1995 Pontiac Grand Prix SE

The 1988 model year was a jolt for fans of classic Detroit iron. The G-body coupes from General Motors, practically the last bastion of classic midsize front-engine, rear-wheel-drive coupes, got axed and replaced with smaller front wheel drive substitutes.

The G-body Buick Regal and Pontiac Grand Prix, cars that had been the staple of NASCAR were gone. (The Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme and Chevy Monte Carlo got a one model year reprieve, with the RWD Olds still being sold for the '88 model year as the Cutlass Supreme Classic alongside its FWD replacement, and the Monte disappearing for '89, replaced by the 1990 Lumina coupe.)

Those G-bodies were the cars that much of GenX learned to drive on, borrowing dad's Cutlass 442 or mom's Monte Carlo LS on a Friday night and doing the only performance modification you could do that could be undone without anyone being the wiser: Flip the air cleaner lid upside down so you could hear the weedy little 305 or 307 smog motor sucking air through the Rochester carb for all it was worth while you brake-torqued it at the traffic light in front of the Dairy Queen to annihilate that kid in the Accord coupe.

The replacement for the RWD G-body Pontiac Grand Prix was built on GM's new FWD W-body platform, also known as the GM10 cars.

In addition to going to front wheel drive, the sixth generation Grand Prix offered another change, because starting with the 1990 model year, a 4-door sedan was offered alongside the coupe; a first for the Grand Prix nameplate, which up until now had solely been a personal luxury coupe.

For the 1994 model year, Pontiac gave the Grand Prix a mild styling refresh, with new front and rear fascias. The car in the photo, a Grand Prix SE sedan in Medium Teal Metallic, is from the '94-'96 model years. The steel wheels and plastic wheel covers tell us it doesn't have the GT package, so under the hood you'll find GM's 3.1L 3100 pushrod V-6 rated at 160 SAE net horsepower.

With the port fuel injected engines, there was no flipping the air cleaner lid over for that easy 2hp boost, alas...

The one in the picture was photographed in December of 2023 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and an EF 24-105mm f/4L IS zoom lens.

1991 Chevrolet Camaro Z28

By 1990 the life cycle of the Chevy Camaro's third generation was drawing to a close. Work was already underway on its replacement. Meanwhile, Chevrolet's sponsorship of the International Race Of Champions had ended, and so the sportiest Camaro reverted to the old Z28 moniker.

In order to juice sales for the final couple model years, Chevy released the 1991 Camaros early, only about halfway through the normal run of the '90 model year.

The 1991s featured some minor styling changes to spice them up, especially for the Z28 model. There was a new, more aggro ground effects package, with a bigger chin spoiler and cosmetic "scoops" on the side skirts. The Z28 added a big elevated rear wing and non-functional "power blisters" on the hood. Since there was no longer room in the spoiler for the third brake light, it was moved to the top of the rear window, on the inside.

The base motor on the Z28 was the LB9 tuned-port 305 small block, rated at 205 horsepower, with either a 5-speed manual or 4-speed automatic gearbox. Ticking the G92 Performance Enhancement Group option box got you a 5-speed manual with a 3.42 rear end and bumped the output of the LB9 TPI motor to 230hp.

The hot ticket for laying down the big numbers in the quarter with a '91 Z28 was selecting the L98 5.7L motor, which put out 245 horsepower, and getting the G92 3.42 rear end. This dropped quarter mile times to 14.3 seconds at 95 mph, according to Musclecar Review magazine, making it one of the few F-body configurations that could run with the 5.0L H.O. 'Stangs of the time at the drag strip.

This Ultra Blue Metallic '91 Z28, which would have had a base MSRP of $15,445 when new, was photographed using a Nikon D7000 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens in September of 2020.

1984 Chevrolet El Camino SS

The fifth (and final) generation of Chevrolet's El Camino ute debuted in 1978 as a downsized version of its predecessors and received a fairly heavy mid-cycle styling refresh for 1982. It had been styled to resemble the Malibu midsize sedan, but after the refresh it took its cues from the G-body Monte Carlo personal luxury coupe.

Gone were the hairier engine options from yesteryear, as the more fuel-conscious "new size" truckette came with an assortment of V-6s, a tame 305 small block, or the execrable Oldsmobile 350 diesel.

Chevrolet did offer a factory SS option, RPO Z15, that came with some trim & paint detail differences and an air dam. It also came with big SS decals on the doors and tailgate up through '83, but that stopped because Chevrolet started contracting through Choo Choo Customs of Chattanooga, which had mostly been known for its luxo conversion vans, to do an SS appearance package for the El Camino.

Choo Choo customs essentially fitted a Monte Carlo Super Sport snout and ground effects to the El Camino. In addition to the nose job, various options were available, like a "cowl induction" style hood bulge and functional side pipes.

Unlike the Monte Carlo SS, though, the El Camino SS was all bark and no bite. Whereas the Monte could be had with the L69 305 H.O. small block, which came with better-flowing heads, gnarlier camshaft, low-restriction exhaust, flat top 9.5:1 pistons, and a 750cfm Quadrajet, all of which added up to 190 horsepower, the Choo Choo Customs El Caminos still had the basic LG4 4-barrel 305 taxi motor from the regular El Caminos. While the lower compression ratio meant it'd run happily on regular gas, it also meant it only put out 150 horsepower.

