5 cars I don't ever see on the road anymore.

5. Chevrolet Chevette
4. Plymouth Cricket
3. Ford Maverick
2. Chevy Vega
1. Ford Pinto

what a great car. has the German feel, but was sportier than a VW.

trade it because hubby had a motorcycle accident and messed up his left knee, the Maverick was a stick shift and he couldn't drive it anymore.:-(

It was an awful chartreuse (sp) color, but I got used to it. Heck, for $1700 and a 10 year old pickup truck, the color didn't much matter. I did tune-ups, brakes, and a clutch replacement all with minimal tools, usually in an apartment complex parking lot. I remember a magazine ad in which United Airline stewardess' did a tune up with a flat bladed screwdriver and a pair of pliers.

I could get 34 mpg with my three speed if the tires were fully inflated. On the interstate when I drafted semi's I could get it up to 38 or so. Mine died when it was rear-ended by a full-size station wagon at a stoplight. Its light weight construction let the rear bumper move to the original position of the rear seat, and the hind wheels came to rest where the rear door had been. I walked away, thankful for the shoulder harness.

Great car, packed it with everything I had, including a wife and a baby, and moved cross country 3 times. Those were the days...gas under 50 cents per gallon!

remember hubby and friends working on them (also in small apartment parking lots). Ours was a really pretty car,don't know if the paint job was a mistake or what, but it was FLAT black with a wide denim blue stripe going down the side, with a big red stallion head at the front quarter panel. Only one I ever saw with that paint job. We traveled far in it but alas still live in same town, much to my regret. :(

Right after I bought it I poked a hole in the roof so I could stick a two meter ham radio antenna on the roof. The roof never leaked.

Remember those? And the Pacer? World's ugliest cars and they came in really weird colors. My friend had a purple Gremlin. Hideous. :scared:

I loved that car, it was easy to work on when needed.

VVVrrroooom!

But the Gremlin was, indeed, hideous.
But not as bad as the Volkswagen "Thing"

that created a greenhouse effect. The car became an inferno on even a slightly warm day. Eventually the interiors, seats, dashboard, contents were cooked. Everything split, faded, and dry rotted. Big design oops.

I guess that's one reason why American Motors is no longer with us.

I thought this list was going to include:

1. Chevy Geo
2. Dodge Neon
3. Oldsmobile Delta 88
4. Buick Rivera
5. Mercury Cougar

they usually look like crap, but there are a few around, though fewer every year.

Buick Riveras and Mercury Cougars are also out there in diminishing numbers.

Not sure about the Olds 88, as I don't know if I'd recognize one without looking carefully.

Totally agree on the Geo - though that's not really a model, it was a short-lived make - the Geo Storm, Geo Prizm and a couple of other models. I'm kind of surprised I don't see more Prizms on the road, as they were essentially the same car as the Toyota Corolla and I do see a number of those of the same age fairly often.

One I don't see much on the road is the 1988 Toyota Corolla SR5 - aside from my own. I don't think many of them were sold. I see the standard Corolla sedan frequently, but not the little 2-door SR5.

Here's a pic of the 1989 which looks exactly the same (though mine is not nearly so nice and shiny at 22 years old):

I had a Dodge Neon and loved it. My parents had a Delta 88 and I drove the hell out of it as a teen.

Not something I'm proud of, but at least I have a car. :)

Just one of the regular working stiffs but I think he's going to be one of those guys who dies and it turns out he's saved every nickel and leaves a million+ dollar estate.

But then again, most men don't give two craps about fashion. Most of us aren't like the man in the Kinks song:

They seek him here
They seek him there
His clothes are loud
But never square
It will make or break him so he's got to buy the best
'Cause he's a dedicated follower of fashion

They deserved to die. I don't even see any around sitting up on blocks rusting-they probably all disintegrated by now.

mark

Vegas were designed so you could put a small-block Chevy V8 in them with no modifications to the body or chassis. So...kids who want to learn to drag race buy these God-awful things, install a roll cage, a drag differential and a junkyard 350 in them, and go racing CHEAP.

There are a bunch of low-budget circle track classes where the rules favor Pintos - so much so that some sanctions call them "pony stocks".
The engines from '71-74 Pintos (also used in Capris, Fiestas and Cortinas) are the backbone of 3 major roadracing classes - Formula Ford (1600 Kent engine), Formula Continental and Sports 2000 (2000 Cologne engine)

a v-12 coupe much like this one:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La_Salle_Series_38-5027_Coupe_1938.jpg


And my dad had a Hudson Terraplane in NYC in the 1930's...

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraplane


mark

I see a Ford Pinto everyday Right now it's in my garage

When's the last time you've seen one of those?

I haven't seen one in years.

