1966 Plymouth Fury - Insanely Good

Here's the definition of "cool" if you look it up in the dictionary - "fairly low temperature but not cold" or "showing no friendliness of indifference towards someone or something". Meh. Doesn't cut to the quick of how I feel about this 1966 Plymouth Fury III I found on Facebook Marketplace recently. Urban dictionary is far more apropos: "insanely good". Yeah...that's more like it. 

1965 was a unique model year in that GM, Ford and Chrysler all had new full-size models. If I was to declare a winner amongst the "low-priced three", between the new-for-'65 Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth, the Plymouth gets my vote. By a wide margin over the Chevrolet too. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. There are subtle if minute differences between this '66 and a '65 but for the purpose of today's soliloquy, there' all but identical. 

Big Plymouth's for '65 rode on a new full-perimeter frame, Plymouth's (and Dodge's) first new full-size chassis since the abortive 1962 downsizing. They kept the old "'62" full-sizers around making them the underpinning for a defacto mid-size line that was freshly fanciful at GM and Ford. 

That, to a large extent, explains why Chrysler intermediates were always a bit bigger than GM and Ford's middle-children meanwhile these new full-size Plymouths were slightly smaller  than "their" big boys. They're sized right if you ask me. 

 

You wouldn't be alone thinking what were marketed as intermediates at Plymouth (and Dodge) were full-size makes and models as well. Back then it was like Plymouth and Dodge had two separate lines of full-size cars. 

The first Plymouth to wear a "Fury" badge was a sub-model of Plymouth's then top-of-the-line "Belvedere" in 1955. Fury became its own series above the "Belvedere" in 1959. In 1965, the "Belvedere" moniker, which I've always thought was a simply gawd-awful name for a car, remained on the aft-forementioned 1962 circa platform officially becoming an intermediate what with the Fury now riding on the new and larger platform or chassis. The Belvedere nameplate finally swam with the fishes after MY 1969. 

Fury came in five different trim levels. For 1966, there was the rental grade, bone-stripper Fury "I" bought by rental car companies and municipalities. Then there were the Fury II's and III's that were better appointed with niceties like power steering and brakes, automatic transmission, air conditioning and 17 different exterior color schemes; Fury I's only had 9. 

Slotted above the "III" was the coupe only Fury "Sport" and lastly and leastly if you ask me, akin to Ford's "LTD" and Chevrolet's Caprice, the Fury "VIP" that was all but a luxury car with plush interiors, fake-wood trim and, of course, that bastion of luxury car denotation, fender skirts. Even on VIP-coupes. Well, no one's perfect. 

Unfortunately, there's a lack of details about this car in the Facebook Marketplace ad and while I was surprised to find it still posted when I searched for it again this morning, that could be an indication of trouble. Or someone looking to flip something they bought and quickly realized there was a whole lot to do on it they didn't anticipate. Been there done that. Note that big blob of blue paint on the hood - this oldie but goodie got resprayed a long time ago. 

Only 57,000-miles on her 57-year-old ticker but low mileage on an old car and $2.75 will buy you a ride on a New York City subway; in other words, in general, it doesn't matter.

Lack of photos of the front seat and the dash is disconcerting. Along with the resprayed paint failing there's some trim falling off but all-in, based on the pictures, not a bad looking Fury III. Especially up near Detroit where the tin-worm is as popular as it is down here in Cleveland. 

These things can be bought in even better shape for around $12,000 these days which tells me as well that the used car market is coming back down to earth. A year or so ago this would have been priced around ten-grand if not more; makes me feel a little bad for anyone who overpaid for a car during the height of the Pandemic-driven, hyper-price inflated days. 

Much of the credit for 1960's Chrysler's I appreciate goes to the famed designer Elwood Engel who his staff said had an uncanny eye for "commercial viability" of designs. I'd say he was insanely good at it. 

 

1978 AMC Matador Wagon - Non Playable Character

From my, "you sure don't see many of these around these days" file, I bring you this very generic looking blue-on-blue station wagon. It's so run-of-the-mill, save for that "WTF front end", it's almost like a non-playable-character in some video game. But this isn't an "NPC", it's an AMC Matador wagon from the last year long gone AMC pushed them out, 1978. 

I'll do my best to adjust my ocular nozzles to see this thing through my woe-be-gone, "Wonder Years" goggles and what I remember was that any folks who had one did so because they were less expensive than anything The Big Three offered. Value first and then they were somewhat less large than what GM, Ford and Chrysler sold as well. Therefore, I could surmise, I'm somewhat amazed my father didn't have one because an AMC Matador, sedan or wagon, has my old man's name written all over it. These also came in a funky, not in a good way, two-door coupe that rode on a shorter wheelbase and shared not a single body stamping. 

