• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Pick your favorite iconic car from any decade....

#1,821
kesslari said:
A lover of mine in the 1980's fell for and bought a GTV like the one below (against advice...)
She found, after a few weeks, that she had neglected to buy the requisite Alfa repair kit (a personal mechanic driving a truck full of money and tools to follow the car around...) and sold it.
But it sure was fun to drive for a while :D
View attachment 3620826
Click to expand...
I've had VWs and Alfas and the Alfas were more reliable, and the Vee Dubs were dull as ditch water
 
#1,822
I know Italian cars OK, but I've been working on cars for about 50 years, so I can sort out most of that stuff. Mechanical is easy, computer-based is more challenging. I drive an 11-year-old BMW 3-series, which would scare some people. I find it to be highly dependable and not terribly challenging to work on.

But Alfa sex appeal is a very left-brain thing. It's the cautions from the right brain that keep us from doing even stupider things than we want to. SOME days, that works for me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MonetBass, Winslow, ajkula66 and 2 others
#1,823
Biffa said:
I've had VWs and Alfas and the Alfas were more reliable, and the Vee Dubs were dull as ditch water
Click to expand...

I've found that much of Alfa's reputation for unreliability is caused by poor treatment by previous owners. There is a circle in Dante's hell reserved for the previous owners of my Spider. The guy I bought it from sold it so he could buy a Pinto. That should have made me uneasy right there.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bobro, ajkula66, Stewie26 and 1 other person
#1,824
Had one of these in rally guise, roll-cage and all...

upload_2019-12-6_21-3-44.jpeg



Viciously fun to drive, but not a very practical daily driver. I was getting something like...IDK...8 mpg on the crowded streets of my hometown...

Another Italian "sleeper" from the same era...Fiat 130 Coupe

upload_2019-12-6_21-8-26.jpeg


Gave up on mine pretty darn fast since I couldn't locate certain parts that needed replacement and the amount of rust was getting scarier by the day...

Neither of the cars pictured are the examples I owned, BTW.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MonetBass, murphy, tzohn and 5 others
#1,825
In the early '80s I was at The Ohio State University, and decided to bicycle downtown to the local Alfalfa® dealer I rode into the dealership on my Raleigh Super Course TT wearing a t-shirt and cut-off jeans shorts. The sales guy was really cool and told to put the bike in his office, threw me the keys to a brand new GTV and said, "Have a nice time!" :hyper:
 
  • Like
Reactions: MonetBass, murphy, kesslari and 7 others
#1,830
I think my high school graduation present was a rather iconic car. It looked exactly like you'd want a 1950's sports car to look.

I give you....the 1958 Fiat 1200 Transformabile Spyder

ebay147339689862598.jpg


ebay147339690136013.jpg


ebay147339690034568.jpg


My dad bought it for $300 in 1968, and I drove it for a few years in college. It then spent nearly 30 years in storage after a fender-bender required some work, and I had moved out of the area. About 2010 I admitted I'd never finish the resto project, and sold it to an Alfa/Fiat collector in Denver. I understand it's in California now after a full restoration.

It was a beautiful car with classic 50's body nice lines and a killer double grille, a 63-HP 1200 CC engine and 4-speed transmission with non-synchro 1st gear. It was very light and was an absolute delight to drive on twisty roads.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MonetBass, Jeff Scott, fretter and 4 others
#1,832
kesslari said:
@Pilgrim that's gorgeous! And I love the swivel front seat - perfect for photo shoots with some supermodel...
Click to expand...

GM offered swivel buckets in the 70's. We retrofitted a pair along with the console and ratcheting shifter from a 77 Monte Carlo into an early Chevelle.
 
  • Like
Reactions: fretter, Stewie26, kesslari and 1 other person
#1,834
Stewie26 said:
I remember those. Seemed like a good idea, but for some reason they stopped building them. Perhaps they were not crash worthy???
Click to expand...

You're probably right. I don't remember most of those 70's cars having anything other than a lap belt. Somehow I think a shoulder belt would have been tough on a swivel bucket.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Stewie26
#1,835
The Fiat was remarkable in that it had swiveling bucket seats, roll-down *glass* side windows, and **electric wipers.** All stock.

