1954 Packard Caribbean - Now THIS is a Real Barn Find

I love "barn find" videos on YouTube where the car might need little more than a deep cleaning, perhaps fluids, tires and belts changed. At worse a carburetor might need re-jetting or rebuilding. A turn of a screw here, a plier applied there and, voila, the car magically starts. Imagine that. Well, that rarely is the case in real life. In reality, most "bard finds" are like this 1954 Packard Caribbean that's stuffed in a storage shed about 40-minutes east of Cleveland in lovely Geneva, Ohio. 

Looks like this was stored outside for a while too. Up here thisclose to Lake Erie, the winters are cold and snowy, summers are hot and humid, and it rains here more than it does in Seattle. This poor old Packard didn't stand a chance.

So, what is this thing? More like, what was it? 

To start with, Packard was an independent luxury car builder founded by brothers James and William Packard in Warren, Ohio, in 1899. In 1902, the company moved to Detroit where it stayed until its move to South Bend, Indiana shortly after merging with Studebaker, which was headquartered there, in 1954. 

Although Packards never sold as many cars as even Chrysler, the smallest of The Big Three sold, through the start of World War II, the company was profitable. However, their first post-War models didn't sell well, and the company amassed insurmountable debt rather quickly.  

Problem was, post-War Packards were seen as old-fashioned and stodgy. The Caribbean, launched in 1953 (above), was one of Packard's last attempts to become solvent again. Cut to the chase, the Caribbean wasn't the answer to any problems Packard had. Blame questionable if not dated styling, engineering that wasn't up-to-date and lastly but not leastly, Packard Caribbean's were expensive. Just 750 Caribbeans sold for 1953, our 1954 barn find one of just 400 sold.  

Packard merged with Studebaker in October of 1954 with plans to eventually combine forces with American Motors, but it never came to be. As "Studebaker-Packard", the slow selling Packard line, which had become little more than rebadged Studebakers, was discontinued after 1959. Studebaker eventually closed up shop in 1966. 

Poster of the ad does have the decency to say that this might be best as a parts car but the asking price for what amounts to a heap of dust and grime of $5,000 is hard to swallow. Parts for these cars are quite expensive, though, for instance, one chrome fender molding will run you just shy of $1,000.  Mind you, that's for one that's perfect condition.

With some exceptions, cars from the '50's generally aren't my cup of anti-freeze, especially before 1955. It's not because of a lack of context either; frankly, car styling and design was still in its infancy. However, over styled cars from the '50's indirectly laid the groundwork for what was to come; we probably wouldn't have had the tastefully restrained designs of the 1960's were it not for cars like 1954 Packard Caribbeans. Here's a '54 in very nice condition Gateway has for sale currently for $55,000. Compared to what it would run you to restore our barn find, this might be a bargain. 

 

1986 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham - The Long Road Back

I knew the car buried in a snowbank at the transmission shop next to my office in Youngstown, Ohio was a 1980 to 1989 Cadillac, but I wasn't sure what it was exactly. Well, this week the permafrost finally receded and, much to my delight, I see that it's a one-year-only, Oldsmobile 307 V-8 powered, Fleetwood Brougham. Let's kick its fake "wires" and take a closer look. 

In 1985 and 1986, Cadillac had two different Fleetwood models. The new-for-1985, front-wheel-drive "Fleetwood" and the old rear-wheel-drive "Fleetwood Brougham's" like our '86 here. Cadillac had planned for the front-wheel-drive models to replace these cars, but a last-minute stay of execution. kept the hangman's noose at bay for more than a decade. 

For 1986, Cadillac finally did what they should have done going back to 1981 - put Oldsmobile's gasoline 5.0-liter V-8's in these and eschew the dated paradigm that a Cadillac should be powered by a Cadillac V-8. Holding onto that old-school axiom cost Cadillac more than just market share, it helped tarnish Cadillac's reputation with Boomers, their parents, their children and beyond. 

Granted, Cadillac had more problems back then than just the dreadful engines they put in these cars.  Baby Boomers came of age in the early to mid '80's and the newly monied ones turned their back on Cadillac taking to German imports instead because, frankly, Cadillac had nothing to offer them. An engine, though that didn't detonate without warning would have been one less headache to deal with. And a headache that did as much damage to Cadillac's image and reputation overall as not having the anything for "Boomers". 

Cadillac built its reputation on innovation and engineering as much as positioning itself as a "luxury automobile" maker, therefore it's somewhat ironic they had as many missteps under the hood as they did in the early '80's. Stinkers like the "V-8-6-4" in 1981, the "HT4100" from 1982 to 1985 not to mention the Oldsmobile diesel V-8. Lest we forget, in 1981 and 1982, Buick's 252-cu. in. V-6 was the standard engine in these cars. Now, the big Buick V-6 didn't blow up like the other engines, but a Buick V-6 in a Cadillac? Seemed Cadillac was hell bent on self-mortification. 

 

Combine the engineering faux pas with questionable product planning and we see how Cadillac lost more than just market share back then. 