Same buyers of these things not unlike purchasers of anything from Hyundai or Kia today - they see value first and foremost. Or they did. Hyundai has certainly come a long way, make that a very, very long way, in shoring up their brands in the public vernacular as being more than affordable. I still would never be caught dead in one. 

AMC, which in a good year might have sold half of what Chrysler did and Chrysler sold about half of what Ford would do, sold many a Matador sedan and wagon to fleets; particularly police departments who found them to be quite reliable. Such a deal for local municipalities who'd buy then en masse. Of course, Sherriff Taylor would park his Matador behind the station at night and drove home in his Ford or Chevy. 

"AMC", an acronym for "American Motors Corporation", the result of the 1954 merger of Nash and Hudson, had cut it's front grill at first on being purveyors of compact and midsize models. Once The Big Three dipped their bumpers in their world, their golden goose was cooked. They countered with somewhat mainstream looking designs that were all but rehashes of what The Big Three baked up. The Matador, which replaced the Rebel in the AMC portfolio, was perhaps AMC's best attempt to make inroads in the lucrative family sedan\wagon market. 

For 1978 buyers had a choice of a gaggle of compacts at AMC from the Concord to the Pacer, the Gremlin and then the big jump up to the "full-size" Matador which was sized around what The Big Three marketed at the time as a mid-size car. Well, that was until GM started the great down-sizing epoch. Anyway, AMC even had a sporty version of the Gremlin they called, "AMX". Note to self, find a 1978 vintage AMX with the AMC 360-cubic inch V-8 to blog about.  

Plunging sales of the Matador, no doubt due to swanky and heavily marketed smaller wares from GM and Ford, forced AMC to the pull the plug on the whole fleet for 1979. That's not to say they went about flopping around like a fish-out-of-water. AMC rolled out their game changing four-wheel-drive Eagles for 1980; they had the hardware for it in house since Jeep was part of AMC at the time. Hard to understate what a seminal vehicle those homely-as-sin things were. 

AMC was absorbed by the Chrysler Corporation in 1987 who only wanted the company for one thing - Jeep. Chrysler promptly rebranded any existing or then in the pipeline AMC products as "Eagle"; the bones of the Eagle Premiere eventually underpinned the Chrysler "LH" series that debuted to great fanfare in 1993. 

I found this 1978 Matador wagon on Facebook Marketplace and is for sale with an asking price a pie-in-the-sky $9,500. It has only 47,000-miles on it and appears to be in great shape. Perhaps someone would see the "value" in this much like the original owner did. 

 

1977 Ford Pinto Squire - Living The Dream

Now don't be all like, "I hate Pintos" on me now. Not all of them were bad. Well, ahem, they were, actually but I mean aesthetically. Take this 1977 Pinto Squire in "arrest-me-red" for instance. This was listed on Facebook Marketplace for a scant $4,500 and if I didn't think my wife and my boys would disown me I might be inclined to kick it's tires and factory Ford Mag wheels. 

I mean, shoot. Look at the amount of cargo space this thing has with the back seat down. That's a 57.2-cubic foot hole back here. With the seat up, you still have some 36-cubic feet. I don't wish I still had my 2006 Chevrolet Tahoe and it's 106-cubic foot canyon with the seats down or out, but there are times I sorely miss it. 

And an off-beat little utility vehicle like this would be the perfect thing for those Saturday morning mulch runs to Lowes. The wagon canopy also, in my opinion, makes for a far better looking vehicle than the stubby, almost AMC Gremlin like standard coupe. I'd stop short of saying it handsome like a Vega Kammback, but it's close. 

Again, my family would kill me but what makes this really interesting is it has the optional "Cologne", 2.8-liter V-6. Although making all of 115-horsepower and 138-pounds of twist, in a 2,500-pound car, this thing is going to be pretty zippy. I spy no power-brakes or power steering. She does have an automatic, though. 

She fast? Well, not by today's insane standards but for a vehicle from the deepest, darkest throes of the so-called "Malaise Era", you could do a lot worse. Love these buckets and look at those super-clean rocker panels. This car has been adored and cared for and is one of the best looking "cheapies" I've seen in awhile. Someone hide my debit card! Steering wheel is not stock. 

