Car Lust

Our Cars Week: "The Ford Mustang: Can you go home again?"

(Submitted by Car Lust reader and Carspotting: Auto Archeology Editor Michael E. Gouge)

For my fellow car lovers, there is no need to explain the bond a 16-year-old has with his first car. Mine was a 1966 Mustang in Nightmist Blue, and it opened up a world of freedom, of escapism, of pleasure in the sound of an engine purring along an open road. In other words, this angst-filled teenager discovered a home, a sanctuary, in a Mustang.  Three decades hence, that old pony car--along with my youth and a new-found euphoria for the open road--are but memories.

Just A Little Neighborhood Car Show

It's the dead of winter here on the North American continent, and most of us are stuck indoors for at least a few more weeks. So what do we do to keep our automotive sanities until the buttercups bloom? How about a very short trip down Memory Lane when the days were longer and warmer?

Bellevue, Tennessee is a friendly suburb of Nashville and once a month in warm weather some local folks assemble at the Bellevue Mall parking lot to display the vehicles they've been waxing and/or working on. I had been wanting to see this car show for a few years, but never seemed to catch it. But as Fate finally dictated, I got the location, time, and date for the event together, and this show just happened to be the last one of the season, held on October 1, 2011.

There was taped music from the '50s, and a live band was making cool sounds. Somebody was cooking hot dogs and selling cold drinks, which greatly added to the spirit. Cars of many nationalities and ages were presented, and there wasn't a bad one in the bunch.

"The Fast And The Furious" 1970 Dodge Charger

(Submitted by Car Lust reader and commenter Tigerstrypes)

 

It’s amazing how a car steals a scene, even among trendier “hero” cars. The Coke-bottle silhouette of the 2nd-gen Dodge Charger did it again (I don’t know about you but the Charger in ‘Bullitt’ stole my attention from the Mustang) with very little screen-time and no build montage. It sleeps, no, waits, for the moment to get out and beat, no, obliterate new blood (or is it motor oil?) off the streets.

I liked its story: Belonged to Dom's late father and it scared the crap out of Mr. Hi-Performance Imports here of just thinking of driving it (as it should, probably the most realistic thing going on in the movie).

And it’s all downhill from there.

A Few Cars in 3-D

As they say, "And now for something completely different." I'm not sure if anybody's done a Car Lust post in 3-D or not yet, so now's the time. Please grab your red- and blue-lensed glasses, make sure the proper side is facing the screen, turn up the brightness on your monitor (That seems to help), and away we go!

I've tried to find some good 3-D images; we all know some work better than others. One night our group watched a 3-D movie on TV, "Gorilla At Large." It was a disaster movie in just about every way possible, especially while trying to reproduce a 3-D effect with a weak UHF channel and wabbit ears. Halfway through the movie, we all got up and left the TV.

So hopefully, these images will not be as big of a disappointment as that turkey and evening was:

Studebaker Week: 1963 Lark Daytona Wagonaire R2

Three years ago, I wrote a post on the Wagonaire, a variation on the Studebaker Lark station wagon in which the rear half of the roof retracted into the front. Naturally, I was very happy to see that a Wagonaire made it to the SDC Ohio Chapter meet last Saturday.

This particular Wagonaire is a '63 with the "Daytona" trim package, which gives you front bucket seats, a center console, and that snappy side spear.

Apart from that, and the trick roof, it's just a plain white station wagon with body-color steelies and dog dish hubcaps. At first glance, it looks so practical, so inoffensive, so gosh-darned harmless, like a cute little fluffy bunny in sensible shoes.

Actually, it's more like the Rabbit of Caerbannog--cute, to be sure, but definitely not harmless, or for the faint of heart. The clue to its true nature is that little round red and blue badge in the lower right corner of the grille, the one that says "R2."

Studebaker Week: SDC Ohio Chapter 2011 meet

If you've been following Car Lust for a while, you may have noticed that I have a thing for Studebakers. When I heard that the Ohio Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club would be having its annual meet in Tallmadge, not far from where I live, there was no question that I'd be going.

