1977 Lincoln Continental - In A World...Of Smaller Cars...

 

 

It was the summer of 1975  when I first learned that General Motors was going to downsize its lineup starting in 1977. A foot shorter and nearly one thousand pounds lighter? I was heartbroken. Luckily, save for the ugly Chevys, GM's 1977 downsizing program became the stuff of automotive legend. However, as great a job as GM did I had a hard time accepting the fact that I would grow up in a world of "smaller" cars. This little nipper from the concrete and asphalt jungle of South Nassau liked 'em big. Really big.

So, one would think, I'd become a Ford kid what with their UN-downsized lineup of giant automobiles that somehow always seemed to be larger than the my beloved GM barges.  Well, much like "Old What Was Her Name", that pretty girl, who was everything you'd want in a girlfriend but for whatever reason you don't even like let alone love, the big Fords, particularly these late '70's Lincoln Continentals, left me yearning, no, wait...more like pining for, those GM's dreadnaughts of yore even more.

 

 

I never cared for Fords because in addition to my liking GM designs, in general more, I felt that Ford designs were nothing more than an attempt to be GMs. Throughout the 1970's, the Ford Motor Company didn't have an original design idea in their collective graphite pencils and the Continental, not to be confused with the lovely Continental Marks which originally came out in 1969, way back in the '60's, was never more than Dearborn's attempt to do a Cadillac. A Cadillac with a little Chrysler fuselage thrown in. 

Now, to be perfectly honest,  I thought the Continental a rather handsome design from 1970-1972. This is a glamour shot of a 1971 from a brochure. The coupe is even better looking although it is more Cadillac DeVille than this four door sedan is.

However, with the government mandated 5 mph "safety bumpers" starting with the front in 1973, this is a '74,  Ford, which did little more than bolt them onto the front and back of their existing design, ruined what was a pretty nice looking car. 

The addition of the big chrome log out back for 1974 did nothing for the car, "safety" aside, other than make the car longer. It wasn't Ford's fault that the 5 mph bumpers had to be; fault lies in that they didn't do a very good job of making it seem the government mandate was in the front of their minds when they designed the car in the first place. Like GM did. I guess someone at Ford missed the email from the government about the mandatory bumpers.

 

 

With the "C" pillar becoming more upright or what they call "formal looking" in 1975, the Continental became just a big, fat, ugly ass car that had really only one thing going for it between 1977 and 1979; it was bigger than anything GM had at the time.

  

 

You got to hand it to Ford, though and their attempt to exploit what they saw as an opening in the late 1970's when in fact they were just late to the downsizing party. Starting in 1980, Ford shrunk their wares even more so than GM did.

The 1980 Continental confirmed what I thought for years; that Ford didn't have a clue. Throw in another gas crunch just as they rolled out this thing and it's a miracle Lincoln made it to 1985 let alone still being in existence today.

Lincoln did make a lot of changes and improvements to the "1980 Continental" ultimately making it into a near iconic automobile for the limousine and service industries (Town Car). Ironies of ironies, Ford outlasted GM in the big, body on frame, rear wheel drive sedan market by more than a decade.

As for the 1977 Continental, it's refreshing, to me at least, to look at a car after all these years and have it bring back the flood of ambivalent memories that it does. I like it no less and certainly no more today than I did when I first saw it almost forty years ago. Same goes for "Old What's Her Name".
 

1978 Dodge Diplomat -(Not) Better With Age

 

Whiskey is good

 

Some things get better with age. Take whiskey, for instance. Chemical changes that occur in the barrel over time make old whiskey smoother, more complex or better. It also becomes more expensive. A bottle of 64-year-old Macallan sold at auction for $460,000 in 2010. Not bad for a sexagenarian.

 

 

The Big Dick

 

Legacy's can improve with age or time too. Take former President Richard Nixon. This douche bag resigned from the Presidency in disgrace in August of 1974. Forty years later he's no were near the top (or bottom) on lists of our worst Presidents. Worst human beings who were President? Perhaps. But as for the job he did while in the Oval Office, sans Watergate, "Tricky Dick" has gone down in history as being a take no prisoners, take charge, Presidential bad ass. The passage of time has been appropriately very kind to our 37th President.
 

