1977 Buick Electra Limited

1977 was the first model year for the downsized C-body Electra at Buick, reflecting the scramble in Detroit caused by the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.

Assuming this Brown 1977 Electra Limited coupe with a Buckskin landau vinyl top has the top motor available, it's a full 750 pounds lighter than its 1976 model year predecessor. Its wheelbase is eight inches shorter and it's just a single inch shy of a full foot shorter from bumper to bumper.

That top-of-the-line motor is also no longer a 205hp Buick 455 V-8, but rather a 185hp 4-barrel 403 V-8 sourced from GM stablemate Oldsmobile.

It was a very efficient exercise in packaging, though, since despite the loss in exterior dimensions, headroom and legroom remained the same. All that was lost in the interior was a couple inches of shoulder room.

This one was snapped in July of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4 zoom lens.

1948 Tasco Prototype

This one was from the Dream Cars exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art in 2015. It's a 1948 Tasco Prototype. The front fenders steer with the wheels.

Tasco stood for "The American Sportscar Comany" The car was designed by Gordon Buehrig, creator of classics like the Duesenberg Model J, Auburn 851 Boattail Speedster, Cord 812, and the Lincoln Continental Mark II...

The idea of the Tasco was pitched as a way for Beech Aircraft to get into the booming automobile market in the postwar years. Buehrig patented the T-top with this car and sued GM in 1968 over the T-tops on the Corvette.

1936 Auburn 852 Phaeton

Seen out on the street with more pedestrian automobiles around for scale, this classic Auburn is quite a sight.

This Cadet Gray and Rich Maroon 1936 852 Phaeton was from the final full year of production for Auburn (and its Cord and Duesenberg stablemates). With the Great Depression crippling the market for ultrapremium luxury cars, they ceased production in mid-1937.

The 852 came in normally-aspirated and supercharged versions. This is one of the former, and it's powered by an iron block 280 cubic inch flathead Lycoming straight-8 with a 2-barrel carburetor and aluminum alloy cylinder head, rated at 115 SAE gross horsepower. Power is fed through a three-speed manual transmission to a dual ratio rear end. The driver can select between final drive ratios via a lever on the steering wheel hub.

I'm fortunate to have a classic car broker in the neighborhood, so you never know what might come tooling out of the mist on a foggy January morning, like this one in 2023.

It was snapped with a Nikon D800 and my trusty 24-120mm f/4G VR zoom lens.

1975 Triumph TR6

It was a glorious June Sunday in 2023, with temps in the mid seventies and low humidity, complimented by gentle breezes. It was perfect convertible weather, and this gentleman was out making the most of it in his Triumph TR6, painted the shade known as Mimosa.

It's a later one, '74-'77 as attested by the grotesque rubber bumper warts required to meet U.S. safety standards.

While the relatively few TR6's of this vintage sold back in Old Blighty featured Lucas mechanical fuel injection, American market cars (by far the majority of TR6's sold) relied on a pair of Stromberg carbs to feed fuel-air mixture to the slightly undersquare, cast iron, pushrod straight six. This, along with a lower compression ratio to satisfy EPA regs, resulted in 105 SAE net horsepower from 152 cubes of displacement, down from the original's 150hp.

Acceleration, consequently, was hardly eyeball-flattening. Most tests reported 0-60 times in the ten-to-eleven second range, as opposed to the 8-ish second runs posted by Autocar. Still, everything feels zippy when your ass is only inches from the pavement. Ask any MG driver.

These photos were snapped with a Nikon D700 and 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G zoom lens.

1967 Buick Skylark Convertible

Here's a 1967 Buick Skylark convertible out for a Sunday cruise on College Avenue.

The Skylark began life in 1961 as a trim level of the Buick Special compact before becoming its own nameplate the following model year. For 1964 both the Special and Skylark had their wheelbases stretched from 111" to 115", becoming true midsize cars.

The Special had three normal Buick portholes along the upper fender; portholes to let you know it was a Buick, and only three of them to let you know it wasn't as ritzy as a "real" Buick, like the Electra. The Skylark, on the other hand, got vertical chrome gills low on the fender to let you know it was a sporty Buick, like a Wildcat.

