1974 Chevrolet Impala - Glasshouse Donk

 

When my family and I first moved to Cleveland back in 2010, I found a 1971 Cadillac Coupe deVille that I liked enough to buy but I didn't have buy in on it from my wife. The owner of the car dropped the price almost a thousand dollars in the course of our conversation and begged me to buy it because he couldn't bear to sell the car to someone who was going to turn it into a "Donk". A what? A "Donk" -  which is any old American car with ridiculously large wheels. Or in the case of our 1974 Impala coupe here, ree-donk-u-lously large wheels. What's more, this car is what is referred to as a "Glasshouse Donk".

 

 

Aficionados of "Donks" say that only 1971-1976 Chevrolet Impala and Caprices can be "Donks" although I recall when we lived in Dallas seeing just about any old full perimeter sedan with these huge wheels. They can range in size from 20 to more than 30 inches tall. The "smaller" rims, say, 20-22 inches are "Dubs" while anything bigger than that are called "Donks".

Now, I've been a big fan of General Motors huge 1971-1976 B body coupes for as long as I can remember but I've never heard of them referred to as "Glasshouses" but the term is appropriate given the amount of glass area these cars have. It's enormous. I understand that people who transform these cars into "Donks" prefer the styling of the 1974-1976 "colonnade" coupes to the hard top 1971-1973 models which I much prefer. The "C pillars" on these cars is much thinner than on the hard tops and helps to open up the interior.

 

 

"Donks" usually have customized interiors like this although I wonder if the person who had this interior stitched up in the first place got anything off the cost because the upholsterer got the Chevy bow tie backwards on the door panel. Many "Donks" also come with customized sound systems with enough amps to power a movie theater. Or cruise ship. You can see how airy the interior of these cars are from this photograph. They don't make 'em like this anymore but then again, if they did, kids today in the back seat wouldn't care since they'd have their heads in their phones instead of soaking in the scenery afforded by the massive glass areas. 

 

 

Our cheap "Glasshouse Donk" doesn't have any customizing under hood unless you count the "after market" yellow spark plug wires. Aside from that, this "350, 2 barrel" looks to be as bone stock as the day it left the factory. Although you'd think there was more here given its custom "reverse cowl induction" hood. Ad claims the brakes need to be bled - I wonder what that's all about.

 

 

It's unusual to see a car like this all the way up here in Cleveland, Ohio. Again, when we lived in Dallas these types of cars were everywhere but the weather down there even in winter time is far more conducive to these types of cars. Can only imagine how this thing would handle in a snow storm. Here's the link for the ad if you're so inclined. https://cleveland.craigslist.org/cto/d/1974-impala-glasshouse-donk/6467303858.html

 



1996 Chevy Camaro - Rusted Out Fuel Lines

 

People junk their cars because they're either wrecked beyond repair, they need repairs that cost far more than the car is worth, or they find they have no other way to get rid of a car they don't want any more. In the case of our "first" 1996 Chevrolet Camaro, the one on the right, over the last year my wife and I have come close several times to junking it because the estimated cost of repairs pushed the envelope on whether or not repairing and keeping it was worth it. However, the automotive grim reaper ain't dealing with your run of the mill "beater" owner here.

 

First, a year ago last November the head gaskets blew. After I replaced the car  I found this engine and someone willing to put it in for a total cost of roughly a third of what a shop would have charged me. My wife and I both approved that expense since the luxury of having a car for each of our sons last summer was just too alluring. We kept both cars with the idea we'd sell the "older" one and more than recoup the expense of what it cost us to replace the engine. You make plans and God laughs.



Our younger son, bless his heart, then had a couple of parking lot fender benders damaging the right front fender and door. After I replaced both the fender and door, myself, with parts from a red, 1995 Camaro I found on Craigslist near Athens, and in the midst of refinishing the rear bumper cover, during this winter from hell we've had so far, the rusty fuel lines burst. Adding up what it would have run me to have shops fix everything that's gone wrong over the last year or so would have amounted to, approximately, and are you sitting down? $6,500. That includes $1,000 or more to replace the fuel lines. The car might be worth a $1,000. $1,500 tops.



Pre-bent or custom bent fuel lines are not for sale on Amazon and if you do find them, they're expensive. Summit Racing Equipment in Stow gave me a quote of nearly $500 for a set of custom made, steel braded fuel lines that would snap right in as easy as a working with a garden hose. A set of stainless steel lines would run more than $300. And I'd have to wait more than two weeks for them since they have to be made. Most shops will charge $750 and up to replace fuel lines that. They charge about the same to replace brake lines.



