1954 Chevrolet 210 - Happy Days

Bruce Neubeck was the oldest son of the family that lived directly across from my family on Overlook Place in Baldwin, New York and he bought a '54 Chevrolet like this in the spring of 1975. Bruce was more than ten-years older than the rest of kids on the block and I remember like it was yesterday the day he recruited a bunch of us to help him "push-start" it, a practice to start a manual transmission car that has a dead battery that I still find fascinating. 

Once or twice he popped the clutch it stopped dead still and our faces all went splat into the chalk board straight trunk lid; the day and age it was I'm sure our parents laughed their asses off if they saw that. Nowadays lawyers would be summoned. The midwestern wholesomeness of the whole thing combined with how ancient I felt the car was made me feel as though I was in an episode of  "Happy Days", my favorite TV show at the time. I loved every fleeting second of it. 

This literal and figurative rerun is for sale on Facebook Marketplace near my current home in Cleveland, Ohio with an asking price of $6,500 and, no, I'm not about to make an offer on it just to recreate that moment. Although, I wouldn't mind taking this for a spin. No push starting, though, as it has a Powerglide (automatic). Comes with factory power steering and brakes (wow!) and has the "Blue Flame 125", inline, Chevrolet six-cylinder it was born with. That in and of itself is remarkable in that some time during the last near 70-years, no one has swapped it out. 

Poster of the ad is helping their father sell this thing. He or she either copy and pasted some flowery prose about old cars or studied to be a real estate agent and aced the part about writing nonsensical copy to hawk houses. 

"Are you looking to own one of the most iconic Chevrolet's of the 1950's or to relive your glory days and cruise like the old days with your loved ones on your main boulevard with a cool classic car? This cool 1954 Chevrolet 210 2 door sedan could be just the ticket to cool summer nights and car cruises across the valley!"

This isn't for me but but someone looking for a foil for an "LS-swap" might construe this a bargain. Looks pretty free from rust and the interior is nice and tidy in that charming 1950's librarian\utilitarian kind of way before everything GM made was a "luxury car". Trunk apparently is full of extra parts. 

1954 was the last year for Chevrolet's first post-war models that debuted in 1949 and received a mid-production cycle styling update for 1953. Our subject here is a "210", 2-door sedan meaning it's a mid-level (between the entry-level 150 and top drawer "Bel Air"), pillared (center post) two-door and not the more desirable and valuable Bel Air Sport Coupe with its glorious hard top. Although less structurally sound, hard tops, so called because they lacked the center post "sedans" had and resembled convertibles with their tops up, are much more valuable. 

Bruce didn't keep that '54 very long. He and his father flipped cars regularly which annoyed my father to no end; he claimed they were running a used car business out of their garage and that was "code violation". Whatever, dad. When he go off like that I'd just sigh, stare at their cars or go back to emulating Fonzie.

 

1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 (coupe!) - Good Morning B-Body Lovers!

Good morning GM "B-body lovers"! Today's "B" is a 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 and hails from bucolic, Elyria, Ohio which, without traffic, is maybe thirty-five minutes west of downtown Cleveland. Asking price? $4,000. While the used car market is softening somewhat, I still have a hard time coming to grips that a 39-year old appliance like this could possibly go for that much money. Then again, at least it's not ten-grand or so like it might have been back at the height of the post Pandemic used car market price surge. Poster of the ad says it's "historic" and has historic plates. They also claim at four-large this is quite the bargain. Thanks for the insight or your opinion, but we'll make that determination. Haggerty might consider this "classic", but just because something is old, doesn't mean it's "classic". As far as the price goes, well, I'm sure someone will jump at this at that asking price. 

This '84 Delta 88 was one of the last of its kind from General Motors' "Rocket" division; "Rocket" stemming from their seminal overhead valve, "Rocket" V-8 engine they they introduced in 1949. The original Olds "88" was an Oldsmobile "76" with the "Rocket 88" V-8 engine found in the somewhat larger bodied and heavier "98". Being lighter and somewhat shorter, many consider the 1949 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 to be the world's first "muscle car". 

  

The late Ike Turner is given credit for writing a song about it too.

Which is a tad amusing consider that just a scant thirty or so years later what an Oldsmobile 88 had turned into. No one would confuse our '84 here with being a muscle car. Although, with a gloriously accessible engine compartment, one could certainly turn it into anything they'd want it to be. 

