I was born in 1970 and have always been a car guy. As a kid my dad tended to buy big Buicks and Chevrolet pickup trucks. Here are some of the things I recall from my youth:
My dad once bought a '79 Buick Estate Wagon that was supposedly a "brass hat" used by a GM executive. It had every single option, including a CB radio integrated into the stereo (this was a couple years after "Smokey and the Bandit" made CB radios cool). There were little indicators at the top of the fenders that showed the driver if the headlights or turn signals were on, which I thought was a cool feature. Of course it had the faux wood grain on the sides. It also had the best clock I ever remember seeing in a car, which was a big analog thing about 5" in diameter on the passenger side of the dash and it never failed in 12 years of use. Of course it also had the fake "portholes" or whatever on the side of the fender, like every Buick had.
Remember in the late '80s it seemed like every single Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth car, from the Dodge Omni up to the minivans, had the 2.2L engine?
In the late '70s and early '80s the "conversion van" was very cool, which seemed to transform into customized interiors in Suburbans by the late '80s.
Engines got really wimpy in the '80s and that trend reversed itself in the '90s. My dad bought an '81 Skylark with a carbureted 2.5L "Tech IV" that put out about 90 hp. What a piece of junk! 0-60 in 15 seconds, could beat any dump truck in a drag race! Fortunately my younger sister put the Skylark out of its misery by running into a fire hydrant at 30 MPH. In the late '80s my mom got a Taurus with a 150-hp 3.0L V-6 that seemed like a race car compared to the Skylark. But nowadays all nice sedans seem to have 250 or more hp.
My dad had a '76 Chevy K20 that had two fuel tanks. A switch in the cab selected the tank you wanted, and a single fuel gauge showed the fuel quantity of the selected tank. On the freeway I remember sometimes one tank would run dry and the engine would start to die, but a quick flip of the switch made it roar back to life. He was the best dad in the world.
My dad once bought a '79 Buick Estate Wagon that was supposedly a "brass hat" used by a GM executive. It had every single option, including a CB radio integrated into the stereo (this was a couple years after "Smokey and the Bandit" made CB radios cool). There were little indicators at the top of the fenders that showed the driver if the headlights or turn signals were on, which I thought was a cool feature. Of course it had the faux wood grain on the sides. It also had the best clock I ever remember seeing in a car, which was a big analog thing about 5" in diameter on the passenger side of the dash and it never failed in 12 years of use. Of course it also had the fake "portholes" or whatever on the side of the fender, like every Buick had.
Remember in the late '80s it seemed like every single Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth car, from the Dodge Omni up to the minivans, had the 2.2L engine?
In the late '70s and early '80s the "conversion van" was very cool, which seemed to transform into customized interiors in Suburbans by the late '80s.
Engines got really wimpy in the '80s and that trend reversed itself in the '90s. My dad bought an '81 Skylark with a carbureted 2.5L "Tech IV" that put out about 90 hp. What a piece of junk! 0-60 in 15 seconds, could beat any dump truck in a drag race! Fortunately my younger sister put the Skylark out of its misery by running into a fire hydrant at 30 MPH. In the late '80s my mom got a Taurus with a 150-hp 3.0L V-6 that seemed like a race car compared to the Skylark. But nowadays all nice sedans seem to have 250 or more hp.
My dad had a '76 Chevy K20 that had two fuel tanks. A switch in the cab selected the tank you wanted, and a single fuel gauge showed the fuel quantity of the selected tank. On the freeway I remember sometimes one tank would run dry and the engine would start to die, but a quick flip of the switch made it roar back to life. He was the best dad in the world.
