It is 1922 and the car industry is moving right along. Small start-up car companies pop up here and there in the 1920’s.
Here is how they stacked up for 1922.
Top spot was Ford producing 1,147,028 cars.
Dodge was a very distant second with 152,653 car rolling off their assembly line.
Chevrolet ran in third place with 138,932 cars made.
And finish up the list were Buick with 123,152; Studebaker with 105,005; Williys-Overland with 95,410; Durant with 55,300 and finally Maxwell/Chalmers 44,811.
Total passenger cars produced were 2,274,185 with 269,991 truck being made.
Rickenbacker was a new upstart beginning production in 1922.
Durant produce a car priced at $319 . Ford reduced prices to $298.
Balloon tires were introduced.
Hey fuel gauges began being installed in dash in 1922.
1922 Durant Star - An attempt to undercut Ford's prices
One of the things I enjoy checking out is increase in the value of some of our US classic cars.
I recently ran across this breakdown in Hagerty Insurance magazine…it normally has some good articles. This one was about American Motors and it had a section on original cost of the cars and the current collector’s value. So check this out:
1967 Marlin – a cool looking car if you ask me – had a base prices of $2,963. Today that car will cost you about $23,100.
A good looking car in Two Tone paint.
1969 Javelin SST – love these cars – I once dated this girl who drove one and..oh…um..nevermind – back in the day they cost $3,144 and today average cost is $33,900.
69 Javelin SST
1970 AMX 390/325 – I know I’m suppose to love these cars – they being, perhaps the sporty-est of the AMC brand, but I don’t – they would run you $3,798 back then and now you can pick one up for a mere $55K!
1970 AMX
1972 Javelin SST – see my comment for the ’69 – base price in 1972 was $3,807 and today $22,400.
1973 Gremlin X Coupe – ok I really don’t care at all about these, except when I see them at the drag strip with a huge GM block stuffed between the fenders – they would set you back $2,098 back in ’72 and today you can get one have it mounted on a pole in the front yard for $11,700 (pole not included and labor extra and you’ll have to sign a waiver).
1973 Grebmlin X Coupe (Seen here without the pole)
1976 Pacer DL Coupe – well.. if wasn’t a DL coupe….ok even though it is…insert comment for Gremlin above – except for $15,000 you can pick one up today, remove the body from the frame, bury it upside down in backyard and with a little tweaking you can have a really cool hot tub.
1976 Pacer DL Coupe…just before it was turned into a hot tub!
OK..that was mean..here ya go:
’76 Pacer DL Sport Coupe
1978 Matador Hardtop Coupe would have tapped your wallet for nearly $5K (4,799) – I sort of liked these cars – but not a lot and today you can sort of like them for about $12,500 big ones.
78 Matador Coupe
Unless it look like this one!!!
This is the Matador X
Want to see some more brands laid out like this? Drop me a comment and I’ll dig some up.
I want to cover two more cars in this part. The first will be the TVR S3..?? ..yeah…me too! The second will the Caterham Seven.
TVR S3 was put up against the Triumph TR4 and frankly there is nothing I know about a TVR S3..so here we go.
TVR S3 C
TVR engineering started back in England in 1947 with the first TVR being produced in 1949. Here’s the 2nd TVR built:
#2 TVR
Through out its history it used all types of engines include the Ford Kent engines and even a Buick engine (3.5 litre Rover V8).
The S series was produced between 1986 – 1994. The TVR in this article had steel spaceframe chassis and a fiberglass body. The engine was an iron, overhead valve, 2936cc 12v V6 with electronic fuel injection. This power plant cranked out 168 hp and 170 lbft of torque. The suspension was an independent double wishbone with rack and pinion steering. This all combined to let the car reach its top speed of 135 mph.
In the comparison, the TVR S3 beat out the Triumph TR4 in Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability 42 to 32. The price of the TVR S3 is about 4000 Euros with the Triumph at 13,000 Euros.
The company was sold to a Russian buyer in 2004 and after a not so great start the company halted production.
