Fratzogs by Night

Fratzogs by Night

I've had a list of drafts from well over a year ago sitting in the queue waiting for me to dust off this blog. Some of the photos are 2 years old or more and generations of phones ago. The pics below I believe were sent to me from Robin of Omaha. Behold the nighttime Hooptie!

This is a 1965 Dodge Coronet 440 in Medium Turquoise Poly. It's easy to pinpoint the '65 because both the year before and the year after this one had a center divider splitting the grill.
There are a couple details I love on the front of this ride. First are the Fratzogs (a made-up word for the triangular symbol used by Mopar through the '60s) mounted above the outer headlights. The second detail is that only the section between the inboard headlights is actually a functioning grill. All the small slat openings around the headlights are black paint!

Most Coronet 440s were equipped with V8 engines. The base was a 2 barrel 318, but you had the option of a 361, 383, or the mighty 426 Hemi for the first time. Customers who chose the Hemi had the option of dual 4 barrel carbs and a floor mounted 4 speed manual! Chances are that this ride has the pushbutton automatic mounted on the dash next to the radio.

This handsome piece of side trim was only on the mid level 440 series. The base model had a chrome line that ran lower along the body from the rear of the front wheel opening to the back of the car. The top of the heap 500 had a thin chrome spear along the full length of the car with 3 colored rectangles at the front. These are the correct, original hubcaps for the car by the way.

It's tough to see in the above dark lighting but this is equipped with reverse lights. They weren't standard on the base Coronet but they were included on the 440.

We'll leave this beast with an admiring view of the gargantuan trunk.
4 door sedans are the least sexy, least valuable classics to get, but they tend to live gentler lives. This is the quintessential family car, possibly surviving because some nice old lady garaged it for decades. Mopars from the 1960s are famously reliable and easy to work on. If you run across one of these in good condition for cheap you might have the perfect classic daily driver on your hands.

What do Andrew Dice Clay, Wayne Newton, Priscilla Presley, Morris Day, and Gilbert Gottfried* have in common?**

*Also Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger), Ed O'Neill (Al Bundy), Ton Loc (Ton Loc), and Sheila E
PLAIN SEDAN IN A VANILLA WRAPPER

I was walking through the East Village a while back when I found myself standing in front of this square brick of cream cheese:

This is a 1965 Ford Fairlane 500 in Wimbledon White. One of the nifty details of this year is the body color in the headlight surrounds. Another is the stand up hood ornament which was only in '65.

Originally released as a full size car in 1955, the Fairlane was reduced to mid size after 1962. This year was particularly boxy and has a look unlike any of the other vintages. The years before this had quad round headlights but they were in the grill itself as opposed to being in these housings. In 1966 the headlights were stacked.

This is a beautifully proportioned sedan with the hood and trunk being close in size and the roofline somewhat tall. Clean and crisp was the order of the day for sedans.

This car was built to be overshadowed in 1965. The Mustang was only enjoying its first full year of production and other pony cars were in the works. Muscle cars were also capturing the attention of the buying public and the dealers who were selling them. In the midst of all this excitement comes another 4 door white mid size car. As good as the result is it doesn't trigger the same emotional response as the flashier offerings of the same era.

This is the squared-off evolution of the target sight Jet Engine taillights that started showing up on Fords in the '50s. To me the high point was the '61-'63 Thunderbird taillight that looks like a straight-up fighter jet afterburner. This is a few down the list from tadpole to frog but you get the gist.
The gas cap is behind that pull down door in the dead center of the rear valance. Ford kept this arrangement with the Maverick.

From this angle you can see the folded paper look making the side attractive. If this were the base Fairlane as opposed to the 500 there would be no chrome trim along the side or around the windows.

Ford has long made the best out of what they have and as a result the drivetrain choices for this ride are the same as the Mustang for '65. It also means that aftermarket parts availability is second to none.

These cool looking hubcaps mounted on steelies are original. I won't say they are poverty caps because there is a bit of black trim and the car is a 500, but they're pretty basic.

Mercury had a sibling to this ride for a couple years named the Meteor. Meteors are super rare these days and were only produced in this iteration from 1962-'63. Given the chance I would take the Merc because they are so scarce but keeping one running would be as easy as owning this car.

