I have always been interested in cars, particularly the oddballones that come up from time to time.Unfortunately, Detroit is very risk-averse, so we don’t see much out of the ordinary…but here’s a few for you:
-1953 STUDEBAKER Commander:t he front and the back looked the same!
-TUICKER: Prrston Tucker’s design feature a three headlight design-the center one swivelled. Only 55 built, too bad!
-1962 Pontiac Tempest: transmission was at the rear differential…why was this done?
-CHEVY CORVAIR: nice, rear engine car. Ralph Nader doomed it.
-1960? Ford GALAXY: rear window would go down…this was a nice feature-why was it discontinued?
-1975 AMC Pacer: the orginal egg on wheels-great room inside, too bad it never went over.
Question: the FORD STARLINER (with the reytractable hard top roof-when was it produce).
Anyway, what’s your favorite oddball car?
Nice list, and you included some of my favorites on it. I assume that Tuckerfan will be along with the obvious comments. My second car ever was one of the early Cougars, when they were still built on a Mustang frame; I loved that car. (It hydroplaned into a tree one rainy Sunday morning.)
My great-aunt bought one of the last production-line Studebakers ever made, and set up some sort of deal with the dealership that sold it to her to keep parts on hand; she drove that car into the Eighties before her eyesight failed enough that she had to surrender her license.
1957 for the Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner with retractable hardtop.
I think the ultimate oddball car is the 1963 Chrysler Turbine. The My Classic Car program on Speedvision is a great place to see all sorts of unusual wheels.
I loved my 1963 Chrysler Newport, with apush-button transmission.
My buddy’s Studabaker Lark’s seats all folded down, to make a flat bed.
Studebakers first attempt at a car in which the roof and body were made out of a single piece of steel. Studebaker never really recovered from the cost of making all the tooling involved and thus began the marques slide to oblivion.
This car actually looked the same front to back. The front and rear windshields were interchangable as were the doors. The left front door was exactly the same as the right rear and visa versa. The car also featured a large “safety well” located if front of the front seat passenger. In case of impending doom, the passenger could curl up in the well to protect themselves.
The original engine used in the Tempest was the Pontiac 389 with the upper right hand side of the block shaved off to make a 4 cylinder engine. The engine itself weighed almost as much as the V-8 and the car was very nose heavy. To move weight to the back the transmission was attached to the rear axle and power was delivered through a flexible driveshaft.
Was actually a very good handling and safe car in the later years. The Camaro had more to do with the demise of the Corvair than Nader did.
It was the Mercury and Lincoln line the had the “Breezeway” rear window. It was used on Mercurys built between 58 and 64 and the 58 and 59 Lincoln. Less than 100 were built in 64 and the design feature was dropped. It was never used on a Ford badged car.
The Pacer was originally designed for a Wankel rotary engine. But when early Mazda’s with rotaries didn’t sell very well and were gas hogs for the small size and displacement, AMC scrapped the engine but already had built the tooling for the body. The reliable 258 straight 6 was shoe horned in and a legend was born.
Received a set of books for my recent birthday titled the standard catalog of American cars. I have finished the 1912-1945 book and I’m almost done with the 1946-1976 book. I still have the 1977-1992 book to go.
Sounds interesting, I’ll have to look for those.
Here is the site listed by the publisher, Krause Publications, and the books are listed. The set I received was bought at a garage sale a few months ago and I have noticed that they have changed a bit.
Hey, thanks! All I have now are Cars of the '30s and Cars of the '50s, both by Consumer Guide. I also have a third book, the title of which I can’t remember at the moment, just that it’s not by Consumer Guide.
I remember a couple off oddities from the '50s book: the '57 Dart show car (check out those fins!) and the Corvette-inspired '54 Bonneville Special.
I guess if you were the right age at the time you’d call that a ‘stud car’.
Mopar Hemis with pushbuton automatic transmissions. A lot of these were '64 models, when the engine first came out, and hadn’t been detuned for the street. At full acceleration, it was hard to reach the buttons on the dash.
Figures, the direct link doesn’t work. Try this instead, which is how I found it in the first place.
Quote:
Well if my father had anything to do with it, it was because the open window obviously pulled car exhaust into the passenger compartment, endangering the health of the occupants. Dad didn’t work in the auto industry, or anything, that was just his reason why we couldn’t drive with the back window of our Buick station wagon down. Dangerous things, exhaust fumes.
I think a lot of station wagons had rear windows that could be lowered.
This is true but only if all the other windows (and the vents) are closed.
Good to know he wasn’t completely off. Of course we couln’t have the side windows down if the car was going over 50, because a bug might put out an eye.
He was attached to the Buick, though. He kept it until he died and it was years after that that Mom even considered selling it. He said it was the biggest station wagon that GM had ever built. It was a 1964 Buick LeSabre. The body was made by Ionia, the GM coachworks, rather than by Fisher.
It never did become worth big bucks, but it was great to go camping in.
The Dodge La Femme, produced for the 1955 and '56 model years, was marketed to women and featured special accessories. This page features a slide show of various views of the car.
The Reeves Octoauto was, (un)naturally enough, an eight-wheeler. A bit of information on the c. 1910 vehicle can be found here.
The Allstate (scroll down for photos), sold exclusively at Sears stores, was a rebadged Henry J manufactured in the 1952 model year by Kaiser-Frazer.
My uncle had one-it was in a station wagon. It was very reliable…I don’t know why this isn’t used today (it seems silly to have an automatic with a faux-gearshift lever on the floor, taking up all kinds of room!)
Anyway, my uncle abused the hell out of that car-he drove it over 230,000 miles, and I don’t think the fluid was ever changed!
Kaiser-Frasier: Henry J. Kaiser’s foray into the automotive world was a disaster! His cars were technically behind the times, handled louslily, and cost MORE than the comparable models from FORD or GM. Good businessman that he was, he realized he was beat, and threw in the towel. I haven’t seen one in years assume most have long since been crushed!
That wasn’t the only year for the Allstate though, there were also '51 or '53 models. Possibly both.
A really nice Allstate station wagon had been on the drawing boards before Sears pulled the plug. I believe it was designed by Brooks Stevens.
Yeah, the Allstate was announced in '51, 1566 built in '52 and 797 in '53. They weren’t really just rebadged Henry Js, Allstates have a slightly different nose and better interiors. They rode on Allstate tires and tubes, had Allstate batteries and spark plugs. Opening trunk decks and glove boxes were standard on all Allstates, not so with Henry Js. They also were available in five trim and engine versions, compared to four for the Henry J.
I can’t find a picture of the Brooks Stevens wagon design online anywhere. I’d put one up myself if I still had a scanner.
I learned to drive on this model, it was red with tan leather interior and tan leather under the hood! It was apparently a show car before the auction. I have never seen another one on the road.
http://www.classicalgasstation.com/1206a.htm