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Forgotten 1960s Cars We Missed

Don Armstrong 0:04

All right, time now for Jeff's car culture, we call it. This week, 60s cars that we don't remember. Do we really need to remember them? Well, you're going to help us out.

Jeff Dziekan 0:13

Yeah, you might remember one or two, but vaguely. So here we go. And this opening pick right here, this is actually a Plymouth Valiant Signet. The Signet was an upscale version of the Plymouth popular Valiant Compact. It was comfortable, reasonably stylish, and perfectly respectable, which is another way of saying nobody's hung a poster of this car in their garage in 40 years. Moving on. The next one is a Rambler AMC. This Rambler had one of the coolest names of the decade. Unfortunately, the car itself didn't leave quite the same impression. AMC sold plenty of them, but today most people remember the company's later oddball choices like the Gremlin and the Pacer. Hey, we like the Gremlin. I had a good friend of mine, Kathy that grew up with a she grew up with a high school friend that had a uh pacer. It was a cool little car. Uh that was the fishbowl. Yeah, no, no, the gremlin was the fishbowl. Well, the pacer, yeah, you're right. The pacer. I was thinking of the another one. Anyways, Rambler American is the next on the list, and the millions of Americans once drove the Rambler American, but spotting one today feels uh about as good as finding a payphone that still works. They were dependable, affordable transportation for people who cared more about saving money than impressing the neighbors. Wasn't exactly the recipe for a long-lasting frame. That would be the AMC Rambler. Next one, uh, the Mercury Meteor. The meteor existed in a strange space between Ford and Mercury, where buyers weren't entirely sure why it existed. It wasn't a bad car, it wasn't an exciting car, it was just there. Uh and it was green and boring, uh, which might explain why even many Mercury fans forgot about the meteor, even though it was part of the lineup. How about that? Forgot about it. Next one. One of my favorites, and I did see one of these, and I do remember this car is a Mercury Monterey Breezeway. Oh my god. Mike, we're uh oh, we're we're gotta go one more. I think you gotta go one more.

Mike Marrs 2:11

You need one more?

Jeff Dziekan 2:12

Yeah, that was the meteor. There's the breezeway. Uh, the breezeway featured one of the strangest production car features ever offered. The rear window rolled down. Oh, yeah. Seriously, Mercury claimed it improved ventilation, which it did. It also guaranteed that anybody seeing one would immediately ask, Wait, why is the back window doing that? Now, this was ahead of its time because now you got pickup trucks with the window goes down. But look at the roof line in the back. I know it's jacked. It's I like it. I like that car. I'd I'd do things with that car. The next one, Mike, is a Chevrolet Biscayne. The Biscayne was a budget-minded full-size car. Millions were built, but it lacked the flash of an impala and the prestige of a caprice. It perfectly it was a perfect example of a vehicle that was everywhere once and almost nowhere today. That's true. Mercury Comet Cyclone. Uh, I had a friend of mine that had a Mercury Comet and it was a cool car. He had velocity stacks on it and twid bowls on the front.

Don Armstrong 3:10

Did it have those great big nostrils on the front of it?

Jeff Dziekan 3:12

It the hood was so chopped up for the velocity stacks, we don't know. Uh, the cyclone had one major problem. It existed in the same era as the Mustang. That's a little like trying to become a famous rock star while standing next to the Beatles. It was actually capable of performing, it was a performance car, but it spent most of its life in somebody else's shadow. That's a cool car. I drive that today. And lastly, Don mentioned turbocharges in the first part of the show. Oldsmobile F-85 Jetfire. Look at that, baby. The jet fire deserves far more attention than history has given it. This thing featured a turbocharger years before turbocharging became cool. Unfortunately, early technology brought reliability headaches, and the jet fire became one of the most overlooked performance experiments of the entire tech. Wait a minute. Is isn't that Marvin Zindler behind the wheel? I think guys got a half. Every one of these I would drive. So Buick had a version of that. They did.

Don Armstrong 4:09

Was it the Skylark?

Jeff Dziekan 4:11

I believe I think it was. I think it was the Skylark.

