1991 Chevrolet Lumina Z34 - Last One. I Swear. Well, That Is Until I Find Another One.

I swear this'll be the last blog I'll do on a Chevrolet Lumina\Monte Carlo Z34. Well, until I find another one. This one here is a 1991 and is the most beat to death "Z" I've ever seen. Far worse even than that '92 I found at the Pull-A-Part back in December. It's for sale maybe thirty minutes from where I live with an asking price of $1,000. Don't y'all be cloggin' up my in-bin with requests to get hooked up but if you want I most certainly will. 

To review, I had a '94 Z-34 and I was pretty disappointed with it. While it handled quite well and was very cool looking and quite comfortable, I was less than enamored with its engine - the polarizing "LQ1", 3.4 liter, "Dual Twin Cam V-6" that was supposed to be GM's answer to the Yamaha DOHC V-6 in the Ford Taurus SHO. That LQ1 has its fans although I seriously have to wonder why anyone would favor that engine over the gaggle of 3800's over the years. Or a bicycle. 

I found the LQ1 noisy, slow-revving, thirsty and unless I floored the gas constantly, really didn't have the get-up-and-go I had hoped for; I felt as though I wasted my money on the damn thing. To make matters worse, I had traded in my perfectly fine 1990 Lumina Euro 3.1 as a down payment on a 36-month, 45,000-mile lease on it. I have not, for the record, made an automotive financial faux pas anywhere near that bad since. I've made other mistakes but nothing that bad on an automotive front. 

The problem with that engine was GM went on the cheap with it. Rather than a clean sheet design like the Yamaha engine in the SHO, they started with their 2.8-liter iron block, 60-degree V-6 and built it up from there like some hack in a high school shop class. Thanks to chains instead of belts driving the valve-train, my LQ1 was a clickity-clackity rude affair that sounded anything but space-age and modern like I thought that it should. 

Its sluggishness exacerbated by GM's 3100 V-6 that they came out with in 1993. Essentially an updated 3.1-liter V-6, itself an update of the 2.8 the LQ1 was based on, I couldn't believe the smooth, instant power of anything it powered. Including the new-for-1995 Lumina and it's freshly rechristened two-door stable mate they called, "Monte Carlo". 

Soon as the lease was up on my '94 Z I got myself into a 1997 Monte Carlo LS with that snappy 3100 and never regretted it. Well, save for the two intake manifold gaskets it ingested but I digress. 

Fittingly, although there's no pictures of it, the LQ1 in this beat to death redhead was ditched 10 years ago and replaced with, you guessed it, a 3100 V-6. 

 

1969 Buick Skylark - Strong Enough for a Man but Made for a Woman

Few things take me back...back...back...like old cars do. This 1969 Buick Skylark takes me back to kindergarten in the fall of 1969. The family up the block from us back on Long Island had one of these and it was one of the vehicles in power rotation in the neighborhood kiddie car pool.

 

I remember having a little crush on Laurie whose mother drove what I determined to be the pinnacle of automotive femininity. Funny how I don't see it quite that way now but I remember at the time thinking the car's design was much like "Secret", that antiperspirant targeted at women; "Strong Enough for a Man but Made for a Woman". 

GM's reboot of their 1964 intermediate "A-bodies" for 1968 was decidedly uneven. Personally, I thought the Pontiac's the best looking of the lot followed by Chevrolet in a distant second-place. Then the overstuffed Oldsmobile's and lastly these "out-there" Skylark's with their tapered hind quarters. Cadillac, of course, didn't get one. Only in retrospect can we intelligently say that they might have been a mistake for the "Standard of the World" as Mercedes was already making inroads with much, much smaller and far more expensive cars. The Cadillac "bigger is better" axiom in full stride in the late '60's. They weren't any better than a Chevy at the time but by golly they was sure bigger. 

I remember thinking that if only they'd get rid of this funky rear end, this might just be a car that a five or six year old car crazy little nipper could get his Hush-Puppies around. 

Ask and ye shall receive as this debate-ably odd rear end treatment last only two model years. All of the "A's" received some updating for 1970, the Skylark more than any other as Buick nixed this design for something far more conventional. If lacking in distinction. 

Hard to tell sometimes if a 1970-1972 Buick Skylark is a Chevelle or not. And  vice versa. 

Laurie and her family moved to Arizona when she was was in the second grade. We keep in the vaguest of contact through Facebook. That peripheral contact with people I used to know, especially from when I was very young, one of the few things I like about social media. 

1998 Chevrolet Lumina LTZ Limousine - Exchange Offer Me

Amazing what you find when you're not looking for it. If this can be considered a find. Apparently, Meta's algorithms have gone (literally and figuratively) south seeing that it (or they) would think I'd be interested in this 1998 Chevrolet Lumina LTZ limousine based on my browsing history. Well, I probably would be if it was a 1998 Lumina LTZ sedan but...a limo? And for sale down in Mexico?

