1955 Buick Roadmaster
(owned by Jay Leno)
Posted on 05/10/2006 4:48:01 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Jabari Bryant didn't go to a car dealership to buy his new car last fall. The 28-year-old went to a retirement community in Tybee Island, Ga., where for $2,000 he bought a navy blue 1988 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Brougham from a man who was "at least 83."
The seller said "his eyesight was going and he had no use for the car," recalls Mr. Bryant, an automobile glass installer from Savannah.
Young people today don't want their father's Oldsmobile -- they want their grandfather's. Some of the hippest wheels for under-30 drivers today are models commonly identified with seniors: Oldsmobiles, Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs from the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s.
From Collins Ave. in Miami Beach's South Beach neighborhood to International Blvd. in Oakland, Calif., teens and young adults are cruising in "grandpa" and "grandma" cars that they have painted bright colors like lime green, outfitted with fancy sound systems and propped up on monster-truck-style wheels. They're sweet-talking their grandparents into giving up old cars and offering to buy them on the spot from strangers.
Television shows, such as MTV's "Pimp My Ride," and rappers, including Snoop Dogg, are helping to drive the craze. There's even a new magazine, Donk, Box & Bubble, dedicated to the tricked-out-oldie-car culture.
For U.S. car makers, struggling to lift sales, it's a painful irony that the models striking a chord with young buyers aren't those rolling off the assembly lines today but rather ones made decades ago. Detroit's marketers are trying to figure out how to ride the trend without ruining it.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ahhhhthe Land Yacht. 28 feet at least.
My brother recently had a '62 Ford (Galaxy?) 2-door hardtop. It was a bright red and sharp as a button.
The first car I can remember really paying any attention to was a neighbor's brand new 1957 Chevy Belair 2-door hardtop (turquoise and white with gold "Vs"). That was in 1957 and I was eight years old. To this day that particular Chevy still turns my head.
I'm going to look at the new ones coming out in the next few years. I had a Passat Diesel wagon but the Tiptronic and I fought pitched battles everytime I drove it.
It won. So I got rid of it. First automatic car I've had since my '72 Catalina. Never again.
I thought of you when I read this article.
I agree with you about the 1957s and they are still headturners, after all these years.
Good night!
No way!
I gots a 292 in my pickup, fresh rebuild. I've read about those oiling problems elsewhere. Any simple way around that?
I still have one of the old ones, with a 67 327 in it. Back when the engine was fresh I'd beat kids from light to light with it, shift straight from first (with a little extra tach) to third. Jaws dropped. Only ever got stuck once, on a prairie trail in the Missouri River bottoms in the spring (and I planted it!)
I do not know of a sure cure but I think it was caused by a problem with the cam bearings. At one time there was an oiler kit available to route oil to the rocker arms. Of course by the time you noticed that the rockers were making too much noise ... it was to late to save them. The kit consisted mostly of copper tubing routed to the rocker arms through a hollow bolt where the rocker covers fastened on. Needless to say it detracts from the good looks of the old Y-blocks.
There were also external oil line kits for that problem. IIRC it came with hollow studs that held the valve covers down and you put a tee at the oil pressure sending unit and the line connected to those hollow studs and the oil flowed to the rocker arms...
You do nice work...
I'm going to have to keep an extra close eye on my car, now that I know it be a "scrayper". No wonder the young gangstas in my 'hood look at me strangely when I drive around.
It didn't run all that great after the rebuild at first. Since it was kind of pricey relative to other engines, I made a mistake and used a "junk box" carburetor, after dropping a fair amount of coin on the engine. Y-blocks cost more to rebuild than 350 small blocks! A new holley helped a lot, so did a quart of Marvel's Mystery Oil in the crankcase now and then. Honest Injun. I like to think that will help keep 'er between the ditches.
There was a rare Vicky Converts. There was a white top and the cowl over the windshield was a big chrome deal. But, on the side fender it had a "Crown Victoria" chrome stamp. If you saw one of those, my friend, you saw a classic worth it's weight in gold. I think (my memory is not good on precise numbers) those were about 600 produced in 1955. That would make it a classic beyond belief.
Yes and from what I remember the kits usually looked like bad redneck engineering. To solve the problem I bolted in an old Edsel engine, 430CI. Gobs of power but it shredded the gears of manual transmissions.
Good luck with the 292, hope that you do not have any oiling problems with it. You shouldn't as you will not be driving your pickup everyday.
Marvel's Mystery Oil is good stuff. It also helped an old Continental engine in an airplane I once owned. Modern AV Gas caused sticking valve problems in the old Continentals.
That's just about the same as my list... I'd opt for the '63 Split-Window Coupe over the '58 as my 'Vette selection. Otherwise, well, the only thing I dislike about the E-Jag is that I missed the opportunity to buy one while they were still affordable. C'est la Vie; I'll have to console myself with my '65 Fastback retomod. It'll look a lot like this, once the paint goes on:
So, when you drive the Cobra, do drivers around you go absolutely nuts? Seeing a nearby driver hang out of their car window to shout a purchase offer is nothing unusual when I'm in the Mustang. They like to scoot over for a closer look, too - makes me nervous sometimes.
The car definately had a thick chrome strip over the top and was a convertible. Unfortunately I never had the chance to look at it up close.
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