I love “old cars.” I’ve restored and raced a '56 Chevy and a '66 GTO. Currently, my “toy” car/restoration is a '70 El Camino. Whether new or completely restored they don’t compare with a new cars in any facet of performance, safety, economy and/or reliability. In fact, today’s crop of muscle cars is considerbly faster, as well. However, they do have personality and for those of us baby boomers, they hold many a fond memory.
When buildings get to be 30-40 years they go through a period when everyone thinks they’re ugly. Same thing happens with cars. Eventually there’ll be a rediscovery of certain classic designs: Datsun Z cars, the 1971 Buick Riviera (from Ice Storm), Jim Rockford’s Firebird, Toyota Celica fastback, etc.
Perhaps, but cars from the early 60’s to early 70’s were in constant demand. At least, during my teen years in the late 80’s, there was significant interest in those cars, and I don’t perceive that that interest has waned in the slightest. Cars from the mid 70’s are approaching 40 years old now, and any interest in them is niche at best.
Cars from the Muscle Car Era have been sought after continuously from 1974 until today, at no point have they been considered ugly or old fashioned or undesirable. I don’t think you can say that about any other time period in the history of the automobile.
And then, there was the Pinto…
Good point. I don’t ever remember seeing a restored one. Maybe one of us needs to do a web search. There are a couple of sites where I can share with others still driving Chevy LUV’s . I think I am about the only original owner.
W/regard to the Riviera, I find it odd that it has never generated much interest. While a nice Gran Sport will bring big bucks, the other model won’t. Another example is the Chevy Monte Carlo. An early '70’s model is a bargain.
Pintos and Vegas are surprisingly popular, but as cars built for the dragstrip. they’re awfully lightweight and can fit the small-block V8s of the time w/o too much hacking on the sheetmetal.
What about 1940s cars? I’m old enough to remember tons of restored 1940s models; I restored a 1948 Ford pickup that I wish I still had. I was enough of a traditionalist to install a 1953 Mercury flat head V-8 engine in it with dual carburetors and a dual point distributor, headers, and a three inch dropped front end. In the 1950s, the 57 Chevy was the popular car but I liked the 1956 and 1958 model Impala a lot better. I never really cared for any of the 1960s-1970s cars, no matter the manufacturers.
This. Cars from the 50s and 60s may not have been reliable, as quite a few posters have already pointed out here, but at least they looked cool. By the 1970s, however, manufacturers started coming out with a lot of boxy designs and hatchbacks, cars that reeked of anything but cool. Notice, also that you see few cars from the 80s, even though we’re well into the era when mid-80s models should be considered classics.
Anyway I started a thread a while back that sort of relates to this topic. Needless to say there are a lot of horror stories of people buying cars in that era and then having them peter out after just three or four years. In some cases they started noticing problems almost immediately after driving the things off the lot.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=546398&highlight=american+cars+reputation
The end of the age of muscle cars came about sometime between '72 and '74, depending on which state you lived in. Engines suffered performance penalties due to emission regulations and certification requirements. The poor performance of the vehicles killed their desirability. In 1973, the safety standards required that cars be redesigned (the protruding bumpers) and the cars suffered a cosmetic hit as well. Interestingly, Studebaker had done the protruding bumper thing in the early 50s and no one minded, but on a '73 Cutlass, it looked like crap.
If you follow the auto auctions, you’ll see that muscle cars are typically early 60 through about 72/73. Some cars, Corvettes fhave a strong following and aren’t as year dependent.
Interestingly, there are a few relatively modern cars that I see fetching some big bucks in the future. One is the 1987 Buick Grand National GNX. Another, the 1989 20th Anniversary Trans Am. Each offers what car collectors want, exceptional performance and limited production numbers.
I think it’s demographics. The people who were in their teens and twenties in the 50’s and 60’s (and thus have nostalgia for the period) are retired and have the time and money to indulge in stuff like car collecting. The people who are nostalgic for the 1970s are still working, paying off their houses, raising their kids, etc. They have better things to do with their time than hang around parking lots looking at cars.
I’m a bit of a gearhead, with two early 60’s british sports cars. I have noticed that as people start to hit their 50’s, the cars they lusted for when they were teens or pre-teens start to become popular and appreciate in price. This is just starting to happen for cars of the 70’s - probably dampened a bit by the recession.
The televised auctions on TLC and the like certainly seem to have their share of restored 70’s cars hitting the auction block.
