More Vintage Wheels

I have more pictures from the car show I attended on Sunday. Yesterday's batch ended up being roughly chronological, so let's continue that way.

By the end of the 1950s, the American car companies realized that they needed to offer smaller vehicles to compete with the growing threat from companies like Volkswagen. The result was the first generation of American compacts like the Ford Falcon and Plymouth Valiant. These were simple, practical cars that usually resembled scaled-down versions of their full-size siblings, and they can still serve as economical daily transportation today (if one is willing to overlook the absence of a few modern safety features).

As you can see from the front plate, this is another Pontiac, a 1962 Tempest coupe. This is another of my favorite old cars, though I prefer the station wagon version. The Tempest was more technologically advanced than most other American cars of the time, offering a four-cylinder engine, a flexible drive shaft, and a rear-mounted transmission that resulted in perfect front-rear weight distribution (which theoretically improved handling).

Ah, this is the shot where I cut off the front of the car. I had just taken a shot from a few steps further back, and immediately realized that a person passing by was blocking a good chunk of the car, so I hurriedly moved forward and snapped another shot without checking to see if I'd framed it properly.

Anyway, this is a 1968 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special, once upon a time the pinnacle of the Cadillac lineup and still an impressive-looking ride. This one is a bit unusual in that by '68 they were more commonly seen with a vinyl roof covering, and this one is also missing its badges and bright trim along the bottom of the body sides, but it may be a restoration in progress. The color does seem to match up with the choices available that year, so the owners could have had it repainted recently.

Paging Don Draper... oh wait, no, he dumped the Jaguar account. Regardless, it's always a pleasure and a thrill to see an XKE, and I couldn't resist three of them parked together. I have a relative who owned one of these, a white over red convertible, and I was fortunate enough to get a ride in it once—I think I may have been ten or eleven at the time.

Okay, now we're onto something good: a 1969 Dodge Polara two-door hardtop. The big Dodges, Plymouths, and Chryslers were all redesigned for '69, and the absence of vent windows on this car indicates it was equipped with air conditioning. It also has the rarely-seen Super-Lite option, a single high-intensity driving light mounted in the grille. Those road wheels are pretty sweet, too. (Behind the Polara is what I believe is a 1968 Plymouth Belvedere.)

I knew someone in high school who had a car similar to this, a 1970 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme convertible, except it was maroon with a black interior. It's nice to see one that's been preserved, and not turned into a hot rod or a 442 "tribute."

I took this picture mainly because I recall A Proper Bostonian telling me that someone in her family had one. It's a Chevrolet Monte Carlo, one of the first-generation cars (1970-72). I didn't even bother to look at the grille to determine exactly which year it was, but I'm going with '71 or '72 based on the color, which I think is Placer Gold.

The Plymouth Satellite had gotten rather bloated by 1973 (this could also be a '74; they looked exactly the same). I took this shot because I liked the color (definitely not an original factory choice) and because my brother had one of these for a while, that he'd acquired from a family friend.

And finally here's a Triumph TR6, probably a 1974-'76 based on the big rubber bumper guards and the Union Jack decal on the rear fender. I always liked these and hoped I might have one someday.

I was also surprised by the cars I didn't see at this show: not a single 1960s Lincoln Continental with suicide doors; no Thunderbirds newer than 1966; and hardly any station wagons (besides the Nomad). We didn't get to the show until around 1, and I think some of the cars had already started to leave. It opens to the public at 8 am, and if I go back next year I'll definitely try to get there before noon, if not earlier.

And there was one car I meant to go back and get a picture of but forgot, a 1958 Edsel with the retractable hardtop from a Ford Skyliner. It must have taken a fair amount of work to create that car, and it was quite well-done.