Car Lust

1985: It Was a Very Good Year!

It was "Morning in America," a time when men were real men, women were real women, and hair was real big. Ronald Reagan had just been sworn in for his second term after winning one of the most lopsided Presidential elections in American history. and the "national malaise" of just a few years before had been replaced by a mood of confident optimism. Technology was on the march: personal computers now had floppy drives and 12 MHz processors, fully-functional mobile phones were down to the size of a box of Girl Scout cookies, and used DeLoreans were being retrofitted with aftermarket flux capacitors. On the big screen, besides the one with the time machine, we had Out of Africa and Witness and The Breakfast Club and Rambo: First Blood Part II. On the small screen, you had The Cosby Show and Hill Street Blues and MacGyver.

On the radio was Springsteen, Madonna--this was way before Nirvana--there was U2, and Blondie, and music still on MTV. The cars then were old school, and you might think them uncool, but this post will be occupied with cars of Nineteen Eighty-Five.

All-American Week: The "Spirit of America" Chevrolets

If anybody remembers our Nation's Bicentennial Year, then they remember these limited edition cars. 1976 seemed to start out like most any other year, except we had "The Brady Bunch Variety Hour" to suffer through. "Charlie's Angels" gave us some great models to gaze at, and the cars weren't bad either.

But in 1974, a couple of years ahead of schedule and maybe to boost sales, Chevrolet sold a really nice trim package on their El Camino, Impala, Nova, and Vega models. Some dealers may have added this trim to other Chevy car and truck models as well.

The outsides were painted white with red and blue stripes, and sported "Spirit of America" emblems; the insides had white seats, red carpeting, and black dashboards. Looks like they had some nice wheels, too. They were not featured in the sales brochures that year, and getting detailed information on all of them is a bit tricky.

So let's just look at a few images of these cars:

Great cars of . . . Ireland!

Since it's St. Patrick's Day, we have a perfect excuse to run a picture of the most Irish of all possible Irish cars, a lovely green DMC-12.

Ah, faith and begorrah (whatever the heck a "begorrah" is), sure as you're born 'tis more to the story of Irish car lust than green DeLoreans. Follow me to the end of the rainbow and we'll take a look. (I promise to lose the phony accent.)

Fantastic Fords

Bring a Trailer has been on a tear of awesomeness lately, and I'd like to highlight two rare 1980s Fords that have caught my eye recently.

1986 Ford RS200 Evo
This RS200 is an under-the-radar supercar, with 0-60 times of 3.0 seconds and roughly 600 horsepower coursing through its futuristic-for-the-1980s rally AWD system. We've talked about the Group B rally championship before, and while the on-track competition was incredible, I almost prefer the fire-breathing street vehicles that resulted. The RS200 was at the absolute apex of that group--faster than the Audi Sport Quattro, the Porsche 959, and the Ferrari GTO, and rarer and more mechanically interesting than any of that group as well.

I want an RS200 so badly, and this example is so perfect, that I'm trying to figure out what assets I could sell to be able to afford it. With home values at a low, I don't think I can scrape enough together.

1986 Ford Mustang SVO
Considerably less exotic but still highly lustworthy is this basically brand new Ford Mustang SVO. Anthony Cagle recently wrote a great piece on the SVO that I recommend checking out, but essentially this was the Mustang Pony car turned into a European-style sports coupe. The key was suspension work and a the same turbo 4-cylinder that powered the Merkur XR4Ti.

This car has only 4,500 miles on it and is as close as you'll get to the experience of driving a brand new SVO. This would be a perfect addition to the 1980s sports coupe wing of the Chris Hafner Memorial Museum of Bad And/Or Underappreciated Cars.

--Chris H.

Project AMC--AMC Hornet and AMC Eagle

Project AMC--The Introduction
Project AMC--AMC Gremlin
Project AMC--AMC Hornet and AMC Eagle
Project AMC--AMC Pacer

1976 AMC Hornet--2009 Subaru Impreza
1976 AMC Hornet Turbo--2009 Subaru Impreza WRX
1976 AMC Hornet Turbo X--2009 Subaru Impreza WRX STi

1976 AMC Eagle--2008 Subaru Forester
1976 AMC Eagle X--2008 Subaru Forester XT

The following is an excerpt from a diary kept by Motoring Magazine Road Test Editor Tom Kelly, dated Feb. 2, 1976--the date on which the revitalized American Motors Corporation released its second-generation Hornet and first-generation Eagle to the press for evaluation:

8 a.m.
It turns out that my diary from the AMC Gremlin press launch was a hit--it needed only minimal modification to serve as my preview piece in the latest issue of Motoring Magazine, and reader mail seems to indicate that they liked that sort of spontaneous perpsective. I'm going to try to do the same this time, but I'll take a more organized approach this time and document my thoughts in real time--writing a live journal, if you will.

AMC unveiled the Gremlin almost exactly a month ago, and the shock that I felt last month has now reverberated through TV, newspapers, and magazines to the rest of America. Gremlins are just now beginning to reach AMC dealerships throughout the country, and America is hip deep in Gremlin Fever. Not all of the reaction is positive, of course--the car's styling in particular has proven to be a shock to the system for a populace addicted to vinyl roofs and opera windows--but everybody is fascinated by the novelty of a car that performs like a supercar while sipping fuel like a Datsun. 

AMC dealers are awash with customers who are willing to pay full price and wait for a new Gremlin, which has to be a a pretty new and exciting experience for them. The Big Three are keeping publicly mum about the new Gremlin, but my sources indicate that those mammoth corporations are in a state of near pandemonium trying to understand how AMC pulled off this coup.

