Thread: Your Daily Driver?

Tweet

I am looking to get rid of this darn 93 Honda Prelude I have finally since gas prices are back down and get something older and faster. I am more of a "hot rod" kind of guy but am thinking that for my daily driver I want a muscle car. I am looking to buy something fairly cheap but something that needs very little work or none at all. I dont have $20,000 for one but about $6000 isn't bad. I am sure whatever I get will not handle like my little Honda but power will make up for it as well as room. I bought my 63 Chevy II Wagon for a daily but tore into it and found that it has a lot more rust than I was told so it's torn apart and awaiting the sand blasters.
Post up some oppinions and pictures and info of what you guys use as a daily driver that is muscle car material or hell just hot rods I dont care.
I also am looking for gas milage as well which I know is hard to ask for on an old car but I have seen people in the mid 20's with 350sbc and over drive tranny with the correct motor work and gearing.
One thing I was looking at too which doesn't have the looks but rides nice and can get decent power and A/C with power brakes and steering is a 79-81 or so Malibu. I can find them cheap and know a friend that had one with a mildly built 350, highway gearing and it looked nice, rode great and smooth and hauled butt!

FMX do you like the late 80's version of the Prelude? Hell of a car, and they made them with four wheel steering! I had a 89 and loved it. Used to get up and go, had some back seat space and nice standard features like a/c and sunroof on all models! You could parallel park asleep, and spin donuts until you got sick! Only scary thing was swerving to avoid being hit by a drunk who veared into my lane on the highway around 70 mph, The 4wheel steering reacted funny and got it up on two wheels for a second!

I have a 93 with the 2.3. It will haul butt but it does not have the 4 wheel steering. Has the cool dash on it that is all digital and goes into the door panels.
I am just getting tired of the car and there is no back seats to fit anyone (it has them but there is no foot space for a 2 year old.

There are several options out there......personally I have/had several over the years that I'll throw out for consideration. Most are not really muscle cars by strict definition but have good power to weight ratio and geared right got decent mileage. All were/are used as daily drivers at one time or another.

65-67 Chevy full size: I had a 65 Biscayne 2dr post car, 350 (started out with a single 4 BBL and ended up with dual quads), 4 speed, and 3.08 ten bolt. I added aftermarket AC. It got 23-4 MPG but that was back when the speed limit was 55 MPH.

73-81 Firebird: The 81 Firebird (TA Clone) I have has an earlier and quite stock 400 from a 76 Catalina in it with a TH350 and (believe it or not 2.42 gears in a Posi). Car will smoke the tires all day long and gets 22-3 MPG at 75 MPH. I should not that the stock later 400 motors do not run near as well or get as good of gas mileage.

68 El Camino: Back when this was running a small block it would get around 19-20 on the highway with a 4 speed and 3.08 gears. With the 402 big block and hotter than stock cam it’s down to 14-15.

V8 Pintos and Vegas: If your into nostalgia these weren’t too bad the light weight didn’t require a lot of gear to be quick (both of mine ran 3.25s most of the time and got low 20s for gas mileage.

The Mustang IIs and Monza’s of the era also be made decent cars and road a bit better than the cheaper Pintos and Vega’s. Some also came from the factory with V8s and AC. The stock smog motors left a good bit to be desired but responded very well to typical hop up tricks and would get decent gas mileage. The Red Cobra II managed right around 20 with a 302 and C4, and the white one with a mild 351 and OD 4 speed gets about 24.

Funny you should mention the Malibu, I currently have 2 El Camino projects going, an 84 and an 83. The 78-88 G bodies (Malibu’s, Monte Carlos, Regals, Cutlasses, and Grand Prix’s and El Caminos) make a good choice……provided they have the 350 rather than the 305. They also seem to be pretty well supported by the aftermarket. The 84 I’m working on received an LT1 350 from a wrecked 72 Corvette. It has a rebuilt TH250 and unknown gears. I really like the way it runs and rides and the few times I checked gas mileage it was in the mid 20s.

My 73 will be getting a 500 CI Caddy motor and TH400 with a 9” Ford rear (plans right now call for 2.75s although I may go a bit deeper). Discussions with the folks over on the Caddy engine board indicate I should be able to knock down mid to high teens for mileage with it, but with 500 Ft Lbs of torque at 22-2400 RPM it should be fun.

