by Leon Rochocco, Jr.
“Sex Sells” has long been a popular tenet in advertising.
And sex appeal has typically made it easier to sell cars. The movie industry has always favoured convertibles for their leading men and women, whether Carey Grant, Sophia Loren, Grace Kelly, Kevin Costner or Susan Sarandon.
Virtually any car becomes sexy when you chop the top, but I did say virtually. These five cars resist the glamour and glitz that often come with convertibles.
1985-1987 AMC Alliance Convertible
Built in the United States using a 1.7-litre engine and transmission from Renault, the Alliance was very much French in feeling. It was small, mundane in appearance and less than competitive against the best from Volkswagen, Toyota and Honda. It wasn’t cool with a roof and it didn’t get cooler without one.
A good measure of its appeal then is its collectability and desirability now, which is nil.
1989 Yugo Cabriolet
The formula for the Yugo was simple and it was laughable. Buy a 20-year-old-design of a highly rust-prone Italian economy car, barely update it and ship it to America by the thousands. At first, people will buy a product that is vastly cheaper than the competition, but once the public finds out that it is slow, unattractive, outdated, uncomfortable and minimally reliable, the charm leaves in a hurry.
Did a convertible version help the image and dramatically boost the sales?
Again, the answer was “Not really” – a response that was reinforced by a price that was double the cost of the GV Plus hatchback, which had gained fuel injection and six horsepower.
1960-1963 Studebaker Lark VI Convertible
Solid, sensible and reliable all summed up Studebaker’s Lark. It was a good car without flash or panache, which had limited appeal to car-mad teens.
There’s no question that lowering the top on the Lark made for a pleasant experience, but it didn’t change the status of this car from dud to stud when it came to sex appeal.
1908-1927 Model T Ford
Ford’s Tin Lizzie has always been rugged, reliable and in a class of its own. But sexy? Not likely.
The roadster or touring car versions may be fun, simply because fun goes with open-air motoring like peanut butter goes with jelly. Sex appeal, though, simply isn’t part of the equation with this American icon, though the story would be very different if we were talking about a 1940 Ford Convertible Coupe.
1961-1963 Rambler American
The Rambler had to be one of the most sensible cars built in North America: properly engineered to conservative standards, with incredibly reliable straight-six engines and pricing within reach of middle class budgets. For 1961, the line offered a convertible and it was a lot like its sibling – responsible, sturdy and dull.
In appearance and performance, the new drop-top was essentially an open-air version of an orthopedic shoe. You know, the kind of show that Marilyn Monroe or Angelina Jolie would avoid like the plague. Even spraying pheromones on this car wouldn’t give it an ounce of sex appeal.
Leon Rochocco, Jr. writes for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca.
by Jonathan A. Stein
Like people, certain cars have a sinister look about them, especially in dark colours and particularly in black.
Some cars have been typecast for the large and small screens and others just look evil without any help from the mass media. Here are a handful of production cars that look as if they could scatter children and make law-abiding citizens run for their lives.
1935 Cord 810 Beverly or Westchester: Sleek and low for its era with that coffin nose, few cars have more of an air of threat about them. To me, the chrome pipes of the 812 take away a lot of the menace.
1957 Lincoln Premiere: Low, long, and wide, from its stacked headlamps to its perfectly proportioned fins, there is an air of menace about any ’57 Premiere in a dark colour.
I can’t see a ’52 or ’53 Cadillac Fleetwood in a dark colour without expecting Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) to step in or out of it. If ever a car was typecast, this is it.
1959-1966 Jaguar Mk II: This car has been cast repeatedly as the villain’s ride in all manner of British television and movies, though its menace is largely due to expectation rather than appearance.
1957 Plymouth Fury: This car would look threatening and scary even if it hadn’t been immortalized in Stephen King’s “Christine” as the embodiment of evil.
Very few cars look scarier than a Facel Vega HK 500 — in black. I’ll never forget the last time I saw a somewhat questionable – and now departed – car dealer. He was moving a black Facel Vega and it had a powerful burble and looked ready to spirit him away from a bank job or armored car heist.
