1960 Dodge Dart Seneca - Estate Sale Dreams

What car enthusiast doesn't see a lawn sign advertising an estate sale and immediately hope there's an old car tucked away in the garage or barn just waiting to be bought for pennies on the dollar and flipped for a tidy profit? Reality, of course, usually has other plans.

Such is the case with this 1960 Dodge Dart Seneca, purchased at an estate sale last year.

The young woman who bought it thought she'd scored the deal of a lifetime when the seller accepted a paltry $1,500. What she didn't realize was that getting the car roadworthy would cost more than $5,000. The bill for parts accounting for less than half of that; the rest disappeared into labor. As anyone who's restored an old car can tell you, labor is where projects like this can really drain your wallet. 

She doesn't mention whether these non-matching, retina-searing seat covers were part of the refurbishment. 

If you're of a certain vintage, you probably associate the name "Dodge Dart" with compact cars. However, when Dodge introduced the Dart for 1960, it was anything but compact. The original Dart was a full-size automobile. This particular example recently popped up on Facebook Marketplace in Lodi, Ohio, about an hour's drive from the Triple Wide.

For 1960, the Dart served as Dodge's entry-level full-size series in what was, dare I say, a needlessly complicated three-tier lineup. Above it sat the one-year-only Matador, while the Polara occupied the top rung. As if that weren't confusing enough, each series was offered in three trim levels. Dart buyers could choose the entry-level Seneca, the mid-range Pioneer, or the top-of-the-line Phoenix. Our Marketplace find happens to be a Seneca.

Compared with the Matador and Polara, the Dart rode on a wheelbase three inches shorter, making it slightly smaller overall. Less sheet metal meant a lower sticker price.

Power comes from Chrysler Corporation's all-new-for-1960 overhead-valve inline six, better known as the legendary "Slant Six." The engine was tilted 30 degrees to allow for a lower hood line, a design that made it possible to fit beneath the compact Valiant's sleek profile while also lowering the engine's center of gravity. The Slant Six would go on to earn a reputation as one of the most durable engines Detroit ever built.

For the $5,000 asking price—which is reportedly below market value, although it still strikes me as optimistic given this car's overall condition—you get a 66-year-old sedan with a column-shifted three-speed manual transmission, no power steering, no power brakes, and no air conditioning. In 1960, air conditioning wasn't even available on the Dart Seneca.

I wish her luck selling it. I think we've all looked at an old car and imagined striking automotive gold. Most of us never act on those fantasies. She did, and she's learning the hard way that buying the car is often the cheapest part of the adventure.

Bunnie Xo Rolls Royce - Cullinan Series II

The ink is barely dry on the divorce papers of Jason DeFord, better known as Jelly Roll, and Alisa DeFord, known professionally as Bunnie XO, and the former Mrs. DeFord has reportedly celebrated her newfound independence with a brand-new Rolls-Royce Cullinan Series II valued at roughly $500,000. 

According to reports, Jelly Roll agreed to make a one-time lump-sum payment to Bunnie as part of their divorce settlement, in addition to the division of various assets. While the amount of that payment remains confidential, it appears Bunnie was in no mood to pinch pennies when it came time to shop for a new ride. 

The Cullinan, named after the Cullinan Diamond, the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever discovered, sits near the top of the Rolls-Royce lineup. With a starting price well north of $300,000 and seemingly endless customization options, it's easy to see how a buyer can push the price toward the half-million-dollar mark. 

Of course, we're not here to criticize how anyone spends their money. Everyone knows people with modest means who spend like millionaires, and others who come into serious money only to watch it disappear as quickly as it arrived. Whether Bunnie's purchase was a smart financial decision or simply a well-deserved reward is ultimately her business.

Rolls-Royce positions the Cullinan above the Ghost in its model range and below the flagship Phantom. Since its introduction, the ultra-luxury SUV has become one of the brand's most successful modern products, attracting buyers looking for the craftsmanship and prestige of a Rolls-Royce in a more practical package.

