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When people hear things like Cobra, Z28 and R/T they automatically think performance, or at least an attempt at performance. This weekend we want to know about the interesting less recognizable performance options, now forgotten by all but those truly obsessed with cars. What is your favorite forgotten performance package? More »
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One Arizona Lexus owner named Jeff decided to try and replicate the 1989 Lexus LS400 advertisement shown here on his LS460 in the video up above. Comparing these two videos is a nitpicker's dream, so instead of trying to cover all the bases, we are simply going to suggest Jeff wear more appropriate footwear next time he is using his luxury sedan to dispose of excess wine glasses. More »
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All you need to do with this ad is wait for the protagonist's reaction to the appearance of Christie Brinkley in the passenger seat. More »
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The Crusher doesn't care how rare a truly sport Volvo might be. The Crusher cares only for its own hunger! 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. Yes, I'm back in California this weekend, so it's time for an Alameda flashback! More »
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Peugeot gave up on North America in 1991, so 405s (and 505s) of this era don't exactly crowd the Jettas out of the European section at my local self-service wrecking yard. More »
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The Austin Mini had the fourth-longest production run of any car in history, behind only the Volkswagen Type I, the Morgan 4/4, and the Morris Oxford/Hindustan Motors Ambassador. By 1989, it still had 11 more years to go! More »
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When the family's patriarch leaves town (no doubt to do some guns-for-hostages deals involving Adnan Khashoggi), he leaves stern instructions to leave his Subaru XT6 alone. Ha ha, sucka! More »
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Oldsmobile apparently had a policy of hiring the daughters of famous actors for their ads of the Bush I Era; there's Julia Nimoy in this '91 Silhouette ad, and here's Deborah Moore in the Trofeo. More »
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You want a great power-to-weight ratio and plenty of drive-wheel traction? Head on down to Macon, Georgia, where this 1989 Buick Park Avenue-based three-wheeler could be yours for just 600 bucks! More »
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Now that I've sorted out all the SCSI termination headaches on my 1998-vintage slide scanner, I've digitized some more of my old 35mm negatives. Here's a trio of old cars I shot in 1989. More »
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You never know what you find when you start looking into the profound cultural effects of Wacky Packages. Not only did they begat Topps' Weird Wheels, but one card inspired real-life toy cars: Shot Wheels!
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Priced at $57,183 (about $98,000 in 2009 dollars) the 1989 Cadillac Allanté had a gorgeous, built-in-Italy Pininfarina body… and approximately zero buyers. This ad features the famous Cadillac Polo Team, yet somehow didn't boost sales. 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! Since Fiat and Chrysler are now henchmen, PCH must honor their alliance!
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The big Barrett-Jackson car auction in Scottsdale's going on right now and we're already into the fourth day of hot gavel action. Here's the eight top cars that have found new owners through day three. 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. In all this time, we've seen just one DOTS Subaru. 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, the Humber Super Snipe got out-prestiged by the Aston Martin DBS, according to the Choose Your Eternity poll, and you'd think we'd follow up Britain-on-Britain and Italy-on-Italy matchups with a matchup honoring the other PCH Superpower, France. Instead, we're going to make PCH Supergalactic Megapower France do battle with lowly PCH underdog America today, and then we'll have a France-on-France matchup.
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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! Last time, the '72 Stutz Blackhawk blackjacked the Buickborghini and stuffed it in the trunk, for disposal in a hole in the desert later on (the way so many Blackhawk owners in Vegas solved their problems back in the day), according to the 71% of you who voted that way in the Choose Your Eternity poll. Today we're going to go with a couple of choices that allow me to use not-often-seen-in-PCH flags in the poll: Romania versus the Soviet Union!
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Nice Price Or Crack Pipe Time is with us once more, following up on the $15,000 '78 Mercury Grand Marquis (which 60% of you felt ought to steam straight to Booth Numbah Two for the crack pipe) with another car for 15 grand. Actually, this '89 420SEL is 15 and a half grand, which is quite an impressive figure… especially after you find out that Kelley thinks it's worth $4,675 in excellent condition. But hey, this car is really, really nice; low miles, looks good, and the owner has "neither smoked nor allowed any pets in the car." What do you think of $15,500 for it? 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! Last time we had another PCH Superpower upset, with Germany beating Britain in the Glas Versus Lotus challenge. Britain will come back strong, of course, but for now Germany can enjoy the pool of oil gathering beneath the Project Car Hell trophy. Fast forward to today; since it's Maximum Minivan Day, we're going to have Maximum Project Minivan Hell.
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Detroit Auto Works of Seattle is still around, though these days they don't seem to focus so much on classic Detroit musclecars as they did back in the 80s… and where's Low Profit Mont nowadays? Imagine an era, just a couple decades past, when 60s Camaros and Chargers still served as transportation! More »
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As we know, the Isuzu I-Mark is a mighty racing machine. But did you know that the '89 I-Mark RS could eat up a 911 piloted by a steely-eyed German on a rain-soaked autobahn? Sure could, provided you-know-who was at the wheel. Guten morgen! Thanks to Maxichamp for the tip. 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. Today we're going to check out a car that proves what a small world this really is; I was over at the parents' place the other day- yeah, I'm still on speaking terms with them in spite of having been given a girl's name, since it's that name that's given me the gravel in my gut and the spit in my eye- and my mom asked, "Have you seen that race car parked down the street?" Race car? Sure enough, parked about five doors down from my childhood home, here's the El Moto Loco VW Golf from the 24 Hours Of LeMons SF race in May. One day you're scraping fenders with a car on the race track, and a few months later it's lowering the property values in your parents' neighborhood!