The larger Galaxie for 1965 had some continuity with the Fairlane. Both had wide grills that angled forward from the sides, though the Galaxie had stacked quad headlights.
This car is a treat in this condition and probably languished in a garage somewhere until it was bought by whoever parks it in the city. Just about every inch was just shy enough away from perfect to confirm originality. I would happily roll in this daily.
**By the way the answer to the opener as you probably know already is Ford Fairlane the movie. This is not an endorsement.

A fish somehow caught between larva and pupa stage

A FISH CAUGHT BETWEEN LARVA AND PUPA STAGE

Contributor Max stumbled upon a record shattering 3 Ramblers over a 2 day span recently. All are rare by definition but this one takes the cake:

This is a vary late 1965 or very early 1966 Rambler Marlin in two-tone Caballero Medium Tan Poly with Frost White accents. The colors and wheels weren't around until '66 but the word RAMBLER was only on the Marlin for '65. There are no hard and fast rules when regarding the independent Rambler/AMC company from Kenosha, Wisconsin so the vintage blurring isn't terribly rare.
*While we're up front dig the body color spanning the center horizontal grill bar.

Behold the optional and rare Turbo Cast wheels painted in the body colors.
Rambler/AMC launched the Marlin in '65 as a mid size fastback personal luxury car to compete with the Mustang and Barracuda. Styling was unique as with all AMC products.

Here is the awesome and odd body on full display. Those massive rear side windows roll down making this a true hardtop. In an arrangement I don't remember seeing before the accent color wraps around the window opening in a boomerang shape. The corrugated chrome rocker panel seems to have only been added to a percentage of '66 Marlins.

The Marlin is weird! That center panel is all the trunk lid you get even though the trunk capacity includes the space behind the taillights. The incredible sexist copy in the sales brochure brags about the trunk space as something sure to calm "wives in a dither". They actually go through step-by-step instructions on how to manipulate your wife into accepting such a sporty looking car using imagery like protection for her patent leather heels while she's ferrying cub scouts around. It's worth a read as a period piece on relaxed everyday misogyny in the mid '60s.
That word RAMBLER under the trunk lid disappeared officially for 1966 as Rambler became AMC fully. This ride straddles the fence.

Check out this awesome Marlin emblem!

The Marlin was only around for 3 years. The final year of 1967 saw a much larger Marlin, then based on the full size Ambassador series with stacked quad headlights. While all Marlins are rare the '67 saw only 2,545 total built.
I love the Marlin and have only seen a couple over the years. For me this is the beginning of AMC going bonkers in their styling. Just a few years after this car was built legends like the Gremlin and Matador X would arrive, bringing with them Levis interiors. AMC released a special line of station wagons in 1967 that were like nothing from the other automakers. Here is a link to an article describing them in detail. Sales material featured a model holding a pistol and wearing an eye patch!
Given the chance I would own a Marlin in a flash. If you see one grab it!

The car everyone always tells me is revolutionary. I ain't buyin' it.

YOU ALREADY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS CAR SO I'M SAYING ALMOST NOTHING ABOUT IT. IT'S A MUSTANG.

I was walking along in Brooklyn and was like "there's a Mustang"

Yep. Like '65 or '66.

"Black Cali plates. That explains why it's so rust free." I thought.

Most of the time I was looking at this ride I was asking myself why I ought to bother featuring such an astonishingly popular car that's always struck me as kind of vanilla. I guess I was moved to do so since this looks to be a nice original that's tasteful. No fuzzy dice thank god!

Ford came up with this car, see? Revolutionized the world. Nobody could believe it. Amazing. Since it was named after a horse the press decided to coin this new style of automobile the Pony Car.
This is where my gripe comes in: The Mustang is not a new style of car. To call this a new kind of car ignores so many long hood short deck cars that came before it. Examples? Almost every European sports car since the very first one. The Mustang invented a new car category like Columbus discovered America. IT DIDN'T!

How could the world forget that a mere 10 years before this came off the assembly line Ford themselves released the Thunderbird?

Now THIS is cool. Why there would be louvers on the tip of your exhaust is beyond me but it looks great. I can't imagine a single performance benefit but hey!

