I finally got off my butt and scanned some photos of cars I used to own. So, I thought I'd start a thread where we can share some of the old rides we used to own. All makes and models welcome! I'll start.
I'll start with some of my earliest:
I learned to drive in my dad's 77 LeMans Sport Coupe. This car replaced the 69 Strato Chief. It had a Chevy 350/4bbl, rally wheels, window louvers and a stripe that went over the roof and extended across the hood. My dad had a stroke in 1984 (age 44) which explains the disabled plates on the car. Ironically dad had the stroke about an hour before we were to go out driving (I had just gotten my beginners license)! Needless today I learned to drive pretty quick after this happened as my mom wasn't really comfortable driving and I was in charge of taking her back in forth to the hospital-all in the middle of winter! Dig the neighbors Ford Wagon in the background! He had glasspacks on that car!
My second car (after my 70 Skylark) was this 1969 Dodge Coronet. It was my first "Southern Car" having come from Tyler, Texas. It had it's original Alpine White paint. It was a 318 car that had been swapped for a 360. It had factory AC and must have had an interesting history at some point in Texas. There was a switch under the dash to cut all the lights except the headlights and I found bullets under the back seat! Speaking of the back seat, the car had the wrong build sheet- it was for a yellow Super Bee! I kept the car one year. I still have the build sheet, title and Texas Plates. I wish I still had the car!
After the Coronet I bought this 1965 Ford Galaxie 500xl. Powered by a 335hp 390 from a 68 Mustang, I could barely afford to keep fuel in it. Trans was the infamous Top Loader. When my dad saw it he said "Why the hell did you buy a Ford?!". It was the worse handling old car I've owned. It could leave a good patch however! I was about 18 at the time.
When I sold that car I got a dose of "stupid" (well more so than normal) and bought a new 89 Cavalier. That mistake lasted 6 months and I took a hit and got rid of it. To financially recover I bought a 70 Biscayne. She was loaded with straight 6, powerglide, four door character! It had original paint and was bulletproof. I paid $750 certified for it. I had a plate frame on the back that read "Plane Jane Biscayne". I still have that frame!
During the Biscayne ownership I got a job at Cami which meant I had some cash coming in. I bought a newer Grand Am for the commute. The old car bug set in again and I was on the prowl for a project. I called about a 70 Challenger "Western Sport Special" from Arizona. It was too much of a project as the 340 was siezed and the interior was desert burnt. There wasn't much available for the Challengers at that time. Stupid me. I should have bought it and put it away. It had a Pistol Grip 4 speed! Anyway, the seller also had this 66 Mustang also from Arizona. It was sold new at "Broadway Motors" in Oakland California. The window sticker was in the glove box. The original colour was Tahoe Turquoise with Aqua/white Pony Interior. A co worker at Cami made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I sold it to him. I bumped into him about 3 years ago and he still has it- in pieces. A shame as it was rock solid.
The interior wasn't bad for an Arizona car:
I kid you not. I cleaned the frame rails with Windex! Here is factory writing on the frame rails:
I got bored of the car payments again and dumped the Grand Am. I found an ad in the local "Pennysaver" for a 1977 Cougar. The ad stated it was a BC car with 60000 orig miles. The price seemed right- $1000 certified. I was blown away when I saw the car. Turns out some German tourists bought the car in BC and drove it to Ontario. It had original paint. The non XR7 Cougars were fairly rare. It had a 351 and ran like new. Not a rare or desirable car but the price was right. I painted some steel junkyard rims to match and put moon caps on it. I had an exhaust shop install a Monte Carlo SS style exhaust. I made money on that one:
When I left Cami and got back into dealerships, I was lucky enough to have new demonstrators. It also allowed me access to some really interesting trade ins. An older couple traded in this 1981 Toyota Corolla on a new 1997 Sunfire at the dealership I was working at. It had never seen snow and had about 90000kms. It was rear drive and it ran and drove like new. Not a squeak or rattle. Oh, I paid $350 for it! I sold it on Ebay in 2004 and the buyer drove it to Oklahoma and back! I called it my "Asian Nomad". I really beat on that car-especially in the snow!
