Yesterday's tidy, tiny, and oh-so blue Datsun found favor with 57% of you voting it Nice Price. A further 80% lamented the loss of the Datsun name to history. Geez people, move on. Today, Nice Price or Crack Pipe brings you something from a brand you get to miss for a whole ‘nother reason.

Not since the Cord of the 1930s had there been a full-sized Yankee Clipper in which the front wheels did all the yanking. The Oldsmobile Toronado debuted in 1966 with knife-edge catamaran fenders, hidden headlamps, and 385bhp pumping through to the front wheels from its 425cid V8 engine via a chain-drive and three-speed transmission. It exemplified the personal coupe style, and was the first American two-door to eschew the delineation between roof and quarter panel, hence frustrating the vinyl top industry.

But oh what a difference ten years can make. In that time, the Toro kept it's front wheel drive layout, but continued to grow and add ostentatious styling and dubious luxury fittings. The 425 was dumped in '68 for the behemoth 455; the wheelbase grew by three inches to 122; and the weight increased from an already hefty 4,366 lbs its debutant year, to a cetacea-like 4,731 lbs a decade later. Most egregiously, the styling became more GM-generic, and there was the constant fear of F-4s landing on the hood.

So here is a 1976 Toronado, with only 28,000 miles on the clock. The Brougham had an MSRP of $6,766 in the bicentennial year, and the seller is currently asking $7,900. As noted, a personal coupe must express its owner's personality, and this Olds' size and brown color are contrasts in expression. The metallic-turd hue continues inside, and onto the crushed velour seats. That, along with excessive brightwork, and faux wood trim give the interior the impression of the world's dullest brothel. You could take a quintet of ladies of the evening out for a romp due to the double bench seats and flat floor afforded by the lack of a transmission tunnel. However you and your matronly concubines might get a little sea sick, as the ride of these monster-big Toronados could best be described as "root beer float" despite the semi-automatic air shocks introduced this model year. Fortunately, this particular car lacks GMs early attempt at airbag integration, which at this advanced age would probably add to the injuries incurred rather than prevent them.

So, does 28,000 miles and $7,900 price mean you're down with the brown? Or does that make you want to avoid this hershey highway cruiser?

You decide!

Meth Capital Craigslist or go here if the ad suffers a brown-out. Thanks to Tomsk for the tip

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Yesterday's 1975 Stutz Blackhawk escaped getting a black eye with 57% of you nodding in unison over both its fifteen grand price, and Elvis-endorsed pedigree. Now let's again jump into Mr Peabody's Wayback machine and move ahead a year for our next American Idle contestant.

Nineteen seventy six. America's bicentennial year. It was in this year that Saul Bellow won the Nobel prize for literature, Rocky served an uppercut to the box office, and a little known peanut farmer from Plains Georgia no longer needed to lust in his heart for the presidency. David Pearson achieved one of the most spectacular Daytona 500 victories ever that year, with a paint-trading spin involving Richard Petty's car coming out of the final turn, before coaxing his smoking wreck of a Mercury across the finish line at 30 miles per hour. Now that was racing!

Also that year, despite fuel shortages and cojone-robbing emissions controls, American manufacturers dominated the auto market in the U.S., holding down the top spot against insurgent, and more economical, rivals from Japan. The Oldsmobile Cutlass grabbed the gold ring for the first time ever during this turbulent year, enabling Olds to move into third place in sales, eclipsing both Plymouth and Pontiac.

Here's an example of that top-selling '76, in buckskin, offered by an individual who really, really, really likes his Cutlasses. As it hails from the bicentennial year, the 350cid engine under the hood is an Olds Rocket V8, not a corporate parts-bin motor, as it wasn't until '77 that production limitations forced the covert insertion of Chevy engines under the hoods of the Cutlass', causing accusations of deceit from car buyers upon discovery. Olds' advertising tagline of there era was Can We Build One For You?, but apparently, no, they couldn't from '77 onward.

There's not much to be said about the car itself- it's rocking the colonnade coupe "A" body, and that 350 motor is backed up by another 350- the TH350 3-speed slusher. The buckskin paint is shinier than a tax-payer's wallet, and the engine mods probably help drivability and put a few more ponies in with the 235 installed at the factory.

