If you came across a Mazda Miata en route to the crusher, what would you do with it? While any variety of answers immediately come to mind—track day beater, stripped street car, V8 swap—we bet you didn't think about stretching it and adding two Chevy 350ci V8s.
"They" say by a certain age you fall into a certain pattern of statistics that include ownership of a typical four door sedan, like say a Ford Taurus. Ford had a surefire way to prove "them" wrong—the 1990 Ford Taurus SHO.
By 1990 the malaise era was long over and you were able to walk into a car dealership and purchase a variety of different vehicles with legitimate performance potential. Although many cars of the 1990s have since been overshadowed by the more potent vehicles offered in the 2000s, the decade had it's share of great…
The only place you'll have any luck outrunning street bikes, race cars and planes in a 1990 Nissan 300ZX is in a dream, but what a dream it is.
Despite outward appearances, the "space vehicle of the 90s" wasn't something from another planet or an oversized household cleaning appliance, it was just a really hideous minivan.
I've got plenty of tales of the wretched heaps I've owned over the years, but I lack sufficient photographic evidence of my Free Beater Era. Now, however, I've unearthed this old shot of the legendary Free '68 Volvo 144.
Back when I was more serious about photography (i.e., when I thought it was cool to huff Dektol fumes in a darkened closet), I would reload disposable 35mm cameras with Tri-X 400 black-and-white film and shoot images like this.
What did The General need most of all in the late 1980s? You got it, another marque! All those Suzukis and Toyotas being built in California and Ontario needed friendly Detroit-style badging, not to mention those Japan-built Isuzus.
The saga of end-times AMC took an interesting plot twist when Chrysler decided to rebadge the Eagle Premier (itself loosely based on the Renault 25) as a Dodge Monaco. Hey, didn't the Blues Brothers drive a Monaco?
Did any kid back in the reign of Bush I actually believe the Oldsmobile Silhouette was cool? For that matter, would any parent buy a minivan the kid liked? Minivans are all about punishing kids!
Listen for the note of disapproval when the voiceover gets to the part about the 1990 Taurus SHO's crazy Yamaha engine.
You know what's wrong with most engines? The transmission is forced to take the power from the end of the crankshaft. But, hey, what if you were to take the power out of the middle of the crank? Transverse-mounted I8!
We all know how the normal trajectory goes with a homemade convertible: First, a car already teetering on the brink of the junkyard meets a couple of dudes with a case of beer and a Sawzall…
Just a few years earlier, Honda pitched its CRX as a fire-breathing hot rod, but by 1990 the marketers had decided to go cute. Thus, the sporty CRX is presented as the ideal car for long drives in Meth Country.
After hearing the Datsun 710 Theme Song yesterday, I remembered that my old industro-noise band, Murilee Arraiac, recorded a song entitled "Chrysler New Yorker."
With a 1990 Chrysler TC By Maserati yesterday, the only possible DOTS choice for today must be The General's TC killer: Reatta!
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 an Alameda Ferrari, and now we've got a Maserati!
How could The General bring himself to axe Pontiac, with a history like this? We'll admit the N-body Grand Am wasn't Pontiac's finest hour, but it was orders of magnitude better than the execrable Phoenix!
When you're inspecting cars fresh off the line, what do you look for? Well, if you're working at the Van Nuys plant building third-gen Camaros… well, no need to go there, eh?
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.