These cars are not without their flaws, though. My experience with them "back in the day", despite having driven only coupes like this, was disappointing. And for reasons in addition to their flat out flaccid and gutless power trains; that we can now change. I'm of very average height, and I always struggled to get a comfortable driving position in these cars if the driver's seat was not power adjustable. I sat too low and couldn't see over the dash where I felt the top of it wasn't in the center of my vision. And trust me, in cars this big, you need to be able to see over the dash. 

So, if there's no power seat adjuster, at least for the pilot, I'm out. There's no picture of the drivers seat so I can't tell if its power or not; this does have power windows, which are nice but not necessary. Back then option packages were ala carte - you could order power windows and skip power locks and the power seat or configure your car anyway you want. Experts say that the myriad ways these cars came from the factory in was the bane of quality control. 

Not being able to see made parking lot maneuvers challenging too. These cars, although "downsized" were very, very big. While some SUV's today might actually be bigger than our 88 here, with the mandate of rear cameras on all vehicles sold in this country since 2017, backing up and parking is much simpler. This thing? You hope and poke. 

Seems to be in decent shape although these pictures do it no justice. The muddy tires, dirt driveway, etc. Save for that ouchie on the rear quarter, for four-grand you could do worse. Also, depends on what you want it for. First car for your high schooler who will trash anything you buy for them? Err, not so much. As a fun project you could hot rod for not too much money? Oh, absolutely. Sign me up to help even. Good grief, though, is that right rear tire flat? 

Poster of the Facebook ad for this 1984 Oldsmobile Delta 88 lists it as a 1987 which, of course, we all know it can't be. By '87 these cars were shrunken, front-wheel-drive facsimiles of their once grand and glorious selves although they were far superior transportation conveyances. Some sleuthing and by the number of slots on its grill I deduce it's actually a 1984. 

These cars are part of General Motors' much celebrated class of 1977, downsized full-size makes and models. Of all of them, which, frankly, I'm in the minority being ambivalent towards them, the Oldsmobile's were my least favorite. Too blocky and too square, it was if they ran out of ideas. For 1980, GM designers breathed some aero pixie dust on them transforming the once staid designs that were the embodiment of "Your Father's Oldsmobile" into something far more progressive. Not nearly to the extent of what was to come in 1985 for the 98 and in 1986 for the 88 line, but at least enough that they looked like more than shrink ray versions of what had come before them. 

 

1972 Cadillac Eldorado - Are They Really Alive?

I've written so much about Cadillac Eldorado's in all their good, bad and indifferent guises and iterations, that I believe I'm plum tuckered out of things to say about them. I guess I felt bad for this old lion when I saved some of the photos from the Facebook ad for it decided to write something about it. If for no other reason out of respect for it. 

While a 1967-1970 Eldorado might have a place in my Jay Leno Fantasy Garage, these 1971-circa reboots, that I think turned the once proud, cutting edge designs into parade floats, I'd rather see used to help prevent beach erosion. These came in convertible form too which only accentuated their floppiness. 

This patina rich Eldo strikes a chord with me reminds me as it reminds me of when I would visit my father in various nursing homes he was shuttled around to at the end of his life. One in particular with an indifferent staff and stinking of cheap institutional food, bleach, urine and feces - a god awful place. Many rooms filled with ghastly old people staring blankly at the ceiling with mouths agape. No one with them, heart monitor beeping slowly. I hope they were high as kites oblivious to their situation. Where they really alive? 

Who would buy this and why? Asking price is $4,000 which I think fair but still, a lot of money to put down on something that'll need twice that to stop people from putting their noses up. It probably has a ton of heart warming stories to tell if it could. That bug deflector tells me it was perhaps a retired couple's dream car and they used this gas-inhaling hog to tour the country. Then one of them passed and the other lost the drive to make such trips and it got stored, maybe for a time outside so the elements got the best of it for a while. We'll never know. Best to look away and pretend not to see it - like I did seeing those poor souls in that nursing home my father was in years ago. 

 

1962 Pontiac Tempest - Weird and Wonderful

Ah, the weird and wonderful 1961-1963 Pontiac Tempest; this Facebook Marketplace find is a '62. These little cars were Pontiac's 1961-1963 entry into the compact car market that Chevrolet first dove headfirst into with their really out-there, air-cooled, rear-engine Corvair in 1960. The Facebook ad misidentifies this as a Pontiac LeMans; LeMans was a trim package on the Tempest in 1961 and 1962 before becoming its own line in 1963. So, officially, this is a Pontiac Tempest LeMans. Asking price is $5,000. 

