CLUNKBUCKET

This late eighties front-wheel drive Oldsmobile Cutlass Calias may or may not became a collectors item or the stand as the greatest car ever made. Under the hood is what counts. The General Motors Olds division special, shown here on its final road trip, packed the first production dual overhead cam four-cylinder engine GM ever produced in house. The year? 1987. The engine? The now-legendary GM Quad-4. The first generation Quad-4 engines kicked out about 150-HP – more than some GM small block V8 engines of the same era. A distinctive visual feature of the Quad-4 are the twin camshaft towers, which mirror the configuration of the most legendary of American four-cylinder engines – the Offenhauser. With exception of the Oldsmobile Aerotech, only in an alternate early 90′s universe did GM put a turbocharged Quad-4 into a rear-wheel drive car with fully independent suspension and fully-integrated quad laser. Over half of the boneyards in our world are overflowing with acres of GM front-wheel drive mediocrity as a testament of an era when Detroit well and truly forgot what they did best.

MORE: Intro to the Quad-4 (and then some!)

Special to Clunkbucket by Peter Peter Hughes

Interstate 81 northbound, between Binghamton and Syracuse. Leaving New York City that morning I’d subconsciously registered a hint of additional depth to the Saab’s normally throaty exhaust note, but it isn’t until a fuel stop somewhere in Pennsylvania that I think to actually look underneath the car, and discover the exhaust just aft of the catalytic converter rusted nearly clean through, hanging by a thread. Worrying, but not exactly surprising: months earlier, returning from a trip to Chicago, the exhaust just ahead of the cat had failed — as luck would have it, a mere five-minute tow from what had to have been the best Saab shop in Indiana. Would I be fortunate enough, I wonder, to make it the couple hundred miles home this time? Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Streets could have crammed one of many and readily available Ford V8 mills into the engine bay of his 1974 Pinto Wagon. Instead he chose to transplant a 2.3-liter single overhead cam turbocharged four-banger from a 1988 Ford Thunderbird in place of the aspirated stocker. Why? “A V8 would have been too easy”, said Mike – who is a former SCCA Pinto road racer and current owner of the now legendary Boss Pinto. Mike drives this wagon-in-progress whenever possible, running the boost at around 9 or 10 psi through the stock turbo for road going amusement. What you see here is only the beginning, or perhaps the late middle of an ongoing project that will eventually result in the turbocharged Boss Pinto panel wagon Ford never made. Read the rest of this entry »

We first encountered this Ferrari in true Clunkbucket fashion. The owner, Scott Isquick of Pepper Pike, Ohio, was having a little trouble getting it started outside the post-show banquet at the 2008 Greenwich Concours. Finally, the 4.0 liter V12 caught, interrupting the sharp mechanical shriek of the starter. The ‘67 motored off into the Connecticut darkness, leaving a dark hole where its rather inexplicable aura — something beyond mere Ferrari-ness — had held us rapt. The drive back to Manhattan in our borrowed ‘05 Rolls-Royce Phantom felt a little less special after the encounter with the one-of-99 330 GTS. In fact, we recall positing at the time that we’d gladly trade three of the Anglo-Teutonic brutes for that particular Italian droptop.

Read the rest of this entry »

From the I could have been a contender department comes this bone stock all-original survivor 1978 Fiat 128 Sport from the 2010 Concours d’Lemons. The plucky Fiat did not take home a prize of any kind. It stands as the first of a few coming contraptions that for reasons not understood went home sans trophy. Owner Steve has driven the Fiat occasionally and on the weekends since acquiring the dust-covered compact several years ago from a man with a possible top secret past. This is the first time Steve took the Fiat to any sort of show, and the farthest the Fiat had ever gone from its Santa Clara, California home. Read the rest of this entry »

From the California mythology department of our broken dreams division comes this Toyota FJ-60 Land Cruiser in Vermont. This rusted through example of one tough 4X4 truck serves as a reminder of what to look for before purchasing that old rust bucket restoration project. While the rust is somewhat obvious here, peeling up a carpet or two and looking for hidden rust is a good idea before any old automobile purchase. This FJ-60 appeared to be part of the 500-dollar car and truck vortex, apparently created by the Concrete Ape in Vermont. The FJ was directly in the shadow of the mighty ape. A frozen Volkswagen Beetle was also seen not far from the aggregate and reinforced steel primate. Asking price? 500-dollars. Travelers be advised. Thanks to the impressive powers of genuine Vermont road salt and salt-filled slush, this Toyota had an added feature not found on non-rusted desert climate examples. Look closely and marvel at the handy driver side rear fenderwell road flare dispenser, an unique option available free of charge on this Toyota Land Cruiser.

Though is may seem like these shots are circa 1984, this super-clean Dodge Rampage was spied recently by photojournalist Dave Wallace on a trip to legendary Gotelli’s Speed Shop in South San Francisco, California. The Rampage and its 1983-only Plymouth Scamp rebrandmate were built on the Chrysler L-body platform, and shared a nose with its Dodge 024-Plymouth TC3 cousins. The Rampage was sold from 1982-84, and drove into the subcompact truck market against the Volkswagen Rabbit pickup and Subaru Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter – or BRAT. Legend has it that a few Direct Connection Shelby Rampages were built using components from a Dodge Shelby Charger. Lore says that even fewer of those got the turbocharged and intercooled version of the 2.2-liter mill under the hood. While all other Rampages were built naturally-aspirated, we know of at least one person that transplanted a 2.2 turbo mill under the hood to add street light surprise and torque steer amusement to the truck-like utility of the Rampage.

Thanks to Dave Wallace for the photos and Allpar for information on the near-mythical 1984 Dodge California Shelby Rampage.

The 1986 Pontiac 2+2 Aerocoupe was more or less the homologated result of Bill Elliot cleaning up the NASCAR competition behind the wheel of a mid-eighties Ford Thunderbird. As stock cars were still somewhat stock at this point in time, the Pontiac Grand Prix was in aero-trouble with its brick like nose and near-vertical rear window against the slippery T-bird. Throw ‘Awesome Bill from Dawsonville’ Elliot into the mix and the Pontiac division was in the soup on the speedways. The 1986 and one-half Grand Prix was the showroom result of adventures in aerodynamics from the Pontiac braintrust. The brick nose up front was sleeked out, and the bubble back window met up with a shortened fiberglass rear deck and spoiler out back. The production 305 V8 kicked out 165 horsepower through a 4-speed automatic transmission. The aerodynamic changes helped the NASCAR Ponchos chalk up a few wins, but teams succumbed to the unfortunate reality of using front-wheel drive bodies on rear-wheel drive race cars by 1988. This particular 1986-something Pontiac 2+2 Aerocoupe was seen parked and motoring about on a Van Nuys Cruise Night. As only 1225 or so of these cars were ever produced, the chance of seeing one in Van Nuys is about the same as seeing the same car featured in an in-depth article by Jeff Koch over at Hemmings.

MORE: Is Pontiac’s 1986 2+2 the Superbird of the ’80s? by Jeff Koch