Thanks for the info! I actually found a local 59 ElCamino close by for only $4000. The guy doesn't know anything about it and said he never tried to start it and knows that it has some rust and bondo. Looks a bit rough in the pictures but man what I would do to have a 59 Elcamino.
That way I figure it is this... My little Honda is tiny, fast for a 4 cylinder, handles VERY great and looks pretty sporty but it just doesn't fit me (everyone said I look weird driving it because I've always driven old cars and trucks) and it's just lacking room. I can barely fit my fire gear in the trunk, the back seats are there for insurance reasons so it isn't classed as a sports car but I can't even fit my 9 year old brother back there and the thing sit lower than a Vette. I like sitting low like that and it handles great but I dont know it just seems that I am sacraficing for all that and the thing only gets (I am guessing) 23-25 MPG from what everyone says about these cars. That isn't too great for such a small car and a 4 cylinder when I can get a much bigger car with much more power and get around 20-23 MPG and sacrafice a little bit. Or hell I have been looking into the Chevy II's with an inline 6 and an overdrive tranny and getting in the mid 20's and some even mentioning high 20's!
I dont have to have a V8 or anything, those little 6 cylinders are great and when fixed up a bit they are torquey (sp) and will haul some butt.

Even though it's not my favorite "looking" car... http://charlotte.craigslist.org/cto/1117757605.html
How are these cars? I am not interested in THAT car but just that kind of car in general. There are some pretty decent 80 and 81 Malibu's for sale with new 350/350 combos and they are going for about $4000. Then there is one with Centerline wheels and beefed up rear end with 4:11 gears (not what I would use or want) but the body seems in great shape and it's only $800. I do have an extra 350 engine here and can get a 350 tranny for a decent price.

nice deal for a low milage engine and tranny, clean car too!

The dash alone would be worth quite a bit. 59 el camino would be Good choice for a daily driver. Plus the price keeps going up, that's your best choice IMO.

Richard

Mike P, You had some nice cars, I like the el camino's also. I like the 65 that reminded me of one a guy had when I was in the army plain body small hubcaps. Unassuming car until someone try to show him up, I know he had a 4speed, and I think it was a 396 not sure though.

Richard

This is what I drove through the winter, and had the most fun driving it, than any other car I'v driven... 5spd stick with just enough power to get into trouble with, and is a bit quicker than it looks.. don't look like much at all, and it really isn't ( has 202,000 miles and parts from 3 other trucks ) and it got me 18 MPG consistantly, but really fun to drive..






Now I drive a 1998 Ranger 2WD, 4cyl 5spd ( no pics ), bright red and it really stands out, and even tho it's a 2.5 4cyl, it's no dog, it will still go pretty good and is still fun to drive.. I'm getting 30 MPG with it... it was a toss up between it and a 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass with a 350 that needed a little work but was pretty decent for the $900 asking price... but 12-15 MPG isn't enough for me, and I looked on, and later found the '98 Ranger which I did get...

B4 the brown Ranger, I had the '65 Rambler, which definitely was different, it got thumbs up and questions everywhere, I definitely do miss it sometimes, but, it was a dog, it took some seafoam and marvle mystery oil down the carb every couple weeks to keep it running good enough to drive ( valves were bad ).. even with only 58,000 original miles, the engine needed a re ring and a valve job.. it got approx 19 MPG, which really was not bad being it was probably running 80% of what it should have been... I sold it at a very slight profit... I was really considering getting another older car for a DD, but I couldn't justify it

Oh, and Mike, as far as posi in the 70's T/A, they all came standard with them, but they were all really Tall gears like the 2.42's

I drive old junk for a daily driver.... Afraid if I were to drive something nice and one of these cell phone yapping yuppies who don't pay a dang bit of attention to their driving won't run into something of mine that's nice, and then I won't have to put lumps on their head!!!!! Then there's also the deal of having something nice in the parking lot at work. Seems to be a parking magnet for the idiots who always seem to have to bang their car door into whatever is parked next to them.... Then there's the grocery store/mall episode where the shopping cart somehow manages to hit your quarter panel.... Oh, and of course the jealous types who get some perverse pleasure out of running their key the length of your car all the way down the side.....

----IMO, just ain't worth the hassle....

I just retired my 69 chevelle nomad, it only got 11-16 MPG and I just needed something which did better.. LOTS better. So, I picked up a 87 chevelle off of craigslist. It gets over 30 MPG. Isn't it crazy that today's new cars only do that well? Very few of them can boast significantly over 30... Seems like they would have improved more in two decades.