CarPort

Three years ago I devoted a post to buying a car at Hershey for less than $3,000. I found the pickings were pretty slim, and that the only one I’d have been able to drive home was a Studebaker Lark for which the owner was asking $3,800. Yesterday in 2012’s Car Corral, however, I was….
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Yesterday was exactly seven months since the last Mercury was made. The thought was brought home to me recently, after my Infiniti I30 was dangerously damaged by a deer. While the insurance deliberations were evolving, I had the use of a rental car. The only vehicle available at my local agent was a spanking new….
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New York’s International Automobile Show is the last on the North American circuit and a moveable feast, in that it always opens on Easter weekend. The scribblers of the motoring press get in a couple of days early, so they can write and blog about it before the good citizens form their own opinions. There….
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Frank McMullen has been fascinated with Model A Fords since he was five years old. He built most of the Hubley diecast kits, and religiously watched The Waltons on television, drawn by the distinctive exhaust note of the Model As on the show. Somehow, though, real Model As always eluded him, the available ones being….
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In April 1979, General Motors introduced a new line of compact cars. Designated “X-bodies,” an early use of a corporate code name in automotive marketing (the predecessor X-body, the Chevrolet Nova and corporate siblings, had not used the X-word in public), the line included the Chevrolet Citation, Pontiac Phoenix, Oldsmobile Omega and Buick Skylark. The….
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October 3, 1963, is a red letter day for many car enthusiasts, but few of them know about it. It can be considered the birth date of the Pontiac GTO, as far as the public is concerned, but because the GTO was a stealth project its actual “birth” came unheralded on new-car-introduction day, a check-box….
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I’ve heard it said that in the upper reaches of collector car circles it’s considered coarse and crass to refer to a Rolls-Royce as a “Roller,” although “Rolls” is generally acceptable. The same goes for Hispano-Suiza: “Hispano,” certainly, but never “Hisso.” Why, then, does everyone refer to a Duesenberg as a “Duesie”? In fact, the….
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