balthazar

I could window shop there for hours. Isn't this the site that used to be 'Ephemera' or something like that ??

>>"I didn't have those in proper order, I edited it, does it make more sense now?"<< Thanks- just didn't want to be missing a page. >>"What a sorry state car design has been in."<< Like you have to tell me. :wink: Even sorrier- little did we know it ended somewhere in the 1980s...

Awesome! I have a postcard with a '58 DeSoto convert & a nicely detailed junior pedal car alongside it. I sold an unrestored circa '30 Willys-Overland pedal car about 10 years ago for $1700 or thereabouts.

HE- do you by chance have the missing page of this article ? After the 2nd-to-last page....

I am not calling you out, DF; others have said the name is good because it has a good history.... but the reality is it doesn't have a bad history, if you get my meaning. Even most general enthusiasts associate very little with 'Invicta" other than it gave birth to the Wildcat.

I like the Invicta name, besides it being a real word, it doesn't sound like a quickie made up one like 'camry' or 'corolla'. I like the name phonetically and I like it because I own one & I groove on what it represented in the lineup: the 'performance' Buick. But I must correct the record: 'Invicta is in no way a "storied" or 'rich-heritage' nameplate. It came out in '59, ran thru '62, and for '63, the only Invicta was a wagon. Dead by '64. It's predecessor, the Super, and it's successor, the Wildcat had FAR great longevity & image than the Invicta did. The lower-price LeSabre had far more exposure, the higher-priced Electra far more aspiration. Invicta has no negative image, but there's no really notable positive image, either. It was kinda just there. Still, I vote for it over LaCrosse, Regal or Lucerne.

Unless modern cars have 'de-engineered' mounts, no; they do not have to be replaced at any particular time/mileage interval. But occasionally they break, yes. I believe there's a mount right up top/front of the 3.8L, but the others are not going to be easy to see, esp the trans mount. Traditionally, there are 2 motor mounts & 1 trans mount, but I've never looked to learn how many a transverse motor may have. If it was my car, I would only replace the 1 obviously-broken mount. Not worth the book price to swap out the other 2 if they are still whole.

There's at least 1 page missing from the 'GP Express' article, between the last & 2nd-2-last posted. -- -- -- -- -- Another such creation, ironically in the same color scheme : LINKY-POO I can understand the explaination for this 2nd (actually- the 3rd: '59, '66, '68) 'El Pontiac', but any similar marketing reasoning for the GP Express specifically escapes me at the moment.

>>"...have yet to buy any vehicle with a foreign nameplate, not because of any racist tendencies..."<< Sweet crap; you do NOT have to explain why you DON'T buy foreign brands, and if for some reason there was some call to, the reason could not realistically have anything to do with racism... anymore than a person who refuses to buy domestic is doing so because of racism. -- -- -- -- -- The bridge loans don't hamper my attitude one bit. Far more non-stipulated taxpayer money went to banks which provide/build little more than a fees schedule designed specifically to fleece every person 'on the grid' in a concerted, unreasonable, monopolistic conspiracy.... yet nary a call to boycott any of the bailed out / taxpayer-bankrolled banks. Sentiment run amok. >>"You took my hard earned tax dollars without congressional approval. "<< Wake up, a-hole! GM & Chrysler's profit is NOTHING compared to the cash-soaked party in the banking industry : >>>"A study by the Associated Press says that executives at bailed out banks got $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits — including cars, personal use of company jets, and country club memberships. The total amount given to nearly 600 banking executives would have covered bailout costs for many of the banks that accepted funds from the government, says the AP. Goldman Sachs’ tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs. ... JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds. ... John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options. Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28."<<< Anyone here ever heard even a whisper of outcry against JPMorgan Chase for private jet travel ??? The CEO was COMMUTING by private jet. $25 BILLION forked over to JPMorgan. Crickets chirping. The people riding GM, Ford & Chrysler over petitioning for bridge loans MEANWHILE ignoring the banking situation ($34B vs. $350B to date) are agenda-driven idiots.

Thanks for posting this article, HE- glad for the opportunity to copy it to my digital library. Sharp looker in GP guise.

This is not an artifact from 1200 BC, nor was it built in secret, never shown & destroyed the year it was built. In the course of industrial history, the Speedster is barely 'last week'. Of course it's given name is known.

'69 Pontiac Custom-S 2-dr hardtop, orange, black vinyl top, Rallye IIs, 350 badges.