I know. Five-grand is a good chunk of change for one of these even in showroom\museum condition -  which this most certainly is not in. It's had a considerable amount of body work done and still needs a lot. Especially underneath - we can see here the unit-body has rusted away exposing the body shell. That's going to be expensive to fix - IF you can find someone to do it. At least the poster of the ad was forthcoming with it. 

The Corvair with its rear mounted engine was a costly endeavor for General Motors and to amortize development costs, General Motors mandated Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick use the same bodyshell and floor pan the Corvair used on their versions of the Corvair. Similarities all but ended there what with GM's semi-autonomous corporate structure; our Tempest along with Oldsmobile's F-85 and Buick Special rode on a slightly longer wheelbase than what the Corvair had and the P-O-B cars were front engine. Somewhat oddly, the Pontiac and Oldsmobile F-85 shared the same bodies. 

Being front engine and using the Corvair's floor pan that was all but flat, there were some hurdles to clear in getting torque from the engine to the rear wheels. Oldsmobile and Buick used a two-piece drive shift with a universal joint between the two halves meanwhile Pontiac used a thin, flexible, albeit wrought shaft that somewhat resembled a cable; it was nicknamed, "rope drive". Motor Trend thought so highly of the Pontiac Tempest that for 1961 they gave their haloed golden calipers as their "Car of the Year". 

In addition to "rope drive", Pontiac took funky to another level with what they stuffed under the hood. Since Pontiac and GM didn't have an inline four-cylinder engine at the time of the Tempest's development, Pontiac created their own using the right bank of their vaunted 389-cubic inch, "Trophy V-8". Displacing a whopping (for a four-cylinder) 195-cubic inches or 3.2-liters, with no balance shafts to quell the vibration inherent in four-cylinder engines and particularly large fours like this, the "Trophy 4" was one hell of a "paint shaker". Above is a picture of the big-little chugger from the Facebook ad. There's a video in the ad of it running and you can see it shaking.  

GM restyled the Tempest, Olds F-85 and Buick Special for 1963 removing most if not all the unique styling of the cars making them far more mainstream looking. Pontiac offered their stump-pulling 326-cubic inch V-8 for '63; too bad they didn't offer it on our '62 too. 

Despite the expense of development and even relatively decent sales, GM pulled the plug on the Pontiac, Oldsmobile and Buick compacts after 1963 moving the nameplates to GM's new-for-1964. "A-body" intermediates. They rebooted the Corvair's body for '65 and kept it around through 1969. 

As they say in the used car business, there's an "arse" for every seat. I've gone back to Facebook Marketplace trying to find this again - no dice. Apparently it's gone. High asking price, rust, paint mixer engine, rope drive and all. 

 

1968 Mercury Cougar - My Kinda Party

  

"My Kinda Party" was the title song of Jason Aldean's fourth studio album that was released late in 2010. The single peaked at number-two on the Billboard Hot Country songs chart and was certified "Platinum", denoting sales of at least two-million. "My Kinda Party" was written and originally recorded by Brantley Gilbert in 2009. Warning, incoming old fashioned name drop incoming, the first time I met Brantley, I asked him what kind of car he was referring to in the lyric from the song, "got the cover off the sixty-eight". He didn't miss a beat saying, "'my '68 Cougar". 

I knew I liked this kid. Here is a very young B.G. with his literal and figurative '68 he said he sold once for $4,000 to pay for his band to get back home to Georgia after a show in Texas. The guy he sold it to said he'd sell it back to him for what he paid for it but when Brantley went to do so, the guy went back on his word demanding $25,000. Long story short, after some negotiation and cajoling, Brantley got his '68 back. 

The Ford Motor Company's late and most often time not-so-great middle priced division produced a "Cougar" in various guises on-and-off over 34-model years. In my opinion, the only model years that mattered are 1967, the first year it came out, and 1968 like B.G.'s and this $15,000 Facebook Marketplace find; save for side markers on the front fenders on '68 Cougars in compliance with federal regulations, the cars are the same. Subsequently, those were boom years for the nameplate and for the market segment Ford all but, excuse me, sired in 1964, when they, ahem, foaled the Mustang. 