At an estimated $500,000, Bunnie's Cullinan appears to feature a healthy dose of personalization. Rolls-Royce is renowned for its bespoke customization program, allowing buyers to specify everything from unique paint colors and leather combinations to one-of-a-kind trim materials and personalized interior details. It's rare to find two Cullinans built exactly alike.

There has been no indication whether Bunnie paid cash, financed the purchase, or leased the vehicle. While I'm generally not a fan of leasing, an argument can be made for it when dealing with exotic luxury vehicles. Even premium brands experience depreciation, and ownership costs can be significant once warranties expire.

A quick back-of-the-napkin calculation suggests that if a $500,000 vehicle lost roughly 20 percent of its value over three years, the depreciation alone would amount to about $100,000. That works out to more than $2,700 per month before factoring in financing costs, insurance, taxes, or maintenance. Suddenly, those eye-popping lease payments don't seem quite as outrageous.

Then again, if you're driving a half-million-dollar Rolls-Royce, you're probably not worried about stretching every last dollar.

Let's not make this all about money, though. Bunnie is free to spend her money however she sees fit, and whether her financial decisions make sense to the rest of us is beside the point.

Born Alisa Andrea DeFord (née Carter) on January 22, 1980, in Houston, Texas, Bunnie built a large following through her podcasting, social media presence, and entertainment career before marrying Jelly Roll. She and the singer met in Las Vegas and married in 2016, later renewing their vows in 2023. 

The nickname "Bunnie" dates back to her younger years, while "XO" has become part of her public persona and brand identity.

Jelly Roll, a Nashville native, has been active in the music industry since the early 2000s. Blending hip-hop, rock, country, and Southern rap influences, he achieved mainstream success with hits such as "Son of a Sinner" and "Need a Favor," helping establish him as one of the most recognizable crossover artists in modern country music.

As for Jelly Roll's daily driver, reports have long indicated that he favors a customized matte-black Ram 1500 that Bunnie gifted him for Father's Day in 2020, proving that even successful musicians don't always feel the need to travel in a Rolls-Royce.

In the end, a divorce, a new beginning, and a $500,000 Rolls-Royce make for quite a headline. Whether it's a symbol of independence, a reward for surviving a difficult chapter, or simply a luxury purchase by someone who can afford it, Bunnie XO is clearly moving forward in style.

Animal House "Death Mobile" - 1964 Lincoln Continental

National Lampoon's Animal House was on Netflix recently and, naturally, I had to watch it again—for what had to be the zillionth time. Every time I see it, and it's probably been a good ten years since I last watched it from beginning to end, I come away with a different perspective.

Sometimes I'm fourteen or fifteen years old again, sneaking into the long-gone movie theater around the corner from the house I grew up in on Long Island to watch what might as well have been an X-rated movie.

Other times it feels like I'm getting together with a group of old friends—loud, obnoxious, politically incorrect, but endlessly entertaining. Friends I haven't seen in years, yet we somehow pick up right where we left off.

There are times I see it for what it was: a low-budget, boundary-pushing comedy starring John Belushi, who, thanks to Saturday Night Live, was arguably the biggest television star in America in the late 1970s.

Made for about $3 million, Animal House went on to gross more than $140 million worldwide, making it one of the most profitable comedies ever produced.

Viewed strictly on its own merits today, the film is not only sorely dated, but also misogynistic, racist and homophobic. Many "jokes" don't land the way they once did, and the story is admittedly threadbare; familiarity has a way of smoothing over any faults the film had. Before Animal House, there simply hadn't been anything quite like it. Countless films have tried to imitate it since, but few have captured the same lightning in a bottle.

Granted, over the last forty-eight years there have been funnier movies—much funnier, in fact—but Animal House was the original. Every college comedy that followed had to live in the shadow of its toga party.

There are two cars featured prominently in Animal House: a 1959 Chevrolet Corvette driven by Tim Matheson's character, Eric "Otter" Stratton, and a 1964 Lincoln Continental borrowed by Kent "Flounder" Dorfman from his older brother, Fred.