Craigslist to the rescue. I was halfway to calling a junkyard to haul the car away when I found this 1995 Camaro down in Medina that the owner was "parting out".  The owner, amazingly, was not only willing to part with the fuel lines off his car, but would pull them out and give them to me for free. He said he had no intention of selling the fuel lines and that I could "just have them". Wow. The people here in North East Ohio are the nicest humans on earth.



I had to force the guy to take at least $20 for them given the time it took him to pull them out. Now, they're far from being in showroom condition by any stretch and that fuel filter is clogged and will need to be replaced but they're solid. Rusty but solid. This is how and why we keep these cars on the road and out of the junkyard.



Compared to the brake line job, removing and replacing the fuel lines was a piece of cake. Toughest thing about the job was getting the old lines out. When I put the new brake lines in I had intertwined the brake lines with the old fuel lines and, well...you know. Who'd have thought I'd soon be replacing the fuel lines too?

The old squeeze clips wouldn't come out either so that meant I had to break the lines and then lovingly remove them from the lines without, hopefully, damaging the flexible lines. Aside from that, this massive project was one of the smoothest and straight forward car projects I'd done in quite a while.

I blew out the lines with a compressed air can, changed the fuel filter, connected everything up, did a test start and the car fired right up with no leaks. Tight as a drum. I then bolted it all down and went for a very, very satisfying test drive.  Total cost of the project was $24. Take that, automotive grim reaper. I still have the cold weather stating problem and a leaking water pump on our "newer" Camaro but for now, all's right in our two Camaro household.

 

 

1983 Pontiac Grand Prix - Gen X'ers Can Be Practical Too

 

We met a young woman recently who was thrilled with the brand new, 2018 GMC Terrain she had just purchased. When we told her we found it interesting that someone as young as she was would aspire to own what was essentially a modern version of a minivan, we call them cross overs, GM insists on calling them "SUV's", she didn't bat an eye which we found even more interesting and confounding since to us, owning a mini van or any family vehicle at her age would have been a fate worse than bell bottoms.

 

   

 

The types of cars we liked when we were her age were either pony cars or personal luxury cars like this 1983 Pontiac Grand Prix LJ. Motivated, if barely, by a god's green earth, 140 horsepower, 305 cubic inch Chevrolet V-8.  For our money, this was the more than perfect steed to tell the world that we was ready to mingle. Not quite sure what Millenials are attempting to tell the world by driving a cross over. Perhaps they just like what they're driving. Imagine that. By the way, we never owned a personal luxury car like this back then because they were too expensive and they weren't ideal in winter in the northeast.

 

 

Nowadays, we fawn all over cars like this old Grand Prix and  even we can tell that we're woefully out of touch with what the young and the restless are driving these days. For the record, we much prefer the pre downsizing era Grand Prix to this thing but at least it has a Chevrolet V-8 under the hood and not the Buick V-6. After all, we have our standards.

 

 

 

Our standards include blind appreciation for spatially inefficient, clumsily styled gas guzzlers like this Grand Prix. Meanwhile, Millenials, like utility based vehicles large enough to haul around a small army. Amazing how much more practical "they" are than we "are" at their age. We became practical when we had to be. Kids today? Who knows what they're thinking and don't get is wrong, it's not a bad thing. Seriously, back in the our day, who didn't have a car like this or had a friend or two that did. Then again, super stylish cross overs weren't available when we were younger.

 

 

 

General Motors had no less than four "personal luxury cars" like our Grand Prix to choose from in 1983 and  a total of eight of them if you count those high falutin front wheel drivers from Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac. GM also had a plethora of two door variants of their four door sedans so it was a hey day for coupe lovers. Today, General Motors makes but one "coupe" version of one of their four door sedans; a less than satisfyingly styled two door version of their Cadillac ATS that's about as fetching as a two door, 1996 Camry. Thanks, but no thanks.

 

 

What's replaced the personal luxury in showrooms today? One guess and if you said "cross overs" you've hit the bucket seated jackpot. These types of cars died off years ago and these days, it looks like even four door sedans are being shoved to the discount rack to make room for more utility based, practicality first and foremost cross overs. But, y'know, just to show these young whipper snappers that we're not all about style over substance, our Grand Prix did come with a fairly sizable trunk. See? We can be practical too.

