What is the estate on the right?

[quicksilver]

 

You simply can't trust people who tell you they play football and then pick something up that isn't a ball and carry it with their hands.

They also use the word fanny to mean arse so they can't be trusted in that area either. Two nations divided by a common language.

[Junkman]

I like 60s American automobiles. A lot. This could be due to being 66 MY (December 1965 delivery) myself... 

 

Oh, sure, I like the automobiles alright.

[Grundig]

1963 Ford Country Sedan

When I saw the original post I knew that it would be identified instantly (model & year) by Junkman    

[Barry Cade]

Thanks Junkman, I've read so much bullsh*t over the years about the US car industry from the sixties to mid seventies that it's difficult to tell what is fact and what is rose tinted reminicing. It was always interesting to see the differences in claimed outputs from European cars fitted with American engines, and the donor cars themselves- things like the Interceptor and the Pantera, or even the Cobra. Time to start reading proper books rather than ones full of glossy picures of Dodge Chargers

[Squire_Dawson]

Another thing the Yank carmakers did in the 'horsepower race' era was often run engines on a test bed, sometimes stripped of certain ancillaries, to obtain a greater figure which, of course, was nothing like what it was when fitted in a car and on the road.

 

I've never fully understood the measurement of brake horsepower, even though in cars it is often used to compare different engines with say, your own which produces X amount of bhp.

 

I find the old pre-war horsepower ratings easier to understand. For taxation purposes the hp had to be stated, a lot of those popular pre-war Yanks in this country were rated at something like 25 or 30 hp, whilst your average British small car was 8 or 10. (Morris Eight, Austin Sixteen and so on).

 

The old Morris Eight for instance produced around 27 bhp IIRC.

[Junkman]

Thanks Junkman, I've read so much bullsh*t over the years about the US car industry from the sixties to mid seventies that it's difficult to tell what is fact and what is rose tinted reminicing. It was always interesting to see the differences in claimed outputs from European cars fitted with American engines, and the donor cars themselves- things like the Interceptor and the Pantera, or even the Cobra. Time to start reading proper books rather than ones full of glossy picures of Dodge Chargers

 

The one I can recommend for a start is 'History of the American Automobile Industry' by David Beecroft (sic).

As profane as the title sounds, the book is highly informative and clearly describes how in America the car industry was designed to be an oligarchical corporatism (corporatism = fascism by definition) from the onset.

[solid61]

UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED by ralph nader is worth reading,its a bit hard work in places but its worth sticking with.Another one worth a look is, ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE  GENERAL MOTORS ,its about j z deloreans days in the auto industry and it was first published in 1980 so its not some modern glorified look at things, its the real nitty gritty.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Yeah I fancy reading Delorean's book I bet its excellent

[pompei]

So why would they make the Country Sedan and the Country Squire and then update both every year?  Even in the heady Sixties, that would seem like a colossal overspend of resources.

 

As a septic thickie, is the Country Sedan/Squire related to the Galaxie?

 

BTW, that '56 Chevvy Impala is a beautiful thing  -  looks like Italian styling.  Was it an in house job or did they get European styling houses involved?

[chaseracer]

Robert J. Dewar's 'A Savage Factory' is worth reading for an insight into working conditions and management techniques...

[eddyramrod]

So why would they make the Country Sedan and the Country Squire and then update both every year?  Even in the heady Sixties, that would seem like a colossal overspend of resources.

 

As a septic thickie, is the Country Sedan/Squire related to the Galaxie?

 

BTW, that '56 Chevvy Impala is a beautiful thing  -  looks like Italian styling.  Was it an in house job or did they get European styling houses involved?

 

They were just doing what the rest of the world has decided to do in recent years (and for which we here constantly lambast them): making-up niches to sell more cars. 

The Country Sedan and Squire were indeed based on whatever Galaxie (and before that, Fairlane) was available that year.

56 Impala?  Do you mean the 58 I posted?  Here's a 56...

The Impala name wasn't being used at this time, the first year of it as a production model was 1958.  As for the styling, as far as I know (open to correction if anyone knows better) it was all done in-house.

And yes, it absolutely was beautiful!

[RichardMoss]

Another thing the Yank carmakers did in the 'horsepower race' era was often run engines on a test bed, sometimes stripped of certain ancillaries, to obtain a greater figure which, of course, was nothing like what it was when fitted in a car and on the road.

That is precisely how they got those silly outputs - totally unrealistically high compared to the actual outputs.

[DSdriver]

The Americans changed the design each year so that the gullible american public would be convinced that they had to have the latest model. This kept the motor industry busy churning out new cars which meant lots of jobs for everyone. In much the same way, the British do it by changing the year letter on the reg plate. So we (as a nation) are just as daft as they are.

Economics is a fascinating subject. 

[Junkman]

It's called 'planned obsolescence' and is a common, widespread, and integral part in any industrial design, with few exceptions.

Things are deliberately designed so they are perceived obsolete long before their useful service life expires.

 

The annual model changes in the American car industry required a mindbogglingly immense apparatus of design, tooling, and manufacturing staff, hence the American consumer paid ca. 60% of the new car purchase price just for his car being obsolete sooner.

[Tayne]

On 12/01/2014 at 09:15, solid61 said:

A its the real nitty gritty.

 

 

[Squire_Dawson]

Junkman,

 

have you read any Vance Packard?

[Junkman]

Not yet, but it's on my agenda.
 
Another book I highly recommend is The Insolent Chariots by John Keats.

[Madman Of The People]

The cops recognise the differences in the different models.  For example, 1988 Chevy Impala:

88 Impala.jpg

 

 

That's a Caprice, not an Impala.

 

Chevrolet retired the Impala name after 1985 and revived it in 1994, so there was no such thing as a "1988 Impala".

[eddyramrod]

There look, learned something I didn't know!  Thank you.  That car showed up when I did a Google-image search for "1988 Impala."  Some better-equipped models turned up too, which I would recognise as Caprices, but that one looked pov-enough to be an Impala.  88 was a random choice (so was Impala, tbh).  If I'd gone for 84 instead then the 74 would have been different enough to be included too.  Never mind eh, no kittens died...