Editor's Letter: Motown Hits

From the May 2022 issue of Car and Driver.

A move to Michigan is happening. But first, California’s gravity will tug on me, making escape difficult. The Golden State is seductive, and pulling away from its warm embrace isn’t easy. In addition to my adopted home’s sunny climate, I’ll lose the uplifting San Gabriel Mountains, the Pacific’s calming flat affect, and the joy of living 15 minutes from the Angeles Crest Highway. But it’s better to focus on things I won’t miss. Near the top of that list is having to smog my cars every two years.

Over the past decade, California’s emission-testing requirements have served as guardrails keeping me from straying into automotive weirdness. Vehicles from eight years old all the way back to 1976 have to be tested, which can be too high a hurdle for cars built through the mid-’80s to clear. As much as I’ve wanted a big American car from that era, the thought of feedback carburetors and early emission controls struggling to pass an exam they didn’t study for would’ve caused sleepless nights. I’ll snooze right through my alarm in Michigan. The Mitten State ceased emission testing back in 1995, which means it’s time for a mind-expanding purchase.

Up first: the last of the giants, the lightly sprung, 8-mpg, 25-hp-per-liter, 18-plus-foot sofas on 15-inch wheels that were the last gasp of postwar optimism—cars so perfectly conceived for the broken streets of southeastern Michigan that their existence outside the pleasant peninsula is confounding.

Car and Driver

If this sounds like a Michigan-induced psychotic break, my answer is, maybe? I’ve never bought an automatic. I own two sports cars with 89.2- and 89.4-inch wheelbases, or about the size of a ’70s personal luxury car’s door. If psychoanalysis has taught me anything, it’s that obsessions begin in childhood, and in my formative years, a ’76 Cadillac Eldorado convertible lived in the garage. However, my current fixation to wear automotive bell-bottoms is the fault of the Rare Classic Cars & Automotive History channel on YouTube.

CFO by day and YouTuber by night Adam Wade runs the channel, which features domestic luxury cars from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Watch a few videos and get pulled into Wade’s world, where forgotten giants are celebrated and revered. You’ll find yourself speaking knowledgeably about Carter carbs and the model-year changes of the first-gen Cadillac Seville. Don’t think you want a ’77 Mercury Marquis? Check in with me after you watch.

To get the chrome monkey off my back, I’m looking for a ’76 Eldorado ragtop and its Lincoln analogue, the 1977–79 Mark V. Fortunately, our staff is also on YouTube, in a podcast-like series called Window Shop, where we compete to find cars to buy to meet a challenge. Check it out to see whether we can find me the right car. And if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to work at C/D, Window Shop pretty much provides the experience.

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