Don Armstrong 4:14

But uh same platform. So my my buddy Ross Putnam that had the hot rod. Um, uh somehow, some way, I guess he got grandma's car or something. Uh it was a four-door sedan, uh, this body style. Right. It was white, and we called it whitey. And I'll never forget the evening that it had rained. Pardon me? It fits. Code. And it uh it was uh uh parking, it was a strip center, strip mall at an intersection. The intersection was Hillcroft and Brazewood, and there was nobody there after all closing time, and they had no curb stops. So you get out there and you'd floor it, and that right rear tire would just spin up to yeah, and uh we'd do donuts, all six of us in the car. Yeah, that's my memories of that car. Put the heavyweight guys on the right wheel, pretty much. Yeah, very good. Mr.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Mars has Mr.

Don Armstrong 5:07

Mars has driving destinations, Houston Hidden Underground, Mr.

Houston Hidden Underground Places

Don Armstrong 5:11

Mars.

Mike Marrs 5:11

Yes, sir. We had uh quite a few things I want to point out here about the uh Houston Hidden Underground. And starting off with, if you everybody that drives around Houston, particularly if you happen to go out the Katy Freeway while they were doing the big widening job here years ago and made it what the widest freeway in the world. Yep, you could see all of the utilities that are underground. I mean, there's gas lines down there, there's water lines, there's sewer lines. Phone companies spent millions of dollars on that project trying to get their underground equipment over and get it out of the way. So when you're driving over these roads, unless you're on the tenth story of a stack of freeways, you don't really think about what's underneath you, but there's a lot of stuff that's down there. Now, there's also a couple of other things that are down there in the Houston, and one of those is the Buffalo Bayou Sistern. Now, I wasn't aware of all this stuff that was going on down there whenever uh back in whenever so this was started in 1926. It was a project that was built in 1966 when Houston was growing so fast they needed more drinking water storage. And they so they came up with this plan to make it one of the earliest underground reservoirs, which is unusual in Houston considering the static water level, the ground water level. But this thing holds 15 million gallons of water, and that's what kind of what started out helping maintain the water pressure while the city was growing. Now it's the size of one and a half football fields, and it's actually supported by 21 columns that are built down here underneath this area. And each one of them is like 25 feet tall. Now, it's been in business for 80 years, it's been working, and uh the engineers have done some repair leaks and repaired some leaks, but they took it out of service actually in 2007 for realistic use of supplying water for the city. Now, it's still been down there ever since, but then during the Buffalo Biopark redevelopment, instead of tearing it down and trying to fill in this massive area, they opened it up for tours. So, some things to that to really notice if you happen to take this tour, 221 concrete columns, 25 feet tall, 15 million gallons of water when it was operational, 87,500 square feet down here under the ground. And if you stand there and it's quiet to where you can do an echo, it takes 17 seconds. Your echo will actually run for 17 seconds across here. And so it still has that little thin layer of water at the bottom, so it reflects it and it makes it look even bigger. Now, the other thing that's going on downtown Houston, and I'm sure some of you guys have heard of it. I have never heard of it until recently when I started looking for this stuff. There were rumors, but there is an underground tunnel system in downtown Houston. Now, it was started in 1935, and what it was done was to connect two buildings together because of the heat and the rain and everything. So it was just a convenience thing that actually started. But now there's now six miles of interconnected tunnels beneath downtown. And dozens of office buildings are connected. There's restaurants, there's coffee shops, there's convenience stores, there's even some banks down there. So that these people that are downtown working, I mean, you can literally go downtown and go underground and stay down there literally all day long. And it's just uh a lot of that reason, again, it was started because of the Houston summers and uh the late afternoon thunderstorms that make a mess of it that we have, that we're still dealing with, obviously. But if it's 98 degrees outside and the humidity is up at 80%, and you want to walk down two blocks down the street to go to a restaurant, by the time you get back to your office, you're not gonna be in the best of shape as far as heat goes. So you go downtown, you go down into the tunnel system to the restaurants, the coffee shops. If you want to do walking, because you want to get in shape, there's long corridors that you can walk, just like at a mall. It's almost like a mall down there. But uh, you got to be careful to make sure you don't get lost down there because it does wind around quite a bit. So that's two places underground in Houston that most people don't think about because of the water tip table that's in the ground and the fact that it's out of sight, it's out of mind. So if you're looking for some place to go this summer in the Houston heat, here's two places that you could go to get out of the heat and find someplace a little bit different to hang out.

