Another day, another battle of porcine American iron! Today were’re going to look at two 1970s era boats that were short on power but long coolness up there being projected on the big screen. Uncle Buck’s car sounded like it was shooting people while Henry Hill’s Caddy was a participant in some serious bad deeds. Before we wander down that path, let’s look at yesterday’s results!
[box_dark]Yesterday it was Gator McKlusky’s 1971 Ford sedan taking on the 1966 Impala From Dirty Mary Crazy Larry Gator’s 1971 Ford DEFEATS The 1966 Impala Ol’ Gator kicked ass in all aspects during White Lightning and he just knocked off the ’66 Impala soundly![/box_dark]
Goodfellas is one of the great movies of all time. Based on the real life story of Henry Hill, it is one of the great pictures of “mob life” ever set to film. The sound track is boss, the characters (all based on real people) are excellent and the cars are 1970s malaise era perfection. The one we’re going to focus on here is Henry’s 1979 Cadillac Phaeton. This was a pretty rare car for its day and from what we can glean from our books, only about 2,000 were made. Packing a 425ci engine, it was probably decently “fast” for its era but it would be considered a total barge by modern standards. It was a loaded car with leather interior, cloth half rood, and special paint code. Basically it was perfect for the mobster who wanted to roll in style and not be too over the top (remember what happened to the husband and wife that bought the pink Caddy? Ouchie!). While no one was directly killed in the thing, it was the vehicle that Henry was driving during the climactic scene when the law finally closed in on him and his high rolling, law breaking lifestyle was finally put to rest.
Smoking and banging over in this corner is the 1975 Mercury Marquis of Uncle Buck fame. The big car, which was falling apart at the seams and essentially a rolling shit heap was the perfect means of conveyance for John Candy’s character in the movie. There are some awesome scenes and lines surrounding this car like when the smart ass kid quips, “Ever heard of a tune up?” Not missing a beat, Buck responds, “Ever heard of a ritual killing?” The scene with the car pulling up to the school trailing smoke like a coal fired locomotive and then backfiring loud enough to cause hundreds of kids to hit the deck at the same time is awesome as well. This thing would have had either a 400 or a 460 in it. Being that 1975 was the first year for catalytic converters, it probably accelerates like it is towing the QE2, but the ride would be equivalent to floating down main street on a water bed.
CAN UNCLE BUCK KILL THE MOBSTER? WILL THE GOODFELLA OFF THE OVERWEIGHT UNCLE? THIS IS CELEBRITY CAR DEATH MATCH ONLY ONE CAN SURVIVE! CAST YOUR VOTE IN THE COMMENT SECTION BELOW…THIS SHOULD BE INTERESTING!
Which piece of dog shit is fresher? Guess I’ll have to pick the Caddy.
This is a battle of “content”,and Uncle Bucks Marquis contained a purer soul in Buck.
The Grand Marquis in this battle.
The Marquis; much more character.
The cadillac
The Merc. “The Beast is good for another 100,000”.
“Your car’s on fire!” “Naw, it’s just a little oil.”
The above replies convinced me…………..Uncle Bucks marquis in a tight one lol…..
The Merc.
Uncle Buck’s Merc.
ayyyoo fuhgetaboutit …. its the freakin caddy all the way
Uncle Buck
…….just might have to watch “Uncle Buck” for the first time just to see the school scene. Oh, yeah, the Merc all the way, due to the character flaws!!
“Wild thing! . . . Uncle Buck smokes ’em. Busta move, Bug!
(BTW, the better Henry Hill car is the ’68 Pontiac Grand Prix in which Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) takes his last ride)
UB
Henry Hills Cadillac, Uncle Buck was a movie character, Henry Hill was a actual Gambino family enforcer, so you know that Cadillac contained illegal arms, cocaine, etc while dodgeing those black government helicopters.
Man, this is hard, these are two of my all time favorite movies and I love both cars. They both play a fairly prominent role, Buck’s car a little more in the grand scheme of things compared to the timeline of each movie (although the Caddy is probably just above the 1968 Grand Prix in screen time for Goodfellas in spite of what the GP was used for). I almost can’t pick one.
However, in real life, I would drive the Cadillac Phaeton before Uncle Buck’s Marquis. I’d take it to car shows, and cruise it on the weekends expecting people to point and recognize it.
That very same Caddy was also used in several different films as a movie prop, believe it or not, including Ghostbusters 2.
I’m going with the wallowing, non-handling Cadillac here, at least it’s suspension “sort of” did its job. It’s closely related enough to the B-body to be autocrossed as we all know by now anyway.
Uncle Buck’s Merc. It show that even in shitbox condition Fords will still get ya there.
Uncle Buck’s Ford all the way. Very cool, very trashed but the best thing about it was that it captured that `lived in ‘vibe…crap everywhere yet comfy and got you there. Always reminded me of my mates mid 70’s Aussie Fairlane. The whole time I knew that car the temp guage was stuck on off the dial hot (why? we don’t know…the bonnet cable was snapped..never did open the hood..) We drove it to the Flinders Ranges once (middle of South Australia) and we hit a really big kangaroo, about 7 foot, who came thru the windscreen at high speed – but wasn’t dead. we all bailed out and sat by the side of the road for hours waiting for it to die (no, we didn”t have a gun to help it along). It passed the time by kicking the shit out of the interior, destroyed the dash, seats etc. and bled out over everything. When we DID get it out, we drove off, side windows up, hit about 40 mph and blew the back window out… on the way back we stopped in Quorn and bought a box of surplus flying goggles off a guy who had a little museum in his service station, and drove about 4 hours at speed with no windows and goggles on. It was a laugh!