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Got to get away? Feeling in the right kind of mood? You could be coming down with a case of the Mustang attitude, as shown in this commercial from 1985. More »
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If you were used to rough days picking it up and dropping it off Chevrolet had the truck for you in 1985. According to this vintage commercial more Americans worked with Chevy trucks every day—and the company had the footage of their trucks living the blue collar lifestyle to prove it. More »
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BMW was rejecting the luxury car's preoccupation with prestige in the 80s, at least that is what they were telling people. Perhaps they didn't pick the best car to illustrate that point, showing a vintage Duesenberg as the vehicle with hood ornament that didn't mean anything. More »
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A step past the quarter century mark tomorrow has this weekend editor with birth days and years on the mind. Some people use impending birthdays as an occasion to get introspective, while others use it as a good excuse to decide which of the vehicles available brand new in their birth year were the most excellent, or least terrible. What was the coolest car built the year you were born? More »
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We aren't positive if this unbelievably pristine example currently listed on Ebay is the nicest first generation 4runner in the world, but we imagine it's definitely in the running. This 38,708 mile example is about as close as you can get to buying a brand new example of a classic 26 year old SUV, but be forewarned, it doesn't come without an equally hard to believe price tag. More »
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While the North American version of the 1985 Maxima was pretty cool with its "electrically adjustable" suspension, it couldn't possibly measure up to the "Super Sonic Suspension" of its JDM counterpart. More »
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We already know about the '85 Maxima's high-tech SECU-RITY system, but check out that mid-80s "track-stable front-wheel drive" and electrically adjustable suspension! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Some cars are very much of their time; for example, the Chrysler Laser. More »
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What kind of slacker gets the déclassé '85 Seville when he could have the Eldorado he's dreamed of since he was valeting for Judge Smales back in the day? More »
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Reagan is cutting your taxes, Rocketdyne stock is going way up thanks to the war on the Evil Empire, and your sexy blond wife just handed you your latest polo trophy. Ahhh, the Rewards Of Success! More »
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The first-ever LeMons Corvette cost its team $300... and we're pretty sure the seller couldn't believe his good fortune. More »
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Since the very first 24 Hours Of LeMons race, we've heard speculation about the possibility of a LeMons Corvette. You can get cheap beat-to-hell C4s, sure... but can you get one to fit under the 500-buck LeMons budgetary limit? Yes! More »
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Check out the sequence of photos showing the interior of the '85 Camry. See how cramped it was? Why, those passengers are almost touching each other! And where will they set their 256-ounce Bladder Buster™ convenience-store sodas? More »
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Featuring music by Hideki Naoi and Alphaville, this quartet of Japan-market ads for the mid-80s Toyota Corona let potential buyers know that the LASRE 3A engine gave the Corona magical powers! More »
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In all the excitement of the Scuderia Flatpack V8olvo getting on its roof at Thunderhill we forgot all about their incredible new team logo! More »
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We knew it on these shores as the 200SX Turbo, while the Japanese and Europeans called it the Silvia ZX Turbo. Either way, it served as an excellent herpes vector! More »
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More than any car we've seen, the Mustang has always been marketed as a product that can transform its owner's entire life. A Mustang buyer becomes somebody different, according to Ford. More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and most hellish! Last round, PCH Superpower Britain crushed PCH wannabe Germany, but today it's an all-Superpower affair. More »
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We had a Nice Price verdict on the super-clean '85 Toyota 4WD pickup yesterday, and today we've got something for you potential 24 Hours Of LeMons racers. More »
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$7,500 is just too high for a supercharged Chevy Citation X-11, as it turns out. We know you like well-preserved old Toyota trucks, so we'll see how a low-mile example fares here. More »
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It might be cool… but is it worth the price? 71% of you think that $3.5 million is a good deal for this 1938 Maybach, and today we're going with a more affordable machine. More »
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What we really want to know here is: does "available leather-fitted cabin" mean the '85 LeBaron GTS has Soft Corinthian Leather? Or did you actually get basketball leather? More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Hard times is a-comin', and it's time to prepare for life on the move! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Remember when four-door hatch versions of small Japanese cars were commonplace? More »
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You know how most first-gen RX-7s got blown up, wrecked, or otherwise hooned to death, with the scattered survivors slowly fading into beaterness? Not this one! More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Yesterday, we saw a 6.9 Benz face defeat for the first time in Project Car Hell history, a feat that generally requires unholy intervention by the Prince Of Darkness himself, or at least the presence of Citroën badges. We've had a run of affordable Hell Projects lately, and that's fine… but sometimes we need to mainline some optimism and look at spending a few more bucks at the gateway to Gearhead Gehenna.