Ford sold nearly 681,000 Mustangs between its April 17, 1964 launch and the end of 1965 and by the end of the 1966 model year, Ford totaled near 1.3-million Mustangs sold making it the most successful new vehicle launch in automobile history. Not surprisingly, Mercury executives wanted a "Mustang" as well. A Mercury version was actually in the works alongside the original Mustang but Ford hedged their bets plowing all their marketing resources into one car and not two. Seeing the success of the Mustang, you could construe they focused and spent their money wisely. However, what was internally known as the "T-7", was to be a softer riding, luxury themed or tinged version of the Mustang. When Ford updated the Mustang for model year 1967, they allowed Mercury to introduce the "T-7"

Despite unique and quite handsome sheet metal stretched out on top of a three-inch longer wheelbase than the Mustang had, there were challenges with these cars right from the get go. Most of them circumstantial having nothing to do with the cars themselves. 

First, with a softer suspension tuning and lacking some key luxury accoutrements like power windows, with the Cougar's on average $300 higher price tag, customers who bought into the pretense of an "American Jaguar" were hard to come by. And despite finding some 150,000 buyers in 1967 and around 113,000 for 1968, Ford surmised those sales came at the expense of not only the Mustang, but sales of Mercury Comet's, Mercury's at the time intermediate offering. Not only did Mercury's market share not increase, the Ford Motor Company's as a whole didn't either. 

At least it had its to-die-for good looks. Along with funky, pointless cool doo-dads like concealed head lights and rear turn signals that blinked like the sequential tail lamps on Ford's hallowed Thunderbird did. Mercury even marketed these cars as being for the, get this, "man on his way to a Thunderbird". Ford had been experimenting with the this slotted, electric razor type front end for years before finally dropping it on the Cougar. 

Circumstantially, in 1967, General Motors came out with two ponies to compete with Ford's duo splitting the pony car blade of grass further. Sales were remarkably strong for the segment through the end of '60's, Chrysler's pony was the Plymouth Barracuda (Dodge didn't get one until 1970), but by the end of decade, it seemed those who wanted one got theirs and didn't repeat buy or were put off by insurance surcharges that tacked on a steep tariff to anything remotely construed as a performance car. 

Mercury built the Cougar on the same chassis as the Ford Mustang through 1973 doing a debatably ample job of disguising its Mustang's underpinnings. For 1974, Mercury lightly disguised a Ford Torino Elite as a "Cougar" thrusting the moniker into the burgeoning "personal luxury car" niche where it stayed stuck through 1997. A snappy performing but odd-looking coupe based on the Ford Contour debuted for MY 1998 through 2003. Them, sorry, Brantley and Janson, but the party was over. On an upside, Mercury sold more "Cougars" in their various guises than any other of their nameplates over its protracted 71-year existence. 

1994 Mercury Sable - The Pandemic May Finally Be Over

A sable is a small, weasel-like, omnivorous mammal indigenous to forests in the Northern hemisphere. Sadly, they're probably best known for their luscious fur coats more than anything else. 

The Ford Motor Company's late and more often than not "meh" middle division made a "Sable" from 1986 through 2003 and in 2008 and 2009. Based on whatever the then current version of Ford's Taurus was, oddly enough, when Ford changed the name of the Taurus to "Five Hundred" from 2004-2007, Mercury followed suit changing the name of their Sable to "Montego". 

But wait, there's more. When Ford changed the name of what what was the "Five Hundred" to "Taurus" for 2008 and 2009, the "Montego" became "Sable". Our sea foam, Facebook Marketplace find here is a 1994 Montego. Sorry, Sable. 

Seeing how below projections the Sable sold during it's protracted production run, it's somewhat amazing in retrospect Mercury built five different generations of it. Our '94 here part of the second-gen of Sables made between 1992 and 1995 and you wouldn't be alone not seeing the subtle changes in body work between the first two generations. You also wouldn't be alone in calling this a "Taurus". Which it for all intents and purposes it is. 

The Mercury Sable underscores the challenges the Ford Motor Company had in defining what a Mercury was. Created in 1938 to compete with General Motors' middle-priced Oldsmobile and Buick brands, on the rarest of occasions, for most of its 74-model years a "Mercury" was no more than a fancified Ford sold alongside Lincolns. 

At first a stand-alone division, Ford partnered Mercury with their Lincoln brand after World War II thus creating the Lincoln-Mercury division. If you're of a certain, shall we say, "vintage", the Lincoln-Mercury moniker actually meant something. Or, was supposed to mean something. Again, what that was always fairly murky. 