1968-1972 Corvette Stingray: Talk about a car that looks “Bad Ass”; few cars top a black Stingray with chrome bumpers.
1961-1964 Lagonda Rapide: If there hadn’t been so few of them, this car definitely would have been a stereotypical “bad guy’s” car. They’re just plain menacing, even in white.
1963-1968 Marcos 1600 or 1800GT: Few cars are lower or look more sinister than these terrifically styled sports cars from England. They’re seldom seen on our shores. And although they look scary, they’d be hard to hop into for a quick getaway and there’s limited space to haul the loot.
The SAAB 900 Turbo had a very long life — from 1978 until 1998 — but it’s the cars from the mid-80s that will be best remembered as extremely predatory-looking. I’m talking about a black three-door Turbo, probably with tinted windows.
All kinds of cars make statements, but when you combine, long, low and wide with great presence, sometimes a car can be a little scary.
Jonathan A. Stein writes for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca
Station wagons are officially and endangered species in North America.
Richard Nixon was president when the last really cool one was built in America. A quick look at the cars on this list might make you re-think any preconceived notions that wagons were all “Mom Mobiles” for the pre-minivan generation.
1955-57 Chevrolet Nomad
The iconic Tri-Five Chevy, built from 1955-1957, was likely the post-war high-water mark for Chevrolet. It came in myriad body styles and was available with the first version of Chevrolet’s legendary small-block V-8. The two-door Nomad wagon gives even the convertible a serious run for its money in the cool department.
The 1950s were littered with cool station wagons with over-the-top styling. Our vote goes for the ’59 Pontiac Safari. That was the model year in which tail fins reached their absurd apex. The ’59 Safari actually had two sets of fins on the top and the bottom of the rear fenders, making it look like a Redstone ballistic missile – which was probably not an accident.
1964-65 Chevrolet Chevelle
Two-door wagons are very impractical to the point of defeating the purpose of having a wagon in the first place, but they look cool. We love the first-generation Chevelle two-door wagon for its handy size, great looks and the fact that all of the performance parts from the two-door SS coupe will fit on the wagon, making it a great sleeper muscle car.
1968-72 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser
The Vista Cruiser and the Ford Country Squire are the cars that immediately come to mind when referring to the “back backseat,” and it was probably in one of these wagons where the classic slow-burn phrase “Don’t make me come back there” was first uttered by an agitated father. The Olds gets the nod in terms of cool, simply because we love the glass roof and GM’s spot-on styling work.
1971-73 Volvo 1800ES
Volvo of the 1960s and ‘70s wasn’t exactly a company synonymous with high style. Frumpy but practical 544s, Amazons and brick-like 240s were the stereotypical Volvos of the day. But the P1800 coupe was gorgeous, and for a few brief model years it was available as a very pretty two-door sports wagon. Nicknamed “Cinderella’s Coffin” by some for their long, flat roof lines and generous glass, these wagons are among the few truly collectible Volvos — and they run virtually forever.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
Baby boomers are in full nostalgia mode as they contemplate their lost youth. (more…)
In this age of ultra-short product lifecycles where a three-model-year run unchanged is an eternity, it’s tough to imagine the same basic design being produced for three separate decades or more.
Here are six cars that all had tortoise-like life spans:
1962-80 MGB
The MG was the sports car North Americans loved first, with U.S. servicemen bringing back rakish MG TCs from the UK. The MGB was the first “modern” sports car from MG that included features like actual roll-up windows and (from 1967 on) a fully synchronized manual transmission. When it was introduced in 1962, few thought that it would be the last MG sold in the U.S. Sadly, that’s how it turned out. After a titanic 18-year run, the B exited the world little changed from the way it entered. The engine and body shell were the same basic units that were being built during the Kennedy administration.