For '67, Buick offered two different whites: Riviera White, which was a very white shade of white, and the Arctic White you can see on this Skylark. On Pontiacs it was called Cameo Ivory.

The two-door sedan version of the '67 Skylark had the 225cid Buick V6 as a base motor, as a vestige of the classic inexpensive Businessman's Coupe, but this convertible would have come with a 210 horsepower 300 cubic inch two-barrel V-8 as standard equipment, with a couple four-barrel 300- and 340cid performance options above it.

Here's that 1967 Buick Skylark convertible in Arctic White parked on a side street about a month later. A peek at the dash shows us it has the 2-speed Super Turbine 300 automatic transmission.

If you wanted the Super Turbine transmission, you could also get an optional 340cid four-barrel "Power Pack" V-8, basically a stroked 300 that also bumped the compression ratio from 9.0:1 to 10.25:1, rated at 260bhp SAE gross.

Like the all-alloy Buick 215 V-8 to which they were related, the iron-block 300/340 Buick small blocks originally had aluminum heads, intake manifolds, and accessories, and were fairly light for Detroit V-8s at only a little over 400 pounds, although for '66 they switched to iron cylinder heads.

Back in 1967, Car Life magazine tested a Skylark four-door hardtop sedan with the 260-horsepower four-barrel 340 cube V-8 and the 2-speed Super Turbine auto and recorded a 0-60 time of 11.0 seconds and an 18.0 second quarter mile at 78 miles per hour.

The first five pictures were taken in August and September of 2022 using a Nikon D800 and 24-120mm f/4G VR zoom lens, while the bottom picture was snapped with an Olympus E-300 and Zuiko Digital 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens.

1966 Pontiac GTO Convertible

This nice, clean 1966 Pontiac GTO convertible is painted Candlelight Cream. That's a very soothing and easy-on-the-eyes color, in my opinion.

'66 was the last year of the original 389 cubic inch V-8 in the Goat, and it could be had in a normie 335 horse setup with a single 4-barrel carb, or with the 360bhp "Tri-Power" package, featuring triple Rochester 2-bbl carburetors.

The hood scoop remained purely ornamental, although you could order a kit that converted it to a functional "Ram Air" setup. As low-profile as that scoop is, I don't know how much air would get rammed, even at speed, but you could at least hear the healthy whooping of three deuces sucking down high-test and converting it to noise and tire smoke. (And since both the 4bbl and Tri Power packages sported 10.75:1 compression ratios, you were definitely buying the good stuff at the Sunoco.)

With the wide range of options available, a GTO could be perched anywhere along a broad spectrum of the stoplight hierarchy. A four-barrel car with the 2-speed automatic transmission and the standard 3.23:1 final drive ratio had a lot more bark than bite, while a Tri-Power Goat with the optional close-ratio four-on-the-floor gearbox and 4.33 rear end would flatten your eyeballs when the signal went green...and probably turn in single-digit MPG numbers at highway speeds.

Car Life magazine tested a '66 convertible Goat with the 389 Tri-Power motor, close-ratio 4-speed, and limited-slip 3.55:1 rear end. They managed a 6.8 second zero-to-sixty time and put the quarter away in 15.5 at 92 mph. The not-totally-gonzo final drive ratio netted them 9-10 miles per gallon around town and 12-13 mpg on the highway.

Dig that year-of-manufacture 1966 Indiana Sesquicentennial license plate!

These photos were taken in May of 2023 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

1964 Dodge Dart 270

Dodge has gotten a lot of mileage out of the "Dart" moniker over the years, and not just figuratively. They introduced the Dart name in 1960 for a newer, slightly-smaller Dodge model based on a Plymouth that would fill out the catalog with something cheaper to buy and thriftier to drive than the full-sized Matador and Polara models.

After a quirky-looking second generation that only lasted for one model year, 1962, a new downsized third generation of Dart debuted as something called a "senior compact", a name meant to reflect a car that was slightly larger and roomier than the '61-'62 Valiant/Lancer Mopar compacts, but thriftier than the full-size cars.