 



2000 Jaguar XK8 - New Year's Resolution

One of our New Year's Resolutions this year was to blog about vehicles as though we were working for an auto rag and having to arduously plow through numbers and facts on vehicles that were as interesting as dishwashers; the occasional red crayon the exception rather the norm. We believe we started the year off splendidly discussing Chevrolet's new Traverse but then again, we more than like that thing so that doesn't count. So, like a last slice of pie, drag on a cigarette, shot of whiskey or curse word dropped, let's do one last vehicle we adore before we dive into our New Years Resolution head first and "do one" that we're surprised we hadn't "done" before, a first generation Jaguar XK8 convertible. Perhaps, the most beautiful car to come out of the 1990's here or there.
 

As the proud owners now of identical 1996 Chevrolet Camaros not to mention a 1977 Chevrolet Corvette, there are few people who know of the ups and downs of old car ownership better than we do. Still, we should know better than to get all misty-eyed "what if" over a ticking time bomb like this 2000 Jaguar XK8 convertible for sale just down the road in lovely Columbus with an asking price a mere $5,300. What could go wrong?

Well, plenty but not nearly as much as what could go wrong if this were an older Jaguar. These big, bold and beautiful 1996-2006 XK's with a smattering of Ford DNA in their bones were known to be somewhat more reliable than Coventry Cats of yore. We'll never know for sure but if we had five grand burning a hole in our pocket we'd be hard pressed not to lay it down on this versus a "C5" Corvette of similar vintage.

 

 

Introduced for 1996, these early XK8's were a stunner. They still are. That's saying a lot too considering they're convertibles - usually not our favorite vehicle type but there's something particularly alluring about these cars with the top up versus down. We love the coupes too but not nearly as much. Part of the cache of the design of these cars came from the very subtle retro touches that transcend time and place. Note the front grill and huge bulge - pure XKE. A what? Exactly.



 

Despite using a considerable amount of bits and pieces underneath of the then current XJ sedan, the XK was a remarkable departure and upgrade from the car it replaced, the XJS. One of the most radical changes was Jaguar's first ever V-8 engine. Only the fourth "clean sheet" engine design in Jaguar's history, this engine, known internally at Jaguar as the "AJ-V8", would eventually replace all six and twelve cylinder Jaguar engines. Engineered and designed by Jaguar, with considerable oversight and input from then parent company Ford, it shares  nothing with any Ford engine despite being assembled in a Ford factory. Suffice to say Ford didn't trust Jaguar to build their own engine properly.

 

 

 

So, what could go wrong with an automobile so beautifully designed, assembled and with regards to this one down in Columbus, seemingly so well maintained? It has only 64,421 miles on her. Again, for $5,300 what could possibly go wrong?

 

 

 

This car reminds us of our late friend Dan's "$2,000, $1,000 1984 BMW 528". Years ago a friend of his sold him an '84 528 for $1,000. It looked perfect but mechanically it needed some attention. Every time Dan took it to the local BMW dealership for service he got a bill for at least $2,000, hence his $2,000, $1,000 car. His ownership experience with that BMW wasn't the only story we've heard about how expensive BMW's can be to maintain when they're out of warranty. Dan wasn't above doing work on his car himself but with foreign cars, many times what's straight forward on an American car can be vexing. Also, the price of parts can be out of this world expensive. We shudder to think what it would cost for a new canvas top on our XK8 here. Good thing the current owner has done it for us already. Question though, no pictures of the car in the ad with the top down.  The mechanical mechanisms for these tops are notorious for breaking down. Quite the oversight considering the attention to detail the owner put into posing the car for pictures. Who knows if they did or not. Columbus is lovely so maybe it's their backyard. Does make us wonder though.

 

 

Well, let's just assume that it was an oversight as opposed to a bargaining chip to get the price down lower. This car is priced appropriately - Jaguars have always been good bargains compared to what they're targeted at and that exacerbates depreciation. Enlightened buyers are also fearful of maintenance costs like we are. Let us know what you think of this big old Cat if you're so inclined to take a traipse to bucolic mid-Ohio and take it for a spin or more. If it works out for you with nary a problem and you got it for less than the asking price we'll be purr-fectly green with jealousy. Happy New Year.

 

A Tale of Two Chevies - When It Snows It's a Blizzard

 

 

The "newer" of our identical 1996 Chevrolet Camaros hadn't given us any trouble since we bought it about a year ago until the "V.A.T.S" system started acted up when the cold weather hit a couple of weeks ago. The GM "V.A.T.S", an acronym for "vehicle anti theft system" or "Pass-Key", was a redundant theft deterrant system where the ignition key not only had to match the ignition cylinder, the resistor in the key had to match what the car's "PCM", program control module, was looking for. If the PCM "thinks" that the car is being stolen, the car can't be started. Problem is when the system gets wonky, even when you have the correct key in the ignition, sometimes, and in particular since the cold weather hit recently, the car thinks its being stolen. While the car does start up sometimes after you wait ten minutes for the system to reset, it's consistent in doing so. The car, therefore, is unreliable. I doubt that the cold weather has anything to do with the problems we've been having but the timing is  a little fishy.

