2003 Chevrolet Malibu LS - Burn The Boats

Sun Tzu in his book “Art of War” taught armies to burn their boats and destroy the bridges behind them as they advanced into new territory. He argued that soldiers without the option of taking flight are more likely to prevail over their objective. 

To that end, our younger son moved to New York City a couple of weeks ago and although he's more than welcome to come home any time he wants, in an indirect way to make things somewhat more challenging for him to do so, I sold the 2003 Chevrolet Malibu his mother and I bought for him three years ago. 

I know. Sounds Machiavellian if not draconian. But the damn kid has to learn. 

I'm kidding, of course. And forget burning the boats, if I could have burned this car I would have. 

I've owned a lot of junkie beaters over the years. From my 1974 Mercury Comet to my 1982 Buick Riviera, the 1996 Chevrolet Camaro's I bought for sons to my 1977 Corvette, even my "beloved" 1975 Chrysler Cordoba, having cars that constantly break down seemingly goes hand-in-hand with my existence. And this Chevrolet Malibu fit right into my garage of broken dreams. 

Granted, it was sixteen years old when I bought it, but it had only 97,000 miles on its digital ticker and was an all but rust-free "P-A" car; as us denizens of Ohio refer to our friends just east of the border. I even had a mechanic look it over before I bought it, and he said it was in really good shape. He didn't charge me for the looksee, so I guess I got what I paid for. 

I felt proud of myself for buying something intrinsically practical for my non-car appreciating son as well. Nothing sporty like an old Camaro or Mustang. A fairly fuel efficient, four-door sedan with a fold-down rear seat was just what my son ordered. And he was delighted with it. Well, at first. 

From the fuel pump failing to AC that stopped blowing cold, a burned-out fuse box to a clogged catalytic converter to a leaking heater core pipe, power windows that stopped working to failed front calipers, not to mention wear items like brakes and tires, I should have called this car, "The Drum". Because it beat me like one. 

Then there were my son's constant fender benders. The worst was when he came out of Walmart down at Ohio University and found the right front fender bashed in. "Those damn townies" was his retort. 

I hammered it out enough so that the door would open properly but I left it that way up until recently when he started applying for jobs in NYC; a twenty-three-year-old living in NYC doesn't need a car. I thought about getting rid of my 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS and using the lower-mileage Malibu instead, so I swapped the fender with one I found at Pull-A-Part. 

Then I thought twice about it since the Monte Carlo, as old as it is, is simply, in my opinion, a more comfortable and better all-around automobile. Bonus. no self-respecting Facebook Marketplace buyer would pay what I got for this thing with a crushed fender.  

Of course, no sooner did I go to put this on Marketplace than the ABS light came on. A harrowing weekend swapping the wheel bearings in the muggiest of northeast Ohio weekends resulted in my listing the car and getting almost what I wanted for it. It sold in just one day. 

Burn The Boats. 

1962 Rambler American Station Wagon - Thanks Dad

I'm mildly intrigued by this 1962 Rambler American station wagon that popped up in Facebook Marketplace this morning. It's for sale in Wind Gap, "P-A", as we refer to Pennsylvania here in NE Ohio, with an asking price a not unreasonable (in this day and age) $1,200. My wife and I are going to Carlisle and then Gettysburg next weekend. Maybe I can convince her to make the extra jaunt northeast to the Allentown area. Don't bank on that but it's a thought.  

My taste in cars is pretty narrow - if it's got more than two-doors, forget it. However, if it does have more than two, it better not have more than three. And if it does have more than three, then it better have five like our literal barn find here.  

I know I'm not the only "car person" who likes wagons and I get that it's a contradictory affection as well. Four-door sedans are too stuffy and practical. Yet, I'm drawn to station wagons that are far more functional than four-door sedans are. What's up with that? 

I mean, look how much stuff can fit in the back of this thing. And the glass opens separately from the tailgate like it did on our long gone, much loved 2004 and 2006 Chevy Tahoe's. I don't want either of them back but there are times my wife and I sure miss them. 

My father had a '61 Rambler Classic sedan that had an interior just like this one, ahem, had. I couldn't have been more than five when I'd be riding shotgun with him as he steered that big wheel with his knee while he lit one of his cheap, stinky, skinny cigars with a match. Cigars, for whatever reason, he only smoked while driving. After he got the thing lit, he'd throw the match out the window and I'd get a warm rush of relief when he'd finally put a hand back on the wheel. He'd roll up the window too to keep all maple rum aromatic flavor trapped inside the car. Thanks, Dad. 

No seat belts in Dad's '61 too. Good grief. Well, what did he know. That's what parents did back then. 

