Canadian Wagon – 1961 Chevrolet Corvair Lakewood

March 3, 2014

While the second series Corvairs are arguably more timeless and desirable, there were many more variants of flat six Chevy in the first generation. These include the Greenbrier passenger van and camper, the Rampside pickup, and the Lakewood wagon, as well as the coupe, convertible, and sedan available throughout the Corvair’s life. So while the shallow among us would automatically pick the second series in the latter 3 body styles, the rest were only available in the early style. And while not quite as pretty as the later cars, they do have their own kind of appeal in being a very pure expression of the GM style of the time – wrap-around windshield, “floating” roof, dual round front headlights, and more. Check out this 1961 Chevrolet Corvair Lakewood for sale for $3900 in Richmond, BC.

1961 Chevrolet Corvair Lakewood blue right front

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5100 Quattro – 1989 Audi 100 Quattro plus bonus Audi 5000CS Turbo Quattro Avant

March 3, 2014

You can’t really talk about historically significant cars without the Audi C3 5000/100/200 coming up. Aside from being attractive cars that paved a new design direction, taking inspiration from Citroen and NSU, they also took Audi away from some of the rather frumpy designs of the previous years, particularly with the elegant Avant wagon. The flush windows, flush wheel covers, and aerodynamic design inspired many other manufacturers, most notably Ford with their Taurus. These cars were also built under license in various countries – in China as the Hongqi, primarily for government employees, in South Africa where many imported cars were built from CKD kits, and in Japan under a joint venture with the truck manufacturer Hino. They also took the 1983 European Car of the Year award, so 32 years after they were introduced (!!), let’s check out a couple of examples. First off is this 1989 Audi 100 Quattro sedan, for sale for C$2500 in Abbotsford, BC.

1989 Audi 100 Quattro right side

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Japanese Coupes – 1974 Toyota Celica 18RG and 1972 Mazda 1200

February 28, 2014

Recently, the niche Japanese cars that were interesting oddball remnants from a time when their manufacturers were still finding their way in foreign (to them) markets have skyrocketed in price, such that even some projects are no longer affordable to the average enthusiast on a budget (here’s looking at you, Mazda RX series cars). And that’s really a shame, because the Japanese did produce some interesting and sometimes very weird cars. While the Toyota Celica was not particularly weird, it was an attractive little coupe that had some interesting features. Moreover, through attrition they’ve become quite rare, and there’s nothing like not seeing yourself coming and going to give you the warm and fuzzies, and super-extra-double points for being able to pull that off in a Toyota. You can find this 1974 Toyota Celica ST for sale for $2500 in Everett, WA (and listed under Vancouver, BC for some reason).

1974 Toyota Celica left front

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