"Let's go retro" Late 70's to early 80's

[Crazy Dave]

I always loved and wanted a Renault "Le Car"

[catmandu57]

1. I dunno

It's pretty hard to beat the 79 chevette.

[blondeatlast]

6. I owned a 1979 AMC Pacer, the luxury model, white w Arctic Blue

interior.

Beat THAT.

[lizziegrace]

29. 1979 Chrysler Cordoba

White with black pinstripes, white seats and black carpet/dash.

so there! :P

[blondeatlast]

31. Rich Corinthian leather. I presume? nt

[lizziegrace]

32. no, no leather

just white vinyl. We weren't quite that well off. But, it did have cruise control. :)

[CanuckAmok]

33. The Pacer is much-maligned....

But, like the Edsel, it was far ahead of its time, at least on the drawing board.

It was designed to be powered by the Wankel rotary engine, but a last-minute failure of Wankel and AMC to reach a licensing agreement caused the deal to fall-through. As AMC was already committed to building the Pacer (some reports say that there were hundreds of cars already built, just waiting for their new engines), AMC substituted their existing inefficient, heavy 2.6L four cylinder plant(found in the Hornet and Gremlin base models). It was a terrible combination that resulted in poor mileage, transmission failure, driveline and unibody vibration and ultimately poor collision performance.

The Pacer was years ahead in design; in the mid-90s, for better or for worse, the majority of automotive stylists began to adopt the rounded, aerodynamically friendlier rounded stylings of the Pacer.

The asymmetrical doors (the passenger door being longer to ease access to the rear seat) were adopted by Saturn 20 years later (and, incidentally, were originally designed by the same guy who designed the USPS logo).

The Pacer's prototype crash-test scores were impressive; it was one of the best cars to be in in the event of a serious collision or rollover. Unfortunately (again), poor manufacturing standards, including the use of substandard materials and slack quality control contributed to the Pacer's lack of sturdiness. Things like leaking windsheilds were commonplace, and can be traced back to steel that was too thin for the unibody being used, and flexing so much the windows would twist and sometimes even break in their frames.

Yeah, it was weird looking. The VW Beetle is weird looking, too. Plus, it was the 70s, when aesthetics had the decade off.

Had the Pacer been built the way it was designed, it would have been one of the best cars of the last 25 years.

[blondeatlast]

35. Personally, I LOVED my Pacer.

I can only speak to its comfort and reliablility, but it was very comfortable and I was doing an incredible l;ot of city driving back then.

Reliability was about the same as any American car I'm aware of (spoiled now, I own a Camry!).

I even thought it was kind of attractive.

It's main drawback to me was the enormous amount of glass--I live in AZ and that thing was very hard to cool!

I remember my white baby fondly and I'll note that my friends always wanted me to drive them to the clubs... :shrug:

Edit: thanks for the cool info! Next time I'm laughed at, I'll point this info out!

[Crazy Dave]

9. The Le Car, the VW Bug and the AMC Gremlin were in a class...

...by themselves. I don't know if people will remember the 70's Chevettes twenty years from now but they'll more than likely remember the Bug, the Gremlin and the Le Car.

[RetroLounge]

17. 79 Toyota Starlet?

:shrug:

RL

[greatauntoftriplets]

40. Drove a Chevette loaner one time....

discovered that I am too tall for it. Could not put the driver's seat back far enough to prevent knocking my knee into the steering wheel every time.

[Redstone]

2. Le Merde.

Redstone

[Duncan Grant]

4. LOL!

So much more sophisticated than "POS". :D

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. This is one of the few automobiles from that era I actually like:

The late '70's and early '80's were a pretty depressing time for cars, overall.

[Redstone]

5. God, the cars were dreadful then. I did have one good one:

a 1973 Volvo 142 with 4-speed + electric overdrive.

I've been looking for another one, because I KNOW a small-block Chevy V8 will fit under the hood, but there don't appear to be ANY left.

Redstone

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Volvos have always been good, solid cars...

Mercedes and some VWs from that era weren't bad, either (the Scirocco was a rather fun car, for the time), but most of what was available was crap...(oh, and a quick Google search turned up THIS 1969 142 in Portland, OR, for sale at $2200...depending on how badly you want one, and how much you'd be willing to sink into the project, it might be worth the cost of cross-country transport)

[Redstone]

16. Hey, thanks a bunch, but it's gotta be a '72 or '73.

The "68 through '71 142s still had the LONG gearshift lever like the old 122/124 series.