A buddy of mine in high school had a vomit green, '74 Pinto (non-wagon) and he took a fair share of ribbing about it. And that was in the early '80's too before the legend of the Pinto became ingrained in the public vernacular as a bad thing. Then again, our high school did have a fair amount of richie-riches rubbing elbows with us poor slobs. Thing was, his Pinto was a blast to drive thanks to rack-and-pinion steering enabling it to handle like a go cart compared to just about anything else at the time. 

Ah, but she's red. And it has that woodie-wall paper that kids today hate with a vengeance. I don't blame them. And, yeah-yeah, the whole exploding gas tank thing. I get it. But if I can live my dream of living out in the country on multiple acres with no-one around and I need something to "go into town" in, this could be my muse. And a whole lot better on gas than some pickup truck. 

1974 Cadillac Coupe deVille - Still King

Whoa, nellie. I can't tell you the last time I saw a Cadillac Coupe or Sedan deVille in my favorite color combination of all-white on top of luscious Cadillac red leather. Not to mention a love 'em or hate 'em, '71-'76 decked out this way. And certainly, it's been decades since I've seen one like this '74 in condition this good all for "just" $7,500. This wouldn't look out of place in Elvis Presley's garage let alone mine. 

Our Elvis cake-topper here was part of GM's all new for 1971 full-size models that were longer, wider and heavier than ever. Not by much compared to the models they replaced but they continued GM's axiom of "more is more" although many a pundit say the "'71's" were not as good as the storied 1965 vintage models that came before them. 

These 1974's nearly four-inches longer than the '71's since they had government mandated 5-mile per hour "safety" bumpers front and rear; the '73's had them only up front. The safety-bumpers had a shock absorber system behind them that made all the sense in the world at the time; the delicate ribbons of chrome that passed for "bumpers" were little more than ornamental before then. Funny how what seemed  modern, exiting and the right-thing-to-do in general didn't age well. These days, pre-1973 classic cars, generally speaking, are worth more than those made afterwards. 

Model-year 1974 was a a mid-production cycle re-fresh for the class-of-'71's although there were minor changes in appearances from year to year prior. '74's got a new dashboard that featured a panel of warning (idiot) lights at the top of it, windshield wiper controls were now on the left side of the new dash instead of on the driver's door and there was a new steering wheel design. Much to my chagrin, a center-post on the Coupe deVille eliminated the hardtop aesthetic that had been a Cadillac staple back to 1949 - that done, legend has it, in anticipation of the federal government's mandating improved rollover safety. It never came to be and hardtops, if you ask me, died unnecessarily. Oddly enough, the Sedan deVille remained pillar-free. Well, that was until the Great Down-sizng Epoch of 1977. 

1974 was also the first year for what would become that oh-so-Seventies styling accoutrement, the padded-vinyl landau roof option on the Coupe that, having lived through it, seemed the epitome of luxurious decadence at the time. Now it seems akin to Liberace toilet seat. It also accentuates the center-post and through my foggy goggles, makes it seem as though the front-end of the car doesn't belong with the rear. 

Mercifully, our '74 here doesn't have it. Either someone removed it over the last half-century or so or this was a custom order. If that's the case, three-cheers to the original owner for their impeccable taste. For '74, Cadillac continued to offer an entry-level "Calais" that didn't have the landau top or leather seating areas. 

Under the hood, 1974 was the last year the deVille's had Cadillac's exclusive, 472-cubic inch V-8 that was deemed an engineering marvel when it debuted in 1968. Starting in 1975, all Cadillac models got the Cadillac 500-CID brute that had been Eldorado exclusive since 1970. '74 also the last year Cadillac's were catalytic converter free. 

That said, I've never driven a 472- or 500-cubic inch powered Cadillac and was enthralled by its performance. Perhaps mortified by it's low-to-mid single-digit gas mileage but as far as being impressed by its muster? Not so much. Legend had it that Cadillac had plans to push the 472\500 out to 600-cubic inches. 

Speaking of gas mileage, timing being everything, good or bad, this car debuted into the teeth of the first gas-crisis of October 1973 through March of 1974. Just-like-that, gas-guzzlers were verboten; Cadillac sales were down some 62,000 units but they increased market share in a very down year for the auto industry. Go figure. Then again, rich people are different from you and me. 

As part of the negotiation to get OPEC to start exporting oil back to the U.S., the Nixon administration agreed to allow OPEC to keep prices sky-high. The "N-R-G Crisis" drove the price of a gallon of regular from 29- to around 60-cents. Sounds fairly trivial today - we see those kinds of fluctuations in the price of gas regularly today but average household incomes in 1973 hovered around $10,500. Granted, most folks making that weren't driving $8,500 Cadillac's like this, but, again, everything's relative. Even if you had the means to afford one of these, what with the gas-mileage it got, you would at least notice you were spending a lot more on gas. 

