@Just-Jeepin I was just going to put in attention @Just-Jeepin because that post was the first thing I thought of seeing this.

@The3DTuner me

Can confirm: IS BAIT.

I like the rounder, cutesier original more, but love seeing stuff about aircooled VWs that didn't exist here. Just so good and weird. Like staring into an alternate universe.

@pip-bip
Soooo....about two, eh?

@pip-bip -- Nice choice for Women's History Month, if you take a close look at who's driving and who's trying to keep up on a horse. Hemmings has an interesting related take on the car's origins.

@pip-bip
If you mean 'bondo' then yes...that too.

I still remember, as a child, being mesmerised by the asphalt as it dashed beneath my feet through the large hole in the front passenger footwell of my mother's enthusiastically but incuriously flogged Datto, circa 1978.

@pip-bip Some people think these old big Chryslers are uglier and not as nice as other American land barges of the time, but I've always really liked them....especially the 300G and 300H that had those vertical-but-slanted headlights 🙂
6617d219-7921-4bbc-8639-e2603f15302a-image.png

@Svend said in late night oppo:

@ash78
I thought you were talking about one of the models.
I was going to say she looks more nonplussed than 'vaguely derpy, sad face'.
Lol.

Why not both? 🙂

The alternative double entendre here is "Can you believe the taxpayers cover all of this?!" 😉

/gm and royalty

@ranwhenparked -- Always liked that Riviera, myself, and thought then and now that the bustleback Cadillac was a to-the-manor-born shape, though it deserved better greasy bits than GM was capable of providing at that time.

@pip-bip Never put black text on a black background.

@pip-bip
Oh...cum on.

@pip-bip
There's a lot going wrong in that ad...

@pip-bip wow, this one has the double headlights! 😍

@pip-bip That looks like a clown car diven by...Macron-1-.jpg

@Highlander 504 don't care about the load.

download.jpg

@pip-bip steel-belted radials?! And interval wipers?! Where do I sign???

@pip-bip And now, Large Economy Size is demanding a very high price.

@pip-bip Yes please! 😄

I like how they advertise that it can go 100kph...it could, but barely 😛

@pip-bip Its funny because my grandpa's 69 GT500 started out as the top one and became the bottom one after a bag of concrete fell on a fender and hood.

@ash78
Which means "Put a fat chick in the photo"

Signed,
Mr Obtuse

@Highlander -- I've seen it done once. A large part of the problem, I think, is that they got semi-popular in about the timeframe that the security technology of garage door openers was going through a big change, in response to a scare that burglars had a tool that could easily "pick the lock" on the old-fashioned codes.

Garage door opener makers are also numerous and can also come and go and change things on a much faster cycle than car makers can change a moderately sophisticated thing that is built into the car. I might draw an analogy between MacOS with its little walled garden and Windows with its attempts to be backward compatible and to provide ways for who knows what to be added into a system.

@facw At the same time, Chrysler was touting that they had the "best (safety) recall record over the past two model years of any American automaker", which is, something, I guess?

@Vondon302 exactly

@Highlander The Marina is just a Minor in a new suit, never got the hate, the engineering was dated but conventional and not much different from the Cortina of the era, RWD, solid axle, leaf springs, everybody loves the Morris Minor, but stick new sheet metal on the exact same underpinnings and somehow it instantly becomes the worst abomination ever on 4 wheels (that sold 1.3 million+ units and carried on in one form or another through 1999).

@pip-bip
U.K. Vauxhall Nova, Opel Corsa Mk1
Oh my god.
In my school days, my, wait, let me get it right, my best friend's mother's boyfriend. That's the one. Well he was a taxi driver on nights up in Langholm, Scotland.
But on his nights off on a weekend, he couldn't sleep and if me and my best friend, Gillian couldn't sleep. She'd phone me at anything from 11pm to 2am and I'd cycle up to her's, then we'd cycle to his and we'd all jump into his 3 door blue Vauxhall Nova 1.2 Merit.
Then we'd go for a late night drive around the Lake District. We'd laugh, talk about stuff that was stressing us getting us down, etc... he, Phil that is, would occasionally pretend to be rally driver, hunching over the steering wheel, elbows right out, make the car rock a little but not speeding or doing it with traffic about.
We'd go back to his, have some Ribena, then I'd cycle Gillian home, then cycle home myself.
Sadly was stolen from outside his house about 26 years ago.
So if anyone sees a blue 3 door Vauxhall Nova 1.2 Merit, licence plate F22FHH. Please let me know.

