Dang Allister, I thought i would be the first to post about the "vacuum ashtray". A wealthy guy in my home town growing up had a "yard man" that owned a perfect 58 Chevy. It supposedly had EVERY option available in 58, 348, power windows, AC, PB's, PS, etc, but the most unique to me was the device that sucked those ciggys right out of the car. I've never seen one since.
I have a tilt away column that I removed from a 67-68 Mercury Cougar. Its the only one I ever saw. I also have a Turbo charger from a 1961 Oldsmobile. They put out turbocharged cars for a few years back then. The rarest option I ever heard of was for the early Camaros. Option V75 Traction Dispenser also called liquid chains. It was used to dispense some kind of liquid in front of the rear tires to help traction. I have never seen one but they are out there.
I've gone full circle on options. I added a lot of factory options when I built this Chevelle....PWs, PB, tilt column, factory tach, AM/FM etc. I added factory AC on a 65 Elcamino but didn't go that far on the convertible. Now I'm going the other direction. I shit canned the heater, radio and deluxe steering wheel for the bargain basement elcheapo suff. The original delete plates can be harder to find in the newer cars after R&Hs became standard equipment.
My dad bought a used 65 f100 of the dealer lot in 1970. black custom cab with all the chrome. 4 speed, bucket seats, carpet, center console, guage package, headliner and door panels. Not fancy by car standards but the only 60's ford pickup I've ever seen with factory buckets and center console.
---------------- About the V75 "liquid tire chain" option - We had a neighbour who had a new '69 SS427 Impala (itself somewhat of a rarity) with the "liquid traction dispenser" option. It was intended to help in snow and ice. It's the only one I've ever actually seen installed on a car. Mart3406 =========
I saw those covers, too, for the first and last time on a '65 Ford South Dakota highway patrol car. I think that they were a tough thick plastic, though, and not glass.
My dad picked up a parts car for his 53 Chevy Convertible. He's not a fan of the 53 front ends so he wanted to put a 54 clip on it. He was telling me about the more door parts car and i just thought it was a piece of junk. I drive up there one weekend for something else and take a look at the car. It's a 54 bel-air and from my memory I'm sure it has power steering, powerglide, power seats, MarkIV air conditioning located behind the back seat, auto dimming headlights. I think it also has power brakes and power windows. The cars is stupid solid and nice. It runs and drives and only needs a new battery,some brake work, and new tires to be a driver. I've been begging him not to cut the car up. He wants to use the floors, rockers, braces, etc if he can on his convertible along with the front clip. He also wanted to use the frame rails and then swap in the x member from the vert. I need to find him a solid stripped car with the front clip to substitute for the more door. The previous owner had bought the car because it had the ultra rare factory wire wheels (i think the might have been some type of hubcap).
A small bottle of Prince Matchabelli perfume in the glovebox of a 1965 Chevy! GM promotional dealer giveaway, I think.
I bought a 1965 Oldsmobile Starfire Convertible that had a factory 4spd. (126) Starfires, and other full size Olds had the 4spd option of which < 20 were convertibles. I once seen a Packard (fifties) with a steering column mounted cigarette dispenser. Hit a button and it provided an already lit cigarette. I have a NOS Studebaker heated wiper blade..
Update on that rare and short-lived Chevy RPO V75 "Liquid Tire Chain" option. Here a few pics of it I found on the net. It seems that it was a one-year '1969-model-year only option available on all full-size Chevrolets, Chevelles, Camaros and Novas that year - and also originally intended and listed as an option for the 1970 models too - but cancelled at the end of the 1969 model run, because only a few hundred of the several million Chevrolet passenger cars sold in 1969 were ever ordered with RPO V75. Mart3406 ==============
According to the reciept of the car and his kids they charged him 80 bucks to take it out. If they where a pay option only then the guy got wool pulled over his eyes and got taken for 80 bucks haha
How about this rare and obscure accessory for 1939 Chevs - a factory (or dealer-installed maybe?) "Mary Pickford Make-Up tray"! I wonder how many of these were ordered (not many I'll bet!) and whether any have survived and still exist??? Or this 1957 Ford 'dealer accessory' - a 12V Remington Electric Shaver - Ford part number B6A-18250-A! Mart3406 ==========
A customer of mine retired and decided to restore his dads' model 'A' tudor. He came and asked me about 2 copper tanks that he found behind the upholstery, he said they ran down each side, there was a connector tube to join them across the back and a spigot/drain went thru the floor but there was no filler tube - nothing other than the outlet. I had no idea what it could've been. After a period of time he came back and let me know what it was for. It was a moonshine car. His dad bought it from a ford dealor near 'The Plains' in Virginia - outside of DC - and 'The Plains' area had more than a few 'private distillors' and it was lucritive side work to deliver it into DC for the nations lawmakers. It was in such demand that the local ford dealor would install the tanks as a 'dealor installed option' - i don't think you'd find them on any sales brochure - but they were not uncommon. His dad bought the car just as prohibition was repealed, the tanks were already installed but they just covered them over with the upholstery and never bothered with the filler inlet.
----------------- I remember the '425 Starfire-powered' ex-GM-Canada Olds 98 limo that I mentioned owning in a prevous post (www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=7626461&postcount=82) still had the original owners manual in the glove box and I noticed that even on the big Olds 98' luxo-barges, that a 4-speed stick was listed as an available option! I'm just a bit more than 102% positive that no Olds 98's were ever factory equipped with a 4-speed-stick, but if somebody had had the bucks and wanted one badly enough in 1965, it would have been at least theoretically possible to order one! Mart3406 ==========
Another rare option is the 1959-1960 Lincoln FM radio... it's a separate box mounted on the transmission tunnel. I have seen pics of, I think, one.
