Nice cars other than x-fire

[LE BARON]

Most people in 1970 did not take Buick seriously as a performance brand. That was their mistake, and this car exists specifically to prove it.

The GSX did not appear in the standard model catalog for 1970. A four-page pamphlet was made available at dealerships, but Buick never ran mainstream advertising for it. Only 678 examples were built in the second half of the model year, from March through May 1970, available in exactly two colors: 491 in Apollo White and 187 in Saturn Yellow, always with a black interior. This white example is one of those 187 cars.

The Stage 1 package upgraded the 455 cubic inch V8 with a hotter cam and improved cylinder heads, raising output to 360 horsepower and 510 pound-feet of torque. Functional hood scoops fed ram air induction. Motor Trend tested one and recorded a 13.38-second quarter mile at 105.5 mph, which prompted the magazine to crown it the quickest American production car they had ever tested.

At 510 pound-feet of torque, the Buick 455 produced the highest torque output of any American production performance car until 2003, when the Dodge Viper finally surpassed it. That record stood for thirty-three years. When Car Review magazine published its fifty fastest muscle cars list in 1984, the GSX Stage 1 ranked third overall, behind only the Shelby Cobra 427 and the 1966 Corvette 427, making it faster down the quarter mile than any other mid-sized or pony car from the entire 1960s and 1970s.

The standard GSX package included a hood-mounted tachometer, Hurst shifter on four-speed cars, Polyglas G60x15 tires on seven-inch wheels, front disc brakes, quick-ratio steering, and heavy-duty anti-sway bars front and rear. Buick called it a brand new brand of Buick. The people who drove one simply called it the fastest thing on the road, and left the argument right there

 

[1st Vette]

 

[1st Vette]

 

[1st Vette]

Frugal air ride......

 

[1st Vette]

Russian version, lol.

 

[1st Vette]

Get ya some of this .......

 

[LE BARON]

YIN & YANG
Chevrolet is celebrating the spirit of performance this May by sending the most powerful Corvette in history to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. The 2026 Corvette ZR1 has been named the official pace car for the 110th Indianapolis 500. With a staggering 1,064 horsepower from its twin-turbocharged LT7 V8, it is a rolling testament to American engineering and the pursuit of speed. For the enthusiast watching from the grandstands, seeing this homegrown hypercar lead the field is a powerful reminder that when it comes to raw power, Detroit still takes a backseat to no one.

 

[LE BARON]

By 1957 Studebaker was in serious financial trouble. The merger with Packard had gone badly. The Packard engine plant had just been sold off to Curtiss-Wright. The big Packard V8 that powered the 1956 Golden Hawk was gone. A lesser company would have quietly downgraded the car and hoped nobody noticed. Studebaker bolted a McCulloch supercharger onto their own 289 cubic inch V8 instead, matched the Packard's 275 horsepower exactly, and went racing.

Speed Age magazine tested the Golden Hawk against the Chrysler 300B, Ford Thunderbird and Chevrolet Corvette and found the Golden Hawk could outperform all three comfortably in both 0-60 acceleration and quarter mile times. The Golden Hawk ran from zero to sixty in 7.8 seconds with a top speed of 125 mph. When the supercharger kicked in, drivers described it as a kick in the backside that made you smile and say "ohhh" the first time it happened.

Mid-year, Studebaker introduced an ultra-rare Golden Hawk 400 model with a leather interior, special trim and a fully upholstered trunk. Only 41 were ever built. Total 1957 production was just 4,356 cars. The fastest American production car of its era came from a company most people had already written off. Nobody in Detroit took Studebaker seriously in 1957. The stopwatch disagreed with all of them

 

[LE BARON]

America came home from World War ii and needed trucks. Not fancy trucks. Working trucks. The kind that hauled bread, delivered milk, moved furniture and never complained about any of it. Harley Earl's GM Styling team had been quietly sketching the Advance Design series since 1942, and when it finally launched on June 28, 1947, retired GM design vice president Chuck Jordan described those trucks with three words: "Round and juicy."

The 3800 was the one-ton heavyweight of the lineup, and the panel truck version was put to work in big cities selling fruits, vegetables and baked goods door to door, earning the nickname "Huckster" among the tradesmen who drove them daily. The cab seated three abreast on a wide bench, though panel delivery versions came with two individual seats instead. Chevrolet marketed the new cab with a single memorable phrase: "The cab that breathes," referring to its artful ventilation system that made all-day driving genuinely tolerable.

The same basic design underpinned every Chevrolet truck from the half-ton Suburban to the full cab-over-engine heavy haulers, all the way through 1955. The men who drove these trucks for a living never thought about design. They just knew they would start every morning and run all day. Seventy-five years later people pay serious money to own one. The old working trucks earned it

 

[LE BARON]

It is rare that a car's production number is as scary as its engine but the 1970 Plymouth Sport Fury GT pulled it off. Plymouth manufactured exactly 666 of these "C-Body" monsters for the 1970 model year. It was the executive’s version of a muscle car.