I'm sure he'd figure out how to light one of his smokey treats even if his had this three-on-the-tree setup. His had the funky push-button transmission. The buttons for it where to the left of the steering wheel. 

Ramblers came in three guises in the early Sixties. Americans like our barn find here where the entry level models based on the long in the tooth, one-hundred-inch-long wheelbase that went back to the 1950 "bathtub" Nash Rambler. Then there was the one-hundred-eight-inch wheelbase "Classic" like my father had and then the fairly massive "Ambassador" that rode on a one-hundred-seventeen-inch wheelbase. Still quite tidy compared to what the Big Three offered back then. 

If the three quite different yet similarly styled models had anything in common, it was that they looked like nothing else on the road at the time. Domestically anyway. Especially the Ambassador that looked like something penned up in a Communist-bloc country. 

I'd hate to think this old chuffer will go unsold and will be hauled off to the junkyard but who knows. Maybe someone who's really into this will grab it and at least get it going again. Might not be too bad. Afterall, according to the FB ad, it was running when parked where it is forty-years ago. 

 

1975 AMC Gremlin - The Gremlin Effect

An AMC Gremlin similar to this 1975 was parked on our block the other day and my twenty-three-year-old son, who could care less about cars, freaked out and said he wanted one. His mother laughed out loud about it and fondly remembered a couple of friends of hers who had them. She thinks their cute as a button. I was, frankly, good-naturedly aghast. AMC Gremlins have that effect on people; you either love them or hate them. 

Much like the equally vexing Pacer, their ability to polarize has everything to do with their styling for certain what they are mechanically is nothing out of the ordinary. To say nothing of their driving dynamics. 

AMC, or "American Motors Corporation", certainly didn't set out to create a highly polarizing design that they launched on, of all days, April Fool's Day, 1970. 

During the mid-to-late 1950's, the company that evolved from the 1954 merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson carved a fairly lucrative niche as purveyors of small or smaller cars than what GM, Ford and Chrysler, sold at the time. That all changed come 1960 when "The Big Three" introduced compact cars but AMC didn't miss much of a beat selling cars, branded exclusively as "Rambler", that were small and being kind, avant garde. There may have been some perceived superior quality as well with AMC vehicles; my father claimed their superior build was a deciding factor in his buying the 1961 Rambler Classic I remember him having when I was a young child.  

However, by the late Sixties, AMC's wares had become painfully dated, outmoded even. They even started to sell larger cars to be more competitive with the Big Three this muddying their marketing position. With Volkswagen eating their proverbial small car lunch by two-to-one and GM and Ford launching subcompacts of their own to compete with VW, AMC's goose was cooked. Keep in mind this was several years before Asian brands would have more than a toehold in this country. 

Enter AMC's "small" car named after a "mischievous sprite" responsible for unexplained mechanical faults. Might sound comical, if not cute on paper, but to name a car "Gremlin" under such an auspice must have seemed strange if not unusual at the time. Certainly, doesn't sound any less weird all these years later, although, we probably couldn't think of a better or more apt name for these cars. 

Having spent the majority of my career working for underfunded, understaffed operations, I more than empathize with the plight of AMC in the late Sixties; there's only so much money to go around. And seeing AMC spent liberally on introducing a replacement for the Rambler American, that being the new for 1970 "compact" Hornet, you have to work with what you have. 

To make a sub-compact out of the Hornet, which was all but a Rambler American with a different body, AMC hacked eight inches off the wheel-base and whipped up the funky rear end treatment to make it appear smaller. As sub-compacts go, AMC Gremlin's are pretty big. 

This is what's called a Kamm tail or K-tail and is a styling feature where the rear of the car slopes down before being abruptly cut off with a vertical or near-vertical surface. This being a '75, the rear "safety-bumper" blunts that "vertical-surface". affect. The rear end on pre-1974 Gremlin's look about as good, or less bad, as the design possibly could. Certainly the "hockey-stick" styling on the rear quarter window does the K-tail no favors either. Your opinion may vary. See dealer for details.

The Kamm treatment on the rear end is offset by a too tall roof line relative to the incline of the K-tail as well. The whole thing works for some people, like my younger son and his mother, for instance. I, again, am put off by it. But it's what makes an AMC Gremlin an AMC Gremlin and not some over stylized, two-door Hornet. 

The rest of a Gremlin is Seventies bread-and-butter cheapy car basic. You know the drill. Body on frame, front engine, rear wheel drive, ghastly heavy, overhead valve in-line six, rear leaf springs and so on. I don't see a power steering pump down there so you can imagine how hard this one would be to steer. It's for sale, if you're wondering, somewhere in New Jersey with an asking price of $5,000. 

