1977 Pontiac Catalina - Proof Is In The Pudding

I found this pristine 1977 Catalina on Facebook Marketplace the other morning for sale down in Akron. Not that it matters on a car this old but there are less than 35,000-miles on its 46-year-old ticker and has an asking price of $8,500. I guess the asking price is fair - although, this is about as rental grade as it got back then and for that money, in my opinion, you could get "more car" for your money than an old bone stripper. What I found interesting about this car, though, and I never realized this before, is how much it looks like a Buick LeSabre two-door coupe from the same era. 

As they say, proof is in in the pudding. Above is a 1977 Buick LeSabre. From interior accoutrements to powertrains, the Catalina and LeSabre came similarly equipped too. That meant relatively spartan accommodations, power windows, seats, locks all optional, air conditioning wasn't standard either although most came from the factory with it. Options were a la carte which is why so many cars of this era are equipped so differently. Made no sense to me then and certainly less so now why General Motors would go through the trouble if not expense of lightly disguising some of their makes and models when they were, for all intents and purposes, identical. Perhaps GM wasn't as margin conscious as we may have thought. To some degree anyway. Ha, as if. 

The roof lines on the Oldsmobile and Chevrolet versions of the Catalina and LeSabre go a long way towards disguising how similar the cars are. Oldsmobile touted their exclusive, formal roof line on the 88's of the vintage; I think it makes this car look like an unfinished Cub Scout pinewood derby entry. That blind spot can't be fun to live with either. Above is a "Delta 88 Royale", if you wanted to skip the damn vinyl top, you'd have to step down to a "Delta 88 coupe". Personally, I'd "step down" to a 1977 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Vinyl top and all. 

Through my foggy goggles, the belle of the roof line ball of GM's class of 1977 full-size (B-body) coupes is the Chevrolet Impala and Caprice. That's actually three separate pieces of glass glued together, you can't bend glass like that and have it retain its rigidity; especially being as thin as it is. I'm actually ambivalent towards of GM's 1977-1979 GM "B-body" coupes but of the lot of them, the Chevrolet rows my boat the least. Save for the far out rear windshield. The rest of the car looks under-designed. Your mileage may vary, see dealer for details. 

Pontiac may have been GM's "excitement" division but in terms of profit margins, they were GM's "smallest". Purely speculating if not hypothesizing, would make sense GM would skimp corners in the design and then the manufacturing process and use the Buick design on the Pontiac; if they had to have a "Pontiac" in the first place. Doing so would enable higher volume Oldsmobile to market the exclusivity of their (frumpy) "formal roof" on their 88 and it doesn't take an engineer or an accountant to surmise the LeSabre's roof had to be whole lot cheaper and simpler to produce than the Chevrolet's.  

When General Motors rebooted their full-size models for 1980, the distinctive roof lines were gone on the (B-body) coupes. Gone too was the Catalina two-door; you wanted a big Pontiac with only two-doors in 1980 and 1981 you had to pony up to a Bonneville. Come 1982, though, the big Pontiac show was over - albeit temporarily. The "Catalina" nameplate gone forever too. The Bonneville nameplate lived on as a tarted up version of the intermediate Grand LeMans through 1987, then as a front-wheel-driver through 2005. 

Legend has it Pontiac dealerships complained they didn't have a full-size car to sell  in 1982 and 1983 so from 1984-1986, they rebadged the Canadian version of the Chevrolet Caprice and called it, "Parisienne". 

1976 Ford Mustang Cobra - Pick of the Litter

Those of us auto enthusiasts who grew up in the teeth of "The Malaise Era" have our pick of the litter (make that used kitty litter) when it comes to what cars epitomized that period of time when it seemed the Big Three couldn't do anything right. From the AMC Pacer to the Chevrolet Citation, Ford Granada to GM Diesels to the Cadillac Cimarron, there's no shortage of stinking turds that just wouldn't flush away. In my opinion, though, the epitome of them all was the Ford Pinto based  Mustang "II". I found this 1976 Mustang II Cobra on Facebook Marketplace recently and it brought back a lot of memories; none of them good. 

