The vintage, classic, movie and old cool car pics thread

[3rdstone]

I'm a huge fan of old classic cars, and I hope there's others like me here. Made a search, but couldn't find a thread like this one.

Personally I have a deep love in American cars from the 50:s and 60:s. But I also love classic beautiful european sportscars. And of course there's a lot of interesting cool cars (no matter what country) up till perhaps the early 90:s or so that's worth to bring up here.

This is not a snobbish classic car thread, but simply a tribute to when cars were beautiful, cool or somehwat special, and at least looked different to each other. No special rules here. But today you hardly can tell if the cars you meet on the road are german, american, japanese, chinese or whatever. Opel, Hyundai, Toyota, Audi, Mazda or Chevrolet, they all look the same to me these days. Hence why I started this thread.

I know that people of course have different tastes in cars, but that will be even more interesting.

Well well, bring up your favourite classic/old car models here! Old movie cars are always appreciated too. Just remember that pics would be a priority in this thread, although nerdy car discussions are cool too.


Allow me to start:

Lamborghini Miura. The first classic Lambo, and a huge favourite of mine. I think the beauty of this car is beyond many sportscars of today.


http://postimage.org/]

 

[3rdstone]

Chrysler Airflow.

The experiment that went from -34 to 37 in the Chrysler corporation. An amazing study of futuristic aerodynamics in the early 30:s. Unfortunately this design was way ahead of it's time and flopped.

 

[Hobgoblin]

I usually like the really old cars, ie from the 1920's and earlier. Some of the earliest experimental cars are really interesting looking, too.

 

[3rdstone]

That's interesting, I know almost nothing of the very early cars. The early car races must've been quite cool though, since there would be electric cars, steam cars, today traditional gasoline etc. participating.

Feel free to post some pics about your favourites, that's what this thread's all about.

 

[3rdstone]

When speaking of streamlined design, we of course cannot ignore Tatra and Tatraplan from Czechoslovakia back in the cold war days. I love the fin that instantly makes you think that this would be great material for a cool Batmobile back in the golden age.











This is a Tatra from -62 that I shot myself at a classic car meeting back here a couple of years ago. It has a 2.4 litre V8 back in that trunk with 115 horsepowers. Somehow it was air cooled, probably a lot of channels bringing air back to that trunk from the front.

Well, personally I think that engine is frakking gorgeous.





I have some more personal pics of various cars (mostly old American) I'll post here later on.

 

[Kable24]

Here is a pic of my dad and me with his 76/77 Pontiac GTO. I can't remember the exact year of the car. I know my dad misses it. I sure do.

 

[3rdstone]

Cool picture, I love old "family album pics" like this one! That GTO looks great. A beautiful red colour, and I dig the airscoop on the hood and those classic rims.

I guess these must be quite rare today, the GTO:s you see today are usually the ones from the 60:s. I really understand you'd miss that car, although of course when family and house mortages comes around, "toys" like these usually have to go in exchange for a more practically family car. Unfortunately but reality.

Thanks for the pic!

 

[3rdstone]

Speaking of Pontiac, we need a bunch of various pic of this once classic GM brand.

Here's the pic of back of a circa -49 Pontiac I shot at the annual huge Power Meet back here. Note that it's siblings - the two Chevys - in the backround are practicaly the same in design, but of course they don't have that cool wide chrome band that starts back there and are all over the hood as well.




Syd Barrett (RIP), once legendary member of Pink Floyd seems to enjoy himself together with a Pontiac convertible -59. These were prolly worth almost nothing those days.. Today we hail these "wide track" Pontiacs as gorgeus.








Pontiac as well as other brands in GM, Ford and Chrysler went more discrete when it came to design in the early 60:s. The below model shows that clearly. Still a beautiful Pontiac IMHO.




The ad for a -67 Firebird




A nice -68 GTO




The iconic black -77 Trans Am from Smokey And The Bandit with Burt himself gladely posing.




Of course we need a classic GTO from the pure muscle car era.



Pontiac 1926-2009 RIP..

But if anyone has more cool Pontiac pics, please bring 'em up here (or other intersting older cars).