Now, you'd think I'd devote this piece to Otter's Corvette, maybe someday, but the Corvette is really just another prop, as much a part of Otter's image as Boon's letterman sweater or Babs' towering beehive hairdo. Besides, does the internet need another blog about any Corvette? 

Instead, let's dive into a swimming pool that's only an inch deep but nearly 79 inches wide—and weighs well over 5,000 pounds. That 1964 Lincoln Continental.

The casting of the gigantic Lincoln was an interesting choice. Its formal, almost presidential elegance provides the perfect visual contrast to the complete chaos surrounding the Delta house.

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in a 1961 Continental so perhaps the casting of the car was intentional as an anti-establishment metaphor. 

Curiously, though, Fred's Lincoln is a 1964 model even though the movie takes place during the fall semester of 1962. 

Most viewers would never notice the difference, but it's the kind of continuity error that would be far less likely to slip through a major Hollywood production today.

The common explanation is that when the movie was filmed in 1977, it was simply easier to find a decent 1964 Continental than a period-correct 1961 or 1962 model. Maybe. Then again, 1964 wasn't exactly a banner sales year for Lincoln, with production only modestly higher than in 1962. More likely, the filmmakers found a clean Continental that fit the part, and on a shoestring budget, that was good enough.

To all but the most obsessive car spotters, it passes without a second glance.

Sharp-eyed enthusiasts know the 1962 Continental wore a distinctive floating-rectangle grille and bullet-style front fender ornaments, while the 1964 adopted a flatter, cleaner grille and revised front lighting. The '64 also rode on a slightly longer wheelbase, adding a couple of inches of rear-seat legroom—no doubt making Otter's romantic dalliances just a little more comfortable.

Rumors have circulated for years that the famous "Death Mobile" used during the parade sequence was actually a 1966 Continental. I've never found any credible evidence to support that. Everything I've seen suggests the same 1964 Lincoln was modified for the finale.

The 1964 Continental belonged to the generation produced from 1961 through 1969 that arguably saved Lincoln. Before the clean-sheet redesign introduced for 1961, Lincoln had been steadily losing ground to Cadillac and, to a lesser extent, Chrysler's Imperial.

The Continental's rear-hinged rear doors—popularly known as "suicide doors"—became one of the car's defining features. The nickname stemmed from the potential danger if a rear-hinged door accidentally opened while the vehicle was moving. Beyond their dramatic appearance, the doors also made getting into and out of the rear seat remarkably easy.

With its crisp slab-sided styling and restrained elegance, the Continental became an icon of mid-century American design. It couldn't have been more different from the chrome-laden, fin-covered Lincolns that came before it.

As for the Animal House Lincoln—better known as the Death Mobile—its fate remains something of a mystery. Some stories claim it was stolen after filming wrapped before eventually being destroyed. Others suggest it simply disappeared into the used-car market. Whatever the truth, its whereabouts remain unknown, adding one final bit of mythology to one of the most memorable cars in movie history.

1986 Dodge Omni - Die Like a Yankee

Funny how you can look at certain cars and instantly be reminded of a particular person.

My late buddy Phil had a white 1978 Dodge Omni when we attended Nassau Community College and worked together at the campus radio station in the early 1980s. This one, which recently popped up on Facebook Marketplace, is a 1986 model with an asking price of $1,300.

Phil and I became close friends, although we couldn't have been more different. Phil was leather-jacket-wearing cool and seemingly streetwise. He could have passed for George Michael's doppelgänger and worked at the radio station because he genuinely loved music—all kinds of music. If we had anything in common, it was that we were both rabid New York Yankees fans.

I had stumbled into radio after a professor teaching a radio and television production course I took on a whim to fill out my schedule thought I had, in his words, "a broadcast-quality voice" and recommended I join the radio station. I had a passing interest in music, like most people I guess, and was about as cool as Ralph Malph from Happy Days, whereas Phil was more like Fonzie.

