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What is your favorite classic car, truck or SUV?

Here is mine, a 1970 Dart Swinger 340 that I transplanted a 700+ hp John Aruzza HEMI . Has a factory 4 speed trans.
My wife and I did the install. I don’t know how fast it will go but it will smoke the tires at 60mph!
It is a dangerous machine. I will most likely be buried in it. I’ll never sell it unless the starter goes bad ( can’t even see it)
 

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Here is mine, a 1970 Dart Swinger 340 that I transplanted a 700+ hp John Aruzza HEMI . Has a factory 4 speed trans.
My wife and I did the install. I don’t know how fast it will go but it will smoke the tires at 60mph!
It is a dangerous machine. I will most likely be buried in it. I’ll never sell it unless the starter goes bad ( can’t even see it)
You have a very nice car. it must've been fun to work on it as a family.
 
Okay, I'll play. I bought my first car in '66 or '67. '59 Porsche Convertible D that was orange with tan interior and top. They are an interesting car. Built only for one model year, there were around 1200+ worldwide. A dentist was the sole owner of the car and it was near perfect. It had alloy doors and deck lids and I have no idea whether that was novel or the standard. Only one car is listed as being painted in the orange color. I ran the car hard and no one would describe it as near perfect when it went it away. I sold it in '67. I was in basic training and my dad blew the second trans-axle I'd put into it. Adios to the Convertible D. I sold it to a friend who was a "backyard" Porsche mechanic. The backyard reference is not a knock. He was the most knowledgeable Porsche guy I've ever met. I think I got $1100.00 for it. Today a numbers matching car that's never had rust and is off a quality recent resto will do in the mid $200K range.

A couple of years out of the service and I'm in the car business in northern CA. The store where I started had a GSM that loved muscle cars. We had 'cudas, Challengers, GTX's Super Bees, Daytonas, 427CI 435HP 'vettes with no P/S no A/C, GT 350, GT500, Mach1 428CJ, Mustangs, Camaros, etc. etc. A couple of years later I'm the used car manager at the same store. We get a repo. from our lease co. It's a Pantera with only a couple of thousand on it. So I go to the owner and ask him if I can buy it. He says sure but tells me he'll sell me his Toyota GT2000 for the same money. I pass on the Pantera after I talked to my insurance agent. The GT2000 just wasn't me. The last GT2000, that I could find a sale on, brought 1.1 million. Oh well.

Fast forward six or seven years and I'm at a small used car store in the Portland OR area. We handled MBZ, BMW, Jaguar, RR, Bentley, Porsche, exotics, collectibles and special interest cars. The owner and a retired Portland new car dealer came up with and idea that would change the worldwide collectible car market. It revolved around the Ferrari 365 GTS/4 better known as the Daytona Spyder. There were 122 of these cars built and we estimated about 70 made it to the US. That's 122 cars built over a a six year period. The cars went from $110,000.00+ to about $500,000.
in a couple of years and we had as many as seven at one time. The market was overheated and we got out. It was correct call and the cars lost about half their value. By 2015 they were exceeding three million.

Through the years I got to drive some of the coolest cars ever so here's three of my favorites.

The Lamborghini Miura is pure sex. To me this car is the first of the Supercars. A transverse mounted V-12, the car would do about 170MPH. I never got to drive one.


The Ferrari 365 GTS/4 aka Daytona Spyder was the last of the V-12 front engine convertibles from Ferrari for many years. One of the most beautiful cars ever and they were a pleasure to drive. These were also a 170MPH

The final car seems like a departure. The MBZ 280 SE 3.5 Convertible was last built in the early '70s. I think the last year was '71. Again, around 1200 were built and they were the beginning of an era, in my opinion, where MBZ built the finest automobiles in the world.

I like them all.
 
My favorite classic car (that I actually owned) was a 1959 Volvo 445 wagon. I believe they actually imported only about 150 that year, and mine as a rescue from the tow truck on its way to the junk yard. I got the driver to pull over to a parking area, and gave him $250 in cash to park it on the spot.

Next day, it was in a Buddy's driveway, and the long, strange odyssey began.

First we made it into the gang's camping vehicle. We bolted 6" wide 15" rims onto it and put big fat jeep tires on it. The factory bolted-on roof racks became the foundation for a huge folding platform made out of 4' x 12' 3/4" plywood sheets that would open out into a 12' x 12' platform on stilts to support a big tent. The bumpers got replaced by 4x8 wooden beams, and the interior (yes, it was a 'Woodie' inside...) got dismantled, the wood stripped and stained, and put back in with 6 coats of bulletproof Varathane on it. The rest of interior was essentially painted steel, so we masked the instruments and repainted it.

