The Car Thread

[Elliot]

.
Was '68 the last year -- or the only year -- with roll-down backlight? (Backlight is Detroitese for "rear window".)

Anyway, those Corvettes all rattle and bang like oil-drums-half-full-of-scrap-metal, no matter what style of bumpers and windows. Do not fall in love with old Corvettes without driving a few of them first.

And if it has a cracked fan shroud, the left motor mount is broken.

[Captain Goddammit]

I'm betting you can't even tell a '68 from a '69 'Vette. The only visible difference was the '69 looked better because they widened the too-skinny 7" '68 wheels to 8". Oh and changed door handles and added "Stingray" emblems, big deal.
And they remained virtually identical through '72, again I bet you can't even tell, it's so minor.

There are small detail differences but can you even tell a '68 Chevelle, Road Runner, GTO, Charger, or AMX from a '69?

You have a right to your own opinion, but it just makes no sense, unless you're talking Mustangs. I don't get it.

[Elliot]

Captain, you bring up an important point about automobile design -- wheel-and-tire fitment. I am amazed at the pathetic tire fitment on some cars. There was a Ford Thunderbird -- the Pinto-based version, perhaps late 1970's -- that looked like it was driving around on four "compact spares". Luckily, those days seem to be safely behind us.

Don't get me started on rear wheel wells that are larger than fronts, requiring larger tires to look right.

[Captain Goddammit]

Oh by the way, the Corvettes still had the removable rear window until '72, and you can bolt the parts into the '73-'77s if you want.
Hell yeah stock tires were pathetic for a LONG time and they did often look like bird legs.
That's what started the famous Pontiac "Wide Track" thing. The factory engineers thought (correctly) that the '59 GM cars' wheels were awkwardly inset, so Pontiac pushed them outboard a few inches and it looked a lot better than a '59 Chevy, Olds, or Buick. They kept that "Wide Track" slogan all through the '60s but after the first couple years it was just meaningless ad hype.

[Elliot]

Talking about Pontiacs.... When I was at the Chrysler school in Detroit (all those decades ago!), I met the guy who designed the original "Screaming Chicken" on the hood of the Firebird. He told me it was the only way he was ever able to sneak flames onto a mass-produced car.

[^Rhino!]

Eliot, at least you're telling me you're not from Nebraska.

PONTIAC = Poor Old Nebraskan Thinks Its A Cadillac

We also make a joke about Nebraska engineers who think the N stands for knowledge. The only thing good coming out of Nebraska, though, is still I-80.

[ygmir]

Eliot, at least you're telling me you're not from Nebraska.

PONTIAC = Poor Old Nebraskan Thinks Its A Cadillac

We also make a joke about Nebraska engineers who think the N stands for knowledge. The only thing good coming out of Nebraska, though, is still I-80.

careful:

[^Rhino!]

With that much corn it was probably in Iowa. Excuse me...don't I mean to say "Iowegia"

Don't get me wrong. I love the Iowans. Their regional rep, JeffZ, is a super and personal friend. My bro Blitz (rest his soul in peace) was from Iowa. And their camp at the Interfuse Midwest Regional, "Iowhomp" camp, usually is the one sound camp off in the corner where they allow the most volume.

They normally even have bill collectors on the floor laughing with their first response...

"IoWHAAT?"

Just sayin'....our corn fed brethren from the surrounding states are no longer our enemies, especially now that Missouri is a member of the SEC, and no longer in the "Big 12" Conference. But they probably did that to end the Border War with Kansas, which has been going on since 1854 and the original Jayhawkers, Border Ruffians, and the like. Not that it'll help.

[ranger magnum]

What's the difference between Iowa and yogurt?

Yogurt has an active culture!

Seriously though, GM in the 50's & 60's was the largest company in the world. As a matter of fact, in the mid fifties, there were so many auto loans written that the feds raised the interest rare because of them!

Every 3-4 years, every model would undergo a full redesign. Every year, they underwent a full revision. Take the 61-64 Impala as an example. Each year is decidedly different than it's predecessor. Most commonly hood, doors trunk and quarters. 61 & 62 share doors. But peel of the exterior sheet metal, and the mechanicals are largely the same. Sure there were minor changes, like switching from generators to alternators in 62, or the addition of automatically adjusting drum brakes in 64; things that made the care better as new technologies were developed. Some things carried over for decades....rear drums were the same from 58-70. But visually, each year was different.

But 1958 was one year only for the Impala, Bell Air, Biscayne, Del Rey, Nomad or Parkwood models. Never before or after has a car manufacturer done what GM did that year. Many things do not carry over to or from 58, as I have discovered while building my 58 Bell Air low rat project. But a lot of things are interchangeable, like rear ends, spindles, hubs, brakes, and of course engines and transmissions.