 



 

With our older son heading back to Dayton this coming weekend, he would have taken the "newer" Camaro down there but with the VATS acting up, I made the executive parenting decision that he would take the older Camaro down there instead. A bit of a hassle considering it needs an alignment, a muffler and the headliner needs to be repaired but at least the VATS doesn't act up on it. What's more, with my being out of town this week, getting everything done would fall on my 19 and 20 year old sons. Not the best of plans. Well, the alignment getting done and the muffler being replaced would. My plan for the falling down headliner would be just to cut the damn thing out until I get a new one. Again, it's always something.

 



 

I turned over the "old" Camaro yesterday, we call it the old Camaro because we bought it first and it's three or four months older than the other one, just to get it running and I'll be damned, there was a massive frozen puddle of something on the driveway. Fearing the worst, that it could be another coolant leak, after I checked the coolant level and saw that it was topped off, I took the car for a spin through our lovely neighborhood just to see if I could get the temperature up on it and sure enough, all good and the car responded as well as it always has except...for a faint smell of gas.

 

 

I got it home and got under it and saw that it was leaking gas! from its rusted out metal fuel lines right under the driver's seat. Good lord. So now both of our Camaros are off line until further notice. I totally get now how some people have multiple cars on their property all of which are not running. "They'll get around to fixin' 'em..." Thing is, do they?

 

 

 

The plan now is for our son to drive my Monte Carlo to Dayton and my wife and I will be a one car household until we get the Camaro's sorted out. I'm confident that we will but it's amazing how things converge on top of one another. When it rains it pours or in this case, when it snows it's a blizzard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2018 Chevrolet Traverse - Rip Van Winkle

 

After I picked up the new hood latch for our Tahoe at the Chevrolet dealership near our home here in Cleveland, I spotted a new for 2018 Chevrolet Traverse sitting in the showroom. As much as a car as I am, it wasn't the first time I'd been somewhat smitten by a crossover; a vehicle segment that, in my opinion, has some of the most interesting designs available today.



Chevrolet sells a full line of crossovers including the compact "Trax", the mid size Equinox, which to our eyes looks every bit as large as the range topping Traverse. Then you have your traditional full size, truck based SUV's, the Tahoe and Suburban.

 



I'd be curious to know why someone would buy a Tahoe over a Traverse considering the interior space is very similar although, I'm not so sure a Traverse would pass my 4 X 8 sheet of plywood test like my Tahoe dies but seriously, how many times do I need a vehicle that big? Also, the step up to a Tahoe from even the top-of-the-line Traverse is astronomical which is saying a lot because a a loaded Traverse is not cheap. By the way, there hasn't been a mid size Chevrolet SUV since the Trailblazer bit the dust in 2009 and Chevrolet and GM have not peddled a mini van, which the Traverse and Equinox spiritually are, since 2008. I feel like Rip Van Winkle when I think about that. Where have a I been?

Like the most recent Ford Explorer, the interior of the Traverse is cavernous and gorgeous. The fit, finish and detail of design are down right luxurious too. It's so nice I'd be compelled to dress up just to go to the supermarket and feel bad scuffing it up during a lumber run. Yes. Seating for up to eight but just as in our 2006 Tahoe, the jump seats way out back are best for little ones. And who'd want to sit back there anyway with no sun roof? By the way, and c'mon GM you're being misleading, you can't get the eight passenger seating with this fetching leather lined cabin. You want seating for eight you have to go down a level in trim and you can't get these seats; cloth only. Also, to get back to the third road seating on "High Country" Traverse models like the one pictured, only that right rear "captain's chair" folds forward to allow passengers an easier way to get back there. Mom and Dad, keep that in mind when you're juggling the kids and packages in the mall parking lot.

