I ran across a Faded Player recently . . .

FADED PLAYER

I was walking through the Northern end of Bay Ridge the other day when this well chewed blob of bubble gum made its presence known:

Okay, alright, there was once something to work with here.

This is a 1982 Ford Mustang GT in what might be a very faded Medium Red. The GT had special colors and the Medium Red leaned in this raspberry bubble gum direction but this also might be a flashy custom color from the go-go '80s.

This hood scoop does nothing at all. If the sun weren't so bright you'd see that it's blocked off with a body-colored panel. That Mustang emblem in front of it was a foggy as it looks in this pic.

The GT took over where the Mustang Cobra left off the year before. From '79-'81 the most powerful Mustang engine available was a turbocharged 4 cylinder! The V8 from '80-'81 was a smaller 4.2 liter 255 which got better gas milage than the classic 302 V8 of the previous decade. Our feature car today  brought the return of the famous 5.0 302 V8.

The GT has a great look with a special front spoiler and air dam, that mini faux scoop, and a wing on the rear. This was a cusp model bridging the gap between the first Fox Body Mustangs in '79 and the redesigned next step for the Fox in 1983. After the '83 redesign (more of a minor tinkering than a complete overhaul) this basic design carried all the way through the decade and into the early '90s.

Definitely trust the milage quoted by the seller of every classic car, especially when the dashboard has been completely torn to shreds! This dash has been WORKED; look at the hole smashed into the top in the middle. The dash pad, face, and vents have all been torn out. I can see that this is a stick shift though which makes this one fun car to drive.

Here's the 3/4 view of this hatchback pony. The dimensions are tidy for a rear wheel drive V8 sports car. Beginning in 1983 a convertible would be available for the first time in 9 years. Those are Mustang rims from a slightly newer car.

A single out of state plate is holding this thing down while the cops and tow trucks pass it by. Does this really look like a Vermont car? Can you imagine driving this thing in any amount of snow? Might as well sit on a diner stool and swivel in a circle.

D & D Autoworks had their hand in this beasts creation many moons ago as you can see from the faded lettering next to the trunk lock.

As munchy and weathered as this thing is it is standing up at the proper height with all its lighting and glass intact. Besides scuffs and scrapes there are no major dents to be found, and just a few rust spots are staring to creep.

Well that's where I'll back away from this '80s tough guy vision.

The 5.0 Mustangs of the decade were crazy popular and filled the streets when I was in high school. They remain affordable and are very easy to work on with parts availability second to none. If you want an easy classic to take to shows or just roll around in for summer you could do a lot worse.

Ford Mustang BLECH edition

SLIPPERY, BEAT DOWN FOX IN PONY CLOTHING

I was a few blocks up from my apartment recently when a nauseous feeling came over me in waves. Reeling a bit and clutching my gut I knew what it was: a 4th gen Mustang!

This is a 1994-1998 Ford Mustang convertible in Medium Seafoam Poly. It has achieved full Hooptie status with an array of beater calling cards. 

This thing looks like an old prizefighter trying to smile through the pain.
The Fox body Mustang that preceded this era had a monumentally successful run of 15 years so a revamp was way overdue. Ford supposedly spent a cool $700,000,000 on updating every aspect of the car. Reigning in noise and vibration were top concerns but really the update was comprehensive.

Oh yeah this is where we get into the serious NYC action! In one glimpse we have the following: scrapes, dents, a Bond repair, a missing light (with another held in place with tape), different color fender, and front wheels so riddled with brake dust that they may as well have been steeping in a bucket of tea.

You know what though? The top goes down when the weather is nice so all is forgiven. I've purchased and flaunted some truly forlorn buckets simply because they were convertibles.

Believe it or not this is actually an updated version of the Fox body and is listed as FOX-4 in Ford company literature. As a vehicle platform the Fox body was one of the most successful in modern history with 26 total years of use (if you allow for adjustments over the years).
I recently rewatched E.T. for the first time since seeing it new in the theaters. Imagine my surprise when every government agent in the movie is driving a Ford Fairmont! Original Fox Body action!

Looks like this ride lost its trunk lid mounted wing at some point. Offering zero in performance the wing was cartoonishly curvy and plump. 