(Although I did race a 122S in SCCA E-class sprints...)

You seem to know about cars; here's a trivia question (and no Google, please): What was the name of the company who made the electric overdrive unit that was used in all the British sports cars, and the Volvos of the '60s / early '70s?

Hint: English company with a French-sounding name.

Redstone

[Spider Jerusalem]

18. Wasn't Villiers, was it?

For some reason that's the first thing to come to mind...

And Google tells me that I was wrong; and 'Laycock de Normanville' sounds like a Chaucerian description of some medieval Duc de Normandie exercising his droit du seigneur...

[Redstone]

34. It was Laycock de Normanville. Not sure if they're still around.

Redstone

[Crazy Dave]

12. I still don't know what I saw in it back then, now it's just...

...a fun thing to remember.

[Redstone]

19. I remember when a friend bought one, and it only made it through

four or five laps through an apple orchard (dirt roads) at full speed before breaking.

And it was only two days old. I can imagine the look on the dealer's face when he had it towed in.

Redstone

[CanuckAmok]

21. Sweet!

You know those 'urban legend' stories you hear about priceless cars discovered in flawless conditions in barns?

I know one that's fact...

I grew up in an agri area. There were hundreds of small farms in my town, primarily growing grapes for wine, peaches and so forth.

Around the early 70s, due in part to the spiralling cost of harvest machinery, many of the farmers formed co-ops/collectives, and maybe a dozen or so would go in on one set of harvest equipment instead of them each buying/maintaining their own machinery.

Most of these farmers had huge barns, which generally fell into disrepair once the farmer no longer used it to store equipment.

One of the farms near my house was for sale for a long time. I didn't know the owner, but he was a Reform Mennonite, much like most of the other farmers. They didn't do much socialising, so unless you were in the same church, you could go ages without getting to know your neighbours, which was no big deal. All I new about this guy was that he was over 60, grew peach trees, and that he was widowed the previous year. It was not long after his wife died that he put the farm up for sale.

It sat for ages, and finally the 'for sale' sign came down. A few weeks later, I was driving past the farmhouse in my crappy Saab 99GL, when I screeched to a halt. Something in the driveway had caught my eye, and I had to stop and double-check it. Since I was driving the crappy Saab, this was probably in the Spring of 1983.

It was a 1970 Aston Martin DBS, in BRG, w/ tan leather and wire wheels with real knock-off ears, and all in amazing shape. Having been a fan of the AMs for years, I had to investigate. The new farmer, who looked and acted exactly like the last farmer, was working in the front yard of his house, and I approached him about the car in his driveway.

He was a friendly enough old guy, and being just another Menonite farmer, the last person you'd expect to own anything as extravagant as an Aston martin.

So I asked him about the car, and this is what he said (after stating very firmly that the car was, indeed, for sale if I could give him $65,000 for it):

"I bought this place, lock stock and barrel from Mr. Klassen, who moved to Brazil to be with his son, who is a missionary, and his family. About a month ago I'm cleaning-out the old barn way in the back. It collapsed about ten years ago, and it was pretty much a wreck. Anyway, As I dug my way through the old wood and twisted metal, I seen (yes, he said "I seen") the back of this green car sticking out from under what was left of the loft. The loft collapsed on it, but the main supports kept much of the loft's weight off the car. So I figured that it must have been Mr. Klassen's son's car or something, and that it probably wasn't worth much. It looked like my own boy's Dodge Duster from the back, and I knew how worthless that was, but I hauled it out, and it turned out to be this one, that I'd never even heard of. I talked to the guy at the Texaco, and he said it was the kind of car James Bond drives and was probably pretty valuable.

"So me and Menno (the guy from the Texaco Station) pulled it out of the barn with the tractor, and had a look. It was covered in moss and dirt and the back window was cracked from something heavy falling on it, but all in all it looked like you could fix it up.

"So I figured Ol' Klassen might have just forgotten it was there, so I called him up in Brazil and told him what I found.