>>"rented Mercedes"<< = Europe's fleet queen. -- -- -- -- -- >>"psycho lady in a Mercedes"<< I literally just finished taking to the cop that my wife called, upon hearing a crunch and looking out the driveway-side to see a honduh wedged at a 90-degree angle to the drive right under the kitchen window, 100' from the road. I go running out there, seething at the stupidity, and low&behold: 2 young, indian chicks, apologizing up & down, scared, "lost" after missing their road, turning into a darkened driveway, driving 100' up next to the house and then trying to U-turn. I know in the soles of my Wolverines that if they had hit my house, they would've just taken off. The tires tracks in the light snow stopped about 3' from the house. I hate to generalize, but after such a wealth of observation over time, I find it hard not to: how on earth do they get licenses ??? I calmed down after a few minutes of ranting enough to see they were just hopelessly unskilled & painfully insipid, saw that they weren't drinking (I had to finish the U-turn in their clunker accord- no alcohol smell), and let them go. Cop was super cool about it, no problems with how I handled it. All of the 3 local cops I've had to deal with in person have been great, I must say. No harm done. -- -- -- -- -- 4 of us, card table, nachoes, chips-n-dip, weenies in blankets, iced tea, TV movies/ball drop.

Restored Tri-Ps go for a solid $1500, sometimes as high as $2K.

>>"Who knows... the only people that really know the formal name of that concept are probably long dead or over 85."<< Wait- this is more sarcasm, right?

>>"the 3 series will never be confused for a FWD generic"<< Twilight- the great equalizer... :wink: Seriously, unless one were to get a clear profile view of the 3-series and study it, that feature is talking in a whisper. And I think we'd be surprised at the great quantity of consumers who have no earthly idea WHAT a 3-series may be. >>"The short hood/long deck look has been gone for many decades...can't think right off of the last car to use it, maybe the 2nd gen Corvairs?"<< Those 'vairs are actually about equal, but they do give the short hood/long deck impression. 'Long hood/short deck' dates back to the first Mustang domestically- it's an oo-old & common proportion. One might call it.... dare I say... generic? It's time to move on.... When I use 'short hood/long deck' I'm being loosely literal: many I like are more equal, and true SH/LD cars are few & far between, but like the 'vair, some give that impression. >>"The short rear deck look has been taken to extremes in recent years.. "<< It absolutely has. When the horizontal plane of the decklid is even close in dimension to the vertical plane, we're already past 'wrong'.

Nice collection. And I only have 1 complete Tri-P set-up on a shelf...

I can tell you this, "Special Speedster" is not mentioned in the 825-page Packard, a History of the Motor Car and the Company.

It's not the hood/decklid proportion, which frankly is rather plebian, it's the location of the front wheels within that shell, IMO. The Mustang has more visually to occupy the eye, but with the homogenized shape of the 3, my eye tends to see that yanked-forward front wheel all the sooner. It could move back a good 4" and look a lot less strange. As if you couldn't predict it- I prefer the short hood/ long deck look, one that has been missing for decades. The back-ends of modern cars are all the same, and bland at that. With the front ends rigidly locked into corporate masks (esp the euro brands), it'd be nice for a change to get back to some style in the rear ends... but they are generally, woefully short.

>>"Because Stairway to Heaven follows a classic "slow intro that builds up into a screaming orgasm" progression. "<< See, I don't get that from 'STH'- it's so slow & relaxed it barely is able to 'get off', esp if you are going to name One in the same vein. Or maybe it's just the flute in STH.... It's a great song, but I permanently burned out on it many years ago. Forced to name 5 : One - MetallicA Problem Child - AC/DC Cretin Hop - Ramones Grip - Rollins The Disintegrators - Megadeth

>>"who says Buicks aren't aspirational!"<< I recently saw a 3-series with Buick portholes.

The #2 car is correct, but I've never seen it called the 'Special Speedster', it has always been named for the Packard head who comissioned it, the 'Macauley Speedster', and even that name was somewhat unofficial. Looks like wiki has it wrong again.

moltar :: Obviously you're talking about proportionally, otherwise I'm going to point out a larger dimension there on a FWD car as opposed to a RWD car. On the other hand, some RWD cars take this to an awkward extreme. The 3-series for one- the front wheels there are disproportionally far forward. Maybe it's a modern over-exposure to FWD, but I still prefer proportions here much more evenly balanced in the front clip rather than shoved either forward or rearward. It looks broken when viewed dead-on from the side.

'68 Firebird coupe, flat hood, rough & bondoed, overpriced @ $8K. '67 GTO shell, frame-off, a dried-out husk that's 'going to be restored one day' '67-ish Dodge 4x4 pick-up, plow attached. '64 Galaxie 500 convert, resto started. '63-64 Riviera, minty green & very presentable, for sale. The 2 moving vans from the Godfather I movie, still lettered up. Pretty big- bet a vintage Corvette would snuggle right up in the back. The one has a '54 Ford nose. For sale. '53-56 Ford F-100, freshly painted & awaiting reassembly. '39 Ford 1.5-ton dump truck with a Marmon-Herrington 4WD chassis. Ex- upstate NY plow truck, solid project. My brother bought it. A billion injection-molded plastic boredom capsules.

Too obscure for the mainstream enthusiast, 68...