The top and bottom photos were shot with a Nikon D1X and Nikon's excellent 35mm f/1.8 DX prime lens in November of 2021, while the middle one was snapped in October of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1970 Ford Mustang Convertible

Here it is, the last year before the bloat: a 1970 Ford Mustang. The '69-'70 Mustangs were already noticeably pudgier than previous models, and enthusiast magazines of the time had taken note. In a test of a 1969 Mach I with a 428 Cobra Jet, Car and Driver wrote:

Since the basic Mustang shape has been a howling success in the market, you can't blame Ford for sticking with a winner. But you can blame it for excess. Since the long hood/short deck styling theme has been rewarding, more of the same should be even better, right? So for '69 the Mustang grew 3.8 inches—all ahead of the front wheels. Believe us, that is the last thing the Mustang needed. The test car with its 428 Cobra Jet engine has 2140 of its 3607 lbs. balanced on the front wheels and that's with a full gas tank. Fifty nine point three per cent of its weight on the front wheels. Double grim. Any rear-wheel-drive car would be hamstrung with that kind of weight distribution and the Mustang is no exception. It can't begin to put its power to the ground for acceleration. And, when it comes to handling, the most charitable thing to say is that the Mustang is all thumbs.

Ouch.

The 1970 models were more of the same. The base engine for '70 was the 120-horsepower 200 cubic inch Thriftpower inline-6 cylinder. The Grabber Orange convertible in the photograph, however, sports a shaker hood scoop and dual exhausts, so it's no six-banger secretarymobile. The scoop is most likely attached to a 4-barrel 351 Cleveland V-8, with an 11.1:1 compression ratio, rated at 300 SAE gross horsepower.

The pony-and-tri-bar emblem on the '70s is in the center of the grille, while on '69s it was offset to the driver's side.

That 351 Cleveland had to lug roughly 3400 pounds of Mustang down the road, the bulk of it over the front wheels, so you had understeer for days, which you could turn into oversteer by glancing at the throttle and thinking heavy thoughts. Acceleration was traction limited, running 0-60 in the mid 8-second range with the 4bbl 351 and a three-speed slushbox.

The one in the photos was snapped in July of 2014 with a Nikon Coolpix S6500.

1996 Toyota Tercel DX

The Toyota Tercel, which was the first front-drive offering from the Japanese automaker, hit our shores as a 1980 model, called the "Corolla Tercel". It slid under the existing rear-wheel drive Corolla as Toyota's new basic transportation module and sold for a base MSRP of $4,198.

This allowed the Corolla to be moved slightly upmarket and the Tercel, soon freed of its "Corolla" prenomen, continued for four more generations and nearly twenty years as Toyota's workhorse cheap car.

The one in the picture is a Tercel DX from the middle of its final generation, dubbed the L50, which was sold here from the 1995 through 1999 model years.

The base model still started at only $10,348 in 1996, with the better-optioned DX going for a little more. The DX gave you cosmetic niceties like body-colored bumpers as well as the option of a five-speed manual (base cars still used a four-speed). Under the hood was Toyota's 1.5L DOHC 5E-FE inline four, rated at 93 SAE net horsepower. Performance was adequate, with 0-60 times in the low tens; enough to keep up with traffic, but not a street racer's delight.

Durability was downright Toyota-like, as the nearly thirty year old Medium Red example in the photo illustrates. It was photographed in September of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and an M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens.

1967 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Convertible

1967 was smack in the middle of the sixth generation of Oldsmobile's 88, and received a mid-cycle styling refresh like the rest of its General Motors B-body stablemates. They continued fiddling with various trim levels and names, with the Delmont 88 at the bottom, the Delta 88 in the middle, and the Delta 88 Custom at the top. The Dynamic 88 and Jetstar 88 nameplates went into the dustbin of history.

The convertible body style was only available for 1967 as a Delmont 88 or a Delta 88, with the faded (but otherwise remarkably straight) Spanish Red example declared to be the latter by the badges on the aft end of the rear fenders.

Under the hood would have been one of several flavors of Oldsmobile's 425 cubic inch Super Rocket V-8, ranging from a tame 2-barrel with a 9.0:1 compression ratio rated at 300 SAE gross horsepower to a snarling 365 horsepower 4-barrel that needed premium gas for its 10.5:1 squeeze.

This one was photographed in September of 2017 using a Leica D-Lux 3.

1970 Cadillac Coupe DeVille Convertible

1970 was the final year for the third generation of Cadillac's DeVille series. Even though it had received a fairly serious styling overhaul for '69, this was still the era where small exterior changes were made every year in the name of planned obsolescence and conspicuous consumption. When you rolled up to the country club in this thing, nobody would mistake it for last year's Caddy.

The quad headlamps, which had gone from being stacked vertically to arrayed horizontally just last year, now had body colored surrounds to better blend the housings into the fascia. There were crests on the forward creases of the front fenders, now, and the grille was also different, with a bolder egg crate look.

Under the hood, you'd find the trusty Cadillac 472 cubic inch V-8. With its Rochester 4-barrel carburetor and a 10.0:1 compression ratio, the big 7.7 Litre mill turned out 375 SAE gross horsepower and a monster 525 foot pounds of torque.

That powerplant was enough to shove even 4,800 pounds of Cadillac to sixty in the mid-8 second range. If you wanted to slow down, you had power front discs and enormous finned drums out back. The car had a full array of ultra modern features like thermostat-determined climate control and automatic headlight dimming ("Twilight Sentinel" in Cad-speak).

1970 was also the last year of the Coupe DeVille convertible, and this Nottingham Green Firemist example is in primo condition.

