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Post by kiev4a on Sept 22, 2006 8:36:02 GMT -5
VW beetles had electric wipers but I spent a lot of winter days driving with one hand, reaching out the window periodically to "flip" the wiper arm up and let it smack down on the windshield to knock off the snow or ice. The defrost on the Beetle wasn't worthy of the name. Had a Pinto wagon--a late model--that was a nice little car. I think it may have had electric wipers as I don't remember having any problems. I do remember driving through the middle of Vancouver, B.C. at rush hour in the Pinto with luggage on the roof and five girls ranging in age from 10 to 3 in the back, singing "It's a Small World." I was never quite the same after that.
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Post by herron on Sept 22, 2006 10:50:00 GMT -5
Ron: First person I have met who will admit to owning a Gremlin LOL! Didn't say I was proud of the fact...I was just broke at the time and needed a car. The Gremlin, brand new, with the few options I selected -- automatic, radio, opening rear window, rear seat -- yes, even the rear seat was an option -- cost me less than $2000. I sold it a few years later to buy a slightly newer Opel Kadette that once belonged to my wife's great uncle. He had passed away several years before, and the car had been parked, unused, in a garage in Florida for all that time. It had a pinhole leak in the gas tank that we had to fix when I got it. I recall standing in the driveway with a young couple (who actually had their checkbook out to buy the car), when my young son (about three at the time) leaned down, looked under the back of the Gremlin, and asked "Does the gas tank still leak, Daddy?"Needless to say, I could not convince the young couple it was the other car, the one I was keeping, that had the gas leak! Told my wife to keep Scott in the house next time!
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Post by olroy2044 on Jul 31, 2007 2:31:47 GMT -5
Once again I'm late for the party, but I was wearing a badge when some metro PD's were driving AMC vehicles. I worked for a small PD right on the outskirts of a very large city, whose officers were driving the AMC Matadors. The first year they had 360 engines in them, and were rather "milque-toasty" The guys driving them called them "Matadogs!" My department hitchiked on the back of the California Highway Patrol bid,and we were using the 440 Dodges. The next year, AMC put their proprietary 401 in the Matadors--Wow what a difference! Informal, totally unsanctioned, and clandestine comparisons showed the Matadors much quicker through the gears than the Dodges, with the Dodges stronger on the top end (I'm talking in excess of 125 mph type top end!) Talk about crazy idiots, we were doing that on bias ply tires! Roy
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Post by Randy on Jul 31, 2007 7:13:39 GMT -5
Roy, those were probably the Police Blue Streak Specials from GoodYear. Guys I think the last vacuum windshield wipers were like...1961? Talk about police cars, back in the '70s I had several ex-Pennsylvania State Police Cars...Plymouth Furys. They used to sell them in public auctions and they went cheap. 440 Super Commando V-8s with 1000 cfm carborators!
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Post by herron on Jul 31, 2007 13:50:13 GMT -5
Mama Mia!! Why is it that I never saw this thread before? OK, ya all...keep your comments to ur self...LOL...!! Mr. Herron...I cannot believe you got suckered into a Gremlin!!! But...shhh!...I also had one! Ron Head Kalamazoo, MI LOL!! ;D Ron, you will never know how hard I am trying not to comment! As to the Gremlin...it was hardly suckered. It was the only new car available for less than $2000 and I was fairly new at being married, a new homeowner, a brand new father, had a car that wasn't dependable, and was already deeply in debt! I had no choice!
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Post by kiev4a on Jul 31, 2007 17:33:36 GMT -5
The Nash Metropolitan was actually an English Austin with different sheet metal if I remember right. My best friend had a Renault Daphne. We were driving down the road one night in the fall of 1963, trying to drink a case of beer that was in the back seat, when the car's engine literally fell out! Didn't really bother my friend that much He never did like that car.
I had a Pinto station wagon--I forget the year. It actually was a decent car and handled well.
Back in the early 70s my boss at the newspaper where I worked, bought a new sporty little Pinto because he wanted better gas mileage. Several of us put our heads together and came up with a plan. For the first month he had the car, about once a week we would pour and additional two gallons of gas in the Pinto when it was parked outside the office. The boss would come in raving about getting 50-55 miles per gallon!. The next month we siphoned out about two gallons a week. Every time we asked him how it was doing on mileage he would frown and mumble. He drove the car dealer nuts--kept taking it back demanding they fix whatever was killing his mileage. We never did tell him the real story.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jul 31, 2007 18:41:08 GMT -5
I had a Metropolitan. Coral & cream. Just enough room in the back for two very small children. It had an Austin engine. Three speed gear shift on the steering column. It wasn't very peppy but was still a pleasure to drive. I was very fond of the little thing. The kids grew. The Metropolitan didn't.
Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Jul 31, 2007 19:56:43 GMT -5
Not many people in the UK liked the Metropolitan. The engine was very willing, and could be pepped up fairly easily with proprietary go-faster goodies to give a half-decent power output, but what spoiled it was the column-mounted gear change - sorry, gear shift. The linkage went round too many corners on its way to the gearbox, and had too many joints in it. When these joints developed a little wear the thing was very imprecise. Same with the A40 Somerset and A40/A50 Cambridge.
Also, the selector mechanism was in the side of the gearbox, and as well as the mechanical linkage there was a cable which pulled on a spring loaded sector plate inside the box. When this cable stretched, as it often did, the thing became stiff and just wouldn't go into some gears. The slots in the sector plate developed burrs where people forced it into other gears, and that made things worse.
You could get at this plate fairly easily by crawling underneath, draining the box and taking a cover plate off the side. Then you could file or grind the burrs off, adjust the cable and it was OK again - for about 5,000 miles of town work with frequent shifting.
Not difficult to fix, but a pain none the less. If they'd given it a decent floor-mounted shift like the Morris Minor ...
Oh yes, Mickey. One motoring journalist wrote that it was, as advertised, a four-seater - two adults and two legless children.
PeterW
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Aug 1, 2007 1:24:17 GMT -5
Peter,
I never thought of removing their legs. Brilliant. Too late now though.
Mickey
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Post by herron on Aug 1, 2007 10:59:57 GMT -5
Years ago, when my neighbor, Mr. Doten (pronounced doe-ten), showed off his new Metropolitan to my father, he asked Dad if could "make it cackle." Turns out, he wanted Dad to make the air/fuel mix leaner, so it literally "cackled" when it ran...starved just a bit for fuel. Mr. Doten was a very frugal man, and did all sorts of things to keep from spending a penny until he had scrubbed Lincoln clean-shaven (for those not familiar with US coinage, Abraham Lincoln, our bearded 16th President, is the face on the penny). Mr. Doten would save the crankcase oil he drained when he changed oil himself, and use it to condition the wood shakes on the upper part of his house each summer (what a fire hazard waiting to happen)! He also put a block of wood under his accelerator pedal, to keep from pushing it down too far and wasting gas! I remember him as a kindly, if somewhat wacky, old man, who also used to make dandelion wine from the weeds in his yard...and pear brandy from the pear tree....he also let me sip a sample of each new vintage...even though I was not yet 10!
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