NADA high-retail pegs one of these at $2,150. Low retail at $500. Which, frankly, sounds more than about right. Then again, NADA guidelines aren't necessarily in line with what's going on in the real world. Like a lot of us these days, not only do we see crazy asking prices for cars, dealers and folks are getting what their asking. 

I know given the opportunity and the right set of circumstances, my younger son would drop five-large on this one and have me flat on my back trying to get all the Gremlins out of his Gremlin. Which, of course, I would do with pleasure. 

 

 

1968 Plymouth Barracuda - Soft Spot

I've got a soft spot for 1967-1969 Plymouth Barracuda's. And for all the right reasons too. No sentimental, nostalgic non-sensical hogwash here. I just like like 'em. I like 'em a lot. 

My favorites are these hard top's although I wouldn't kick a "Sports Fastback" out of my garage. I like these things even with the vinyl top. Forget the convertibles. Top up or down. 

I wonder how it would have gone for the Barracuda had Chrysler come with these designs in 1964 rather than the slightly warmed over Valiants they did come with. And came with two-weeks before Ford introduced the Mustang. Timing, apparently, is not everything. 

Not that it mattered given the marketing resources Ford had at the time. Their marketing blitz having as much to do with the success of the 1964 1/2 - 1966 Mustang as much as their having no discernable competition. Sorry, the Chevrolet Corvair and the original Barracuda just didn't cut it. 

Not that I think the original Mustangs are really anything to look at. I know that sounds sacrilegious but I'm of the opinion that Mustang design didn't really hit its stride until 1967. And if Chrysler rolled out these delicate flowers in 1964, I'd have to imagine that although they wouldn't have a chance of outselling Mustang, they'd at least have had sold a whole lot better. Just my two-cents. And it's probably not worth that seeing that these updated Barracuda's sold no better than the originals.

Blame GM for that too. Just as Ford updated the Mustang and Chrysler got their act together, GM came with not one but two ponies that, aesthetically at least, were the equal of what Ford and Chrysler had. Don't discount the Mercury Cougar's effect on the market too. Amazing that these are based on the same chassis as the also new for 1967 Valiant. One of the dopiest, American Motors-est designs Chrysler ever came with. But what a time to be alive and have the means to afford a sporty car! 

As for this tired, soggy old soul. Well, what can I say. It's for sale in South Carolina with an asking price a not unreasonable $2,000. But seeing it's been sitting in a field down there for a very long time, based on how far it's sunk into the ground, you know it's got to have frame problems. 

Looks like it's been stored under a tarp so that might explain why and how the body is not more-rotten. Poor thing looks like it needs everything, and I just don't know if it's worth the trouble. 

 

1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass International Series - Mullet and All

Is it me or are prices of used cars starting to cool off a little. Might have more to do with a pending recession than anything else. Take this very nice 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass International Series for instance. A scant 99,000 on its digital ticker and an asking price of $6,990. Price reduced a cool thousand too. I swear six to ten months ago this would have been a $10,000 car. It's for sale in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, east of Columbus and it's a solid two-hours from me. Oh, if it were only an hour or so closer. Then again, probably a good thing it's so far away. 

Seems like only yesterday I was picking up my god-forsaken, 1982 Buick Riviera from Celebrity Oldsmobile in Massapequa, New York on god's green earth Long Island in early January 1988. I was filling out the paperwork when one of these caught my eye in the showroom. For a rear-wheel-drive loving, all-American kid from Baldwin, home of Baldwin Motion I might add, it was the first time in more than fifteen years that a "new car" actually caught my eye. I felt like I was a kid growing up in the Sixties! Is that what it was like? Every fall getting blown away by some new offering from Detroit? I really was born ten to fifteen years too late. 

Of course, with my being all of twenty-three and my driving record looking like that of a felon, I couldn't touch the insurance payments on something like this let alone make the monthly payments on one. And my parents were in no financial shape to help me either. Not that I think it would have occurred to them to help if they could anyway. Sigh. That's why the cash purchase of that horrible Riviera sort of made sense. Well, at the time anyway. 

General Motors spent billions on their gaggle of 1988 intermediate coupes that also included the Buick Regal and Pontiac Grand Prix. Chevrolet had to wait until model-year 1990 for their first foray at the new "GM10" platform. And that first dalliance was the first four-door GM10 introduced at Disney Land; that's the one in California. Meh. The coupe came later, and I scarfed one up soon as I could to replace that crap-tacular Riviera. Over the past, gulp, thirty-two going on thirty-three years, I've had five "GM10" or "W-body" Chevrolet Lumina\Monte Carlo's. What can I say? If I could grow my mullet back and not look ridiculous, I'd do it too. 