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We may laugh at the early C4 Corvette these days, since most of the ones you see now are beat-to-hell heaps adorned with custom gear purchased from Manny, Moe, and Jack. Back in the mid-80s, however, it was quite the bang-for-buck deal, selling for $25K- half the cost of the Porsche 928S- and outhandling some of Europe's hottest machinery. OK, fine, the build quality wasn't so great and the engine only made 230 horsepower and the styling screamed "small-time coke dealer," but it would eat up a Ferrari on the race track! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. We've seen our share of Porsches in this series, mostly 911s and 912s but with a handful of water-cooled jobs thrown in. So far I've been unable to find any 924s, but today we'll add another 944 to the lone '87 we've already got. I found this '85 parked on the same block as the '80 Volvo 244 and just around the corner from the silver '67 Porsche 912. More »
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Whether you were grabbing a gear with the 190-horse IROC- oh, wait, you couldn't get the manual transmission with the Tuned Port Injection 305- or experiencing the joys of leaky rubber seals with your Berlinetta's T-tops, the 1985 Camaro let you live it! The glitchy VHS recording just makes this ad that much more Eighties, we think. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. We've had a real Mazda shortage around these parts, probably because the early rotaries tended to blow out the apex seals and/or suck gas and thus didn't weather the decades quite as well as their piston-engine competition. There's been an '81 RX-7 (plus one non-Wankel '82 Mazda) and that's been it until today. I've decided to go deeper into the 80s to enable more RX-7s to qualify for this series, because they were great cars on the street (and on the racetrack) and deserve our respect.
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. With all the cool cars and trucks we've seen in this series, it may come as a shock to some that the first-ever DOTS car- that is, the first use of "Down On The Street" as the name- was this Cadillac Cimarron d'Oro, shot with a seriously crappy cellphone camera. Since that time, I've been packing better photographic hardware and keeping an eye open for another Cimarron… and now I've got one!
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Perhaps it's because every Celebrity ever made looked like it had 200,000 rough miles on the clock by the end of its second year on the road- fading plastic, trim panels a-dangling, and so on, or maybe it's the acre upon acre of clapped-out examples you see clogging up the GM section at every junkyard in the country. Either way, it seems impossible to picture the '85 Celebrity Eurosport as a new car, much less one that carried an air of class and sophistication. More »
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We saw an AE86 Toyota with Sprinter badging earlier in this series, and now I've found one with a single Trueno emblem just a few blocks away. This '85 seems to have had the US-spec front bumper replaced with a JDM assembly, but I'm pretty sure this car was originally sold in the US. It's always good to see an AE86 still driving, since most of these things have been thoroughly hooned by two generations of leadfooted import fanatics and they're getting mighty tough to find. More »
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So you think the Cocaine Factory '85 Duster Ad was the most Eighties car ad you've ever seen? Maybe so, but you're tapping a rich vein of 80s-ness when you add some low-end moonwalking and vaguely break-dance-esque music to an ad for a Turbo Mullet Era Fox Mustang. And only $6,885... for the car with the 88-horsepower 2.3 liter four-cylinder. More »
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Some guys might be ashamed of a blurry Super 8 film showing them at age 18, siphoning gas whilst sporting dirtbag-style long hair (no, it's not a goddamn mullet), a Dark Angel T-shirt, and a '68 Mercury Cyclone with cheap mags in the back and factory hubcaps on the front... but this is Jalopnik! Here's some footage I shot for a film class; let's just say I gave up on the project because it's really hard to capture a good burnout at night on ASA 64 Super 8 movie film (it does show off some cinematic technique, with a sophisticated skateboard-as-camera-dolly shot). And, since Super 8 film is silent and we are not crooks, let's have a little Tricky Dick soundtrack to go with it! Never heard of Dark Angel, dude? Make the jump! More »
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Italian cars have been mighty rare in this series, so I was pleased to run across this '85 Alfa Romeo Graduate parked in the island's East End. I see this car moving under its own power on a regular basis, so it's a genuine driver (not just someone's hopeless Hell Project). More »
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I had my very first college spring break in 1985, just like the guy in this ad... only I didn't have the opportunity to catch a ride to Fort Lauderdale from an attractive 80s chick in a brand-new Fiero. No, my '85 spring break involved catching a ride to Tijuana in a Bondo-and-primer '66 Fairlane reeking of exhaust leaks and beer farts. I must have gone to the wrong school! This guy, on the other hand, went to a college with an all-Fiero-driving female student body, so he could afford to be picky. More »
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You may know the '85 Olds Cutlass Ciera best as the car that Jerry Lundegaard gave to a couple of North Dakota hoodlums as partial payment for a harebrained fake-kidnap scheme in the movie Fargo. Quite a claim to fame, that- but don't forget that the Cutlass Ciera was all about patriotism back in the day. Yes, the Ciera was America's "native car," apparently due to Oldsmobile's "special feel." We're going to give this one an 8 out of a possible 10 reading on the Schmaltz-O-Meter™. More »
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When you start the week with an old Datsun, why not end it with an old Toyota? Somehow, though, the mid-80s Supra doesn't feel all that old, in spite of its incredibly 80s lines and graphics. We saw a good example of its 4-cylinder sibling (or maybe "cousin" is a better way of describing the Celica/Supra relationship of the era) a while back, and this Toyota lives across town, near the '65 Mustang. More »
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Overhead camshaft! Front-wheel drive! Computer-controlled carburetor! Life was good back in '85, because the cheapest Nissan was also the most technologically advanced (though we're pretty sure you couldn't get the futuristic "Door Is Ajar" talking alerts in the Sentra that year). And why don't car ads have voiceovers like the Nissan Guy any more? More »
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