I had an older friend in Dallas named J.C. Crater. His older brother had a 66 1/2 ton ,four door,short wide bed,factory p/s,p/b, a/c,283,with powerglide. He bought the truck new. Sad part is I had the chance to buy the truck 20 years ago for $2500.00 and did not buy it. It was the light brown like most were. It also had hand controls that were dealer installed because Mr. Crater had polio.
Then there are the performance options which got a lot of ink in the magazines but which some dealers refused to order or the factory refused to build. Back in '65-66, one of the local small-town Chevrolet dealers heard from factory reps the new hi-po engines were not going to live when taken to the drag strip, so he refused to order or sell any '65 Corvette 396" 425hp or '66 Chevy II 327" 350hp cars. "I just don't need the grief." Same dealer also refused to special order any of the lower-than-standard rear gear ratios. "You wanna blow up your car, buy it from someone else." I heard through a friend at an Atlanta dealership about the '65 Chevelle Z16 396" 375hp option, introduced mid-year along with the 425hp Corvette. I tried to order one and was told "fugeddiboudit." The $1500 option price was a 50% bump on the list price, trying to scare off retail buyers. Even if a customer was willing to pay it, most of the very few of these built went to factory and zone executives and dealer demo cars and GM wasn't about to sell one to a 21-year-old. A drag racer I knew had the '67 Ford 302" tunnel port heads on order for six months and they just never came. Any more documented but in fact "unobtanium" options you've personally experienced? Then, there are those phantom options with witnesses who will swear on a stack of bibles, they knew a guy who knew a guy who had a special-order-factory-stock car that can't be documented. One I'm constantly running across is the 1956 Studebaker Golden Hawk special ordered with the Packard Caribbean 374" 2x4bbl 305hp engine instead of the stock 352" single 4-bbl 275hp engine. There's zero factory documentation on these, but no shortage of bench racers who will remember having seen one. In fact, fuggediboudit. The stories about these phantom special orders would clog bandwidth here for weeks ;>) jack vines
My OT '66 Mercury has factory delay wipers, A/C, and a factory installed 8-Track with 2 seperate speakers front & rear. The 8-Track is console mounted and looks about as nice as a Royal typewriter sitting there. Supposedly only offered on Mustangs, T-Birds and Lincolns in this first year, it has a build date of 5-66, and i have the window sticker for it too. The funniest thing about this huge boat, it has no power options anywhere. No P/S, brakes or anything. Guess you really don't need them here in Wyoming
1955 Citroen DS had front wheel drive, self leveling hydropneumatic suspension, brakes and shifting, along with an automatic clutch, power steering, inboard mounted front disc brakes, single spoke steering wheel, no jack was needed to change a flat tire, frameless side windows, aerodynamic body......... oh wait, you said options, those were all standard. Sorry..... The 56 Pontiac I bought for $10 when I was 16 had power brakes, power steering and A/C, all factory installed.
A couple of years ago buddy of mine who owned a body shop painted a 66 Mercury Colony Park wagon that had a 428 engine and a 4 speed top loader from the factory. Cool as hell....
Parted a '55 Olds '88' that had power front windows, and manual rear windows...after a little reasearch I found that this was indeed factory: $50 for the fronts, and $97 for all. I guess this guy saved himself the $47 when ordering his...
cool thread! a wagon with factory 4-speed must be pretty rare, unlike the 1964 Nova wagon my dad owned with three on the tree-- But I saw a 1959 Bonneville "top of the line" convertible once at a Pontiac show and it had factory manual "three on the tree" transmission which I understand is pretty rare also..
Back in 1963 while going thru Oklohoma I spotted the cheap body 1962 Chevrolet "More Door"parked on a small 10 car used car lot. It had the little flags on the front fenders and the numbers 409 under them. We stoped and found a 409/409 2x4s with the 'three on the tree" Very strange looking "Hot Rod" !!!!! LOL
------------------- He probably figured that since he was never gonna' ride in the back seat, why bother. If his back seat passengers wanted power windows, they could pay the extra 47 bucks! Mart3406 ==============
Perhaps its mundane, but the rare option I'd like to find is the '62 Falcon electric wiper motor. It uses the switch and transmission linkage from the vacuum unit.
Here's a couple i've seen in my shop over the years, 58 impala- 348,tri power with power steering, brakes, windows and seat. 66 nova wagon- 6cylinder and 4spd. 66 caprice 4dr- 396 power everything. orignal owner 71 chevelle convertable 350 4spd with a bench seat and was ordered with a tach, so it has a ss dash in it. 71 chevelle with the small 454,turbo 400, 12 bolt and rubber floor mat, no carpet. also had non hidden wipers and a bench seat. 68 gto with a bench seat and a four speed.
Funny you mention this. A friend of mines family owned a junk yard. He remembers as a kid this exact car. His dad bought it at an auction CHEAP! Heard the story and never believed it. Must have been a unique car.
In the '70s, there's the Lincoln and Thunderbird heated glass option, a gold element embedded in the strata of the glass. I'm told it was powered by its own seperate alternator which put out 110-120V. http://www.glasslinks.com/trivia/trivia3.htm
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