It's unlikely that you will be able to find another exemplar of the era in this nice of shape at any price. Despite the non-functioning horn, extracted A/C (what, it never gets hot in Detroit?) and worn-out weatherstripping, where could you find still-functional plaid swivel seats? Or a space-saver spare that's bigger than the tires on your current car? And when was the last time your car's bumper weighed more than you do?

But sixty nine hundred dollars to step into a time capsule from the disco era? Is that an age that should be revisited, or worse, sustained? At any price? What do you think, does $6,900 put this Cutlass on the top of your sales charts? Or does that price swivel you right out of the driver's seat?

You decide!

Detroit Craigslist or go here if the ad goes the way of Oldsmobile. Thanks to Psydiphekt for the tip.

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The General whacking Olds was especially painful, given that it was the oldest American marque still making cars. In fact, if your car company wasn't named Daimler or Peugeot, it was younger than Oldsmobile. Was the fact that the world "Old" was right in the name of the 107-year-old brand part of GM's decision to put it on the chopping block by the '04 model year? Marketers probably cringed every time they saw those three letters and then contemplated the ever-increasing average age of Oldsmobile buyers.

I don't have much of a personal Olds ownership history; the only Oldsmobile that I ever drove much was a purple '69 Cutlass that I bought for 100 bucks from a friend when I was 19, after she loaned it to someone who got drunk and slid it into a tree. The entire passenger side was completely trashed, but it had a rip-roaringly powerful 350 4-barrel engine (and it was purple) and I couldn't resist making the deal. However, I can make the claim that the very first car I ever rode in was an Oldsmobile: a '56 with the 324 V8.

Now it's your turn. What was your first-ever Oldsmobile? Did you love it (Dynamic 88) or hate it (Starfire)?
Photo source: Old Car Brochures

The annual nationwide study of 1.7 million vehicles receiving traffic code violations by ISO Quality Planning in California, reveals Hummer H2s and H3s sit atop the list of most ticketed vehicles. Below, the full list of the top ten most and least ticketed vehicles.

Here's the San Francisco-based company's methodology:

Traffic code violations data for a one-year period from 2007 and 2008 were used for the study. Vehicles that were discontinued for more than 10 years were not included in the analysis. Violations were standardized based on the number of violations per 100,000 miles driven for each model. That standardization accounts for the differences in average annual miles driven by different models. Each vehicle model’s violation count per 100,000 miles was compared with the average across all the models to identify the 10 models with the highest and lowest violations, as compared to the average. For example, Hummer drivers were 4.63 times more likely to get a ticket, as compared to the average.

The study found these are the ten most ticketed vehicles, in order from most ticketed to least along with the percentage above the average:
Oh Hummer, why must you consume our pocketbooks? We love you when you run over things, play in the water or transform into a mysterious quasi-governmental robot. With the price of gas coming down, things between us have been more livable, but we still can't afford your ravenous addiction to gasoline. Maybe this is why GM is trying to off you.

Now for the other side of the ticketing coin. The ten least ticketed vehicles in the country, this time from least ticketed to most, along with the percentages less they receive tickets from the average are:

Buicks, Olds and big Chevys? Shocker. An interesting side note: Chevy Tahoes and Hummer H2s are basically the same vehicle mechanically — why the huge difference? Our guess may be it has something to do with the mind-set of the people who drive them. Remember, sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason — at least when it comes to the type of people who purchase certain vehicles.

[Newsday via Motive Forums, ISO Quality Planning]

Photo Credit: Flickr

When I started shooting photos, the owner came out to see what manner of weirdness was being inflicted on his wagon. As is almost always the case, once I explained the DOTS thing to him he was quite enthusiastic about showing off his car to the world, even opening doors and hood so I could get better photos.


The interior has been semi-restored, but most of what you're seeing is original stuff. The 330 Olds engine is the original powerplant, of course.


You could get a new '67 Vista Cruiser for $3,339, a few hundred bucks more than an Impala wagon and about the same as a Ford Country Squire.

A few decades before getting the axe from The General, Oldsmobile was moving quite a bit of iron off the showroom floors, mostly Cutlasses but also plenty of wholesome American station wagons like this one.


Sometimes the owner of a DOTS car comes out to see what's going on while I'm shooting the car, and that's what happened with this one. This guy was pleased that his pride and joy was getting such attention, and was even willing to pop the hood and let me get shots of that 185-horse 403 (also known as the "6.6 Liter" under the hood of many a Malaise Trans Am). With 320 ft-lbs on tap, the 403 worked pretty well as a station wagon powerplant.


