Well ho ho ho y'all, it's time to close out another year of car spotting.  Post your cool sleigh sightings here!

What?  It's December 10th?  Ain't no one seen any cars?

Tonight, I saw a metallic charcoal '06 or '07 Monte Carlo in damn near perfect shape.  It had the more vertical spoiler as opposed to the overlaid flatter spoiler, meaning it was most likely an LT and definitely not an LS.

And, in December, it's especially heartwarming to see that some people still treasure the large American coupe, something that used to be a staple of our automotive culture.

Haven't been out much in the last week and half...dreary weather and busy post-holiday... don't think I've seen anything memorable.  

Went downtown Friday night to see old friends for drinks and Ubered down and back...in Kias...rode in a current-gen Sportage on the way down, interior was more spacious than I thought...on the way back, had a chatty driver in a Soul that got lost/misdirected by his nav a couple times..went about 5 miles further than needed....the Soul was loud under acceleration and lurchy, but that may have been way the driver was using the accelerator like a light switch...

I do remember that I caught a glimpse of a light colored '66 Plymouth Fury 4dr ht in a yard somewhere in the Ohio City neighborhood on the Westside of Cleveland... 

Edited December 11, 20196 yr by Robert Hall

Took mom to test drive a Green Apple Venue SEL we have in stock.  She enjoyed it.  I drove it too, it feels nicer to drive and ride in than I gave it credit for.  She still has a year to go on her lease though.

At the gym for my core workout day. Saw a brand new Toyota CHR. Wow, talk about a turd. Pinched off front and back. Looks like it was forced out hard.

Pass on ever owning a toy turd Toyota is producing. ?

Was it brown

18 hours ago, ocnblu said:

Was it brown

Storm grey or what ever you call that dark silvery color.  

Spotted at lunch today.. Atleast they didn't try Range Rover

 

I am off work today, but we had our company Christmas party so I went.  We got our first CX-30 in.  Some sort of new gray color, with white leather seats and black and brown dash.  I like it better in person than in media.  I would never own a vehicle with white leather seats though, they would get super-crappy over time.

The proportions aren't bad.  The highwater cladding is an annoyance, but unless the car is silver or white, it's not a major deal.  Visually, it does fit between CX-3 and 5, but it seems a bit closer to CX-3.  Rear legroom seems scant, but the seats were covered in plastic.

I really don't understand why Mazda still offers the white leather on their vehicles.  It looks good in pictures, but we know how it will wear/show dirt. I don't really want to stop wearing denim, spend $800 re-uphostering the driver seat every four years or clean it every week so I don't have to.  Surely grey or a shade of brown would be a more popular alternative to the black.  I know the Mazda CX5 top trim offers comes with that really dark brown.

 

 

Edited December 20, 20196 yr by frogger

22 minutes ago, frogger said:

I know the Mazda CX5 top trim offers comes with that really dark brown

Yeah the brown on the dash would be ideal for seat color.

What is the colloquial term given to those finned backlites specific to GM mid-size cars in the mid- to late-60s?

Saw this on the road when stopped in traffic a few days ago.  In perfect condition, with a nice exhaust grumble, and its driver waived.

I

 

Technically, its a flying buttress design. I think I’ve seen a few call it ‘tunneled’, but never either ‘finned’ or ‘frenched’, despite those 2 being just as logical as ‘tunneled’.

55 minutes ago, balthazar said:

Technically, its a flying buttress design. I think I’ve seen a few call it ‘tunneled’, but never either ‘finned’ or ‘frenched’, despite those 2 being just as logical as ‘tunneled’.

Don't recall hearing 'finned' in this context, a 'recessed' or 'tunneled' backlight is how I'd describe it.   'frenched' I associate w/ 50s style custom cars where they sunk an antenna in a hole or recessed the headlights into the fender hole.

It is interesting how there was a period from '66-73 where the Big 3 did the recessed backlights on at least one model each ('68-70 Dodge Charger, '71-73 Mustang and Cougar, '69-70 XL and Marauder, '66-67 GM A-body coupes).       Kind of like how other design details became temporary fads like the stacked headlights in the early-mid 60s and again in the mid-late 70s on mid sizers... 

Edited December 21, 20196 yr by Robert Hall

Another cool, period, industry-wide trend was the cove panel. I'm surprised it never made a wide comeback, tho the Mustang & Challenger have it.

Instead we're over-saturated with 'sagging pants / the diaper':

Saw this on Christmas Day.  Where else but in a church parking lot, given how damn near perfect it is for its age.  Early '90s? 

Beautiful full-size Olds Custom Cruiser wagon (with possible "Vista" roof).  Those were the days.

Nice..those were a 2 year only model with the whale Caprice body, '91-92.  

Edited December 27, 20196 yr by Robert Hall

4 hours ago, Robert Hall said:

Nice..those were a 2 year only model with the whale Caprice body, '91-92.  

So, then, a 27 year old + vehicle.  In that case, I wish the owner had been around. It probably was very low mileage.

Very cool wagon!!!

This went bye-bye today; horribly rotted but new owner was happy. $3K. 

 

Edited December 29, 20196 yr by balthazar

Its the pic- angle was fine.

We loaded it by backing 2 trailers together & winching it from one to the other. ?

On 12/28/2019 at 5:36 PM, balthazar said:

This went bye-bye today; horribly rotted but new owner was happy. $3K. 

 

I still see NJ has the beige license plate, even though the GTO does not. It's interesting that NJ never capitalized on one like "New Jersey & you.  Perfect together."  I think that was an ad campaign during the Gov. Jim Florio days.  But, if they had plates saying "You've Got a Friend in ... Pennsylvania," then they could have done that for the NJ plate, too.

Quote

"New Jersey & you.  Perfect together."

?

I like the original "N.J." and "GARDEN STATE" when the plates first went 'black on straw' in '59. Keep it straightforward, all caps... the plate looked a lot tougher.
Then they went to 'straw on blue' in the '80s, now back to 'black on straw' but the background is actually graduated, reflectorized, and they stopped stamping the plates; they're now flat with "easier to read" upper & lower case IDs. 3 different fonts on 1 plate; it's a mess graphically. Plus; we still can't use YOM plates or have more than 7 characters.

 

Edited December 30, 20196 yr by balthazar