I grabbed these photos of it knowing that if I didn't, I'd probably never see it again. And I was right. I went back to FB Marketplace and I couldn't find it. Right now, at least, Marketplace allows you only to search a five-hundred-mile radius at a time from any given city; I currently live in Cleveland, Ohio. I even changed my city to McAllen, Texas on the Texas\Mexico border and couldn't get anything to come up for sale south of the border. Just as well. Although, it's been years since I've even seen the technical spiritual successor to the legendary if not iconic 1994-1996 Chevrolet Impala SS. Regardless of how long it is.

The listing was in Spanish and although I took a year or two of Spanish in high school, I couldn't make heads or tails of what the poster was saying in it. I did a google translation of the text and this is what it came up with:

Limousine foolproof full full arrive and work with everything up to date without any type of debt. I would also exchange offer me.

Best I can make of it is everything works as it should and it has a clean title. They're also open to trading something for it. Probably would be a significant amount of trade seeing that the asking price is $23,800. Add also mentions there's 200,000 miles on its analog ticker.

For 1998, Chevrolet basically took what they did to their Monte Carlo Z34 and did the same to the Lumina. That being ditching the (awful) LQ1, "Dual Twin Cam V-6" and replacing it with the 3800 "Series II" engine, front-struts with four-stage valving, thicker anti-roll bars compared to what was on lesser Lumina's and beefy (for the time), Goodyear RS-A's. They threw on some tasteful cladding and the rims from the Monte Carlo LS and, voila, Lumina LTZ.

Us General Motors sycophants bought hard. A Lumina LTZ was on my short list to replace our beloved 1996 Nissan Maxima when its lease expired. We ended up with a Malibu LS instead. You know what they say when you make plans. God laughs.

Making a limousine out of a sedan is not as complicated as it might seem although it does appear to be quite time consuming. It's a pretty straight forward process although I wonder where whomever converted that Lumina into a limo got the prefabricated pieces like the exterior side panels, glass and roof from. All the interior trimmings appear to be fairly off the shelf stuff if not DIY-able. Still, it's a handsome if not odd-looking piece. No seating in the middle of the stretched area is a bit of a head-scratcher but no more so than the whole thing in general.

1976 Chevrolet Monte Carlo - Big Luxury

The AMC Pacer from the "Wayne's World" movies recently made headlines when it sold at the Mecum Auction for an incredible $71,500. I never "got" the joke of the two Wayne's World movies, although I find Mike Myers and Dana Carvey brilliants comedians, and I also fail to appreciate why an AMC Pacer was cast as the "Mirth Mobile". If the producers were looking for a vehicle that oozed the '70's in buckets, for us that were there, albeit I was but a wee-little-nipper, nothing said "Nixon-Watergate-Petrocks-Gerald Ford-Discotheques-Jimmy Carter, "Three's Company" and "The Love Boat" like a 1973-1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. What's more, this 1976 Monte Carlo should make headlines like the "Mirth Mobile" if it retails for anywhere near its absurd asking price of $19,500. 

I read recently that with the "chip shortage" inhibiting new car production, used car values have increased by some forty percent over the course of The Pandemic. For whatever reason that inflation has also trickled down to the "classic car market". Tell me why that is, please. Chop forty percent off the asking price of this car and you get a more reasonable $11,700. Still a lot of money for a rental-grade, bone stripper, 95,000-mile, 1976 Monte Carlo with a "305", but far easier on my stomach. Imagine what it would be worth if it was painted blue and had flame decals on the front fenders. Party on. 

Opinions differ as to what was officially the first "personal luxury car" but many say, me included, that Ford's 1958, four-passenger Thunderbird was the first. Followed by the Pontiac Grand Prix in 1962, Buick Riviera in 1963 and, subsequently, the Oldsmobile Toronado in 1966 and Cadillac Eldorado in 1967. However, it wasn't until a redesigned, mid-sized Pontiac Grand Prix debuted for 1969 that the market for these types of cars really took off. Chevrolet followed suit in 1970 with their first Monte Carlo. 

When General Motors rebooted their intermediate line for 1973 and rolled out their famous "Colonnade's", they were called that because of the pillar or column set behind the driver's door on the coupes and in the middle of the car on four-door models and wagons, the Monte Carlo was the most outlandish if not polarizing of them all. Allegedly an exaggeration of the "suitcase fender" design first seen on 1970-1972 Monte Carlo's, you either "got" these cars or thought they were as hideous perhaps as some think the AMC Pacer was. Many loved them, however, seeing how well they sold. Incidentally, the bulging, "suitcase fenders" were meant to evoke the spirt of classic cars from the 1930's. 

