Friday Fun Thread: "And the Rest"...

Heh. I need to pay better attention. I was saving one particular marque for the last in my series of Top Ten Cars of the American manufacturers. Before I ran this one, I wanted to do one "other" list - while the Studebaker Avanti deserves to be on a Top Ten list of some sort, I doubt I could pull together a list of Top Ten Studebakers... So I figured I'd toss the "other" American marques into their own Top Ten list, which I would run before I posted my favorite. I sat down and wrote out the list, then got curious.

I then went through the past lists and realized that there were two other marques left (Dodge and Lincoln)...

So, since I've already got the list written out, here's the Top Ten "Other" American Cars:

1. Studebaker Avanti. The styling on the Avanti was so unlike anything else of the time period that it really was too advanced for its time. No grill to speak of, minimal chrome, no fins, etc. Plus it was small and light, with a moderate V8 motor under the hood - it was far more of a threat to Jaguar than Chevrolet.

2. Nash Rambler. "Beep beep. Beep beep. His horn went beep beep beep". While it's highly doubtful that even the 4.1L V8-powered Rambler could actually have achieved 110 MPH, let alone beating a Cadillac there while only in second gear, the Rambler was forever immortalized in song.

3. Willys Jeep. Responsible for churning the insides of GIs for four decades, the Willys GP (General Purpose) would spawn what would one day become the SUV. So blame Willys-Overland Motors for the eventual destruction of the planet due to global warming...

4. Stutz Blackhawk. Who wouldn't love a car owned by Elvis with a big block 455 under the hood? I had a Hot Wheels diecast model of the late '60s/early '70s Blackhawk that was my absolute favorite car ever, and have been a fan of the Blackhawk ever since. Even after I found out it was little more than a Bonneville with different body panels...

5. AMC Javelin AMX. With a 335 horsepower 401 ci motor under the hood, even American Motor Cars got into the muscle car craze. The Javelin might have been the ugly duckling of the muscle car era, but it still had the ponies under the hood to run with the bog boys.

6. Duesenberg J. If there's anything out there as glamorous as a Duesenberg automobile, I've yet to find it. The cars produced by the Duesenberg brothers were hand-built, widely considered to be the finest automobiles on the road, and counted Rudolph Valentino among their celebrity owners.

7. Auburn 851. Called the "Boattail Speedster", the 851 was widely lauded for the visionary art deco styling but was released at the height of the Great Depression, so many models languished on lots rather than garnering the acclaim they deserved.

8. Packard Clipper. One of the few early American manufacturers to survive post-WWII, Packard continued to produce automobiles until 1959, ending a run of luxurious automobiles exceeded only by the GM-supported Cadillac and Ford-supported Lincoln.

9. Cord L-29. As was pointed out to me in my list of best Oldsmobiles, Cord's L-29 was the first American automobile to feature front-wheel drive. In addition to beating the Toronado by nearly forty years, the L-29 has a helluva lot more style. And the Toronado has some serious style...

10. Tucker. I hesitated to include the Tucker on the list because of the extremely limited run, but the Tucker marque, made famous in the movie of the same name, was unique enough that it had to make the list. With styling cues that were radically different than anything seen before, and innovations such as steering wheel-mounted gauges, the Tucker was decades ahead of its time.

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There's my list of Top Ten "Other" American cars. There are literally hundreds of automakers that have fallen by the wayside throughout the 100+ years of American cars, so winnowing down the list to a manageable ten was a Herculean task to say the least. I had originally planned on including a LaSalle, only to find that they were a division of GM, and a DeSoto, which was a division of Chrysler - just two of the little quirks I found along the way to making this list.

What other cars deserved a slot on this Top Ten list?

That is all.