Car Talk → 2022

[jaismith08]

Nice! I love that hummer H3T pickup truck. So cool..

[Subdude]

Analog clocks have been the norm in luxury cars for a long time, except for perhaps a brief time in the 90s and early 00s. Nothing new, really.

 

If I'm not mistaken Infiniti was the first with the analog clocks, so that would have been early 1990s I think.  To me it is a bit of an affectation that became required in luxury cars.  The odd thing is that physical dials of any sort likely won't last much through this decade.  At some point they will be replaced by flexible displays like ipads.

[Subdude]

Close, the 80s was all about the harsh lines and wedges. (See DMC for the classic example).

 

BMW (excluding the M1), and Volvo clearly didn't pay attention to the wedge, but were happy to do the whole harsh lines thing.

 

US auto manufacturers were too busy racing to make the worst cars possible they didn't care what anyone else was doing. Little did they know Chrysler had a winner in the Kcar early in the decade although the cadillac cimarron came a close second.

 

It's kind of hard to package car design into calendar decades though.  The straight-edged designs (originally promoted as "Sheer Design" really began with the 1975 Seville, and continued into the early 1980s during the first wave of downsizing.  More rounded "jellybean" styles started becoming popular with Ford in the early and mid-1980s, and were adopted by other manufacturers in the late 1980s after the Taurus was a hit.  

 

The K-car saved Chrysler, but they held on to variations of it for way too long (Exhibit 1: Dodge Dynasty).

[brhaltx]

If I'm not mistaken Infiniti was the first with the analog clocks, so that would have been early 1990s I think.  To me it is a bit of an affectation that became required in luxury cars.  The odd thing is that physical dials of any sort likely won't last much through this decade.  At some point they will be replaced by flexible displays like ipads.

 

   I think analog clocks predate Infiniti.

[mollusk]

I remember analog clocks in several geez-Dad-can-you-be-more-boring cars from my childhood.  None of them worked.

[JLWM8609]

If I'm not mistaken Infiniti was the first with the analog clocks, so that would have been early 1990s I think. 

Analog clocks were in luxury cars long before Infiniti was conceived.

 

1978 Lincoln Continental Mark V Cartier

I'd love to take one of those big barges on a drive around town. People will let you change lanes when they realize that you can park a Suburban on the hood of a Mark V, and those big chrome 5 mph federally mandated bumpers will make mincemeat out of of their 3 series.

 

1959 Cadillac with the clock above the ignition

 

Those are just two examples. If you'd like to read more about clocks in cars, see this blog:

http://watchismo.blogspot.com/2007/06/time-on-road-dash-of-dashboard-clock.html

Edited July 8, 2014 by JLWM8609

[samagon]

It's kind of hard to package car design into calendar decades though.  The straight-edged designs (originally promoted as "Sheer Design" really began with the 1975 Seville, and continued into the early 1980s during the first wave of downsizing.  More rounded "jellybean" styles started becoming popular with Ford in the early and mid-1980s, and were adopted by other manufacturers in the late 1980s after the Taurus was a hit.  

 

The K-car saved Chrysler, but they held on to variations of it for way too long (Exhibit 1: Dodge Dynasty).

 

The K-car helped to bring them out, the minivan did a lot for them as well. That doesn't make the K-car anything less than it was though, cheap, really cheap. It sold like hotcakes, yes, that's true, but it sucked the soul out of its owners and fell apart on them when it had finished harvesting.

[JLWM8609]

Speaking of the K-car, here's a video from 1980 about the development of it. Gotta love that music.

[Subdude]

I should have clarified about Infiniti and the analog clocks.  Of course they weren't the first, but I do think they were the first to bring back analog clocks to luxury cars.  If you look at car ads from before that, a lot of them emphasized having digital clocks as a desirable feature.  It would have been considered very futuristic at one point.  Infiniti even made a point of advertising their analog clocks as a selling point, which struck me as a bit OTT at the time.  

 

 

I'll have to watch the k-car video.  Thanks for posting that.  Even when it was new it was a depressing vehicle.  

[JLWM8609]

I should have clarified about Infiniti and the analog clocks.  Of course they weren't the first, but I do think they were the first to bring back analog clocks to luxury cars.  If you look at car ads from before that, a lot of them emphasized having digital clocks as a desirable feature.  It would have been considered very futuristic at one point.  Infiniti even made a point of advertising their analog clocks as a selling point, which struck me as a bit OTT at the time.  

 

 

It's funny how tastes change. I think Cadillac was one of the first to have digital clocks with a LED display. If you had the trip computer option in the Seville, you got the LED clock. I believe that was for the 78 and 79 model year.