From this angle it looks like any rounded '90s car. The Chrysler Sebring wasn't much different. The rounded body reduced drag in a big way when compared to previous models.

Well that's where I'll leave my least favorite Mustang of all time. As I said before I will forgive just about any convertible on its top down merits so this will be filed under acceptable transportation. However a hardtop V6 version of this would interest me about as much as a Taurus. Still, I'm duty bound to give it up for anyone repairing their car with tape. Hat's off FOX-4!

Kevin McHale's sweet limo? Obviously

KEVIN McHALE'S SWEET LIMO? OBVIOUSLY

Contributor Max recently sent the following pics from the corner of Avenue C and 14th Street in Manhattan. The backdrop of the first pic is the Con Edison facility that found itself completely submerged during Hurricane Sandy, causing everything below 34th Street to be without power for almost a week. This hooptie represents the last remaining damage:

Gawd look at this beat down Frankenstein ride. The grill is red with the blood of its enemies! The bumper has been painted black and fitted with some fog lamps. As far as the flat black sections between the grill and lights and the hood, and along the top of the fenders I can only imagine this has been in some front end collisions and repaired as needed on the cheap. the CELT 32 plate means this is definitely owned by "one of the NBA's 50 greatest players" Kevin McHale of the Boston Celtics. Nobody said life after basketball would be easy, player!

I'm late with the information but this is a 1993/1994 Lincoln Town Car. Anyone who's been anywhere near NYC knows that these were ubiquitous as the T&LC black car limos. While they started out more luxurious than the yellow cabs they were driven just as much, routinely clocking 500,000 miles or more before either being cannibalized for parts or sold at auction. The upside for buying a vehicle like this is that you can get parts anywhere in the city and even major repairs like a transmission change can be done on the spot by dozens of 24/7 taxi repair shops.
Shout-out to the half landau roof and big sunroof! 

The back has been curiously bedazzled with a wolf head above the Flag of Ireland flanked by red stripes on the window. Red tape striping has shown up above the taillights as well as the lower trunk lip. This bumper was also spray painted black (as was the entire lower half of the car it looks like!) except for the bottom which is bright red. Quad exhaust tips and triple antennas round out the mayhem.
Well that's that: a New York City icon repping a Boston icon by way of Ireland by way of New Jersey. If there were ever a hooptie you could park anywhere in the 5 boroughs without worry this is it. Like anything used ruthlessly and discarded they may indeed become rare as time goes by. When was the last time you saw a Checker?

Freak show in the Rockaways

FREAK SHOW IN THE ROCKAWAYS

I was making my way to the beach at Fort Tilden in the Rockaways on a brutally hot day when I happened upon a minuscule car show!

It was a motley lineup to be sure. I only snapped a few pics due to it being a humid 92+ degrees and the beach a few hundred yards away.
On the end of this brace of classics we have a 1961 Chevrolet Impala Bubble Coupe in Twilight Turquoise.
One step closer is a 1958 Ford Ranchero* done up in the sort of Kool Kustom So Cal Hot Rod pinstriping action that made Von Dutch famous. The mini whitewalls and vintage mag rims are a nice touch too.
*The El Camino is by far the most famous car/truck combo but the Ranchero actually beat it to the marketplace by 2 years. Hudson had a truck with the front of a sedan back in the late '30s-'40s but it had a separate bed unlike the integrated Ford & Chevy.

And then there's THIS!
I'm guessing this is a 1928-1931 Ford Model A Club Wagon Woody with a homemade replacement body from the cab back. In addition they mounted the headlights onto what seems to be correct fenders (the headlights would be mounted on a metal bar spanning the space between the fenders in front of the radiator). 

Now that I'm really looking at it it also seems to be widened so perhaps it's all mounted on a more modern chassis? Who knows? I like it in its weird half-finished look. The running boards are just too wide as are the rear fenders for it to be from the era of the front clip. Yes those are tiki torches mounted to the rear corners folks! Fire up some Martin Denny and bug out!

I wanted to drive this rig away with the hat I'd borrowed.