For a full history on the TVR – check out http://www.tvrsseries.com/
Next up is the Caterham 7:
Caterham Seven
The Caterham Seven is a kit car – you can still buy and build them today. Interesting enough it started out as the Lotus Six. The next version was the Lotus Seven, however Lotus dropped the production and Catherham purchased the rights to build the kits. The components are flexible with such pieces as Ford axles and de Dion-axles being used. The engines used is very expansive from the Lotus Twin Cam engine to Ford’s cross flow engines. Even Cosworth BDRs appeared around 1983, in 1600 cc 140 bhp (104 kW) form, followed by 1700 cc 150 bhp (112 kW) versions three years later. In the ’90’s the common engine had become the 2 litre Vauxhall HPC, as fitted to the Vauxhall Calibra, putting out 165—175 bhp. Motor cycle engines have been also used with the likes of the GSXR1300 engine used in the Suzuki and the Honda CBR1100 engine.
These are favorites for the SCCA and other grass-roots racing.
Thanks for all the comments and emails on the Part 1 of the Cars You Never Heard Of.
Thought I’d follow it up with the Panther Kallista. This stems from the same article in “Classic and Sport Car” a UK publication. The article pitted pricey European cars against less expensive cars and rated them. It’s over all theme was “See you can get this close to the expensive cars, for less.”
1985 Panther Kallista
Kallista was the product of the Panther Car Company and they were built between 1980 and 1990, actually coming on the market in about 1982. The were a box chassis with an aluminum body. The engine that was first used was Fords 2.8 V6 which cranked out 2792 cc from its 12v configuration. The electronic fuel injection helped it deliver 150 hp and 159 lb ft of torque. Top speed was about 120 mph with the help of the 5 speed manual transmission.
In the article Kallista was compared against the Morgan Plus 8 which you can purchase now days for about 35,000 British Pounds (about $70k US) compared to the collectors price of 7,000 BP ($14k US). In that contest comparing Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability the Morgan was judged with a total of 37 points and the Panther Kallista end up with 35.
I did find one on Ebay with a few days still to go with a current bid of just over $4k. It’s an 1986, 4 cylinder – not a V6.
Of course I spend a lot of time reading and again a lot of that is two or three-dimensional, although my wife says it’s a single dimension. She sees just “CARS” I see muscle cars, sedans (that I want to turn in to muscle cars), exotic cars and even some European cars. That’s multi-dimensional, don’t you think? I gained a little interest in them when I was a kid and my Dad surprised my Mother with a 60’ish MGB – mainly I learned that unless you wanted to fix ’em a lot…stay a way!!!
I gained a little more familiarization with another brand when I was in college. I had my license suspended….you can figure out why…so don’t make me say ‘too many speeding tickets”, ok? Thanks. So it was only about a mile or so walk to the campus from where I stayed, but if you are from one of the colder States, like northern New York, then you’d know that a morning jaunt on a Dec. morning is ‘nippy” to say the least. So I would catch a ride with a friend. He drove the one of the coolest cars I had ridden. It was a Citroen. Similar to this one:
It had the coolest suspension that would raise when you started it and lower when you turned it off.
My point being that there is another dimension to my reading – European cars. But I am in no way any kind of expert with any of them – although when I lived in Germany, I drove a very old European Ford Escort. That car was horrible!!!! However, it got me round, even when the upper part of the seat frame broke and the only way to drive it was by holding yourself forward using the steering wheel else the seat back, because it leaned so much, should dump you in the back seat. Last year I signed up for..please kneel…”HEMMINGS”… thank you….you may relax now… SPORTS & EXOTIC CAR magazine – some great articles and I enjoy Mike’s and Richard’s writings. Geezze, this is a long way around to the point that I picked up a copy of Classic & Sports Car magazine – UK produced – the other day.
In this was a series of articles that pitted 4 pair of cars against each other. One car in each pair was an expensive classic brand/model and the other was relatively inexpensive newer brand/model. Two things dawned on me, one was,”Hey, I’ve never heard of a Reliant Scimitar SS1 or a Panther Kallista.” The second thing was, “Hey, have never heard of any of these cars!” Normally if I have just one of these realizations – I won’t read the article… nope not interested…. but this time I did.