 

The Brothers Johnson

 

Our take on music can improve with the passage of time as well. Much derided in its day, disco music's image has improved to the point where "oldies" radio stations play disco songs right along side "album rock" or "classic rock" songs; the very music that was perceived as being diametrically different from it years ago. Disco is lauded today for being wonderfully progressive; not so much for being lyrical rocket science for it certainly was not (for the most part) but the production values of disco music are as fresh today as they were years ago. Many of the pioneering production techniques from the Disco era are still used today in music ranging from country to reggae.  
 

 

The Dodge Diplomat; spectacularly appliance like from every angle.

 

Some things sadly, don't get better with age; like this 1978 Dodge Diplomat. Get da funk out ma face! 

 

 

 

The Dodge Diplomat was little more than a gussied up, extended wheel base Aspen with "Corinthian Leather". There wasn't much anything "Corinthian" (whatever that was supposed to mean anyway...) about Corinthian leather seeing it was manufactured in Newark,  New Jersey.

 

Silly me, I always though these cars were tarted up, four door Plymouth Dusters. Nope. That might make for an interesting automobile. No, after diligent research I've found that this car is based on the awful Dodge Aspen which was the replacement for the Dodge Dart/Plymouth Duster. Pull the wheelbase out a tad on the Aspen, throw in a snazzy vinyl roof, some fake wood trim and Corinthian leather and voila. Diplomat.  

 

Reputation aside, no one can deny that Chrysler had the right idea with its "Electronic Lean Burn System: A system similar to this has been used in every computer-controlled, fuel-injected car sold in this country for decades now.

 

The relentless passage of time tends to sand down our memories of the issues Chrysler had with these cars but again, it doesn't make these shit bombs any better. Shoddy build quality, weak brakes, sluggish handling, unreliable, primitive engine electronics (snaps to Chrysler for its primitive Lean Burn System but it sucked) and especially with regards to the Aspens it was based on, profit crushing recalls. Hey, just because a car is old doesn't mean it's cool. Case. In point.

 

 

Thirty six years old and still an abysmal, awful automobile.  

 

I left out bad styling because that's subjective. Personally, I think this car is generic in a way that many cars are today and that's fine. To a point. Certainly helps if a car is at least somewhat special looking to help owners get over how all around lousy it is. Like my 1977 Corvette for example. It too is an unholy piece of crap but at least it's good looking. Make that really, really good looking. It's also a Corvette and not a Dodge Diplomat.

 

 

Please, don't drink and drive.

 

Amazingly, Chrysler pushed these slobs out through 1989 although many of them were "fleeted out" to the limousine and service industry. Any average joe who bought them may have been over served Macallan.

 

 

 

Little Red Corvette - Winter Storage

 

Early this fall I made the executive decision to not put our Corvette into storage this winter. That storage money going a long way towards my replacing the power steering rack, changing the shocks, repairing the parking brake, getting new tires and finally, if I have time and money left over, a rewire of the dashboard topped off with a new dash board cover. Projects take time and that means time away from us enjoying our car during the summer months. Better to do them in the winter when there's little chance of an afternoon soiree along Lake Erie.
 

  

Well, no sooner had winter hit than disaster almost struck. Last Sunday, as I attempted to pull her out on our lightly snow packed driveway so I could start work on the Monte Carlo's ABS issues, she decided she didn't want to stop and proceeded to nearly careen not only off the center post of the garage but almost into our Tahoe. The only thing stopping her from an expensive, low speed crash was my throwing the damn thing into neutral.

 

 

Turns out what I thought was a puddle of water under the rear of the car was actually a shit ton of brake fluid; the rear cross over brake line had failed. Lovely. With the front brakes locked up and the rear wheels continuing to turn the car slid uncontrollably. With not one but two wheels churning thanks to a 3.08:1 posi rear, you can only imagine how close I came to disaster. Let's put "replace rear brakes lines" at the top of my Little Red Corvette's winter to do list. While I'm at it I might as well replace as many of them as I can.