And yes, non-power drum brakes are a trip! That trip would continue when you got back into your regular car and hit the brakes the first time, whoa Nellie.

We used it for camping (we especially enjoyed parking it at Lime Rock and watching the races from folding chairs up atop the platform).

Then one Sunday it blew the head gasket on the way home. I pulled the spark plug on the faulty cylinder, readjusted the valves so the intake valve never opened and the exhaust valve never completely closed, and drove the thing home on 3 cylinders. The head gasket was replaced two days later.

But..., being that it was a 1600cc 3 main bearing 4 cylinder, it was time for some skullduggery.

We got an old 1968 Volvo B-18B engine, rebuilt it completely, then put it together with a 4 speed plus overdrive trans, homemade mounts, and a shortened drive shaft, and "The Pride of Sweden" was christened. The radiator was never completely happy, but...

It was indestructible, and we tried... Imagine a miniature panel truck with late 1940's styling and clam shell rear doors, but with a folding rear seat, 12" of ground clearance, and 12" of headroom. It was like a miniature power wagon, with only 2WD. It still "got there".

More fun than this, the law does not allow...

ROFLMAO!!!

Greg
 
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My favorite classic car (that I actually owned) was a 1959 Volvo 445 wagon. I believe they actually imported only about 150 that year, and mine as a rescue from the tow truck on its way to the junk yard. I got the driver to pull over to a parking area, and gave him $250 in cash to park it on the spot.

Next day, it was in a Buddy's driveway, and the long, strange odyssey began.

First we made it into the gang's camping vehicle. We bolted 6" wide 15" rims onto it and put big fat jeep tires on it. The factory bolted-on roof racks became the foundation for a huge folding platform made out of 4' x 12' 3/4" plywood sheets that would open out into a 12' x 12' platform on stilts to support a big tent. The bumpers got replaced by 4x8 wooden beams, and the interior (yes, it was a 'Woodie' inside...) got dismantled, the wood stripped and stained, and put back in with 6 coats of bulletproof Varathane on it. The rest of interior was essentially painted steel, so we masked the instruments and repainted it.

And yes, non-power drum brakes are a trip! That trip would continue when you got back into your regular car and hit the brakes the first time, whoa Nellie.

We used it for camping (we especially enjoyed parking it at Lime Rock and watching the races from folding chairs up atop the platform).

Then one Sunday it blew the head gasket on the way home. I pulled the spark plug on the faulty cylinder, readjusted the valves so the intake valve never opened and the exhaust valve never completely closed, and drove the thing home on 3 cylinders. The head gasket was replaced two days later.

But..., being that it was a 1600cc 3 main bearing 4 cylinder, it was time for some skullduggery.

We got an old 1968 Volvo B-18B engine, rebuilt it completely, then put it together with a 4 speed plus overdrive trans, homemade mounts, and a shortened drive shaft, and "The Pride of Sweden" was christened. The radiator was never completely happy, but...

It was indestructible, and we tried... Imagine a miniature panel truck with late 1940's styling and clam shell rear doors, but with a folding rear seat, 12" of ground clearance, and 12" of headroom. It was like a miniature power wagon, with only 2WD. It still "got there".

More fun than this, the law does not allow...

ROFLMAO!!!

Greg
Sounds great; I love hearing about people working on their cars and their success stories & adventures with them.
 
I like both the '66 and 1967 Novas; they are great looking cars.
There were a lot of muscle cars around back in the '60's, where I grew up. But, by the end of the '70's, the Nova was the "go-to" muscle car. Followed by the Camaro, Trans-am, Firebird... I loved the 1970 style Camaro. But, for me, it don't top the '72 Chevy 4x4. We spent as much time off road as we did on-road.
 
For Muscle cars, I had a 70 Dodge Charger RT/SE, another rare combination of both luxury and punch. Plum Crazy purple with a white vinyl Roof and black leather interior. It had a 440 Magnum Automatic drive line with Posi. The cam was replaced, and the carburetion had a Holley list 3310 carb (780 CFM) with vacuum secondaries.

I bought it in 72 from my Computer Ops partner. The entire trunk lid was lined with first place stickers from the Englishtown, NJ Drag track. I got it out on a newly constructed, not yet opened, section of RT 80 in NJ and opened it up. I chickened out at 140MPH, it had a 155 MPH speedo. I was taking too much of a chance with the tires, which weren't rated for such high speeds.

