HA HA HA HA HAHAHAHA!!! YES!

THE COOLEST VEHICLE IN THE WORLD?

I was walking along ha ha hahaha never mind LOOK AT THIS VAN!

This is a 1988 Ford Econoline conversion van in what is probably Twilight Blue. It is sprinkled throughout with aftermarket doo dads like this air horns above the drivers seat.

A "HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY!" sticker is sitting on the dash because why not? You see these red windshield wiper arms and you know they mean business.

Look I know the deal; you grow up but still in the back of your mind you want a full size Hot Wheels car to drive around. No shame in that!

As this was parked facing down a hill it was hard to show just how jacked up this thing is in the rear. The front wheel is close to stock but this rear tire is absurd. Besides Big Daddy Roth style cool points  you get absolutely nothing from raising up the rear of your ride. If you had a high horsepower drag racer it might help keep the front wheels on the ground but this slab isn't pulling wheelies anytime soon. Shout-out to the mud splatters behind the wheels though!

There are so many different companies and sub contractors that carry out these conversions that I wasn't able to find out which one this is. Usually they have some goofy graphic wording on them but this one has had all identifiers removed during its enhancement. 

Aww yeah baby! Iridescent trim fills out this once boring cove along the sides.

The interior is appropriately obscured through a combination of tint and curtains.

It wasn't until I took this shot that I noticed the front and rear rims are actually the same. It looks to me like they bought those massive rear tires and had them installed, with the wheels getting a polish in the process.

That single step under the door is another example of the owner sitting around with a catalogue just looking for trinkets to spend on.

I love Ford Econoline vans from the '80s and have owned 2 myself. Here they are in order:

This is a 1989 E-150 that had been a Southern New England Telephone van before I bought it. It had the ultimate combination as far as I was concerned; a straight-6 cylinder mated to a 5 speed manual transmission. The stick shift was like 3 feet tall coming up from the floor to armrest height. I painted the stripes and the grill before moving with it to California with it. Even filled to the brim it got over 20mpg on average. I wish I had it now! Sold it to some brat for Burning Man.

 This is a 1988 Club Wagon XLT that I bought to move back from Cali with 10 years ago. This ride had a V8 and automatic with overdrive. The bigger engine drank a lot of gas and the overdrive blew before I left the state causing me to drive cross country at about 55mph max. It did have a full compliment of swivel chairs and a bench that folded into a bed in the back, as well as power windows. I liked it fine but preferred that white 6 cylinder.

On display here is a genius aftermarket addition that I wish I had on my vans; a sun, wind, and rain shield that allows for the windows to be open during all weather. The door glass goes so high up that it's impossible to crack the windows in the rain without getting soaked.

I like the top on this beast as it has a couple of skylights.

Well that's where I'll leave this slab to terrorize the tender cutlets of Park Slope.
When I moved back to NYC in the Club Wagon it was mid 2007 and gas prices started shooting through the roof. I has the most difficult time selling it even with a rebuilt engine and zero rust, finally unloading it for $850 (I paid $2,000 for it just a few months earlier). For the 6 months or so I had it I was parking on the street in the Lower East Side. If you think you have parking woes just try to parallel park a 20 foot long monster in one of the densest parts of the city! Given the space I would definitely own one of these again though as they are simple and fun to operate.

Jimny came to America to become a Samurai

JIMNY CAME TO AMERICA TO BECOME A SAMURAI

Poor Suzuki. 

This little immigrant got caught up in a whirlwind of rumors and wild claims so pervasive that the first thing that comes to your mind is probably "that's the truck that tips over in corners". Well I'm here to defend the reputation of little Suzuki albeit 37 years too late.

This is a fuzzy picture of a 1988 Suzuki Samurai in Atlantic Blue. It is a supremely confident little 4-wheel drive vehicle kind of like a smaller yet taller Jeep. Being a Suzuki it boasts Swiss watch reliability and better than average fuel economy. It was a smash hit out of the gates selling 47,000 in the U.S. market debut 1986 model year. None of that carried as much water as a line in a Consumer Reports rating saying that it "easily rolls over in turns".

Not only did the Samurai garner an "unacceptable" rating in their review, but it was singled out in what was Consumer Reports 60th anniversary issue. This was obviously devastating to sales. Overnight the Suzuki was a punchline and all of its merits were forgotten. After hiring a firm called Failure Analysis Associates to independently investigate the rollover claims Suzuki filed a libel lawsuit against Consumer Reports in 1996. The lawsuit dragged on for 8 years, finally ending inconclusively. The one detail from the lawsuit I want to highlight is that CR doctored the test course to induce rollover in testing, and stated that they "never intended to imply that the Samurai easily rolls over in routine driving conditions". 

Tell that to anyone who glanced at their headline back in 1988.

