I Probably should start a new thread. Spotting cars that are virtually extinct! - (Not including shows or show cars, only DD's) I've seen a Maverick and a Gremlin recently.
I Probably should start a new thread. Spotting cars that are virtually extinct! - (Not including shows or show cars, only DD's) I've seen a Maverick and a Gremlin recently.
Mazda GLC.
They were everywhere up here in the early mid late 80's. But I haven't seen one in years.
I have seen a late 80's Audi 4000 running around Ottawa. I always look. The car has been taken card of, but it's the only 1 I see. A few years back there was the Dodge Omni and K-Car. You couldn't turn a corner without walking into one of those. Now They are all gone!! The car that brought Dodge back from the brink.
I was thinking about where have all the taurus gone, they're gone, gone gone! I remember seeing two rows of them at the junkyard a few years ago, the attrition was swift and brutal.
I think the ford crown vics are on the precipice as I see tons of them at the junkyard and the cab companies are going to beat the remaining stock into scrap. The new crop of hood rats will take care of whatever remains and they will be gone.
Just spent the afternoon with a friend. She is the original owner of a '80 Mazda RX-7, currently with over 200Kmiles. She uses it as her almost daily driver.
If you're curious what it looks like. I just posted it on Ran When Parked.
I actually still see different K-car variants now and then, which is what got me started on this thread, because even though I still see the occasional K-car I never see a GM X-car, (Chevy Citation etc.) How about 1st generation Ford Explorers? They built millions of those and now I don't think I see any at all. (or maybe they are so ubiquitous that they are there and I just don't see them anymore?)
In reply to maseratiguy: Lots of first gen. Explorers around here. Of course they were built here so that makes sense. And yes, every SUV is pretty much the same as the next to me.
they made close to 15 million Model Ts you dont see any of them around either!
thats why we have junkyards, it just seems logical to me!
ronbros, the post is referring to what are fairly recent models. GM built several million of th second generation X platform cars, (chevy Citation etc) and in 30 years they are almost all gone. Even the later A platform cars(?) Chevy Lumina's etc. are almost all gone too and they must have also built several million, so they have mostly disappeared in less than 30 years.
In reply to benzbaronDaryn:That's how we tell which police and sheriff district has the most money. Those who don't have much money are still driving Crown Vics.
"they made close to 15 million Model Ts you dont see any of them around either!"
Not junk yards, World War II ate them up.
And the Chinese ate up all of those Luminas and Citations.
Low interest rates is the only reason that the new cars are selling which results in the current "any used car for a grand" mentality that we have today.
Of course, that means that there are also a whole lot of CEL codes these days as well. Buy it for a grand and spend another grand sorting things out, every other month . . .
Not a lot of Bronco IIs around.
In reply to spitfirebill:There are a lot more Bronco IIs out there than you may realize. What most people know of as the 1st generation Explorer was actually originally named Bronco II. Until so many Bronco IIs rolled over, of course.
Ford came up with the name Explorer because of all the Bronco II rollover issues. All the stamping dies, part assembly lines, part racks, blueprints, etc. for the 1st generation of Explorer were labelled Bronco II when we built the 1st Gen. "Explorer" body parts.
To my knowledge, the only thing Ford changed in response to the Bronco II rollover issue was the name of the car. It was still built on that too narrow Ranger frame. It had no body changes at all. And from I could tell while working at LAP, no chassis changes either. They just sold under a different name. (In marketing, customer perception is truly almost everything!)
I've recently spotted in N.E. rustbelt Ohio: -Fox body Saleen Convert.(today) -Red Monte Carlo from early 90's -Escort wagon (yesterday) driven by a teenager -Not too many K-cars ( had one in 85' as a company car) -An old Mitsu 3000 GT sitting behind our office building and it still runs! -Few if any 1st gen. Chrysler mini-vans. - Dozens of mid eighties to late 2000's Suburban / Tahoe's - Few 1st gen Durango's ( most have been abused and dumped) -Late 70's or early 80's Audi's don't exist around here. -Fiat's rusted back into the soil many years ago. - Zero Alfa's (even collector's are gone) - No 5th avenue's from the 80's - No Vega's except at car shows.
Don't whether this entry would be better suited to Unicorn status. But this afternoon I was shocked to pass two (2) Mazda Navajos on the freeway, both in original black!
When Mazda and Ford shared a lot of body lines and assembly plants, Mazda had a vehicle called the Navajo. It was a Explorer Sport (3 door model SUV) with a few different trim parts. I can't say how many they made but the ratio of Explorer Sports to Mazda Navajo must have been at least 100 to 1.
The odds of seeing two Navajos in fairly good condition actually traversing the highways 20 years later are way out the roof. The odds of seeing both traveling together and both in original Black Paint? I can't imagine.
I wish I'd had a Hero camera turned on!
A few weeks ago on this thread I said I hadn't seen any Probes around in a long time. Well, I saw one today and it wasn't even a rolling wreck with a mullet-haired driver. It was in pretty good condition.
Well in the Mazda and Ford Probe vein, today I saw a Mazda MX6, (Mazda version of the Probe as the Navaho was to the Explorer) kinda' funny, no?
In reply to maseratiguy:I didn't think either the Probe or the MX6 were bad cars. I'm surprised the Probe especially didn't sell better than it did.
To Rupert: me too. I really liked my Probe GT until it developed an electrical glitch that the dealer couldn't seem to debug. But that happened for the best (maybe planning on the part of the dealer?) because I traded the GT in early '99 for a nearly new Contour SVT in their showroom. I love that car. Still own it and keep it well maintained. It's still my daily driver yet I've only put 80K on it since '99. I'm always getting offers from SVT enthusiasts to buy it when I'm ready to sell.
(Don't see many Contour SVTs anymore but that doesn't surprise me. Ford only made around 10K during three years of production on a special assembly line at the St. Louis truck plant. Most of them were driven hard by ya-hoo's and not well maintained).
In reply to Gary:Wow, I had to look that one up. I vaguely remember hearing the name, but don't recall ever seeing one. In the one picture I found, it looks a little like a Camry with a rear spoiler.
I've been to that plant. When the Explorer was really hot, we shipped body panels there by rail.
Were/are you a Ford employee? Just curious.
Gary,
There are serveral SVT's in our area, but as you mentioned, most are in poor shape driven by young men who can't afford to maintain them. There use to be a Probe turbo just sitting in a driveway for over 10 years that looked in good shape, however it just disapeered one day and I haven't seen one in the past two to three years.
To Rupert: before retiring I worked for a couple industrial equipment manufacturers who sell to Ford, GM, Chrysler and their sub-suppliers, as well as other major industries. I've been in a lot of car manufacturing and assembly plants during the past 35 or so years, including the large Fiat plant outside Turin, Italy, and Giugiaro's ItalDesign studio near Turin as well, but ironically never the Ford St. Louis facility. A colleague of mine back in the 90s purchased a used Mustang Cobra SVT from one of the St. Louis process engineers who he met during a business meeting there. I think they were assembled there too. He flew out, made the transaction, and drove it back to RI.
I saw a early to mid 90s awd Dodge Caravan last week driving home from work. Talk about a unicorn
Rupert, I didn't think they were bad cars either. Sorry if I left that impression. I had a girlfriend with one, she drove that for years and then passed it on to another friend who drove it years more probably had over 200K on it when it expired.
Up here in the Great White North (Ottawa Canada) I have seen a pretty much pristine Audi 4000 S. It looks like the guys daily driver. I hate to see it running in the winter now, but, in the end it is the only one I see.
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