Although by the time this '74 car was shinier and new it was already usurped on the snob-o-meter by makes and models from Europe costing almost twice as much, on the south shore of Long Island where this impish, car-crazy kid grew up, a big Cadillac was still king. Doctors and lawyers drove Mercedes-Benz', the blue collar, work-a-day stiffs in my neighborhood longed for one of these. 

 

1964 Chrysler New Yorker - Double Standards

These 1964 and similar looking '63 Chrysler New Yorkers certainly have their fans, I'm on the fence about them. 

That said, with this being a Chrysler, I think nothing of looking past its quirks and foibles. For certain, if this was an American Motors design, I'd think it freakish and weird. My inner voice screaming, "why can't you be normal?". It being a Chrysler I'm like, "yeah, that's cool. Not my cup of tea but ok."

Double standards are funny like that. Not unlike that charming, oh-so-handsome guy who thinks he can say whatever he wants to women in the office and get away with it. The older, pudgy, balding bespectacled clod says things not half as offensive and he ends up in HR. 

Chrysler's New Yorker was all-new for 1960 New Yorker had huge brake shoes to fill after Chrysler's 1957-1959 models changed the game wholesale. Legend has it when GM executives got wind of Chrysler's 1957 line, they scrapped their plans for their '59's coming instead with some of the most outlandish designs of all time. The Chrysler class of 1957 on top of a literal bumper crop of lovely designs they introduced for 1955. Therefore, safe to say that Chrysler was on quite the roll back then but in a day and age of "planned obsolescence", to keep everything new and make last year's model seem old and outdated, something was bound to go wrong. Or less than right. 

From 1955 through 1964, though, Chrysler had a series of designs that were, for the most part, confident, balanced, cohesive and seemingly penned by one person or team with a singular vision; that makes sense because they generally were designed by famed auto designer Virgil Exner.  

Doesn't mean they all "worked", though. Naturally, I think this works somewhat better as a coupe but all 1963 and 1964 "New Yorkers" of the vintage were 4-door sedans; you wanted something with just 2-doors you had to get a "300 J" or "K".

There's a wonton flamboyance to this car that's not unlike the fashion conscious who are able to pull off wearing just about anything and make whatever it is they're wearing seem more special because they're wearing it. Others wear the same thing and something's just not right, or "off". 

It's like someone my age trying to wear "skinny jeans". I mean, candidly, I don't embarrass myself in them but the look certainly draws attention in ways that I didn't intend. It's like my wife wearing a bikini, she most certainly can but she doesn't. 

This Facebook Marketplace find is for sale in Angola, Indiana over in north central Indiana right on the Indiana-Michigan border. The asking price is $5,600 and that seems like a bargain considering it has a rebuilt 440-cubic inch V-8 with lots of go-fast stuff on it. I'd talk the poster of the ad down just to get the motor; wish I had a Cordoba to drop it into. 

No doubt a hardcore, old school Chrysler fan would cry afoul at that notion. Don't be calling H.R. on me. 

1978 Pontiac Phoenix LJ - Summer of '83

General Motors Pontiac Motor Division glued "Phoenix" to two Chevrolet based compact cars from 1977 through 1984. The front-wheel drive, 1980-1984 Chevrolet Citation X-body based Phoenix is arguably more famous, more like infamous, than the original Phoenix which was an unabashed badge-engineered Chevrolet Nova. Doesn't mean it was a bad car by any means. Actually, these "little" suckers like our Facebook Marketplace '78 Phoenix LJ find here were pretty good transportation conveyances. 

They could handle as well if not better than just about anything else General Motors offered at the time and that's a big ding on the leaf springs of Camaros and Firebirds and yeah, even the Flintstone-crude independent rear suspensions on Corvettes of the time; trust me on that one. Snappy if not "luxurious" interiors were remarkably space efficient despite the cars being rear-wheel drive. Buckets and a console on this one too. Wow, for $6,700, this is a lot of car for the money. 

At more than 203-inches long and riding on a 111-inch wheelbase, hard to believe these were considered compacts but compared to the leviathans of the day, they technically were. What's more, when GM downsized their intermediate line for 1978, for 1978 and 1979, these cars along with their Buick Skylark, Oldsmobile Omega and of course Chevrolet Nova kin were significantly larger. Better looking too if you ask me. 