This one was photographed in September of 2024 using an Olympus OM-D E-M1X and M. Zuiko Digital 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 zoom lens.

1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V

Truly this car was the Last of the Dinosaurs. The fourth in Lincoln's Mark series of luxury coupes, the Mark V, though it was launched in 1976 as a '77 model, had actually begun development before the first fuel crisis in 1973.

By the time it came out, however, the nation had already experienced the shock of the OPEC embargo and so even though it rode on the same 120" wheelbase as its predecessor and was actually a couple inches longer (the longest postwar FoMoCo coupe, period, at 230.3"), vigorous weight reduction had shaved a few hundred pounds from the curb weight, down to "only" 4,652 pounds.

That new fuel consciousness also meant that the base motor for '77 was a 400 cubic inch 2-barrel version of Ford's Windsor small-block V-8, rated at 179 SAE net horsepower.The 208 horsepower four-barrel 460 cube big block remained an option.

For 1979, though, due to tightening CAFE regulations, the 460 was a goner, as was the second exhaust outlet on the 2-bbl 400, leaving only 159 ponies to propel this glamour barge down the interstate.

Motor Trend tested a '79 Mark V, a $13,594 Bill Blass Edition lacking no options but the factory CB radio, with the optional 2.75:1 performance rear axle (standard final drive ratio was 2.47:1) and managed an 11.6 second jog to sixty and a best quarter mile of 18.5 seconds at 76 mph.

About the car, they wrote:

"The 1979 Mark V was the essence of unconstrained American automotive opulence, conceived in a time when fuel economy and space efficiency were the concerns of lesser cars.

...Even with the weight loss, the Mark V is a huge piece of machinery, albeit a desirable one in terms of potential value. It is the last of a breed and has sufficient quality and style to assure eventual classic status It is entirely likely that, in 10 years, the owners of such cars will discover that they have a piece of collectible automotive machinery.

....To drive the Mark V is to be the captain of your own huge, luxurious ship. In an operational sense, the Mark V is massive, smooth and competent only in boulevard or highway applications.....What it was designed to do, it does very well. It isolates the driver and passengers from the outside world, and when you're driving, it makes you feel - and makes other people thin k you are - rich. Even with its rather straight-lined, sharp-edged styling, the car has a certain rakishness and projects the image of the driver as an elegant rogue."

One of the final Detroitmobiles from the era when a big Lincoln or Caddy was the height of opulence and showing up at the club in something European made you look a little effete.

The subsequent Mark VI had to hang its head in downsized shame.

The Cream 1979 example in the pictures was photographed in October of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and Nikon's excellent 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1990 Cadillac Fleetwood Coupe

A 1989 or 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood coupe in Medium Garnet Red Metallic. You can narrow down the year because they restyled the Fleetwood in '89 and bumped the engine displacement to 4.9 liters in 1991; this one has a "4.5 Litre" badge on the decklid.

The '89 refresh was a light update of the Fleetwood & DeVille, which had gone to the front wheel drive GM C-body platform in the 1985 model year. It was a mishmash of confused styling cues, blending a more modern aero snoot with throwback rear fender skirts and fin-like taillamp extensions. Sales of the model had been slumping but the refresh gave them a boost.

The 1989 version of the 273 cubic inch Caddy HT-4500 V-8 had a throttle-body fuel injector and was rated at 155 horsepower. For 1990 it got port fuel injection and a new intake manifold to go with it, which boosted output to 180bhp.

The "Fleetwood" name itself was actually that of a coachbuilder, Fleetwood Metal Body, in Fleetwood, Pennsylvania that had been bought by Fisher Body, with the latter being absorbed into General Motors.

Fleetwood Metal Body was moved to Detroit in '31, and originally only made the bodies for the highest-end Cadillac models, like this V-16 powered '32 Fleetwood Madame X.

It wasn't until Cadillac introduced the front wheel drive C-body DeVille that "Fleetwood" became a model of its own, basically a more upmarket version of the DeVille, with extra bling and more standard features. It's kind of a downer that the "Fleetwood" name went from gracing only the most upscale Caddies to sharing a platform with the Buick Park Avenue and Olds 98.

For a fun bit of trivia, the Fleetwood coupe found only 2,438 buyers for the 1990 model year, make it the least common body style of Caddy sold that year, even being outsold by the limited production Allante.

This example was photographed in the SoBro neighborhood of Indianapolis in December of 2021 using an Olympus E-510 and a Zuiko Digital 12-42mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens.

1959 MG MGA 1600

In the early Fifties, the Nuffield Organization (Morris, MG, Wolseley, & Riley) merged with Austin to form British Motors Corporation. Like most other British car brands, MG had been suffering from a bit of postwar austerity. The classic T-type Midget was getting a bit vintage-looking in the early Fifties, with its narrow bonnet and open fenders.

Work began on a replacement and the new MGA was launched in 1955. The new car had a modern, fully-enclosed body with sleek lines. It retained the classic long hood & short deck proportions, which allowed the Austin-sourced overhead valve inline four to largely sit aft of the front axles.

While it could be had as a fixed-head coupe, the MGA was mostly sold in roadster form.

Allow me a side digression to point out here that it is a true roadster, with no permanently attached top. In fact, there aren't even any exterior door handles. There was a little pup tent sort of affair stowed in a bag tucked behind the seats, and if it started raining you could pull over beneath a convenient overpass and use this apparatus of sticks and canvas to divide the world into an exterior and a slightly less-damp interior. Roadsters are open cars intended for open-air motoring and while my BMW Z3 may say "Roadster" on the door sills, it's stolen valor.