              

What with the folks across the street from my family and I where I grew up on Long Island having a 1965 Mustang "Hardtop" and a 1972 "Grande", I was fairly versed in "Ford Mustang" and when I heard that Ford was coming with a new Mustang for 1974 based on their Pinto, nine-year-old me instinctively knew it was not going to be good. And I was right;  the teeny-tiny Mustang II was no "Mustang" at least not in comparison to what I saw on a daily basis across the street from me. I doused my sorrows in Nestle's instant chocolate milk making it with whole milk - desperate times meant desperate measures. Little did I know at the time the homely little car was also a putrid transportation conveyance. 

The fact that the Mustang II was more than a foot shorter than the elephantine 1971-1973 Mustang wasn't the issue with its aesthetics - just because a car is small doesn't mean its design should suffer. However, the "II's" design did suffer along with driving dynamics that were decidedly non-European with Ford softening the Pinto's suspension and adding heavy sound proofing and insulation to cull the Pinto's raucous. Built on a slightly lengthened chassis the Ford Pinto was built on, it was almost two-inches wider than a 1964 Mustang meanwhile six-inches shorter lending to its stubby proportions. Stubby proportions accentuated by huge front and rear overhangs - proportionally, some of the largest in history to that point. 13-inch wheels only adding to the "bulked up Pinto" axiom which, again, the car actually was. 

Wouldn't you know it, though, timing being everything, Ford sold tons of "II's" for model year 1974. In fact, it became one of the best first model-year selling cars of all time just as the car it purportedly emulated did just a decade prior. What a difference ten years can make, though. Whereas the original Mustang was a seminal, niche creating design that transformed the market if not the auto industry, the 1974 Mustang II was but a benefactor of timing with the start of the OPEC oil embargo coinciding with the new model year. 

Ford sold nearly 386,000 "II's" in 1974, that number dropping by roughly half for 1975 as the embargo ended, fuel prices stabilized and buyers came to their senses. A decade prior, after the initial fervor, Mustang sales remained strong as a, err, horse. "II" sales hovering around 175,000 a year through the end of production in 1978. Granted, that number is nothing to sneeze at but pales in comparison to the 600,000+ sold in 1966 and the million-plus out the door in the Mustang's protracted first model-year. Ford is lucky to sell 100,000 Mustangs a year these days. 

Revisionist history being what it is, Ford didn't introduce the Mustang II in response to the OPEC embargo, planning for it began as far back as 1971 when Ford realized they had a turkey on their hands with their new-for'71, "big" Mustang. In fairness, give Ford product planners some credit for deciding to downsize in a day and age of relentless upsizing. Then again, with sales shrinking, what choice did they have? Make it even bigger? Then again, the did upsize the Mercury version of the Mustang up and out of the pony car segment starting in 1974. Ah, my wonder years. How they sucked. 

The only thing "Mustang" about a "II" was Ford's use of disparate Mustang styling cues their designers had used on Mustangs for the previous decade. The Ford Mustang II was a hodge-podge of ideas, themes and eras with one, sorry, hoof, stuck in the 1960's, another, (don't say it) glued in the 1970's. Us Mustang cognoscenti could only hope for better days to come and they eventually did, sort of, come 1979 with the introduction of the Fox-body Mustangs. Shows you just how desperate we must have been if the trucky, boxy Fox-body Mustang was construed as the second coming of the original. It wasn't, of course, but it was a marked improvement and wasn't a design evolution of the "II". 

1993 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible - Shimmy, Shimmy

My on again, off again search for a fourth-generation Corvette convertible continues and my latest muse was this 1993 I found in a dealership lot on my way home from the office recently. Resplendent in 40-Anniversary badging, it has only 60,000-miles on its analog, ruby-red ticker. LT1, automatic and an asking price, at the time, of $16,500. Woof. I don't care what kind of shape this is in, that's a crazy price. I don't care for the color either but what the heck, let's go for a ride and see what the top of the rate card can buy me. 

Chevrolet made these fourth-generation, or what are referred to as "C4's", from 1984 through 1996 and I find many a fan of the "Stingray-body" or third-gen (C3) Corvettes are begrudging fans of them. I get that. Even I, given the choice and all things being equal, would choose a C3 over a C4 but things are not equal. Not even close. A C3 rides and handles like a truck built in a third-world nation compared to a C4. Through my foggy goggles, most of the design flaws of the C4, and there are many, are forgiven,  when Chevrolet made convertible C4's available starting in 1986. 