This is a lifelong Alameda car, having been purchased from the original owner not long ago. It parks on one of the busiest north-south arteries in town, showing all those SUV drivers what a real family hauler looks like.

Yes friends, we're here to talk muscle cars. We absolutely need a ride (or two) for the porterhouse steak and french fry set. But as you know, we've got just 50 spots in our +10 Garage of Fantasy, so we need to choose with care. First we have to eliminate some contenders. So let's pick a year. 1970 seems like a nice round number. More than being round though, 1970 was the apex of not only muscle cars themselves, but of the muscle car era. Gas was $0.36 per gallon. 40,000 troops are to be pulled out of Vietnam, and an entire week went by without any dead American soldiers. Men are still golfing on the moon while Gary Gabelich drives the Blue Flame (in a very muscle car-like straight line) to a top speed of 1,014 kph. But life in the US had its downsides, too. The National Guard opened fire at Kent State killing four students. Police opened fire at Jackson State killing two. The Beatles called it quits and Elvis went back on tour. There has to be a single, burly car that encapsulates all that triumph and tumult.

1970 will always be very special for muscle car fans as it was the glorious year when GM decided to lift their self-imposed embargo mandating 400 cid as the biggest engine that could be shoehorned into a mid-size car. It also happens to be the year that saw the peak in gross horsepower for American muscle. Look at any engine-power timeline graph; thanks to emissions restrictions and OPEC it was all downhill from there. And finally, to further narrow our Fantasy Garage choices: for every lunkhead who has scoffed at my WRX because, "There's no replacement for displacement," we're eliminating all MOPARS and Fords. And the AMC Javelin, too. They are just not big enough. Look, we won't be kicking any R/T Charger 440 Magnum Six-Packs out of bed, but you got to draw lines somewhere, man. You got to draw lines. And that leaves us with these four big-blocked bastards from the General.

Buick GSX

In order to match their customers' shirts/cocaine preference, the GSX was only available in "Apollo White" or "Saturn Yellow." Whichever you chose, it came with big black stripes across the hood. There you will also find a pilfered-from-Pontiac tachometer, one of our favorite options ever. Seriously — screw heads up displays, just bolt the instruments right to the bonnet. Especially the clock. Still a brilliant piece of kit nearly four-decades on. Oh, and the car itself was quite the beefcake, too.

Coming correct with a gigantic 455 cid V8 and a Hurst four-speed, the GSX had all the grunt any self-respecting son of the seventies needed. Power figures are elusive and confusing. Officially, the factory quoted 360hp @ 4,2000rpm. No doubt this was true, but what did the mill stonk at say 5,2000rpm? At least 400 horses, if not a bit more (415 to 425 hp). GM fudged the numbers because insurance companies at the time were charging huge draconian penalties premiums based on horsepower. The corporate wink, wink saved customers from insurance payments bigger than their car payments. Luckily insurance companies didn't care about torque, as it is hard to hide 510lbs. ft. of the good stuff at a 2,8000rpm.

The GSX had a load of other performance tweaks besides the monster motivator. They included hotter cams, bigger valves (which really made the power difference in the higher rev range), a Positrac diff, beefier springs and a revised jetting for the carburetor. The transmissions (both stick and auto) were improved, too. Even better, Buick's big 455 V8 was designed smart, so the engine weighed 150lbs. less than its GM stable mates's. Though worrying about weight with this gang of four is like deriving Kirsten Dunst's IQ. Why bother?

All that twist and go-go fury made Motor Trend proclaim that the 455 GS Stage 1 is "the quickest American production car we've ever tested." Though as their quarter mile time of 13.38 is half a second faster than any other mag could muster and their zero to 60 time of 5.5 seconds is essentially unbelievable, MT was probably testing a ringer. Which was a very popular GM ploy at the time — see here. Still, 13.8 through the traps and 6.4 or so to 60 is nothing to turn your jaded 20067 noses up at. You try it on bias-plys.

But more than performance (and sound) we simply love the way the Buick GSX looks. In Saturn Yellow, of course.

