When did American cars get so crap?

[threebikesmcginty]

...Remind me of all the rubbish cop programmes of the 70s. Cannon Kojak etc.

Utter nonsense, they're great shows, Kojak is excellent, Rockford was the best mind.

 

[MarkF]

Even as a kid I hated the way they had a shape in the boot for the spare wheel. Never could understand that.

It was a styling fashion harking back and mimicking "Continental" tyres which were, an upright spare, mounted at the cars rear which many older cars through to the 1950's had.

 

[tyred]

American cars all went downhill since the Ford Model T if you ask me:

If you want style, you need to go to Italy

 

[Globalti]

*with mixed pride and embarrassment*

My younger brother in Detroit was the Chief Engineer who built Hummer 11.

 

[EltonFrog]

Utter nonsense, they're great shows, Kojak is excellent, Rockford was the best mind.

You speak the truth, recording the re runs of Kojak on ITV4 I watch a couple when I'm doing the ironing. In the first series I kept seeing a white MK2 Ford Capri parked in road in different episodes.

 

[Over The Hill]

Utter nonsense, they're great shows, Kojak is excellent, Rockford was the best mind.

Kojak always just seemed a horrid bully and I never took to him.

Rockford Files I would agree was great. Also Hawaii five-0
Starsky and Hutch may have been the first one with the car being a key part of the image.
There were so many - Ironside and I am sure some others.

Oddly the one who as part of his anti-hero image had a tatty heap of a car - Columbo actually had a lovely car if they had not dented it and made it dirty.


Just one more thing - Google tells me it is a Peugeot 403.

 

[Boris Bajic]

The 403 is a cool motor.

It comes across as a shabby wreck in the TV show, but would have been an expensive foreign import in the US (both because the convertible was nearly twice the price of the berline and because tariff barriers were in place to protect domestic industry).

If it was a 1959 or 1960 model, it would have been 8 or 9 years old when Columbo first appeared and would have been quite chic. It would also have been pretty rare.

I always thought it gave the character a sort of understated cultured look, but I imagine the producers just thought it was a shabby-looking imported soft-top.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

The Fiat Multipla wasn't always horrid...
1956, under the name Multipla (according to the internet)

Sorry.... Pardon? I was looking at that guy in the yellow trunks behind instead!

Yes yes, I know he'll probably be quite old now, but so what?

 

[Boris Bajic]

I have to give Johnny Yank this one... if you can afford the petrol, there is little cooler than a 4-door convertible.

Best avoided in downtown Dallas if you are a deeply corrupt politician put in place by an even more corrupt paterfamilias, but for most potential passengers it is surely a win-win.

 

[MontyVeda]

I think aerodynamics and drag factors are the worst thing to happen to car design on both sides of the Atlantic... that Ford Sierra still makes me shudder in horror.

 

[derrick]

I could live with a couple of these.

 

[fabregas485]

Not sure of which car make it is, but there is one car that looks like two cars which have been chopped length wise and stuck on top of each other. I will have to get a pic if I see it again.

 

[MontyVeda]

Not sure of which car make it is, but there is one car that looks like two cars which have been chopped length wise and stuck on top of each other. I will have to get a pic if I see it again.

this?

I'd hazard a guess that this was their inspiration...

 

[TheDoctor]

The Fiat Multipla is possibly one of the ugliest Italian cars ever.
Though I have a grudging respect for any car that can fit 6 seats and a usable boot into 4 metres.

 

[fabregas485]

this?

I'd hazard a guess that this was their inspiration...

That is the one :P I love how you knew what I was talking about with such a vague discription