they had some extremely odd ideas of what a sports car for the ranch ought to look like. 6 rifle sheaths? Seriously? I present, El Kineño

that Daktari front fender shooters seat is ridiculous, and a Buick Eight with a fold down windshield?

http://swarfs.tumblr.com/

By George, they actually made one!

The first car to bear the King Ranch name (now an Ford truck high dollar trim level package) was a heavily modified 1946 Ford that sat on a lifted suspension, and could extricate itself with a P.T.O.-driven winch. Spare wheels hung off the back, and the fenders featured game forks and a gun well. It looked pretty much like what it was, though: A home-built attempt at building an SUV.

So, why was a Buick named after one ranch in Texas? The owner was a 7 term congressman, with connections that included Harley Earl, the ranch is bigger than Rhode Island, and it's the biggest ranch in Texas. Yeah, that is mighty big. It's in 6 counties.

A ranch is a piece of land in Texas that is owner operated, and raises livestock for profit. http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-biggest-ranches/

King Ranch was founded 9 years after statehood by a New York jeweler’s apprentice who stowed away on a ship to Alabama, later becoming a pilot, and ended up making a fortune in the steamship business on the Rio Grande. But he bought land with the area’s only source of fresh water and coaxed an entire Mexican town (whose population included vaqueros) to move to Texas and work for him.

So, the inheritor of the ranch reached the design staff at Buick under the direction of Harley Earl, and his next ranch car was designed in a joint effort between Buick and the GM Styling Section.

 A Styling Section representative arrived at the ranch in 1949, and Kleberg took him out in the Ford. “He and the GM man took off across the mesquite, hog wallows and dry washes at 60 mph” read a seven-page article in Popular Science. “The visitor got his teeth jolted.” To get over sand dunes, Kleberg aired down the Ford’s tires, and reinflated them with a carbon monoxide fire extinguisher.

They made a 1949 Buick Roadmaster into an SUV. They increased the cooling system to 32 quarts, replaced the rear sheetmetal with 20 gauge, made the hood, doors and trunklid of aluminum, and cut out a fuctional air scoop behind the hood ornament.

It is still on the ranch, but now housed in the museum  https://king-ranch.com/museum/

http://www.diecast.org/diecast98/html/asp/forums/lounge/viewMessage.asp?id=101838&start=101829

http://photos.buickclub.org/displayimage.php?pid=4098

http://en.wheelsage.org/buick/roadmaster/77474/pictures/k3tk2f/

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Cole Porter's Brewster bodied Buick

https://www.flickr.com/photos/carphotosbyrichard/3167243750/

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I dig the tail lights and quad exhaust

No one seems to do anything with Wildcats. Seems to me to be a damn good car to make a fat tired muscle car with air shocks lifting the rear, and a blower through the cut out hood

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the last GNX produced by GM, the one they call No. 547, was just accidentally found, and it's only got 67 miles on it. It was bought, coveted, and taken care of, but not really ever enjoyed

GNXs were being sold at dealer-only auctions, with prices skyrocketing to $75,000 in some instances—more than double the car’s sub-$30,000 MSRP, that was in 1987, when $30,000 was one hell of a lot of money for new factory muscle.

Northside Buick in Pittsburgh was advertising its last GNX for sale. Ron immediately called the dealership and told the salesman that he would take the car sight-unseen for $32,000 cash.

 Ron went to the dealer right away to pick up his gleaming trophy

A month later Ron received a call from the dealership. “We have a problem,” the conversation started. “Turns out number 547 was the last off the production line, and GM would like to have it back.” Now, Ron really loved that GNX and had every right to own the car. So he did what most muscle car guys would do. He said no.

He never titled the car, so GM would really never know where the car was, or even if it still existed. It was kept on its Manufacturer’s Statement of Origin.

Every six months or so he would take it out and drive it, if only for a few miles. The car racked up about 50 miles over the years, mainly on twice-yearly trips around the block.