 

 

It's going to be an interesting winter. Stay tuned. Woof.

1954 Chevrolet 210 - Happy Days

I couldn't have been 10 ten years old when the gentleman who lived across the street from us bought a new-to-him, 1954 Chevrolet 210, two door sedan. Seeing that it was the mid 1970's and that the car couldn't have been more than twenty years old at the time mattered little to me. I thought it looked like something straight off the set of Happy Days. In other words, I thought the car was prehistoric.
 

Having recently purchased a twenty year old Camaro, it has never occurred to me that it was that old but according to the calendar, it most certainly is because twenty years is twenty years regardless of whether that's 1955-1975 or 1840-1860. Of course, as we age, time compresses so everything is relative but still, metaphorically speaking, our twenty year old Camaro is not nearly as old as that '54 Chevrolet was all those years ago.
 

 

That's a testament to the fact that automobile design and engineering hit an acceptable plateau of sorts sometime over the last twenty, twenty five years.  While cars in 2014 are certainly far superior to what they were in 1996, they're not nearly as superior as 1975 automobiles were to 1954 automobiles. That's saying a lot too considering how crappy 1975 cars, particularly American makes, were to even 1996 cars.

 

 

Then again, think about how superior 1954 cars were to 1935 cars. The leaps and bounds in engineering where nothing short of remarkable. The buyer of this 1954 Chevrolet when it was new most likely marveled at its smooth, modern lines and relative ease of operation. Chances are, that person may have had a car at some point in their life that had a crank starter and didn't even have a heater. Perhaps in their childhood they got around in horse and buggy.

 

I recently went for a ride in a new Ford Escape and was impressed with its fit, finish and overall modern design. It rode and handled extremely well too. Despite all that and what appeared to be a TV right in the middle of the dash, I wasn't nearly as impressed with it as you would think I would be since the overall driving dynamic is not that much better than anything that I have now. Trust me, I'm not being "that old guy" who doesn't embrace change either. Y'see, I'm not only the owner of a twenty year old Camaro, but the owner of a fleet of vehicles with an average age of twenty three. I know an old car from a new one and appreciate the old as well as the new. Although old cars today aren't nearly as old as they used to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Suzuki SX4 - Lady, It's NOT A Truck

 

There's something oddly alluring and respectfully unpretentious about the Suzuki SX4; a vehicle that has as much visual charm as a reciprocating saw. Then again, the SX4 is not so much about visceral appeal as it about getting the job done as cost effectively as possible. It's cuteness more a function of its size more than a design cue. Much like a puppy is cute for no other reason than it's a small dog.   

 

 

This charming little bowling ball on four wheels has everything you need in a vehicle. Large, airy cabin, ample cargo space, small size for easy parking lot manuveribility, inexpensive to purchase, a reasonably fuel efficient engine, it's very well built and if not the most dazzling or refined of performers it does have something very important for us denizens of Northeast Ohio.

 

 

AWD or all wheel drive.

 

 

"AWD" gives the SX4 its adorable butchness since the bulky mechanism for driving the rear wheels is routed through the middle of the vehicle. Designers had no choice but push the vehicle up so the SX4 would have some semblance of ground clearance. In "SUV" guise, like our subject here, it works design wise but there is a sedan version that is flat out weird like those 4X4 AMC Eagles from the early '80's that looked like some hillbilly put a car body down on top of a pick up truck. Again, as a mini trucklet it looks downright manly. Raising the ride height, even on the sedans, also gives drivers an advantageous driving position.

 

 

The woman who owns this vehicle is a sweet natured but fairly salty, dogmatically practical human being who bought it new in 2009 because it was the most affordable four wheel drive vehicle that was "good on gas" that she could find at the time. She's also very petite so the size of this "truck" is perfect for her. I wasn't about to correct her when she referred to her SX4 as "her truck".  "Forgive me, ma'am but this is not a truck, it's a mini cross over utility vehicle..."

 

  

She wishes it had more cargo room but she knew that there were some compromises she have to accept to get the four wheel drive that was most important to her. She's also not had a moment of trouble with it in the five plus years and nearly 100,000 miles of ownership. Good for her.

