My research has determined that 1977 (or maybe 1964) was “Peak Wagon” in the United States, the year in which the largest number of distinct models of new station wagons were available for sale here. Why, Datsun alone sold three different wagon models here in 1977, while Dodge had four, and even Fiat offered a couple.
Toyota began selling pickups in North America in 1964, when the Stout 1900 appeared on our streets. The Stout never really caught on here, despite its cool name, but a more civilized small Toyota pickup proved to be an enduring sales success on our side of the Pacific: the Hilux. Today’s Junkyard Gem is a
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Junkyard Gem: 1978 Chevrolet Chevy Van originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 24 Apr 2023 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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While Ford and GM proved to have sufficiently deep pockets to design their own US-market subcompacts for the fuel-starved 1970s, Chrysler had to look to its overseas outposts to create such a car. Turning to Simca, which had become part of Chrysler Europe after Chrysler’s absorption of the Rootes Group, a promising hatchback concept was
The first new Volkswagen Beetles went on sale in the United States in 1949, cable-operated brakes and all, and Americans could buy brand-new air-cooled Beetles here until the very last 1979 convertibles drove off the showroom floors. Volkswagen of America’s best period for Beetle sales was 1968-1970, with well over 350,000 units sold each year,
Sometimes a car manufacturer creates a chassis design that continues to make money for decade after decade, and that’s just the jackpot that the Ford Motor Company hit when it built the 1960 Ford Falcon. While that car itself stayed in production in Argentina all the way through 1991, the real payoff for Dearborn came with
The car news in 1979 America wasn’t all bad, despite gas rationing and Detroit V8s producing 25 horsepower per liter of displacement. That’s because some of the plushest, flashiest, white-powder-ready luxury coupes in history were rolling off assembly lines at the time. Ford’s game was strong when it came to such machinery; there were long-snouted
Starting with the 1939 model year and continuing through 2011, the rule in Dearborn was that most Ford models would get a dressed-up sibling wearing Mercury badges (and Canadians even got Mercury F-100s and Econolines). When the Mustang first hit showrooms in 1964, the countdown for a Mercurized version began. That car, the Cougar, debuted
Cadillac built Eldorados from the 1953 through 2002 model years, with the model becoming a huge personal luxury coupe equipped with front-wheel-drive starting with the 1967 models. Of all those front-drive/two-door Eldos, the biggest and most opulent were the 1971-1978 cars; the most powerful of that bunch were the 1971 and 1972 models. Here’s one
British Leyland began selling the Jaguar XJ in 1968, and production continued through multiple platform generations (and corporate owners) until just a few years ago. The original XJ was facelifted twice, in 1973 and 1979, with sales of the six-cylinder version extending into 1987 (Series 3 cars with V12s were built through 1992). Production numbers
