The first GM car to use Hurst parts in an official capacity was a Pontiac (the 1961 Super Duty Catalina), but the most famous GM-Hurst collaboration would be the Hurst/Olds, offered in five distinct iterations…
Browsing Category American Cars
Ford Festiva: The Cult Favorite
As is often the case with the cheapest new cars, nobody expected very much of the Ford Festiva. When new, it was a bottom-feeder. It was a cut above similarly cheap cars like the Hyundai…
Lincoln Town Car FN36: A Land Yacht For The 1990s
“We had an established identity that we wanted to keep, but … how do you do that and make the car look fresh and new?” said Gale Halderman in 1989. He was talking to the…
1968 Ford LTD: The Brougham Branches Out
Over the course of about 25 years, the LTD name filtered through dozens of family Fords, from the biggest and broughamy-est land yachts of the 1970s to a midsize Fox variation in in the 1980s…
Flashback: Snowed In Chevy Monza Spyder
If you’re old enough you’ll remember the anxiety of heading back to your aging snowbound car after leaving it somewhere in the elements for a day or two and wondering if it will start. But…
Studebaker Lark Wagonaire: The Open Air Wagon
Short on resources but never on pluck, Studebaker slunk into the early sixties with once again slumping sales and no easy way to turn things around. The Lark Wagonaire, a wagon with new lines and…
Not-so-Wide Track Flashback: 1959 Pontiac Parisienne
For today’s Flashback we’re visiting Fort Charlotte in the Bahamas today, courtesy of this 1959 Pontiac Parisienne Vista taxi. Cabbies sometimes luck out and get the best rides. Fort Charlotte was built from 1789 to…
Jeep M676: The Diesel Regiment
In the pantheon of weird Jeeps this is probably one of the weirdest – and rarest. It’s a Jeep Forward Control, and while all Jeep FCs are rare, this one is particularly unusual. Look closely,…
1973-75 Pontiac Grand Am: Right Place, Wrong Time
Years later, reincarnated as a small front-driver riding GM’s N-body platform, the Pontiac Grand Am would become the excitement division’s best-selling car. The original Grand Am, sometimes forgotten in the wake of that success, got…
1982 Buick Riviera: Convertible Comeback
American convertibles had been all but dead for six years when, at the Chicago Auto Show in February, 1982, Buick debuted a brand new droptop Riviera.
1974 Buick Riviera: the Lost Generation
The 1974-76 Buick Riviera is essentially a forgotten car today, lingering in the deep shadow left by the famous ‘71-’73 Boattail cars and built in relatively small numbers. The car actually didn’t look bad at…
Cadillac Seville Mk1: Arriving in Style
Usually, big corporate decisions aren’t made on the Friday before Christmas. But in the case of the Cadillac Seville, that’s exactly what happened. Circumstances dictated the urgency. On December 21, 1973, a breezy, cold and…