First things first, for the uninitiated, getting into and out of C4's is ridiculously hard and you either find it charming or you want no part of them after throwing your back out. These cars are impossibly low to the ground, and you have to step up and over frame rails that are absurdly high; it's like jumping up and into a garbage can. I've never been a passenger in one but on the driver's side, you have to use the steering wheel as a grip bar as you gymnastically swing yourself into the overstuffed bucket. Once you're in you feel like you're in a spaceship, but getting there is quite the struggle. It ain't for everyone. 

While material fit-and-finish on 1993 Corvette's is improved over earlier C4's. it's still, forgive my bluntness, crap. The plastic is chintzy, when you tap on it, the dash rings hollow, the sun visors feel like they're straight out of a Chevette too. Hope you're not adverse to digital dashes, keep in my this one with its mixture of digital and analog, is far superior to the junky video game set up 1984-1989 C4's had. I'd stay away from those although there are analog kits that drop right in replacing them. You'll pay through the nose for it, though. Hope you're handy!  

This one started up without a hitch and sounded marvelous. However, throttle tip-in was unimpressive,  My '77 with maybe 200-horsepower feels spritely, snappy in comparison. Probably due to its tall, 2.73:1 axle, you don't get the first impression you're behind the wheel of a 300-horsepower automobile, my '77 with god's-green-earth 3.08 gears out back feels spritely and energetic at parking lot speeds. On the road, it's a different story. Stab the gas and this takes off. It's not incredibly fast, it's more in line with many of today's cars as power has become such a, yawn, commodity. Contemporary road tests peg a '93 with the LT1 and an automatic going from zero-to-sixty in 5.6-seconds. Quite fast for the times but rather unspectacularly these days. My son's 2017 Camaro V-6 zips to sixty in 5.2 seconds, a C8 can rip to sixty in under three seconds. That's insane. 

These cars ride surprisingly well, so does my '77 for that matter. The ride wasn't flinty, jarring and harsh like it was on a 2002 Camaro Z28 I had years ago, even the 2005 Ford Mustang GT I had most recently. Amazing what an independent rear suspension can do to smooth the edges off a sports car's ride.  Trust me on that one. I think I could live with this car all day long. Maybe even take an overnighter with the wife. That would be nice. Anyway, similar to my '77, it's a different story when the roads get rough as is often the case up here on "The North Coast" (Ohio). I hit a heavily pock-marked road on my test drive and I felt the car was going in every direction possible save for forward. Shimmy, shimmy, coco-pop. And then some. 

A lot of that had to be due to the lack of a roof adding rigidity. That and this car ain't no spring chicken despite the low number on its odometer. 1993 was not thirty years ago, was it? Good grief. 

Funny, during most of my test drive when I wasn't trying to put the gas pedal through the floor boards, I I actually found the car rather...ummm, gosh, dare I say, ordinary? Made me wonder what the point of a Corvette was in the first place if it doesn't feel anymore special than say my wife's 1995 Lexus SC400. This one was impossible to get into and out of, is claustrophobia inducing with the top up, the steering is annoyingly heavy and didn't feel all that much faster in a straight line that my V-6 powered, 2009 Toyota RAV4 is. Boy, that sounds really sad. What's more, this '93 was not half the visceral, manly challenge to maneuver that my restored but still woefully crude yet entertaining '77 is. You "drive" my '77, this thing I felt I was somewhat along for the ride. 

Which makes me wonder what it is I'm looking for exactly in one of these. My wife and I already have a "sporty" convertible in our 2004 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder GTS that's quite the nimble little handler,  I'll stop short of saying it's out and out entertaining to drive not that I found this '93 "gotta-have-it" awesome. Out little Mitsu drop top is comfortable enough and doesn't come with the litany of sacrifices a fourth-gen Corvette forces one make. 

My plan right now if I find a C4 convertible is to sell the Eclipse and my '77 Corvette; the C4 taking the place of both. On paper at least. My 26-year-old, semi-auto-enthusiast son would kill me as he's not a fan of any C4 and adores our '77 although he knows how primitive a ride it is. Time is right at the moment to find a good deal on a C4 drop top too as folks who are sick of theirs and want to off load them want to do so before they have to pay for winter storage. Which, up here, is literally just days away. 

