What 50's era car would you want to have?

[toppop52]

People that make blanket statements such as Corvettes were never sports cars usually either have no clue or an ingrained bias, either way it shows an ignorance of the subject matter.

 

[zonta223]

Oh yeah, the Bugeye Sprite! 36 mpg, when they ran, which was somewhat less than half the time. If you bought a British sports car back then, it came with a butler in greasy coveralls. :laughing:

From memory I talked to someone from the sprite production line......The new sprite was all set to go into production.........looked like a small Healey 3000 same smooth lines..........Then they check the regulations in some US states and found the head lights were mounted to low to be legal........hence the "add on" look of the headlights. But honestly never had much trouble mechanically with my British cars but the Lucas company had a lot to answer for in the electrical system.....

 

[toppop52]

Those old tractor motors usually ran pretty solidly as long as you kept oil in them and spark to the ignition, neither was a given on the old British cars, but I liked them anyway.

 

[Mounted Madness]

1953 Mercury. Light blue with white roof. My Dad bought one in 1955, and drove it for 10 years. I remember popping the rust bubbles from under the paint around the headlight buckets and my Dad yelling at me for doing so, just before he traded it.

This was back in the day when you could stand in the back seat and hang off the back of the front seat. Safety first. Lots of trips, camping and such in that old car.

:thumbsup:

 

[tallyho8]

How come no one has voted for the Edsel? Biggest bomb of the era. IIRC they were all built on the Ford production line, never got the factory going and they were much of a hodge podge of parts from other cars.
Harry K

The main problem with the Edsel was that most the people who bought them were Mercury owners who thought they were moving up. Mercury dealers complained about losing sales to the newcomer and Ford was unable to market them to GM and Chrysler owners.

Since there was no increase in Ford Motor Company sales, just a switch from Mercury to Edsel, there was no incentive to produce them anymore.

 

[jinman]

I've always liked to listen to folks who get into arguments over what is or is not a sports car. There are those who say that if your car weighs over a ton, has air conditioning, isn't convertible, has greater than a 1600 cc engine, or a trunk that can carry anything larger than a spare it is NOT a sports car. I tend to be in that crowd even though I owned a Datsun 240Z and called it a sports car on a regular basis.:confused2: The true sports car in that line was probably the Datsun 1600. The later Datsun 2000 was pushing the envelope on a true sports car.

I've been to a lot of SCCA races and watched the Camel GT series where they threw several classes of cars onto the track at the same time and watched them race in a close approximation of the freeway at rush hour. I remember one year they even brought in a couple of NASCAR cars just so the crowd could get used to the strong smell of overheating brakes and watch cars running as much off the track as on the track.:laughing: I never saw a Corvette that wasn't passed by the Porsches and BMWs on a regular basis. They just didn't have the braking and turning ability of the smaller cars. Of course, the last race I attended was in 1979, so a lot has happened since. Frankly, I think the consumer market suddenly expected so many comforts from their "sports cars" that they morphed into much bigger luxury two-seaters so every race driver wanabe could own one and still haul the kids to school and load a weeks worth of groceries into the trunk.

 

[KentT]

I've always liked to listen to folks who get into arguments over what is or is not a sports car. There are those who say that if your car weighs over a ton, has air conditioning, isn't convertible, has greater than a 1600 cc engine, or a trunk that can carry anything larger than a spare it is NOT a sports car. I tend to be in that crowd even though I owned a Datsun 240Z and called it a sports car on a regular basis.:confused2: The true sports car in that line was probably the Datsun 1600. The later Datsun 2000 was pushing the envelope on a true sports car.

I've been to a lot of SCCA races and watched the Camel GT series where they threw several classes of cars onto the track at the same time and watched them race in a close approximation of the freeway at rush hour. I remember one year they even brought in a couple of NASCAR cars just so the crowd could get used to the strong smell of overheating brakes and watch cars running as much off the track as on the track.:laughing: I never saw a Corvette that wasn't passed by the Porsches and BMWs on a regular basis. They just didn't have the braking and turning ability of the smaller cars. Of course, the last race I attended was in 1979, so a lot has happened since. Frankly, I think the consumer market suddenly expected so many comforts from their "sports cars" that they morphed into much bigger luxury two-seaters so every race driver wanabe could own one and still haul the kids to school and load a weeks worth of groceries into the trunk.

Jim, did you read this article, that I linked up above?

Corvette Racing History:
Corvette Racing History: The Making of a Performance Icon

They competed quite well, especially on some tracks, in their respective classes.

The 1970's with smog and bumper regulations hurt them (just as it did the venerable MGB and MGC), along with the changing consumer demands. I never cared for Gen 3 Corvettes (1970's through 1983), but otherwise they've impressed me with what got for your money -- if they were "spec'ced" with the right options.

My old '62 that I bought in 1970 had been spec'ced with heavy-duty brakes (larger finned drums, metallic shoes, etc.), steering and cooling for just that purpose, along the the 327-340HP, Borg-Warner wide-ratio T-10, 3.70 rear axle with posi-traction, etc., in addition to the sway bars, axle straps, etc. Not a dragster with that gearing for sure (especially with the wheel hop), but if you'd run it up near red-line in 1st and speed-shift into 2nd, it would torque-twist and lift the left front tire about 12" off the ground, then you could run it up to 80 MPH in 2nd, chirp the tires shifting to 3rd and go on up to 120MPH at red-line in 3rd gear. I never did have the guts to see what it would do in 4th, though I saw 148MPH registered on the speedo once -- at 4800 RPM. It red-lined at 7200, but would have never redlined in 4th with that gear ratio. I'm guessing it would do somewhere around 165 or so, before aerodynamics consumed the available power, but I'd have wanted that to be on a banked track somewhere...

Heavy understeer, but with enough torque to break the rear loose and drift through corners... then accelerate like crazy on the straights -- never using 4th gear unless it was a long straightaway. Tires that would handle that power were the real weakness, IMO, moreso than the suspension. The 63-67 models handled much better with their IRS rear-end, better aerodynamics, etc. and the 70-series tires were starting to come widely available, though still bias-ply...

They certainly didn't handle well by today's standards, but what did?

 

[JDgreen227]

This belongs to my brother in law---he calls it a sports car but to me it is an overpriced, oversized plastic lump. IMO the last real Corvette that deserved to be called a sports car were the 1962 models, anything made after that was basically a luxury touring car. Just my opinion, though.

 

[jmurray01]

Any car with a plastic body part isn't a car in my opinion, it is a kids toy.

 

[jinman]

Jim, did you read this article, that I linked up above?

Corvette Racing History:
Corvette Racing History: The Making of a Performance Icon

They competed quite well, especially on some tracks, in their respective classes.

I read that article and find the following very interesting and telling. While I suspect Porsche and BMW race cars have little in common with production models, this quote pretty much says that except for a replica body, there was nothing Corvette about these "Corvettes."

"A Corvette in name and styling elements only, the Corvette GTP (Grand Touring Prototype) was one of the fastest and most exotic race cars ever to wear a red Bowtie. Based on an English Lola T600 chassis and powered by an all-American turbocharged Chevy V-6, the mid-engined racer was a rocketship. At full boost, the Corvette GTP痴 3.4-liter (209ci) V-6 pumped out more than 1,000 horsepower. This amazing machine claimed seven poles in the IMSA Camel GT series in 1986 and won two races. In 1987, the Corvette GTP captured four more poles."