Back from Import Carlisle

Import Carlisle is, as far as I know, the largest multi-marque imported car show on the East Coast, and it’s a show we at Hemmings wouldn’t miss, never mind the six-hour drive from Bennington. This year, Richard Lentinello, Terry McGean, Craig Fitzgerald and I roamed the rows of show cars, hunted for deals on parts and tools and had our skinflint resolve tested by the cars for sale.

This was a genuine find: a Vanden Plas Princess 4 Litre that had been in storage since 1985, and had just 22,400 miles on the clock. The asking price was a more than reasonable $5,900. The paint and leather were original, and nice.

Even closer to my price range was this pristine Jaguar XJ6 Vanden Plas, a car sometimes referred to by its code name, XJ40. It had about 100,000 miles, but was just immaculate, and both Craig and I were trying to figure out how we could drive it home. With an asking price of just $2,750, I wasn’t surprised that it sold early in the day on Saturday.

Another Jag needing a new home: a 1953 Mark VII, with one owner since the early 1970s. It needed paint, but was tidy and ran well. Asking price: $12,000.

This year’s featured class was the cars of Japan, and one of the nicest on the show field was this 1966 Datsun 1500 Roadster owned by Martin Lind.

What’s the last time you saw a first-generation VW Scirocco? Ed Cain owns this 1977 example.

Joe Petry of the Citroen Car Club of America brought this 1970 HY van. Yeah, I want one too.

There were a good number of Opels. This sweet 1969 Kadett wagon belongs to Kevin Fier.

Club participation is always strong at Carlisle. The North American Spitfire Squadron, Fiat-Lancia Unlimited, Opel Association of North America, Renault Owners Club of North America, the National Capital Fiat Club, North American MGB Register and a bunch of other clubs planted their flags in the Pennsylvania soil.

Project cars were abundant. How about a winsome Bugeye Sprite? I didn’t see an asking price posted.

Another project: an early Spitfire (MK 2 with a Mk 3 bumper, maybe?). Lots of welding had already been done, but it needed an engine and gearbox. The asking price was $600.

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Wagon Snippet: A Tale of Two Chevys

In this installment of Wagon Snippets, I could not resists including two gems from bygone days, each produced a single model year apart from the same, once-proud halls of GM’s Chevrolet Division. Back when one was enticed to see the U.S.A., some 198,066 customers chose the wagon as their means in 1960. Four were offered that model year: the Nomad, Parkwood, Kingswood and the Brookwood.

Spotted at this year’s Spring Carlisle was this four-door, six-passenger Brookwood, which was slid into the Biscayne series of automobiles; it was also offered as a two-door, six-passenger model. Both were available in straight-six or V-8 configuration, but to be honest, we’re not sure which plant was under the hood here. All that was listed was “Make Offer” for the questionably complete wagon - rot and all. It reminded me of some of the cars that were used in a demolition derby at the long ago closed Islip Speedway (Islip, New York - closed in 1984) back when ABC had cameras there in the early Seventies. Along with the Figure 8 races, the demo derbies were aired during their Wide World of Sports telecasts (remember them?). Summer beater, return it to its glory, or one crazy stock-looking sleeper?

Mere feet away - as the crow flies - was this superbly pristine 1961 Parkwood, which was retained as part of the Bel Air series from the previous year. Also unchanged was the straight-six or V-8 means of motivation, though total wagon production fell to 168,935 units. According to the seller of this example, it’s a six-passenger model with roughly 93,000 miles showing on the odometer. In storage since 1989, the engine had been recently rebuilt, mechanicals were refreshed (the seller’s words, not ours), and with exception of the single repaint, it was in factory-stock, original condition. It also contained the Hi-Thrift Six, backed by a column-shifted automatic; a $14,999 asking price was scribed across the windshield.

According to the latest figures we were able to crunch, a condition #1 Brookwood from 1960 is currently valued at roughly $14,500, while a condition #1 Parkwood from 1961 brings $15,000 (A disclaimer: that’s the value for each V-8 powered wagon - straight-six powered cars tend to bring roughly 5 percent less).

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GM A-Body Brethren: Four-Speeds Forever!

If you caught my last post about real deals under 5K, some of you may easily recall the black 1979 Chevy Malibu parked right next to a white 1978 Pontiac Grand Le Mans. Both were coupes, and at the time, I promised more specific details of both.

We’ll start alphabetically, if for no other reason. The A-body Malibu (later shifted to the G-body platform starting in 1982) has long been a favorite among circle track combatants. They also make for a relatively cheap hot rod for quarter-mile conquistadors, at least for those who dare. That’s it. This one in particular had signage in the window that indicated this one was equipped with bucket seats, a center console and a 250-cu.in. V-8. We’ll dispute the latter, to some degree, in that the 5.0L 305 was tops in ‘79, except in the wagon version. But the point here is that topping the list was the “Factory Four-Speed” notation. Yup - most probably don’t know that one could have ordered a four-speed that year. In fact, 1,903 were reportedly produced with it - far more than the 1980 version, but impressively low considering the stratospheric total production number well into the six figures.