Maybe this was the same for Mopar and FoMoCo, I don't know. Im a GM historian. But I do know that GM was the worlds superpower; money was no issue. And technology was surprisingly advanced, even as far back as the thirties.

I don't know how to post a link, but do yourself a favor, go to YouTube and look up "precisely so". It is a movie about gm's ability to calculate weights and measures. The first few minutes are a bit campy, but the rest is amazing.

[Elliot]

Ranger Magnum, does that tourist place down your way still have their fleet of 1958 Chevys that they rent out? In Solvang or Buellton, if I remember right.

[Captain Goddammit]

The way I understand it, they didn't intend to do the expensive one-year-only 1958 style, I think it the car was supposed to be for 1957 but something stalled it, I think I remember reading that the '57 was sort of an emergency fill-in. Chrysler (Chry-Dodge-Plymouth-De-Soto) did get their all new body style out for 1957, which look similar to their '58s.
Ford got their all new '57s out too.

[Tin Halo]

I'm betting you can't even tell a '68 from a '69 'Vette. The only visible difference was the '69 looked better because they widened the too-skinny 7" '68 wheels to 8". Oh and changed door handles and added "Stingray" emblems, big deal.
And they remained virtually identical through '72, again I bet you can't even tell, it's so minor.

There are small detail differences but can you even tell a '68 Chevelle, Road Runner, GTO, Charger, or AMX from a '69?

I've never tried. I have no desire to, either.

You have a right to your own opinion, but it just makes no sense, unless you're talking Mustangs. I don't get it.

Maybe it makes no sense to you, because your enthusiasm runs in that direction. Mine doesn't.

It seems I'll need to clarify that the position in my comments is not to diss anyone who does have this kind of enthusiasm for something I don't. In other words, I'm not being derogatory in any way, shape, or form towards you or anyone in your frame of mind. I just simply don't have much interest in auto design after the late '60's because the length of time between a true style recharge got longer, and I never cared for much industrial design from that era anyway.

[Captain Goddammit]

But why would you like '68s and not '69s or '70s when they are so identical you can't even tell them apart?

[ranger magnum]

I like how tin halo put it... Enthusiasm.

Obsession is more like it for me!

Elliot, I haven't seen or heard of this place that rents 58's. I sure wish I knew about it.

Also, what is this "Chrysler school" you went to? Now that's an Alma Mater I could sure get behind.

[Elliot]

Ranger Magnum, I think it may have been at the airport in Buellton. It was in the Solvang area, for sure. But this was decades ago -- maybe as far back as the late 1970s, when I moved to California. They had a fleet of 1958 Chevys that they rented out to tourists who visited Solvang and other tourist spots thereabouts. It was supposed to be quite the thing to do, to rent one of these "relics". Probably out of business for decades by now.

In 1975-76 I attended an auto mechanic school called MoTech (as in Mopar Tech), run by Chrysler in Livonia, MI, just west of Detroit. But it is long defunct. I suspect they wanted to cash in on the G.I. Bill, what with all the Viet Nam veterans. But it was a good school, and I wound up working at a Chrysler dealer in Sacramento.
MoTech also had extra-curricular classes in High Performance, both for stock-cars on ovals and for drag racing. This was the time of the "Direct Connection" line of performance products. Chrysler sold bodies-in-white and all kinds of "skunk works" parts for building race cars, to all comers. So I learned a bit about chassis in those classes. Good stuff, good times.

[FIGJAM]

One of MY favorite car guys!!!

RIP Tom.

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/03/357428287 ... rm=nprnews

[media]

[Tin Halo]

But why would you like '68s and not '69s or '70s when they are so identical you can't even tell them apart?

Why would you obsess over trivia about someone's preference?

Repeatedly grilling me about my preferences in vehicle styling - ultimately to serve the singular purpose of 'making sense to you' - is an incredible waste of life energy you'll never get back. I don't go on and on in inquiry about why you like all the seemingly endless mechanical details of a seemingly endless parade of vehicles. It's just not a matter of vital importance to me.
Whether or not my preferences 'make sense' to you is irrelevant to the fact that the sun still rises in the morning. Let it go.

[Captain Goddammit]

You make no sense so I asked why. That's all.
I guess the answer is you didn't know '68-'69 wasn't a changeover point for most American cars.