If anything, a "Mercury" portended to be somewhat of an aspirational premium brand being sold fender-to-fender with Ford's luxury brand. Similar to what Chrysler did with their "low-priced" Plymouth and upmarket Chrysler divisions in creating "Chrysler-Plymouth", the tangible difference was, on paper at least, on the rarest of occasion would a customer enter a Chrysler showroom looking to buy a New Yorker and left with a Plymouth Fury. However, it was not uncommon for someone to walk into a Lincoln store fixing to buy a Continental and drive off in a much less expensive equivalent Mercury. 

"Lincoln-Mercury" even rolled out a Taurus or Sable based Continental from 1988 through 1994. Although it had a longer-wheelbase and a more formal rear roofline, to those that knew, it was obvious those Continentals were Sables or Taurus' with little more than higher sticker prices. 

On the upside, The Ford Motor Company broke their own sedan mold with these cars debuting them in 1985 for model-year 1986. Front-wheel-drive on such a large vehicle as well as four-wheel-independent suspension, rack-and-pinion steering, an available four-speed-overdrive automatic transmission along with an aerodynamic unit-body was truly progressive in its day. 

GM girl I am, I much preferred the large-ish GM front-wheel-drivers introduced all but at the same time as the Sable and Taurus rolled out. Those even came in coupe guise whereas the Sable (and Taurus) didn't although the Sable and Taurus were available as wagons; the GM makes and models were not. Meanwhile, auto pundits showered these Fords with glowing reviews while damning the new-fangled Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac's with faint praise. 

If anything, our green (or is it blue?) Sable with just 136,000-miles on its 29-year-old analog ticker has a fairly reasonable asking price of $2,995. Get it for closer to $2,500 and you have yourself an even better deal. It's a private sale and no doubt would have another two-grand or so tacked on if it was sold at a corner used car lot; we all know those places are more financing shops than used car purveyors. Also, keep in mind that 12- to 18-months ago, this $2,995 Mercury Sable would have had an asking price double that. 

Looks like The Pandemic may finally, really be over. 

Oldsmobile Jetfire Turbo Rocket - It's Five O'clock Somewhere

We all have things in our attics, garages or basements we don't want to simply throw out or give away thinking they might be worth something. How else to explain why someone would think this 1962 Oldsmobile "Jetfire Turbo Rocket" would be worth $600. 

If anything, this is an interesting chunk of automobile history given that is one of the first turbochargers ever offered on an automobile. For 1962, Oldsmobile bolted this to their alloy, "Rockette" 215-cubic inch V-8 they first introduced on their new-for-1961, "F-85" compact. 

At about the same time, Chevrolet also introduced a turbo on a version of their rear-engine, air-cooled, flat-six Corvair. Depending on what you read, pundits of both claim their turbo came first. Does it really matter given they were both GM developments? 

At the risk of oversimplification, a turbocharger is a compressor driven by an engine's exhaust that forces compressed air into an engine to improve its performance. A "super" charger does essentially the same thing but it differs from a turbo in that it's driven by a pully on the engine. Turbocharging was nothing new by the early 1960's, they had been used on gas and diesel industrial engines for years prior, but the Oldsmobile Jetfire and Chevrolet Corsair where the first mass produced cars to use them. 

And to have one to say nothing of two GM products feature them at the same time speaks to how forward thinking GM was in the early 1960's. They weren't perfect, though. In fact, far from it. Especially our Jetfire Turbo here that required an ethanol and distilled water mixture to prevent pre-ignition in the 10.5:1, high-compression 215 engine. Many a Jetfire owner would neglect to fill the under-the-hood reservoir with the special go-fast juice thus reducing the engine's performance. Purportedly, a turbocharged 215 V-8 made some 215-horsepower (gross rated) compared to just 155 for a non-turbo 215. 

Perhaps the seller of this hunk of metal took a couple of big swigs of that special "Turbo Rocket Fuel". How else to explain why they would think anyone would pay $600 for this? Hey, it's five o'clock somewhere, right? 

To build this, GM had help from the Garret Corporation, that had considerable experience in building turbochargers for industrial applications.  Chevrolet got their schooling on turbos from the Thompson-Ramo-Wooldrige corporation that became known as TRW in 1965. 

