Sunday, December 7, 2025

Still a pretty good looking car

 


9 comments:

  1. Damn, I'm old. I remember when they were new. I also think there was a problem with the anti-freeze at the time reacting with the aluminum motors.

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  2. ‘63 F-85 aka Cutlass?

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    1. I had a 4dr 63 F85. The grill on this pic looks correct, but the 2dr looks long. That car made me hate working on cars my whole life. Two piece driveshaft, center yoke, 4 u joints and 3 separate spring retention kits depending on whether you drove a convertible, had A/C, or none of the above. Ask me how many time that shaft came off, u joints ruined, and tranny fluid wasted due to the useless configuration differences. Didn’t take long after this mess for it experienced head gasket failures. This was mainly due to the original owner using the wrong anti freeze with the AL heads. Other than no A/C, PS, or PB it was a great car!

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  3. Did work on custom turbo's in the 90's, interesting thing is a smaller displacement engine gains more power in comparative terms to a large displacement engine. Figure that might be why they used a 215 cubic inch V8. More power with less typical problems a turbo has.

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  4. My dad had a '62 Starfire. He totaled it driving too fast in the rain as I recall.

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  5. This engine made Heli-coils famous!

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  6. Dad brought home a ‘62 convertible. Power steering, power brakes, all these fancy things our old car didn’t have. And ash trays for everyone! The interior of that car was a work of art.

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  7. The 'slim jim' automatic transmissions for the 215 weren't the greatest. If you could get the stick, they drove pretty nicely.

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  8. My first car when I got my license in 1976 was a 1964 Oldsmobile Starfire. It was a 2 door with leather bucket seats, auto transmission shifter on the floor with a factory 454 ci engine 4 brl carb, factory chrome valve covers and air filter cover. This car was the bomb and a one owner car and my father knew him. I paid $300 hard earned dollars. A couple months after I bought the car, I was stopped on the highway by the higher patrol due to a semi rollover along the State highway. How was the last car in line and the next car coming up behind me was rubber necking the accident It slammed into me at 65 mph. Totaled the car and the insurance company gave me $300. I have cried about that car ever since. It was a beauty.

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