Unlike the Valiant/Lancers, the new-for-'63 Dart models rode on a 111" wheelbase, which was a four-and-half inch stretch over the earlier car. While 111" was indeed compact by the standards of early Sixties Detroit, where full-size behemoths like the Dodge 880 rolled on wheelbases nearly a full foot longer, by the time the Dart was discontinued after the '76 model year, it was feeling distinctly mid-sized.

Originally introduced with your choice of Slant-Six motors in 170cid displacement with 101 SAE gross horsepower or the classic 225 cubic inch version rated at 145 gross bhp, an all new engine was added for 1964.

If the fender badges on this super-straight Ivory 1964 Dodge Dart 270 sedan aren't fibbing, it has the brand-new-for-'64 273 cubic inch V-8. With a 2-barrel Carter carb, 8.8:1 compression, solid lifters, and a single exhaust, the 273 was rated at 180 SAE gross horsepower and gave a noticeable performance bump in these relatively smaller, lighter cars over the regular six cylinder mill.

The 273 was the first in a long line of what were dubbed Chrysler's "LA" series of small blocks. It was produced in 318, 340, and 360 versions and eventually morphed into the fuel-injected 5.2L and 5.9L Magnum V-8's of the Nineties, powering a host of Mopar trucks. It also served as the basis for the 8.0L V-10, which was basically a 360 with a couple extra cylinders.

While the '64 Dart was the first year of the new LA V-8, it was also the last model year of a quirky old Mopar artifact, the pushbutton gear selector. If this car has a three-speed Torqueflite automatic transmission, then rather than having a conventional lever on the floor or column, it has a set of pushbuttons to the left of the wheel.

This example was photographed using a Nikon D800 and 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens in July of 2023.

1970 Ford Torino GT

The Torino nameplate had been introduced by Ford in the 1968 model year as the most upscale variant of the midsize Fairlane. When the midsize Fords got sleek new coke-bottle fuselage styling for their unibodies in the 1970 model year, the Torino became the primary midsize standard-bearer for Ford, with the Fairlane name now signifying a de-contended strippo Torino.

The hierarchy for the '70 Ford midsize lineup went from the Fairlane 500, through the regular Torino, and thence to the plush Torino Brougham or the sporty Torino GT, and finally to the hairy-chested Torino Cobra.

The GT model came as either a fastback "SportsRoof" or a convertible and could be told apart from its more sedate stablemates by the GT badging, non-functional hood scoop, and little chrome gills on the flanks aft of the doors.

There's no telling what's under the hood of the Vermillion 1970 Torino GT SportsRoof coupe above. Base motor for the GT was the 2-barrel 302, rated at 220 SAE gross horsepower. Buyers could opt for the 351 in 250hp 2-barrel or 300hp 4-barrel forms, as well as the 429 big block V-8 in 360hp Cobra or 370hp Ram-Air Cobra Jet configurations. Transmissions could be 3- or 4-speed manual or the 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic.

The one in the top photo was snapped in December of 2014 in the parking lot of the now-defunct Boogie Burger restaurant in the Broad Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, using a Nikon Coolpix S6500.

The one in the lower photos, spotted at a garage in rural Washington state in late June of 2015 was photographed with a Nikon Coolpix P7000. While it has GT badges in the appropriate places, it lacks the chrome gills and GT hood. It's been re-painted, obviously, so only the VIN can tell us whether it's the real deal or not.

Motor Trend tested a cross section of four Torino models in '70, including a base Torino SportsRoof coupe with the 4-barrel 351 and a Torino GT with the 429 Super Cobra Jet, both with the 3-speed auto transmission.

The 351 car ran 0-60 in 8.7 seconds and managed the quarter mile in 16.5 seconds at 86.6 mph, while the beastly big block GT laid down a 6.0 zero-to-sixty and a 14.4 quarter at 100.2 mph. (Another combination of acceleration times and trap speed demonstrating how the big block cars of this era needed to be babied out of the hole on street tires lest you wind up just sitting there generating clouds of white smoke and noise.)

1946 Packard Super Clipper

With an Art Deco building for a backdrop that couldn't be any more apropos, here's a 1946 Packard Super Clipper Club Sedan.

The gorgeous new 1941 Clipper models from Packard were introduced with what might have been the worst-ever timing in automotive history: Eight months before the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. Civilian automobile production shut down for the duration early in the production run of the '42 model year.

