Today’s Rare Ride marks the third time we’ve featured a Pontiac Sunbird in this series. The first Sunbird was from 1978 and presented itself as the Safari Wagon. But that was just a renamed Astre and not a real Sunbird. The second Sunbird we saw was a convertible with a 2000 in its name, a J-body from a time of naming turmoil at Pontiac.

In contrast, the Sunbird we have here is the original: An economical and optionally luxurious car that debuted in the Seventies without a confused identity. Your author’s never seen one in real life.

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Today’s Rare Ride hails from an auto manufacturer you may have never heard of before: Gurgel. Made in Brazil, the conservative little XEF was an interesting side note in automotive history.

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Today we bid a belated farewell to a legend of an engine, the Six and Three-Quarter Litre V8. In production since 1959 at the factory in Crewe, The L-series V8 had several different displacements and powered many different luxury vehicles. And some boats.

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Though a current model at the brand, Alfa Romeo’s Giulia originated in the 1960s as a long-running middle-market sedan. Today’s example is one of the rarest made, with a performance-oriented drivetrain and a family wagon body. It’s even a lovely color.

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Ford squeezed an amazing amount of value out of the 1960 Falcon‘s chassis design, with everything from the 1964-1973 Mustang to the 1980 Granada rolling Falcon-style. The Falcon itself got replaced here by the Maverick starting in 1970 (with one year of overlap when both were available), but the Maverick still had the 1960 Falcon’s bones under its skin. Millions of Mavericks (and near-identical Mercury Comets) were sold here during the 1970-1977 period, and nearly all of these affordable commutemobiles got crushed decades ago. Still, I run across the occasional Maverick/Comet during my junkyard journeys, and I found this optioned-up ’76 in a Denver-area yard last summer. (Read More…)

Rare Rides has touched on Monte Carlo once before, in a well-past-its-prime NASCAR / Jeff Gordon edition from 2000. Monte Carlo surfaced again more recently, as its Nineties iteration was effectively a renamed second-generation Lumina coupe. But we’ve never covered the Eighties Monte Carlo, which was a very popular car in the midsize segment at a time when the personal luxury coupe was alive and well.

And someone kept today’s 1987 example in as-new condition.

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Today’s Rare Ride is one of just 100 Hornet hatchbacks turned into the AMX for 1977 to feature a Levi’s interior.

I hope you’re prepared for lots of trim.

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Rare Rides has featured exactly one Jensen vehicle previously, in a fairly fancy and exclusive Interceptor convertible made in left-hand drive for the US market.

Today’s GT was made the very same year as the Interceptor, just before Jensen went bust.

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Today is one of the few occasions where Rare Rides presents a curated collection of cars for your review.

A serious Francophile in Minnesota has amassed a collection of trois Renault Fuegos et un 17 Gordini. Has a more exciting sentence ever been published? I think not.

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The first-generation Honda Civic sold very well in the United States, but it’s just about impossible to find early examples in junkyards these days; I’ve managed to photograph a few ’78s for this series and that’s it. Why? The cars in rust-prone areas dissolved quickly and those in low-corrosion regions got driven to death well before the beginning of our current century. Here’s the oldest discarded 1973-1979 Civic I’ve managed to find since at least the late 2000s. (Read More…)

Today’s Rare Ride marks the second entry from small Italian car manufacturer Moretti. The first Moretti featured here was a 750 two-door sedan from the early Fifties, which was an original design to the brand.

In contrast, today’s 126 Minimaxi was made long after Moretti stopped creating its own cars.

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Today’s Rare Ride hails from a tiny carmaker in business for less than two decades. The Gilbern name stands out in history as one of the few companies that built cars in Wales.

Let’s check the company’s most successful model, the Invader.

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Today’s Rare Ride marks the first time the series has featured a vehicle from the defunct International Harvester brand. Though the luxury-lined Monteverdi Safari was International-adjacent, today’s truck represents the agricultural, working heritage of IH.

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Though its nameplate dated back to the Thirties, the Century was an all-new model for Buick in 1973. The Century promised exciting value and (optional) power and luxury in the mid-size segment.

Let’s check out this very basic three on the tree coupe.

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Every time I share photos of an old Toyota Land Cruiser I spotted in a junkyard, the anguished wails from readers commence. Nobody ever asks me where to find those doomed trucks so they can buy parts before The Crusher eats them, and only a few of the anguished wails come from Land Cruiser aficionados troubled by the demise of another old FJ. No, what upsets so many is the offense against reality on display, the demise of a truck worth 25 grand— no, 50 grand!— in any county, parish, or prefecture on the planet. Well, all I can say is that real-world values of vehicles often differ from what we think they should be, and today’s Junkyard Find proves this (again). (Read More…)