Oldsmobile had other challenges with the 215 other than its wonky turbo. Being made of aluminum, the engine had cooling issues because they couldn't determine, at first, which type of coolant was best. Use of certain coolant clogged cooling passages in the engine leading to overheating and head gasket failure. 

While Chevrolet soldiered on with the Corvair turbo through 1969, Oldsmobile pulled the plug on the Jetfire Turbo Rocket after 1963 with just 9,617 ever made making today's Facebook Marketplace discovery quite rare. 

On a bright note, Buick used the 215 Olds engine as a blueprint of sorts to create it's 90-degree, iron block and head V-6 known at first as the Buick "Fireball". That engine over the years receiving a number of refinements and innovations eventually becoming the famous GM "3800" series of engines. 

 

By the way, no. I didn't search for this but based on Facebook Marketplace's algorithms of my past searches, it has determined that I need this. Well, I'm always on the hunt for things that will give my 1977 Corvette more power...could this be just what the doctor ordered? There's nothing in the ad that says the special turbo cocktail comes with it, though. Cheers. 

 

1983 Dodge Rampage - City Slicker

The most famous and, dare I say, seminal of Chrysler K-cars was their game changing mini-van introduced in 1983. Just-like-that, breeding Boomers had their family truckster and the rest is history.  On the other side of the sales success spectrum were Chrysler's K-car based, 1982-1984 "coupe utilities"; Plymouth called theirs "Scamp" (1983 only) and Dodge called theirs "Rampage". Our Facebook Marketplace 1983 Rampage here hails from bucolic Greenville, Pennsylvania nestled on the Ohio-P.A. border roughly an hour northwest of Pittsburgh and 90-minutes southeast of Cleveland. Purportedly all of 17,000-miles on it's forty-year-old analog ticker. Asking price is negotiable. 

If I recall correctly, I believe my knee-jerk reaction to these things when I first saw one back in the day was something along the lines of, "what the f--k is that?" Please understand that I grew up in a bedroom community of New York City where such things like this were about as common as a seeing a cow in a supermarket. Well, a fully assembled, alive and breathing cow and not one or several already dismantled and ready for grilling. If I didn't "get", understand or appreciate the virtues of pickup trucks or anything construed as midwestern, again, back then, highly unusual to see a pickup used as a daily conveyance where I come from, to say nothing of how dazed and confused I was regarding Chevrolet El Caminos\GMC Sprints and Ford Rancheros, imagine how I felt about these things. 

All I saw was a K-car pretending to be an El Camino. Nothing more and probably a whole lot less. Well, it was considerably less big than an El Camino or Sprint of the era; Ford got out of the Ranchero business after 1978 although they did commission a number of Fairmont's for custom conversion to  "pickup cars" from 1979-1982. Wannabee city-slicker me not seeing these things for what they were really trying to be - an affordable, efficient, and quite practical utility vehicle with a dash of sporty panache. 

Based on the bones of the newly freshened for 1982 Dodge Omni O24 Chrysler dubbed, "Charger", our Rampage here uses the Charger's comely front end with a unique utility box aft of what would be the Charger's center-post or B-pillar. The unit-body riding on a slightly elongated Charger chassis with the Charger's front coil struts and an exclusive leaf spring\shock absorber rear suspension. With a tubular rear axle, Chrysler claimed a 1,000-pound payload capacity and 750-pound towing capacity. This just in - you ain't towing the camper with this thing. 

Propulsion was provided by a Chrysler-built, 2.2-liter, overhead-valve, inline-four-cylinder engine making 84-horsepower. Sorry, no pictures of that autobahn scourge in the ad. Our red head here has Chrysler's slushy but rugged, three-speed A413 transmission derived from the Volkswagen A404 box Chrysler used in the Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon going back to 1978. Four- and five-speed manuals were also available. 

Although weighing just 2,400-pounds, performance was best described as leisurely to the tune of zero-to-sixty in 16-seconds. Whoa. Most vehicles today can do the quarter-mile in 16-seconds or less. Then again, it was the early '80's, most everything was grossly underpowered. Chrysler claimed 25-mph city, 40-highway. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. 

Too small for pickup truck aficionados and not, I guess, bizarre enough for fans of the VW Rabbit based coupe utility or Subaru Brats of the day, despite high critical praise from auto scribes, Chrysler moved just over 37,000 Rampages in just three model years of production. Meaning, our little front-wheel-driving coupe utility here is quite rare and unique. 

