My American car sighting posts continue. This 1987 Caprice Classic post is somewhat of an exception, as it was shot in the middle of the night, coming out of a nightclub in central Tampere, Finland – usually my sightings are done in broad daylight.
The Caprice is very apt for a night time sighting, as it’s ratty as hell and somewhat menacing. I’m also very satisfied how well the photos turned out, despite the occasion. I don’t think I could have staged them better than this had I tried, and the setting was pure luck.
Finland’s full of rattlecan black Caprice wagons registered as commercial vans at import. They all have had the back seat replaced by a stiff board covered up with the original back seat cloth, and they’ve successfully dodged a noticeable import tax with that modification. They still have the uncomfortable rear seat in place, since were you to convert it back to normal, you would be paying the dodged tax in full. Or so the story goes.
The van-registered Caprices, by now, have been pretty much run to the ground or close to that. They do run badly a long time, and scrape past the inspection, so they’re not going anywhere for a long time. I think I’ve seen total beater Caprices driving around for 20 years now, so they went ugly early.
And as the Caprices age, get bashed and fixed and bashed again, you can see layers of repairs from different times on their sheetmetal. Kind of like old wallpaper on a run-down estate.
But a Caprice with a death-belching 5.0 V8 is still pretty much one of the nicest ratty things you can see driving around. With the Olds 307 (as seen in all the wagons from late ’85 on) rumbling on, the car cruising at a comfortable and government-mandated 80 km/h, there are worse ways to travel. The round blemish seen on the tailgate below is from an enormous 80 sticker, denoting the speed limit for vans like this.
Some of the converted Caprice wagons saw use as hearses. A pretty good rule of thumb these days is that if you really want a clean and well kept Caprice wagon over here, you really need to buy an ex-hearse. 99% of the ones not having been in cold transport are beaten to hell.
[Images: Copyright 2013 Hooniverse/Antti Kautonen]
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