Lance_Castro
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Lol fuck off.
Car Whisperer
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BobYesTheBob
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Yes, I see. Well, we have run out of time. I want to see you again, next week, and by god we will...together...crack that tough little...problem you've been having with the, uh...ladies. I've dealt with worse cases and, uh...there's hope! And not genuine hope, we're talking false hope, the kind of hope that keeps you and those like you, hoping. At least, that's my hope. Now go, you shall annoy me no more! I mean it, get outta here, ya little...rascal you...
Wonderer67
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American steel, Muthafuckas.
70 Torino squire wagon
351 Cleveland
AC, optional shoulder belts
Rear facing jump seat
56k miles
My other car is 1972 Ford 4000 tractor built at the Ford Dagenham plant. English steel.
70 Torino squire wagon
351 Cleveland
AC, optional shoulder belts
Rear facing jump seat
56k miles
My other car is 1972 Ford 4000 tractor built at the Ford Dagenham plant. English steel.
BobYesTheBob
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Got-DAMN! That is...one sweet ride. Please tell me...it is complete with that glowing life-saver that allowed so many to light their darts on the road? And....I'm not done...and the ashtrays in every door handle? Even the back, in case li'l Timmy wants a cig? Yeah? My God...It Has Begun.
Wonderer67
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Kit car FAIL, I hope?
Please tell me this wasn't an original Mercedes. Anyone who would do this to a vintage Mercedes, well, I don't know about punishable with death but, instead of vehicular manslaugher, maybe charge them with man vehicleslaugher or something.
Lance_Castro
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Most 300SL restomod widebodies ( and theres a bunch of them) involve putting the original bits away with fiberglas over SLK chassis, AMG drivetrains etc.
Brains_N_Boobs
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Brains_N_Boobs
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Niceguy2000
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Some of these choices seem odd, based more on eye appeal than their performance, handling or quality.
i.e....
The Bricklin the white car below the Citroen, and the Vector, the white car above the Citroen.
I love the looks of the Vector, but with just a few (22built), it was never fully developed.
The Bricklin was a comedy of errors which predated the DeLorean...the story of the two cars is eerily similar (a "safety sports car"), government production funds to boost employment, lack of money and development.
Likewise the Tucker (the top silver and red bottom car), whose hype promised more than the car could deliver...in other words, don't unquestioningly buy what the film told you.
Again, underdeveloped.
And if it had reached production, it would have been expensive, hardly a threat to Ford, the lower GM brands, or Chrysler.
The sad fact is any independent automaker found the postwar environment challenging.
Ask the mid priced Studebaker, Kaiser, or medium-high priced Packard, or the brands that came together to form AMC.
Car development and production costs were so high it was basically impossible for a niche company to survive.
i.e....
The Bricklin the white car below the Citroen, and the Vector, the white car above the Citroen.
I love the looks of the Vector, but with just a few (22built), it was never fully developed.
The Bricklin was a comedy of errors which predated the DeLorean...the story of the two cars is eerily similar (a "safety sports car"), government production funds to boost employment, lack of money and development.
Likewise the Tucker (the top silver and red bottom car), whose hype promised more than the car could deliver...in other words, don't unquestioningly buy what the film told you.
Again, underdeveloped.
And if it had reached production, it would have been expensive, hardly a threat to Ford, the lower GM brands, or Chrysler.
The sad fact is any independent automaker found the postwar environment challenging.
Ask the mid priced Studebaker, Kaiser, or medium-high priced Packard, or the brands that came together to form AMC.
Car development and production costs were so high it was basically impossible for a niche company to survive.
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Brains_N_Boobs
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You have attempted to simplify a very complex business that is the "American Auto Industry".
The Big Three have always grown and shrunk by acquiring and/or eliminating smaller brands. The, "If you can't beat them, join them" mentality.
Chrysler - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler
General Motors - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors
Ford - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Motor_Company
Many of the sub-brands of each company were themselves at one time a smaller independent car company. And even the Big Three themselves have been bought and sold over the decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_(automobile_manufacturers)
Brains_N_Boobs
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Lance_Castro
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I was thinking this thread would be geared towards peoples daily drivers, so posting pics of arcane cars and talking about mergers over the years , huh?
I was reading the other day how important General Motors was to the Third Reich. I knew about Ford supporting Hitler, but not GM.