P.S., this is still for sale more than a month after my test drive and they've dropped the price, incrementally, to $15,300. That's better but the closer I could get it to ten-grand the more I'd be willing to put up with funky color. 

 

1969 Cadillac Calais - House Calls

Seemingly whenever my younger brother and I were sick, when we were very young, our mother would call "Doc Harrington" and he'd come over to our home and examine us. Yes, he made house calls. Doc was a handsome, charming, older gentleman and a wonderful human, I swear my mother had a crush on him as she turned into a babbling goofball whenever he came over. He also drove a greenish, light blue Cadillac just like this 1969 Calais. This one has New York plates, so it's possible this is his car. Long shot, yes, but it is possible. 

Doc's block long Cadillac left an indelible impression on five- or six-year-old me. In addition to knowing that I was eventually going to be feeling better, it symbolized warmth, benevolence, and an unintimidating yet unwavering authority; sadly, things sorely missing otherwise in my life at the time. I also thought it cool as hell as few if any Cadillac's have since. 

Figures since "Doc Harrington's Cadillac" was part of GM's golden age of design from 1948-1976. Anything before 1948 I find too antiquely, anything after 1976 too, too...I don't know. Familiar? It's also part of GM's class-of-1965 full size models, what some say, and I concur, the best of GM's Post-War offerings. Thus, despite this one's patina and shot-to-pieces interior, has a lot to offer. This Facebook Marketplace find is fairly priced, it seems, at $1,800. The closer you get it to $1,000 the better. You're going to spend three times the difference just reupholstering the seats. 

Not counting the Eldorado, which was an entirely different beast and a half, Cadillac offered three different versions of essentially the same car for 1969.  At the top of the line was the four-door only, pillared Fleetwood series, then the bread-and-butter Coupe and Sedan deVille hard tops and then, quoting the Cadillac brochure, the "easiest step to the pleasures of Cadillac ownership", the Calais two- and four-door hardtops. Save for the Fleetwoods, for 1969, Cadillac only offered hard tops whereas GM's other divisions also came in pillared versions. Just as today, Cadillac was GM's smallest division by volume produced and sold but its most profitable. Best to offer less and charge a king's ransom for it. 

The big difference between a Calais and deVille were the baubles, bits, trinkets, gizmo's and accessories available. For instance, Calais' seats were leather "textured", there was no vinyl top option, an AM radio was standard, and you had to order a power driver's seat and tilting steering column. But, just like the big boy deVille, Calais came standard with four cigarette lighters. Priorities. 

Unlike Doc Harrington himself, however, his car was all fluff and no stuff as we say. General Motors had long stopped trying to make Cadillac's anything more special than a Buick Electra or Oldsmobile 98, heck, throw in a Pontiac Bonneville and Chevrolet Caprice too by 1969. What had made a Cadillac a "Cadillac" was its engineering innovation; that stuff's expensive to keep coming up with especially if it's not amortized across different lines. By the end of the 1960's, most if not all of Cadillac firsts had trickled down to "lesser" GM makes and models and Cadillac had little to thump its hood over than image if not sheer pretense. I mean, seriously, what is this page from a Cadillac brochure attempting to convey? 

Seems fitting that a man of Doc Harrington's means yet humble nature would drive a Calais. You wouldn't want your traveling pediatrician showing up to your door to treat your child driving a Chevy or Dodge, would you? Then again, you don't want them showing off exactly how good they had it either. Fine line to walk and Cadillac walked that rope quite well back then even if it was all for show. 

1982 Chevrolet Corvette - All Corvettes Are Red

Years ago, it seemed Chevrolet kept rehashing the same old, same old Corvette they had going back to 1968. Oh, they claimed such and such year was different, and that the car was significantly updated but outward appearances being everything, c'mon, who was kidding who; it was the same car. That would all eventually change, of course, be careful what you wish for too, and the last of the third-generation or what are now known (annoyingly) as "C3's" rolled out of Bowling Green, Kentucky at the end of model year 1982. 