Don Armstrong 9:41

Good story. Okay, thank you, Mike. Appreciate that. Uh, Houston Hidden Underground. I've been down there in that I haven't been to the cistern, but I have been to the tunnel system, and you can get lost real easily.

Jeff Dziekan 9:54

That's understandable.

Don Armstrong 9:55

Yeah, I think most of those shops down there are closed, but it's still, I don't know what part of it's open and closed. I don't know anymore. So go. Thanks, check it out. Thank you, Mr. Morris.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

All right.

2025 Range Rover PHEV Review

Don Armstrong 10:09

I had the opportunity to drive the 2025 Land Rover Range Rover. It is built in Sully Hill, United Kingdom. Just thought you'd like to know that where it's built. Available trim levels, dynamic, and the autobiography. I had the Sport Dynamic S E P H E V. That is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. Mid-size SUV. Now you'd think that this would be full size. Nope, mid-size. Five seats in it. That would include the driver, clearly. It was all new in 2023. We're just now getting this in the press fleet, but I'll tell you what. Oh my god.

unknown 10:51

What?

Don Armstrong 10:52

Good looking. Good looking, B. Ooh, it is absolutely beautiful. Exterior features, smooth arrow body lines, modern yet conservative, all horizontal and slick design throughout. Front and rear lighting is no frills, but is extra sleek. As a matter of fact, the rear tail lights are kind of like built in to the it looks like the body work on this. Like shaved in. I know, I know I think I know what you're talking about. It's not the same thing. Okay. Big wheels are really straightforward and good looking. There's nothing fancy about anything. It draws your attention. The whole thing is just slick. How else do you say it? It's a good looking car. Overall design gets high marks. What could use improvement? Don't get gray. Gray is boring. Why would you get a gray car? It's almost as if you here. Let's go ahead and get the car um sprayed as a primer. Let's do the gray primer. They don't use red primer anymore. I don't know why, but anyway, it I just don't understand gray cars. But whatever. Interior highlights. I love the uh interior. It's just kind of like the exterior. No frills looking. Interior is ultra conservative in its design. Materials top-notch with comfortable seating surfaces. The infotainment screen is tablet style, kind of small, actually, in comparison to some of the ones that we see today. Um, simple conservative controls for the HVAC. And uh, as far as cargo and trunk room is concerned, it is smallish with the second row up. Again, this is a mid-size. Look how slick that is.

Jeff Dziekan 12:45

Yeah, it looks nice.

Don Armstrong 12:46

Yeah, now this is a brand new car. You'd think, well, wait a minute. That's kind of like the old stripper models of the Nova back in the 1970s. No, this isn't. Hardly anything. Can't even compare it. What I liked about it, the simplicity of the look. What could use improvement? Some of the screens and the infotainment screen, a little complicated to maneuver through. I think that I would go back to school on that one. But like anything else, you buy a new car, you get used to it, and then yeah, it's no big deal. All right. So, what's it got under the hood? A three-liter inline six-cylinder that turns up 454 horsepower and 487 pound feet of torque. This isn't the big V8. This is the three-liter inline six. Toes up to 6,600 pounds. And if you want to just get on the gas only, it gets 21 miles per gallon. Not bad considering you get this all this horsepower. Yeah, I know. Isn't it beautiful? To see it in person is just truly stunning. I got 28.3 miles per gallon over 381.8 miles. What I liked about it, the power. Plenty, it's always there. What could use improvement? Absolutely nothing. Uh, maybe a full electric would be interesting to drive. Now, I did not get the 110-volt charge cord with this vehicle. For some reason, they didn't include it. I don't know. It would have been nice because I can plug it in here at the house and then at work, they have a 110-volt outlet there. And so I could have probably got a lot better gas mileage if I plugged it in all over the place, but I did not. So I want to be sure and transparent in that regard. What I liked about it, the air suspension, one of the best, plenty of control, but my God, the ride is just to die for. Um, what could use improvement there? Nothing. Base trim price, $95,100.

Mike Marrs 14:46

I was sitting here thinking, how pretty is that car?