On the other side we have a 1950 Ford Tudor Bullet Nose that calls itself The Jade Grenade. I've always like the center bullet on the grills of the '49 and '50 Fords. The Tudor literally stands for two door (there was a Fordor too). For whatever reason they have rear quarter windows that make them look like 4 door sedans. The next car is much more interesting as far as I'm concerned:

This ferocious beast is a 1970 Buick Electra 225 convertible in rattle can Black. The chrome front bumper is either a primed replacement or the owner just wanted less brightness in the world.

The black front seats and chili pepper hanging from the mirror let everyone know that this ride is no longer the plaything of the gentry, but rather a rough and tumble beach cruiser hell bent on ruining reputations. I would love to fire up the mighty 455 that lies under the hood of this tank and roll through the city at night.
Well there we have it; a slapdash gathering of classics in a hot beach parking lot. Maybe if this was a blog named something like "honoring the timeless classics" (The tag line of Dennis Gage in My Classic Car) I'd feature some of those flashier paint jobs you might've noticed in the lineup. However this is NYCHoopties people so the tattered, battered, duct tape adorned, and spray painted get preferential treatment here. Hope you enjoyed this interlude, now get to the beach stat!

Lipstick on a Pig, or one of the hardest naturally occurring minerals

LIPSTICK ON A PIG

The more common the car the easier it is for it to go extinct before anybody notices. Think of the Passenger Pigeon being hunted to oblivion without any public outrage. Here's the final pigeon:

This is a 1992 Mercury Topaz in Cayman Blue Poly. I took these pictures because I was surprised to see one at all in 2017.

The Topaz is the twin sibling to the Ford Tempo. Both were built from 1984-1994 and picked up where the Fairmont and Zephyr left off. This is one baby step above the basic transportation of the Escort/Lynx. The full width front light bar is much like that of the larger Sable so you have to give it up for design continuity across different models.

YAWN.

This is a GS; the commonest Topaz. It is the mid-tier trim level with nothing remarkable about it. There were a few interesting variations including the GL-AWD which was all wheel drive, and the XR5 and LTS; both high performance versions with the former being a coupe and the latter a sedan.

If you have trouble sleeping here's a dealer training video of the 1990 Tempo.

This ride is similar to several smaller cars built around the same time that weren't quite as popular. The Dodge Shadow and Plymouth Sundance look very much like the Topaz even though they come from a competing company.

The Ford Taurus is widely regarded as being a watershed, game changing design. It heralded the arrival of a bulbous, rounded shape in which the windows and doors were integrated seamlessly for a slippery drag coefficient. The Tempo/Topaz line shares many of those traits and is a transitional shape from the boxes of the '80s to the bubbles of the '90s.

I was feeling a bit too exposed to really press up against the glass but suffice it to say you're not missing much. 2 things are on display in this pic that are very much of the era; stereo and cruise control buttons being located on the steering wheel, and that automatic track-mounted shoulder belt. Anyone who's experienced the shoulder belt automatically trundling back until it pinches your neck hates it. Thankfully they disappeared when airbags were deemed standard equipment, but they reigned in some regard from 1975-1987, and on all new cars from 1990-1995.

Topaz the gemstone is one of the hardest naturally occurring minerals. The Topaz has a MOHS hardness of 8!

Oh yeah this little punk has been around. I was happy to see at least a little tape repair to liven things up. Being on the passengers front corner I'm gonna go ahead and blame the driver 100% for this one. Taking a corner a bit wide or not quite noticing how close the parked cars are can do this easily.

Well there you have it; an utterly forgotten luxury version of a car that might as well be called BASIC TRANSPORTATION.
Mercury as a brand is no longer with us in 2017, which is kind of a shame. From its beginnings before WWII through the 1970s Mercury built so many amazing cars. They were always a luxury offshoot of Ford but they even managed some unique and awesome muscle cars with the Cougar and Cyclone. By the time this little Topaz was sold new Mercury was relegated to only producing cars identical to Ford but with slightly better trim. Their last big hit was the Grand Marquis but the demographic buying them grew older and died off (if that sounds harsh I assure you that their own internal research found that this is how it went down!). In the very end a gussied-up Ford Explorer called the Mountaineer was the first called to the chopping block. Within a year all other Mercury products followed suit, bringing the 72 year old nameplate to a finish in 2011.