When sales resumed in '46, Packard just basically picked up where they had left off. The two tone Club Sedan in the photos, Vanderbilt Gray Metallic up top and Atlantic Blue Metallic below, is one of these post war cars.

The Club Sedan is a two-door with a capacious rear seat, which is distinguished from the four-door Touring Sedan.

Beneath that sweeping hood with its graceful cormorant hood ornament could be found Packard's Super-8 flathead straight-eight, displacing 365 cubic inches and rated at 165 SAE gross horsepower. It used a Carter two-barrel carburetor and had a 6.85:1 compression ratio, which is quaintly low by modern standards.

Riding on a 127" wheelbase, the six-passenger Club Sedan weighed in at 3,950 pounds and set the customer back $2,241, or just over $36,000 in today's dollars, provided one didn't go crazy with the options, like the overdrive rear end.

This one was photographed in July of 2021 using a Nikon D3 and a 35-70mm f/2.8 AF-D zoom lens.

1992 Ford Mustang LX Convertible

By the early Nineties, the 3rd Generation Mustangs, known to enthusiasts as Fox Body cars, were getting long in the tooth. A replacement was already in the works, and it would be another front-engine rear-wheel drive car with an optional V-8; fan outcry had saved the Mustang from being re-cast as a Mazda-sourced FWD coupe. (That car was instead being sold as the Ford Probe.)

Sales hadn't been strong in the recession of the early '90s and so ambitious plans for the next generation 'Stang were shelved in favor of a much more modest upgrade. In the meantime, the Fox Body would need to soldier on for another couple model years.

For 1992 the only really new external visual cue was the black rubber strip in the side molding and bumpers was replaced with one in body color, as can be seen on this Bright Calypso Green LX ragtop.

The LX came from the factory with a 2.3L SOHC inline four; Ford's Lima motor that had been around since the days when it was found under the hoods of '74 Pintos. Now sporting electronic fuel injection and dual spark plug heads, it was rated at 108 SAE net horsepower. The only optional motor was Ford's 5.0L H.O. V-8. Either engine could be had with a five-speed manual or a four-speed automatic.

The pony fender badges, rather than prominent chrome "5.0" ones, tell us this is a four-cylinder secretarymobile, like roughly half of all Mustangs sold that year. No race car, but certainly a pleasant cruiser with the top down on a sunny summer day. Besides, the fuelie OHC twin plug Lima probably made as much juice as any six cylinder available in a First Generation 'Stang.

This one was photographed in September of 2023 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark III and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

1969 Mercedes-Benz 280SL

You may be cool but you are not rolling-around-Broad-Ripple-in-a-W113-with-a-matching-trilby cool. I couldn't tell if the Becker was tuned to smooth jazz of the University of Indianapolis's WICR-FM, but I wouldn't bet against it.

The Pagoda is such a good looking ride and I'd spotted this tasty 280SL around the 'hood a bunch before he rolled past in August of 2020 and gave me a good shot like this one. About a year and a half later, though, he pulled into the Fresh Market parking lot while I was having lunch. I hollered "Don't let anyone spit in my beer!", grabbed my D700 off the table, and jogged across the street.

The front end is Euro, lacking the bumper override guards and sporting the one-piece headlamp/fog light assemblies that were verboten on U.S.-market automobiles back then. However, the rear-view mirror appears to be a later post-'68 black-bordered safety unit and the rear fenders have the FMVSS-compliant side marker lights.

Could be a gray market car, could be that a later owner just liked the cleaner Euro schnozz. I mean, my '94 Mustang has '96 taillights because they look better and I've had people notice that.

A manual transmission and a speedometer readout in km/h lend support to the gray market theory. Base price on the U.S. import cars was $6,731, which is equivalent to about $57,700 in today's dough.

The 2.8L SOHC fuel-injected inline six was rated at 180 horsepower. Road & Track clocked a '69 test car with a four-speed auto at 9.9 seconds to sixty, by shifting the transmission manually at 6500rpm, and laid down a 17.1 quarter mile at 80 mph through the traps. The W113 was the last really nimble, lithe SL-class, tipping the scales at a bit over 3100 pounds. Later versions got panzer-heavy.