1954-83 Jeep CJ-5
The CJ-5 was actually a variant of the Korean War-era military Jeep. Far more suited to civilian use than the WWII-era Jeep, the CJ-5 was a hot seller for American Motors, which took over Jeep’s parentage from the old Kaiser automotive group. The CJ-5’s short wheelbase gave it a terribly choppy ride and made it rollover-prone in emergencies. Nevertheless, it remained in production for an astonishing 30 years, and there is a fair amount of CJ DNA in today’s Wrangler.
1949-80 Volkswagen Beetle
For a car that was a virtual orphan cast-off at the end of WWII, the Beetle wound up doing OK. The Allied occupying powers didn’t quite know what they should do with the car, which was commissioned by the Nazis to give loyal subjects mobility on the new Autobahn superhighways. They elected to let the post-war Germans keep the funny little car, and the rest is history. Although the last Super Beetle Cabriolets were sold in the U.S. from 1980-81, production of the basic Beetle sedan continued in Mexico until 2006.
1964-89 Porsche 911 (air-cooled)
The 911 celebrated its 50th anniversary recently, but to be fair, we cut this off in 1989, the last year for the original torsion-bar suspension, air-cooled 911. It’s simply amazing how little of the basic car changed over the course of 25 years, from the primitive heating system, to most of the glass, roof and doors, as well as the basic engine design. 911 fans seemed just fine with that as the car outlived its intended successor – the 928.
1968-82 C3 Corvette
Corvettes through their history had been on a somewhat fast and furious development pace ever since Zora Arkus-Duntov decided to show Chevy how to make it into a real V-8-powered sports car in 1955. The second generation, or C2, Corvette (which many argue was the best of the classic Corvettes) was only around from 1963-67. The car that replaced that version, however, hung around for 14 long years. To be fair, these were tough years for GM, which was hammered by imports and two fuel crises. There were several mid-engine design studies that came perilously close to replacing the C3, but it never happened, and the same basic design lasted from LBJ to Reagan.
1960-82 Checker Marathon
One of the few purpose-built taxi cabs ever sold in the U.S., they were infinitely nicer to ride in than the clapped-out Ford Crown Vics that seem to serve as cabs everywhere in the U.S. Similar in roominess to the classic London taxis still in service, with their handy fold-down jump seats, the Marathon also added a useful trunk to the mix. Although the vast majority were used as cabs, ultra-practical eccentrics did from time to time buy Marathons as civilian transportation. Twenty-two years wasn’t long enough.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
The Crown Vic was the most widely used police car and taxi in the U.S. and Canada, and although they’re starting to give way to the Dodge Charger, they still show up in the rearview mirrors of speeders everywhere…
The cop show genre goes back to the pre-TV days of radio (where you had to imagine what black and white your favorite cop was driving).
Here are some favorite full-size, rear-wheel-drive American cop cars from 60 years of the best cop shows:
“Adam 12” (1972 AMC Matador)
Although it was shot in the 1970s, in many ways, “Adam 12” was a throwback to 1950s cop shows in which gangs, heroin dealers and street snitches didn’t exist and officers Reed and Malloy played by Kent McCord and Martin Milner rarely drew their guns, let alone actually capped anyone. In seasons five through seven, they drove an AMC Matador. In actuality, the LAPD was always a strong supporter of underdog American Motors; they owned more than 500 Matador black and whites at one time.
“TJ Hooker” (1979 Dodge St. Regis)
The post-“‘Star Trek’ the TV series” and pre-“‘Star Trek’ the Motion Picture” years saw William Shatner in a relatively forgettable cop show that starred perhaps the least believable cop of all time, Heather Locklear. For much of the show’s run, Shatner drove an equally forgettable Malaise-Era Mopar full-size sedan, the Dodge St. Regis. It’s fascinating to see them on the show because few people can remember the last time they saw one on the road — they’re nearly extinct.
“Hill Street Blues” (1976 Dodge Monaco)
The opening title sequence of “Hill Street Blues” with a memorable Mike Post theme song and a gritty look featured several fishtailing Dodge Monacos hightailing it out of the precinct. The Monaco in police surplus trim also served as The Bluesmobile in the film “The Blues Brothers.”