[Specwriter]

It's funny how tastes change. I think Cadillac was one of the first to have digital clocks with a LED display. If you had the trip computer option in the Seville, you got the LED clock. I believe that was for the 78 and 79 model year.

 

My father's 1978 Bonneville Brougham (o.k. not really an Eldorado or Mark V but as luxurious a mid-priced car that could be had in those days) had a digital clock but it was not an LED. It had drums that had numbers on them which rotated through a small window much like the speedometer on a mid '60's Riviera (or was it the Toronado?). The clock was in the center of the dash above the controls for the air conditioner. The car was in the family for about 11 years and the clock was still working when the car was sold.

 

[mkultra25]

My father's 1978 Bonneville Brougham (o.k. not really an Eldorado or Mark V but as luxurious a mid-priced car that could be had in those days) had a digital clock but it was not an LED. It had drums that had numbers on them which rotated through a small window much like the speedometer on a mid '60's Riviera (or was it the Toronado?). 

 

Both, actually. 

 

1966 Riviera:

 

 

1967 Toronado:

 

[Subdude]

The Toronado reminds me.  Like digital clocks, which went from being considered luxury items to not so, front-wheel drive was once a feature of luxury cars (Toronado, Eldorado) but at some point stopped being so.  Nowadays there is nothing comparable.

[samagon]

Perception, and packaging.

 

It was significantly cheaper to do FWD, so a lot of brands were going FWD wherever they could and it fell to marketing departments to explain to customers that FWD was better.

 

RWD packaging is still more expensive than FWD, but not by as much. add to that the companies that held onto RWD were sought after and their marketing departments said RWD is better than FWD (BMW mainly), and people believed it (which if you're concerned about performance, it's true, so good on them).

 

At least, that's the best I can figure. 

[JLWM8609]

Perception, and packaging.

 

It was significantly cheaper to do FWD, so a lot of brands were going FWD wherever they could and it fell to marketing departments to explain to customers that FWD was better.

 

RWD packaging is still more expensive than FWD, but not by as much. add to that the companies that held onto RWD were sought after and their marketing departments said RWD is better than FWD (BMW mainly), and people believed it (which if you're concerned about performance, it's true, so good on them).

 

At least, that's the best I can figure. 

 

In the 1960s, FWD was more of a novelty than it is today. While the 67+ Eldorado and Toronado were FWD, they were still massive cars. In the 80s when GM switched most of its lineup to downsized FWD cars to meet CAFE standards, many Cadillac owners switched to Lincoln since they were still producing the traditional, large, RWD Town Car. It's interesting because in 1980, Ford was planning to kill the RWD Panther platform and switch to a FWD platform for their big cars (LTD Crown Vic/ Grand Marquis/ Town Car) by 1986. They would've switched to FWD around the same time that GM did if they had the money, but Ford was having a financial crisis, and most of the money they had was going toward the new Taurus/Sable program. As a result, Ford delayed their decision of whether switch to FWD. When they saw how GM's FWD products were failing, they were able to decide to axe those plans. Town Car sales jumped 300% over 1980 levels in 1984 due to an improvement in the economy (gas prices didn't rise as much as predicted) and also due to Cadillac owners rejecting the new FWD offerings. Cadillac still had the B-body Brougham/Fleetwood at that time, but if you didn't want to pay Fleetwood money for a RWD Cadillac, you were out of luck.

 

Now, Cadillac is starting to do the reverse. The FWD DTS was dumped a few years back. The ATS and CTS are RWD, and Cadillac will introduce a large RWD vehicle soon, possibly called the LTS. It will be Cadillac's first large RWD car since the 1996 Fleetwood and is meant to compete with the Mercedes-Benz S-class, Audi A8, and BMW 7 series. Meanwhile, Lincoln just announced a few weeks ago that they don't have any plans for a large flagship car.

 

1989 LA Times Article about how Cadillac owners flocked to Lincoln after the downsized FWD cars hit the market

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-08/business/fi-523_1_town-car-luxury

 

1966-1970 Oldsmobile Toronado history

http://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/oldsmobile-toronado-1966-1970/view-all/

[samagon]

Right, but right at the beginning of that kcar video (49 seconds) excellent traction, responsive handling and better fuel economy. It helps increase interior volume of the vehicle (the biggest benefit, they didn't even mention), reduces overall weight, and does reduce the weight and number of moving parts. the last 2 will increase efficiency, but only nominally.