I still think the 1970s Corvettes were the most attractive style ever made.
The trouble with this is that cars were just so plain awful during the late 70’s and early-80’s, a lot of teenagers grew up lusting after the muscle cars from the 60’s. I’m a little bit younger than that, but the car people I know who did grow up around then can still spout out the specs of all the 50’s and 60’s cars, but not really the crap cans that were new during their youth.
Plus, if someone did lust after something new during that time, the high end stuff depreciated so fast that they probably could have picked one up sometime in the later years (and had any nostalgia crushed out of them by how lousy it was). I remember a friend of mine around maybe 1990 bought a very nice low-mileage examples of one of those pretty but gutless Corvettes from the 70’s for $500. And I’ve heard stories about how during the energy crisis, higher-end cars were depreciating so quickly that (for example) a '72 Beetle cost the same as a '72 El Dorado in 1976. The really fancy stuff from the muscle car era never really depreciated that badly.
Greasy Jack is so right w/regard to his opinion of the '73 thru mid 80’s cars. This was probably the worst era for American cars, Corinthean Leather and all. As a result of getting it’s butt kicked by foreign manufacturers, however, today’s Big 3 put out some great cars. In recent years we’ve owned a '98 WS6 Firebird, an early 90’s Silverado, an '04 GTO, an '06 Charger and an '07 F-150. All have been excellent. Gotta tell ya, though, 40 years from now I’d hate to try to restore a 2011 model. Way too complex for someone like me who is lost in the world of carburetors and timing lights. Of course 40 years from now I’ll be staring up at the grass or be pre-occupied with having my diapers changed.
Reminds me of my city’s downtown area. Most of the buildings are brick, built around the turn of the (20th) century. By the '40s and '50s, somebody decided they were “ugly” and they all ended up up with crap art-deco facades nailed up over them. Then in the early '90s everybody decided that was ugly and the local government set up a program with local banks offering low-interest loans so that the building owners could tear all those facades off and restore the buildings to their original glory.
As to car quality in the '60s, when I was first old enough to start really noticing cars (late '70s), one of the biggest things I noticed was the sheer number of '60s Mustangs with huge patches of primer showing. These were cars that were no more than 10-15 years old, yet it was like every one of them had lost their paint or were undergoing a lot of body work to repair rust damage or something.
Another thing is that the industry was transitioning from style into substance, because they couldn’t sell 3-ton cars with big engines that took up a city block. The cars shrank, and the styling didn’t impress. They simply didn’t know what to do with small(er) cars.
As a result, the best designs turned out to be very simple and clean, like the 1978 Chevrolet Malibu, a boring-looking car that delivered decent handling and performance.
Then again, there are some cars that stir the emotions. If I could have any cars in the world to collect I would go with 1970s AMCs and pre-Golf Volkswagens, with certain other ostentatious designs like the Plymouth Superbird. For me the trend seems to be unusual-looking cars, which is precisely what the buying public doesn’t want. They want performance and style, and the 70s didn’t particularly deliver on either.
There was a saying at the time that, whenever Washington looked at improving safety or mileage or emissions standards, Toyota would put 100 engineers on the job, while GM would put 100 lawyers on it.
Being a gear head I thought I’d post.
The term “crappy quality” is posted several times above. I agree and disagree about that statement. A 60’s muscle car back in the day was not a great quality car. Carburetors, minimal rust protection, RWD with no stability assists all combined to not make them very good for average drivers to drive daily in sun, rain and snow.
Yet today the other qualities of a muscle car shines. The construction is dirt simple. Most anyone can work on them. Rust protection is not an issues, these cars are not driven in slush and salt anymore. Carburetors can be temperamental, but when you don’t have to get it going in freezing temps to get to work they’re OK. Or you can convert them to EFI.
They’re also a hoot to drive. Massive torque and RWD is FUN. And the styling is like nothing that is made today.
So if anything, I think these are really the days of the 60’s/early 70’s muscle car. Parts are being reproduced, and if you want to you can fix the problems they had when stock. Better tires, bigger brakes, EFI, keyless entry, ice cold AC, better suspension, everything is available.
There’s a trend that started about a decade or so ago called “resto-mods”. Take a muscle car, upgrade it, and make it handle, stop and drive like a modern sports car. All while maintaining most of the original looks (besides wheels).
My 76 Gran Torino was a very nice 2 door. Got it used from my dad in the early 80’s. I regret selling it in 95.
mine was similar to this one.