Problem with the "GM10's" was that GM only offered them as coupes at first. Not a problem for me, of course, but with Ford having rolled out their game changing Taurus in 1986 as a sedan only, GM missed the opportunity to take Ford on bumper-to-bumper in the family car battle. 

The problem with the stylish Cutlass, especially the "International Series" like our lovely subject here, is that they were underpowered. GM played it safe and offered them at first with only their 60-degree, 2.8-liter V-6 that made all of 130-horsepower and 185 foot-pounds of torque. Not exactly a ton of power to motivate a 3,400-pound car. Especially with an automatic like this has. They did offer a five-speed but good luck finding one of those these days. I mean, these things moved if you floored the gas all the time but that gets old. And it kills your gas mileage. 

Meanwhile, their far more adequate 90-degree, 3.8-liter V-6 making 170-horsepower and 220 foot-pounds wasn't available. Fun fact, Oldsmobile never offered that engine in a GM10\W-body Cutlass. Most powerful engine ever offered in one was the "LQ1", 3.4-liter, "Dual Twin Cam" V-6 based on the 2.8-liter V-6. That engine has its fans, I'm not one of them. The infamous Quad4 was also made available as the base engine starting in 1989. Not much of an improvement over the 2.8 V-6 if you ask me. 

Yeah, I can talk myself out of most things and I think I've successfully talked myself out of this thing too. If it were closer and maybe had an asking price of $5,000, I shudder to think about what I might do. It screams "Eighties" and I'm not sure in a good way or not. My instincts tell me it's not. Also, I'd have to do a ton of mental gymnastics to convince myself I wouldn't care if I was construed as that old guy who's stuck in his past. Mullet and all. 

 

1975 Oldsmobile Toronado - Filter-Less Pall Malls

This 1975 Oldsmobile Toronado came up during my most recent "cheap car" search. You know, those Sunday morning time wasters where I type in a lowball dollar amount into cars.com, throw the net out one-hundred miles from my zip code and then I sort by "oldest year". By the way, thanks to inflation and Covid, I've had to increase the dollar amount from $10,000 to $15,000. Shoot, it used to be $5,000. Doesn't mean I found anything worthwhile this past Sunday although I found a thing or two that was interesting. Like this big old Toro. 

From 1966 through 1992, Toronado was Oldsmobile's top-of-the-line model and was defined as a "personal luxury car". Although, frankly, there's certainly nothing "personal" about a car that's nearly 19-feet long, almost 7-feel wide and weighs closer to two-and-a-half-tons than two-and-a-quarter. 

However, for a car this big, these are fairly cozy if not "personal" inside. Then again, that big-on-the-outside, small-on-the-inside ethos was the design axiom back when cars were designed from the outside in. Gosh, as a kid, I remember seeing cars with these tufted, over-stuffed-pillow, velour like interiors and thought they were the epitome of luxuriousness. Now all I see is an aching back and seats that smell like a wet dog mixed with cigarette smoke from filter-less Pall Mall's. 

To the casual observer, this looks like any big Oldsmobile from the 1970's. If you cock your head and blur your eyes a little, you see a lot of then-current Cutlass Supreme. However, in addition to this being built on an entirely different platform than the bread-and-butter Cutlass of the time period, there's a whole lot more to the Oldsmobile Toronado than meets the eye. 

What made these cars special and unique was they were front-wheel-drivers. "Front-wheel-drive" in, save for a handful of European and Asian makes and models, a rear-wheel-drive world. And they were GM's first ever "front-drive" automobiles and the first American front-drivers since the Cord 810\812 of 1936-1937. And did America care? By-and-large? Nope. Well, I'm sure that a handful of people appreciated the engineering that went into these cars, but folks bought these things because they liked their styling or what they perceived them to be as opposed to whatever trickery engineers used to get torque to the front wheels. 

Early (1966-1970) Toronado's were marketed as large, semi-sporty, muscle-car-like, grand touring cars and got outsold by their similar but far more luxurious, and more expensive corporate cousin, the Cadillac Eldorado. That all changed for model year 1971 when both were redesigned. That redesign made the Cadillac even bigger and softer and Toronado became more like the previous version of the Eldorado. Just-like-that, Toronado sales more than doubled. 

Our '75 here is part of that Toronado reboot. This one's for sale for $12,500 which sounds like a ton of money but keep in mind, and somewhat ironically too, that a Cutlass in this shape, would be listed for at least twice that if not two-and-half times more. The irony being that in 1975, this car stickered for some $6,700 meanwhile the Cutlass sold for $4,100. Big bucks back then during the Ford administration. And between us cool-cat, Seventies car lovers, I'd rather have the Cutlass. And I'd take it in this awful eggshell blue hell as well. Comment below with your thoughts.