“Southland” (1999 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor)
No list of great cop cars would be complete without the classic Ford Crown Vic. The last full-size rear-wheel-drive Ford was produced from 1992-2011. The Crown Vic was the most widely used police car and taxi in the U.S. and Canada, and although they’re starting to give way to the Dodge Charger, they still show up in the rearview mirrors of speeders everywhere.
“The Andy Griffith Show” (1963 Ford Galaxie)
The Mayberry Police Department was fond of Fords. I’m partial to the ’63 300 Galaxie with the classic gumball-machine light on the roof. Over the years, fans of the show have built hundreds of loving replicas of Sheriff Andy’s cruiser.
“Highway Patrol” (1956 Buick Special)
Perhaps the granddaddy of all TV cop shows, rough-hewn Broderick Crawford drove a huge assortment of Oldsmobiles, Buicks and Dodges through the 1955-59 run of the show. I particularly like the ’56 Buick Special.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
The miracle of depreciation has put a tempting array of classic exotics within reach for many of us.
Be warned, though, that very often, the cheque you write for the purchase is just the first of many that you’ll write if you make a poor or unlucky choice. Keep in mind this maxim: The cheapest examples almost always wind up being the most expensive in the long run. Here are four that famously can be punishing on the wallet:
1966-80 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow
At around the cost of a loaded Ford Focus for a nice one, it’s hard not to be tempted by the upper crust looks of a vintage Rolls-Royce. But go in with your eyes open: A simple brake service can exceed $1,000, with the special Rolls-Royce brake fluid going for $125 all by itself. Try to substitute something from your local auto parts store and you could be looking at $3,000 or more to repair the damage. That famous Parthenon-like grille in front is about $2,500 used if you can find one. The hood ornament alone can cost more than $1,500 should anyone decide to make a souvenir out of yours. Ouch.
1975-85 Ferrari 308 GTB/GTS
At around $30,000, this lovely thing represents one of the lowest points of entry to the storied Ferrari brand. Fortunately, Tom Selleck in the part of Thomas Magnum probably never had to foot the shop bill to maintain his employer’s 308. If he did, he’d likely have had to pawn the Hawaiian shirt and moustache. While Ferrari 308s have gained a reputation for being reasonably reliable cars as Italian exotics go, they are maintenance-intensive and things do break, particularly with the oldest now approaching 40 years old. That lovely combination switch that operates the turn signals and pop-up headlights? They can cost close to a grand (and they do fail from time-to-time). A belt service including the all-important timing belt needs to happen at least every five years or 30,000 miles. Ignore it and you could be on the line for a $15,000-plus engine rebuild.
1968-72 Mercedes-Benz 300SEL 6.3
The 6.3 is the closest that Mercedes ever came to building a Detroit-style muscle car back in the day (albeit a four-door one). Sporting a huge 384 cubic-inch V-8 with fuel injection and over 300 hp, the 6.3 was capable of a sub-six second 0-60 run and a 14.2-second ¼-mile time. All of this came at a huge price, though, both in acquisition costs and maintenance.
A complete rebuild of the air suspension system can cost more than $5,000, as can the wonderfully complex pre-computer, mechanical fuel-injection system. At least the parts are available.
1961-74 Jaguar E-Type
The E-Type is actually nowhere near as chronically troublesome as its reputation would suggest. This gorgeous car still seems to take a punch on a regular basis (most recently in a plot arc of AMC’s “Mad Men,” where a suicide attempt was botched because the car wouldn’t start). It is, however, a fairly complex car that takes kindly neither to abuse nor fools with tools. Burn out the clutch in your E-Type and you may wish you hadn’t been born. The list of things that have to come off of or out of the car to do the job is long. The entire massive clam shell hood, headlight and front fender assembly known by the British term “bonnet” is just the tip of the iceberg. It has to come off simply to get at the engine and transmission, which also need to part company with the rest of the car — along with three grand or so of your kid’s college fund.