 

Suzuki specializes in manufacturing automobiles, four-wheel drive vehicles, motorcycles, ATV's, outboard marine engines, wheelchairs and other small internal combustion engines. In 2011, Suzuki was the tenth largest automaker by production worldwide and Japan's second-largest manufacturer of small cars and trucks. Certainly tiny compared to Toyota, General Motors, Volkswagen and Hyundai overall but impressively big enough in many ways that they have stayed profitably in business since 1909 when Michio Suzuki founded the Suzuki Loom Works building weaving looms for Japan's massive silk industry.

BMW 633 CSi - At Last

 

Contemporary reviews of this car were less than flattering. It was derided for  nose heavy steering, tricky handling, a castrated, "federalized" engine and a hedonistic high price for a car that was little more than a two door version of a 5 series sedan. Some scribes went so far as to call it a Germanic Firebird.

 

 

Naysayers can say what they will for stuff like this rises far above the chattering noise of the haters. I for one believe this car to be one of the most beautiful designs of the last fifty years. It's a shame that this particular car has been abused and seemingly neglected over its long life but its well worn state, my iphone takes a flattering picture - you can't see how rough this car is - my just as well be a tribute to a car that has been used up. After all, it is just a car which is just a transportation appliance.

 

These big BMW coupes are rare; even upon my first chance encounter with one, probably thirty years ago or so, I thought it a "new" BMW model since the lines on her were so fresh. However, BMW had been pushing these across the Atlantic since 1977 at that time. To me, it was like discovering an old song for the first and feeling the earth moved by it.

 

All these years later that new old song remains as powerful as ever. 
  

 

Windshield Wipers That Won't Go Down - Happy Birthday To My Car

Me and The Dale. I found the jacket while doing volunteer work at our local Coats for Kids distribution center. I mean, seriously, what's the chance of that happening?

My 2002 Monte Carlo (#899 of 3,333 Dale Earnhardt Intimidators) celebrated its 13th birthday this past Halloween by wearing out its windshield wiper transmission. This on top of the ABS system not working had me thinking, briefly, that it might be time to shop for that Dodge Challenger R/T that I've decided will eventually replace the Monte. Facing combined repair bills for the brakes and now the windshield wiper transmission (a windshield wiper transmission? Really?) of north of a grand, you might agree that it might be time. However, I'm not your typical mild manner suburban homeowner and the 13 year old car that I drive has less than 85,000 miles on it. It still has a lot more to give. So, let's get at it.  

 



My car is essentially a two door version of the Chevrolet Impala. It's also very similar to the Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Regal and Oldsmobile Intrigue of the same vintage.
 

God Bless youtube. The first thing I tried was to follow along to a video of a crude fix of my exact windshield wiper problem. This happens to some degree of regularity on cars like mine (GM W-bodies) and the fix seemed very straight forward. Remove the cowl and bend back a small metal tab that acts as a shift point that engages a cam on the wiper motor when the wipers are turned off. That tab had, apparently, gotten worn down but if you pull it up a tad it works just fine. The "fix" worked at first (this problem has been ongoing for the better part of year) but after a heavy snow last winter the wipers acted up again. It's not the end of the world since the wipers still worked, it's just when they're off, they're stuck up. Quite the annoyance. I "fixed" them again but I had a feeling at that time the next time they broke that more extensive surgery would be required to fix them since I had bent the shit out of that tab.

 

Wipers stuck up. Amazingly, I did get used to driving with these things up like this.

 

That time finally did come just as my car turned 13 years old. I was right, too; there was no fixing the wipers again with the quick youtube fix despite spending hours attempting to do so. This was one of those problems that just felt like it was going to be expensive to repair and I was right. A call over to my very courteous new car dealership's parts and service counter had me a out the door estimate of  just over $500 for the fix. $260 for parts and another $250 or so for labor, shop fees and what not. God. Damn it.

 

This donor wiper transmission came from a 2003 Monte Carlo and cost me only $57 with a one year warranty.