Enough of that wordy history! 

The Samurai was available as a fixed or removable hardtop but you rarely see one with this fastback canvas rear. The wheels are aftermarket and look a bit goofy to me but the tires suggest that this is strictly an on-road ride.

As far as trucks or Jeep-like vehicles go this is the most parkable. The engine matched the tiny dimensions of this ride with a 1.3 liter 4 cylinder powering up to 4 wheels. This is a true 4-wheel drive with a transfer case and switchable low and high gearing.

You could order these without a backseat from the factory which makes sense with the top they have. In reality the backseat is a punishment anyway. I've sat in one and felt like my knees were pressed against my chest even though I'm 5 foot 8!

The interior is straightforward and well designed. The smaller gearshift engages the 4WD as well as selecting the range. Crank windows and manual locks round out the no-nonsense approach.

The factory name for the Samurai is the Jimny SJ413, but many names have applied over the years depending on the market. Some of the names used include Escudo, Sierra, Katana, Maruti Gypsy, and my favorite; Farm Worker. In the U.S. the name Katana was given to a Suzuki motorcycle.

Whatever you want to call it this little truck has been consistently manufactured from 1970 through today. The rest of the world still enjoys their capabilities and durability. It's a genuine shame that this ride joins the Corvair, Pinto, and Tucker as vehicles remembered for or pushed out of the market by a single salacious detail. 

- Pintos potentially blew up when rear ended due to a faulty fuel filler neck (more damning was a Ford company document showing that they calculated it would be cheaper to settle wrongful death lawsuits than fix every car).

- Corvairs were vilified by Ralph Nader for the potential of a rear wheel to fold under the car under sever cornering due to the transaxle. By the time his book came out the design was already fixed but that didn't change public opinion.

- Tucker was pushed out by the Big Three from basically the moment he started producing what was the safest, most advanced car the world had ever seen.

- Little Suzuki was framed! This is a great ride that was thrown harshly through very sharp corners on a course that was redesigned to encourage failure. Without that report I'm confident that we would still see Samurais in dealerships today. 

IROC? You might Rock but you sure don't Roc

AS EIGHTIES AS BENETTON

I was driving my friends nifty Honda Element out near JFK somewhere when I passed by this blue sneaker and pulled an egregious U-turn to check it out:

What we have here is a 1987-1990 Chevrolet Camaro RS Convertible in Medium Maui Blue over Silver. The convertible was only introduced in 1987, and beginning in 1991 every Camaro hood had 2 large bumps on it, so we know it is within those years. My best guess is 1988 as there seemed to be a predominance of tu-tone paint with the silver along the bottom on that year only. 

Being that this is a completely flat hood we also know this is not a high performance model. If it were an IROC-Z there would be two black vents on the hood.

The wheels are not original but look the part surprisingly well. That little rectangle of gray behind the front wheel on the silver rocker panel says RS. Unlike days of yore when Rally Sport meant something, this was the designation for the base model Camaro. This might be packing the diminutive 2.8 Liter V6 under its hood. Good thing it's a convertible!

Much like a recent post of mine these cars started out with a solid roof before being converted by ASC (American Sunroof Corporation). If you went into a dealership to buy one of these back in the day your car would've originally been a T-tops model (not that you'd know). Some people brought their Camaros to ASC for the conversions themselves but then the VIN tag would have a 2 on it.

This is right up there with the worst convertible tops I've ever seen! Unless I'm mistaken someone has taken the effort to use an ocean of tape to fasten a clear piece of plastic over the back window opening. Whatever keeps the inside dry Bro!

With the loss of the trunk mounted wing you also lose the third brake light. From here we can see that the pinstripe is hot pink! That's about as '80s as it gets.

I'm pausing to give a shout-out to another period piece; the 1990-1991 Pontiac Bonneville parked behind the Camaro. I can only imagine that they're owned by the same person. This example is heavily tarted up with faux chrome outlining the wheel arches, lights, and grill, mini awnings over the windows allowing you to smoke in the rain, and a padded cloth roof. Only now is this starting to look a bit exotic, mostly because there is ZERO reason to keep one of these bricks afloat.

Much like its cousin parked behind it the paint is standard GM for the era; clear coat gone and fading fast. Who knows why GM paint was so terrible through the '80s into the '90s, but it almost always is. 

To put this convertible into perspective we need to think of it in context. General Motors stopped convertible production across the board in 1976 in answer to new rollover safety regulation. There were almost no domestic convertibles produced from '76-'86 (with a few oddball examples such as a Riviera & an Eldorado; both results of a partnership with an aftermarket conversion company). To go into a dealership and select a ragtop felt like a miracle! I've always like these as the lines really lend themselves to having the top down. With only a few thousand produced between '87-'90 I was surprised to see on in the wild.