The top of the line Traverse "High Country" comes with a full array of today's modern safety, infotainment and off-roading features that help push the price of one to nearly, you sitting down? $53,000. That, friends, is a proverbial ess-ton of money for what amounts to little more than, again,  a fancy, schmancy, modern minivan. Mini-vans have always been more expensive than cars but 53 grand is a ton. Speaking of tons, our loaded Traverse here tilts the scales at nearly two and half of them yet can go from 0-60 in 6.5 seconds and still manages a respectable 21 miles per gallon. That's impressive considering this thing weights the same as a '72 Cadillac deVille. Thank automatic start/stop for that. That's where the engine shuts off at red lights and instantly turns on when you take your foot off the brake. The Ford Explorer I drove recently had it and while I found it to be the weirdest thing at first, I quickly got used to it.

As much as I like the new Traverse I'd always feel that it's a 7/8 Tahoe and I know myself, if I sprung for one of these I'd always be pining for a Tahoe. Either way, both are very, very expensive. How the hell are people affording these things? Perhaps my wife and I are more financially conservative than most, go ahead, call us cheapskates, but at $53,000, before tax, tags and other ancillary nonsense, that works out to well north of a $1,500 a month over 36 months and more than $760 over 72 months. Sorry. That's just crazy. What's a $50,000 Traverse going to be worth in three or four years? Especially if you pile on the mileage. A thirty six month lease with no money down will probably run you in the neighborhood of $725 a month. For a rental. You can't win so that's why you should always buy used.

Spend your money they way you want. For my money, I'd scoop one of these up in two to four years and pay maybe $22,000 for it. If I'd have to go new, I'd just as well spring for a fully loaded 2018 Toyota Camry XSE V-6 and rent something like this whenever I needed more room. I'd pocket the $15,000, sock it away or blow on a trip to Hawaii.  

Car Shopping - Damn I'm Good

 

 

The other morning the wife suggested we spend the day shopping for something to replace our 2006 Tahoe to take advantage of zero percent financing manufacturers are shilling these days. After the initial shock wore off and my panic attack about spending any more time than we need to outside simmered down, damn it's been cold and snowy, it dawned on me that this could be a painful time suck since we have no idea what we would be shopping for.  

 

While our paid off in full Tahoe has just under 120,000 miles on it, not bad for a 12 year old vehicle, it's a tad rusty underneath, it's terrible on gas, the check engine light is on and lastly and probably most importantly, it's looking horribly out of fashion with other vehicles that my wife sees in the parking lot of the Cleveland Clinic facility she works at literally around the corner from our home here in Cleveland. That reason enough to ditch it? After all, two kids in college and no car payments. If you ask me, hell no but it is the wife's ride. Happy wife as they say, happy life.

 



 

My greatest concern in replacing something for the sake of replacing something is ending up with another "soul less rental car" like the Ford Taurus we bought back in 2002. We bought that car thinking "value first" and we thought we did quite well dropping nearly $23,000 on what we considered a luxury car back then. It quickly fell out of favor not because it wasn't reliable, it was bastion of yeoman like dutifulness, it was because it quickly failed to ignite any emotional response in my wife and I; we found it boring. While that car became my daily driver for a while years ago, I got rid of it first chance I could replacing it with my current Monte Carlo that I'm as in love with today as the day I brought it home for the first time. I probably should have held onto the Taurus for another couple of years if not more but such was my contempt for it. Shame too, again, considering what a stalwart it was.

 

My job in the eventual process of replacing the Tahoe is to gently and lovingly inform my wife of any and all options. Of which there certainly is no shortage. What'll it be? Another Tahoe? Perhaps a lovely little sports sedan? A crossover maybe? These days deciding on what type of vehicle to purchase is more important than which make and model of the type of vehicle you've honed in on.

 



 

Like many women, my wife is partial towards today's swankily styled crossovers, not hard to see why considering that vehicle segment has some of the best looking designs on the road today. The other day I was in the Chevrolet dealership near our home, I was picking up the hood latch for the Tahoe, and I was transfixed by the new for 2018 Chevrolet Traverse. Although derivatively styled and as hard to decipher as a 1937 Plymouth is from a 1938 Pontiac, I almost passed out when I saw the $48,000 window sticker. My god, who's buying these things anyway? My math works out monthly payments at $700 and that's over 72 months. 48 months you're looking at $1041 a month for a depreciating asset. Where have we been that prices for family cars has more than doubled over the last fifteen years? Yes. Crossovers are more expensive than sedans but c'mon now. This is ridiculous. Not that we'd be shopping "new" but, again, wow. Let's shop these little family trucksters in a couple of years when the values have dropped by more than half.

 

 

Her jaw dropped when I told her about the Traverse and she then asked me if I wanted to see a movie that night. Mission accomplished, I got her off the subject. Damn I'm good. Happy New Year.