(just for reference at this point, Mennonites are generally pragmatic negotiators but extremely honest people, and don't like to feel they've bested someone in a deal...particularly another of the 'Bretheren'.)

"So Klassen says that yeah he knew the car was there and it was part of the deal. He tells me that he bought it for his wife in 1970, part cash and part in trade for helping a guy with a car dealership from Toronto set-up a hobby vineyard on his land. He tells me that his wife didn't like to drive it, especially in the snow, because it was too powerful. So he bought her a Matador, put the Aston Martin in the barn and just kind of forgot about it.

"So I say to him why didn't you sell it or give it to one of your kids and he says it was 'too much trouble because nobody he knew really knew what kind of car it was so why would they buy it? Where ya gonna get it fixed? England?'...

"So I found it and Menno and I pulled it out and it was pretty much what you see here, except covered in grime. the tires were all cracked and brown, but they still held air. The car wouldn't turn-over at all so we swapped-in another battery and poured some gas down the carb and she started right up! So I bought some new tires off Menno, changed all the fluids and emptied the old gas out, power-washed the car, and (pointing to the shiny car as it sat in the driveway, still with a horizontal crack running the full width of the back window) that's all it needed.

"So when I called Klassen I says well I didn't think he knew full-well what the car was worth when he sold me the farm and chattels. And I tell him I don't feel right about taking the car in that case.

"So he says that it's not worth shipping to Brazil or trying to sell it long-distance, so if I give him $4000 for it, that would be just fine. So I did, even though I thought $4000 was a little steep for a car that's thirteen years old, and that's that."



So.... after hearing this story I checked out the car, and everything he said appeared to be true; everything on the car was original. It started-up right away, idled well, and the auto tranny still engaged properly and smoothly. There were even four cracked, brittle Avon bias radials in the guy's garage. I so wanted to take his car for a spin, but the old guy still hadn't "got around to getting some plates" for it. It was a good "ten-footer", and from close-up you could see the paint was chipped, scratched and faded. The wire wheels were pretty rusted, but the new owner had brush-painted them silver (presumably) until he could get them re-plated. And the inside still smelled like fresh leather. The back seat had some cracks in the upper section, probably from being in the sun every summer since the barn collapsed. But everything else was MINT. It still had the import documents, dealer paperwork, the manual, the AM umbrellas that were standard equipment, and everything.

The odometer read 3,200 miles.

So it was true: farmer bought it, wife didn't like it, into the back 40 it went!

on edit: some pics of the same model:

[Spider Jerusalem]

28. Damn.

I've heard stories like this, but they're always second- or third-hand (I know a guy who knew a guy, etc).

And...FOUR THOUSAND. For a 1970 DBS. And the guy was honest enough to insist he pay for it. Just...damn.

[Redstone]

42. Yes, there are still "barn gems." A friend of mine has one.

'66 Caddy. I know he's telling the truth, because I've driven it.

Redstone

[CanuckAmok]

48. And then, of course, there's these sad numbers:

http://www.carsinbarns.com/Superbirds%20&%20Daytonas/index.htm

http://www.carsinbarns.com/Blue%20Ovals%20In%20Barns/pg61bo.html

At least some of them are being rescued, but most are owned by old coots who are "gonna fix 'em up one day"......


By the way, I know of a 1969 Olds 98 in Vancouver which has been stored in a machine shop since it was about two years old. The previous owner of the shop used to store it there during the winters. The second time it was stored, he bought and installed some new equipment in the shop, without realising he'd boxed his car in with no way to get it out. It would have cost a few thousand bucks to remove and replace the machines, so he just said "fuck it" and left the car where it is today. The ceiling over the car it too low to bring in a crane or anything. The car is in absolutely perfect condition, and it's been started and run every week since it was parked, first by the old guy and then by his son, who now owns the shop.

It's for sale for $1000.00 plus the cost of extracting it. He's had a few people look at it over the years, but no serious offers. Now with the price of gas, I doubt it'll ever sell. It has a 400 under the hood and probably gets about 4mpg.

It's as big as a freakin' school bus and has 2,500 miles on the clock.

