I don’t really care for convertibles. Soft-top, hard-top or anything in between. I guess my one exception might be the 1995 Mustang Hardtop, but that’s still not very practical. After riding in one all day, it feels like a day spent at Lake Pleasant in a boat. I guess Phoenix just wasn’t designed for convertibles. All that aside, I love every single third generation Camaro, and with the exception of the “notchback” and the swoopy, 91-92 body treatment, I love every third generation Firebird as well. Continue reading →
While looking for yard sales on a quiet Saturday, I came across this vehicle. I was laughing at the combination of 4 Dodge Ram tail lights and the CHMSL above them. We love featuring Recreational Vehicles that have head lights and tail lights from production vehicles. I guess with the Cummins power plant, the four Ram lights are necessary, if it was only two lights we would know it was powered by a “Hammy”. Totally joking here. Anywho, as I waited the 45 seconds it took me to pass the body of this mile-long behemoth I was still chuckling pretty good about the silly back end. When I saw the front though, I realized this was no laughing matter.
While fellow editor Mike Ross and I were (at the time) unsuccessfully shopping for the vehicle that was to be my significant other’s daily driver we came across this vehicle. Now this is for those of you that haven’t lived in, or spent a lot of time in South Phoenix. For those of us who have, prepared to be unsurprised.
I really have to appreciate the fact that this owner settled on making sure it was properly re-badged a Diamante, despite all of it’s other more glaring cosmetic flaws. They apparently didn’t have the wherewithal to get rid of the adhesive from the old badges, especially the plainly noticeable right adhesive telegraphing an old 740IL badge. What I have to chuckle at is the Bimmer badges are on straighter than the Mitsu ones.
If this was the 1990’s, instead of 2013, I’d be giving you a long article “ho-humming” the shit out of the little Chevy shoe-box. If you’re a younger reader then you wouldn’t understand, but for those of us who remember that time, it was the equivalent to what you see now with 60’s muscle cars. The generation that grew up with, or aspired to own 1950’s steel happened to be the ones with the buying power at the time. A 1971 Chevelle, Gran Sport, Lemans or Cutlass wasn’t an expensive car then. They were about as viable as say, a late 4th gen F-body is now, or a Fox body Mustang was 5-10 years ago. If you opened an issue of Super Chevy Magazine, you were liable to get your eyes overcome with Bel-Airs replete with loud paint, tweed interiors, lots of billet nonsense, and a TPI motor.
Thankfully for this Chevy Bel-Air, it doesn’t succumb to any of that nonsense of the past. It’s a nice clean example of a cool cruiser. As far as this model of cars go, the ’55 happens to be my favorite, styling wise. It has the short grill up front (which was apparently unpopular at the time) and the bodywork is subtle compared to the big fins and huge side chrome on the rock-and-roll 1957’s. 1955 was also the first year for the now ubiquitous small block Chevy V8 powerplant. In the Bel-Air it displaced 265 cubic inches and was rated at 180hp. It’s no rip-snorting ’55 324 Olds, but the small block Chevy’s smart design and insect-like infestation into other GM brands in the mid 70’s ensured it would be the V8 to survive the longest. As far as the design of the Bel-Air, it’s generations came and went like pop songs and by 1958 it was a new design, only to be used for a year and redesigned again in 1959.
Last year when we covered SEMA 2012 we had an opportunity to check out a local Cars and Coffee chapter. Though I was a little underwhelmed by the small turn out considering it was Vegas and SEMA week, I was happily surprised to see my favorite muscle car, the Oldsmobile 442, out in full force. It’s really odd to see this many Olds cars out at one event, so I imagine someone on an Olds forum must have coordinated it. My post about the GSX made me remember I had all these pictures that I had yet to share. So to my fellow Rocket-loving Oldsmobile fans, here’s some hot 442 action after the jump: Continue reading →
During the time of A-body GM cars such as the Pontiac GTO “Judge”, the Oldsmobile Cutlass 4-4-2 W-30, and the Chevrolet Chevelle Super Sport 454, Buick decided that it wanted to carve a niche for a doctor’s car that hauled ass with the blue-collars. The 1970 Buick GSX stands alone among the others with it’s absolutely absurd gross torque rating that is rated over 500 ft lbs below 3000 rpm. With it’s 455 cubic inch Buick engine (Pontiac and Oldsmobile offered their own brand of similarly displaced 455 cubic inch engines, Chevrolet offered the now well-known 454) it certainly measured up to the rest, and with the good looks that A-body platform provided, it was nice edition to General Motors high performance stable.
I absolutely love this time in the automotive industry. Not because it rings nostalgically with me like all the baby boomers I see spending astronomical sums of money to own one again before they’re worm food, but because they’re from a time before the evils of badge engineering. The above cars may have shared a general platform, but they all got different body work and sheet metal, had engines designed completely different for one another and were all gunning to be the top dog under GM’s banner. It wasn’t about making a car that was better than a Charger, ‘Cuda, or Gran Torino, it was about having a car that was better than the one being done by an “in-house” brand. I think that the friendly rivalry kept the imagination and output high, even if all the different parts and pieces being made by each brand was a nightmare for the bean counters. Continue reading →