Our taste in cars underscored just how different we were. When we met, I was driving my oafish 1975 Chrysler Cordoba while Phil was behind the wheel of his zippy little Omni, a car that seemed to contradict his motorcycle-biker aura. As it turned out, Phil wasn't really a motorcycle guy at all. He had simply grown up around those types and, through osmosis, looked the part.

Unpretentious as he was, Phil's Omni suited him perfectly. While my Chrysler Cordoba wasn't exactly the sort of car a dyed-in-the-wool car enthusiast would be drive, for someone who wanted for literally everything growing up, it was the most wonderful thing in the world. I also found it hard to believe anyone would actually want to drive a Dodge Omni.

Oh, how wrong I was.

The handful of times I drove Phil's car, I came away impressed by its ride, handling, and surprisingly peppy performance. Phil also loved to point out that it got around 30 miles per gallon. My Cordoba, by comparison, was none of those things and was, subjectively at least, only the better-looking car. As practical transportation for a college student, Phil's Omni was clearly the smarter choice.

The Dodge Omni and its Plymouth sibling, the Horizon, were Chrysler's first mass-produced front-wheel-drive cars in the compact/subcompact segment and the first such cars offered by one of Detroit's Big Three automakers. Developed from Chrysler Europe's Simca Horizon, they were very much in the mold of the Volkswagen Rabbit and helped usher Chrysler into the front-wheel-drive era. Built through 1990, Chrysler sold well over two million Omnis and Horizons combined.

The engineering philosophy behind these cars—and much of their front-wheel-drive technology—also helped pave the way for the Chrysler K-cars, which debuted in 1981 and, depending on your point of view, either saved the Chrysler Corporation or marked the beginning of an era of relentlessly ordinary transportation.

Our Marketplace gem appears to need a fair amount of work before it could cruise the roads around Nassau Community College again. The fact that a head gasket is included in the proverbial box o' parts accompanying the sale is more than a little disconcerting. The seller also notes that the buyer will need to tow it home.

Sadly, we lost Phil in January 1997 to ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease. When he told me about his diagnosis roughly a year and a half before he died, he said with unmistakable pride, "Well, I get to die like a Yankee."

1979 Jeep CJ-7 - Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

Our golf outing this past weekend was delayed a couple of minutes as I snapped pictures of this 1979 Jeep CJ-7 parked across the street from the Triple Wide.

I'd seen it before. It belongs to—or at least is usually driven by—a kid who's friends with the late-teen or early-twenty-something who lives two doors down from us. I only see it during the summer, usually when that family is hosting one of their pool-party keggers that are loud enough to make our Target-bought wall art vibrate.

I've never met him, nor do I really want to, although it would be fun to talk with him about the Jeep.

I've always been fond of Jeep CJs. There's a primitive, utility-first charm about them that their successor, the Jeep Wrangler, never quite captured.

Hats off to the kid for driving it, although I have to assume it belongs to his parents. I find it hard to believe that many twenty-somethings today would willingly drive something that rides, handles, and coddles its occupants about as well as a Ford Model T.

OK, that's a stretch. Maybe a Model A.

Long story short, Jeep CJs aren't for everyone.

Inspired by the legendary Willys military Jeep of World War II, the civilian Jeep—or "CJ," for Civilian Jeep—evolved through several generations. The CJ-5 was built from 1955 through 1983 under Willys, Kaiser Jeep, and later American Motors (AMC). Introduced for 1976, the CJ-7 rode on a 10-inch-longer wheelbase than the CJ-5, providing noticeably more rear-seat room and slightly improved on-road manners. Buyers embraced it, and the CJ-7 ultimately outsold the CJ-5 by a comfortable margin.

The CJ-5 was discontinued after the 1983 model year, while the longer-wheelbase CJ-8 Scrambler remained in production through 1986. That same year also marked the end of the CJ-7, which was replaced for 1987 by the smaller Jeep Wrangler of square-headlight infamy.

Although the breed evolved considerably between 1955 and 1986, refinement was never really the point. Even today's Wranglers ride and handle more like agricultural equipment than the average crossover SUV.