[Tin Halo]

Perhaps not as much mechanically. Stylistically, it began the de-evolution into the completely fat, boring, uninspired body stylings of the '70's. (Ford Gran Torino, anyone?) Much the same with most industrial design... three cheers for Formica, right? Yeah, thought not. Especially the barf avocado.
Everything started getting squared off, block-like. Smoked glass, hard angles, muted and non-energetic colors, polyester, fake brick...like some sort of massive dark cloud blew over the entire industrial design world and just hung there, sucking the joy out of the process and end product.
The larger overview of my point and position is, auto styling had some art, grace, excitement, and energy (with the exception of some Chrysler offerings like the New Yorker, imho) up through the mid-late 60's, then it all became bloated and unmotivated. Awkward. Like Moore as James Bond compared to Connery. There were flowing lines, suggestions of movement even when the car was standing still, distinctions between model offerings. At the turn of the decade it was like auto sylists carved a few lines into some clay blocks, called it good, went back to the wet bar.
I thought that perhaps we'd see a revival of older, classic styles, when VW re-birthed the Bug over a decade ago, but it didn't take. So fast-forward to today, where you can't tell a Nissan from a Honda from a Lexus from a Toyota from a Kia from a blahblahblah...
It's an update of the old Henry Ford quote, "They can have any color they want so long as it's black". You can buy any car you can afford, so long as it looks like another car you can afford or at best another car you can't afford.

[Tin Halo]

I'm betting you can't even tell a '68 from a '69 'Vette. The only visible difference was the '69 looked better because they widened the too-skinny 7" '68 wheels to 8".

What is 'better', at this point, is a matter of preference. I'm not saying that I think the "too-skinny" wheels were better, just saying that a fatter wheel got your attention.

Oh and changed door handles and added "Stingray" emblems, big deal.
And they remained virtually identical through '72, again I bet you can't even tell, it's so minor.

Looking at this part of the convo, again, with a rested perspective, I think that this quote of yours really actually underscores my point. (And I'm not trying to rub that in your face or be "nyahnyahnyahstupidmotherfucker" about it. Not at all.) The idea is that the impetus to refresh the design - as I mentioned in my previous post - all but disappeared. In the 50's and 60's you could not sit on a vehicle's style implementation for 4, 5 years without losing market interest. Badge refreshes do not a refresh make.
To the credit, having a few years of interchangeable parts is a nice thing. I didn't realize how accustomed I'd gotten to that, until I had to try and get some major work done on the '88 Trooper I used to have... that's when I discovered that that year and model was one produced during a year and a half period where the powerhouse and drivetrain were sourced directly (as I understand) from GM and as such, parts were rare and expensive.
(I should take this opportunity to point out that the Trooper was an exception to my styling preferences. I liked it precisely because it gave me that 'Rat Patrol' vibe as I veered off the shoulder and plowed a couple of waterways. Boxy, utilitarian, and boy could I get a lot of shit into the cargo space of that thing.)

Although I'm a Ford guy through and through, I currently drive an '02 Liberty Limited. My trusty '95 Explorer was getting long in the tooth at 209k and after 14 years (and having had it since 92k miles) it was tough to sell him off but I needed to do it. I got the Liberty for a stupid-good price with only 49k miles on it and a Daimler shop manual, to boot. Despite the diminished cargo space and vaseline-starved reaming I get on fuel economy, I really like the car, particularly the styling. After '08 or so they started looking exactly like the Patriot, so...boring as fuck. An illustration of lack of energy in the design department... "well, people like the Patriot so let's do a 7/8's scale version of the body and put the Liberty badge on it..."

My partner recently picked up an '05 Honda Pilot after her Altima got totaled. I appreciate the ride, even if the styling is a bit bland. I'm doing everything I can to avoid having to spend a Saturday doing valve clearance adjustments on it, so that means fucking with the EGR valve, etc. Getting tired of the 300 series codes showing up.

[Captain Goddammit]

Here's why you make no sense.

1968:



1969:



1970-1972 are virtually identical to the '68s as well.
Hence my confusion about why someone would think the soul was gone after 1968.
I've just been asking why '69-'72 doesn't "do it" for you when they are the exact same thing.

[Elliot]

Now, here is something General Motors did, that truly made no sense:



That's the 1973 model. With newfangled integrated rubber bumper on one end and traditional chromed steel bumper on the other. Johnny Cash's Corvette -- built one piece at the time over many years from stolen parts!

This was the result of a new Federal law that required cars to tolerate a collision of a certain speed without damage to the lights. So GM had to develop the rubber snout to pass the front banger test, but got thru the rear banger test as it was. That saved them some money by being able to use up their supply of steel rear bumpers, and not having to rush rubber rear bumpers into production like they had to do on the front.

The question is.... How much money did they lose in the long run, by making a car that was a certifiable laughing stock?