Don Armstrong 14:49

Price has tested $96,725. Base model price $79,450. Uh, let me just say this before I get into the competitors. This is was actually shocking to me. Um, because I have driven vehicles in the $130,000 category. This beats them. Wow. This is probably one of the nicest vehicles on the market today. As far as reliability concerns, I don't have them. I don't know anything about that. Uh I might want to check into that if you're interested in this, but I'll tell you what, if you're interested in a super luxury, beautiful vehicle that has lots of horsepower and you want to impress the neighbors, I think I'd check this one out. Okay, here are the competitors. The Lexus TX PHEV for 80,000, the BMW X5 PHEV for 76,000, and the Mercedes GLE PHEV for 72,250. Next week we review the VW Tigwan SUV, which is a complete redesign. I think you'll be interested to hear what I have to say about that. So you don't like great cars, do you?

unknown 15:57

Boy, I'll tell you what, man.

Don Armstrong 15:58

If if if I were a rich man, which I am not, uh, I would seriously consider buying something like that. The wife would love it. I had don't have a wife, but you gotta buy the wife, then you get to buy her.

Mike Marrs 16:09

And I think that color's got a lot to do with it. That brilliant red.

Don Armstrong 16:12

Golly, it is it's stunning, is what it is. Hey, if you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email. The address here is info at inwheeltime.com. We're back after this quick break. Stay with us.

This Week In Auto History

Don Armstrong 16:26

There you go. All right, time now for this week's auto history. Mr. Mars, it's all yours. And we cannot hear you for some reason.

Mike Marrs 16:36

Forgot to turn the mute back off.

Jeff Dziekan 16:37

Oh, that's all right.

Mike Marrs 16:38

And so this week, uh coming up this week in auto history, some of the things that we noticed uh we thought were interesting. You may want to follow up on Tuesday, for example, on July the 14th, way back Queen in 1960. The uh Jaguar, Don's one of Don's favorite production uh companies, produced the last of the XK150. Now, this is the final model of the XK sports car series that began with a 120 in 1948, had leather, walnut interior, 3.4 liter at 150 horsepower, and it was part of what helped bring Jaguar into a name as a world-class sports car manufacturer. And then uh also on Wednesday this coming week, July the 15th, Ford began production of the revolutionary Taurus. Now, this is a mid-sized sedan, and it got away from the boxy styling of the early 1980s that Ford was using. So it had some aerodynamics, had front-wheel drive, and it was supposedly this is a driver-focused interior, and it became real successful immediately, and it really helped push Ford back into the competitive position of the family car market, and uh a lot of people followed it in a styling. Then uh on the July the 16th, 1980, GM introduced the X-Car platform. Now, this was a front-wheel drive X-car lineup that included the Citation, the Pontiac Phoenix, the Oldsmobile Omega, the Buick Skylark, and this was GM shift from traditional rear-wheel driving compact cars to try and get into the more fuel-efficient front car market because of the fuel crisis that we'd gone through in the 1970s.

Jeff Dziekan 18:27

Real quick, Mike, when I worked for Turbo Hydromatic on the line, I was making transmission uh low and reverse clutch housings for that car, and it was uh recalled quite a bit because of my work. Your contribution, you contribute to that. No, it was a it was really a cruddy, cruddy operation, but that's right.

Mike Marrs 18:45

I understand. So uh moving on to July the 17th, Volkswagen introduced the new Beetle. Now, I say new Beetle, it's gonna look a lot like the old Beetle, but it has front-engine front-wheel drive vehicle. Uh, it's basically built on the golf platform, and it did a lot of brought in some new engineering and stuff that was not available in the original type one, and it re re-ignited the whole Beatle Mania thing that came up through the Volkswagen. Then uh July the 18th, the final classic Volkswagen Beetle is built after they've made 21.5 million that were produced worldwide. They actually stopped building that model. And lastly, July the 18th, this one, the GM ignition switch compensation program begins. Uh, 11.5 million vehicles in the U.S. It was, I never understood all this about what was going on. It was to me, it was silly, and it was even sillier after all that that they still put a key ignition in some of the vehicles for years and years. Anyway, some of the things that are coming up this week in automotive history that you might want to look into.