Here’s one from the It’s Even Older Than Me files: a 1935 Ford convertible, spotted over the summer in Tonawanda. Although Ford sold a lot of cars for 1935 (over 800,000), only about nine thousand of them were two-door convertibles, along with another six thousand or so four-door phaetons. And for the first time, this year all Fords were equipped with a 221CID V8 engine, Ford having do
1997 Ford Aspire. I’ve always questioned Ford’s naming of this little Korean captive import. The dictionary I’m looking at today defines aspire as a verb which means to “direct one's hopes or ambitions toward achieving something,” or, to “rise high; tower.” The first definition makes it sound like to car has a ways to go before achieving greatness (yes, I&
Nice to see this 1986 Toyota pickup holding up so well, at least on the outside. Hard to believe that this 31-year-old truck has been around long enough to qualify as an antique, according to both the Antique Automobile Club of America (25 years or older) and the New York State DMV (over 25 years old). I’ve always thought I might want a small pickup as they come in handy from time to time, a
Day Five of Black & White WeekIt’s always summer someplace, only not right here right now. But it was when we spotted this 1995 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am in the church parking lot near RealRides’ Tonawanda HQ one Sunday morning. Firebirds in general were still pretty zoomy-looking in 1995, although the pony car fad had pretty much faded by then. Pontiac’s entry in the corral
Day Four of Black & White WeekTrying to remember the last time I saw a 1985 Maserati Biturbo in my travels, like this one which I’ve been passing for a while now in Tonawanda. I think the answer is probably never, unless you count car shows or Italian movies. In case you’re wondering, I’ve been told that the correct pronunciation is BEE-turbo, not the seemingly more obvious B
Day Three of Black & White WeekHere’s another entry into the “When Pickups Were Trucks and Not Status Symbols” log book: a 1964 Chevrolet C-10 Stepside, seen a few weeks ago in Tonawanda. You can tell from the advertising material that most of these trucks spent their days at work. Here’s just a few of the features touted in that year’s brochure: Two-Stage Rear Su
Day One of Black & White WeekWith an MSRP $2,631 this 1960 Mercury Monterey was the least-expensive big Merc in the showroom, Actually, it was the cheapest Mercury, period! What, you say? Wasn’t the compact Comet introduced for model year 1960? Yes, car buff, it was. But Ford chose not to put the Mercury nameplate on the Comet, or in any of its advertising material, until the 1962 models
We turned the clock back an hour over the weekend, so I thought we’d also turn the calendar back all this week to this past summer’s car shows This 1959 GMC 100 Fleetside was spotted last August at one of the weekly car show at Tonawanda’s Texas Roadhouse. By this point the straight-sided Fleetside pickups were becoming much more popular than the Stepside version with its straigh
This 1938 Cadillac Series Sixty is owned by RealRides reader Jim Greco of Tonawanda, and is all-original including the paint. It’s equipped with a 346CID V8 and weighs in at 4,254 pounds. Look for it around town at car various shows (it’s pictured here at the 2013 Buffalo History Museum show), and keep your eyes open for it in the new Marshall movie, which was filmed partly in Buffalo.
What would a week of the 1970s be without at least one downsized GM model? Here’s a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham (which seems to be missing the Brougham emblem), looking every part the Disco-era car with its padded landau-style roof, fender skirts, and enough chrome to blind Russian cosmonauts. Pontiac’s standard V8 was advertised as being a 301 CID (4.9L) engine, even though when