#CapriceClassic

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.

In the first part of this article, I introduced you to the world where the fabled “diesel, manual wagon” is not the enthusiasts’ wet dream, but a boring, sensible man’s choice. And now, I am going to show you that this also works the other way around. Because the second wagon I will drive is something your grandmother probably owned – and what you, as a young motoring enthusiast, probably considered the most boring thing in the world (at least until the birth of the minivan).

In my Caprice Classic Capsule Review I mentioned the fact that I sold my “bubble” to a fellow who was collecting them slowly for some unspecified future use. Today, while rolling down Dublin Road south of Fisher in the industrial section of Columbus, Ohio, I saw, in the corner of my vision… bubbles.

Donk, Box, Bubble. Say it with me now. Donk, Box, Bubble. And thus the full-size General Motors “B-body” exists in the argot of the urban street. The Donk is the long, flowing, Baroque fifth-generation Impala and its platform twins, sold from 1971 to 1976. The Box is the tidy 1977 model, downsized to perfect, squared-off proportions. To this day, I am not certain that there is a cleaner visual expression of the American full-sized car than the 1977 Impala. Last but not least, we have the Bubble, as seen above. The Bubble was sold as the Caprice Classic (and Impala SS) from 1991 to 1996.

This is my Bubble. Or, I should say, was my Bubble, a casualty on one of the many nameless hills and dimly remembered battles which characterized my marriage. Purchased for $1200 with fifty thousand miles on the clock, it was quiet, reliable, and characterful to a fault. I loved that car. But the boss said I could not own three full-sized cars (I also had two Phaetons at the time) so the Bubble had to be popped.