Posted on 09/15/2017 9:14:09 PM PDT by Army Air Corps
Calling all motorheads: what is the weirdest, most oddball car, truck, or van that you have ever driven? The "weirdness" can be anything from exterior design, to mechanical features, to the interior. Have at it, FRiends.
The man who is credited with the Preamble to our Constitution, Gouverneur Morris, had a urinary blockage that was so painful that he tried to clear it by using a sharpened whale bone from a corset. He ended up killing himself.
Horrible.
It’s fun to watch them lift their skirts for deep puddles, mud or for elderly who might have trouble getting in at normal ride height. Look really odd fully raised, but look like a custom lowrider when dropped down for aerodynamics at high speeds.
That was my sister’s first car, at about the same price. It was a convertible, if I recall correctly.
Something tells me that Bullish needs to come back and tell it. :-)
He let me drive it once. The pedals were so close together and angled to the right to avoid the left front wheel well that I had to take my shoes off to keep from hitting two pedals at once (and I have narrow feet!). The engine's front 1/3 intruded between the driver's seat and the passenger seat and it was so loud that you couldn't hear anything else. There was a radio - sideways in the console to fit - but the engine had to be off to hear it.
Accelerated like a bat out of hell - 2nd gear alone violated every speed limit in Hawaii - but the view to the rear didn't exist. I guess you'd just have to wait until you saw flashing lights around you to know when to stop for the cop.
Was it a planned movement?
“...De Tomaso Pantera.”
Drove on years ago. Couldn’t wait to get it back to garage. What a POS?
“It was a 1956 Cadillac Series 62 4-Door Sedan DeVille. “
Still have it?
Prior to going to Japan, while training at Ft. Devens, MA I used to see a little Messerschmidt car in one of the parking lots. It was a backwards “tricycle”; wide wheels in front, and a pair of little steering wheels in the rear, like a backwards farm tractor. Apparently brought back to the States by an officer returning from a tour in Europe.
1. It was hand-built and Brit - that meant that the switches rarely worked, the engine overheated routinely, the fiberglass was primitive and cracked early, and the wiring - well, remember the jokes about Lucas electrics?
2. It was the Worst Date Car on Earth: the tall center console/center spine (you shifted with your wrist) blocked any view of your passenger but the huge rear window allowed everyone behind the car to see her just fine.
When it ran, it handled great and you could really throw it around, driving sideways with abandon. When it ran.
It wasn’t a wierd car, but on Saturdays I took my 6-8 year old daughter with me running errands in my 66 VW Beetle. I’d work the clutch, and she shifted the “H Pattern” gears. We had it synchronized and it was a smooth operation. She’s now 53 years old. Aach, du lieber!
Reminds me of the story of when my VW Karman Ghia’s starter went out.
It was midterm exams and I had to get to school. I found that if I parked it on a moderate incline, I could let it roll and pop the clutch and get it started. This work very well if I had plenty of room in front of me.
While on campus and driving through the parking area, I noticed some loading ramps for trains in the back dock area of an old abandoned building. Perfect! I backed my car up the ramp and parked it there.
It looked a little odd sitting out in the middle of an open area on top of the loading ramp. But I figured no one would notice.
Well they did... while walking back out to my car, I noticed a bunch of multi-colored flashing lights reflecting off of an adjacent building. I wondered???
Someone had called the police (three cop cars and a towing truck) and they were trying figure out how to get it off of the ramp. Luckily I caught them and stopped them. Anyway, they let me go after I explained my “starter story” and I replaced the starter that weekend after mid-terms.
Three wheel trucks in Yokohama in the 1950s.
I think Mazda made them.
They had handle bar steering, no doors.
The driver would pull over and pee on the curb, get back in and drive away.
My brother drove my moms impala down the drive at age 2. Tore the door off when he hit the house and drove over my tricycle.
I parked it in my grandmother’s garage when I went to VietNam.
It was gone when I got back.
She always hated that car.
So I bought a motorcycle instead.
I taught her the true meaning of hate.
In late 1971, I think it was, my oldest brother was hitchhiking on Kauai and caught a ride from a De Tomaso. He didn’t say what color it was. Could it have been the same car?
I was and still remain a fan of the high-output 383 B-block Mopar engines. They could haul around a big car with ease and tolerated abuse better - based on my own observations and local scuttlebutt - than the larger RB engines. For the first couple of years after I got the coveted "learner's permit," I would drive what were then considered "old" cars... anywhere from about 1964 on back. Some of the weird overdrive and choke controls, goofy dash layouts and various automotive "advancements" that were abandoned quickly made for interesting spins around town.
I remember being hypnotized by a '55 or '56 Mopar of some sort with the automatic transmission lever being basically a cheap-looking piece of chromed steel rod with a knob on the end, sticking out of a notched vertical channel in a plate that was in the center of the dashboard. It wasn't hard to operate, but it looked weird, as did a lot of ChryCo details in those days. We were a Mopar family, though, and I fondly look back on my uncle's '63 Dodge with the pushbutton transmission, horizontal speedometer, dash-mounted rear-view mirror and vestigial "cap-and-ball tailfins." To this day I can still picture the little orange "floating ball" that substituted as a needle for tuning the AM radio.
Mr. niteowl77
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