At any rate, the initial MGAs were powered by a 1.5L (1,489cc) Austin 4-cylinder. For 1959, though, they received a displacement bump to 1.6L (1,588cc). Breathing through a pair of SU carbs and boasting an 8.3:1 compression ratio, the motor in the MGA 1600 put out 79.5 horsepower, which was a nearly ten percent bump over the earlier version and adequate to propel the little 2,000-pound roadster to an honest hundred miles per hour.

British magazine The Autocar managed a best zero-to-sixty run of 14.2 seconds and dispatched the standing quarter mile in 19.3 seconds.

This lovely Old English White example was photographed in Broad Ripple back in 2017 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.

The MGA 1600 is an interesting blend of features both modern... disc brakes up front! ...and archaic... the horn button is in the center of the dash?!? What's most modern about it, though, are those dashing good looks.

1980 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz

Still sharing the longitudinally-engined General Motors E-body front wheel drive platform with the Olds Toronado and Buick Riviera, the 1979 Eldorado saw the first round of downsizing for Cadillac's swank personal luxury coupe.

What a round of downsizing it was, too! The 1978 Eldo had been among the last of the dinosaurs: 224 inches long and riding on a 126.3" wheelbase, the '78 Eldorado Biarritz hardtop coupe tipped the scales at an earth-crushing 5,048 pounds of curb weight, tanked up and ready to set sail.

The Tenth Generation '79 Eldorado lost almost two feet of overall length, stretching only 204" from nose to tail. The wheelbase took a foot-long chop, too, to 114". The 7.0L Cadillac V-8 was put out to pasture, too, replaced by a fuel-injected version of the Olds Rocket 350. This resulted in a ten horsepower drop, from 180 to 170 SAE net, but that was more than made up for by the half ton of weight pared off the platform.

The 1980 Eldorado in the photos, Colonial Yellow with Yellow vinyl landau top and Saddle leather interior, would be identifiable as a Biarritz by the stainless steel roof panel, even if you couldn't make out the "Biarritz" script on the C-pillar. The lack of amber turn signal lenses on the front mark it as a '79 or '80. The faux-Rolls Parthenon grille was a common aftermarket geegaw, sometimes dealer-installed.

These shots were taken in August of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1963 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray Convertible

The second generation of the Corvette was a stylistic triumph that had engineers pulling their hair. The Sting Ray is one of those cars that, like the E-Type Jaguar, you can't really appreciate until you see one out motoring around among the Accords and RAV-4s and Chrysler minivans of day-to-day traffic.

The sleek lines generated lift at speed and made handling sketchy when you started getting near triple digits. Chevy was Officially Not Racing at the time, so when 'Vette engineer Zora Arkus Duntov and his posse snuck a This Isn't A Factory Race Car, Honest out the back door, the Grand Sport was festooned with vents and an elaborate air dam to keep it from turning into a frisbee on the back straight.

This was also the first year that a hardtop Corvette coupe was offered, and Larry Shinoda's design for it had a solid longitudinal panel dividing the rear glass, which is why 1963 Sting Ray coupes are known as "split windows". (This formed a handy vertical blind spot smack in the middle of the rear view mirror, and was removed for '64, which is why only '63 Sting Ray coupes are known as "split windows".)

1963 was the only year of the C2 'Vette where the coupe was almost as popular as the convertible: 10,594 coupes versus 10,919 ragtops were sold.

You could get the new 'Vette with any one of four flavors of 327 cubic inch V-8. The base four-barrel motor had hydraulic lifters, a 10.5:1 compression ratio, and was rated at 240 SAE gross horsepower. Going with the L75 option got a bigger Carter AFB carburetor and different heads and exhaust manifolds and bumped the output to 300hp. The gnarliest carbureted motor was the solid lifter L76, which raised the compression ratio to 11.25:1 and the rated output to 340 horsepower. Finally, the king of Corvette hill was the fuel-injected L84 327, boasting 360 horsepower at 6,000rpm.

Car & Driver tested a 1963 Sting Ray coupe with the L75 V-8, 4-speed manual, and 3.36:1 rear end and reported 0-60 times between 6.0 and 6.4 seconds and managed a best quarter mile time of 14.4 seconds at 100mph.

The Riverside Red ragtop in the pictures was snapped with a Nikon D7100 and an 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 VR II zoom lens in June of 2022.

1983 Ford Mustang GT Convertible

1983 was a big year for Ford's Mustang for several reasons. 

It received its first big styling refresh since the Fox body Third Generation pony car had debuted in 1979. In addition to revised taillights and other trim and interior details, the snout was revised, with a slimmer grille and better aero, giving a claimed ~2% reduction in drag.

Not content to cede the droptop renaissance to GM and Chrysler, the convertible Mustang returned after a decade-long hiatus. Ford performed the roof-ectomy in-house, rather than farming the work out to ASC. Initially only offered on the Mustang GLX, it was joined mid-year by a ragtop GT. Despite their high price premium over a hardtop 'Stang, convertible sales wildly exceeded the manufacturer's expectations. (GT hatchbacks started at $9,300 while base price for a GT convertible was $13,479, or the equivalent of $42,600 in 2024 dollars.)