All these photos were snapped with the D700 and 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G zoom lens.

1987 Pontiac Firebird Formula

Here's a 1987-1990 Pontiac Firebird Formula. If that's the factory paint, I think that's an '87, because that's the only year that solid (non 2-tone) Bright Blue Metallic was available as an option on the Formulas.

The third generation of the F-body, before its mid-cycle refresh for the 1991 model year, is a sort of historical record of the American performance car renaissance.

When the third gen Firebirds debuted for the 1982 model year, the base Firebird came with a 151cid throttle-body injected 90bhp Iron Duke four cylinder and a 4-speed manual and the baddest Trans Am had an LU5 305 cubic inch V8 with "Crossfire fuel injection" rated at 165 SAE net horsepower.

For 1990, the last model year before they uglified the nose cone, the cheapest loss-leader Firebirds had a 140bhp 3.1L V6 with a 5-speed gearbox and the Trans Am could be had with a 245bhp L98 Tuned Port Injection 350 under the hood.

In 1987 the Formula package was freshly back after a six year hiatus, and the base motor in this car would have been the 170 horsepower LG4 305 V-8 with a Rochester 4-barrel carburetor, backed by either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic transmission. Optionally, the buyer could opt for the LB9 Tuned Port Injection 305, which gave 190hp with the automatic or 205 bhp with the manual. Finally, the Formula could also be had with the L98 350 TPI V-8, which made 225 horsepower in the Firebird, down slightly from the Corvette due to different, iron cylinder heads and a more restrictive intake. 

The 5.7L 'Vette-derived motor could only be had with an automatic transmission because the Borg Warner T5 World Class five-speed used in the third-generation F-bodies (like their arch rival Fox Body Mustangs) wasn't rated to handle the torque from the bigger motor.

The giant screaming chicken hood decal was gone as a factory item for '87, so the one in the photo is likely a dealer-installed option. Normally it would have a plain hood save for either "5.0 Liter" or "5.0 Liter F.I." decals on either side of the power bulge. The 5.7L cars had big "FORMULA 350" decals along the lower door panels. WS6 performance suspension and 16" wheels came standard on the Formula, too.

Car and Driver tested the '87 Formula with the Tuned Port 305 and a 5-speed and turned in a 6.8 zero-to-sixty time and a 15.1 second quarter; respectable for the era and still plenty quick enough to keep up with traffic.

The one in the photos was snapped with a Canon EOS-1D Mark III and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens in April of 2024.

2018 Rolls-Royce Wraith

While not a thunderously gauche assault on the senses in the manner of, say, an orange Culloden, a Rolls-Royce Wraith coupe is still an immense slab of vehicle; it's a hard car to miss. It's two and a half tons of metal, leather, Wilton wool, wood veneer, and twin-turbo V-12. Over seventeen feet long, with a roofline most of five feet high, it's a coupe of near SUV-proportions.

Introduced for 2014 alongside the Phantom Coupé (Rolls of course sniffily insists on the accented "e"), the Wraith pulled a name from corporate history and eventually supplanted the Phantom. Unlike its predecessor, the enormous grand tourer rides on a platform derived from that of the F07 BMW 7-series sedans.

The clear, oddly shaped headlight lenses on this Midnight Sapphire example tell us it's a 2017-2023 model, after the modest facelift. Earlier ones had rectangular lenses.

Motor Trend tested a 2014 car and claimed the 624 horsepower twin-turbo 6.6L V-12 would launch this rolling landmass to sixty in a mere 4.1 seconds and dispatch the quarter in 12.5 at a buck-fourteen. More impressively, the brakes would stop Rolls's two-door leviathan in only 109 feet from sixty, which must feel like driving into a sand dune.

I was tooling down 54th Street in Indianapolis back in August of 2021 when I noticed this beast in the parking lot at the American Legion hall, so I swung in to get photos with the little Nikon D3000 in the passenger seat.

Notice the Rolls logo is upright on all four center caps? Yeah, they don't spin. I have to replace a couple little roundel center caps on the Zed Drei every few years when they get bounced loose on Indy's bomb-cratered streets. Fortunately the plastic caps on the Bimmer are cheap. I should start keeping a spare or two in the trunk. Hopefully the ones on the Roller are more secure, since a set of four that claim to be OEM goes for seven bills on Amazon.