I found this 60,000-mile 1982 Corvette on Facebook Marketplace recently with "lots of new parts" and an asking price of $7,000. Wow, such a deal as seven-grand might not buy a 1968 "roller". Best is she's red. As the saying goes, "all Corvettes are red, the rest are mistakes". 

I break third-generation Corvette's into three subgroups: the 1968-1973 chrome bumper models, the 1974-1977 rubber bumpers and the 1978-1982 "fastbacks". Thank me later under the auspice of "too much of a good thing" as I spare you the minute details of cataloging the subtle and not so subtle year-by-by changes or subdividing the subdivisions. 1982, however, was not an insignificant year for Corvette changes and updates and for more reasons than they were the last of the, ahem, C3's. 

That table set, and numbers don't lie, '82 Corvettes are the least desirable and consequently least valuable of the C3's and are a close second in terms of undesirability to 1984 and 1985 models. Hence this one's more than fair asking price. By the way, the third generation sliding scale of Corvette values is 1968-1973's are the most valuable followed by the 1974-1977's and then the 1978-1982's. Inside those bubbles or brackets, the less old the car, the less valuable. Why? Again, I'll spare you the details. Just assume for now that it is what it is. For certain there are reasons but they're akin to splitting grains of sand. 

With regards to '82's being the least valuable of the third gens, there are several reasons for their poor showing on the auction block. First of all, they're part of the "fastbacks", they only came with automatic transmissions, albeit a four-speed, 700R4, and most importantly, they're saddled with the infamous "Crossfire-Injection", 350 cubic-inch Chevrolet V-8 engines, without question the worst engine Chevrolet ever put in a Corvette regardless of generation or model year. 

It ain't all bad, though. For 1982, the glass fastback actually opened begging the question, "why didn't it open going back to 1978 in the first place?" 1982 Corvettes were the first Corvette's to have a power adjustable driver's seat standard and the '82's benefited wholesale from the reengineered independent "bat wing" rear suspension first introduced on Corvette in 1980. It'll still handle like a motorhome compared to most any car today, but it stays glued to the road in ways no 1968-1979 Corvette would or could. Shoot, make that going back to 1953 while we're at it. 

The biggest problem with the '82's, however, again, was its engine. With ever stricter government mandated fuel economy and emissions standards, Chevrolet had no choice but to add fuel injection to their largest engine; computer-controlled carburetors could only do so much. Problem was, GM didn't have a throttle body fuel injection system large enough to adequately feed an engine as large as the Corvette's. So, they improvised putting two throttle body units similar to the ones found on Pontiac's 2.5-liter, inline four-cylinder engine on the good old 350. The catchy "Crossfire" phrase stemming from the units feeding the opposite banks of the engine they're on top of. Chevrolet claimed a flow of 750 CFM, about what a good performance four-barrel carburetor would provide. So far, so good. 

Things got dicey because the intake manifold, a flat "Trans Am" (racing) manifold that gave poor cylinder-to-cylinder air flow at low RPM. To compensate, they added extra fuel negating any fuel economy gains. The flat intake manifold slowed intake charge, not a problem at high RPM's where race car engines thrive, but around town, the charge got choked up. To reduce the bunching, they made the manifold intake ports almost 2/3 smaller than the intakes on the heads, restricting flow to just 475 CFM. While that increased air flow at low RPM, think of it as the head of garden hose constricting water flow, torque peaked at just 2,800 RPM but was toast north of 4,000. Quite the conundrum as the engine's rated 200-horsepowered tapped out at 4,200 RPM. Just as well as early 700R4's weren't able to rev very high. 

Reliability wise, the Crossfires were fine until they wore out, hopefully within warranty or when parts for them were still aplenty. These days, good luck finding parts not to mention a mechanic or tech who can work on them. Tough enough to find someone who's at least willing to work on a carburetor. 

So, what to do? Cost effectively, ask yourself, "how fast do I want to go?". Compression on Crossfires was an admirable 9.0:1, they're four-bolt main blocks too so the bones are good. I'd go with a Holley Sniper FI set up, parts and labor couldn't be more than $2,000 and that's estimating high. Heck of a lot cheaper and simpler than an LS swap or dropping in a crate engine. 