But the need to drive a GNX soon got the best of him, so he did what most car guys would do if they had the means: He bought another GNX.

His wife was selling a car for a friend, and let it slip that 547 belonged to her husband, and the person she was talking to is incredibly rich, and made an incredibly big dollar offer. So, now it's onto it's 2nd owner.

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/mythical-no-547-1987-buick-gnx-real-know-not-telling/

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GCBC's The Bad 8 For 2017

It's 2017. Cars are faster than ever. More efficient than ever. More capable, more reliable, more available. More... whatever other words end in able. 

But some cars suck.

It's not that sucky cars are, by definition, slow or inefficient or incapable or unreliable or unavailable. They may be none of those things.

But these eight new vehicles certainly aren't desirable. 

You can do better. You must do better. Please, consider the alternatives.

Flip the equation around and we'll phrase it thus: do you want to get us something for Christmas? Please don't get us any of these vehicles. They may be best sellers, they may be worst sellers. But they won't sell to anybody that'll park a vehicle in front of GCBC Towers.

They're listed here for a number of reasons, some for just one reason. Whatever the reason, it's bad enough to cause your sales analyst of choice to reject the car so completely that I'd prefer to own anything else on the market; to reject the car so completely that you, too, should strongly consider avoiding it at all costs.

These eight vehicles have their pluses, but the minuses – however few or however many - far outweigh the positive side of the ledger.

Click any of the images to be taken to the model's Sales Stats page. Don't forget to check out GCBC's The Good 12, the list of vehicles you should definitely park in GCBC Towers' driveway on Christmas morning.

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	FIAT 500L This is the worst new vehicle you can buy. It's not just undesirable. It really is awful by every measurable standpoint. The transmission is horrid. It's chronically unreliable. It's painful to look at. Anything is preferable. Alternative: Kia Soul
	NISSAN VERSA SEDAN Nissan seemingly built a car – cheap to buy, small on the outside, big on the inside – without putting a single moment's worth of extra thought into it. They didn't style it. They didn't make it ride or handle or steer well. They just didn't bother. Alternative: Toyota Yaris iA
	ACURA RLX We get it. You don't want what everybody else wants. They want an E-Class or a 5-Series or an A6. You're different. But "wanting to be different" and "dull" shouldn't go together. They don't go together. Alternative: Genesis G80
	MITSUBISHI MIRAGE As technology advances, as time marches on, as the world turns... the Mitsubishi Mirage doesn't. This car feels like something out of 1998, and not like something that would've been class-leading in 1998. Alternative: Chevrolet Spark
	BMW X4 It's not a proper SUV. It's certainly no coupe. It's not as good as the X3, and certainly not as good-looking. It's just a silly car in a silly class of silly German crossover coupes. You make way too much money to spend it on silliness. Alternative: Mercedes-Benz GLC
	AUDI A3 E-TRON The Audi A3 e-Tron is perfectly pleasant to drive and a handsome car to behold. But Audi is charging a premium price for a small hatchback in an arena where way more technology (and space) is readily available for less money. Alternative: Chevrolet Bolt
	BUICK ENCORE To be fair, it's a struggle to make the case for any subcompact crossover. Spend a little bit more money and you can get a whole lot more utility. And in the Buick's case, it's overstyled, overpriced, underpowered, and uncomfortable. Alternative: New Chevrolet Equinox
	NISSAN TITAN XD If you want a heavy-duty pickup, get a heavy-duty pickup. Nissan, already a niche pickup truck builder, is attempting to create their own, utterly unnecessary truck niche. The XD is a ghastly attempt to do so. Alternative: Ford F-250

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RECOMMENDED READING
2016's The Bad 8
2015's The Bad 8
2014's The Bad 8
Every Vehicle Ranked By November 2016 YTD U.S. Sales
Every Vehicle Ranked By November 2016 Canadian Sales
2017's The Good 12

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