The most historically significant car EVER

THE MOST HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT AUTOMOBILE SINCE AUTOMOBILES WERE INVENTED

It's hard to heap too many superlatives onto the following ride no matter how altered it is from its original state. Behold this super rat rod parked right in front of my building:

This started life as a 1927 Ford Model T Tudor in (what else?) Black. More specifically Double Deep Black. When the Model T was introduced in 1908 it was available in Gray, Green, Blue, and Red. The famous policy that stemmed from Henry Ford stating that "the customer can have any color they want as long as it's Black" didn't actually start until 1914.

Yes that says FARMALL on the grill. This grill originally came from a late 1930s International Harvester Farmall tractor. All Farmalls were bright red in color when built. In addition this grill has been cut down a bit; there would have been a 4th bank of 4 horizontal openings on the bottom.

Rat rods stemmed from people cobbling together working hot rods from mismatched pieces of various cars that were wrecked, abandoned, or thrown away. However like a pair of $1,000 distressed jeans they are now high dollar, high concept approximations of true rats. Maybe this body shell was found in a Texas field but it's definitely had several dozens of thousands of dollars sunk into it since.

I have no idea which V8 engine powers this thing but those open headers must be extremely loud when it's running. This thing is a catchall of rat rod styling cues: German iron cross on the visor, aggressively chopped roof, channeled body where it's sunken down between the frame rails, keg fuel tank where the back seat used to be, exposed engine with unique grill, metal spider web details in the door openings, and a matte faux patina color body.

Those big Ford spoke wheels with the V8 symbol on the caps are great.

This is the last year for the fabled Model T which concluded a spectacular 18 year run. This is the car that put America behind the wheel. Henry Ford invented the modern assembly line to crank these Tin Lizzies out at an unheard of rate of 1 every 3 minutes. By the time this one rolled out of the Highland Park facility in Detroit Ford had built 15,000,000 of them.

Besides the roof height the body shell maintains most of its 1927 look. The Model T had these flat doors unlike the rounded ones of its replacement. That trim line that runs under the windows would curve up around the rear of the rear side window on the later Model A. This rat still boasts the original insanely charming taillights too.

"The Golden Rat" is the name of this beast (the quotations marks are theirs). With the body aggressively channeled and lowered and the fenders removed the wheels look pretty amazing.

Originally the roof was canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Most early bodies had wood frames as well with metal affixed over it for the shell. This roof has been replaced with a massive sheet of metal that has hundreds of louvers stamped into it. There is no window glass except for the windshield so having that many holes in the roof is moot.

This shot gives you an idea of how low this thing actually is. The highest point of the roof sits below the level of the hood of the truck behind it!

Ford produced 8 different models from their first Model A in 1903 until the T was introduced in 1908. Supposedly the Model T was so new in every way that they decided to start all over again with the Model A as its 1927 replacement. These final Model Ts had standard features that were impressive for such an everyman car at the time including a sun visor, windshield wiper, rearview mirror, and a dash light. Remember this was pre Great Depression when most of the roads were unpaved and in disastrous condition so niceties like a rearview mirror weren't taken for granted. The front seats even slid forward and backward to adjust for legroom!

The price for the cheapest Model T (the Runabout) in 1927 was a mere $360! That was less than half the cost of the first examples from 1908. Until 1972 when the VW Beetle usurped it the Model T was the best selling car in history (the Beetle topped out at 21.5 million while the Toyota Corolla is currently in the lead with 40+ million and counting). While it is true that the 1901 Oldsmobile Curved Dash automobile was the first car built on an assembly line the production was nothing compared to the Model T (a total of 19,000 of those Curved Dash models were sold between 1901-1907). This car changed the way Americans lived, where they worked, how they planned communities, and how most products were assembled in the future. Because there were so many produced they are still available in every level of condition. Within the past year I saw one advertised locally that was registered, inspected, and ready for daily use in its original factory specs for under $10,000. I've never driven one and only sat in a few that were parked but I'd love to one day. In the meantime hats off to "The Golden Rat"!