There are some who claim their Crossfire Corvette runs great but I've yet to run into anyone who claims that. Chevrolet also used the Crossfire on 1984 and early 1985's, 1982 and 1983 Camaro Z28's and Pontiac Firebird Trans Am's have a 5-liter version of it. 

I thought this more than fairly priced at $7,000 and someone knew a bargain too as this pretty thang is gone. I'd want the "Crossfire" plumbing yanked already, but someone's got a blank canvas to make this into whatever they want. 

 

1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme - What Everyone Wanted

Back in the 1980's, everyone I knew wanted a car just like this 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme. This one's for sale down near Columbus, Ohio with an asking price of, he swallows hard, $10,500. 

Good thing it doesn't have t-tops. buckets, console and floor shifter. Otherwise, I might be tempted to take the two-hour drive south and kick its tires. A 4-4-2 in this shape for this asking price? That's a different story but as this is, I think I'll stay home.

Despite just 56,000-miles on it's analog ticker, I think this bought well at $6,000. NADA pegs it average retail at $3,000, high retail $4,000 so I believe I'm being more than fair. Along with that faded interior are a number of exterior ouchies that'll have friends and family looking at you sideways if you dropped five figures on this. 

Cars like this run counter to today's do-everything-well, including looking great, crossovers as they make no sense. Too big and too small, while they handled relatively well for the times, by today's standards they handle like a bathtub full of water, ergonomics are terrible, they're not particularly good on gas and are pretty slow despite having a fairly healthy sized V-8 engine (no pictures of the engine in the online ad). 

Back in my day, those that didn't like these types of cars were generally not "car people" anyway. They weren't slaves to fashion or image and usually made much better vehicular decisions choosing wholly unsexy Honda Accords and Toyota Camrys. Cars that might not have looked great, I know, that's subjective, but performed well and, more importantly, stayed bolted together long after their initial payment books were completed.  

I, of course, wanted nothing to do with anything remotely practical, the thought of driving anything that wasn't domestic was literally and figuratively foreign to me too. And I repeatedly paid dearly for my  loyalty. Given the chance, I'd do it all over again not changing a thing too. 

 

1958 Buick Limited - Butter Like Topping

There are few '50's cars I'd reserve a space for in my "Jay Leno Fantasy Garage" and this 1958 Buick Limited is not one of them. Sheesh, this thing is like a cheesy, '50's sci-fi movie; I can't not look at it. Pass the popcorn and Jujubes before I get bored and move onto something else. 

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if the canvas this lay on wasn't so damn big. I mean, look at how much real estate is aft of the rear wheel here. At 227.5-inches long and a 79.8-inches wide, this is right up there with the some of the largest Yank Tanks ever manufactured. For the record, at 252.2-inches, the 1974-1976 Cadillac Fleetwood 75 is the longest vehicle every factory-produced for sale in this country. What's that you say? The '74 Fleetwood 75 was a limousine? Ok, Captain Details. Then as far as the longest conventional car goes, at 235.5-inches long, that trophy goes to Chrysler's 1973 Imperial LeBaron. 

In comparison, the car that technically inspired this juggernaut of this wonton excess, Chrysler's 1957 Plymouth and Dodge models, at 204.6 inches long, look positively athletic. And few would say those cars are svelte. Better looking '57 Chevrolet's perhaps but skinny? No. By the way, Chevrolet's seminal 1957 models, of which a space for a black-on-red Bel Air is waiting in my garage, are puny runts at just 200-inches long. 

So, what happened to cars in the 1950's? Why'd they get so big and so quickly? Especially those from my beloved General Motor's styling studios headed by Harley Earl? Good question. Seems that after a bevy of expensive engineering innovation, to maintain mid-1950's profit margins, rather than continue to innovate, they found it far more cost effective to simply add girth and tack on gimmicks. 

The legend or story behind this car and other freakish GM designs of this era, with perhaps the exception of the 1958 Chevrolet, was GM executives upchucked their liquid lunches when they got a hold of Chrysler's new-for-'57 "forward look" models. Just-like-that, they scrapped their plans for 1958 and 1959 coming with some of the most, dare I say, ridiculous looking automobiles of all time. While the "1959 Cadillac" is unquestionably the most famous of the era, the shaft-of-the-spear of that late '50's GM design axiom were their barge-like Buick's. Oldsmobile's a very close second. 