The old car bug came back in 1995. I really wanted a finned Chrysler (yes, my tastes are all over the place) and found this 1958 Plymouth Belvedere "Sport Sedan" in the London Free Press. It was a California car. The asking price was beyond my means (I had a newborn son at that time and cash was tight). The seller had a used car lot in Tillsonburg. During the "negotiations" he asked if I had any NHRA memorabilia. At the time I worked at a GM dealer who's owner was actually a sponsor for the NHRA Penzoil Pro Stocker. I asked him if he had anything he could donate to the cause. And donate did he! He gave me a bunch of genuine NHRA team uniforms! I got the Belveder for half the asking price with the uniforms. I really regret leaving that dealership. Sometimes the grass isn't always greener! This Plymouth was easily the best handling old car I owned. Not sure if it was the torsion bar suspension or those fins but she was rock solid at 90mph. Oncoming transport trucks on a two lane highway wouldn't even generate a shimmy! Chrysler called them "Verticle Stabilizers" and perhaps they did help keep the car stable. The undercarriage on this car was amazing. The exhaust note was sweet as well. It had the old style "Poly" 318 with a pushbutton transmission. It had some very old "California Blue Streak" glasspacks on it. I tracked down the guy who brought it back from California. He had two of them and was transfered to Ontario. He could only tow one behind his truck and chose this one. I've seen the car on Kijiji a few times but the seller wants too much $$
Finally the old car I regret selling the most: The 1960 Catalina. This was an original paint car from Texas. If I remember correctly it had 6XXXX miles on it. The interior was fantastic. I only had to replace the front seat foam. We did this very carefully to preserve the original upholstery. It had a 389, 4 speed Hydramatic. It was fairly quick but was only a 2bbl. I had a correct date coded tri power intake but had a hard time finding the correct carbs. They were different from Chevy Carbs. There were lots of intakes, but few carbs as apparently there were many carb fires back in the day from folks using rubber lines. I also had a set of NOS Hedman headers with cutouts found in a warehouse! The original spare was in the trunk. I found the original owner down in Texas thanks to having the original title in the glove box. He was going to buy a Chevy but the lot didn't have one with an 8 cyl in stock. He bought the Pontiac and drove it a couple of years. He got a job at a GM dealer and got a company car. His wife hardly drove the Pontiac as it had standard steering and brakes. It was a bit of an armful. The car ended up being stored at the dealership for years until he sold it in the early 1980's to a guy looking for parts to restore a Bonneville. From what the guy I bought it from told me, someone from Ontario heard the car was going to be parted and bought it and shipped it back to Ontario. I found the car in Old Autos. This was around 2001. I truly wish I didn't sell it. It's been all "blinged out" and resides in BC now.
I had several other cars and they are either not worth mentioning or I don't have photos. Sorry for the long post. I'm in a talkative mood tonight!
The Lemans was a bulletproof car. Here's the sad part. My mom had it until 2002 and it was starting to get a little rough (but far from being too far gone-the undercarriage was still excellent as it was Ziebarted when new and oiled yearly when we got it. She wasn't well and couldn't drive well so I took it to my house in Thamesford and put a for sale sign in the window. One night while I was at work some punks living down the street enquired about it and my (then) wife let them take it for a drive(!). It came back covered in mud and looked like it was buried to the rear axle. I was p*ssed. Lucky for the punks one of them bought the car. I suspect it was destroyed as I purchased the used car package for it last year and it's still in his name..
i got a soft spot for that Coronet,one of my first cars ,1968 with a 383,wish i never parted with it,had it parked for almost 10 years and sold it for 2500 bucks after my ex and i split.