Sixty Years of ‘Stang

In early 1964, the first Ford Mustangs rolled into dealerships. The 1965 model year at Ford wasn't officially underway yet, so these earliest Mustangs are known as "1964½" models, like the Skylight Blue convertible above.

That particular Mustang has a 260cid V-8, sourced from Ford's midsize Fairlane line. With a two-barrel carburetor and 8.8:1 compression, the little small block was rated at 164 SAE gross horsepower.

Thirty years and three generations later, the Mustang nameplate was on its third platform: The initial Falcon-derived chassis had bloated to almost midsize proportions. The base model '64½ weighed in under 2500 pounds, while the final 1973 'Stangs tipped the scales at over 3500 in even their most spartan trim.

The second generation shrunk to a Pinto-based car that only weighed 2600 pounds in hardtop coupe form. After four years of the Mustang II, the all-new 1979 Mustangs debuted on Ford's Fox platform, the same as the compact Fairmont sedan.

My Laser Red 1994 Mustang GT in the photo above was the first of the fourth generation, called the SN95, thirty years after the the originals. While the basic dimensions of the small block 302 V-8 are shared with the old 260 and 289, it has thirty years worth of improvements. 

Tuned-port injection, electronic ignition, computerized engine management... the 1994's 5.0L H.O. V-8 put out 215 SAE net horsepower with no drama on midgrade pump gas. Bear in mind that under the old SAE gross brochure horsepower numbers, this thing probably would have been advertised as having something closer to 300 and in the days of carbs and no computers it would have taken radical cams, solid lifters, and a high compression ratio necessitating premium gas to put out these numbers.

Another thirty years on we see the first seventh generation Mustangs, like the Vapor Blue 2024 GT coupe above.

It's been three generations since the Mustang shared a platform with anything, and the new S650 7th generation is its own car. The 5.0L under the hood of this '24 has nothing in common with the 5.0 in my '94 except the name and the number and arrangement of the cylinders. It's a 307 cubic inch DOHC 32V motor rated at a whopping 480 net horsepower.

Sixty years is a long run for one nameplate. The only one with a longer uninterrupted run I can think of is Chevrolet's Corvette.

You gotta wonder if there'll be 75th anniversary editions of either one?

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1987 Ford Escort GL Wagon

The Escort was the budget front-wheel drive subcompact that Ford used to replace the aging rear-wheel drive Pinto in the 1981 model year, just in time for the second Fuel Crisis.

There was much hype about the new Escort being a "world car" designed jointly between Ford of North America and Ford of Europe. Indeed, the "Escort" nameplate had been in use on little European Fords since the Sixties. There were even little badges on the car with the Escort name on a stylized globe for a background.

In actuality, all they shared was the name, the little cam-in-head 8-valve four cylinder motor, and the same automatic transmission on cars so equipped. (The cam-in-head design is still, technically an OHV engine, but the cam is in the head, operating the rocker arms via hydraulic lash adjusters, sans pushrods.)

These were the cars that Ford sent out to do battle with the Civics, Corollas, and Sentras that were devouring the North American marketplace

The one in the pictures is an '87 model, after the first major upgrade. The hemi-head 1.6L engine had been bored and stroked to 1.9L, becoming notably undersquare in the process. With throttle body fuel injection it put out 90 SAE net horsepower. In coupe or hatchback form, and with a manual transmission, this was enough motor to nudge the Escort under the 10-second barrier in the 0-60 sprint. In a wagon with an automatic? LOL. LMAO, even.

This Oxford White 1987 Escort GL wagon has somehow managed to avoid oxidizing away to nothing over the last thirty-seven years, despite obviously not leading a pampered existence. However either they're smuggling a crate of lead bars or the rear suspension has packed it in.

It was photographed using a Nikon D3 and 24-120mm f/4 VR zoom lens in April of 2023.
 

1967 Buick Wildcat

The Wildcat began life as a performance option package on the Buick Invicta hardtop coupe in '62, but became its own model line for the 1963 model year.