Finally, the GT version saw big performance gains. The 302 Windsor V-8 under the hood saw the previous year's 2-barrel carb replaced by a genuine Holley 4-barrel, while the exhaust system was reworked for better flow, including a more efficient catalytic converter. As a bonus, the previous 4-speed overdrive manual, with its awkward, widely-spaced gear ratios, was replaced by a 5-speed Borg Warner T5.

The results were impressive, with an 11.5% horsepower bump over the previous year (157 to 175 SAE net). Car & Driver tested an '83 hardtop GT and recorded a zero to sixty time of 7.0 seconds and a 15.4 quarter at 90 mph. The 5.0L H.O. pushed that new aero snout through the air all the way to 125 miles per hour, too. The Medium Charcoal GT convertible in the picture would have been a few ticks more sluggish due to the added weight of the stiffening added to keep the chassis flex to a tolerable minimum.

It was a pretty clear statement from Ford that the Malaise Era was done in Dearborn.

The one in the photo was captured in July of 2022 using a Canon EOS-1D Mark III and an EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom lens.

1975 Bricklin SV-1

The two big automotive buzzwords in '73 were "economy" and "safety". Since 1966 a host of mandatory improvements in automotive safety and security had been mandated in the United States. Mandatory seatbelts (lap belts in '66, supplemented by mandatory shoulder harnesses for front seat passengers in '68), padded dashes, collapsible steering columns, side marker lights, headrests, and other modern features all became the norm during this era. 

There were also rules introduced to reduce burgeoning insurance costs from crash damage and theft. Steering columns that locked when the car was turned off and the elimination of exterior hood releases cut down on theft, while bumpers that could withstand a 5mph impact were mandated. At the same time, clean air standards were imposed, and the disorienting effects of the '73 Oil Embargo made fuel economy a priority.

Into this environment Malcolm Bricklin introduced a new sports car: The SV-1. A nod to the times, the name stood for "Safety Vehicle", but that was an odd choice of moniker. While the massive bumpers... the front one made it look like a flounder getting its mouth washed out with soap ...were claimed to keep the vehicle from experiencing any structural damage at impacts up to 12mph, there weren't any notable improvements in protection for the occupants.

It wan't much in tune with the fuel economy vibe of the times, either. While the project had originally started with the intent to produce a simple, lightweight car powered by an Opel 4-cylinder, the final result was the 1974 SV-1, powered by an American Motors-sourced 360 cubic inch V-8.

The structure was of a laminate of color-impregnated acrylic resin over fiberglass for the body panels, all bolted to a steel rolling chassis, similar to the later Pontiac Fiero. Like the Fiero, it was not particularly svelte for its size, worsened by the lump of a V-8 and AMC-rebranded Torqueflite 727 automatic transmission or four-speed Borg-Warner T10.

For 1975, the engine and transmission were replaced with a Ford 351 Windsor V-8 and FMX 3-speed automatic transmission, with no manual option. (Bricklin defended this by saying that manual gearboxes didn't promote safety, which was also the claimed reason for the lack of a cigarette lighter or ashtrays.)

The 351 smog motor, with its 2-barrel carb and 8.0:1 compression ratio, wheezed out only 175 SAE net horsepower, so it had its work cut out for it hauling 3,560 pounds of plastic and steel. Car & Driver eked out an 8.6 second zero-to-sixty run with their test car and managed a 16.6 second quarter mile at 84 mph through the traps. Maximum recorded top speed was 118 mph. Observed fuel economy was 12-15 miles per gallon, which made one glad for the 21 gallon tank, no doubt.

Adding insult to injury, MSRP for 1975 had ballooned to $9,780 ($57,225 in 2024 money), almost fifteen hundred bucks more than a comparably-equipped Corvette.

"Ah," you say, "But the Corvette doesn't have those nifty gullwing doors!"

No, no it does not. The Bricklin's doors were power operated, each with their own hydraulic ram originally designed to operate a convertible top. Raising them in the Piggly Wiggly parking lot no doubt would draw a crowd of gawkers.

Both door rams were driven by a single pump and, while both doors could be raised and lowered at the same time, there was no interlock to keep you and your passenger from trying to raise one door while lowering the other. If you did that, you'd brick the pump, and be trapped in the car until you pulled the pivot pin out of the ram where it connects to the door and then try and do an overhead press with the 90-pound door while slithering out of the car and not dropping the door on yourself while doing so. You'd also have to do that CrossFit exercise if the car lost battery power while you were in it.

The interior exhibited the not quite ready for prime time vibe that plagues extremely low production volume cars, especially from startups. Combine all the downchecks with slews of problems at the factory in Saint John, New Brunswick, and it's not a surprise that Bricklin production ceased with the 1976 model year.

This one was photographed in Enfield, New Hampshire in June of 2022 using a Canon EOS 5Ds and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS.

1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible

Here's a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado ragtop in Calumet Cream with what appears to be a Light Ivory leather interior.

Power was provided by the 500cid Caddy V8 in its final year of production. Now fully catalyzed, EGR'ed, and 8.5:1 compressioned, the ginormous "8.2 Litre" that had been introduced with 400 SAE gross horsepower in 1970 struggled to make 190 net horses six years later. (You could bump it to 215 by ordering the optional fuel injection.)

By the mid-'70s, convertibles were vanishing. They were heavier and had worse aerodynamics than fixed-roof cars, which hurt gas mileage, and they had a hard time with NHTSA rollover standards. Cadillac marketed the 1976 Eldorado ragtop as the last American convertible and quite a few of the roughly 14,000 sold were driven straight into garages and parked as investments.