then i went to this found it in a barn,been parked for 20 years,boght it for 1000 bucks and sold it for 9 after some cleaning up
and then this bought it for a winter car,really,lol original SS, then fixed it up,sold it to buy our house
then this bought it on a whim,to keep me until i found a ful size impala,its been 7 years now was owned by a lady in toronto since 1970 ,her husband owned a company there and he bought it for here to go golfing with her freinds. ,they moved to Picton when they retired and he died so she sold it to a guy in belleville,who owned it for a year.it had 42000 miles when i got it
then the Beau
-- Edited by 68sd on Friday 1st of May 2009 10:51:36 PM
-- Edited by 68sd on Friday 1st of May 2009 11:06:11 PM
Your best bet is the Kodak EasyShare 5300 printer. The piece of technology scans photos (to memory cards), makes color photocopies and is an excellent printer. The ink lasts longer than any printer I've owned and is cheap when it does run out. We use ours a lot.
Todd, you've had a few nice old cars but for me the 60 Pontiac & the 69 Coronet are the most interesting; love them both. I had a 77 Lemans Sport too, just like yours except it was gold and had a 305 with A/C. No photos though.
My 66 Grande Parisienne, was a 396 (changed by me to a 427), factory 4 speed, tach, power windows, power antenna, 3.31 posi, all tinted glass.........
73 Grand Am 455 car, paid 300 bucks and sold it to a guy who parted it out....
Another 66 Grande Parisienne I changed to a 427. (283 car, NO power steering from the factory!) Added air, tilt, tach, power seat, power antenna, power windows, AM/FM reverb, posi, TH400
My first car, 65 Canso Sport Deluxe, same as what I own now except my current car is lower miles and in nicer shape than the one I had when I was 16!
My 87 Grand National that was T-boned at 18,975 kilometers by a Winnipeg transit bus. I bought it, gutted it and had a complete rear clip replacement done on it, then re-assembled the puzzle! Oh, this car apparently is now in Calgary. If you happen to see a GN with low miles that makes you go hmmmmmmmm, get ahold of me and I can identify it!
64 GTO (clone) convert. Had it 19 years, never got past the chassis/powertrain restoration, sold it. Currently the buyer is getting it put back together.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Somehow, I missed this thread and it hasn't been added to for almost a year. Figured I better add a few pics to it. The first one is of the 67 Malibu I drove for about 4 years starting when I was 17. It was an original disc brake car with buckets and console and shoulder belts. As well it had 3:08 positraction. Was a 283 powerglide but didn't run well so it got a 300hp 350 from a 70 Impala that I crashed into a light pole. I sent away for the GM documents for the Malibu and they came back to me saying that my car was a Malibu SS....
The malibu was getting tired and I ddin't have the money to fix it so I parked it with hopes of fixing it someday. At this time the Turbo Buicks had mad their mark and I liked the looks of Buick Regals but I didn't have the kind of money needed to buy a turbo car. Instead I found this loaded 82 Buick Regal Limited with the slowest V8 in history....267 chevy with TH350 with a lockup convertor and 2:29 gears. Nice car to drive and it got pretty good milage but it was a dog.
Then I found this 84 Chev shortbox for cheap ($2000) with a 305 and cracked heads. Changed heads, cleaned it up a bit, drove it while I had it listed, and sold it for $3800 2 months later. Even that was cheap for the next guy.
After the pickup sold, I drove my 67 Beaumont for the summer but wasn't going to drive it in winter so I went on the hunt for something different. I had no idea what I wanted so I started looking at used car lots. Ended up finding this 89 GTA from a Calgary dealer. It was 5 years old and it already had 90,000km. It was a 305 TPI with a 5 spd. It went pretty good but it liked the gas station. Had it for about a year and sold it for more than I paid.
Sold the GTA so I could buy pickup because I had bought a boat and required a tow vehicle. Found this 89 GMC with lots of miles (200,000km) but it was well kept. Paid $7000 and drove it till 350,000km and only replaced the rad and brakes. The truck was stolen from in front of my house and wasn't found for a over a month. Meanwhile I was paid $4500 from insurance and then the truck was found. They let me buy the truck back for $700 and I replaced the steering column and sold it for $3500. Guess I drove it for free except tires.