 

[Hobgoblin]

That's interesting, I know almost nothing of the very early cars. The early car races must've been quite cool though, since there would be electric cars, steam cars, today traditional gasoline etc. participating.

Feel free to post some pics about your favourites, that's what this thread's all about.

1910 Stanley Steamer

circa 1900

 

[3rdstone]

Fascinating to see cars that are 100 years old and restored. If I remember right Jay Leno have one of these.

 

[3rdstone]

As a Swede I'm a little proud that our small country has managed to produce two car brands that still are alive: Volvo and Saab. Well, the last years Saab's future hasn't looked good due to financial problems since long, and it's unclear which eventual new owner will step in and try to save the company. It was owned by GM between 2000 and -10. We'll have to wait and see how this eventually will turn out.

Originally Saab only made airplanes, which were and are used by the Swedish army. In 1949 the production of Saab 92 started. I personally like the early models designed by Sixten Sason best. It's so obvious that the aerodynamic design were inspired by the airplanes.

The original concept by Sason. I love that it has only one big tail light.








The 92 model that went into producion.






Probably an arranged scene, I'd guess it's from an ad for the soda in his hand. But Erik Carlsson was a famous Saab rally driver back then, and got his nickname "Karlsson-on-the-Roof" from a popular childrens book by Astrid Lindgren when his car turned over like in the pic.




Here's a retro concept design of what the 92 might look like today.




A video in which Jay Leno describes why he had to get a Saab 93 from -58.

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/1958-saab-93b/188058

 

[3rdstone]

Some celeb cars this time. First out is Sonny and Cher with their matched customized Mustangs. Cute or just bad taste? Well, I have my opinion clear..








Then we have a young Ringo Starr with a Facel Vega. No idea if it was really his, but those are anyway extreamly rare today.




Dolly Parton with a huge mid 60:s Cadillac. Anything big suits her fine, right?




Janis Joplin with a Porsche having a typical custom paint in the right psychedelic style. But how did that song really go? "My friends all drive Porsche, I must make a stand. Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz." Well, whatever.

Ingemar "Ingo" Johansson with a Ford Thunderbird -58. "Ingo" managed to knock out Floyd Patterson in the 1959 world champion boxing final, that's why he's qualified here. My father always say that it's the most amazing Swedish athlete success ever. Yep, I'm a Swede..

John Lennon's classic Rolls painted by the Dutch artist collective called The Fool. They also painted some famous guitars like the Gibson SG Eric Clapton used in Cream, and a Fender Strat used by George Harrison at the same time.

 

[3rdstone]

Well, it seems like you may only post 10 pics in one post. Whatever, here's the pics with Marilyn Monroe I intended to include above.

The car is a Cadillac -54, and isn't this a beautiful match? Amazing to compare with what cars the people drove in Europe in these times (if they even owned a car). Even the Mercedes, Jaguars, Rolls and BMW:s at this time looked old compared to these pieces of American art. Designwise that is, not qualitywise..





As usual, if you have any kind of contribution that you think will fit this thread: Please go ahead.

 

[Oruku Saki]

Well, here's some pics of mine. Hope you like 'em. Simple Specs: '71 cutlass, w/ '65 425 .030 over.

 

[3rdstone]

Awesome!

I love figures like 425 on these old musclecars! Damn, the condition of that Olds is impressing. You really have some job just keeping it that clean under the hood I guess. But that's of course part of the hobby. The interior looks like new too.

As always no matter what kinda car it it is, it's always impressing to see vintage cars in conditions like this. How many horsepowers does this baby give?

 

[Oruku Saki]

Thanks! It has between 400-425hp...bout 500lbft of torque too. It has been about 7 years in the making...had a 454 chevy engine in it for a while while I was building the 425 Oldsmobile Motor. The motor is a rare high compression (10.5:1) from a Starfire. This car is basically a tribute to my wife's dad: it was his and he used to take her for rides and to the track when she was little. After he passed away in 2004 we began the restoration.