Bigger than the midsize Special/Skylark models, it was still slightly smaller than the big C-body Electras and the '63 Wildcat's junior status was signaled by having three chrome "Ventiports" in the front fenders rather than the four of the Electra. 

To proclaim its sporting intentions, the porthole-esque Ventiports got replaced in '64 with an arrangement of three vertically-stacked horizontal slots and when the model got upgraded with a whole new generation for 1965, the alternative chrome baubles continued, changing year-to-year so you could signal you had the newest model in classic Detroit fashion.

For 1967 they were a row of raked chrome gill slit thingies low on the fender and blending into the chrome rocker trim, reminiscent of the chromed exhaust of a Thirties classic. This combined with the prominent display of another piece of classic Buick styling, the "Sweepspear" line, recalling the "Airfoil" fenders of the elegant Harley Earl designs of the Forties.

For 1967, the Wildcat received an entirely new engine, too. Buick's previous big V-8, officially originally named Fireball and then Wildcat, was known colloquially as the "Nailhead" for the appearance of its small valves with their long stems. It was felt that future performance increases would be stymied by the small diameter of the valves and so a whole new big-block V-8 was designed.

In the '67 Wildcat it displaced 430 cubic inches and was rated at 360 SAE gross horsepower, with a 4-barrel carburetor, dual exhaust, and 10.25:1 compression, necessitating premium fuel. 

Car Life magazine tested a 1967 hardtop coupe, more or less identical to the Platinum Mist example in these photos, and recorded an 8.4 second 0-60 run and a quarter mile time of 15.8 at 84.5, which is pretty sprightly for a well-optioned luxobarge of a sports coupe riding on a 126" wheelbase and weighing every bit of two and a quarter tons. Base price was $3.603, but by the time they were finished with the option book, the as-tested sticker was $5,280.

The one in the photos was snapped in June of 2021 using a Nikon D3 and 24-85mm f/2.8-4D zoom lens.

1967 Chevrolet Camaro RS Convertible

After allowing Ford a two and a half model year head start in the Pony Car Wars, Chevrolet finally provided the Mustang with its once and future arch rival in the form of the 1967 Camaro.

While its curvy coke bottle lines obviously came from the styling team responsible for the swoopy second generation rear-engined Corvair, the Camaro was a thoroughly conventional front-engined auto.

It featured a unit body aft of the firewall with a bolt-on subframe that carried the motor and front suspension (and which it shared with the Chevy II/Nova). This shared commonality with Chevy's compact, much like the Mustang's Falcon-derived genes, served to keep the costs down and the profit margins high for the new sporty coupe.

The Butternut Yellow convertible in the photos has the RS, for "Rally Sport", package. This was mostly a trim and accessory package, and got the buyer headlights hidden behind vacuum-operated doors, different taillights, and RS badges and extra chrome trim.

The fender badges say this one's got the 250 cubic inch inline six cylinder, which is a bump up from the base 230 cid six. The twenty extra cubic inches boosted power from 140 to 155 SAE gross bhp.

While the big-motored SS Camaros and GT Mustangs get all the ink, the bulk of pony car sales have always been what enthusiasts derisively term "secretarymobiles"; sporty-looking cars with thrifty drivetrains and reasonable MSRPs, bought by people who just want a cool looking car and aren't yet necessarily worried about hauling a family around. The '67 RS convertible here would have started at $2,914, with the bigger six only bumping the price a little.

Car Life tested a base coupe with the 250cid six and three-speed manual. It managed an 11.4 second 0-60 run and cleared the quarter in eighteen and a half seconds at 75mph. Top speed was recorded as 104 miles per hour.

The one in the photos was snapped with a Nikon Coolpix P7000 back in July of 2016.

1959 Studebaker Lark

Unable to compete at scale with the "Big Three" in Detroit, especially in the recessionary economy of the late Fifties, Studebaker decided to pivot toward the other end of the market.

The compact Lark, launched in 1959, actually shared a lot of the passenger compartment & roofline of the full-size Studebaker models, but had the front and rear overhangs shortened considerably. The wheelbase got a section taken out of it ahead of the firewall, too, shortening it to 108.5".

It was available in two basic trim levels. The Deluxe, which was the cheaper of the two, came as a two- or four-door pillared sedan or a two-door wagon. The fancier Regal could be had as a convertible, hardtop coupe, or wagon.