In 1998, I thought I had deep pockets so this 1997 Z-71 was in order. Bought it with 4400kms. Pretty much new. It had red leather. Still wish I didn't need to sell it but I broke my back racing motocross and couldn't make payments. Sold it 6 months later for a loss of $4000.
Then found this 82 Buick Regal Turbo Coupe with no engine or trans but 3.08 gears which is very rare. Turns out the whole car was pretty rare (1 of 2022). Anyhow, I had a 327 from a 68 Caprice and I matched it to a 200 4R and made a great driver for about 5 years. Not long before parking it, I swapped the diff out for a 8.5" 10 bolt with 3:42 positraction. Lost interest in this car in 2001 when Carl found me a 1995 Impala SS.
While I had the Regal as a driver, I also had family to consider so this 93 Suburban took care of those needs for a short time. It was too good of a deal was the main reason for buying it. Bought it for $11500 and sold it about 4 months later for $13,800. It was so nice to drive. Very smooth ride.
In the fall of 2000, I had a ride in Carl's 94 Impala SS and it was like being bitten buy a new bug.... I wanted an LT1 B-body in the worst way. Not long after my ride with Carl, he phoned me up with news of a pretty good deal on a 95 Impala SS with only 67,000km. I was working up north and couldn't get to Winnipeg to buy it. I sent money and he bought it for me. I didn't get to see the car for about 9 months. In 2001 I brought it home and went straight to the track to see what it might do. It had aftermarket exhaust and K&N air filter. Still pretty slow... 15.9 if I recall. So I proceeded to add just about every bolt on made for an LT-1. Now the car has had a best of 14.2 in Calgary's awful air. Still in need of different gears but not likely I'll ever do it. The car now has 130,000km and I've lost interest in it. My Dad drives it in the summer now...
I got to figure how to scan, then start a scrap book. Most are not worth recalling. I love to hear the stories from the people who lived the era, I just dream about it!
This picture is of my car ready for a family holiday in 81 or 82. I would have been 10 or 11. We pulled the Beaumont to Manitoba, camping along the way, Dad unhooking the car in each campground we stayed at and touring the area. Back then, the 396 engine was far from stock, cam, headers, intake, and double pumper holley. It barely idled. I loved going for rides with Dad because it was a sure thing that he would go through the gears under full throttle at least once while we were out for a ride. It would get rubber into 4th! So, when we get to Morris Manitoba (where Dad was brought up), Dad takes just me for a ride and we meet up with some of his old pals. When we leave, Dad decides to put on a show for the boys. Things are going great through 1st and 2nd but he missed 3rd under full throttle! The 396 didn't want any part of 7000rpm . Right there in front of everyone, she dropped a valve. What an awful noise when valves hit pistons. We limp the wounded 396 about 5 blocks to my uncles shop. Dad decided at this time to restore the car back to bone stock and had the car painted and engine rebuilt. The remainder of the trip was made with Diplomat motorhome and no car. We went back for the car a year later.
This was what I rode in when I was a about 3. That would be my newborn sister (Aug 74) being carried by my grandmother from the 66 Chevelle in the 2nd photo. I know its not me as newborn as Carl had pointed out in another thread. In these pictures, the car had a straight 6. Later it got a L-79 327 short block crate engine and 4spd. As well, the car got painted black after a collision with a dear.
In 77 that engine was the top option.
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yeah I know but not everything is worth recalling! Where's yours????? You had a fleet as well!
. Right there in front of everyone, she dropped a valve. What an awful noise when valves hit pistons. We limp the wounded 396 about 5 blocks to my uncles shop. Dad decided at this time to restore the car back to bone stock and had the car painted and engine rebuilt. The remainder of the trip was made with Diplomat motorhome and no car. We went back for the car a year later.