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Why did the Berlin Wall go crashing down in 1989? Some might try to confuse you with all sorts of economic or political gibberish, but the answer is actually real simple: the third-generation Camaro destroyed the Evil Empire's will to live! Look at the triumphant American Camaro owners in this ad- with 230 horsepower (that is, for those who bought the IROC; the base V6 had 130 horses) at their command, victory was theirs! 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. I've finally found a Ferrari on the island; sure, it's not even 20 years old and the Mondial isn't the most beloved of Ferraris, but it's the real thing. I was going to save this car for a special occasion, but it seems appropriate that we continue to honor Pininfarina in the wake of Andrea Pinafarina's death. More »
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After Seatbelt123 and the rest of the Quattro Libre team piloted their Audi 4000 to a respectable 23rd place at the 24 Hours of LeMons South event last weekend, they decided to upgrade to some fine Italian steel for their next race. What better choice than the Alfa Romeo Milano, with its insanely complicated and fragile innovative De Dion tube/rear-transaxle drivetrain and neurotic bulletproof Italian V6? And- can you believe it?- it turns out you can get two of 'em for under 300 bucks! What could go wrong? Look out, Tunachuckers, you've got serious competition for the Index of Effluency trophy! More »
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The blowout Choose Your Eternity polls are fun, but we really enjoy the nail-bitingly close races... which is what we got yesterday, with the Roots-blown Old Beetle just barely beating the Pro Street Peugeot in a 175-165 vote split. Does that mean a German car just upset Project Car Hell GigaTeraPower France, or does the Detroit engine water down the 200-proof Frenchness of the Peugeot? We'll leave that question open for now, because today we're going to see how an Italian basket case fares against a brutalized European Ford! More »
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It seems that Honda sprayed half its early CRXs white, but not many regular Civics got that color, especially not by the late 80s. The rarity of white fourth-gen Civics proved to be the undoing of Thomas Kenney, the Lawn Guyland resident known to police as the "Bad Hatter." Mr. Kenney wore some great hats during his robberies, and he even thought to bandage his fingertips to avoid leaving prints... but DNA traces on a dropped bandage and the rarity of white '89 Civics with no hubcaps unraveled his criminal master plan, and now he'll be stamping out license plates for brand-new Civics for the foreseeable future. [Newsday] More »
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We saw the Gremlin beat the Spirit by quite a margin in our last Choose Your Eternity poll. Maybe it was the Wayne's World connection, or maybe it was just the obscurity of the AMC Spirit. Either way, we're going to follow up a pair of quirky American machines with a pair of equally quirky Japanese machines. Sure, Subaru is plenty mainstream in North America these days, but remember when Subarus just seemed vaguely weird, say a couple decades back? When you only saw the little boxer-powered cars in areas with huge amounts of snow and NPR listeners? Those 80s Subies are semi-rare and quite cool, not as bulletproof as your Japanese Big Three machines of the era, and parts are getting tough to find... which makes them great raw material for your exile adventures in the garage! More »
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As everyone predicted, the Triumph GT6 obliterated the Porsche 914 in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll. British Leyland versus VW? We've been gearing up to have an epic Britain-versus-France PCH Superpower Showdown ever since a Lotus knocked the crown off top dog Italy's dome, but it's only fair to give PCH SuperBeaucoupPower France a warmup round against Germany, just as the Brits got. Thus, we have today's matchup, courtesy of PCH Tipster (and T-shirt winner) Anaxomander. More »
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When I posted the DOTS Bonus Edition Abandoned Oakland Camaro, I wasn't prepared for all the emails I got pleading with me to add third-gen GM F-bodies to the Eligible For DOTS list. I'm still not 100% convinced they belong in DOTS proper, because they're still pretty common even in rusty parts of the country, but we'll give it a shot for today (and those of you who wish to make your feelings known on this important issue can go ahead and vote in the poll below the gallery). I picked this '89 RS, which was parked near the Bay in Alameda's West End, because it's so, well, Eighties. More »
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Now that we're in an 80s mood, let's keep our Members Only jackets and Vuarnet shades on for one more day! By 1989, Alfa Romeos just weren't flying off the showroom floors (though we can assume they were limping into the dealerships' service bays). In what appears to have been a desperation move, the Alfa marketing wizards decided to capitalize on that really popular Dustin Hoffman movie, swapping out the "Spider" emblems for "Graduate" ones on their North American cars. After all, while the Alfa in the film runs out of gas, it doesn't actually experience any mechanical problems. More »
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This ad makes us wonder: is having a Taurus in Japan today something like having a Citröen in the United States? Perhaps Japanese fans of the film "Robocop" were so taken with the then-futuristic Taurus that Ford felt compelled to import them in large numbers in the following years. More »
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The small-block-powered Jaguar XJC whumped the small-block-powered '76 Corvette in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll, and we figure it must have been the slick custom body mods on the Jag that tipped the balance- after all, the Vette just had a taillight transplant and a weird fiberglass hood, while the Jag had scoops and vents on every available surface. Today we're returning to the concept of unmolested original cars, this time with a pair of high-zoot European machines. More »
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