Good looking enough for a kid like me desperate for a car in the summer of 1983? Gosh, I don't know. I came fairly close I guess to purchasing a 1978 Buick V-6 powered Phoenix but after I had a mechanic check it out top-to-bottom, I decided not to. If I recall correctly, there were a series of jig-jagged welds on the rear chassis and body shell that were evident the trunk had been severely plowed into. 

Just as well as I wasn't thrilled it had a V-6 and not a Chevrolet 305-, or 350-cubic inch V-8. Somewhat curiously, these cars, the Nova-based Ventura it replaced as well, never got Pontiac's own 301-cubic inch V-8 engine. However, Pontiac offered their "Iron Duke", 151-cubic inch, inline-four-cylinder engine, essentially a 301 split in two, on these. Pontiac sales brochures touted gas mileage estimates with the Duke and 3-speed manual as high as 34-miles per gallon highway. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. 

Most certainly had that "little" Phoenix been equipped like this with a V-8 engine, buckets and a console, 19-year-old me might have overlooked the carnage it had apparently been through. As it was, though, I think I was looking for any excuse not to buy it. Sounds kind of kooky, but in the days before the internet, car shopping was akin to torture and I may have been tempted just to end the process by settling for that thing. Not that car shopping isn't torturous these days, but it is significantly simpler what with the resources like Facebook Marketplace, Cars.com, Autotrader, etc. 

What I did end up purchasing that long ago summer of '83 was a 1975 Chrysler Cordoba from the family of a friend. Not nearly as good a car, but it checked more boxes on my list prerogatives I had back then. Whoever said youth is wasted on the young surely knew what they were talking about. 

Crawling From The Wreckage: My Chrysler Cordoba - My Favorite Car (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: 1977 Chrysler Cordoba - I Guess There Are Worse Ways To Spend Your Money (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: 1975 Chrysler Cordoba - Dahlink You Look Fabulous (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: 1976 Chrysler Cordoba - More Proof The World has Gone Crazy (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: 1977 Chrysler Cordoba - Two Birds With One Stone (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: 1977 Chrysler Cordoba - Another Cordoba? (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

Crawling From The Wreckage: The Old Man, The Long Haired Kid and The Green Cordoba (charleyconnolly.blogspot.com)

 

1971 Plymouth Scamp - I Could Have Been a Contender

What with Chrysler muscle-car values through the sun- or moon-roof these days, we tend to forget about Plymouth's (and Dodge's) like this 1971 Plymouth Valiant Scamp. 

This poor thing probably has more issues than the obvious considering the Facebook Marketplace ad has it listed for a scant (scamp?) $1,500. And, ah geez, it's on a trailer to boot. If they threw the trailer in as well this might be a sweet deal for $1,500, though. 

$1,500 is still a chunk of change for a car that's going to need thousands of dollars of body work even before you get to the interior and the real fun stuff, the powertrain. And then what would have? A Plymouth Scamp you dropped like twenty-grand on? That makes no sense to me. 

Still, I would have loved to have had this when I was in high school, sans all the rust and dents of course. Even in "Exorcist Green", vinyl top and the smaller of the two "Slant Sixes" available on it at the time. This would have made for an altogether better "first-car" than the junker, 1974 Mercury Comet four-door sedan I did end up with. I'll stop short of saying this would have been "cooler", but in reality, it sort of would have been. 

Especially, with Chrysler's 318-cubic inch V-8 under hood. Man, I could have been a contender, but in the deepest throws of the second gas crisis, V-8's were verboten; not that many of these left the factory with one. 

It's not like Chrysler's venerable "Slant Six" was that much better on gas but back then it was all about the pre-tense of "fuel economy" versus being actually "good on gas". My 250-cubic inch, six-cylinder Comet got 10- maybe 11-miles per gallon. Highway. 

Although classified as "compacts", there was nothing really compact about them, these "A-bodies" were proof that Chrysler could do something right back in the 1960's; say what you will about their muscle cars, but they never sold well. 

Meanwhile, they popped these out like popcorn and America gobbled them up thanks to being "sized-right", their spacious interiors and relatively frugal powertrains. Oh, all that and they could be had for a song. 

"Scamps" were nothing more than two-door Valiant's, which were also nothing more than "badge engineered" Dodge Dart "Swingers". However, they offered a dollop or two of styling mojo that the bolt-upright, grocery-getter-ganny mobile Valiant two-door sedans sold from 1967-1970 severely lacked. 

Plymouth built these through model-year 1976 replacing them, the Valiant and the Duster with their woe-be-gone Volare series.