I was reading the other day how important General Motors was to the Third Reich. I knew about Ford supporting Hitler, but not GM.
Brains_N_Boobs
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Lance_Castro
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Such an apt poor trail!
Brains_N_Boobs
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Lance_Castro
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Lucky moi!Congrats, I think I may have a cameo role for you in my next story!
So, a regular car thing. I have a volvo xc90 i use for suv type things like today i was at ikea then a store where i bought 6 tv’s on sale to give away. The TPMS lite is on, tires are all at 36. My scanner cant tell which tpms sensor is bad on an xc90! Fawk!
Brains_N_Boobs
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Brains_N_Boobs
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Lance_Castro
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Boolean skills can pass for knowledge in many circles.
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Niceguy2000
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You have attempted to simplify a very complex business that is the "American Auto Industry".
That's my job as an automotive writer.
Yes, I get paid to do this.
All I did was state the rather obvious, that smaller firms have a tough time going up against large firms.
Studebaker is a interesting case study, you might want to look at them. What eventually killed them was obsolete products as they didn't have the funds for R&D and to retool. Even then, they didn't really go out of business, the parent firm had diversified enough and came to the conclusion that building cars just wasn't worth it. So, they quit building cars in the U.S. They did build them in Canada for another couple of years.
And that was a few years before government regulations on safety and the environment took effect which would have cost them a lot of money to comply with. (And several UK firms stopped selling cars in the US for the same reason. It's scandalous that in the UK, they kept producing the original Mini until 1990, a car that was basically banned in the U.S. for safety and environmental reasons nearly a third of a century earlier.
Yet some UK car fans still decried American cars.).
Keeping it simple, look at it this way, it would cost a small auto maker the same amount (perhaps even more) to develop a car as a larger firm, but have less sales to amortize the investment. It also applies to marketing. A national television ad would cost a small firm the same as it would GM.
The retrenchment in the U.S. was nowhere near as bad as it was in the U.K. which had many more makes (though many of the makes were actually parts of large groups....Austin, Standard, Rootes, etc).
And I wasn't really addressing the American "Big 3", which is now down to two since Chrysler is now part of an international group.
Even the once mighty GM went bankrupt, and Ford, like most car makers, has had issues.
That's my job as an automotive writer.
Yes, I get paid to do this.
All I did was state the rather obvious, that smaller firms have a tough time going up against large firms.
Studebaker is a interesting case study, you might want to look at them. What eventually killed them was obsolete products as they didn't have the funds for R&D and to retool. Even then, they didn't really go out of business, the parent firm had diversified enough and came to the conclusion that building cars just wasn't worth it. So, they quit building cars in the U.S. They did build them in Canada for another couple of years.
And that was a few years before government regulations on safety and the environment took effect which would have cost them a lot of money to comply with. (And several UK firms stopped selling cars in the US for the same reason. It's scandalous that in the UK, they kept producing the original Mini until 1990, a car that was basically banned in the U.S. for safety and environmental reasons nearly a third of a century earlier.
Yet some UK car fans still decried American cars.).
Keeping it simple, look at it this way, it would cost a small auto maker the same amount (perhaps even more) to develop a car as a larger firm, but have less sales to amortize the investment. It also applies to marketing. A national television ad would cost a small firm the same as it would GM.
The retrenchment in the U.S. was nowhere near as bad as it was in the U.K. which had many more makes (though many of the makes were actually parts of large groups....Austin, Standard, Rootes, etc).
And I wasn't really addressing the American "Big 3", which is now down to two since Chrysler is now part of an international group.
Even the once mighty GM went bankrupt, and Ford, like most car makers, has had issues.
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Interesting post and analysis here, and a good take on why there are so many fewer makes now than in the 50s/60s.
Every now and again I still see one of the "Original" Mini-coopers on the road here in the U.S. There aren't very many around, and they were never as popular with the small-car crowd as, say, the original VW Beetle or the old-style Honda Civic, but people that owned them still love to drive them.
I know that one Studebaker model, the Avanti coupe, continued to be produced clear up into the mid 1980s, though the later ones had a Chevy/GM 305 small block engine instead of a Studebaker powerplant. And I think ultimately it was a completely different firm who took over the production, as there were only a handful of cars built each model year.
