Author: Murilee Martin

When General Motors introduced its latest midsize A Platform for the 1964 model yr, the A-based Pontiac GTO got a lot of the attention on the time. In the long term, though, the Chevrolet A-Bodies proved to be the platform’s big success story. By the center Nineteen Seventies, The General was raking in big money with the Chevy Monte Carlo, essentially a Chevelle with a lengthened snout and a generous helping of vinyl-and-velour luxury plus crypto-Charlemagnic crests (though, to be fair, its Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme sibling outsold it in some years). For those automotive shoppers throughout the 1973-1977 period wanting…

Volkswagen of America began selling the Mk1 Golf (badged because the Rabbit here) in america as a 1975 model, which was good timing so soon after the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. The VW plant in Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, began constructing Rabbits in 1978, and the Mk1 generation stayed on sale here through the 1984 model 12 months. Here’s one in all those final-year Mk1s, a four-door present in a Phoenix automotive graveyard. The Rabbit Convertible stayed on the Mk1 Golf chassis here all through 1993, though its name modified to the Golf Cabriolet for the 1985 model 12 months. South Africa…

The Buick Riviera personal luxury coupe attained monstrous proportions by the center Nineteen Seventies, scaling in at well over 4,500 kilos by 1976. After spending 1977 and 1978 as sibling to the Chevy Caprice, the Riviera then moved to the front-wheel-drive platform utilized by the Cadillac Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, staying there through the 1985 model 12 months. The Riviera world became so much more interesting for the 1986 model 12 months, when a smaller and more sophisticated generation hit showrooms with curvier lines and electronic gadgetry straight out of science fiction. Today’s Junkyard Gem is one in every of…

There was a time, prior to the rise of the minivan, when Detroit pitched its full-sized passenger vans as very large and thirsty station wagons. At the identical time, most of those vans got here with manual transmissions and straight-six engines as base equipment (nearly all buyers after about 1970 paid extra for automatics and V8s, after all). Today’s Junkyard Gem, found in a San Francisco Bay Area automotive graveyard, is certainly one of the rare Eighties American passenger vans built with six cylinders, three pedals and 4 forward gears… with floor-mounted shifter. Chrysler’s Dodge Division stopped constructing forward-control A100…

In the course of the middle Eighties, well-heeled American automobile shoppers wishing to drive a flashy, powerful coupe had loads of tempting options. Detroit would sell you an Eldorado or Mark VII, for instance, while Mercedes-Benz offered a two-door version of the mighty W126 proto-S-Class and Jaguar had the XJS with two doors and a V12 under the hood. In case you wanted the evilest-looking recent coupe of all of them in 1985, the one which looked like its trunk was filled with kilos of white powder and possibly a deceased business rival or two, you had but one alternative: the BMW…

The North American introduction to Hyundai cars began in 1983, when the incredibly low-cost Pony appeared in Canada to do battle with the Soviet-built Lada Signet on the extreme-low-end region of the new-car price spectrum. For the 1986 model 12 months, the somewhat more sophisticated Hyundai Excel showed up in the US, undercut on price only by the wretched Yugo GV. Progressively, Hyundais here shook off their status as nothing greater than low-cost transportation appliances, and a giant step forward in that process was the Hyundai XG luxury sedan. Here’s one in every of the later XGs, present in a…

After Hyundai prospered selling cars in the USA in the course of the middle Eighties after which Kia Motors jumped in nearly a decade later, prospects will need to have seemed reasonably good for South Korean automotive manufacturers here (never mind that Kia went bankrupt in 1997 and was taken over by Hyundai). The Daewoo Group built the Pontiac LeMans for GM in the course of the 1988 through 1993 model years, and so Daewoo CEO Kim Woo-choong will need to have decided, later within the Nineties, that the time was right for Daewoo-badged cars on this side of the…

The primary Studebakers in-built North America were wagons made by German immigrant Peter Stutenbecker within the British Province of Maryland in 1740, and the primary Studebaker trucks were 1914 models. Studebaker became a mighty truck powerhouse during World War II, when near 200,000 Studebaker US6s were shipped to the Red Army to assist them crush the Axis. After the war, Studebaker continued constructing pickups; we saw a used-up 1962 Champ last winter, and now today’s Junkyard Gem is an example of the Champ’s predecessor, present in a Wyoming self-service yard recently. The 1955-1960 Studebaker E-Series pickup wasn’t much modified from…

Nissan did well selling small Datsun pickups in the USA starting within the Sixties, with the 520, 620 and 720 generations providing tough competition for such rivals because the Toyota Hilux, Ford Courier/Mazda B-Series, Chevrolet LUV/Isuzu P’up and Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup. Just a few years after the “Name Is Nissan” ditching of the Datsun name here, the 720’s alternative arrived. This was the D21, which first appeared as a 1986 model, and it was given special styling and a singular name for the North American market: Hardbody!  The name referred to the D21’s stronger double-walled bed, however the marketing was…

BMW has been selling latest 3 Series cars in the USA for the reason that first examples of the E21 showed up here in 1976. Those Bavarians are on their seventh generation of three Series now (the G20), however the junkyard 3 Series world on this country is currently making a shift to the early E90 (fifth generation) from the later E46 (fourth generation). Which means it’s getting harder for E46 owners to seek out used parts, while E90 owners now have a humiliation of boneyard riches for his or her cars. If the pattern I’ve seen throughout the previous…