[CanuckAmok]

49. And on the other end of the spectrum, there's this.....

Looka ththe condition of this one. And they want $280,000! It's probably worth around $175,000, which is still about 20 times the original sticker price.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Plymouth-Road-Runner-1970-PLYMOUTH-SUPERBIRD-SURVIOR-14K-TV-MAG-MINT_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ43921QQihZ002QQitemZ4651894348QQrdZ1

[Oeditpus Rex]

8. Hey, how 'bout THE car of the early '80s?

:rofl:

[Crazy Dave]

11. My brother had one and was still driving it in 2003

n/t

[Oeditpus Rex]

15. Are you serious??

I started seeing Citations in wrecking yards in the late '80s. :shrug:

[Crazy Dave]

23. I never saw it as he lived 1300 miles away

...but he bragged about only paying $200 for it.

[CanuckAmok]

25. I knew a guy who had one that always smelled like vomit.

And it had a rust-spot on one of the rear doors that looked exactly like Africa, Madagascar Island and all.

[RevCheesehead]

10. I'd rather go RetroLounge.

:loveya:

[lizziegrace]

14. I think there's a club for that one...

:)

[WoodyTobiasJr]

13. Tandy Tandy Tandy!!

[CanuckAmok]

27. Ha! The Canadian Armed Forces got rooked into...

Buying a whole whack of Tandy 200 machines. They were using them for everytthing, from scheduling garbage pick-ups to monitoring NORAD. I even had one up to about 1993.

[deucemagnet]

36. Wow! A lightning-fast 20 MHz processor!

:rofl:

[Crazy Dave]

37. 80's quote

"Nobody will ever need a processor that fast"

Welcome to DU deucemagnet :hi:

[deucemagnet]

52. Thanks!

I'm an old-timer who felt he needed a change of screen name, but I'm accepting all welcomes nonetheless! :hi:

[Redstone]

43. Yo: I have a TI 99/44A. It's still in the attic. I need to donate it to

a museum one of these days.

(I also have a Mac made in May, 1984. It still works.)

Redstone

[Redstone]

45. And it cost EIGHTY-FIVE HUNDRED BUCKS! B ack when you could buy

a pretty decent CAR for that much money!

Redstone

[Lydia Leftcoast]

53. The Osborne computer! It was portable...

if you had a luggage cart. :-)

[Duncan Grant]

20. Tunes.

[lizziegrace]

22. I had one of these

Orange-red, black and white houndstooth interior, no air...

[Crazy Dave]

24. I like that

Older Honda Civic right?

[lizziegrace]

26. Yep

1975 Hatchback.

[chaska]

39. I'd love to have one of those. I still see 'em around.

[Redstone]

44. How long until it rusted? Two, three years?

1970s Japanese cars were BAD to rust.

Redstone

[lizziegrace]

46. I had this car in Memphis

No rust problems down there. The fuel gauge quit and the filters were constantly clogging but other than that...

[CanuckAmok]

30. Hang on... an 80s car thread without the decade's icon(s)?!

It's the 80s in a nutshell: shiny, brash, angular, and financed by the conversion of cocaine to cash.

[Crazy Dave]

38. And speaking of 80's Icons

I can't find any pictures of the "funky" custom conversion vans of that era. The ones with bad-ass artwork, fur-lined interior top to bottom and ship type steering wheels.

[CanuckAmok]

47. ask and ye shall receive.

...and no need to do it youjrself.... your fix is as near as your Chrysler Dealer.



Oh, wait.... you said custom:

[Crazy Dave]

55. That's what I'm talking about

I spent over twenty minutes on Google with all types of different keywords and couldn't even find one picture.

Thanks :hi:

[chaska]

41. The only new car I ever bought.

I loved my Yugo. It really was a fun car.

And contrary to popular myth, it was super reliable ... for the entire first summer. :(

[1monster]

50. Retro 70s and 80s! I'll go with the car in the third image down.

[lizziegrace]

51. Disco Duck!

I have a "Disco Duck for President" bumper sticker. Rick Dees was on the radio in Memphis when I lived there.

:)

[njdemocrat106]

54. First car: 1982 Oldsmobile Omega

It was a cousin to the maligned Chevrolet Citation. I never had any real big troubles with it. I "sort of" upgraded to a 1991 Dodge Dynasty a few years back, and now I'm beginning to consider looking for another new pre-owned vehicle (I don't think I could ever afford a brand new car, at least not now in my life.)