If that seems far-fetched to you, well, keep in mind at the time, the "1930's" were only some forty years prior to when these cars made their ostentatious debut. To put things in perspective, this being 2022, forty years "ago" would be 1982. Are you feeling old yet? 

In addition to the swoopy fenders, which I adore in case you're wondering, the Monte Carlo's triumphantly long hood is also a calling card of these beautiful monsters. Which, again, are supposed to be "mid-sized" cars. Note how big that radiator shroud is in front of that tiny, small-block Chevy. These cars were built on the 116-inch wheelbase that also underpinned the station wagon version of GM's new-for-'73 intermediates. However, rather than put all the extra space into the passenger cabin, designers put it in front of the firewall. Again, you either get this or you don't. To those of us of a certain vintage, "big-hood" means "big-luxury". 

In this seller's market there is something to be said for used cars appreciating. Our 1977 Corvette has finally seen some decent lift of late but not to the tune of what this overpriced Monte is going for. I wouldn't pay half the asking price for this, but I can't fault the seller for asking that much. 

I could, on the other hand, take exception to someone paying that much for this much in the same way I want to examine the head of the person who dropped more than $75,000, after taxes and fees, on the "Mirth Mobile". 

1970 Chevrolet Chevelle - Keep Your Comments to Yourself

Not that we need any more proof the world's gone crazy in these Covid times, but this 1970 Chevelle SS convertible with no engine, transmission, an '80's repaint, period incorrect rims and tires and needing perhaps a full interior restoration is for sale on Facebook Marketplace out of bucolic New Egypt, New Jersey with a firm price of $55,000. I love how the poster of the ad says at the end of it says, "keep your comments to yourself". 

Oh, let me find my checkbook and reserve a trailer from U-Haul. 

Quick scan of nadaguides.com finds the "low retail" ask on these to be $53,000.  That quote says nothing about whether or not the price should include the engine and or not. High retail is $125,000. 

So, I can understand where the poster of the ad is coming from - no doubt he or she knows they're going to get flamed by those who don't know better since the reality is that's what these valued at.  And Chevelle's of this vintage are considered by many to be the holiest of holy grails when it comes to muscle cars. Whether or not you choose to spend that much money on one of these is your choice. Mileage may vary. See dealer for details. 

I have to say I'm right there with them. 1970-1972 Chevelle's are amongst my favorite cars of all time even if that might seem a bit cliched. Hey, sometimes if the cliche fits, you gotta wear it. I'm not, so you know, someone who goes along with fads just to go with the flow, my younger son does that a lot and it drives his mother and I crazy, but sometimes what's popular is actually quite good. If not the GOAT. 

General Motors hit a gold mine when they introduced their intermediate line for model year 1964. Models that included the Pontiac Tempest, Oldsmobile F-85, Buick Skylark, and the Chevrolet Chevelle.   

Sized just right and styled beautifully, they clobbered Ford's Fairlane and Mercury Comet; Chrysler back then technically didn't have a mid-sized car but if we count their abortive "B-bodies" as such, they were no match up against GM's "A-body" quadrumvirate. 

As they did back then, GM sliced and diced them each subsequent model year to such an extent a '67, Chevelle, for instance, looked little like a '64. 

Chevelle along with all GM intermediates were all-new for '68. The Chevelle somewhat resembling our '70 here if a little clumsy looking in a not quite sorted out kind of way. That all changed for 1970. There ain't a bad line on these cars in coupe or convertible form. Which is rare; many times something gets lost in translation from coupe to drop-top conversion. Forget the four-door models although I wouldn't kick a station wagon out of my garage. 

On this thing, the engine and transmission were pulled to make way for an "LS swap" which also means the fuel tank may or not be part of the deal either. That's a shame. 

I love LS V-8's but I'm not sure they're necessary in classics like this. Seems like overkill. How much power do you need? And in a fifty-two year old convertible I'd be worried about all the stress put on the frame. And the frame-buttressing needed pushes this all the more into the "resto-mod" universe. 

And if I'd drop that kind of money on something like this I'd want it to be numbers-matching. Meaning it comes with the powertrain it came from factory with. 

But as they said, "keep your comments to yourself". 

1973 Ford Mustang - How Weird

Ask a Ford Mustang cognoscenti to name their favorite and they'd probably have a hard to choosing between the originals, the Fox-bodies, S-197's and the most recent iteration. Ask them what Mustang they like least and no doubt they'd say the 1974-1978 Mustang "II's". If they even mention them. These "big" 1971-1973 Mustangs get more than their fair share of disdain too. Our subject here is a 1973 Mustang Grande. "Grande" was a luxury trim option and not a descriptor of the car's size or weight. 

