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Coolest / rarest cars you've ever seen?

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lots of fairly cool stuff, but for some reason the only thing that comes to mind is when i saw two immaculate 8.50's parked nose to nose at a safeway in Del Mar
 
Originally posted by: joesmoke
lots of fairly cool stuff, but for some reason the only thing that comes to mind is when i saw two immaculate 8.50's parked nose to nose at a safeway in Del Mar
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What's an 8.50?
 
Not really rare, but I saw a 2010 Prius on Wednesday on the highway. I was behind it, so when I realized what it was, I flashed my headlights and gave a thumbs up... Ok, I was being an asshole. I do love that car though.
 
I was at Queen Mary and I saw some sort of Delorean club meeting, there must have been at least 30 of them just in the parking lot. It was totally unexpected, but really cool. :thumbsup:
 
Originally posted by: l0cke
I was at Queen Mary and I saw some sort of Delorean club meeting, there must have been at least 30 of them just in the parking lot. It was totally unexpected, but really cool. :thumbsup:
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If you drove back in a VW bus firing an AK47 out of the top do you think they'd freak out?
 
I have seen two Maserati Quatteportes, been in one.

I was in a Rolls Royce yesterday 😛 The engine was running, but we weren't going anywhere 🙁

I also cruised by a Maserati GT or whatever they're called (it was the coupe one).


The XKRs/XJs are a dime a dozen here.
 
Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Originally posted by: marvdmartian
Back in the mid 80's, I saw a 1963 Corvette split window coupe driving down hwy 101, south out of San Francisco. I was stationed there, and my buddy and I were just out for a cruise one day.

Damn thing had a for sale sign in the back window. Got the driver's attention, signaled him to roll down his window, and asked how much. $12 thousand, and that thing was cherry!

To this day, I kick myself for not finding a way to buy that car. **SIGH**



Other than that, I once saw a Lamborghini Countach (sp?) driving down I-880 (old I-17) in the Oakland, CA area. Dude was doing 55 in the slow lane.......and was still the envy of every guy on the highway that day!! 😉
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I saw one of those along with every other year Vette between the first year of production until the early 1970s in a private collection last November.

Here's one of the pics I took of the split window Corvette.
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**SIGH** Still one of the most gorgeous car models, imho. Nice you got to see and photograph one that looks so pristine! 😀

I mostly kick myself because of how inexpensive that car would have been, even for 25+ years ago. Of course, the way I've lived my life, and the places I've lived over the intervening years, there's no way I could have held onto that car......so I guess I just traded one adventure for another one, eh? 😉
 
2200 Ferdinand Porsche Dr. is right down the street from my house, WV Corporate office of North America I think. They have quite a few R8s and even a Veyron at one point visible on their showroom floor.
 
Originally posted by: marvdmartian

**SIGH** Still one of the most gorgeous car models, imho. Nice you got to see and photograph one that looks so pristine! 😀

I mostly kick myself because of how inexpensive that car would have been, even for 25+ years ago. Of course, the way I've lived my life, and the places I've lived over the intervening years, there's no way I could have held onto that car......so I guess I just traded one adventure for another one, eh? 😉
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I heard the Stingrays are kind of a disaster. The fiberglass hood was sealed with a certain resin that would combust the whole car if in an accident. The split window looked really cool, but it would block the view of the driver and was more of a hassle than anything else.

Worse than anything else was the "pop up" lights. I've read/heard that because these power lights were powered by the vacuum occurring from not fully flooring the engine, when the driver did floor the engine, the vacuum would disappear and the lights would fall back into the body....not the most practical of motors I daresay.


This is for the '63 anyway
 
I saw a bunch of cars out at Tom Monahan's Domino's Farms car museum in the late 80s. including a Bugatti Royale for which he paid $8.1 million in 1986. It was a very weird car museum. You thought it was really small, but it kept snaking around and after about 2 hours there you were wondering if it was ever going to end. Monahan was always an odd duck. Sold the Tigers and Domino's pizza now uses all his money for Catholic philanthropy.
 
Someone that works at the bank I go to has an SL-65 AMG. I also saw a Nissan GT-R today, not the rarest car but I had never seen one IRL before 😱
 
Dude, every time I go to Vons, I see an SL 65 AMG in the parking lot, I think it's the managers.
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Originally posted by: joesmoke
lots of fairly cool stuff, but for some reason the only thing that comes to mind is when i saw two immaculate 8.50's parked nose to nose at a safeway in Del Mar
Click to expand...

What's an 8.50?
Click to expand...

its a special car that only ive seen... its that rare. 😛

meant bmw 850i... dont know why i threw that in there
 
Various high end luxury cars from the 30's, 40's, 50's,60's, and 70's (Rolls Royces Bentleys, packards and other older rare luxury cars) including the adams family car ( http://imcdb.org/images/002/419.jpg ) all of which i used to get to play around in as a kid because my dad did autobody work for a car collector.
 
Originally posted by: TehMac
Worse than anything else was the "pop up" lights. I've read/heard that because these power lights were powered by the vacuum occurring from not fully flooring the engine, when the driver did floor the engine, the vacuum would disappear and the lights would fall back into the body....not the most practical of motors I daresay.


This is for the '63 anyway
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You have it backwards. The vacuum held the lights down, not up. If the vacuum failed, the lights would pop up. This is actually a relatively common failure on the later Stingrays (C3); the vacuum accumulator (which stores vacuum when the engine is off or when the engine is at full throttle) or the one-way valves start to fail allowing a slow leak-down of the vacuum that closes the headlights. When the cars are left overnight, the headlight (usually it's only one side) will very slowly rise until it is fully open.

When everything is functioning properly though, it's effectively a sealed system. Once vacuum has been established, the accumulator will retain that vacuum indefinitely until it is intentionally vented (to raise the lights). The only time the system would require active vacuum from the engine is when the lights are lowered again.

ZV
 
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
There is a Nissan GT-R that I've seen stalking around Hershey/Hummelstown a couple of times when I'm on-site with the client. Otherwise "just" the early 1990s ZR-1 Corvette that my dad's cousin owned and gave me a ride in. Now that was a cool car.

If you're in the Seattle area and want to buy one, they can be had for rather reasonable amounts of money now:

http://www.kompactkarkorner.co...detail.asp?unit=270904

ZV
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i've seen so many GT-Rs around here. houston has low real estate prices so people toss money at cars.

coolest/rarest was an F1 car on display at the petronas towers in malaysia. never did make it to the malaysian grand prix. my father had great seats.
 
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

You have it backwards. The vacuum held the lights down, not up. If the vacuum failed, the lights would pop up. This is actually a relatively common failure on the later Stingrays (C3); the vacuum accumulator (which stores vacuum when the engine is off or when the engine is at full throttle) or the one-way valves start to fail allowing a slow leak-down of the vacuum that closes the headlights. When the cars are left overnight, the headlight (usually it's only one side) will very slowly rise until it is fully open.

When everything is functioning properly though, it's effectively a sealed system. Once vacuum has been established, the accumulator will retain that vacuum indefinitely until it is intentionally vented (to raise the lights). The only time the system would require active vacuum from the engine is when the lights are lowered again.

ZV
Click to expand...

Ah I see. I knew I was going to be corrected, but I enjoy that so hey. 😛
 
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