Buick had used the "Limited" moniker to denote their top-of-the-line models from 1936-1942 and they dusted it off for these one-year only brutes, sorry, ahem, beauties to commemorate their 50th-Anniversary. What made a "Limited" a "Limited" and made it more valuable or desirable than a run-of-the-mill Roadmaster? Nothing more than it was larger than anything else they offered, but there wasn't anymore leg room since it rode on the same 127-inch long wheelbase the Roadmaster did. However, buyers did get more chrome, cush, and more ersatz baubles and bits. My parents were of the generation that went bananas for cars like this so to that degree, I get it. To some degree anyway. Back then, "more was really more."

At the end of the 1958 model-year, though, these cars tanked at the box office and for several reasons. First of all, timing. Just as Buick took the bed sheet off these things, the nastiest economic downtown since the Great Depression struck cratering sales of large, expensive luxury cars. Didn't help that Buick charged more for these "Limited's" than Cadillac charged for a Series 62. Last and certainly not least, they was just plain fugly. Your opinion may vary, see dealer for details. And while you're doing that, please get me another box of Jawbreakers. 

Things got even nuttier at Buick for 1959 at Buick before Harley Earl retired and the cool, refined hand of Bill Mitchell took over lending his vision to create some of the best looking designs of all time. Funny how we have to push the envelope of good and bad taste to learn from our mistakes. 

Asking price for our '58 here is $10,000 which can buy a lot of movie theater popcorn. Please ask for a double serving of "butter-like-topping". 

Rocky Balboa's Car - 1979 Pontiac Trans Am

My recent soliloquy on a 1981 Pontiac Turbo Trans Am jogged my memory about my buddy Bill's 1979 Trans Am. It was black and decked out in the full Smokey and the Bandit motif: gold pinstriping, gothic "Trans Am" decals, the giant gold "Screaming Chicken" sprawled across the hood, and those unmistakable gold snowflake wheels. In other words, it was the very definition of late-'70s disco-era automotive chic.

It was a beautiful car, and being Long Islanders, nobody gave Bill a hard time for looking like he was trying to channel Burt Reynolds. If anything, he got fist bumps for driving the same car Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa buys with part of the purse from his rematch with Apollo Creed in Rocky II.

If that's news to you, then you've either never seen Rocky II or you've forgotten all about Rocky's gloriously reckless spending spree. Between the black-and-gold Trans Am, the lavish new house, the flashy clothes, and Adrian's expensive wardrobe, the Italian Stallion burns through his newfound fortune at a pace that would make a financial advisor break out in hives.

In retrospect, the producers' decision to cast a black Pontiac Trans Am in Rocky II makes it appear as though Rocky is paying homage to Burt Reynolds' Bandit from Smokey and the Bandit. Chronologically, that assumption makes sense. Smokey and the Bandit was filmed in 1976, released in 1977, and became one of the biggest box-office hits of the decade while Rocky II was being filmed in 1978.

Even so, the resemblance is almost certainly coincidental. By the late 1970s, the second-generation Pontiac Trans Am had become one of the most recognizable performance cars in America, and a black Trans Am with gold accents was hardly an unusual sight. While audiences naturally drew comparisons to the Bandit's car, there's no evidence that the filmmakers intended Rocky's Trans Am to be a deliberate homage to Burt Reynolds or Smokey and the Bandit. If anything, the similarity reflects the Trans Am's enormous popularity at the time rather than any conscious attempt to reference the earlier film.

The "Smokey and the Bandit-izing" of black-and-gold Pontiac Trans Ams is a fairly recent phenomenon. These cars were everywhere in the late '70s and well into the '80s, so it was only natural that Burt Reynolds' Bo "Bandit" Darville would drive one—it reflected contemporary automotive tastes rather than creating them. The same goes for Rocky buying one in Rocky II. To audiences in 1979, it wasn't a movie reference; it was simply the kind of car a newly successful boxer would buy. It's remarkable how the passage of time reshapes our memories of pop culture, turning what was once commonplace into something forever associated with a single film.