The color is Wimbledon White and it looks pretty snappy.

Under the skin this is a Ford Falcon. The Falcon was a cool car. Why isn't there a new category of Bird Cars? Bird Cars are cool, just ask Pontiac!

These are pretty cool original "Spider Web" design wheels. They were an option.

I do like the tidy look of these early interiors which remind me of an old school powerboat. The wood rim steering wheel is pretty foxy.

In the movie Smoke Harvey Keitel tells a story where he visits an old blind lady in the very rough Wyckoff Houses. Well there they are just past that scaffolding. These days they are eminently walkable 24 hours a day.
*To be fair the full name is Wyckoff Gardens Houses. They are tucked between the headwaters of the Gowanus Canal on one side and Carrol Gardens/Boerum Hill on the other.

I think I'll continue on this tack and mention that the fictional tobacco shop in Smoke was located in a real storefront at the corner of 15th Street and Prospect Park West. The storefront now houses DUB Pies which stands for Down Under Bakery. They serve delicious New Zealand style (mostly savory) pies. It looks nothing like the movie except when you stand with your back to the door and look out at the street scene.

Since I've gone off the rails completely I'll mention that the bank in the classic film Dog Day Afternoon was located a couple blocks up from Dub Pies at 285 Prospect Park West. That building is long gone now, replaced with a somewhat innocuous row of buildings.
Well there you have it; an almost contentless blog piece with pictures of a Mustang. My favorite Fords are their vans and the bigger cars like the Torinos, LTDs, and station wagons. I suppose if black and white tiled floor diners with pictures of James Dean, Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe are your thing this might be your favorite '60s car. Lucky for you as there are trillions of them out there. Have at it!

A lesson in conformity

A LESSON IN CONFORMITY

Mopar (which encompasses Chrysler, Dodge, and Plymouth) was known for outlandish styling and totally unique designs both in the beginning and the end of the '60s. However the first go-round was a massive flop that almost sunk the ship. Time to reel it back a bit!

Here is the still very pleasing yet somewhat conservative result. This is a 1965 Plymouth Belvedere II in Black. This ride looks exactly how I imagine mid-'60s Mopars to look: shabby yet eager to drive.

Little ripples and dents pepper this ride but nothing seems devastating. Decades of parking bumps add up.

This grill looks great to me. It is delicate though as you can see the gauge of metal in this pic. Those tiny bumper guards were *added at some point to help keep the grill but surely they can't do much. Those are the Donald Trump Hands of bumper guards!
*I was surprised to find out that these are original 1965 Mopar items. I stand corrected.

Everything about this car is straightforward and clean.
The upmarket Fury had stacked quad headlights as opposed to these duals.

1965 was all about straight lines and flat body panels. The accent line that starts on top of each headlight and continues back to form the window base helps keep it dynamic.

This awesomely '60s V8 emblem most likely means there is the 273 V8 under the hood. There were a full 4 other V8 engines available in those heady times: the 318, 361, 383, and mighty 426 Hemi.

This sweet Belvedere II emblem denoted the mid-tier trim level. Belvedere I was a stripped down model for fleet use and penny pinchers. The top of the line was named the Satellite; there was no III.

*That dog dish or poverty hubcap is indeed  from a Plymouth but a 1969-1974 model.

This is an intermediate size car, and was described as such in the sales literature of the day. Chrysler made a poor bet in 1962 by downsizing their largest cars so that there really wasn't a full size yacht in the lineup. Unfortunately their thinking was at least a decade early and sales took a mighty hit. America had spoken and they wanted enormous cars! In 1965 they restored order by making the flagship Fury huge again. Popularity followed suit.

The roofline is subtle but neat. There is a rake to the rooftop with the rear base and trunk just a bit higher than the front. To accentuate the look the rear window goes all the way up to the roof whereas the windshield is set an inch or so down.

This beast had a lot of stage presence in 2016 when I took these pics.

The rear is no nonsense. Reverse lights? Who needs 'em!