 

FWD does not provide excellent traction, it has most of the weight over the front wheels. You can maybe make an argument that if you're in the snow you don't have to carry around bags of sand in the trunk in winter.  responsive handling, responsive if you want natural under steer and torque steer (probably not a problem with <100 hp vehicles). These reasons for why FWD is a superior platform are pure marketing tripe to get people to buy into the perception that FWD is better, when it really is only better because it is cheaper over the long run to manufacture.

 

Yes, tooling to go from RWD to FWD is expensive when you've already got the tools to do RWD, but after that investment, each car is significantly cheaper to produce.

 

All through the 80s Ford was bringing FWD cars to market, perhaps not full size because of the reasons you mentioned, but even upscale cars from Ford were going FWD, for the sad moment that Ford owned Jag in the 90s and 00s they forced the mondeo (FWD) on them, and the continental was based on the taurus FWD platform. Although, as you said, the RWD platform was still going strong, ford had envisioned for the probe (FWD) as the replacement for the mustang and they came close to doing it too.

 

Anyway, yeah, it cost money to retool factories to FWD and to design the FWD platforms to replace the RWD platforms, but once those hurdles were overcome, back when everyone was scrambling to transition to that layout it was because over time, they would make so much more money charging people the same amount or more for the 'better' FWD layout and it costing them significantly less per unit (after the initial cost) it was, cost effective for FWD.

 

Now though, there have been some really great advances in manufacturing that allow car manufacturers to make RWD cars at similar costs as FWD. it is still a huge size savings to have a FWD layout (which is why small cars are rarely RWD unless they are performance oriented), so on smaller (and some midsized) cars where interior volume is key, and cars where the cargo volume is important (x-overs) it makes a lot of sense to still do FWD. and it is still cheaper to do FWD.

[HoustonMidtown]

 

 

FWD does not provide excellent traction, it has most of the weight over the front wheels. You can maybe make an argument that if you're in the snow you don't have to carry around bags of sand in the trunk in winter.  responsive handling, responsive if you want natural under steer and torque steer (probably not a problem with <100 hp vehicles). 

 

 

I grew up in Michigan and have driven both front wheel drive and rear wheel drive in the winter - front wheel drive was far superior in the winter compared to rear wheel drive, even with snow tires. This was back in the 80s when there wasn't such a thing as traction control so things may be different now (I haven't driven in snow for almost 20 yrs now)

[mollusk]

Torque steer used to be there even on <100 hp cars.  I know, I once had a '78 Fiesta (which was a very amusing tin can to drive).  

 

On smaller cars, the difference in interior room is really noticeable.  I imagine that many of y'all didn't get to luxuriate in a Vega, Pinto, or Mustang II, but the transmission and drive shaft hump really ate into the real estate.  Meanwhile, the VWs, Corvairs (rear engine and rear wheel drive, making for some... interesting handling with narrow bias ply tires and swing axles), Fiat 128s, etc. had lots more room in comparison.

 

(Edit:  reading back over this, Good Lord we had some nasty POS cars in the 70s!)

Edited July 11, 2014 by mollusk

[HoustonMidtown]

(Edit:  reading back over this, Good Lord we had some nasty POS cars in the 70s!)

 

Right.....

 

Pintos.....Chevettes......Pacers.......

Edited July 11, 2014 by HoustonMidtown

[mollusk]

How could I forget the Chevette?  One of the drivers of GM's near demise.  Granted, not quite as bad as the X cars (Citation, Cimarron, etc.), but that's like saying that I prefer smashing my thumb with a small hammer over one used for framing houses.

[Fringe]

Since we are talking about POS cars, the very first NEW car I bought (owned several older cars previously) was a 72 Gremlin X with a V8. I wanted the V8 so bad I could not afford AC or auto transmission. It still cost me almost $2000. Although it was a POS that baby sure would move. With the V8 and no weight on the back I could burn rubber all day. Sometimes I wish I had sprung for AC like when wife and I took it to Arizona and Nevada and it was like 120 degrees.  

I like to think of it as the first "crossover" vehicle. 

 

[samagon]

I bet it was a blast to drive though.

 

I haven't had any car that was a real POS, the worst I had was an '86 s10 blazer 4x4. it was the slowest thing I have ever driven, but it was great for camping and bulletproof.

[mkultra25]

Since we are talking about POS cars, the very first NEW car I bought (owned several older cars previously) was a 72 Gremlin X with a V8. I wanted the V8 so bad I could not afford AC or auto transmission. It still cost me almost $2000. Although it was a POS that baby sure would move. With the V8 and no weight on the back I could burn rubber all day. Sometimes I wish I had sprung for AC like when wife and I took it to Arizona and Nevada and it was like 120 degrees.  