Only complaint, no power steering; which made it an absolute pig to parallel park with that massive engine block up front.

But go? That monster would pass everything but the gas stations.

My real car was a 68 Volvo, which I bought new and drove until 82. Over the years, it got 14x7 American Racing mags and H70-14 tires, reworked wheel wells (I added fender flairs originally intended for a Ford Econoline), 7/8" diameter anti roll bars front and rear, a higher ratio rear axle, and a pair of Weber dual throat DCOE carbs. The exhausts were a pair of Corvette side pipes. It sounded like a V-8 inboard racing boat when it got up to 65mph, it cornered very flat, and mostly would take a turn at about twice as fast as the turn warning speed sign.

I got it to 240,000 miles with one engine (self) rebuild, and sold it to another owner.

There was a 79 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, an 89 Lincoln Continental Town Car, a VW Super Beetle, and an 87 Camaro, too... Celia got the Cruisers, I got the Scooters...

At one point, I had a new 75 Chevy G-20 Sport Van that frequently went on Scout Canoe trips with three canoes up top and ten kids in the back. The other canoes went one to a car roof on Parents' cars. That was the last car I bought new, and I haven't had to make a car payment since 78.

Greg
 
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For Muscle cars, I had a 70 Dodge Charger RT/SE, another rare combination of both luxury and punch. Plum Crazy purple with a white vinyl Roof and black leather interior. It had a 440 Magnum Automatic drive line with Posi. The cam was replaced, and the carburetion had a Holley list 3310 carb (780 CFM) with vacuum secondaries.

I bought it in 72 from my Computer Ops partner. The entire trunk lid was lined with first place stickers from the Englishtown, NJ Drag track. I got it out on a newly constructed, not yet opened, section of RT 80 in NJ and opened it up. I chickened out at 140MPH, it had a 155 MPH speedo. I was taking too much of a chance with the tires, which weren't rated for such high speeds.

Only complaint, no power steering; which made it an absolute pig to parallel park with that massive engine block up front.

But go? That monster would pass everything but the gas stations.

My real car was a 68 Volvo, which I bought new and drove until 82. Over the years, it got 14x7 American Racing mags and H70-14 tires, reworked wheel wells (I added fender flairs originally intended for a Ford Econoline), 7/8" diameter anti roll bars front and rear, a higher ratio rear axle, and a pair of Weber dual throat DCOE carbs. The exhausts were a pair of Corvette side pipes. It sounded like a V-8 inboard racing boat when it got up to 65mph, it cornered very flat, and mostly would take a turn at about twice as fast as the turn warning speed sign.

I got it to 240,000 miles with one engine (self) rebuild, and sold it to another owner.

There was a 79 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham, an 89 Lincoln Continental Town Car, a VW Super Beetle, and an 87 Camaro, too... Celia got the Cruisers, I got the Scooters...

At one point, I had a new 75 Chevy G-20 Sport Van that frequently went on Scout Canoe trips with three canoes up top and ten kids in the back. The other canoes went one to a car roof on Parents' cars. That was the last car I bought new, and I haven't had to make a car payment since 78.

Greg
Sounds like your '70 Dodge Charger was a lot of fun to drive.
 
What is your favorite classic
Car
Chevrolet Impala 64 (yeah yeah, i know)
Truck
Chevrolet Blazer from 1970 (The bad ass cop car from all 80's movies)
SUV
Ford Bronco from the 60's
 
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What is your favorite classic
Car
Chevrolet Impala 64 (yeah yeah, i know)
Truck Chevrolet Blazer from 1970 (The bad ass cop car from all 80's movies)
SUV Ford Bronco from the 60's
I like them all. Our son a little while ago saw a '63 or '64 Impala convertible in someone garage (I didn't see it myself); it was in fairly good condition, but hadn't been started in probably at least 7 years. When my wife tried to inquire about the car, the guy's wife (it turned out she was the owner) wasn't real friendly & didn't seem inclined to sell it.
 
I could understand why :ROFLMAO: Maybe her husband has forced her to put it up for sale :eek:
 
When I heard the story it was kind of funny; he was willing to sell it for $5000, but when she got word of it, she wanted $10,000 & sternly told my wife that she owns it, not her husband. We later tried to look at it as a family, but can never find them home (or she won't answer the door, not sure which applies as we've tried many times).
 
Here are a couple of crappy video screenshots I grabbed of my dad’s 1955 Ford F100 from this weekend.
He drives my daughter (5 years old) around in parades. My son was in the passenger side. He loves it because it gives him a chance to drive it.