And now I need to know a little about these cars and I know you do to….all three of my readers!!! So we’ll take a look at the Panther Kallista and the Caterham Seven and the TVR S3 and the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
First up is the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
This car (at about 3000 British Pounds – $6000 USD) was being compared to the Lotus Elan (at 16000 British Pounds or about $32,000 USD). Here is what it looks like:
Reliant Scimitar SS1
Not bad-looking!!!!
These cars were made from 1986 to 1990, however the Scimitar actually arrived on the scene in 1964 with a Ford straight 6 cylinder as the power plant. These more recent models had a spaceframe chassis and fiberglass body, an iron block, alloy heads, SOHC 1809 cc, 8 valve 4. It also sported a Garrett T2 Turbo with electronic multi-port fuel injection system. This allowed it to lay out 140 HP and 141 lb ft of torque and reach a top speed of 128 mph and it only weighted 1969 lbs.
They sported a 5 speed manual transmission, rack and pinion steering, double wishbone independent suspension and disks breaks.
Just to give you some closure, it was compared to the Lotus Elan where it scored 2 points less than the Lotus (38 to 40) in Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability.
Any one out there have one of these? Know anyone that has one? If so drop a comment and pic.
I’ve been preoccupied the last few days I haven’t kept up with my articles. Since this is the Average Guy’s..etc., then you’ll get this next part.
Thing’s happen in life (a.k.a. – Lemons) and you just have to deal with them. The goal is always make the best of the circumstances (a.k.a. – Lemonade).
Earlier this week I lost my job with the company I worked in for the past six years. This is not uncommon in these economic times and there are many average car guys and car gals in the same boat. Many of those people have project cars and these end up being put on the back burner or sadly end up being sold. As car people we all know this happens and hopefully the car goes to good home. Hold on before anyone drags out their savings and offers to purchase my Mustang – I’m not there yet. But it will put my major plans for it on hold for a bit, which is a darn shame, because now I seem to have extra time on my hands to accomplish all those mod, not true a week ago.
So for the better part of the past week I’ve been setting up my job hunting network and getting it in motion. Now it time to wait it out and see what pops up. In the meantime I’ll have more time for writing and doing the little left over projects on the Mustang. I still have the passenger’s seat to re-upholster and the front air dam to put on (I’ve had that in the box for years). I can install the polished aluminum alternator bracket I worked so hard on and have yet to install.
And……. I am project managing the restoration of a 1975 Standard VW beetle – pro bono. Here she is:
1975 VW Standard Bug - New Project.
More to come on that.
So unless you are Jay Leno (I hate that guy!!! – not really, I’m just jealous – I want him to hire me to keep his cars driven and shiny and search out more cars for him..hey..there’s an idea!!!! “Dear Mr. Leno, I’m a car guy and I currently find myself with some free time so I’m applying for…..”) you dealt with circumstances like job loss or lack of funds to finish or keep that project collector car. But remember you can take it slow on projects – it’s OK to slow down and if you have to give up that beautiful machine, keep the memories and there is always tomorrow and another car in your future – you have to believe that and work toward it.
Sorry it’s been more than a couple days…a week plus actually. But hey, it 115 degrees in my garage.
So I removed the seat and inspected the underside.
Again this was my first upholstery job, ever. So removal of the old upholstery on this first seat was a learning experience so I didn’t get too many shots.
Here is a shot of the seat out of the car.
Seat Out
You have to remove the plastic covers for the hinges and the rest of the hardware to separate the bottom from the back.
Just a couple of screws to remove the covers, hinges and hardware
Here is the underside of the seat with the track hardware still attached.
Back removed the track still in place.
The track is remove with 4 star bolts. Be careful use the proper socket, I happened to have just purchased a huge set of tools (a bit more the ‘average guy’ might have) that had the necessary socket set. If you don’t have those, find one of those universal sockets that ‘form’ to bolt.
4 star bolts hold the track to the frame of the seat bottom