I like to think of it as the first "crossover" vehicle. 

 

I think the Gremlin gets unfairly lumped in with far crappier cars too frequently. I've had occasion in the past to drive a Chevette, a Vega, a Pontiac Sunbird (aka Sunturd), and a Gremlin, albeit one with the slant-six as opposed to the V8. The Gremlin was much nicer to drive than the other three wretched excuses for automobiles, and was certainly far more reliable. 

 

The Sunbird had the infamous 4-cylinder "Iron Duke" engine. It was my GF's car, and my strongest memory of it is driving it from Houston to Corpus during the hottest part of the summer with a non-functional AC and a cracked exhaust manifold. 

[Fringe]

American Motors cars just weren't built to last which was their demise. It's a shame though because they had some really innovative designs. Of course in the 70's and 80's it seemed no American made car was built to last beyond 100,000 miles. 

[Purpledevil]

^ I wouldn't go that far. We had a '59 Rambler (the first year that American's name was on them) and it lasted well up into the late 90s. The biggest problem with that beast was the fact that everything was operated by vacuum. That's not good when a hose breaks in the middle of a gully washer and you have wipers that don't have enough force to move them, lol.

I still have my Duster which has 166k on it, and my Fury which has 154k. Chrysler used to make some pretty solid cars. The Fury was hit by a U Haul truck back in the early 90s. Totaled the U Haul, creased the fender on the Fury. Biggest problem with all Mopars from those days were the under carriages. I lost a '73 Roadrunner, a '74 Charger, and a '77 Grand Fury all to floor board and trunk pan cancer.

The K cars stunk, every one of them lost their paint within 10 years. My grandparents last car was a '90 Spirit. Kept under a carport for the first 12 years of its life, and still the paint started to look a little faded on the roof and the hood. Once the car was given to me, it was parked out in the driveway without any covering. Within 6 months, the paint was popping off in pretty sizable chunks. Motor and tranny were still in tip top shape, but that had more to do with the Sprit only having 48k on it at 12 years old, than the age of the car itself. We drove it for a couple of years until things started going south on it and then sold it poste haste. The same paint problem reared its ugly head on our '88 Daytona and now on my wife's '01 Neon. I guess it had something to do with the type of paint that Chrysler used for all those years. I've never noticed it happening as often or as bad on makes other than Mopar during this time.

[Purpledevil]

You know, you guys are going to have to forgive me for cracking wise on our younger members, but I ask you how many looked at mkultra's Toronado picture and wondered what the hell does the "S" & "L" stand for?

[samagon]

S = Second

L = Low

 

Some of them would read PRND2L.

 

Pretty much every automatic was a 3 speed, so you could select every gear manually, when they started building 4 speed automatics, they did away with the 2nd gear selection, and only had a D and L, the low just made the transmission kick down a gear for engine braking (such as when you're doing a mountain descent to save the brakes from boiling).

 

Also in the mid 80s you started seeing a circle around the D, and there was usually a button accompanying it on the gear stalk, this would put it into "overdrive" which usually meant it activated a lock up in the torque converter.

Edited July 17, 2014 by samagon

[ernie5823]

On the early (1940s & 50s) GM Hydra-Matics the "S" stood for "Super", I believe. As a teenager I had a '55 Olds which had two speeds in "L", one in "S" & one in "D", making it a 4 speed automatic. Sometime in the 60s, I believe, GM went to a 3 speed "hydramatic".

[Subdude]

How could I forget the Chevette?  One of the drivers of GM's near demise.  Granted, not quite as bad as the X cars (Citation, Cimarron, etc.), but that's like saying that I prefer smashing my thumb with a small hammer over one used for framing houses.

 

Cimarron was actually a J-car.  Hard to believe in retrospect, but I remember reading that that was meant to be their response to the BMWs that were becoming popular at the time.  Instead it practically destroyed their reputation for decades.  The Chevette was utter junk.  I can't see the point in a RWD subcompact.  It's not like a Chevette driver would have been concerned about better handling!

[august948]

 The Fury was hit by a U Haul truck back in the early 90s. Totaled the U Haul, creased the fender on the Fury.

 

That reminds me of my wife's car in college.  An early-mid seventy's Mercury Monarch.  Got hit by a school bus.  Bus flipped on it's side.  The Monarch got a litte yellow paint on it and a small dent.  That car was built like a tank.

 

Edited July 22, 2014 by august948