B5425DC3-FCCB-431A-BDD7-E567C04FB2AC.jpeg
B5A52CD3-FC40-4268-B919-76DA13DE2B65.jpeg
 
This was my baby for three and a half months
I drove this around your beautiful country. I loved this car, small block 318, sheet metal
went forever.

Didn't take much to smoke up the tires. :cool:

69ply-ad2-b.jpg
 
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This was my baby for three and a half months
I drove this around your beautiful country. I loved this car, small block 318, sheet metal
went forever.

Didn't take much to smoke up the tires. :cool:

View attachment 6920533
Nice; my dad had a Chrysler version of it with a 440 in it. It had a lot of power, too.
 
That's a beautiful '55 Ford pick-up truck.
I was raised with cars like this. My dad had one. My Grandfather had 2 Chrysler Imperials, ‘66 and 67. It was like being the Green Hornet. You could sleep, stretched out on the front seat. I am glad to have grown up in the time I did. Thanks for your post. It took me to that far away place for a few minutes
 
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If you ever go through southern Nebraska, be sure to venture off the beaten path and check this place out. Pioneer Village in Minden, Ne. Lots of antique modes of transportation in that museum. Some say the biggest private collection of antique cars in the US, but I didn't find that claim on their website. This place is a tribute to the tough resourcefulness of the pioneers and settlers who came before us.
http://pioneervillage.org/
 
Yea, but I’m sure an original Sunbeam with low miles probably cost way more than the Cobra I built. My friend’s Dad has a Tiger, and is in the local Sunbeam Club. There are quite a few around town.
 
For me, I love the classic GTO's. Those Pontiac motors have a different sound. They have a certain I'm pissed off but minding my own business tone. I think thats why I drive one. GM really had something, then the late 70's hit. (And there was John DeLorean's habit of...)
Also really dig the old Mercs- especially the 48, and lead sled mercs, and the '58 impala bel air- Yes, real trim package. And then... and then... and then...
 
For me, I love the classic GTO's. Those Pontiac motors have a different sound. They have a certain I'm pissed off but minding my own business tone. I think thats why I drive one. GM really had something, then the late 70's hit. (And there was John DeLorean's habit of...)
Also really dig the old Mercs- especially the 48, and lead sled mercs, and the '58 impala bel air- Yes, real trim package. And then... and then... and then...
Wasn't the whole DeLorean thing that he actually made those cars in Ireland to import drugs to the U.S.? He would have made a ton of money if they'd done a little more engineering and better work. They were gimmick cars. but they sold like hotcakes.
 
Wasn't the whole DeLorean thing that he actually made those cars in Ireland to import drugs to the U.S.? He would have made a ton of money if they'd done a little more engineering and better work. They were gimmick cars. but they sold like hotcakes.
I'm pretty sure that the drugs were a straw DeLorean grasped as the car business was sinking. I always thought GM used political connections to get the FBI to entrap him.
 
63 Galaxy 500 with the 428 interceptor motor. Perfect black paint with a 4speed rock crusher. No power steering or AC... just an alternator and glass packs....

Not trying to nit pick but the m22 rock crusher was a close ratio gm tranny made by muncie and never available in a ford. It is however an amazing 4 speed.
 
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I was watching Wheeler Dealers the other night and they did a 71 C-10 pickup. They said the short bed C-10s are virtually unobtainable.
I had a 69 shortbed stepside that I wish I'd kept.
Also had a 71 Cutlass S that I still see in my dreams occasionally.
Together, in very good condition, those two would likely be worth $70,000.
As best I can recall my net sale for both combined was somewhere around $1700.

If you guys think a 2014 Mazda CX-5 or a 2019 Subaru Crosstrek are going to that same route, please tell me now. :confused:
 
The 'nicest' car that I've had, was a simple 1980 Monte Carlo with the 4 front headlights and the wide taillights. Unfortunately it had the 267 CID engine and I'd always wanted to swap that for a 350 CID with 4 barrel intake. Other things happened in life.

The 'quickest' car that I've had was a '94 Grand Marquis (fully loaded and velour interior w/ 60/40 bench seats) but with the "Police Package" (I never understood that one?) and man-o-man, if one were to 'hypothetically' hit the accelerator whilst on the highway, it really sets you back in your seats and you're doing damn-near double the speed limit in seconds. And the air-bags on the rear axle sure made a difference when cornering.

Hypothetically, and theoretically, of course. I think I saw that on a movie once, in a closed set, with stunt doubles. heh heh heh.
 
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