The British cars didn't have any of the above for years after that Fiat, and those plexiglass snap-on side windows were a pain to all British car owners.

It was plenty quirky, though. The electric wipers had one speed: the wetter the windshield got, the faster the wipers seemed to move. Also, the heater/defroster was logical but basic. The fan was located in one housing at the front of the transmission hump. there was a hinged pull-down door on the heater box. If you wanted defrosters, you pulled a knob to open the water circuit to the heater, turned on the fan and shut the housing door. If you wanted heat on your feet, you opened the door. If you wanted both, you cracked the door a bit and hoped for the best.
 
  • Like
Reactions: murphy and fretter
#1,836
Pilgrim said:
Also, the heater/defroster was logical but basic. The fan was located in one housing at the front of the transmission hump. there was a hinged pull-down door on the heater box. If you wanted defrosters, you pulled a knob to open the water circuit to the heater, turned on the fan and shut the housing door. If you wanted heat on your feet, you opened the door. If you wanted both, you cracked the door a bit and hoped for the best.
Click to expand...

Fiat stuck with this type of heater on most of its 4-door models throughout the 60s and into early 70s. I believe that 131/132 generation was the first "mainstream" model with more sensible heating arrangement.

Then again, my '62 Citroen ID19 which was originally sold in Algiers had *no* heater fan. At all. Defrosting that one was always an adventure...;)
 
#1,837
Pilgrim said:
I think my high school graduation present was a rather iconic car. It looked exactly like you'd want a 1950's sports car to look.

I give you....the 1958 Fiat 1200 Transformabile Spyder

View attachment 3621931

View attachment 3621932

View attachment 3621933

My dad bought it for $300 in 1968, and I drove it for a few years in college. It then spent nearly 30 years in storage after a fender-bender required some work, and I had moved out of the area. About 2010 I admitted I'd never finish the resto project, and sold it to an Alfa/Fiat collector in Denver. I understand it's in California now after a full restoration.

It was a beautiful car with classic 50's body nice lines and a killer double grille, a 63-HP 1200 CC engine and 4-speed transmission with non-synchro 1st gear. It was very light and was an absolute delight to drive on twisty roads.
Click to expand...

Never seen one. That's a beautiful and fun looking car. Glad you made it though it, in the days before ABS and such.
 
#1,839
fretter said:
Never seen one. That's a beautiful and fun looking car. Glad you made it though it, in the days before ABS and such.
Click to expand...

Thanks, That little Fiat is part of the reason I love the lines of 1950's sports cars.

Many folks have forgotten that until the end of the 50's heaters were an option in many cars, especially pickups. Old pickups were often bought with no heater at at all. I once drove that Fiat for a week in winter without a heater when the core developed a leak. I pulled the core, used a short length of heater hose to connect the engine heater connections and bypass the core. I spent a week driving with a hanky stuffed in my mouth so I wouldn't breathe on the windshield and fog it up. I was happy when the radiator shop returned the core to me.

There's certainly no denying that ABS and some other things like air bags are nice to have. They do increase safety, especially for less skilled drivers or for that odd situation when someone else does something so egregiously stupid that there's no way out of a collision.

I'm not quite as impressed by backup cameras or proximity sensors, because they're part of a number of new federally mandated items that add a lot of cost and design complexity to new cars. I have a backup camera and proximity sensors in my 2016 Jeep, but I trust my rear view mirrors more.

I don't have ABS or an air bag in my 1983 Datsun 280ZX Turbo. I'm perfectly happy without them. I drive that car with the intent to miss other people, not to collide with them.

I didn't have them in my mom's 1950 Studebaker, her 1953 Ford sedan, her 1963 Ford wagon, my 1959 Ford, my dad's 1953 Ford pickup, 1959 Ford pickup, and his 1958 Mercedes 219 Sedan. I also didn't have them in my 1966 GTO, 1970 240Z, 1976 280Z, 1977 Chevy Monza Spyder and my 1982 280ZX, as well as a dozen other cars.

Even before there was ABS, we had a technique called "threshold braking" that does about the same thing. Also, the alert driver has been known to pump the brakes on low traction surfaces.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FunkSheep08, fretter and kesslari

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back