And what of the ‘78 Pontiac? Same thing - touted as a factory four-speed equipped version. A one-owner car with 92,000 miles, buckets, console, heavy-duty suspension, Posi rear, air and other power options. According to the resources we have on hand, the four-speed was a $125 option, and for the moment, any production guess is as good as ours - we’re betting somewhere under 500.

Again, in spite of the fact that - on paper - they are not the single most desirable set of cars to leave the GM assembly line, with the four-speed knowledge now in the forefront, would you have been willing to part with the $2,900 and $2,500 (respectively) asking price?

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The coolest Brazilian Chevettes ever?

Students of nerd car history know that the Chevette had its origins as a world car, developed largely in Brazil, so it comes as no surprise that Carro Antigo, the site full of Brazilian prototypes and other oddities that we featured yesterday, would have a few oddball Chevettes.

Starting with the 1974 Chevette Monza show car, a design study by GM of Brazil and presented at the São Paulo auto show that year.

Four years later, GM Brazil showed off the Chevette S/R, a concept intended to replace the sporty but slow 1976-1978 Chevette GP. Aside from the spoilers, skirts, hood and covered headlamps, the S/R featured a 1.6-liter engine - a whole .2 liters bigger than the engine that then powered the Chevette. Carro Antigo notes that the S/R did go into production in 1981, though sans the body cladding and on the hatchback body style.

Finally, not a Chevette, but the larger Opala Águia (Eagle) concept from 1972. Seems to be mostly a styling exercise that co-opted the Firebird’s screaming chicken. Awesome.

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Probably could have gotten both for $5,000 and had a father/son (or father/daughter) ...

Think about it folks. Cars from the early Eighties are AACA eligible. That’s right: That ‘81 Malibu you trashed on the secondary street back in high school is now an antique. Same for that ‘82 Camaro you started in the driveway with a brick on the gas pedal to see if the engine would blow up. And you laughed at your uncle when he said that his ‘79 Cordoba would be seen at a car show some day.

Those days are here, and these cars (along with most of Detroit’s best from the Seventies - “best” used loosely among several) represent the single best way to get into the hobby if you’re on a very tight budget. Perfect for the youth movement into the hobby that several national car clubs are waiting for. Here are just a few example captured for sale at this past April’s Spring Carlisle.

This is the next generation of a barn find: A 1982 Buick Regal sedan with its paint intact (I though all the paint looked like crap by now on GM cars from this era?) before the barn even came close to falling in on it. Listed as always garaged - we believe it, looking at it - the four-door contains an economy-minded, non-turbo 3.8L V-6, has air, power brakes and steering, an automatic (they all did), cruise control and an AM-FM radio. All for $3,495, which was already marked down from $3,900. Heck, we’d be tempted to drive it daily.

Then there was this 1977 Chevy Malibu wagon with 68,000 miles showing. So, wagons are cheap - $4,900 for this one, complete with a V-8, automatic transmission and bench seat. The seller may not have been a very detailed-oriented kind of person, but hey, who needs to be for that price? And besides, we all know how much fun wagons can be - and they are a lot more stable that a SUV with junior behind the wheel.

How about this pair? Circle track racers have been a fan of this body style for some time due to their light overall weight and abundant production. The black ‘79 Chevy Malibu had an asking price of $2,900, while the lesser-seen ‘78 Pontiac Grand Le Mans had a $2,500 sticker. There was something a bit more interesting about this pair that deserves more attention… more on these in a later post. Probably could have gotten both for $5,000 and had a father/son (or father/daughter) A-body garage to reminisce over for years to come.

And then there was this. Yup, a 1979 AMC Pacer DL. That’s Hemmings Motor News editor Mike McNessor in the background. Both of us agreed in mere seconds that this single car was the best deal on the grounds. Period. I know, it’s a Pacer - the car that everyone loves to laugh at. But the sticker here wasn’t $5,000, or even $4,000. If we read correctly what we saw on the windshield, you could have gotten yourself a virtually new, 43,000-mile car, with a 110hp 258-cube inline six, power steering and brakes, AM-FM radio, dual reclining buckets, as well as a new water pump, hoses and radials, all for $2,000! Seems low, but as far as we’re aware, that’s no typo.

So, instead of hoping to find a good deal on a collector car, or even a truck, get out there and check things out for yourself. You may never know what you’ll come across - so long as you broaden your scope!

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