Car Lust

Plymouth Super Bird

           

    

I think it's time for a Mopar injection.

I've always loved Plymouth Super Birds; they have all of the ingredients to make the perfect muscle car. Let's run through the necessary elements for muscle car hero status:

Lots of Power? Check--the Super Bird came with the stock 440, the legendary 440 Six Pack, or the epic 426 Hemi. Power was not a problem.

Unique Styling? Check--aside from some of the Corvettes of the time, the Super Bird was the only car to combine sleek, aerodynamic contours with the alluring brutality of muscle cars.

Competition Heritage? Check--the Super Bird's unique streamlining came from Mopar's desire to eke out an aerodynamic advantage in NASCAR racing. By today's standards, parts of the Super Bird's aerodynamic package look a little curious--the nearly upright windshield, for example--but compared to the massive brick-like sedans competing in the series at the time, the Super Bird and its Dodge Daytona cousin were slippery, dominant competitors. NASCAR's King, Richard Petty, drove a Super Bird--and somehow, the Super Bird always looked best in his day-glo blue colors.

Fiat 124 Spider

           

    

The British roadsters of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s are remembered with a surprisingly intense nostalgic fondness. MGs, Triumphs, Austin-Healeys, Bugeye Sprites--they were all cute, light, and inordinately fun with the top down on a twisty road. Never mind the fact that with the top up or on an Interstate, one tended to notice the fact that they were terrifically underpowered, rode and handled like agricultural implements, and had an off-putting tendency to develop major electrical problems on dark nights at points on the map both inconvenient and uninhabited.

Fiats, by contrast, aren't remembered with the same affection. I've noticed that people tend to remember Fiats as ugly, slow, and woefully unreliable, forgetting that even Fiats are dusted with the same Italian magic that makes Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, and Lancias so unforgettably passionate and spirited. Even the tiny, low-horsepower Fiats tend to have agile handling and eager, screaming engines. They might not be fast, but their mechanical purity leaves you little choice but to smile.

Given this disparity in popularity, is it any wonder that while the Fiat 124 was clearly the class of the droptop sports car market in the 1970s, it has been terribly overlooked in today's memory behind inferior contemporaries such as the MG MGB, MG Midget, Triumph Spitfire, and even the Triumph TR6 (which I still like enough to make it a future subject of Car Lust).

Dodge Colt Vista

            

    

This is one of my fiercest, most loyal, least logical automotive loves--and I'm sure this will be the Car Lust for which I take the most abuse.

It's hard to think of a vehicle more unpretentiously useful than the Dodge Colt Vista. With its mini-minivan profile, copious passenger space, massive cargo capacity, and optional all-wheel drive, the Vista was the leading member of the burgeoning "tall wagon" class in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

People pay big money today for crossover SUV/wagons such as the Chrysler Pacifica and Toyota Highlander, or for small SUVs like the Honda CR-V and Toyota RAV4; the Vista did everything those vehicles do, but well ahead of their time. It was a do-everything Swiss Army knife of a car that could handle virtually any task dished out to it. It drove nicely, coped easily with uneasy traction, and could haul everything necessary for a week-long expedition into the mountains.

BMW 3.0CSL

           

    

The BMW 3.0CS/CSL is a long-time favorite of mine. Not only do its lean, delicate lines make it one of the prettiest and most influential BMWs ever made, but it also was a lovely and potent race car.

The BMW 1600, 2000, and 2002 are widely credited with creating BMW's performance image in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s; while true, this underplays the role the 3.0CS/CSL played. While the 1600, 2000, and 2002 were agile featherweights, the 3.0CS/CSL was a more substantial sports coupe, featuring the grunt of an early version of BMW's legendary and silky inline six engine.

Ferrari 550 Maranello

           

    

I don't put many Ferraris in Car Lust--not because I don't desire them, but because it almost seems too easy, too obvious. How could one not lust after a Ferrari?

Still, the Ferrari 550 Maranello has been too glaring an oversight to continue to omit.

The Maranello was on the leading edge of Ferrari's resurgence in the 1990s. While preening 1980s Ferraris like the 3.2 Mondial and 308 GTB were easy pickings for Corvettes and even a well-driven Camaro IROC-Z, the Maranello took Ferrari back to its roots--legitimately world-beating handling and power, married with a newfound refinement and comfort.