Take one for a long—really long—test drive before signing on the dotted line. It's best to know exactly what you're asking your back and backside to endure.

As painfully cool as they look, like they say, don't judge a book by its cover. Or, in this case, a Jeep CJ-7 with its doors and top off. 

My own time behind the wheel came years ago while driving one on the beach. I still romanticize rowing the gears in a machine of such mechanical simplicity, my testosterone seemingly pouring out of my ears. That part was glorious.

Driving it on the road to the beach? Not so much.

The bouncing. The shaking. The noise. The wind buffeting was so severe that every conversation required shouting at the top of my lungs. It's tremendous fun in small doses, but far less charming if it's your daily driver—which is probably why so few people use one that way anymore. Even as a weekend toy, every drive is tempered by the reality of what the vehicle actually is.

Some vehicles become more appealing the farther away you stand from them. The Jeep CJ may be the best example I've ever encountered.

Fortunately, Jeep, then owned by Chrysler, abandoned the Wrangler's much-maligned square headlights after the 1995 model year. Round headlights returned for 1997 with the all-new TJ Wrangler, much to the delight of Jeep traditionalists.

1961 Chevrolet Bel Air "Bubble Top" - X (frame) Marks the Spot

Full-size Chevrolets received an all-new body and body shell for 1961, riding on an updated version of General Motors' cruciform "X-frame" chassis. Chevrolet had introduced the X-frame for the 1958 model year, and while it helped create the low, sleek profile that defined GM styling at the dawn of the 1960s, it would later draw criticism for offering less side-impact protection than conventional perimeter frames.

The X-frame allowed designers to mount the body lower than previous chassis designs, perfectly complementing Detroit's "longer, lower, wider" design mantra. Ironically, although the 1961 Chevrolet looked lower and sleeker than its predecessor, it was actually a smidge shorter overall than the 1960 model.

The full-size lineup consisted of three series: the entry-level Biscayne, the mid-range Bel Air, and the top-of-the-line Impala. Our '61 is a Bel Air Sport Coupe dressed in its short-lived—but, in my opinion, absolutely gorgeous—"bubble top" hardtop body style, one of the most distinctive and desirable rooflines Chevrolet ever produced.

The seller of this "Honduras Maroon Poly" Bel Air claims it spent years tucked away in a Nebraska garage. I just wish they had mentioned exactly how many years it was essentially "moth-balled". 

With Nebraska's dry climate, there's a good chance the car escaped the rust that plagues so many vintage cars here in northern Ohio, where our roads get marinated in a salty brine for eight or nine months of the year. If that's true, the dry Midwestern upbringing may be one of this Bel Air's biggest selling points.

With an asking price of $35,500, it should be. Read that number again, slowly: thirty-five thousand, five hundred dollars. Around here, that's in the ballpark of what a modest house can cost. That's a staggering amount of money to spend on this car.

For your money, you get a car the seller describes as being in very good "original condition," despite acknowledging that it wears an "older" repaint that has been "shined up nicely."

They also claim the interior is original, just as it was when the car rolled off the assembly line during the early days of the "Camelot Era." The exterior, however, can't really be described as "original" once it's been repainted, regardless of how well the older paint has held up.

Under the hood is what appears to be an unmodified 283-cubic-inch V-8. Whether that's a good thing or not is a matter of opinion. Look closely and you'll notice single-reservoir, manual brakes, and there's nary a power steering pump in sight.

Paired with a "three-on-the-tree" three-speed manual transmission, this Chevy is no doubt a handful to drive, especially at low speeds. Between the lack of power steering, manual brakes, and a column-shifted gearbox, it offered a driving experience that's about as far removed from a modern car as you can get.

Perhaps there's some charm in that, but it's lost on me. Big old cars I've driven with this setup are downright terrifying. Between the manual steering, single-pot non-power brakes, and column-shifted three-speed transmission, they demand your full attention every second you're behind the wheel.

One thing is certain, though: you'd be hard-pressed to find a better-looking oldie anywhere, regardless of the price.