**********
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
Some people will come to blows over the merits of the 1980-85 Seville…
The old saying “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” wasn’t coined in reference to cars, but it might as well have been.
Some cars, such as the 1963-67 Corvette Sting Ray and Jaguar E-Type, are almost universally admired, while others are passionately loved by some and loathed by others. Here are five of the most polarizing:
1. 1963-64 Studebaker Avanti
The Avanti was a Hail Mary play to save the ailing Studebaker Corporation with a stunning European-style GT car. Ardent Avanti fans point to its timeless styling, which was supervised by the great Raymond Loewy, and the fact that the car remained in production in one form or another for five decades. Non-fans find the grille-less front end and porthole-like headlights to be a non-starter. A recent uptick in prices may indicate that Avanti lovers will have the last laugh on this one.
2. 1971-73 Buick Riviera
The Boattail Riviera was one of the last truly audacious GM creations, and William Mitchell pulled out all of the stops with a huge, dramatic design including a pointed boattail reminiscent of some great 1930s cars. Haters just find it huge and over-the-top.
3. 1980-85 Cadillac Seville
The slant back or bustle trunk Seville was —like the Boattail Riviera — in some ways a throwback to the 1930s-1950s, cribbing a trunk from Bentleys and Daimlers of the era. Some people will come to blows over the merits of this version of the 1980-85 Seville, while some find it to be a caricature; it’s best if these two groups aren’t sharing the same air space. Regardless, nobody sits on the fence about this car.
4. 1965-69 Chevrolet Corvair
The first-generation Corvair, introduced in 1959, was a pleasing and clean design. But the second-generation was drop-dead gorgeous. No less an authority than David E. Davis, Jr., writing for Car and Driver, called it one of the most beautiful cars America had produced during the post-war era. But many bow-tie fans — used to fins and lots of chrome or the long hood, short rear deck look of the Camaro and Chevelle — found nothing to like about the Corvair. I tend to agree with the fans here. It’s a beautiful little car.
5. 1955-75 Citroën DS
In its native France, the DS can do no wrong. The letters “D-S” in French sound remarkably like the French word for “goddess.” Then the French also think that Jerry Lewis is a god. To most Americans, the sci-fi style of the DS just comes off as whale-like and weird.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
There was nothing even slightly swoopy or jet-like about the Hudson Jet, or the rest of these oxymoronic automobiles…
Few things in the development of a new car are more crucial than the name.
In the case of a bland or mediocre car, it’s the last chance the marketers have to generate some buzz. That may well be why some of the most ordinary cars have wound up with some of the fiercest and flashiest names. Here are five inappropriately named cars:
1. Chevrolet Sprint
The Sprint was built by Suzuki for Chevrolet. Powered by a rather anemic three-cylinder engine, its acceleration off the line resembled not so much a sprint but more of a drunken stumble. Its Suzuki-badged counterpart was known by an equally inappropriate name, the Swift.
2. Mercury Bobcat
A bobcat is a rather fierce North American wild cat. The Mercury Bobcat, on the other hand, was essentially a fancy Ford Pinto over laden with chrome trim and other options that added on additional pounds, sacrificing what little performance the Pinto possessed. While the feline Bobcat is plentiful in the wild, the Mercury version is all but extinct.
3. Hyundai Excel
The Excel was first car sold by Hyundai in the U.S., and given the top-to-bottom excellence of the current Hyundai lineup, it’s probably a car they’d prefer to forget. Other than cheapness, the Excel essentially excelled at nothing — unless someone handed out an award for “crudest interior” or “oddest-smelling plastic.”
4. AMC Hornet
The hornet is one pugnacious insect, and as anyone who has ever been on the wrong side of one can attest, they definitely can sting. With the exception of the rare S/C 360 version from 1971, the AMC Hornet was a pleasant-looking and practical compact sedan/wagon/hatchback without much of a sting.