Hartge H50

           

    

I'm going to cap off this week's Sleeper Sedans in the Morning feature with a car that could not possibly be more different from yesterday's 1976 Plymouth Gran Fury 440.

People expect a BMW 3-series to be quick and capable, so to qualify as a true under-the-radar sleeper performer, it follows that a 3-series-based sleeper must offer a comparatively higher level of performance--much higher even than the pumped-up, supercar-like BMW M3.

The Hartge H50 takes that elevated performance standard and crushes it into rubble.

Ford Mustang II Cobra II

           

    

I wouldn't feel right running a week-long Poseur Muscle Cars in the Afternoon feature without honoring the granddaddy of faux muscle cars, the hands-down premier combination of puffed-up ostentation with knock-kneed weakness, the in-the-sheetmetal realization of the saying "All Hat and No Cattle."

Yes, we're discussing the Ford Mustang II--the Pinto-based blasphemy to the Mustang name. Even today, if you mention the Mustang II to hard-core Mustang fans, they're likely to blanch and quickly change the subject.

When the Mustang II was introduced in 1974, the idea of a downsized Mustang was a pretty solid one. The previous-generation Mach 1 was a massive car--still easily the largest Mustang of all time--that could nevertheless really only fit two people comfortably. Given the trends of the time, a smaller car and a smaller engine made much more sense.

Still... a Mustang based on a Pinto? The Mustang II, symbolizing, I suppose, the rebirth of the Mustang, wasn't a terrible-looking car when it debuted. In fastback trim, with the original relatively understated graphics, it looked pretty good. The Ghia luxury notchback edition, on the other hand, looked pretty awful.

1976 Plymouth Gran Fury 440

           

    

For those who habitually look at the pictures before reading the text (if they read this drivel at all), I promise, I can explain. Yes, here in the middle of Sleeper Sedans in the Morning, I'm featuring a 1976 Plymouth Gran Fury. And no, I'm not joking.

I have an irrational love for traditional elephantine 1970s American sedans that has not yet been thoroughly chronicled in this space--though I promise it will be. The Gran Fury, and its Dodge Polara sibling, is one of my favorites. Distinctive styling, lots of space, the archetypal combination of floaty ride and bellowing V-8--what's not to love? Aside from arthritic acceleration and handling, that is.

However, today's Car Lust isn't the everyday Gran Fury--it's a hot sedan so "sleeper" that virtually nobody knows it exists.

In the mid-1970s, the Gran Fury and Polara were the most popular police cars around, but as the 1960s pinnacle of performance continued to crumble under the erosive pressures of fuel shortages and emissions regulations, the police began to notice that even their once-proud mounts were capable of little more than wheezing along in the slow lane.

1979 AMC AMX

           

    

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Pontiac Trans-Am was one of the most exciting muscle cars around. It was one of the best-handling and quickest cars around, and its breathtaking looks, complete with special wheels, special badging, emblems, stripes, and the hallowed fire-breathing "Flaming Chicken" hood sticker made it a legend. The Trans-Am, like Burt Reynolds's Bandit, lived and breathed pure 1970s-era machismo.

Like the Chevy Monza Spyder and Royal Knight El Camino, the AMC AMX of 1979-1980 tried to capture the Trans-Am's magic by emulating the sizzle while ignoring the steak.

The original AMX of the 1960s was a truly legendary supercar; its combination of compact size and powerful V-8 made it the most potent car in AMC's woebegone history. A decade later, today's Muscle Car Poseur was the sad marriage of a proud name, a garish hood decal, AMC's hoary old 304 V-8, and the AMC Spirit.

Don't remember the Spirit? Think of AMC's Eagle Wagon, only less advanced and less popular.

Nissan Altima 3.5SE

           

    

When figuring out which car I was going to pick for today's edition of Sleeper Sedans in the Morning, I nearly went for the Hyundai Sonata--after all, what could be a more startling under-the-radar speedster than a 235-horsepower Hyundai?--but opted instead for the Nissan Altima 3.5SE.

Yes, an Altima. The first-generation Altima was a stylistic and dynamic disaster, a heavier and uglier Sentra, with all of the automotive rightness of a 200,000-mile rental car. The second-generation Altima, however, was a revelation on its debut and more reminiscent of a trimmer Maxima than its Altima predecessor--a stiff chassis, attractive Passat-like styling, spacious interior, and torquey and bulletproof V-6.