 

Doing the "right thing" and putting Oldsmobile's gas V-8 in these cars seemed simple if not logical but it meant more than that - it meant that Cadillac acknowledged their past transgressions and was finally doing something about it. As is usually the case, though, the long road back hasn't always been smooth sailing. In many ways Cadillac is still on that road to recovery and will be for the foreseeable future. 

From 1987 through 1992, to mercifully simplify things, these cars became known as the just "Cadillac Brougham". 

1968 AMC Ambassador - All Makes Combined

With the maybe exception of the two-passenger, 1968 to 1970 AMC AMX, when it comes to cars from American Motors, I'm ambivalent about them at best, a ribald disparager at worst. This 1968 Ambassador SST? It's no eyesore like a 1956 Nash Rambler is, but even as derivatively handsome as it is, it's simultaneously familiar and off-putting like many an Australian car that looks "American" yet isn't. 

American Motors, or AMC, was the result of the merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson in 1954, the Ambassador nameplate had been part of Nash's vehicle lineup going back to the 1920's. From 1958 through 1961, an "Ambassador" was AMC's top-of-the-line model and was a mid-size car, for 1962 it was a compact, 1963 and 1964 it was an intermediate again before becoming a full-size car from 1965 through 1974. Actually, it was more like a large intermediate than a full-size car albeit one that got incrementally bigger though the years. 

Our '68 here is part of a 1967 redesign of the Ambassador that saw AMC unabashedly take design elements from each of the Big Three and mash them together. A little GM here, some Ford there, even some Chrysler thrown into the mix too; AMC literally borrowed parts like starters, power steering pumps, transmissions and more from the Big Three as well so along with the styling grabs, no wonder AMC was euphemistically referred to by some as, "All Makes Combined". 

Through my fogged-up goggles, the thing with AMC's was they never looked like everything was sorted out properly. Part of that was on purpose, AMC deliberately designed cars that looked different, but even after they attempted to go mainstream to bumper-to-bumper with the rest of Detroit, things didn't go exactly right. In the early '60's, Chrysler pushed the envelope on weird, but they never pushed the envelope off the table, and not in a good way, like AMC did time and time again. 

Bottom line being the bottom, no Ambassador sold well. Blame the inconsistencies of what an Ambassador was along with AMC attempting to compete with the big boys in a competitive and crowded market niche. Hats off to AMC for keeping the nameplate around for as long as they did, though. The last Ambassador rolled off the assembly line in 1974. 

Our green machine here popped up on Facebook Marketplace the other day in Rittman, Ohio, roughly halfway between Cleveland and Youngstown. Poster of the ad claims he took it in as a trade on another vehicle and is open to trading for something that's worth at least, insert drum roll sound effect here, $20,000. Woof. Sorry, that's a ton of green for nearly two tons of green that you know you're going to have a tough time peddling off on anyone who's not an AMC goober. Bless their hearts, they're out there. 

Seller apparently took it in as a trade on something else and is now trying to flip it. I wonder if he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to that deal. 

What you get is a 58-year-old orphan with "newer driver quality paint", a restored interior that looks nice although not done to factory spec, and a 383 "stroker" GM V-8 and GM "Turbo-Hydramatic", three-speed automatic transmission; "All Makes Combined" indeed. With the General Motors power train, at least you stand a better chance of finding a mechanic to work on it although that's getting tougher and tougher to do these days. Hope you're handy and have an underground parts resource because parts for this will be hard to fine. 

Fun facts, the 1968 AMC Ambassador was the first domestic car to feature standard air conditioning. 

1971 Ford Torino 500 - Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

Ford obviously took a page or ten from the then current Chevrolet Chevelle playbook when they baked up this 1971 Ford Torino 500 hardtop. Not a bad thing as this is the rarest of Fords even a dyed-in-the-pile-carpeting Chevy fan like me could love. This popped up on Facebook Marketplace for sale not far from the Old Triple Wide recently with an asking price of $35,000. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it also ain't cheap. 

This black beauty is in fabulous shape and has just 45,000-miles on her 55-year-old ticker. 

The poster of the ad doesn't say if this is an "Ohio car" or not, there's not a spec of rust on her so at the least, it's not from up here on the "North Coast" where old cars rust out just sitting in garages, storages facilities and barns. 

Us car nerds will note that Ford didn't have a four-barrel version of their 302-cubi-inch V-8 for 1971. This is a harmless upgrade that could be easily undone although two more "venturis" would add some much-needed deep breathing. There are no details in the ad about what may have been done to the engine aside from a fresh coat of "Ford Engine Blue" and the four-barrel carburetor. 

Ford "Magnum 500" rims where standard on Torino GT for 1971, they may have been available on these cars but definitely not these 15-inch versions; all 1971 had 14-inch rims. No points off here since the larger wheel and tire help beef up the look of the car. Improves handling too. 

I'm generally not a fan of vinyl tops but it works well on this car. I've always thought it odd that most cars with vinyl tops had seams in them. They couldn't order sheets of vinyl wide enough to cover the roof in one sheet? 