While the kids were bouncing around in stripped down Road Runners the bosses were driving these. It featured the "Fuselage" design where the body curved outward like a submarine or a jumbo jet. It is massive. It weighs nearly 5,000 pounds and stretches almost twenty feet long.

But do not let the luxury fool you. This was a legitimate GT. It came standard with the 440 Super Commando V8 and a heavy duty suspension that made it surprisingly stable at 100 miles per hour. This specific car wearing its original blue paint and battle scars is a true survivor. Some people say a car this big cannot be a real muscle car. I say those people have never felt the raw torque of a 440 pulling three tons of American iron. It is a rare piece of Mopar history that was built for the man who wanted to win a drag race and still arrive at the office with his suit perfectly pressed.

 

[LE BARON]

I love the Ginetta G12 because it is a total physics lesson on wheels. Most people look at this car and think it is a scale model or a toy. It only stands 40 inches tall. You basically have to lay down on the floor just to get inside the cockpit.

In 1966 while American companies were building 4,000 pound muscle cars with massive iron V8s the Walklett brothers in England were doing the exact opposite. They built a tubular spaceframe and wrapped it in a fiberglass body that weighed only 1,100 pounds.

They tucked a 1.6 liter Lotus-Ford Twin Cam engine right behind the driver's head. It only made about 175 horsepower but when you have almost zero weight to push that is enough to outrun a supercar. It was so fast in the corners that racing officials actually had to move it into much higher displacement classes just to give the other cars a fair chance.

It dominated the tracks because it didn't fight the wind or the curves. It just danced around them. It is a rolling reminder that the smartest guy in the race isn't the one with the biggest engine but the one with the lightest car. Seeing a black and silver survivor like this today is a rare treat for anyone who appreciates real engineering over raw brute force

 

[LE BARON]

Most people look at a 1975 Chevrolet Laguna Type S-3 and see the ultimate symbol of the Malaise Era. They see a heavy car with a smog-choked engine and a measly 175 horsepower rating. They treat it like a bad joke. But I am going to tell you why the competition in the mid seventies was absolutely terrified of this red coupe.

This nose isn't made of steel. It is a slanted urethane plastic shell that was designed in a wind tunnel. Chevy engineers realized that while Ford and Mopar were building cars with upright grilles that acted like parachutes the Laguna could cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.

The result was total devastation on the track.

The legendary Cale Yarborough drove a Laguna just like this one to three consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup championships from 1976 to 1978. It was so aerodynamically superior that it could maintain high speeds with significantly less effort than the competition. Ford and Dodge teams got so frustrated that they lobbied NASCAR officials until the rulebook was changed specifically to restrict this car. They eventually outlawed the body style entirely because it gave Chevy an "unfair" advantage.

Underneath that sleek nose you could still order a 454 big block and those famous swivel bucket seats that turned out toward the door to help you get in. It was a heavy luxury cruiser that secretly held the blueprint for the modern race car. It proves that you do not need 500 horsepower to win if you are smart enough to outrun the wind. If you find an original S-3 today you are looking at a certified outlaw that Detroit is still proud of.

 

[LE BARON]

The C3 Corvette body was patterned directly after Larry Shinoda's Mako Shark II concept, and in 1969 it finally hit its stride. The "Stingray" name returned to the front fenders as a single word, the ignition moved to the steering column, and wider 8-inch wheels arrived for the first time.

The 427 was offered in three states of tune: 390 and 400 horsepower for the civilized buyer, and 435 horsepower for everyone else. That top version produced its peak torque of 460 pound-feet at 4,000 rpm. But those numbers were a deliberate fiction. The aluminum-headed 427, conservatively rated at 435 horsepower for insurance purposes, was genuinely in the 500-plus horsepower range. Chevrolet quietly lied on the spec sheet so buyers could keep their premiums manageable.

Only 2,722 of the 1969 Corvettes were equipped with the top 435-horsepower engine. Total 1969 production reached 38,762 units, one of the highest in Corvette history, a number inflated by a UAW strike that extended the production run well into the 1970 model year. 1969 was also the last year for the 427 entirely. The engine that defined an era disappeared the following year, replaced by the 454. Nothing before or since has sounded quite like it

 

[LE BARON]

The Pantera's story begins with an Argentine Formula One driver named Alejandro De Tomaso convincing Ford to sell Italian supercars through American Lincoln-Mercury dealerships. Ford sold around 5,500 Panteras through their dealer network before pulling out in 1975. Most companies would have died the moment Ford walked away. De Tomaso just kept building the car anyway, without Ford's money, without Ford's dealer network, and without anyone expecting him to succeed.

The GT5 arrived in 1980 with Group 4 race-derived bodywork, massive fiberglass flared arches housing 345/35R15 rear tires, deep front and rear spoilers, and ventilated disc brakes at all four corners. The Ford 351 Cleveland V8 was sourced from Australia after American production ended, then shipped to Switzerland to be tuned. The result was 355 horsepower and a 0-60 time of 5.5 seconds, entirely competitive with Ferrari and Lamborghini at a fraction of the price.

