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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. Today we're going to check out a 30-year-old Detroit car that's an honest-to-god daily driver and parks in the heart of Alameda's downtown. It's got its share of bumps and bruises, but it's managed to survive the hoonage that has killed off most of its second-gen F-body brethren by now. It's also managed to survive the owner's temptation to build a phony Burt Reynolds-esque Trans Am clone, and for that we should be thankful! It's not a Sky Bird Esprit , just a plain ol' Firebird. In '78, the price tag on one of these with a Buick V6 was $4,545, which $1,254 less than the Trans Am's price. That's quite a bit of money for a few acres of decals and- we're not kidding here- just 75 additional horsepower over the V6. I've always liked these Pontiac rally wheels, because they look very similar to the...
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Now we're going to head west, way west, to New Westminster, B.C., where this Malaise Firebird still makes the ground shake with its 145-horse 305 (or 105-horse Buick V6). Thanks to Anthony , who also brought us the Datsun 710 wagon . Make the jump to read Anthony's description and see the complete gallery. galleryPost('DOTSBENWFirebird', 9, 'Malaise Firebird Down On The New Westminster Street'); Thanks for posting my pictures of the Datsun 710. Attached are the long promised pictures of Jim Rockford's Firebird. This is a 77 or a 78, I don't know which, but I know where Angel hid Jim's car! The car is in New Westminster, BC in the Queens Park area, a neighbourhood of Victorian era heritage homes.
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It's pretty tough to beat the most menacing assemblage of Lucas Electrics ever put in one $150,000 package when it comes to Hell Projects, and even a horrifically hooned Skyline GT-R couldn't come close to the Lagonda in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll . In hindsight, probably nothing short of a Citroën SM could have made a stand against the Aston Martin; lesson learned for next time! Today we're going to put on our W.I.N. buttons and our boogie shoes and check out some classic Turbo Malaise Hell Projects (not to be confused with Turbo Mullet Hell Projects)... 135 horsepower from a sub-2-liter engine was pretty good in 1978, and that's what the Saab 99 Turbo managed that year. In a car weighing just 2,600 pounds, 135 horses gave a power-to-weight pretty close to what you got from a '78 Corvette... at a price tag $500 higher than the top-of-the-line Chevy. Thanks to the magic of depreciation, however, it's possible to get a Saab 99 Turbo project for a fairly...
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What car best sums up Malaise Era so-called performance cars than the late-70s Trans Am? Sure, there's the whole Burt Reynolds thing adding some camp value and general notoriety, but this car would be a caricature of its time and place even if "Smokey and the Bandit" had never been made. The scoops! The flares! The great big engine that wheezed out less power than the base 4-bangers in today's boring econo-sedans! Yet still, just like America in the gloomy post-Watergate/Vietnam/oil-embargo period, there was still some optimism to be found in the Trans Am's lines... if you looked for it. No, this car wasn't quick (in factory trim). But, just like its Z/28 sibling , it looked quick. California Trans Ams came with the Olds 403, an engine more or less synonymous with the word "Malaise." 185 horsepower, on a good day; they had to use nitrous in Burt's car to do burnouts in the movie. Scream, chicken, scream! This car is rough, though not rusty. Try to imagine it back in '78, with its Firebirdly...
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