I think the vitriol these get is a bit unfair. In my opinion, in a vacuum at least, these boats or "biggest of all time Mustangs", are just as handsome if not more so than any Torino or LTD coupe of the same time period. I think if Ford badged these as a "Thunderbird" they would have been touted as seminal, watershed designs. Then again, the early 1970's were still a time period when Detroit held steadfast to their "bigger is better" axiom. Even if, in retrospect, it was the tail-end of it. 

Where these Mustangs run aground is in comparison to the lithe ponies that came before them. Although the 1969-1970 Mustang pushed the envelope itself as to what a "pony car" was. And this dyed-in-the-wool GM girl will tell you that a 1970 Mustang is the embodiment of cool meanwhile these are...well...just pretty nice. Although, frankly, a 1970 Mustang pales in comparison to my beloved Chevrolet Camaro's and Pontiac Firebirds. Even Plymouth Barracuda's and Dodge Challenger's. 

So, how did the Mustang get so big and heavy and so quickly? I mean, wow - four practically clean sheet designs in eight model years with each one getting longer, wider and heavier? Well, let's take a step or two backwards and shed some light on the era these were, ahem, foaled in. 

Ford had sold more than 1.4 million Mustangs between April of 1964 and the end of the 1966 model year, but starting in 1967, competition from GM and even Ford itself with a Mercury knock-off of the Mustang had taken the gallop out of sales. Choice is great for the consumer, not good for business. 

Furthermore, insurance companies surcharging for anything remotely construed as a performance car slowed sales of muscle and sporting cars to a near standstill. To that end, you have to applaud Ford for attempting to go where they perceived the buying public was going what with their growing fondness for larger, more "luxurious" automobiles.

Even if these Mustangs look like a third-generation Corvette and a 1971 AMC Javelin got jiggy one night. You either get this design or you hate it. I never not "got it" although, again, there's certainly better-looking domestic designs from this time period. 

"Howie", a peripheral member of a group of guys I called "friends" in high school, had a '73 Mustang just like this save for his having full wheel covers and not the luscious alloys this one has. Compared to the placid, non-descript appliances of varying degree and condition any of us were driving at the time, especially me in my shit-box, squeaky Comet, it was a freaking rock star. As always, everything is relative.  

Howie was socially awkward, nerdy and painfully-shy-around-girls; a Dungeons and Dragons type doing his best to hang with an obnoxious group of sword-swinging alphas. We despairingly referred to him as "How Weird". A couple of years older than we were, people-pleaser that he was, he delighted in buying us beer and liquor and herding us around in his Mustang. How as many as five us shoehorned into that big-little car is a mystery to me now. 

The two or three of us that knew a thing or two about cars were very enamored with it. The hype around it was so extreme that each time I drove it my excitement overshadowed my ability to appreciate it for what it was. Or, frankly, see it for what it wasn't. "Holy shit! I'm driving Howie's car! But I'm sitting too low, I can't see over the too-tall dashboard, the view out the back sucks and it handles like a bathtub full of water with square wheels. But I'm driving Howie's car!"

Howie bragged that his Mustang had the exotic sounding "351 Cleveland". Ford built the "Cleveland", Cleveland, Ohio not far from where I live now, in various guises from 1969 through 1974 but the "351C" in Howie's car was the white bread, low revving, low-compression "2V" version. Making all of 164 net-brake-horsepower, it made 276 foot-pounds of torque just off idle and driven purposefully as Howie did, meaning he had the most leaden of right feet, the car seemed hedonistic-ally fast. In reality, especially in light of how powerful even the lowliest of new cars are today, those numbers are far from adequate to haul around a 3,500-pound automobile. Especially packed with a good thousand pounds of sweaty, farty teenagers. 

To impress us "kids", Howie took any and all reckless, wild chances he could at the drop of a hat. I cringe now knowing that we were just lucky that nothing ever happened. I see stories of cars packed with kids crashing and there being serious injuries if not fatalities and my heart sinks. That could have been us. 

Snaps to Howie, though, risks be damned, for being able to handle that car the way he did. 

I ran into him years after that group had dissolved into adulthood and conversation went straight to cars, naturally. I kept the conversation going talking about his driving exploits, I even went so far as to flatter him telling him I thought he was a "great driver". Right or wrong, in certain situations, I have a penchant for telling people what they want to hear. In reality I thought he was the most dangerous driver I had ever ridden with save for someone that I knew was drunk behind the wheel. 

When I asked him whatever happened to that Mustang, he shrugged his shoulders and laughed saying, "oh, that thing. I wrecked it." I wasn't surprised. And I felt very lucky.