Wheels Blog: A Bold New Morrokide Era: Classic Cars Then, Now and in Between

This weekend’s car show in Rhinebeck, N.Y., celebrates machines whose prime years have passed. They machines may still look nice, but even under the best of care, they’re bathed in the warm if somewhat dismissive glow of nostalgic anachronism.

But once upon a time, those cars were new — the greatest to be had. Take the Pontiacs featured in this 1964 dealer training film, for example. If the narrator’s World War II newsreel-announcer voice doesn’t convince you that these are the marvels of a new technological epoch, just look at all of that gleaming chrome and metallic-flake-painted metal. Wrap your mind around the scientific triumph stitched into every square yard of two-tone blue and aqua Morokide upholstery (which is shown in black and white, naturally).

By the time I finished watching the film – which set its all-American beauties against such stunning backgrounds as Yosemite, the Washington Monument and something that looks vaguely like the “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” version of the Alamo – I was sweating. I’m not sure if it was because I had no idea what Morrokide was (and subsequent research didn’t get me any closer to finding out what it is or how to spell it) or because I knew that I needed one of these expressions of steel and engineering mastery right that very minute. It could have been the epiphany I had about buying a convertible to release all the sunshine in my heart (which I’d assumed was the burrito that I’d smothered in Tapatío at lunch).

But then I calmed down and realized that a few years after this film was made, the refulgent Pontiacs it showcased had become what most five-year-old cars morph into – financial liabilities that weren’t as cool as the sleek new ride someone’s neighbor just brought home from the dealership. We’ve all seen those 10- to 15-year-old cars that are as good as worthless, rotting under trees and mouldering on debris-strewn side streets. I even found a couple pictures on the Web of a ’64 Pontiac Bonneville that had been abandoned to the ravages of the ocean only nine years after it left the dealer’s lot (note how well the technologically supreme Morrokide stood up to decades of sand and salt).

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut, himself a car salesman for a while, wrote repeatedly on the pages of “Slaughterhouse-Five.” Today, many of those once-scintillating, then nearly-worthless behemoths are worth a mint if they’re original and in decent enough condition. It will be interesting to see what’s selling for sky-high prices at the show this weekend. Will someone pay $12,000 for a ’77 Chevrolet that I could have bought for $1,500 in high school? Wouldn’t surprise me.

Benjamin Preston A missed opportunity? On eBay, 1978-1987 Chevrolet El Caminos, even in thoroughly used condition, can fetch $2,000.