 

[Oruku Saki]

It's basically been done all over, but there are a few things I still want to get for it: plan on getting cherry bombs installed in place of the flowmasters, and some coilovers, and a rear sway bar.

 

[3rdstone]

Wow, that's an interesting and touching story. 454:s are always cool, but it's of course always nicer when you may get an engine from the same brand. Also interesting to learn that this engine was from a Starfire although rare. I don't know much about Oldsmobiles, hence I didn't know Starfires had these kind of monster big block engines.

I'm really impressed by the hard work of the restoration that became this very fine Olds. Here in Sweden it would've been featured in a couple of motor magazines just by it's condition.

Well damn, 400-425hp and that brutal torque, I bet it must feel to push the pedal once in a while on a fine summers day.

 

[Lighthouse]

The ultimate classic.

 

[3rdstone]

Ah, the good ole' Reliant. In fact, I like the idea back then when car manufacturers tried to build cheap cars for the common man.

Reliant was a cool concept. Although perhaps not the most beautiful car in history IMHO.

But I guess it had hard competion from other classic concepts allready successful at the time.

And not to forget other classic three wheel cars, such as Messerschmitt (like Saab, heavily inspired by their aircraft production):

Or the BMW Isettas:

Today we have the Smart Car, and I'm sure they're great for the purpose of being just economic city cars..

.. But really, how cool are these compared to the icons above?

 

[3rdstone]

OK, I showed off some SAAB's earlier. Now it's time for the other half of our little car industry: Volvo!

Volvo PV 1947. When the PV:s looked at their best IMHO.



The 444 model was manufactured between 1944-57. The 544 lasted between 1958-65, and it's design was heavily dated by then, as shown below. A forties car design in the mid-sixties.. No, that's got to stop!

On the other hand, The Swedish Phone Company (a huge monopoly back then) didin't mind using these orange PV stationwagons as their official cars at the time.

Volvo Amazon had already been introduced in 1956, and compared to American cars it kinda looked like an early -50:s Ford, although the divided grille-design was quite unique. Again, I think the most beautiful Amazons are the early ones.

They were designed as 50:s cars, and their attributes looked at their best at that time. The Amazon-model survived from 1956 to 69. The 140 model already had been introduced by then.

The 140 model went from 1966 to -74.

 

[3rdstone]

Except for some occasional slightly "sportier" models, like Volvo Sport, Volvo had have the time to introduce two interesting models, the P1800 and the 164. The P1800 was an intersting sports car concept first manufactuered in the Jensen factories in England, but later brought home to Gothenborg.

It was made between 1961-73. The fact that a young Roger Moore chosed to drive a P1800 in the TV-show "The Saint" of course made the model more popular. My personal view is that this is by far the most beautiful Volvo that's ever been built.

Spoiler

In their last years, P1800 also offered a station wagon. Quite neat design for a station wagon.

Spoiler

But wait, wasn't there also a luxury sedan with a straigh six? Yep, hang on.

Between 1968-75 there was fourdoor saloon Volvo called 164. It sported a straight six engine and automaic gearbox, and the design included a big frakking grille at front. Hp shifted up between 130 and 160 back then. At it's best it came up to 0-160 Km/h at 24,4 secs. Impressive figures back then..

To me these are the last really cool Volvos. But I have to admit that when the 480 ES was announced in the 80:s, I was glad.

That little cooperation beteween Sweden and Holland looked no less than a homage to the classic P1800 ES to me. Unfortuntely that model didn't became very successful back here, and they're quite rare now.

Spoiler

 

[knowsbleed]

The ultimate classic.

This is where babies really come from.

 

[3rdstone]

Some pictures from the Bonneville salt track back in 1954. Photos by Life Magazine. The pics speaks for themself, but by checking out the filenames you get some short infos.





Texting, Pinstriping and motive by Von Dutch. Yes, those of you who refere that name to some T-shirt brand, you've really got some learning to do..

 

[3rdstone]

I fill up with some various Hot Rod Magazine covers from the late 40:s and 50:s, since I find that fitting.





The cover below is so frakking cool that I have it on my computer desktop at the moment. I think it's a Ford -36, but not sure.