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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition , where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot . Having just read Gordon Bowker's excellent Malcolm Lowry biography, Pursued By Furies , I can't see the word "Consul" without the quasi-autobiographical character of that name in Lowry's masterpiece coming to mind. That's why I imagine this '58 Ford Consul locked in a 50-year downward spiral of ethanol abuse, swilling whatever the Thai equivalent of mescal might be. We also get some bonus cars: an Alfa Giulia Spider and some sort of ancient Mazda wagon. Make the jump to see and read more, and thanks to Arco for sending in these shots! galleryPost('DOTSBEPhuketConsul', 3, 'Ford Consul And Other Cars Down On The Phuket Street'); Hi Murilee, Driving around in Phuket, Thailand, my second home, I come across all sorts of weird and wonderful cars, maybe you are interested in the enclosed expamples...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! In yet another PCH Superpower Showdown, Italy triumphs over Britain with the Fiat X1/9 beating the MGB-GT in the Index of Effluency Edition poll. That means Fiat has the honor of displaying the PCH Superpower trophy today (better put a drip pan underneath it, and keep the kitty litter handy)… but the Italians will have to give it back to the British tomorrow if they don't make it two in a row, because we're returning with another UK-versus-Italy matchup! Only one of these cars is located in Weed, California, but when you get a chance to use an Of Mice And Men reference in a headline, you take it. This particular Bad Thing in Weed (go here if the ad disappears) is a project car with "basket case" right in the title… followed by a price that must be a typo, right? Right? Come on now, when a nicely restored TR3A goes for a princely 15-20 grand...
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition , where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot . This one isn't really on a street , but TexanIdiot25 's photographs were so beautiful that I'm rewriting the DOTSBE rulebook. Looks like this IHC has been sitting for many years after somehow going down an inaccessible slope in Austin's Green Belt. Make the jump to see all the photos and read TexanIdiot's description. galleryPost('DOTSBEAustinDumper', 3, 'IHC Dump Truck Down On The Austin Ditch'); I'm chillin' in Austin this week, and one of the major hiking/Mountain bike trails here is the Green Belt. The house I'm at is right on it. Less then a 5 minute walk down the path is this 40s-50s(?) International Dump truck. Straight 6 and all. How it got there? No f-n clue, there is no reasonable way now days to get there with a truck. The only way it can be pulled out is by backing a crane down...
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Charles W. Cushman traveled the globe from 1938 to 1969, shooting tens of thousands of photos of what he found interesting. Fortunately for us, he thought scenes with cars were interesting; Indiana University has scanned all the photos, tagged them, and made them available to the public online. Thanks to 57Sweptside for the tip! [Indiana University] galleryPost('CushmanPhotos', 3, 'Car Photos From The Charles Cushman Archive');
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In the late 1950s, legendary San Jose-based customizer Joe Wilhelm started work on a project based on a 1936 Ford coupe. It started out fairly simple, with handmade grille and fenders on a still-recognizable Ford body, but became far more radical within a few years. By 1965, the car- called the Mark I Mist- sat on a Jaguar XK140 frame, with quad-carbed Buick nailhead and a wild European-influenced body. It was a big hit at the car shows and made the covers of Car Craft , Rod & Custom , etc. Then the car disappeared, not to be seen again for decades... when Black Metal V8olvo crew chief Hellhammer (aka Junkyard Dave) tracked it down. galleryPost('MarkMistTop', 6, 'The Mark I Mist 1936 Ford'); The Buick engine was gone, but otherwise the Mark Mist was in pretty good shape. The gauges still have their 24-karat gold plating, and the upholstery has held up very well. In fact, all the car really needs is a new engine and a general mechanical going-over to be ready to roll...
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time around, the De Tomaso Longchamp trounced the Bricklin SV-1 in the Choose Your Eternity poll , showing that Canada has a snowball's chance against PCH Superpower Italy. Today we're going to Detroit; as we all know, the ready availability of parts and expertise for most postwar America vehicles makes such cars insufficiently hellish for this series... unless you go for heavily customized machinery! That's the road- paved with broken whiskey bottles- we're taking today. We're all accustomed to seeing ads for potential Hell Projects that describe rusted-out hulks that look like they've been stored for decades in boiling salt water as "easy restorations," and the statement "One of these just sold for $180,000!!!!" is often applied to a basket-case heap that's been used as a rifle-range target since 1973...
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newVideoPlayer("/58_Lincoln_476.flv", 506, 423,""); Given 60 years of hindsight, the argument that the '58 Cadillac looked "hardly distinguishable from the rest of the General Motors line" doesn't hold up real well. Still, Lincoln was rolling out the big guns in the ever-escalating chrome-and-gingerbread arms race of late-1950s Detroit with their cars' design. Thanks to SOS10 for the tip!
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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time we took a lung-charringly deep breath of the sulfur-tainted air in the Hell Garage (where the boombox refuses to play anything other than the 1910 Fruitgum Company), we learned that 54% of PCH readers prefer a Chevy-powered MGA to a Chevy-powered TR6 . Who knew? Today we're going to up the ante and go with a couple of relatively high-buck projects; one is a type of car we've seen before and the other is plenty obscure. After seeing that beautiful DOTS E-Type , it's hard not to yearn for a genunine, pre-Malaise XKE. The prices for nice ones are pretty brutal, unfortunately, but an enterprising gearhead such as yourself should be able to find a diamond-in-rough Jag and turn it into an envy-generator in no time! When you get a California car, such as this '67 XKE coupe , you don't even need to worry about rust... oh, wait. All right...