Chevrolet Chevelle 454 SS

Like every other car here, 1970 saw the first time an engine larger than 400 cid went into a mid-sized Chevy. Long story short, the LS6 engine in the SS had higher compression (11.25:1) than the standard LS5 454, giving the top Chevelle the highest factory horsepower rating of any muscle car. 450 big block horses and 500 pounds of twist, numbers not beaten by a factory Chevrolet until the C6 Z06 (though the L88 Corvette pumped out somewhere in the neighborhood of 550 hp, the factory only claimed 430). Which is an impressive amount in 2007 and was quite literally earth-shaking in 1970. Car Craft got the SS through the quarter-mile in 13.12 seconds @ 107 mph. Other than all the pricks at my high school driving Chevelles, I can't think of much else to add. So let's just fanaticize about a red one with black stripes. Mmmm... muscle-y.

Oldsmobile 442 W-30


The Olds 442 started life in 1964 as a quick reaction to the runaway and unexpected success of John Z Delorean's tempest in a Tempest GTO. The technical name for the $285 option package on the Cutlass was the "B09 Police Apprehender" though no one ever called it anything but 4-4-2. The moniker stood for 4-barrell carb, 4-speeds and 2 tailpipes. And while the 442 started out life in 1964 with a relatively small 330 cubic inch motor, by 1970 Olds had super-sized the engine to a very satisfying 455 cid.

Officially the largest V8 Oldsmobile ever shoehorned into a car produced 365 hp. Obviously that's not enough so an option package was created - called W-30 - that offered up 5 more horses. In reality of course, both engines generated in excess of 400 muscular horses with the W-30 mill probably hitting 420 before valve-float became an issue. Torque? An even 500 ft. pounds of screw you, stump.

Of course the W-30 option was the only way to go. Aside from the 5 horsepower - achieved through a blueprinted engine, an upgraded cam, unrestricted exhausts and forced air-induction via the functional hood scoops - W-30 gave you a weight saving fiberglass hood and plastic inner-fenders, an aluminum pumpkin and less sound deadening material.

This added muscle and lightness made the 442 W-30 good for a 0-60 sprint of 5.7 seconds and 14.2 in the quarter-mile @ 100 mph. Interesting to me, those numbers are essentially identical to a modern WRX. Though the 442 is moving faster at the end of a quarter-mile. So, the performance is adequate for today and pretty damn special back in the year your father was chasing courting your mother. 1971 saw shorter connecting rods and reduced power. We'll take our Fantasy 1970 442 W-30 in blue with white stripes. And you know what? We'll take the convertible.

Pontiac GTO 455 Judge


And finally we get to the Judge, also known as "the Humbler." If names were all that mattered, the Judge wins this one in a walk. Besides Roadmaster, I dare you to think of a better car-moniker than the Judge. Sure beats the hell out of G6. But we'll save our "Why all modern cars have stupid names" rant for another day. We're here to talk Pontiac. And in truth, to us, the Judge is the quintessential muscle car. For not only did it have the displacement (455 cubic inches), the looks (Orbit Orange, Endura nose, fender creases, hood tach) and the lineage (it's a GTO - 'nuff said), the Judge nailed the zeitgeist of not only the muscle car craze, but of first-term Nixon America.

And since muscle cars really can be boiled down to their engines, let's examine what motivated the Judge. In truth, most Judges sold came with the Ram Air III 400 cid mill. Though for a few dollars more you could get the Ram Air IV option which boosted power to 370 horses. The 455 wasn't available on the Judge until the last quarter of 1970 and is therefore quite rare. True, the 400 cubic incher made a little bit more power than the bigger engine (4 to 10 hp, depending on who you believe), the 455 had it where it really counted - 500lbs. ft. of torque. And if you think the 455 V8 actually put out just 360 hp, I have a six-figure Countach-bodied Fiero to sell you.

And let us stress how rare these uber-Judges are. Fourteen shift-it-yourself hardtops were made, and just three convertibles, all automatics. Still not convinced? A 1970 Orbit Orange 455 Judge was the car bad guy Warren Oates drove in Two-Lane Blacktop. Case closed, your honor. – Jonny Lieberman

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[The Jalopnik Fantasy Garage appears every Tuesday. Readers vote the cars in or out. The idea is that we'll have 50 cars in our fantasy garage, the world's greatest mechanic and endless wads of cash. If you would like to nominate a car for our Fantasy Garage, email tips@jalopnik.com with the subject line "fantasy garage."]

Jalopnik Fantasy Garage, So Far:
RUF RT12
Maserati Quattroporte Executive GT
1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage
Honda 1300 Coupe 9
1931 Daimler Double Six 50 Corsica Drophead Coupe
Ferrari 288 GTO
Volkswagen Phaeton W12

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