Rocky II was a surprisingly good movie. Was it great? No. Far from it. But it didn't have to be anything more than it was to give fans of the Academy Award-winning Rocky exactly what they wanted: to see Rocky finally beat Apollo Creed outright.

Along the way to that oh-so-predictable climax, we watch Rocky and Adrian get married, buy a house, have a son, and, of course, Rocky blows a wad of money on a black Pontiac Trans Am. His spending spree, combined with a string of bad financial decisions and the reality that his boxing career has stalled, all but bankrupts the young family. Eventually, Rocky gives the Trans Am away because he can no longer afford it.

It's the Balboas' financial hardship that does more than anything to motivate Rocky to accept Apollo's relentless demands for a rematch. Well, that, and Adrian finally giving him her blessing with the unforgettable words: "Win. Win!"

As movie cars go, Rocky's Pontiac Trans Am has never enjoyed anything close to the lasting fame of the black-and-gold Trans Am from the original Smokey and the Bandit. That makes perfect sense. In Smokey and the Bandit, the Trans Am was practically a co-star, central to the film's identity and featured in nearly every chase and stunt. In Rocky II, the car served a very different purpose.

Rocky's Trans Am wasn't there to steal scenes. Instead, it was a visual shorthand for his sudden, newfound wealth. Having gone from an obscure club fighter to a man with a lucrative payday, Rocky spends money with the enthusiasm—and lack of restraint—of someone who has never had any before. He buys the flashy black Trans Am, a new home, expensive clothes, and other luxuries without giving much thought to the future.

It's one of the more enjoyable aspects of Rocky II because it's so believable. Rocky isn't portrayed as financially savvy; he's an uneducated, working-class guy suddenly flush with cash. His spending spree feels less like arrogance than the natural reaction of someone who never expected to have money in the first place. The Trans Am perfectly symbolizes that brief period of carefree excess before reality catches up with him and he has to step back into the ring.

One of the enduring bits of Rocky II trivia is that four black 1979 Pontiac Trans Ams were reportedly used during filming, all of them equipped with the "6.6 LITRE" shaker decals. That seemingly insignificant detail actually reveals quite a bit to Pontiac enthusiasts. The "6.6 LITRE" decal signified the Oldsmobile-sourced 403-cubic-inch V-8, an engine Pontiac installed because its own 400 could no longer meet emissions requirements for cars sold in all 50 states. To many Pontiac purists, an Oldsmobile engine under the hood of a Trans Am bordered on heresy.

Had Rocky's Trans Am been powered by Pontiac's own 400, the shaker would have worn the coveted "T/A 6.6" decals instead. Those cars came exclusively with four-speed manual transmissions, whereas every 403-powered Trans Am was fitted with an automatic. That makes Rocky's apparent struggle to drive the car rather amusing in retrospect—there wasn't a clutch pedal to fumble with in the first place.

The scene where Rocky lurches and surges down the street has long struck car buffs as more theatrical than authentic. Rather than depicting someone learning to drive, it looks more like Sylvester Stallone repeatedly stabbing the accelerator to make the car buck and jerk, creating the illusion of an inexperienced driver. The effect works for comedy, even if it doesn't make much mechanical sense.

Audiences certainly seemed to appreciate the gag. I distinctly remember the theater erupting in laughter during that sequence. The humor wasn't really about whether Rocky could drive a Trans Am; it was another way of showing that despite his newfound wealth, he was still the same awkward, unsophisticated South Philly kid trying to navigate a world that suddenly looked a lot different.

Of curious note, it's telling just how little thought the producers put into casting Rocky's car in II. Although the movie is ostensibly set in 1976—despite there being little, if anything, to actually establish that—Rocky's car is a 1979 Trans Am.

Is that quibbling? Perhaps. But this is a blog about cars, and nit-picking is what we do. Especially when it comes to movie cars.

Allegedly, at least one of the Trans Ams used in Rocky II still survives and is owned by someone in New Jersey. There are no shortage of stories about people owning surviving Trans Ams from Smokey and the Bandit, but the Rocky II cars have remained far more obscure.

My friend Bill's black '79 wasn't nearly so fortunate. He wrecked it on a rain-slicked road. Although it was repaired, the car was never quite the same afterward. He lost confidence in it and sold it not long after getting it back from the body shop.