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition , where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot . It's damn near impossible to park anywhere in San Francisco, but the Western Addition neighborhood? No way! That's why we're so impressed by these cars that Rob (you may remember him as the man who brought us the Covered Wagon CRX ) spotted holding down most of the street parking on their block; they're apparently all owned by the same guy, who must be Public Parking Enemy #1 for miles around. Make the jump to see the whole gallery and read Rob's description. galleryPost('TurkStanyanCars', 3, 'Gigantic Detroit Machines Laugh At Your Attempts To Park In San Francisco'); So the Fireflight....that one is sitting in a driveway that is blocked by the Mercury Monterey and the glass in the garage is all smoked out (or maybe just real dirty) but its not easily seen through (not that I tried to get that close!...
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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Here's a car that I found parked in front of one of my favorite East End bars, the Lemon Tree. For a moment, I thought I'd found a genuine 1950s Speedster, but the four-lug wheels gave away its VW Beetle roots. You need to make sure you've got all four hubcaps when you drive one of these! Still, it's an interesting car, based on a 60s or 70s chassis, and so I figure it qualifies for this series. There's no telling what engine it's got, though the most likely candidate is some member of the souped-up, larger-than-1600cc Type 1 family. Chances are this machine is quite a bit quicker than a real Speedster, though the handling might not be quite up to Porsche standards. The original Speedster was a stripped-down, lightweight 356 Cabriolet, initially sold only in North America. You could get one for $2,995 in 1954, 700 bucks cheaper...
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We like to see a sampling of junkyard wares from around the world, and Slantsick has added to our Rusty Iron Grand Tour by photographing some of the more interesting vehicles at C.I.A. Salvage of Limerick, Maine. Make the jump to see the whole gallery and read Slantsick's list of vehicles. galleryPost('DOTJSlantsickMaine', 3, 'Old Cars And Trucks Down On The Maine Junkyard'); Pics taken at C.I.A. Salvage, Limerick Maine- May 5, 2008. I'll leave it to you to wax poetic about the cars if you so choose and/or make jokes at rural Maine's expense, etc. 1) 1946-48 Dodge sedan 2) hood mascot of same 3) 1952 Kaiser Manhattan 4) same 5) 1955 Kaiser Manhattan 6) 1957 Ford firetruck, January 08 7) same, May 08 8) 1960s Falcon Clubwagon 9) 1964 Imperial Crown Coupe- one of 5233 10) tailpanel mascot of same 11) rear side view 12) 1966 Plymouth Belvedere II- 273 V8/auto, For Sale sign on windshield asking $2K 13) nose of same 14) rear 3/4 of same 15) 1967 Chevy Bel Air 16...
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You guys who tear your hair out when you see a nice, easily restorable old car heading to The Crusher in this series... think you can work up any tears for this beyond-basket-case '59 T-Bird? I spotted it at the same East Bay wrecking yard that gave us the '69 Renault 16, and it looks like you might be hard-pressed to find many usable parts on it. Still, the engine is still there, and the front bumper looks like it might be salvageable. galleryPost('DOTJ59Tbird', 3, '1959 Thunderbird Down On The Junkyard');
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We're now 14 months into the Down On The Street series, and the total of interesting old vehicles found parked on the streets of Alameda, California, reached the three hundred mark yesterday. Newcomers to this series might want to check out the Down On The Street FAQ before making the jump and viewing the smorgasbord of old iron that thrives outdoors on the Island That Rust Forgot. 1937 Cadillac 1939 Chevrolet 1941 Chevrolet 1942 Pontiac 1943 IHC 1945 Ford 1947 Plymouth 1948 IHC 1950 Dodge 1950 Ford 1950 Ford 1950 Plymouth 1950 Pontiac 1951 Dodge 1952 Dodge 1953 GMC 1953 Packard 1954 Chevrolet 1954 Ford 1955 Mercury 1955 Plymouth 1956 Imperial 1956 Volkswagen 1956 Morris 1956 Willys 1956 Ford 1957 Volkswagen 1957 Cadillac 1957 Chevrolet 1957 Chrysler 1957 Pontiac 1958 Mercedes-Benz 1959 Morris 1959 Volkswagen 1960 Cadillac 1960 Cadillac 1960 Mercury 1960 Studebaker 1960 Chevrolet 1960 Volkswagen 1961 Morris 1961 Rambler 1961 Ford 1961 Plymouth 1962 Chrysler 1962 Chevrolet 1962 Dodge...
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We had a bit of an upset in Monday's Choose Your Eternity 3-way Superpower Showdown poll , with the French car coming in last! Yes, the '63 Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint won handily, with a 55-24-22 split. That means the Italian car industry can feel the pride that comes from building the coolest- yet most nightmarish- cars very large sums of squandered money can buy! Just to show that we haven't forgotten the special place held by France in the Project Car Hell Pantheon, however, we're going to do an all-French matchup today. Thanks- and a Project Car Hell Tipster T-shirt - go to Hotrodelectric for these tips! Just where do we draw the line between a project car and a parts car? Always a tough call, but we've found an even tougher question: when does a single part become a car? Because of the near-impossibility of reading the huge, CAPS LOCKED, red-and-blue font used by the seller of this 1925 Renault Type 45 , it took me a while to realize that this auction is for just...
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Some of our more observant readers noted the presence of a beautiful Mercedes-Benz 300SL in the background of some of the shots of the '66 Ferrari 275GTB taken by Vintage Racer . You wanted to see more of this car, and we don't blame you! Make the jump to see all the photos, and if you're in the Seattle area and want to check out more cars like this on Friday, get on down to Pacific Raceways for the Fourth of July Historics; go here for the details. galleryPost('VRMB300SL', 3, '1954 Mercedes Benz 300SL Ready To Race');
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