Rare Rides: The 1970 International Harvester 1200 D, a Pristine Pickup

Today’s Rare Ride marks the first time the series has featured a vehicle from the defunct International Harvester brand. Though the luxury-lined Monteverdi Safari was International-adjacent, today’s truck represents the agricultural, working heritage of IH.

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Rare Rides: Basic Brown Buick, a 1973 Century Coupe

Though its nameplate dated back to the Thirties, the Century was an all-new model for Buick in 1973. The Century promised exciting value and (optional) power and luxury in the mid-size segment.

Let’s check out this very basic three on the tree coupe.

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Rare Rides: The 1990 Chevrolet Astro RS, Maximum Sports Van

Rare Rides has featured a Chevy Astro van once before, in Provan Tiger GT guise where it had all-wheel drive and an onboard bathroom.

Today’s Astro version does not have a bathroom but instead focuses on the tinsel important to sports van driving enthusiasts of the Eighties and Nineties.

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Rare Rides: The Very Rare 1964 Alvis Graber Super Coupe

A small British firm headquartered in Coventry, England, Alvis faded from the automotive memory of most long ago. But for over 50 years, Alvis produced quality, hand-made British cars for the moderately- to very-well heeled.

Today’s Graber Super Coupe was one of the more luxurious ones.

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Rare Rides: The Beautiful 1969 AC Frua Cabriolet

Today’s Rare Ride was in production for nine years, but never reached triple-digit figures in its sales.

Let’s check out this hand-crafted British beauty.

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Rare Rides: The 1994 Isuzu Trooper That's Bighorn and Irmscher

Rare Rides featured Isuzu vehicles on four previous occasions, and all of them were from the Seventies or Eighties.

Today we switch it up a bit and present an Isuzu from the Nineties. Ready for Irmscher?

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Rare Rides: The Incredibly Rare 1981 Monteverdi Safari, an International Delight

We’re back again with more Monteverdi today, and I’m determined the Rare Rides series will cover all of Monteverdi’s vehicular offerings. European design, American power, and Swiss attention to detail combined with very high prices to make all the company’s models Rare Rides.

We’ve covered two earlier Monteverdi offerings previously, in the 1970 High Speed 375/4 sedan, and the 1971 High Speed 375/L grand touring coupe. Today we head into luxury SUV territory with the Safari.

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Rare Rides: The Intensely Sporty 1992 Dodge Daytona IROC R/T

Rare Rides has featured a few sports coupes of the Dodge variety previously, but those Eighties cars were not as modern, refined, and sophisticated as today’s seldom seen two-door.

Presenting the Dodge Daytona IROC R/T, from 1992.

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Rare Rides: A 1990 Subaru Legacy Wagon, Sold Back to Subaru

Today’s Rare Ride is an example of utmost care and maintenance. It’s a 31-year-old wagon which was driven and kept in showroom condition over more than 200,000 miles.

This particular wagon was unique enough that Subaru purchased it for their collection.

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Rare Rides: The 1967 Hino Contessa 1300S, Rear-engine Blip on the Radar

Hino is a well-known producer of commercial vehicles today and has been in the commercial truck market since World War II. But for a short while in the Sixties, they built their own rear-engine passenger car.

Say hello to Contessa.

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Rare Rides: It's a 1977 Reliant Scimitar GTE, You Know

Today’s Rare Ride is a sporty shooting brake from the days when there were still many British manufacturers building cars like it across England.

Let’s travel back to the Seventies when everything was brown, excepting this particular Reliant.

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Rare Rides: The 1976 Maserati Kyalami, Obscure Italian Luxury

Today’s Rare Ride is a very luxurious Maserati which flew in under the radar and was offered by the Italian firm for a short while. A four-seat coupe, it was named after a race track in Africa.

Let’s find out more about Kyalami.

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Rare Rides: A 2003 Volkswagen Passat W8 4MOTION Wagon, for Low-cost Motoring

The Rare Rides series featured a Passat wagon once before, in the long ago time of 2018. It was a 1992 G60 with all-wheel drive, a manual transmission, and supercharged engine. Staying true to quirky form, today’s newer and more luxury-oriented Passat pairs its all-wheel drive grip with an eight-cylinder engine.

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Rare Rides: The 1992 Daihatsu Leeza Spider, It's Tearing Me Apart

Oh hi, Mark. Today’s Rare Ride is a very rare version of Daihatsu’s Leeza Kei car. It’s tiny, turbocharged, and one of only 200 made.

No more The Room jokes, I promise.

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Rare Rides: The Lincoln Continental From 2002, Nicest-ever Taurus

Today we take a look at the early 2000s Lincoln Continental. A generation of Continental that didn’t know what it wanted to be, we can take comfort in the knowledge it was at least a nice Taurus.

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  • Alan Well, it will take 30 years to fix Nissan up after the Renault Alliance reduced Nissan to a paltry mess.I think Nissan will eventually improve.
  • Alan This will be overpriced for what it offers.I think the "Western" auto manufacturers rip off the consumer with the Thai and Chinese made vehicles.A Chinese made Model 3 in Australia is over $70k AUD(for 1995 $45k USD) which is far more expensive than a similar Chinesium EV of equal or better quality and loaded with goodies.Chinese pickups are $20k to $30k cheaper than Thai built pickups from Ford and the Japanese brands. Who's ripping who off?
  • Alan Years ago Jack Baruth held a "competition" for a piece from the B&B on the oddest pickup story (or something like that). I think 5 people were awarded the prizes.I never received mine, something about being in Australia. If TTAC is global how do you offer prizes to those overseas or are we omitted on the sly from competing?In the end I lost significant respect for Baruth.
  • Alan My view is there are good vehicles from most manufacturers that are worth looking at second hand.I can tell you I don't recommend anything from the Chrysler/Jeep/Fiat/etc gene pool. Toyotas are overly expensive second hand for what they offer, but they seem to be reliable enough.I have a friend who swears by secondhand Subarus and so far he seems to not have had too many issue.As Lou stated many utes, pickups and real SUVs (4x4) seem quite good.
  • 28-Cars-Later So is there some kind of undiagnosed disease where every rando thinks their POS is actually valuable?83K miles Ok.new valve cover gasket.Eh, it happens with age. spark plugsOkay, we probably had to be kewl and put in aftermarket iridium plugs, because EVO.new catalytic converterUh, yeah that's bad at 80Kish. Auto tranny failing. From the ad: the SST fails in one of the following ways:Clutch slip has turned into; multiple codes being thrown, shifting a gear or 2 in manual mode (2-3 or 2-4), and limp mode.Codes include: P2733 P2809 P183D P1871Ok that's really bad. So between this and the cat it suggests to me someone jacked up the car real good hooning it, because EVO, and since its not a Toyota it doesn't respond well to hard abuse over time.$20,000, what? Pesos? Zimbabwe Dollars?Try $2,000 USD pal. You're fracked dude, park it in da hood and leave the keys in it.BONUS: Comment in the ad: GLWS but I highly doubt you get any action on this car what so ever at that price with the SST on its way out. That trans can be $10k + to repair.