When Cadillac launched a new Eldorado convertible eight years later, there was a class action suit as a result.

This one was photographed in September of 2022 using an Olympus E-3 and a Zuiko Digital 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 zoom lens.

1969 Chevrolet Camaro RS/Z28

By my lights, this is the epitome of the first generation Camaro: A 1969 model with the Rally Sport appearance package to get those slick-looking hidden headlights, and the Z28 performance package to get one of the coolest Chevy small blocks ever.

The Z28 package was intended to be a "turnkey track car" for road racing and the 327 V-8 was too big for Trans Am sedan racing, which had a 5.0L displacement limit for the Over 2.0L class. By using a crankshaft with a shorter stroke... essentially a 283 crankshaft in a 327 block ...Chevrolet came up with a very oversquare, high-winding 302 cubic inch motor.

It had 11..0:1 compression ratio, a 780cfm Holley four-barrel carb, solid lifters, an aluminum dual-plane intake manifold, and could be ordered with cold-air Cowl Induction like the Tuxedo Black car in the photos. The resulting motor was very conservatively rated by Chevy at 290 SAE gross horsepower, although the actual number was almost certainly as much as twenty horsepower more, which would have caused vapor lock in insurance salesmen. (">1 horsepower per cubic inch" had become a negative bugbear, actuarially.)

Other race track goodies specific to the Z28 package were power front discs, 15" wheels, and a stiffer suspension. A cross-ram dual-quad intake setup was available as a dealer-installed option on the 302, too.

It wasn't intended as a drag car, but a road racer, nevertheless Popular Hot Rodding took one to the strip and uncorked the headers, getting a 14.6 @ 97mph best run on street tires. With the peaky small block (peak power came at 5200rpm) and a 3.73 rear end, that was pretty good. You could go quicker with 4.88 gears and slicks, but if you really wanted to drag race in a Camaro in '69, it'd be easier to just go ahead and order an SS396 or COPO 427 big block car.

The one in the pictures was photographed in June of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1987 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2

If you're a GenX'er, like me, this is what a Porsche 911 looks like. Hell, this is what a Porsche looks like. The original gangsta 911's production ran continuously from its introduction in 1964 all the way through the 1988 model year. Cosmetically it remained virtually unchanged from 1974, when its bumpers were upgraded to conform to new U.S. standards, until it was replaced with the 964 series for the '89 model year.

That means that the 911 looked pretty much exactly like this from the time I was old enough to understand that car brands were a thing until I was almost old enough to drink.

The side view mirrors tell us that it's at least as recent as the late Seventies. The lack of a whale tail was making me think it's an SC. The 911SC was in production from the '78 through '83 model years and sold well enough that it may well have saved the 911, which Porsche had intended to phase out and replace with the 928. A reader pointed out that a couple of small details... the fog lights being integrated in the valance panel under the front bumper and the size of the semicircular torsion bar cover just in front of the rear wheel well ...mark it as an '87-'88 911 Carrera 3.2.

The Carrera 3.2 debuted in '84 as a replacement for the 911SC. For its time, the 3.2L air-cooled SOHC flat six made the 911 Carrera a beast. It was putting out 200 SAE net horsepower in a time when that was the same horsepower total as the Cross-Fire Injection 5.7L V-8 in a Corvette 

Car & Driver's testing of a 1984 911 Carrera returned a zero-to-sixty time of 5.3 seconds, with the quarter dispatched in 13.9 seconds at 100 mph on the way to a top speed of 149. This vintage of 911 had enough juice to really test a driver's skills. It was an easy to generate big speed with, but it was also an easy car to put into a ditch ass-end-first.

The sun was low in the sky on that November afternoon in 2021 and I had an original 2003-vintage Canon EOS Rebel with the 18-55mm kit lens and no lens hood, preparing to do a report on it for the other blog. On the same side of the street, the Cassis Red Metallic 911 Carrera was harshly backlit from any angle where it wasn't obscured by that tree or the trashcan, plus the sun was causing horrible veiling glare. Trotting across the street yielded the above photo, taken by waiting for a gap in traffic. Even then, the 18-55mm lens doesn't have a lot of reach and the 6MP sensor doesn't give you much room to crop.

1973 Triumph Spitfire 1500

Triumph's Spitfire was launched in the early Sixties as a competitor for the Austin-Healey Sprite. Like the Sprite, it was a teeny little thing. Unlike the Sprite, it was a little more plush, with features that made it more suitable as a daily driver.

It was what the British call a "drophead coupe", rather than a true roadster, meaning it had a permanently-attached folding convertible top. Rather than detachable side curtains, it had actual roll-up windows. And it had an actual trunk (or "boot"), which the first generation of Sprites had lacked.

Originally equipped with the 1,147cc four from the Triumph Herald, the motor in the Spitfire swole up until the the final variant's 1,493cc.

The U.S. version of the 91 cubic inch motor had a 7.5:1 compression ratio and sipped gas through a single Zenith Stromberg carb. Horsepower was rated at 53 SAE net, and that meant that performance was...modest. Road & Track clocked a zero-to-sixty run of 15.4 seconds and a 94 mph top speed.

If I'm not mistaken, the grotesque 5 mph front bumper and slim rear bumper tag this Leyland White Triumph Spitfire 1500 as a 1973 model. It was photographed in September of 2016 with a Nikon Coolpix P7000.
 

1998 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Convertible

Like its crosstown arch rival from Dearborn, the fourth generation of the GM F-body Camaro/Firebird twins was actually more of a very heavy refresh of the previous generation than a clean sheet of paper reboot. If you park a '92 and a '93 next to each other and look at the line of the C-pillar and the hatchback, it really becomes obvious.

The new refresh had some very important upgrades, though, and the most important was a transmission tunnel capacious enough for a more modern manual transmission, namely the 6-speed Borg Warner T-56, which had originally been developed to live behind the brawny 488 cubic inch V-10 in the Dodge Viper.

This was important because the previous 3rd Gen cars were saddled with the Borg Warner T5 5-speed and that meant that the rowdiest motors could only be had with slushboxes, since the T-5 wasn't up to the torque of the 5.7L 'Vette motor.

For the Fourth Gen cars, though, the 305 V-8 was gone. You could get a base Firebird secretarymobile with a 3.4L V-6, or you could get a Formula or Trans Am with a hairy-chested LT1 350 V-8 Corvette motor.

1998 saw a mid-cycle styling refresh for the Firebird. The Trans Am got a more aggro-looking snout, vents on the front fenders, and now the motor choices were the GM corporate 3800 V-6 200hp for base Firebirds and the 5.7L LS1 'Vette motor for the Formula and Trans Am.

Packaged for the F-body, the LS1 was rated at 305 horsepower, or 320 if you checked the box for the WS6 package, with its functional cold air "Ram Air" intake.

Car & Driver tested a 1999 30th Anniversary WS6 Trans Am convertible and ripped off a 5.3 second zero-to-sixty and a 13.9 second at 104 mph quarter mile run on its way to a 163mph top speed. These would have been impressive supercar numbers just a decade earlier and the Fourth Gen F-bodies remain some of the most performance bang for the minimum wage buck on the used car market to this day.

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

1971 Ford Mustang Convertible

Of all the days to leave a camera at home while running errands, I had to pick one where this '71-'72 Mustang convertible was parked out in front of the local car stereo installer.

Fortunately the longer lens on the iPhone 13 Pro Max is a ~77mm focal length equivalent and will take a pretty undistorted pic if you have room to back up, unlike the regular ~28mm camera, which always gives funhouse proportions.

'71-'72 was the beginning of the end for the original Muscle Car-era Mustangs. Mustangs are, properly, pony cars, not muscle cars, but that's another post.

The body was widened to accommodate the Lima-series 429 big block V-8s, after squeezing the Lima-derived Boss 429 hemi motor into the eponymous '69-'70 Boss 429 cars required engine bay surgery at Kar Kraft of Dearborn to shoehorn the motors in.

For '71 you could get your Mustang with anything from a 145bhp (SAE gross) Thriftpower 250 cid I-6 to a snarling 375hp 429 Super Cobra Jet big block.

In just three years, the Mustang would be a Pinto

1975 Cadillac Sedan De Ville

Here's a 1975 or 1976 Cadillac Sedan De Ville, the year of peak size for the big GM C-bodies.

The 130 inch wheelbase is almost three feet longer than that on my little euro roadster. Stretching 230.7 inches from bumper to bumper, it casts a full six feet more shadow on the asphalt than the BMW Z3, too.

According to Wikipedia, "[t]he new GM full-size bodies, at 64.3 inches front shoulder room (62.1 inches on Cadillac) and 63.4 inches rear shoulder room (64.0 inches on Cadillac) set a record for interior width that would not be matched by any car until the full-size GM rear-wheel-drive models of the early to mid-1990s."

The standard... and only ...engine option was the 500 cubic inch V8. This had begun life as an Eldorado-only performance option. When it debuted in 1970 it had a 10.0:1 compression ratio and was rated at 400 SAE gross horsepower. In 1975 it became the standard engine in all the Caddies except the new "compact" Seville. By then the compression ratio had been dropped to 8.5:1 for the sake of emissions and fuel economy. Add in the more restrictive catalytic-converted exhaust and power in this '76 model had dropped to 190bhp SAE net, or 215bhp with the optional Bendix fuel injection.

Not a lot of motive force when asked to propel two-and-three-quarters tons of velour, vinyl, and Galloway Green Firemist paint down the boulevard. Road Test only managed a 10.6 second 0-60 from a '75 Coupe De Ville.

EDIT: Looking more closely at the grille and the interior, this is a '75, not a '76. That Jasper "Maharaja cloth with leather" interior wasn't available in '76. (Nor was fuel injection an option.)

This one was snapped in July of 2021 with a Nikon D7000 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1987 Mercedes-Benz 420SEL

It feels like the largest Mercedes-Benz sedans have been known as the S-class for my entire life, but not exactly. It wasn't until the W116 full-size Benzes debuted in September of 1972 as a '73 model that the S-class moniker became official. The W116 line soldiered on through the entirety of the Seventies until their W126 replacement was launched for the 1980 model year.

When it was launched in the U.S. as a 1981 model, the W126 S-class sedans were only available with the 3.8L SOHC V-8, producing 215 SAE net horsepower or the 119 horsepower 3.0L inline-five diesel. Grey market imports pressured Benz into filling out the model lineup when the W126 got its mid-cycle refresh for the '87 model year.

The car in the photo is a 420SEL sedan... we'll call it an '87 ...and that means it's an S-class, fuel-injected ("Einspritzung", for "fuel injected"), long-wheelbase car.

The 4.2L SOHC V-8 with its Bosch EFI produced 201 SAE net horsepower in 1987, which was pretty sporty by the standards of the time. Road & Track put an '87 420SEL through its paces and the 4.2L V-8 managed to shove the 3900-pound sedan to sixty in 8.7 seconds and through the quarter in 16.7 at 86 mph.

This was a pretty deluxe ride for the day. The as-tested price of R&T's 1987 420SEL was $57,500, the equivalent of just short of $160,000 in 2024 monetary terms.

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

1983 Buick Riviera Convertible Indy 500 Official Car

There are two automotive phenomena in play with today's ride: The Indy 500 Pace Car, and the Indy 500 Official Car.

First, there's the Pace Car. Pace Cars have mostly been convertibles, but more importantly, the Pace Car needed to be able to be able to perform the chores of the actual pace car in the race. During the Malaise Era, this resulted in actual Pace Cars that were heavily modified to be up to the high speeds involved, and those modifications were not applied to the replica Pace Cars sold for the street. As an example, the actual '83 Riviera convertible Pace Cars for the track (there were two built) had 4.3L twin-turbo intercooled V-6 motors that pumped out more than 400 horsepower and were in no way remotely street legal.

Then there are the Official Cars, which are used in 500 Festival events and parades leading up to the race and in the festivities on race day. Frequently these are the same make and model as the Pace Car, but not necessarily. In 1983, they were, though: Riviera convertibles.

Of the Official Cars that Buick provided to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway that year, sixty were white Riviera convertibles with maroon interiors, making these somewhat rarer than the 502 Pace Car Riviera XX replicas.

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

1984 Ford Mustang SVO

Here's a fairly rara avis, especially just out and running about as what looks to be a more-or-less daily driver. This would be an '84 Ford Mustang SVO, painted Medium Canyon Red Glow. 

Developed in the early '80s when it was feared that oil embargoes and gas crises and EPA & CAFE regs spelled the certain death of the V-8, the Mustang SVO was an attempt at pioneering a credible performance future with four bangers. It was as much a technology demonstrator as it was a production model, a sort of blue collar Porsche 959.

In addition to an intercooled turbo four that pumped out 175 bhp in the debut year (205 in the subsequent model year) it had new aero body styling cues that would become standard across the Mustang line. It was the first Fox-body Mustang with 5-lug wheels and featured a revamped suspension. Car and Driver testing of an '85 model turned up a zero-to-sixty time of 6.8 seconds, a top speed of 129mph, and .79 G's on the skidpad; all numbers pretty much equivalent to the contemporary carburetted V-8 model and not too far off my own 2.8L BMW Z3 from a decade and a half later.

The odd-looking headlights are because the '84 SVO was to debut flush aero headlight covers for the Mustang, but DOT approval didn't arrive in time for production. (Yes, kids, Uncle Sam used to protect us from the dangers of headlamp covers.)

This one was snapped in April of 2017 with an iPhone 6s.

1970 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray

Spotted rolling northbound on College Avenue in March of 2024 was this Monza Red Corvette Stingray coupe.

I had the Nikon D700 with the compact 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G travel zoom. Plenty of focal length to grab details. You can embiggenate the photos!

I love that style of wheels on muscle cars and pony cars of the era, but I'm not sure how I feel about them on a sports car like the 'Vette. They look pretty good on this one, though.

Telling a 1970 and a '71 apart from a distance like this is well-nigh impossible as best I can discern. If it has amber front turn signal lenses (which this one does not) it's a later '71 model, but earlier '71s seem to have had clear lenses just like the '70s.

We'll play the odds and file this one as a 1970 model. The lack of a hood bulge means it's a small-block coupe, which means it has one of three different 350 cubic inch V-8s. The base Corvette motor was the 300 horsepower ZQ3, and the next option up was the L46, which had an 11.0:1 compression ratio and was rated at 350 SAE gross horsepower. New for 1970 was the hairy LT-1, which not only had the premium-gas-only 11.0:1 compression of the L46, but added a 780 cfm Holley four-barrel, solid lifters, a lumpy cam, special exhaust manifolds, and an aluminum high-rise dual plane intake manifold. All this was good for 370 horsepower and a quarter mile time of 14.36 seconds at 101.69 mph, according to Motor Trend.

1980 Checker Marathon Deluxe

Checker started making their final iteration of the classic A11 Checker Taxi and the slightly plusher A12 Marathon, intended for consumers, in 1960 for the 1961 model year and production continued largely unchanged for over twenty years.

That makes precisely dating this Marathon Deluxe limousine a difficult task. The round side marker lights, amber up front and red in the rear, tell us it's a '68 or later. The heavy steel girder bumpers front and rear indicate it's a '74 or later. The final clue is the windshield wipers, which work in parallel and tell us it's a '78-'82 (earlier cars had wiper arms that swung from the center to the edge, in opposition to each other.

For 1980 Checkers used Chevy powerplants, in the form of the 3.3L OHV V-6 or the 265 or 305 V-8s. (You could also get a diesel Olds 350, but why would you? Ick.)

The limousine version was cushier than the regular Marathon and can be identified from the outside by the half vinyl roof and the thick C-pillar with an opera window.

It was available in regular and long-wheelbase versions, 120" and 129" respectively, with the latter separately identified as the A12E chassis. This is one is one of the shorter ones, identifiable by the shorter rear doors.

In 1980 a Checker Marathon Deluxe started at $9,653, or about $37,000 in today's cash.

This one was photographed in September of 2021 using a Canon EOS 7D and EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS zoom lens.