Ford doesn't get the credit it deserves for "inventing" the intermediate sized automobile when they introduced their "mid-sized" Fairlane in 1962, two-years before GM rolled-out a mid-sized car. From 1955 to 1961, a Ford Fairlane was a full-size car but for '62, it was a whopping 16-inches longer than a Falcon, 12-inches shorter than a Galaxie, "mid-sized", indeed. Problem was its styling was typical '60's Ford, meaning it was derivative, not that this isn't, but bland; miracle of miracles how Ford whipped up the Mustang in 1964. Ford revised styling in 1965, but it was the 1968 reboot of the line when things finally started getting interesting. In '68, "Torino" was introduced as a luxury-tinged subseries of the Fairlane that was so popular that in 1970, Fairlane became a subseries of Torino before being put to pasture. Another reboot for 1970 included our hardtop '71 here along with a fastback version they called the "Sportsroof". 

Above is a 1970 Torino with the Sportsroof. Ford started calling their fastbacks such in 1969, a name change from the previous "Fastback 2+2". You'd think fastbacks wouldn't be that big of a deal to pull of successfully, I guess not. The sickly green on this car along with the puny tires and horrible wheel covers do nothing for this car. Even the lack of a vinyl top can't save it. 

For 1971, Ford had a gaggle of Torino models from rental-car basic to screaming muscle car to a station wagon to the pseudo-luxury 500 like our Marketplace darling here. The Torino 500 sat at the top of Torino the ladder and was the plushest and cushiest.

Although, looking at this vinyl drenched, injection molded plastic interior, hard to believe this in any way was construed as a luxury car. 

Ford redesigned the Torino for 1972 turning into a whale of what was supposedly a mid-size car. Things went really south in 1973 with the safety-bumpers, 1974 brought about the Starsky and Hutch Torino, a car that "car guy" Paul Michael Glazer, ("Starsky") led him to utter the immortal words, "Torino's suck". 

Well, most of them do. Not this one, though. 

1962 Plymouth Fury - Context is Everything

The origin story of full-size 1962 Plymouth and Dodge models has it that in May or June of 1960, Chrysler executives received intel that General Motors was downsizing their full-size cars for 1962. And just-like-that, Chrysler rebooted their planned 1962 full-size models chopping nearly a foot off their length, made them five-inches less wide and dropped six-hundred-pounds off their curb weight. Big Dodge models got zapped too; the Chrysler division models remained as big as they were. While critics lauded the smaller and lighter models for their performance and efficiency, buyers stayed away and sales for 1962 big Plymouth's and Dodge's were down significantly from 1961. 

Turns out tough that that GM wasn't downsizing but, in fact, introducing a new compact car called the "Chevy II" in 1962. Whoops! Everyone involved in the debacle eventually got fired and Chrysler has been a dumpster fire since. Not that it wasn't prior to that. 

That's the old wives' tale although having worked inside the skunk works of big companies, it's too pat-and-dry to believe any auto maker would react to what could have amounted to conjecture at a cocktail party let alone get the entire job done in what, less than 15-months by some accounts. 

What probably happened was, intel or not, Chrysler gambled on where the full-size market was going. While they were correct with their assessment that buyers wanted smaller, more maneuverable cars, GM did in fact come with somewhat smaller full-size models in 1961, in addition to injecting the automotive equivalent of Ozempic into these cars, stylists took things a step or two too far for a conservative buying public. 

Styling that I've never seen what buyers didn't see in it; save for the paint scheme, I don't think there's a bad line on this car. Then again, I wasn't there to see the whole debacle through the eyes of American's that had seen automobile design change seismically in the years following World War II. Context is everything. Same is true of the Edsel; I don't see what the big deal about it was. Looks like another big, old, ugly, 1950's Ford to me. 

In any event, I'm glad the Chrysler Corporation came out with these cars in 1962 as they've always been favorites of mine. I get that some may construe them as weird, and they are, but they're weird in a cool, mid-century design ethos kind of way as opposed to the "what-the-hell-is-that"? bizarre many an American Motors design was. 

I know I'm not alone seeing this one is listed on Facebook Marketplace with a $40,000 asking price. Yes, friend-oh, forty-thousand-dollars. 

Wait, it gets better. Not only are they asking forty-large for it, but it's also not "original and unrestored". The paint, again, its shade makes me sad, while in nice shape, is an older respray and under the hood, the "Slant-Six" it was born with has been tossed for a god's-green-earth, 413-cu. in, "Max Wedge" V-8. Say what you will that an original and unrestored '62 Fury with the 413 would sell for twice the asking price, $40,000 is a ton of money to blow on a clone. And a clone that's not a clone of Chevrolet Impala SS. 

Explains why the listing is nearly six-months old. I might get my head around dropping half the asking price on this; that would be an impulsive purchase, and not a rational one. Not that buying any 64-year-old car would be a rational decision but it's best to hedge your bets if you do.