Despite my misgivings at first, I've actually always thought these things quite cool looking. And if I had the room and\or need for something wholly practical and not wanting to spring for an SUV or "real" pickup, this little Rampage here might be the ticket for me. I'm not quite there yet, I don't know if I ever will be to be quite honest, but it's nice to see how much my taste in things as evolved from the cloistered myopia of my youth where it seemed anything remotely construed as midwestern was verboten. 

 

1999 Acura RL - Far Off The Pace It Set

This is a 1999 Acura 3.5RL

Japan renegotiated their trade limitation agreements with the United States in the early 1980's that not only enabled them to export more cars for sale here but opened the door for them to import another type of vehicle class entirely - luxury cars. Of course, what they would sell as a luxury car in the U.S. had nothing in common with the then current domestic axiom, albeit one that was evolving, but rather an emulation of the best of what Germany had to offer. 

Honda introduced their Legend sedan in the U.S, under their newly minted "Acura" moniker, for model year 1986 and, not surprisingly, especially considering they were priced considerably less than the cost of a Mercedes-Benz and other pricey German makes cost then, it was a huge sales success. They also sold a luxury version of their Civic they called "Integra"; a Legend coupe followed in 1987. Seemingly overnight, the notion of a Japanese automaker going bumper to bumper with haughty German makes and models wasn't such a, excuse the pun, "foreign" concept. Although by 1986, Honda had long entrenched itself in this country as a purveyor of high-quality transportation conveyances. Given that, it wasn't such a stretch to believe they could pull off what they did so successfully. 

Allegedly, "Acura" stems from the Latin term, "acu" which refers to something done with acute precession.

The first two-generations of the Acura Legend were, warning, another pun incoming, legend. Almost too much so as much to the dismay of Honda executives, many a Legend owner referred to their cars as "Legends" and not "Acura's". Seems fairly inconsequential now, but keep in mind at the time, "Acura" was a fledging nameplate Honda was attempting to carve out a niche if not identity for. Spurred or encouraged by Honda's success, Toyota and Nissan introduced luxury marquees in 1989 doing the Acura brand no favors either. As for GM and Ford, well, they may have just laid there like proverbial slugs as their entire world was upheaved right in front of their headlights. 

 

So, when it came time to introduce a third generation of the Legend, Honda took a page from European brand Germans and began using an alphanumeric naming scheme and, thus, for 1997, the "Legend" was rechristened "3.5RL". "RL" purportedly for "road luxury". To add insult to injury, at least styling wise, the new RL was not only no second-generation Legend, it also came only in four-door guise. 

Acura, a division of Honda, was first introduced in the United States in 1986. 

Although one of these bland looking if not homely sedans could suck the doors off any Cadillac or Lincoln of the vintage, we can't say the same about how it fared versus a comparable Lexus (Toyota) or Infiniti (Nissan). Although, in fairness, the rear-wheel-drive Lexus' and Infiniti's range topping models were different in concept and execution from the front-wheel-drive Acura 3.5RL. Begs the question, how come Honda never come with a V-8 powered, rear-wheel-drive sedan like Toyota and Nissan did? Because they never created one for their home market they could base one on. And the cost to build one from scratch would have been cost prohibitive, especially one that was built specifically for export. 

Subsequently, sales of the slab-sided, wallowing, relatively underpowered 3.5RL cratered in comparison to the second-generation Legend. While a still far superior automobile to anything GM or Ford was producing at the time, Daimler's influence on Chrysler, which it acquired in 1998, didn't really come into play until 2004, Honda found itself far behind the Asian luxury-car import race it all but started in this country. Subsequent updates to the RL, while much improved, didn't fare much better nor improve upon Acura's literal pole position in the marketplace. At least in comparison to Lexus, in particular, and Infiniti. 

The Acura 3.5RL replaced the Legend in Acrua's lineup starting in 1996.

What, then, to make of this 1999 3.5RL I found for sale on Facebook Marketplace recently with a scant 111,000-miles on its ticker with a more than fair, at least on paper, asking price of $4,500? If you can look past it's oh-so-'90's Asian motif and see it for what it is, that being a super well built, bank-vault solid driver that will run for at least another 100 or 200K, for someone looking for a stalwart commuter for not a lot of money, they'd be hard pressed to do better these days. Just don't try and fool yourself into thinking you're driving anything more than that.