Oh yeah, Javelin. Thanks! That was the 3rd AMC I had that I couldn’t remember what model it was. So I had a Javelin, Matador and Hornet. All were used and in rough shape, 1 was free and the other 2 were VERY cheap. They got me by though.
I forgot that Ford owned Aston Martin from the 90s to 2007. Helped save that brand, too. Now 25% owned by Canadian Lawrence Stroll along with Mercedes ownership. Merc supplies AM with engines, too.
They aren’t. That V8 is Jag’s own design built in a Jaguar plant within a Ford facility. Ford used the engine in some models but it was never a Ford engine. The V8 variant is based off this V8 as well.
Two Fords that used the Jag AJ35 3.9 were the Lincoln LS and the retro T-Bird.
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Back when I bought used cars, I heard two competing theories:
- Buy an unpopular new car when it becomes a used car. The unpopular used car will depreciate more rapidly which makes it a good buy as a used car. Tom McCahill recommended this method in “What You Should Know About Cars”. He thought the best buys as used cars were in the medium priced field.
- “Stick with your Fords and Chevys”. An old mechanic friend gave me this advice. His reasoning was that parts are more readily available and all mechanics are familiar with them.
Back in the early 1960s, I should have followed #2. The most troublesome car I ever owned was a 1955 Pontiac. It was a manual transmission and the dealer, a Rambler dealer, had just overhauled the engine. The car had a manual transmission. According to Consumer Reports, the 1955 Pontiac had a good repair record. Manual transmissions were supposedly less problematic than the automatic transmissions. What I didn’t realize was that there are different levels of engine overhaul ranging from a sloppy patch which consisted of an in chassis installation of new rings and grinding the valves to pulling the engine and doing a thorough rebuild. The Pontiac had just been given a sloppy patch. The transmission linkage never worked smoothly. I had to have new bearings installed in the transmission. The GM Hydramatic by 1955 had become a very reliable. The Pontiac engine was unique to Pontiac. Each GM division back then had its own engine.
On the other hand, according to CR, the 1955 and 1956;Ford did not have good repair records. However, parts were readily available and all mechanics were familiar with them.
Putting the two theories together, that of my mechanic friend and that of Tom McCahill, a 1955 or 1956 Mercury would have been a better buy. The Mercury used an engine that was also used in the Ford in 1956, yet the Ford fetched more on the market than the Mercury. For the same reason, the 1959 and 1960 Edsel (but not the 1958) were essentially Fords but had really depreciated in value after the Edsel line was dropped.
When I decided to replace the 1955 Pontiac, I stumbled across, in 1963 a 1959 Dodge Coronet with a 6 cylinder engine and manual transmission. The car had low miles and was in great condition. The price was $850. Now that Dodge, with its 6 cylinder flathead engine was a real slug. Consumer Reports analysis of the 1957 Dodge with the 6 was “A good reason to buy this car is hard to find”. Yet, for strictly low cost TM transportation, that 1959 Dodge would have been a great buy. The same 6 cylinder engine was used in the Plymouth and the Dodge trucks.
Today, I guess people should stick with Toyota and Honda.
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My 77 Corolla was very light. Getting passed by a big semi was frightening, but it was especially light in the rear end, so much so that it felt like the rear tires were going to lose contact with the pavement when I went over a speed bump, no matter how slowly. I put a 75 lb. bag of gravel in the trunk and it improved things a great deal.
A guy about 9 mile south of me had a fairly decent old Corvair sitting in the door of a barn. Nothing special as it was a 4 DR. A tornado came through and flattened the barn one day. When they pulled the barn debris off of it the car was about 2.5 feet tall. Just totally squashed it.
The cheapest car I ever owned of the 25 I had was bought in the early/mid 70s while in CA. It was a 4 DR 1960 Chrysler New Yorker with the tail fins and a 413. Ran good with a clean title and current tag. I bought it from an outlaw biker who had no interest in it anymore. He sold it to me for 10 bucks and I drove it back to OK with no problems other than a flat tire out in the Mojave.
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Oh I dinna know to include go karts. So I’ll bite.
Royal Norseman cart-Paid $15 for it w/o engine. Bought $5 engine
63 MoPed-yeah do the math
60 Morris Minor
59 VW
59 Pontiac
68 Dodge Dart
74 Olds Cutlass
61 Corvair
67 Buick vista Wagon
73 Lincoln Continental
81 Olds Diesel
86 Buick Park Ave.
86 Buick Riviera
89 Buick Riviera
95 Olds Aurora
08 Acura TL
12 Acura TL
09 Pontiac G6
16 Acura RDX
Something like that.
1 - How many vehicles?