I would venture a guess that many owners who took a hit in the front had them repaired with 1972 parts, and owners who took a hit in the tail had them fixed with 1974 parts.
But maybe that's just "me".

I drove a number of Corvettes from that era (drove; did not own), and they were awful rattletraps. But I noticed that the ladies sure noticed me when I was driving one.

[ygmir]

I think they'r nice looking cars overall. I'm not a GM guy, but still like them all. *vettes*
loved the mustang until 68
Pantera was my fav domestic, with 69 Jaguar XKE all time fav. sports car.

I had a 69 Lincoln MKIII which was my fav until I got my MBZ 300 SDL.

I tend to like trucks best, I guess.

One day I will own a Stalwart MKII.............

[Tin Halo]

1970-1972 are virtually identical to the '68s as well.
Hence my confusion about why someone would think the soul was gone after 1968.
I've just been asking why '69-'72 doesn't "do it" for you when they are the exact same thing.

Like I said, above... nothing changed for years. Why get a boner for a '71 when it looks and acts like a '68? And when '73 finally dawned on us, how much change went into the Vette's design? Just enough to call it good, then... wet bar!
Yeah, I loved my Mustangs, but the '69 through '73 all looked the same: fat. (Lee Iaccocca's description, actually.) Wrong. Unmoving. And then of course they made the auto design world do a spit-take with the Mustang II, which the rationale behind surely went to the grave with someone, in order to save humanity. Good on him.

There's plenty in this life that doesn't "make sense". Of all the things in the world to try to make sense of, someone's preferences ought to be at the bottom of the list, at best. What do you, personally, gain from continuing to try to "understand" this or present examples in order to discredit my preference? Does it make your day? Make you feel more manly? Smarter? Triumphant? It's anyone's guess.
Maybe it's because somewhere deep inside you can't understand why someone doesn't care about this as much as you do, and you feel that genuflecting at the altar of Corvette should be a natural human trait, like eating or farting. That could be. If a person gets really invested in something it skews their foundation. I've been guilty of that; my former life in the music business really did a number on me, for years. "That band sucks. You should like this band." "These guys are superior musicians. That band is amateurish." And on and on and on....

Seriously... we're all here on this website because it's tied to a yearly event based around the concept of redefining what "makes sense", sparkleponies included. Your pursuit runs contrary to that ethos.

[ranger magnum]

We take our shit seriously here in the car thread.....

As a matter of fact, my job with the rangers on Playa is running the vehicle maintenance department.

Because I don't get to do that enough in the default world.....

[Tin Halo]

There's a difference between "taking your shit seriously" and "obsessing over something that doesn't matter".

[ranger magnum]

Is there? I obsess over things that no one else would ever notice. It's a blessing and a curse....

[Captain Goddammit]

There's a difference between "taking shit seriously", "obsessing over something that doesn't matter", and asking a simple question, a natural one since cars are the subject and what you said made no sense.

Oh well. Next time you're admiring a car you think is cool you should check the registration and make sure it's a not a '69 or '70, since in most cases it's the same thing, some with detail differences so minute almost no one can even tell them apart including you. Hence your statement making no sense, and my question.

[Tin Halo]

A Cliff's Notes review.

I said:
"I just was never able to really differentiate year from year after '68 or so."

Which you underscored, shortly thereafter, by admitting that aside from some extremely minor cosmetic things, '69 thru '72 was unchanged, like thus:
"The only visible difference was the '69 looked better because they widened the too-skinny 7" '68 wheels to 8". Oh and changed door handles and added "Stingray" emblems, big deal.
And they remained virtually identical through '72, again I bet you can't even tell, it's so minor."

And really, it's as simple as that. I was never able to differentiate them after that era. Pretty basic.

Of course, you skipped right over this little tidbit, from ygmir:
"loved the mustang until 68"
Why on earth would he like the '67 and not the '68…right? Aside from a steering wheel, seam orientation on the upholstery, front grille decor, and the scoop on the sides, they're "virtually identical", with interchangeable drivetrains and powerplants. Surely this would warrant your concern and input and dogged determination to beat a dead horse (no pun intended), as well.

I've answered your question to the best of my ability. Your unwillingness to accept the answer and then move on to things more important, like breathing, masturbation, and whether there's enough milk in your fridge, pushes your end of this exchange into "obsessing over something that doesn't matter".

You're not happy unless you're aggravated. You're also not comfortable until you're making damn sure that everyone else knows how much cooler you are than they. That's alright, I guess. It's not a super-reliable methodology with a stellar track record, but if it makes your day better, it'll have to do.

[Agaton]

(snip)

dogged determination to beat a dead horse

(snip)

"obsessing over something that doesn't matter".

(snip)

Said the kettle to the pot.