The trim on the cars, even the Regals, was quite restrained for a late-Fifties American car, and the Lark emphasized thriftiness.

The Alaskan Blue 1959 two-door pillared sedan in the photo would have sported a base MSRP of only $1,925, or a couple hundred bucks shy of $21,000 in today's dollars. While the glitzier models could be had with Studebaker's 259 cubic inch OHV V-8, the base Deluxe two-door sedan was only offered with the somewhat dated 169 cube flathead inline six, rated at 90 SAE gross horsepower.

While performance of the V-8 cars was reasonably peppy... the Lark's main competitor, the Rambler American, could only be had with a straight six ...the six cylinder Larks were torpid. The flathead Studebaker "Champion" inline six dated back to the 1930s, and the performance numbers reflected that.

Road & Track tested a '59 Lark Deluxe with a 3-speed manual and clocked a best 0-60 time of 21.0 seconds with a quarter mile run of 21.4 at 61 mph through the traps. A sufficiently determined driver who wasn't facing a headwind might eventually coax the thing up to a heady 80 mile per hour top speed.

People shopping at this end of the car market aren't generally looking for race cars, however, and they'd likely be more interested in the fuel mileage, which R&T recorded as ranging between 17 and 22 miles per gallon, which was quite parsimonious for the era.

Judging by the wheels and tires on this Lark, though, I doubt that the engine compartment bears much resemblance to the way it looked when it left the plant in South Bend, Indiana sixty-five years ago.

It was photographed with a Nikon D300S and 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens in August of 2024.

1972 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray Convertible

1972 was the end of the road for many things in Corvette-land. It was the last year of the chrome front bumper, the last year for the vacuum operated pop-up windshield wiper door, and the last year for the wild-eyed high compression LT-1 350 V-8 motor.

The lack of a power bulge in the middle of this Mille Miglia Red convertible's hood means it's a small-block car. That would mean either the aforementioned LT-1 350 or, far more likely, the base ZQ3 350 mill.

For the 1972 model year, all GM engines were advertised with their SAE net horsepower ratings. That, combined with lowered compression ratios in preparation for an unleaded gas future made it feel like the cars had taken a much bigger performance haircut than they actually had.

The ZQ9 350 V-8, with its 4-barrel carburetor and dual exhaust, had an 8.5:1 compression ratio and was rated at 200 SAE net horsepower, while the solid lifter LT-1 had a 9.0:1 compression ratio and boasted a 255 horsepower rating. Both power ratings were actually unchanged from the previous year, but '71 advertising used gross numbers with SAE net as a footnote.

Chevy sold just over 6,500 Corvette convertibles in '72 with a base MSRP of $5,296, which is equivalent to roughly forty thousand bucks in 2024. This one was photographed in July of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and Panasonic 12-60mm f/2.8-4 zoom lens.

1984 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Regency Brougham

The 1984 model year was the swan song for the full-size rear-wheel drive, body-on-frame Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight coupe and sedan.

Along with their GM C-platform stablemates, the Cadillac De Ville and Buick Electra, they'd been downsized for the 1977 model year and, in search of more fuel efficiency, for 1981 the base engine in the 98 became the 252 cubic inch (sold as the 4.1L) Buick V-6...although oddly they didn't call those cars "Oldsmobile 96's".

In 1982 an extra super deluxe trim level called the "Regency Brougham" was added to the Olds 98 lineup, with super plush upholstery and electroluminescent opera lamps on the B-pillars. Also standard on the Brougham were a tilt wheel, cornering lamps, and a padded vinyl roof. 

Base engine in the '84 Brougham was the Olds 307 V-8 with a Rochester 4-barrel carb, rated at 140 SAE net horsepower. Optionally, masochists could order the wretched Olds 350 diesel, which put out 105 horsepower when it could be persuaded to run at all.

The original MSRP of the Silver Metallic 1984 Regency Brougham in the photo was $15,201, which was enough to let you go shopping on a Cadillac lot back then, so long as you stuck to well-optioned Cimarrons.

This one was photographed in August of 2024 using a Nikon D300S and 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens.