1965 Ford Galaxie 500 XL Convertible

1965 saw the debut of an all-new Galaxie at Ford. It had much more sharply-creased styling and vertically-stacked quad headlights.

It was available as a two-door coupe or convertible, as well as pillared or hardtop sedan, with each version coming in several levels of trim. In 1965 you could get your Galaxie 500 converible in either the regular flavor or the more bling-y Galaxie 500 XL form. The badges on the rear fenders of this '65 ragtop in Vintage Burgundy tell us it's an XL.

The base motor in an XL convertible was the then-new 289 2-barrel small block V-8, called the "Challenger" in Ford ad copy and rated at 200 SAE gross horsepower. The next step up was the 250-horsepower 4-barrel Thunderbird 352 cubic inch FE big block V-8. Power-hungry buyers could opt for the 300 horsepower 390 or the 425 horse 427 "side-oiler" big block.

The smaller two engines only came with the 3-speed Cruise-O-Matic slushbox, while the 390 could be had with an auto or a four-on-the-floor, and the hairy 7 Liter only came with the manual.

While the car magazines of the time all focused on the wild-eyed 427 monsters, the majority of Galaxie XL ragtops had the base motor or, like this one, the 352 FE mill.

This one was photographed with a Canon EOS-1D Mark III and an EF 28-70mm f/2.8L zoom lens in July of 2022.

1992 Mercury Capri

In a way, I'm surprised that it took FoMoCo until 2011 to shutter the Mercury division. For most of my life it had been struggling to find a real brand identity. I've known Ford fans and Chevy fans, diehard Stans of Pontiac, Cadillac men, and of course the rabid "Mopar or No Car" gang... but I can't recollect ever meeting someone who bled Mercury... Mercury... what color would a loyal Mercury fan bleed if you cut them? Did Mercury even have a specific brand color?

The core of Mercury's lineup always consisted of slightly plusher and more upmarket versions of Ford's sedans. The thing is, by the time you look at the high end of a fully-optioned LTD and the low-end of a base Lincoln Continental, that didn't leave a lot of room for Mercury to run around in.

To pad the lineup of Montereys and Marquises over the years, to stir a little variety into the showroom, as it were, FoMoCo tried various things. For instance, Mercury dealers got to sell various captive imports over the years, like the original Capri and Merkur (née Sierra) from Ford of Europe and the De Tomaso Pantera.

Ford gave Mercury a more well-appointed version of the Mustang, dubbed the Cougar, but it eventually bloated into a more plush-bottomed Thunderbird clone. When the third generation Mustang debuted on the new Fox platform in 1979, Mercury tried the Capri name again, this time as a re-badged 'Stang. They gave up on that after '86, after several years of tepid sales.

Come the 1991 model year, Mercury dealers got a third iteration of the Capri. This time it was a little front wheel drive 2+2 convertible using Mazda 323 mechanicals via the Ford (of Australia) Capri, based on the Ford Laser econobox. Mercury had been selling the Laser-derived Tracer as a subcompact alternative to Ford's Escort, so the new Capri should have fit right in at Mercury dealerships.

The base Capri had Mazda's 1.6L normally-aspirated DOHC 16V inline four, rated at 100 SAE net horsepower. Performance was ho-hum, with Car and Driver recording a 10.0 second zero to sixty time, 113mph top speed, and a decidedly un-sportscarlike 0.79g trip around the skidpad.

There was a sportier XR2 version with a spoiler, ground effects, and a 132hp turbo mill, but even it was no threat to a Miata. Nothing could hide the fact that these were econoboxes with a roofectomy. The same handling that that makes the Tracer/Protege cool is a lot less cool in a car with actual sporting pretensions. The new Capri sank without much of a ripple after the '94 model year.

This one was photographed with a Nikon D700 and 24-85mm f/2.8-4D zoom lens in June of 2020.

1951 Dodge Meadowbrook

While the '46-'48 Dodges were mostly prewar Dodge D-22's with a light cosmetic makeover, 1949 saw the first true postwar lineup from Dodge.

You could get your '49 Dodge in one of three flavors. Lowest on the totem pole was the stripped-down Wayfarer, only available as a two-door coupe, business coupe, or roadster, all on a shortened 115" wheelbase. The top of the line model was the Coronet, which came in the whole array of coupe, sedan, convertible, and wagon styles.

In the middle was the Meadowbrook, which only came as a 123.5"-wheelbase pillared sedan. They were fairly popular, moving ~90,000 units and accounting for nearly a third of the marque's sales that year.

For 1951, the Meadowbrook received an entirely new, more modern-looking front end. Due to Detroit's production being focused on vehicles for the Korean War, the '51 and '52 models were pretty much identical.

Under the hood could be found Dodge's "Get-Away" flathead inline six. It displaced 230 cubic inches and, breathing through a single Stromberg carb, was rated at 103 SAE gross horsepower. 

The only transmission choice was Dodge's Gyro-Matic, which was just the Dodge brand name for Chrysler's Fluid-Drive. Not a true automatic, it was a 3-speed manual with a torque converter. The clutch and column mounted shift lever were needed to select among the gears, but you could come to a full stop and start off again without having to use the clutch.

The upper three photos were taken in August of 2021 using a Hasselblad Lunar and Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* 16-70mm f/4 OSS zoom lens, while the one below was snapped with a Nikon 1 V2 and 1 Nikkor 18.5mm f/1.8 lens.

1991 Volkswagen Corrado

Volkswagen's Scirocco, a sporty coupe based on the Golf platform, had gone through a couple generations when it was supplanted in the lineup by a burlier replacement, based on the Mk2 Golf/Jetta, the new VW Corrado.

Introduced to the US market for the 1990 model year, the Corrado was a burlier, more pugnacious-looking ride than its predecessor.

Whereas the second generation Scirocco had been a graceful wedge, carrying over the general aesthetic of the Giugiaro-penned original, the Corrado looked like someone had stepped on a Golf and then gotten it mad.

It was definitely a more serious ride than its predecessor. You had to pay extra for the swoopy engines in the Scirocco, because in the '80s German automakers acted like 4V heads were special unobtainium and priced them accordingly, while the Japanese companies were sticking DOHC fours in every secretarymobile. The base '87 Scirocco motor was an 8V 1.8L four rated at 94 horsepower, and you had to pony up another $2,300... one fifth the base price of the car ...to upgrade to the 127-horse 16V version.

In the new Corrado, on the other hand, even the base motor was a 1.8L 16V unit, now rated at 134hp. Corrado buyers who wanted to party could order the G60, with had an 8V 1.8L sporting a scroll-type supercharger, intercooler, and 158 SAE net horsepower.

 

In an eight-way comparison test of sporty four-cylinder 2+2 coupes in 1992, Car and Driver gave the Corrado G60 a 5th place finish. The supercharged motor powered the stubby VW to a 7.5 second zero-to-sixty time and a 15.9 quarter mile at 87 mph. With a 130 mile per hour top speed and a 0.81g skidpad performance, these were decent numbers for an early Nineties sporty coupe

When they first came out, I wasn't a fan. They looked so much bulkier than the sleek Scirocco they replaced, but the shape has aged well, and I love the eccentric engine options and funky details like the retractable spoiler.

The one in the photos was snapped in the upper valley region of New Hampshire in April of 2015 using a Nikon Coolpix P7000.

1977 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am

During the Malaise Era, increasing emphasis on fuel economy and reduced emissions both gaveth and tooketh away. As an example, it was the decision by corporate management at General Motors to cap compression ratios at 8.5:1 so all cars could run on regular unleaded that caused Pontiac to slip a 455 V-8 under the hood of the Firebird.

This allowed for some of the last really blisteringly quick cars of the Muscle Car era, culminating in the '73 Trans Am with the optional Super Duty 455.

However as time went on, mileage expectations increased while allowable emissions decreased. The various special versions of the 455 went away, and by the 1976 model year all that was left was the Plain Jane L75 version of the 455, reduced to a 7.6:1 compression ratio and a 200 SAE net horsepower output, a shadow of its former glory.

1977 saw the disappearance of the 455 altogether. As a consolation prize, Pontiac's engineers worked up a version of the 400 to fill the gap. The top performance option in the '77 Trans Am, the new W72 400 featured a Rochester Quadrajet carb, new heads, and an 8.0:1 compression ratio that let it match the 200 horsepower output of the previous year's bigger L75.

The rest of the Firebird's engine lineup got a shuffle, too. Gone was the straight-six base motor, replaced by a Buick-sourced 3.8L V-6. The base V-8 was the 145hp Pontiac 301, and optional V-8s included the Pontiac L76 350, rated at 170 hp, and the 180hp L78 400.

Firebirds and Trans Ams sold in California got different engines, with the optional V-8 in base cars, Esprits, and Formulas being the Oldsmobile 350 and the Trans Am's V-8 substituted with a 403 cube Olds motor. Towards the end of the model year, the 301 Pontiac V-8 got subbed with a 305 Chevy small block.

Buyers got mad about finding Olds, Chevy, and Buick engines under the hood of their racy Pontiacs, and there were lawsuits and refunds. This is ironic because starting with the very first 2nd Gen Firebirds the base straight-six was sourced from Chevrolet, as Pontiac's own OHC six was too tall to fit under the hood.

Externally, the '77 Firebirds got a new snout with a pointy beak and quad rectangular headlamps. 1977 cars can be discerned from 1978 ones by the grille mesh, which is a honeycomb pattern on the former and a rectangular mesh on the latter.

When Car and Driver put a 1977 Trans Am with a W72, backed with a 4-speed manual and a fairly tall 3.23:1 rear end, through its testing procedures, they noted a zero-to-sixty time of 9.3 seconds and a quarter mile time of 16.9 at 82 mph. The car topped out at 110 miles per hour and, still sporting front discs and rear drums, it took 213 feet to bring the 3,830-pound T/A to a halt from 70 mph. Price as tested was $8,161, or the equivalent of $42,400 current-year dollars.

The honeycomb grille of the Cameo White car in the photo makes it a '77 model, and the "T/A-6.6" decal on the shaker scoop tells us it has the W72, since the lowlier L78 motor would have a scoop that read "6.6 LITRE". It was photographed with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and an EF 24-105mm f/4L zoom lens in December of 2018. 

1981 Volvo 240 GLT Turbo Wagon

By 1981, Volvo had been selling their buttoned-down, sober Swedish sleds in the US for a couple decades. Unless you were into niche motorsports like ice racing or rallying, they weren't generally anybody's idea of sporty cars, either, but for the '81 model year, the Swedes slipped a cheater card into their hand.

Starting that year you could order the four cylinder in your 200-series Volvo with a turbo bolted to it. The turbocharger took the B21F 2.1L SOHC four cylinder from 107 SAE net horsepower and bumped the output nearly twenty percent, to 127 horses (and becoming known as the B21FT in the process.)

That 127 horsepower figure may seem paltry to modern ears, but anything with a three-digit total was doing okay there in the worst part of the Malaise Era. It handily outmuscled the 116hp 2.8L inline six in a Toyota Celica Supra and the 118hp 255 cubic inch V-8 in a Mustang Cobra.

Road & Track tested an '81 GLT Turbo sedan and got a zero-to-sixty time of 10.2 seconds and a quarter mile of 17.5 at 79mph, both figures shaving a full second off the time for the normally-aspirated car.

The GLT package also came with sporty Pirelli tires on five-spoke alloy wheels, a tasteful chin spoiler, and beefier roll bars front and rear to bolster a stiffer suspension. Other than the wheels and a couple little "Turbo" badges, there was no external cue to let the Celica Supra or 924 driver in the next lane know he was about to have a really embarrassing day.

This Richelieu Red '81 GLT Turbo wagon was photographed in July of 2020 using a Nikon D7000 and 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1985 BMW 635CSi

The original version of BMW's 6-series grand touring coupe debuted as a 1977 model and continued in production all the way through the 1989 model year before being supplanted by the V12-powered 850i coupe.

While the E24 6-series was launched in the U.S. as the 630CSi with the 176 horsepower 3.0L SOHC inline six, the best known variant was the 635CSi, which came along in 1985. Featuring the bored and stroked 3430cc M30B35 SOHC six, the North American version had an 8.0:1 compression ratio and was rated at 182 SAE net horsepower. (Euro motors sported a 10.0:1 compression ratio and put out 215hp.)

In 1985, Car and Driver magazine put a 5-speed 635CSi through its paces and recorded an 8.2 zero-to-sixty time and a quarter in sixteen seconds flat at 85 miles per hour. Top speed was 132 mph, while the four wheel discs would haul the 3,375 pound luxocoupe down from 70 to a stop in 189 feet, braking performance equivalent to the contemporary Corvette and only a few feet short of the Porsche 928S.

Like now, it was definitely a premium set of wheels. Base price was $41,315 and the only option on C/D's test car was a limited-slip diff, which brought the total sticker to $41,705, which is the equivalent of $122,000 in today's dough.

The 1985 635CSi in the picture was snapped with a Nikon Coolpix P7000 in December of 2015.

1983 Chevrolet S-10

From the 1972 through 1982 model years, Chevrolet sold re-badged Isuzu Faster mini pickup trucks in the US as the Chevy LUV. It nominally stood for "Light Utility Vehicle", but also for how you'd feel about their fuel mileage and ease of driving and parking. Get it? Yeah, it was too precious.

Anyway, thanks to the infamous Chicken Tax, the Isuzus had to be imported without a bed attached, in what's called "chassis-cab" configuration, and assembled here. By the early Eighties, both GM and Ford, who was doing the same thing with the Mazda B-series as the Ford Courier, realized "Hey, this is America. The pickup truck is practically our national vehicle. Surely we could design and build our own mini trucks?"

Thus were born the Chevrolet S-10 and Ford Ranger, which quickly came to dominate the mini truck market in sales numbers.

The '83 long-bed S-10 Durango in the picture is an example of a vehicle class that hardly exists anymore. Riding on a 117.9" wheelbase, the long bed had a 7'6" cargo box and the whole truck weighed something like 3,000 pounds and had a half ton cargo capacity.

Testing a 1982 short-bed S-10 with the V-6 and a 5-speed manual against an '82 Ford Ranger and Dodge Ram 50, Car and Driver declared the Chevy the winner. The 110 horsepower 2.8L V-6 pushed the little truck to sixty in 11.7 seconds and through the quarter in 18.1 at 75 mph. Top speed was 96 mph which I can tell you from personal experience felt plenty fast with those agricultural underpinnings. Its current descendant, the Colorado, is a "small" pickup that weighs some 5,000 pounds, stretches nearly eighteen feet between the bumpers... and can only be had with a bed that's six-ish feet long.

This S-10 was photographed in November of 2017 using a Sony a-7 and FE 50mm f/1.8 lens.

1956 Chevrolet 210

Few cars are as iconic as the classic "Tri-Five" Chevies, the full-size models from Chevrolet in '55, '56, '57. While the Bel Air, especially in its 1957 coupe form, gets all the ink, the 150 and 210 were the most numerous.

The 150 was largely intended for fleet sales and quite spartan, but the 210 was basically the standard variant; the Bel Air was as deluxe a Chevy as you could buy in those days, but most of its options could also be had on a 210.

The 210 could be had with either the 235 cubic inch "Blue Flame" OHV inline six, rated at 140 SAE gross horsepower, or the (still relatively new) OHV small block "Turbo-Fire" V-8 in one of three states of tune. The base V-8 had a 2-barrel carburetor and 170 horsepower, or a buyer could opt for the 205 horsepower single 4-barrel "Power Pack" or the dual-quad 225-horse "Super Power Pack", complete with a lumpy Duntov cam.

Road & Track tested a 1956 Chevy 210 2-door with a 205 horse Power Pack V-8, a three-on-the-tree manual transmission, and 3.55:1 rear end and it returned a 9.0 zero-to-sixty time and dispatched the quarter in 16.6 seconds at eighty miles per hour. The 4-bbl small block would push the 3,380 pound shoebox all the way to 111 miles per hour before being defeated by the built-in headwind.