It is mostly kept in the garage and only driven on sunny days. :)

I see lots of both here.

I have never heard of or seen one (that I know of). Didn't all of the Pintos spontaneously burst into flames?

Not cheap, not thrown together. There are 500,000 mi. P-1800's out there.

The P1800 is still in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most miles driven on one single car. Initially, it set the record at one million miles, the owner claims to have done very little other than regular oil changes. As of now, the car has more than 3 million miles and is still going strong.

Renault sold a bunch of cars here. How often do you see one? See, there's a reason.

As was the Vega - turned out COTY went to whoever paid the Detroit editor's bar bill for the year. The Alliance was mostly seen on the side of the road, shootin' fire from under the hood.

Had a 1984 like the one below (except mine was black). Pretty fun RWD coupe. Came standard with every option available at the time.

My parents had a Trooper and IMark when I was a kid. They were good cars.

And both of them were pieces of junk.
And my mother owned one of the others. She traded it after 3 or 4 years for a Monza.

because they weren't profitable enough.

They preferred making the big cars to the small ones, even in the immediate aftermath of the '70s oil shocks.

Maverick
Vega
Pinto....

You left out the American Motors Eagle:



Another rust-bucket that fell into my lap at one time....

Stalled driving it home from BUYING it, in the middle of
an intersection, where an oncoming car TAGGED me!

Downhill from there!

Great Cars.

I had two boy friends who drove Horizons.

Great guys.

I only married one.

He still runs.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

I'd rather drive a 78' Aspen with a slant 6 than a 85' Omni :rofl: ( and that says a lot )

Let's call the whole thing off!

That I put an 80' model Aspen front clip on cause I like the square headlights better :rofl:

It was his first new car. He had just retired. He died 6 months later.

Moral: Don't wait to get a new Volare.

My sister's first car = Vega. We were stylin' back in the day.

I was young and poor, while they were old and cheap. It was a good fit at the time. I paid less than $500 for each of them, and none lasted for more than a year.

I just saw a Chevette in showroom condition a few weeks ago. Perfect, new looking paint. Not a ding to be seen. Immaculate interior. I couldn't decide which was more shocking...that a Chevette was still on the road, or that someone had actually spent the money to fix one up!

Then again, I went to high school with someone who had shoehorned a 500ci Caddy V8 into a Chevette, so the cars have always had their niche fan base. I certainly wasn't one of them though :)

Chevrolet, Pontiac and Oldsmobile all had versions of this car. The Pontiac was called Sunfire. Can't recall the Chevrolet name.

My first hubby had one in college - awesome car.

My first car was a sweet Jav! :loveya:

My sister had one and the driver side door fell off into the street. She had to get in on the passenger side until it blew up a few months later.

Maverick = Mercury Comet; Vega = Pontiac Astre. The 'standard bearers' were OK for what they were - but the dolled up, overpriced twins were just pathetic.

Take a Cavalier, put some nice wheels and trim on it, give it leather seats, and double the sticker price. We used to laugh every day about that.

My first car, a 1960 Falcon I called "The Sporty Black Roadster." Stick on the column. It did its job, schlepping me back and forth to college two states away.

in my father's yard as we speak. 62-ish, I think.

loved those cars. (inexplicably)

My best friend in high school had one in the eighties and it was the biggest piece of junk. I have no clue why they bought it for her as her first car; I thought it was pretty well known back then they were shitty cars.

My first car was a 72 Maverick. Damn nice car if you knew how to replace U joints and wheel bearings quickly, or were willing to learn. The 302 engine was nice.

The Pinto was my father's car, then my brother's, then the junkyards. Ran well for many a mile, until it was finally rear-ended, and did not explode.

The Chevette was my wife's. Her father gave it to us if we could come get it. My father picked it up and drove it from Gulfport, Mississippi to Shreveport, Louisiana, where I picked it up to drive back to Dallas. It made it to Marshall, Texas and died. That was the end of my Chevette ownership.

They looked twice.

Rolled it end-over-end into a corn field.

Car was a total loss and I spent the first two days of my last week of high school in the hospital.

Mid-80s. I would be surprised if any of those were still on the road after 1989.

had a '77 Cobra ll, loved it. But it sucked going up the ski hill.

Not here in Texas anyway.
I had an '83, Charcoal Gray. Loved it.

The tranny locked up at 75K miles and I traded it in on a new Mazda 626. Now 16 years old.

I still am driving the 626 and it has 115K miles on it. However, it's on its third tranny. Don't know what it is about Mazdas and trannys. I think it's the stop n go traffic in the big city plus the heat breaking down the fluid.

I made sure I got the 6 cylinder instead of the four so I would have enough pickup to get out of the way of the maniacs on I-10 and I-45.