Probably the most exciting thing about the Gremlin is the much-needed sense of optimism it has given us. It has been a tough decade for America, with the OPEC embargo, the fall of Saigon, stagflation, and a steadily growing misery index--and it's fair to say that underneath our showy disco culture lay a steadily eroding foundation of self-confidence. But now, with the Gremlin, we Americans can point to a car that not only represents a painless way out of the gas and pollution crises, but a technical miracle that was designed and built right here in America. This amazing car wasn't built by the Soviet Union, West Germany, or even Japan--it was designed and built right here in the United States, by American Motors, no less.

Imagineering a Chevrolet Citation Group B Rally Car

This post is your opportunity to illustrate what you think a Group B rally version of the Chevrolet Citation might have looked like. If you're one of the three people in the world who has the combination of graphical talent and a mentality demented enough to share my curiosity about the subject, please submit your work to carlustinfo@amazon.com.

A week or so ago I was sitting in a drive-through, just whiling away the minutes waiting to be served, when I saw a Chevrolet Citation motor slowly by. For most people this would mark the end of what would make a particularly uninteresting story, but as you may have noticed I'm a little different. My name is Chris Hafner, and I'm a confirmed Citation devotee. As a result, I noticed that the gold Citation that drove by was in absolutely immaculate, showroom-fresh condition, and I instantly fell in love.

  Things like this happen to me all the time--I see a weird car on the street, I lust madly for it, and I forget about it when the next one rolls by. This time, however, I made the mistake of telling some friends about the absolutely radiant Citation that had captured my heart. The result was a not-inconsiderable amount of ribbing for even daring to think of a Citation in an object of lust. Even this isn't that remarkable, though; I take a lot of abuse for my car tastes, and almost all of it is completely justifiable.

There was one strange comment, though; one friend suggested that if I was so in love with blocky hatchbacks that I should shift my affection to the Lancia Delta Integrale. Now, I have no shortage of lust for the Delta Integrale; it's both one of the great unobtainable performance cars of the 1980s and the basis for one of the most legendary rally cars of all time. But the suggestion that I prefer the Delta to a Citation struck me as odd; it's a bit like telling a friend who is in the mood for Taco Bell that he should fly to San Diego for some gourmet shrimp fajitas, or like telling a Pontiac Fiero owner that he should own a Ferrari GTO instead.

Saab Sonett III

With all the news and hope of the survival and success of Saab and the upcoming release of their new 9-5, I'd like to pay tribute to the Saab that I hold dear and true. From my high school days of wanting a true "image" sports car, as well as getting away from all the same cars my friends had, I chased after the Saab Sonnet III more than once.

Its styling has been called Italian-inspired, and for good reason. These cars were, and still are, stunningly beautiful to the eyes. What other car could wear this shade of lime green and get away with it? In fact, the color and the car seem to compliment each other, in my opinion. This is the Euro version; after 1972, we got some really nasty bumpers on them (The last image here has the larger bumpers).

Ford/Mercury Capri II

Chris Hafner whetted my curiosity with his Ford Capri post when he mentioned the Capri II. Though I remembered the Capri well, the Capri II somehow escaped my memory. Sure, the later '79 Mustang clone and the little car from Down Under are familiar, but the Capri II just drew a blank.

Our neighbors had a '72 Capri, so I saw their car almost every day. It was blue, and it represented a slightly more sophisticated means of travel than, say, a Pinto. And the one thing they taught me in that car was to pull way over to the right at an intersection when you're going to make a left. This is just a simple driving courtesy, like dimming your lights.

Hmmm... Mustang II, LTD II, Bronco II, Capri II... there seems to be a pattern forming here. Do you think we will see an Edsel II? Probably not.

So I did some homework on this forgotten car, and here's what I found: First and foremost, it was a hatchback, unlike the coupe version that Chris wrote about. The all-new Mercury Capri II made its debut here in 1975 as a '76 model. Nearly all of the previous model Capri had sold out, so the dealers started with clean lots. In its peak years, Capri sales in North America were the highest for any import model except the VW Beetle.

The Cars I Didn't Buy

I had it all figured out. I would trade in the Grand Marquis I had inherited from my father’s estate on a new MINI Cooper S. Though a fine vehicle, the Marquis was a soft-riding Yankee large barge of the type my father really loved and I, well, not to put too fine a point on it, don’t particularly care for. Nice car, but not me.

The MINI, on the other hand, held the promise of CRX-like agility with way-better-than-CRX acceleration. I’d been to the MINI website and used the “configurator” function and had it all spec’d out into a proper bit of kit. It would be British Racing Green, of course: the only proper colour for such an endeavour, eh, old chap? Jeeves, fetch my hounds and paddock boots straight away; the fox hunt awaits!

As they say, men make plans and God laughs at them.

1968-1974 Chevy Nova

There are cars we could have bought. Cars we would have bought. But this is the car I should have bought back in high school. My well-meaning parents helped me get a 1972 Vega in 1973, before the self-destructive properties of that model became so awfully and costly apparent.

They were thinking "small and economical" for my first car, but looking back in hindsight (as we all do), the long-term costs of a Chevy Nova would have been far less. And it wasn't much larger than the Vega.

The Chevy II/Nova line started in 1962 and went to 1979, and again from 1985 to 1988. But I'd like to focus on what I would have had in my high school years, the ones made from 1968-1974, which are now known as the 3rd Generation Nova. Those other cars have their own followers, and deserve separate posts.