 

Here's where I think a lot of people let themselves down, though - they don't listen to what a repair shop is telling them when they're being told what needs to be done to their car. When I called the dealership and explained the problem they told me exactly what needed to be done, replace the wiper transmission. I told them I'd call them back in a few minutes but instead of calling them back, I called a local junkyard and asked them if they had a windshield wiper transmission for my car. They did. What was more, they wanted just $45 for it. Bingo. I had them throw in a one year warranty for another $12 so out the door I'm in the black for at least $450 on this project. This, friends, is how we do it.

 

These 1aauto.com videos are fantastic

 

The only thing left to do was to follow another youtube video (these 1aauto.com videos are  fantastic) on the removal and installation of a windshield wiper transmission and voila. Mission accomplished. It was a very straight forward process. By the way, I'm not sure which I like better, making these big, unusual repairs on my old car or saving wads of cash. Bit of both I'm sure.

 

Work is about to begin 

 

No sooner had I completed the project and boasted to my wife of my latest accomplishment that she  told me she's going to use the money I didn't spend on buying her mother airline tickets so she can spend Thanksgiving with us.

 

 

Half hour later the donor transmission is in the car and bolted down.

 

I can't wait to see what breaks next to see what she spends the savings on.

 

 

 

1975 Dodge Coronet Brougham 2 door Hardtop - Lesser Royalty

 

Buying an old car is not unlike dating; you really don't know what you're getting yourself into when it first starts out and it's easy to become infatuated with something new and different. If you're thinking of buying an old car do your best not to overspend at the onset since there are few cars that have will return any R.O.I. let alone significant returns. With regards to this very nice Dodge Coronet (a what?) perhaps, like myself, you're smitten with its humble charms, fetching lines and impeccable condition. That's fine until you see the asking price of $11,500. Noting has you yelling, "check please" faster than an absurd asking price.

There's more than just the crazy asking price (that can be negotiated) to turn prospective buyers away never asking for second date. This car is just too unique to make spending any significant money on it even remotely worthwhile. Chrysler made the Coronet coupe for only 1975 and while mechanically parts are plentiful, exterior body panels would be hard to come by if heaven forbid something happened to the car. Save for some minor trim bits and pieces, this car is all but identical to the Plymouth Fury coupe that Chrysler built from 1975 to 1978 but understand they didn't make many of those either. It's those bits and pieces of trim that once gone, would be all but impossible to find.

There's much to like about this car, though. It's in fabulous condition and with only 10,000 miles on it, it's virtually a time machine back to the mid 1970's. You can almost hear President Ford pardoning Nixon on the single speaker on the middle of the dash. 

This is one of the zanier interior themes from the 1970's I think I've ever seen but this is the way they built them back then. I remember seeing interiors like this new as a kid and I absolutely hated them. By the end of the decade most if not all of these patterns where gone from car interiors.

Thank goodness none of this pattern made its way to the dashboard. Notice the power seat bezel and the lack of power windows and no tilting column. This is one of the many reasons why American cars years ago where so shoddily constructed; there were just so many ways cars could be configured lending to mistakes made at the factory. Buyers could pick and choose their options before the car was even built waiting weeks for their "custom" order to come in. Car buying forty years ago was a much different process than it is today.

 

Another odd option although highly desirable now, the top of the line engine on these cars back in 1975 and with the hard to find four barrel carburetor. It's odd in that this being a 1975 and buyers being so fuel economy conscious back then (as now), I'm surprised to find this here and not the standard and thriftier 318 engine. Especially considering the sparseness of the interior. This does help the value of the car, though although not to the tune of $11,500.

 

  

Everything is for sale and everything can be bought. This car will find a buyer and perhaps it would trade for near that asking price but I'd be leery for the reasons I have outlined here. Best to buy the car because of the condition its in as opposed to what it is but even that's a risky proposition; good luck getting this insured for anywhere near what you'd pay for it. If it was a Chevrolet Monte Carlo or Pontiac Grand Prix of this vintage and in this condition the asking price would be even higher but, it's not. It's a 1975 Dodge Cornet.

 

My best offer would be $6000. Good luck with your dating and old car search!

 

A coronet is a small or relatively simple crown worn by lesser royalty.