@pip-bip TIL Mitsubishi sold a licensed verson of the CJ3B all the way until 1998

@Taylor-Martin the US ones from Doyle Dane Bernbach are one of the best ad campaigns of all time for any product. Supposedly, they made enough of an impression on Malcolm Bricklin that he intentionally tried to rip them off for Subaru in the late '60s and again for Yugo in the '80s, but on a lower budget and with less competence

@Ad-absurdum-per-aspera said in night oppo:

The overall economy featured high interest rates

Inconceivably high by today's standards. Imagine the prime rate at 17%, and what that would do to your mortgage payment. That's what it was back then.

@pip-bip That is a very weird pedal car. The grill is wrong for just about all kid-size Corvettes I've looked at in the past few minutes.
It seems a company called Eska had the GM contract to make Kiddie Corvettes and were updating them every year to match the current styling - and GM themselves were selling go-cart bodies (!) of Corvettes, but the thing in the picture doesn't look like a match to any of the years I'm seeing.
Here's the best I found, which is a Yard Man go-kart, apparently:
3d041b67-a1c7-4fec-8043-04c34b78fb38-image.png
Maybe the Hertz one has the grill piece missing, or was a pre-production prototype. Weird.

Edit:
I found a yard man that has that same grill. Apparently it's a prosaic interpretation of the '61 model.
2846339d-c655-49bd-9df7-a13e94fa297c-image.png

@pip-bip tumblr_mde64k7Ka51rov840o1_1280.jpg

@duurtlang agreed!

@pip-bip Easy to service because oh boy will you spend a lot of time servicing them.

@Mr-Ontop said in night oppo:

@ranwhenparked Do you think that car sizes will get smaller again like they did in the 80s?

I'd say no because I think the push for small cars of the '80s was a direct response to the oil crisis of the 1970s and the success of small Japanese cars in the US/Canadian market. I don't see a similar shock coming any time soon.

@pip-bip That got me thinking about Belgian automakers. Surprised to see that there were some.

@pip-bip Always fun to spot a 40 year old typo: "663 CSi" at the bottom of the first column.

@pip-bip basically the exact same sales pitch Chrysler used for the Voyager and Caravan in the mid '80s. And they invented the minivan

@Vondon302 I believe what there was of the flat Earth movement largely died out in the 19th century, then got revived in the middle of the 20th

@facw The 9 speed is a big part of it no doubt - in gentle highway cruising the engine is almost idling.

@pip-bip
Flowery Finnish?

@RamblinRover said in late night oppo:

@nerd_racing
What are you saying, that the front end was just a hasty mutilation of the Valiant with almost no independent design direction, and in consequence looked a little wacky?

How dare you.
357c7255-1900-4dd6-bb8a-35ee35e92843-image.png

That brow ridge hood was so bad... then the "hitler stache" grill... ugh.

@pip-bip My dad had one of those when I was just a sprog. I thought the emblem on the trunk lid was the coolest thing:

alt text

@ranwhenparked The hooker storage isn't the reason I like big '50s/'60s sedans... OK, maybe it's a reason.

@Urambo-Tauro said in hour rule:

@pip-bip Nice Saturn!

It's like any other Chrysler of the era. When you start it, it will run roughly for a few minutes, making a lot of noise and spewing a lot of exhaust. For the next 10 minutes, parts keep falling off. After that, the engine cuts out and you have to coast the rest of the way.

@pip-bip I'm kind of sad their logo didn't make it out of the early days, a modernized flying goose would be fun..

@pip-bip

Pretty sure you could build a hockey rink in the trunk.

@pip-bip
Define: 'prolong'

@pip-bip Night

@pip-bip Night.

@pip-bip
From that brief, tantalising and yet wonderful period when everyone at Suzuki was absolutely off their chops...