5. Hudson Jet
Jet planes were on the mind of nearly every car designer and ad man in the U.S. during the 1950s. Fins, bogus jet intakes, jet exhausts and jet hood ornaments found their way onto countless cars from that decade. Curiously, the Jet wasn’t among them. There was nothing even slightly swoopy or jet-like about the Hudson Jet. It was a thoroughly upright and conventional compact from a company that later became part of American Motors.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
The Pebble Beach auctions are generally not the place for bargain hunters.
It’s nothing unusual for $300 million in automotive merchandise to change hands with some lots bringing more than $10 million and a staggering 100-plus cars capable of cracking the $1 million mark.
Just 20 or 30 years ago, many of these cars were attainable to people of ordinary means. So what’s an ordinary mortal whose been priced out of the Ferrari and Cobra market to do? Look at some alternatives that provide 90 percent of the bang for 5 percent of the buck. Here are some of our favorites:
1963 Shelby Cobra/1992 Dodge Viper
Everybody loves a Cobra. Carroll Shelby’s idea of stuffing an American V-8 in a lightweight British sports car was an instant hit. The trouble is, if you didn’t buy one in the early 1980s when they were about $30,000, your chances of acquiring one are pretty slim for much less than a million. So, instead of a Cobra replica you’ll always have to make excuses for, why not buy its spiritual successor, the Dodge Viper? Early examples of this V-10 powered, raw and uncompromising, car can still be had for less than what Cobras were selling for 30 years ago.
1967 Ferrari 275 GTS/4 N.A.R.T. Spider/Intermeccanica Italia
One example recently sold for around $17 million. But unknown to most people, it has an American-powered near doppelganger that costs a fraction of the price.
Back in the 1960s, Canadian Frank Reisner dreamed of building Ferrari-like GT cars with American V-8 power. His Intermeccanica Italia roadster hit the mark in terms of Ferrari-like style — the bodies were even built in Italy — but in place of a complex and expensive V-12, most had small-block Ford V-8 power, with some tuned by the famous American race shop Holman and Moody.
About 400 Italias were built, and they’re not cheap (RM Auctions sold one in 2007 for $44,000). They cost a fraction of the Ferrari but have most of the looks and performance, if not the pedigree.
1965 Jaguar XKE coupe/1973 Triumph GT6
The Jaguar XKE is generally accepted as one of the prettiest cars of all time. And its great looks don’t come cheap. The first and most desirable series of the beloved XKE or E-Type now regularly brings more than $100,000. But few people know that fellow British sports car company Triumph made a three-quarter scale near replica of the E-Type, the Triumph GT6 that was also powered by a smooth and throaty straight six (albeit one that was half the size). About 10 grand buys a Triumph GT6 that many will mistake for a Jag.
Rob Sass is the vice-president of content for Hagerty Insurance. Hagerty is the world’s leading specialist provider of classic car and boat insurance. Learn more at hagerty.ca and you can email rsass [at] hagerty [dot] com
Recent Comments
- { Enjoyed your Forest of Bowland in the BMW X5M, particularly the photo of the BMW in front of the main part of Stonyhurst College where... }
- { Bantam designed the Jeep, not Willy's or Ford. The American military gave the original Bantam prototype to Willys and Ford to copy. There is plenty... }
- { All Escalades come with a 6.2-lilter V8 engine that produces 420 horsepower. A six-speed automatic is the only transmission offered and drives the rear wheels.... }
- { Alexandra is an excellent journalist. }
Popular Posts
- Journey to a ‘Sparkling’ Luxury Okanagan Resort “Four lucky readers will put a Dodge Journey’s weekend-...
- The Need For Speed: Hike Those Highway Limits More than half of those polled believe the province sho...
- Drives-U-Crazy… Erratic drivers. An early morning drive from Kelowna to Vancouver is nor...
- Readers Respond: The Pros and Cons of Increasing B.C. Speed Limits Increasing the speed limits will only increase risk to...
- Honda CR-V Review: The Compact Crossover To Get Things Done The CRV is a very stylish and aerodynamic crossover veh...
TAGS
Social Links