I didn't get too close as it seemed a particularly exposed location but there's no hiding that red interior. Even a 4 door sedan is bad ass with this color combo.
One thing I can tell you without looking inside is that this year marked the return of a traditional automatic transmission shifter on the column. From 1956 on they offered a push button transmission that worked very well. Supposedly the unit cost $1 more to manufacture than the column shift and so they moved away from it.
*The strangest push button transmission of all time was undoubtedly the 1958 Edsel which had the buttons in the center of the steering wheel! Imagine honking the horn and slamming your car into reverse instead.

If you look into the rear wheel well you can glimpse the old school leaf spring suspension. These work great when in good condition but if worn out make for a ridiculously bouncy ride.

We'll close this out with the proper 1965 dog dish hubcap. I love these simple caps which manage to have plenty of style in a very simple design. You could say that about this entire car actually.
As always with '60s and '70s Mopars the parts are available and the quality is fantastic. These are the cars that will not die. If you find one in drivable condition without too much rust buy it! You'll enjoy quirky styling in cars much less common than any Ford or Chevy.

Ralph Nader's first victim

ABOUT AS UNIQUE AS A '60S AMERICAN CAR CAN GET

Ralph Nader is best remembered these days for electing George W Bush president in 2000 (along with a sweet assist from Kathleen Harris). However long before he was standing on the political corpse of Al Gore he was already sharpening his knives. Meet his first victim:

This is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvair 500 in Mist Blue Poly. This car was a massive departure from traditional domestic auto design. It is powered by an air cooled engine mounted in the rear much like the VW Beetle. Pretty audacious stuff from the company that brought you such traditional icons as the '57 Bel Air.

Here's the business end of the Corvair. Beneath this hood lies a 2.7 liter flat-6 cylinder engine. Overall this is a great motor but there is one weak spot: a single long belt has to make a right angle from the top of the engine to the rear side and back during its operation which wears out belts pretty quickly.

 The notion of a domestic air cooled car wasn't new. The Syracuse based Franklin automobile company produced only air cooled cars for 30 years with great success. However by the late '50s when the Corvair was being developed it was a technology ignored in the U.S.

This swooping Coke bottle styling was new for '65 and took both the press and the public by storm. This initial excitement was tempered by the release of a book by Ralph Nader called Unsafe at any Speed. This book was instrumental in initiating important safety legislation with regards to seat belts and tire pressures. However the first chapter is titled: "The Sporty Corvair - The One Car Accident". It called out the Corvair for having a flimsy transaxle in the rear and lack of sway bars up front. The problem with these claims is that all the troubles highlighted had been fixed by the time the book was released. It was a very tough yet undeserved knock on sales figures.

Here we can see the tidy dimensions of this sweet ride. In the first generation Chevy attempted to make the Corvair every vehicle possible. There was the Corvan van, Greenbriar and Lakewood station wagons, the Loadside pickup truck with a unique extra side facing tailgate, 2 and 4 door hardtops and coupes, and a convertible. By 1966 there were 2 and 4 door hardtops, and a convertible.

I dig these crazy rims but can't figure out what they are. I searched vintage and '80s rims, wheels with square holes, and checkerboard pattern to no avail. If anyone remembers a ride that these came on originally let me know!

This has either been for sale for a while or this is a guy who reuses the same sign over and over.

Here's the nicely appointed interior of this example. A radio is fitted to the dash next to the unique dash mounted automatic transmission. The large round gauges are a good indicator of what the upcoming Camaro dash would look like.

The 500 was a trim level beneath the mighty Monza. The gas tank is in the front as suggested by the fuel filler door above the front wheel.

Behold the only visible distinction between the 1965 and 1966 Corvair: the Corvair script emblem was up on the hood in '65 but dropped to this position to the left of the drivers side headlight. The Corvair was a bonafied success from its inception and sales were still good in '66. Regardless by the time this era hit the dealerships the Ford Mustang had been released and Chevy was scrambling to get the Camaro off the ground. Combine that with Nadar's book and the end was near.

I've never even sat in a Corvair but I've always loved their styling. This 2 door hardtop has a great look as does the convertible. Being a Chevy there are myriad engine and transmission combinations out there including a turbocharged version. Tons of them were made and aftermarket parts are in good supply so acquiring one as a cool classic wouldn't break the bank.

*Thanks for nothing RALPH. At least your first name is a slang for vomiting since you mainly kill cool cars and shoehorn wack politicians into position.