The people who put this event on bill it as the largest one-day Studebaker show in the world, and they're probably right. This was not merely a large gathering of Studebakers, this was total Studebaker overload. According to the lady at the registration table, there were 139 Studes and Packards signed in as of about 1:30 in the afternoon, and more kept arriving even after that.

I lost count of the Larks and Avantis, there were so many of them--enough that they'll be getting their own posts in the next couple of days. As for the rest, we'll start the tour after the jump.

5th Annual Lincoln Highway Car Show

Saturday, August 13 was a perfect day for a car show in Ashland, Ohio; sunny and warm, but not oppressively hot.
The show organizers had extended a particular invitation to Studebakers, and there were six in attendance: a Golden Hawk, two Gran Turismo Hawks, a hot-rodded "bullet nose" 1950, a mild custom pickup truck, and a thoroughly cuddly Lark VIII convertible.

All-American Week: 1964½ - 1966 Ford Mustang Fever

Ya know, I can't believe we haven't done this car yet. After all, this may be the most lusted-after affordable and available car in American history. "Mustang Fever" overtook the USA in 1964, and it hasn't gone away yet.

I guess this post is a little late to the party to be included in our recent "Old Fords Week," but as timeless as these cars are, maybe they don't belong there anyway. I'll stay away from just a boring history of the car (We all pretty well know it anyway) and just try to explain why I think we admire these so much.

I think the main reason people first liked these Mustangs is because anybody could make a Mustang their Mustang, and on a reasonable budget. Each Mustang could be carefully built from Ford's options list, and would be truly unique to the customer.

Rather than today's mundane trim packages that let you constantly meet yourself on the highway, personalization was what these first Mustangs were all about. And I don't think that philosophy has ever changed.

At one time, there were over 500 dealer spon- sored Mustang Clubs across the country and around the world. 1970 was the peak year with over 200,000 Mustang club members worldwide. In addition to swapping information and stories about them, they are also a great source for parts, or maybe even to find the Mustang of your dreams.

So, do you want to keep it all original? Maybe make it look stock, but replace the suspension, brakes, and drivetrain with modern stuff? You can do anything you want to a Mustang to make it your car.

All-American Week: 1969 AMC Hurst SC/Rambler

The last year's production of a soon-to-be-discontinued make or model is usually not a very joyous affair. Either the brand is going out of business, or the exciting new successor model is on the way, but either way, the outgoing car doesn't get much respect. In most cases it will be unadvertised, disowned, decontented, and deep-discounted to get it off the lot.

Sometimes, the manufacturer will at least give the discontinued model a decent burial. There will be a "limited edition" farewell version with special paint and trim and a special sticker price to match, or some sort of formal commemoration or PR stunt as the last one rolls off the assembly line.

The greatest send-off in automotive history was the one American Motors gave to its Rambler brand name in 1969. The loud and proud AMC Hurst SC/Rambler was the vehicle (pun intended) by which sedate, inoffensive, sensible-shoes Rambler ascended to the great wrecking yard in the sky in a tire-squealing howl of quarter-mile dragstrip glory.

Old Fords Week: America's Ford Falcon

Don't let its humble looks fool you. America's Ford Falcon started out as a late 1950s economy car, then became America's most-loved 1960s pony car, morphed into a compact and sporty coupé/sedan for the 70s, and finally retired in garish style in the early 1980s. Except for one small exception.

And along the way, the Falcon was a two-door coupé, a four-door sedan, a convertible, a station wagon, a van, and, oh yeah, a Ford Ranchero.

This versatile compact (Not sub-compact, as was the Pinto) platform began life as Ford's answer to the small import cars that were trickling their way into America in the late 1950s. The VW Beetle, Toyotas, Datsuns, and a few British cars more than hinted at sensibility and thrift. This was a novel idea on American roads at the time, as most 1950s and 60s cars were getting longer, lower, and wider.

But the 1950s' Suez Crisis got a lot of people thinking, especially in Europe. The thought of petrol-miserly cars caught on quickly over there and has remained to this day. That happens over here only when gas prices go up. Then they go back down, and we go back to where we were.