Good morning, class. Welcome to GM’s Deadly Sins 101. In this seminar we will review and analyze some of the most critical blunders GM made over the decades, focusing on the ill-conceived, unreliable, ugly, and just plain mediocre products that destroyed the company. I struggled mightily with the decision as to the first example, given all the boners available to me. But here it is, GM’s Deadly Sin #1: The 1986 Buick Riviera. Read More >

Out of adversity arises creativity. Alec Issigonis’ brilliant Mini was conceived in the depths of the oil import embargo brought on by the Suez Canal Crisis of 1956. Just like our energy crises gave birth to the Chevette and the Cavalier. Ok, no more GM references. This is the Mini’s fiftieth birthday, and it deserves our undivided adulation. Well, at least from a safe distance, anyway. Read More >

GM gave us some genuine peak experiences before its long fall. Their post-war summit was the mid sixties. Its stock hit $358 (adjusted) in 1965, and profits crested in 1966 at $15 billion (adjusted). What about the best year for its cars? That would have to be 1963, with the trio of Corvette Sting Ray, Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick Riviera. And which one gets the nod as number one? I can’t decide. But this Riviera happened to be sitting along the road on the way home from the lumber yard, so the decision was made for me. Read More >

Curbside Classics is all about serendipity. Good thing too, because how else would I be inspired to write 800 words about the Pontiac Trans Sport? And I don’t just mean stumbling across this bizarre Transvertible. Well, yes, that was good. But I also needed a regular Trans Sport to complement this flight of fancy. Easy, and boring enough. But take a look at the paperback tucked into the dash: John Steinbeck’s “The Wayward Bus”. Two for Two. Read More >

Here’s a genuine milestone car. This Mercedes W108 began the lineage of modern S Series cars, which took its maker to the pinnacle of the global luxury sedan market. In the US, it single handedly broke the backs of Cadillac and Lincoln. A youthful ride in one left me permanently altered. And it all started with this somewhat modest but exquisite 250S. A couple of more milestones: this is the first Curbside Classic car owned by a TTAC reader, and it marks my two-hundredth car deemed interesting enough to photograph. Oh, and this is CC number thirteen. Many milestones indeed. Read More >

I apologize. The pictures of this beautiful Manta are crap. I let myself get carried away. Hanging around with that pugnacious little Fiat 850 infected me with a burning desire to catch an Opel: Chrysler-Fiat-Opel, the new Holy Trinity. Part of me knew better; I had enough on my plate already. And I haven’t seen an Opel in Eugene in ages. But my desire was downright Napoleonic. As is the result. Read More >

Fate may have posed the 1965 Chrysler in the graveyard. But now I now needed a Fiat as the redeemer to the crumbling Chrysler. I waited in the cemetery, but nothing walked (or drove) out of the mausoleum. Well, “fate is for those too weak to determine their own destiny.” That would explain how Fiat became Chrysler’s fate. I was determined to find one, but for a while, it appeared that I was too weak to make my date with Fiat. Read More >

Fate intervened. I wasn’t going to do another Chrysler product CC for a while, after the two recent Plymouths. But there I was tooling down West 11th when I spotted this red Chrysler up ahead. When I finally got next to him at a light, I waved my camera and gestured if he would pull over for a shoot. A nod of assent followed. But he kept burbling along, and I began to wonder. Suddenly, he pulled into the Lane Memorial Gardens. How fitting. Read More >

Once upon a time, two Jeep Gladiators were built at the great big Jeep factory in Toledo, Ohio. One Gladiator was white, and the other was green. Gladiators were built to be the toughest trucks in the whole world. They could outwork any other pickup. And outlast them too. And for thirty some years, the white and green Gladiators worked and worked, doing all sorts of really hard jobs. Then one day, a couple of years ago, the white Gladiator said to the green Gladiator “I don’t need to do this hard work anymore. I’ve figured out an easier way to make a living!” Read More >

You know those anti-meth ads, which graphically show the physiological effects of speed—lots of bad skin and rotten teeth? Well, this car is the automotive equivalent of the tweaker. I found it sitting forlorn among the garbage cans in a dirty alley, complete with lumpy, flaking yellow skin, bald tires revealing their cords, and exuding the smell of cold, stale tobacco. And desperately awaiting its next hit of crank. The Duster 340 is the speed freak incarnate. Read More >

This is the very car that inspired “Curbside Classics.” I’ve been admiring its blocky solidity for ten years, whenever its owner and I happen to workout at the Y simultaneously. I can count on its reassuring, unchanging presence at least a couple of times a month (an anchor of constancy in this turbulent world). And you can’t get much more anchor-like than this cast-iron 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook. But anchors sink, and this car began Plymouth’s long dive into the deep blue. Read More >

A Stanza wagon? What the NSFW! Before you run for the exits/bookmarks, give me a minute to spell out my Curbside Classics criteria: 1) at least twenty-five years old; 2) used as a daily or regular driver; 3) shows the patina of age; 4) has a significant place in automotive history; 5) has a place in my personal automotive history; 6) has distinctive design features; 7) has an enthusiast following; 8) represents the unique carscape of Eugene; 9) is under-appreciated; and 10) inspires me to write about it. Believe me, the boxy Nissan (a.k.a. Prairie) is worthy. Read More >

I once met a girl in a complicated and unfulfilling dream. But it was so vivid, that for years afterward, I had trouble remembering whether she had been a real girlfriend or a figment of my nocturnal imagination. Stumbling across this 1967 MGB-GT brings up the same confusion: did I actually own an identical “B”, or was it too just a dream? Read More >

Take a good long look at this handsome car. This beauty was one of the best in that beautiful decade of the sixties. Are you seeing its magnetic attraction yet? Well, this rough survivor might need a little help; try squinting a bit. I sure saw it when I was seventeen; I simply couldn’t keep my eyes off a black coupe exactly like this. And as a consequence, I learned a painful and lasting lesson. OK, you’d better stop looking and keep reading. Read More >

What makes a car a true classic? Being one of the handsomest and most enduring designs of its time? Staying in production for twenty years? Having a long-stroke in-line engine with a classic OHC hemi-head? Winning a big race at the ’Ring? Having illustrious heads of state as loyal owners? Or just slapping a chrome “Classic” badge on its flanks? How does this Rambler stack up? Has it earned its chops, or is it an impostor? Read More >