Fewer than 197 GT5 Panteras were ever built. The car that Ford abandoned, that Elvis Presley famously shot with a handgun after a mechanical frustration, and that nobody gave a chance after 1975, outlasted DeTomaso's rivals and stayed in production all the way until 1992. Twenty-one years. One stubborn Argentine. Zero apologies.

 

[Dave91TM]

Most people look at a 1975 Chevrolet Laguna Type S-3 and see the ultimate symbol of the Malaise Era. They see a heavy car with a smog-choked engine and a measly 175 horsepower rating. They treat it like a bad joke. But I am going to tell you why the competition in the mid seventies was absolutely terrified of this red coupe.

This nose isn't made of steel. It is a slanted urethane plastic shell that was designed in a wind tunnel. Chevy engineers realized that while Ford and Mopar were building cars with upright grilles that acted like parachutes the Laguna could cut through the air like a hot knife through butter.

The result was total devastation on the track.

The legendary Cale Yarborough drove a Laguna just like this one to three consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup championships from 1976 to 1978. It was so aerodynamically superior that it could maintain high speeds with significantly less effort than the competition. Ford and Dodge teams got so frustrated that they lobbied NASCAR officials until the rulebook was changed specifically to restrict this car. They eventually outlawed the body style entirely because it gave Chevy an "unfair" advantage.

Underneath that sleek nose you could still order a 454 big block and those famous swivel bucket seats that turned out toward the door to help you get in. It was a heavy luxury cruiser that secretly held the blueprint for the modern race car. It proves that you do not need 500 horsepower to win if you are smart enough to outrun the wind. If you find an original S-3 today you are looking at a certified outlaw that Detroit is still proud of.

View attachment 140103

Its the sleek sloped nose.... nothing compared to current sloped noses, except of course things like Mazda CX 5, BMW etc with big flat front ends.

 

[LE BARON]

Henry Kaiser had beaten the United States Navy's shipbuilding timetable during World War Two by building Liberty cargo ships faster than anyone thought humanly possible. He had built the Hoover Dam ahead of schedule. He had launched an entire steel company from scratch in California. By 1953 he was convinced that he could beat General Motors at their own game with a luxury car so spectacular that buyers would forget Cadillac existed. What happened next is one of the most heartbreaking stories in American automotive history.

Howard "Dutch" Darrin was responsible for Kaiser's exterior styling, and interior designer Carleton Spencer, whose interior work was genuinely a cut above the Big Three, created the Dragon's extraordinary cabin concept. The Kaiser Dragon's interior used a combination of bamboo-patterned "Bambu" vinyl inset with geometric "Laguna" cloth, a heavy-duty Belgian linen with a midcentury-modern pattern of overlapping rectangles. Long-filament "Calpoint" carpeting covered the floor, and the Dragons used more than 200 pounds of sound insulation for a quieter ride than any lesser Kaiser. Six exterior colors were available, all exclusive to the Dragon and finished in lacquer rather than the enamel paint used on lesser Kaisers and by most other manufacturers at the time. This Jade Tint example is one of the most visually striking configurations of the entire production run, its bamboo green vinyl roof matching the body in a way that looks more like a custom coach-built automobile than anything produced on an assembly line.

Every Dragon received gold-plated hood, fender, and trunk badges, plus a personalized engraved gold-plated plaque with the owner's name on the glove box door. Air conditioning, tinted glass, Hydra-Matic automatic transmission, radio, heater, defroster and whitewall tires all came standard. Carleton Spencer was the creative talent who put together the 14-carat gold finish on the hood ornament, hood and rear deck V medallions. Nothing was left out. Nothing was optional. Kaiser threw everything they had at this car.

And then came the problem that no amount of gold plating or bamboo vinyl could solve. The Dragon cost $3,924 when a comparable 1953 Buick Roadmaster was priced at $3,358 and came with a 188 horsepower 322 cubic inch V8, while the Dragon offered only a 118 horsepower 226 cubic inch inline six with a 0-60 time of 15 seconds. You were paying $566 more than a Buick Roadmaster for a car that was considerably slower than one. Buyers noticed. Dragon production stopped entirely on May 28th, 1953, due to a UAW strike, leaving just 1,277 Kaiser Dragons ever produced. Re-plating the gold trim and replacing the Bambu vinyl today is extraordinarily expensive and nearly impossible to do correctly, making well-preserved original examples like this Jade Dragon among the most significant survivors in the entire independent automaker era.

Kaiser built a car with your name in gold on the dashboard, covered it in materials nobody else in Detroit was using, and priced it above everything the competition offered while putting a six-cylinder under the hood. It was the most beautifully executed miscalculation in American automotive history. And every single one of the 1,277 people who bought one knew they had something completely unlike anything else on the road. They were absolutely right