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Alameda has plenty of 1964-73 Mustangs on the street. So many, in fact, that I've been taking a sort of "mañana, mañana" attitude about photographing most of them (this also happens with 60s GM pickups and air-cooled Volkswagens). This leads me to wonder why I never see any first-generation Camaros or Firebirds parked on the island's streets; they were made in vast numbers and aren't worth much more than Mustangs now, so what happened to them? Hooned into oblivion? Feel free to weigh in on that burning issue as we take a look at a nice example of the "big" first-generation Mustang. The '73 Mustang convertible, while based on the same chassis as the original 64-1/2 model, weighed in at a hefty 3,198 pounds. That was 584 pounds more than the first Mustang convertible, and matters weren't helped by the Malaise engine selection for '73: the base six groaned out a miserable 88 horses (versus 101 for the '64-1/2 six), while the 302 V8 didn't...
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newVideoPlayer("70s_MG_Triumph_476.flv", 463, 387,""); You'll have fun in the sun, "motoring tops-down" in a spiffy new late-70s MGB, TR6, or Spitfire. Note how the horrifyingly ugly bumpers of the Spitfire are barely glimpsed as we see happy Americans driving hundreds of yards with no apparent electrical malfunctions. Sure, British Leyland gave up on the idea of selling MGs and Triumphs in the US just a year or two after this ad, but can't you feel the optimism here?
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Not a whole lot of old British cars remain on the streets of Alameda. We've seen a few Morrises and a couple of Jaguars , but just a single MG up until today. I found this '73 MGB parked just a few doors down from the '68 Pontiac GTO and ran right home to get my camera, in case it was about to drive away any minute. As it turned out, this MG is a new resident, not a onetime visitor. 1973 was the last year of the small chrome bumpers for US-market MGBs, with monstrous Malaise units adding approximately five tons of ugly to the later car. The Malaise Era got an early start on the MGB's engine for '73, though, with a Yugo-like 79 horsepower on tap from the venerable BMC B engine (yes, the US-spec Yugo boasted- if that's the word- only 68 horsepower, but those extra 11 horses probably don't give the British Leyland product much of a performance advantage over the Zastava machine). Still, I used a '73 MGB-GT as a daily driver for a few years, and it felt quick...
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Almost two months since the last Cadillac? That just seems wrong , given how many old Cads still roam the island. That's why today's DOTS machine will be a Malaise Eldorado, similar to the '78 Eldo we had a while back, only this one's a convertible instead of a T-top car. Back in '76, there was a lot of hoopla over the Eldorado convertible being the Last American Convertible ever . As it turned out, it was the last convertible for less than a decade, but back in the Malaise Era you had this palpable sense that everything good was being taken away. The 500-cubic-inch engine in this car was rated at 190 horsepower, which is on the depressing side... until you consider its grunt-tastic 360 ft-lbs-o-torque. This example is in such nice shape that I'm sure the owner doesn't care about the leisurely performance and single-digit gas mileage. I found this car in the East End, mere yards from the '56 Willys Station Wagon (which is visible in a couple of the photos...
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