Price as tested was $2,064, which comes to just short of twenty-four grand in constant dollars.

This Calypso Cream 1956 210 pillared sedan would have been somewhat slower, and was photographed in September of 2021 using a Hasselblad Lunar and Sony Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* 16-70mm f/4 OSS zoom lens.

1974 Chevrolet Monte Carlo

In 1973, OPEC announced an oil embargo directed at the nations that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The effects on the U.S. economy were harsh.

"The average US retail price of a gallon of regular gasoline rose 43% from 38.5¢ in May 1973 to 55.1¢ in June 1974. State governments asked citizens not to put up Christmas lights. Oregon banned Christmas and commercial lighting altogether. Politicians called for a national gasoline rationing program. Nixon asked gasoline retailers to voluntarily not sell gasoline on Saturday nights or Sundays; 90% of gas station owners complied, which produced long lines of motorists wanting to fill up their cars while they still could."

The effects on Detroit would trigger the first big round of downsizing and boost sales of compacts, as people suddenly had a reason to avoid "gas guzzlers".

Sales of one model weren't much affected, though.

Despite the embargo and the subsequent gas crisis, Chevrolet sold over 300,000 1974 Monte Carlos, up from the previous record sales year of '73 that saw almost 250,000 cross the curb.

The base engine was a 145bhp 2-bbl Turbo-Fire small block 350, and you could get a Turbo-Fire small block 400 in either 150bhp 2-bbl or 180bhp 4-bbl flavors, or splurge for a 235bhp big block Turbo-Jet 4-bbl 454 V-8.

The Monte Carlo's booming success outsold Ford's Thunderbird by something close to six-to-one and triggered other manufacturers to jump into the "personal luxury coupe" market.

The one in the photos, which has been repainted, was snapped in June of 2022 using a Nikon D7100 and a 16-80mm f/2.8-4E VR zoom lens.

1968 Plymouth Road Runner

Shortly after the release of the deluxe GTX midsize muscle car, Brock Yates pitched the idea of a bare-bones street racer, a stripped Belvedere business coupe stuffed with a Hemi or 440 Super Commando, to Plymouth product planner Jack Smith. Jack Smith, who drove a Belvedere with a breathed-on 383 himself liked the idea.

GTX sales were somewhat soft because they were expensive and Plymouth had a rep as a stodgy brand who sold cars to your maiden aunt and other sober-sided citizens, so it was hard to generate youth appeal. Smith wanted a car that would do a sub seven second 0-60 and a sub fifteen second quarter, right off the showroom floor, with a price tag under $3000. To get interest from the youth demographic, he pursued a character license from Warner Bros, and thus was born the car with the horn that went "BEEP! BEEP!" (Mopar fan lore was that they spent fifty grand getting the horn note just right.)

The side marker lights and grille tell us this Mist Green Plymouth Road Runner with an Antique Green vinyl top is a 1968.

The fact that it's a hardtop means it was made in the latter part of the model year, since the Road Runner was originally only available as a pillared coupe with a bench seat.

The 440 badges on the hood, if they're not lying, mean that someone's upgraded things in the engine bay from the original Road Runner 383 V8, since the '68 was only available with a 383 4bbl or a 426 Hemi. (The standard Road Runner 383 was a 335bhp version, with a hotter cam and other tweaks exclusive to the model, unless you ordered A/C, in which case you got the same Super Commando 330bhp 383 4bbl as in Uncle Lester's Fury.)

When Car and Driver tested the original '68 Road Runner with a 383, four-speed, and optional 3.55:1 limited slip rear end, it cracked off a 7.1 second zero-to-sixty run and a 15.0 quarter mile at 96 mph. It pulled all the way to 114 at redline in fourth, too. They got a little carried away with the options on the test car, like power brakes with discs up front, and the styled wheels like the ones on the car in the photo, which cost $102.05, so the total as-tested price was $3,753 in 1968 dollars, or about $34k in today's dough.

This one was photographed with a Canon EOS-1D Mark IV and EF 24-105mm f/4L IS lens in September of 2022.