Your reasoning is acurate with the more modern cars. I was more thinking along the line of the 1900's. Say a curved dash or REO. Would you consider those " classic's"
One of the nice thing about the crappy build quality of my 77 is, I don't need to make it perfect. I just say that's the way they made them so it's 100% accurate factory restoration. Some of the stuff I needed to do to "fix" the factory build during the resto still makes me shake my head. They were originally made to drive for 5-7 years then junk em. It's guy's like all of us on this forum are the ones who made these cars into more than they were suppose to be!

Mike

 

Whole other ball of wax, of course.
Pretty any of the pre-assembly-line cars, and pretty much any car made before 1925 (except for the radically mass-produced ones) is a classic, partly because they all were made with a considerable amount of careful hand labor, and partly because, after the safety drives of the late twenties and the scrap drives of the forties, there are so few left.


Exactly.

- Eric

 

http://www.classiccarclub.org/pdfs/W...%20We%20do.pdf

This link pretty much tells you what cars and production number that meet the true definition of Classic.

 

While I (like all of us) could quibble about whether specific cars should make the list, I would agree with the standard stated in that document, which I tried to articulate earlier, that to be a classic, a car must "...represent the pinnacle of engineering, styling and design for their era."

- Eric

 

I agree with you 100% Eric. I am in the camp that goes by the documented True Classic Car definition and our cars do not meet the requirements. There is no muscle car that is considered a Classic.

 

I'm no expert, but when I was a kid in my 20's I had a very nice '69 Camaro Z28, Hugger Orange with white stripes with the original 302 4-speed - posi trac drivetrain. I gave $2000 for it in 1977, drove it for 4 years & sold it for $2000. I thought I made a great deal! - today that same car is fetching $50,000 - $75,000, & I kick myself in the butt everytime I watch Barrett-Jackson, so I'm inclined to say the original 69 Z28 can now be considered a classic car, or just about any car that increases in value over the years, rather than decrease, is a "classic." That said, I also had a 73 Camaro a few years later that was needing some major motor work so I was looking to trade it off when I stopped at a Chevrolet dealer's lot in Kansas City. A salesman talked me into taking a 77 Cutlass Brougham home for a weekend. It certainly was not a fast car by any means but before I got it home I fell in love with it. My personal opinion is that the 76 & 77 Cutlasses have the nicest lines & in my mind are considered classics. beginning in 78 they were downsized considerably in body size & Horsepower. I know a lot of guys favor the 72 era, especially if it's a rag top. The greatest part is you can usually pick the 76 & 77's up for $5000 - $7000 (which is probably more than they cost new). They are what I call a "Sporty Luxury" car, especially with the Brougham package interior. I'm betting the value of these cars will increase over time. There's a reason why these cars were the #1 best sellers all across the country in their day. That's my 2 cents worth!

Rich

 

Understood

 

Can anyone tell me if there's a real difference between a '77 Olds 350 & "Rocket" 350? I've heard arguments on both sides & I'm still confused? Thanks,

Rich

 

This question was answered for you in a different thread yesterday.

"Rocket" was the name used by Olds for its overhead valve V8s from the late '40s ('48?) until the '70s, just like Chebby used "Turbo Thrift." "Turbo Fire," and "Turbo Jet," ad F_rd used "Cobra Jet."

- Eric

 

So there is no difference between a Rocket 350 & an Olds 350?

 

This is getting ridiculous.

If I called you Rumplestiltskin, would that change who you are?

Rocket is a name.

Like Turbo-Jet, Cobra-Jet, and Northstar.

They printed it on their air cleaners.

They used it in their ads.

"Rocket Power!"

It sounded good in 1949, when we were still impressed by the V2s, and our newfound German friends had just designed a new series of F-86 fighter jets, and it still sounded good in 1969, when Neil Armstrong took "one giant step."

By the late seventies, with the Space Shuttle commuting back and forth like a flying tugboat, it had lost some of its pizzaz, so they dropped it.

Maybe we should just call it "Fred" from now on...

This isn't rocket science.

- Eric

 

I will just add, to drive home the point, that there are a number of different ways in which engines are commonly named.

Sometimes they can just be referred to by their displacements, such as the 350 or the 455.

Sometimes the same displacements were used in different castings, so we have to specify the "Small-Block 318" or the "Big-Block 318."

Sometimes there is more than one displacement in a group, and it is handy to refer to the group as a whole, so we refer to the group by its characteristics, such as "Small Block Olds," "Big Block Olds," "Small Block Chev."
In F_rd-land, they've got a passenger-car straight-6 and a truck straight-6.

Sometimes we can refer to a class of motors using their factory designation, like the FE-block series (which stands for "Ford-Edsel"), or the M42, M44, or M54 BMW engines.

Sometimes we use the factory's option code numbers to refer to specific engine configurations, such as the W30, W31, LS5, LS6, and LS7.

Sometimes, when there are too many blocks out there to just say "big" or "small," we use the location of the factory that produced the engines to describe it, such as the Windsor, Cleveland, and Lima blocks.

Finally, there are advertising names that the company gave to certain engines.
These are almost always vaguely applied across model years and series, and so usually do not convey any useful technical information. They are almost never used to describe the engines in question, because they are meaningless.
Examples include (as above) Turbo-Fire, Cobra-Jet, and Rocket, which was applied to every V8 engine produced by Olds over a period of 25 years.

Got it?

- Eric

 

Again there are no Muscle cars that meet the true definition of Classic. Value plays no part in the the definition. What you are referring to are Collectable Musclecars, or Collectable Antiques.

 

I have the same problem with my '72 Cutlass. It has the correct block but the heads are the 5A w/5 bolt pattern valve covers. I need new valve covers but don't know what to look for when ordering. Can anyone help????

 

Any valve cover for an Olds will work, just make sure there are baffles in them.

 

So the verdict is I do have an Olds block (Thank God!), but apparently I have 5A heads made by Pontiac (hence the PMD stamping). The son of the original owner tells me this engine has never been altered & he swears that this is definitely the block & heads that the car came with new from GM. So I guess the next question is does this make the car worth more or less because it is a "non-traditional" motor?

Rich

 

Thanks Oldcutlass! I knew the heads were different when I did the engine swap but didn't know I could use the 10 bolt valve covers on the 5 bolt head. The covers on the swap engine were dented so I wanted to put new ones on, also wanted plain chrome not ones with edelbrok on them.

 

OK - I bought this 77 Cutlass which, according to the state of Florida, was a one owner car. The original owner of the car told me the engine has never been altered, however, the engine has 5A heads with "PMD" stamped on them. The big question: Does this make the car worth more because its rare, or less because its not "100%" olds?

Rich

 

Neither. It's the way it was originally built and we are talking about a 77 smog motor which is as basic as it gets. Nothing special. It's worth what someone will pay.

Mike