Every now and again I still see one of the "Original" Mini-coopers on the road here in the U.S. There aren't very many around, and they were never as popular with the small-car crowd as, say, the original VW Beetle or the old-style Honda Civic, but people that owned them still love to drive them.
I know that one Studebaker model, the Avanti coupe, continued to be produced clear up into the mid 1980s, though the later ones had a Chevy/GM 305 small block engine instead of a Studebaker powerplant. And I think ultimately it was a completely different firm who took over the production, as there were only a handful of cars built each model year.
Niceguy2000
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I owned an original '63 Studebaker Avanti.
Yes, the later cars were built by a different group, originally a pair of former Studebaker dealers.
The Studebaker cars were 63-64 models, 4647 were built before the factory closed in Dec. 1963.
Avantis were never produced in Canada.
Canadian production of cars at the Studebaker plant in Hamilton was limited to just a few body styles...no Avantis, GTs, or convertibles.
When Avamti production restarted in 1965-66, they used Chevy 327s, then switched to later Chevy V-8s when the 327 ended production.
When the Avanti firm ran out of original Studebaker chassis, they switched to GM intermediate units.
Later, they redesigned the dash, getting further away from the "classic" Avanti.
Perhaps they ran out of parts or just wanted something new.
I drove one of the late '80s cars, and it was basically a Chevy in a 1963 Avanti body.
The final indignation came in the early 2000s, they slapped curvy Avanti-esque bodies on new Firebirds and called them Avantis.
When GM closed Pontiac, they tried the same thing with Mustangs. Few were sold, the firm eventually moved to Mexico and the owner went to jail or prison for some alleged financial misdeed.
The Avanti was a great looking car, but it was let down by its suspension, the chassis was pretty much the same unit used by most post-53 Studebakers.
A friend, who has much more experience in '50s cars than I do, drove mine. He said it was a great mid '50s car.
However the Avantis had upgraded performance Studebaker 289s....the R-1 and Supercharged R-2. It also featured disc brakes, pretty advanced for its time, so it had some performance to match its looks.
Also, and this is a minor point not often mentioned, its air conditioning system was built into the dash, not a added on separate under dash unit like you'd see on most cars of the period...like early Mustangs.
Yes, the later cars were built by a different group, originally a pair of former Studebaker dealers.
The Studebaker cars were 63-64 models, 4647 were built before the factory closed in Dec. 1963.
Avantis were never produced in Canada.
Canadian production of cars at the Studebaker plant in Hamilton was limited to just a few body styles...no Avantis, GTs, or convertibles.
When Avamti production restarted in 1965-66, they used Chevy 327s, then switched to later Chevy V-8s when the 327 ended production.
When the Avanti firm ran out of original Studebaker chassis, they switched to GM intermediate units.
Later, they redesigned the dash, getting further away from the "classic" Avanti.
Perhaps they ran out of parts or just wanted something new.
I drove one of the late '80s cars, and it was basically a Chevy in a 1963 Avanti body.
The final indignation came in the early 2000s, they slapped curvy Avanti-esque bodies on new Firebirds and called them Avantis.
When GM closed Pontiac, they tried the same thing with Mustangs. Few were sold, the firm eventually moved to Mexico and the owner went to jail or prison for some alleged financial misdeed.
The Avanti was a great looking car, but it was let down by its suspension, the chassis was pretty much the same unit used by most post-53 Studebakers.
A friend, who has much more experience in '50s cars than I do, drove mine. He said it was a great mid '50s car.
However the Avantis had upgraded performance Studebaker 289s....the R-1 and Supercharged R-2. It also featured disc brakes, pretty advanced for its time, so it had some performance to match its looks.
Also, and this is a minor point not often mentioned, its air conditioning system was built into the dash, not a added on separate under dash unit like you'd see on most cars of the period...like early Mustangs.
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Lance_Castro
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An auto writer, that’s interesting.
Who would you say is the best auto writer of all time?
Who would you say is the best auto writer of all time?
Niceguy2000
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It depends upon what you're looking for...
marque history, humor, road tests, general interest history....too many to list. And since much of the good work was for now defunct magazines, a lot of it is lost unless you know where to look.
marque history, humor, road tests, general interest history....too many to list. And since much of the good work was for now defunct magazines, a lot of it is lost unless you know where to look.
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