1. 74 grand prix
2. 80 old’s delta 88
3. 58 chevy impala
4. 54 chevy Belair
6. 70 mopar(don’t remember the model)
7. 62 Pontiac starchief
8. 88 Lincoln town car
9. 95 Chevy G20 conv van
10 02 Chevy express conv van
11 00 Chevy express conv van
#2 - 2 favorites?
1. 58 chevy
2 62 pontiac
#3 - Strangest, if so?none
#4 - 1st road legal vehicle owned?
74 Grand prix
Royal Norseman… Wow, had to look that one up. I saw a few with skis attached too. That is cool. Morris Minor, awesome. Split window 59 VW? Very cool. 59 Pontiac “wit da fins”. 
Dart… Another . Cutlass is always cool. Always Loved Lincolns. 2 Rivieras… Man, NICE list!
The Belair is my fav on your list. Then the Starchief and Impala tied at 2nd and then the Lincoln. I Loved those “big boats”.
After seeing some of these lists, I can see many people are not “buy and hold” drivers like me. Unlike me, I have a friend who is on to a new car every 3 or 4 years. His reasoning is that he will only be able to drive a certain number of years, and wants to drive as many different vehicles as possible during his driving years. He said driving the same vehicle long term would be too boring for him. Plus, he does not want to miss out on the latest automotive technology. Another friend keeps his daily driver long term, but rents a new car for a week every year and gets his new car fix that way.
Keep in mind that cars did not last very long back in the day as well as many of the posters early cars were not purchased new but used. Sometimes very used. Those 2 facts tend to skew the results.
Also notice cars in the latter years that may have been purchased new or lightly used that the poster owned for 7 or more years.
Stretching my memory, but here it goes.
Motorcycles:
1972 Ducati 250 - (had the Desmo cyl head to prevent valve float, strong pull past 12K rpm)
1974 Yamaha 360 Enduro - (learned how to port 2-stroke engines on this)
Cars:
1956 Cadillac - (bought after high school from estate of coworker in gas station)
1963 Corvair - (family car I drove through high school)
1964 Dodge Van - (dropped used engine in it & drove it 100K+ miles, often lived out of it)
1972 Ford Custom
1976 Ford Granada
1978 VW Scirocco - (married into it)
1986 Dodge Caravan - (first new car I ever owned)
1996 Dodge Caravan
1999 Toyota Sienna
2009 Toyota Venza
2014 Toyota Sienna
I keep my cars for long term mileage as compared to calendar years although I have owned some for a long time. My 87 Mercury was owned for 15 years and got 410k miles put on it. I’ve never purchased a new car but did consider it once. For a hour or so…then sanity returned after thinking about massive depreciation. The closest I ever came to new was buying a 2 year old 1977 Camaro RS back when.
The problem with cars back in the old days was not necessarily metallurgy or workmanship. It was the lead in gasoline. Lead contaminated motor oil and built up horribly on the tops of pistons, valve heads, and so on. There’s a night and day difference between a 100k miles cylinder head/piston run on leaded gas compared to a 100k miles head/piston run on unleaded.
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Out of the 70…ish vehicles (now that I’ve remembered some I forgot) that I owned, only 4 were new. Many were motorcycles that I “turned” after fixing them up. Some were toys like go karts and dirt bikes. A number of them were cheap, high mileage ones “just to get me by” vehicles when I was young with no credit.
It will be interesting to see if the technology used in the current generation of vehicles affects their usable lifespan. For example, a vehicle may be fine body-wise or mechanically, but it is deemed too expensive to diagnose and fix due to age-related failures in the systems and the computers that run them, like ABS, stability control, lane guidance, collision avoidance, parking assist, etc,.
Working at a few car dealerships, seeing the mess some people got themselves into, opened my eyes as well on the issue. I never bought new again.
I felt bad sometimes for “1st time buyers” that had a minimum down payment or were upside-down on the trade. They were basically, still buying their trade, interest, depreciation and the profit the dealership made from the factory.
Agreed. It’s almost impossible to be a “shade tree” mechanic now. A good example is my girlfriend’s WV EOS… Many places turn VW owners away saying they are too difficult to diagnose and work on.
I believe that your statement, “…technology used in the current generation of vehicles affects their usable lifespan.”, is already doing just that.
I’ve always been interested in cars, but not necessarily owning them. In addition to a number of company cars, I have actually owned only these:
-
1948 Chevrolet
-
1957 Plymouth
3.1965 Dodge Dart -
1966 Chevy Malibu
-
1976 Ford Granada
-
1977 Mitsubishi Colt
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1994 Nissan Sentra
-
2007 Toyota Corolla
-
2008 Mazda 3 Sport
Two favorites were the Malibu and the Mazda 3 Sport.
First road legal was the 1948 Dodge.