from the three on offer in the mid-1990s, right at the end of the front-drive platform’s lifespan. Today’s trio is a variation on that theme, as suggested long ago by commenter Sgeffe.

He wanted to talk about rear-drive C-platform offerings — the full-size GMs available shortly before everything started going awry for the large sedan customer. Let’s go.

The De Tomaso name keeps surfacing in the Rare Rides series, almost as often as BMW. The honorary first mention came via the Chrysler TC by Maserati, followed by the Qvale Mangusta that initially bore the De Tomaso name. Most recently, we featured the Maserati Ghibli, which was the very last new Maserati presented by the man himself, De Tomaso.

Today we step back in time, back to an era before any of those aforementioned Rare Rides were ever considered. Let’s have a look at the very luxurious De Tomaso Longchamp.

In Part I of the Citroën CX saga, we learned how the big sedan replaced the outgoing and legendary DS. Now, let’s find out just how difficult life was for the last genuine large Citroën.

Huge amounts of interior space, a silky smooth ride, and quirky features inside and out. These are the qualities one expects from a large Citroën, and all are present and accounted for in today’s Rare Ride — the CX 25 Prestige, from 1987.

We started our ranking challenge for every generation of Chevrolet Suburban in last week’s QOTD. That post covered the first through sixth generations, which range from truck with wagon body format to nearly a modern Suburban. Some struggled with the first challenge installment, citing a lack of knowledge and experience with old trucks dating back to the 1930s (you youths!).

Today we’ll rank Suburban generations seven through eleven; undoubtedly these will be much more familiar to many of you.