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I haven't hit the wrecking yard for a while, but Alameda-based reader Chris went last week and spotted two Malaise Special Jensen-Healeys and a fairly complete-looking Alfa Romeo GTV, right there among all the ho-hum Corollas and Excels in the import section. Whoa, does one of them have a small-block Chevy V8 under the hood? Make the jump for all the photos and Chris' description. galleryPost('DOTJJensens', 6, 'Jensen Healeys And Alfa GTV Sit In East Bay Wrecking Yard'); I live in Alameda, you've featured my roomate's car before - 1966 Coronet Vert ...... BTW, he sold it, had a strong 440 in it - getting a complete frame off soon by the new owner. Now he has a '74 Ghia Convertible, parked in the same place. Anyway, I have an eBay business on the side, sell vintage Euro parts (mostly overseas). A lot of BMW 1980's stuff, Volvo 240's, Mercedes, etc..... So I'm at the yards a lot. Came across some interesting Euro Trash........... two Jensens...
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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. Cadillacs sold pretty well, even after most of a decade of Malaise-y gas prices and general sense of diminished expectations, so you could still buy a great big angular slab of rear-wheel-drive Fleetwood as late as 1984. Here we've got a raggedy '79 Fleetwood that's been sitting on a major commercial strip for a couple of weeks now. This stretch of road is a popular spot to park cars for sale, since the traffic is so heavy. This Caddy, however, has no For Sale sign in sight; it may belong to the resident of a nearby apartment building, or it may be abandoned (this car has the telltale purple window tint, indicating that it is probably on its last owner). The APD is vigilant about this sort of thing, so a date with a tow truck may be in the offing. These things listed at $21,735 from the factory, or about 65 grand in 2008 dollars. Power...
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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 . Today we're venturing up to the state capitol, where Alan Galbraith- the man responsible for Billetproof - spotted this '77 Arrow, parked right across the street from his '76 "Hurst Edition" AMC Pacer. Now, we don't have any proof that Arnold hisself drives this car when he wants to be inconspicuous, but what better choice could there be? The rebadged Mitsubishi Celeste has governor-grade style, yet doesn't scream for attention. galleryPost('DOTSBESactoArrow', 3, 'Plymouth Arrow Down On The Sacramento Street'); DOTS FAQ
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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. When we had the quasi-abandoned '70 Karmann Ghia last month, I got a flood of emails from rusty-state readers who were aghast that such a rare car would be allowed to go to The Crusher. Thing is, Karmann Ghias aren't at all rare around here; I've been passing today's car- which is located just a few blocks from my house- for months and months, figuring I'd get around to shooting it one of these days. And here it is! This one might not be a '74, but the bumpers place it somewhere in the Malaise Era. It's a Beetle under the skin, but for some crazy reason the sporty Karmann Ghia actually weighs more than the utilitarian Beetle: 1,919 versus 1,831 pounds. Both cars got the 46-horsepower 1600 engine. Yes, US emission-control regulations were tough on the air-cooled VW. The price tag on the Karmann Ghia was pretty nice for a...
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Sometimes you look at the price of a car for sale and you ask yourself, "Is that a pretty good deal, or would I have to be smoking the rock to pay that much?" That's what Nice Price Or Crack Pipe is all about, and we're going to follow up yesterday's high-buck factory-racer '63 Pontiac - which 65% of you felt went for way too much green- with another Detroit classic. This time it's a super-cherry 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis, a car with just 4,054 miles on the clock. This has got to be the nicest '78 Grand Marquis in the world, and it's got all the options: 460 engine, power everything, cruise control, even the 8-track player. But fifteen grand? What do you think? galleryPost('NPOCP78GrandMarquis', 6, '1978 Mercury Grand Marquis For 15 Grand On eBay'); [eBay Motors] , thanks to Mechimike for the tip! 15 thousand bucks for a 1978 Mercury Grand Marquis? ( surveys )
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Here's Nice Price Or Crack Pipe once again, the day after the Opel GT Batmobile made NPOCP history! You see, for the first time we've got the majority of voters opting for the Nice Price side of the poll; admittedly, the voting is 173 to 172 at the time of this writing, but that's still a win for the BatmOpel! Today we've got another machine that might present something of a dilemma; the original 351 Cleveland/4-speed combo makes it cool, as do the factory hubcaps and the fact that it's always been a camper… but a Buy It Now of $12,500? What do you think? galleryPost('NPOCPRancheroCamper', 3, '1973 Ranchero Camper For Sale'); Thanks to The Kid for the tip! [eBay Motors] What do you think of $12,500 for a '73 Ranchero with camper shell? ( polls )
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newVideoPlayer("/75_Chrysler_NYer_JackJones_494.flv", 506, 423,""); Now that the '75 New Yorker is quite the collector's car, with original examples changing hands for upwards of several dozen dollars, we can understand why Jack Jones was so appreciative of the deep-tufted velour interior and 230-horse 440 under the hood. But that sticker price of $6,611 was more than a grand more than the Cordoba's- talk about car buying dilemmas! And check out the bit right before the ad- Game 7 of the 1975 World Series!
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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 . You know those movies about the scattered survivors of a heinous plague? Here's a machine that's emerged victorious- though hardly unscathed- from repeated assaults by the dreaded Yersina Rustis . 72Riv spotted this Cressida in Winona Lake, Indiana, a region in which most Malaise Era Japanese cars dissolved like a serial killer's victims in a basement quicklime pit- not that I'd know anything about that- and shot some nice photos and video for us. Jump away for more. galleryPost('DOTSBEINCressida', 3, 'Early Toyota Cressida Down On The Indiana Street'); Today I ran across this old, first gen Toyota Cressida (circa '77-'80). I thought it would fit the DOTS Bonus Edition. I took some photos and some video of it I always find the old pre '80s Japanese steel to be interesting. They were still feeling...
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Even though the black-bumper Midget was a cruel parody of the ridiculously fun pre-Malaise version, it's still saddening to see one among all the Hyundai Excels and Geo Prizms in my local self-service wrecking yard. This one has the dusty, bleached look of a car that spent a decade or three rotting in a back yard prior to its final ride behind a tow truck. Look at all those good parts! Doesn't anyone want Midget parts these days? galleryPost('Junk75Midget', 6, '1975 MG Midget Down On The Junkyard');
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newVideoPlayer("/75_Pacer_Wide_494.flv", 506, 423,""); OK, so the Nova would stick out the back if you tried to stuff one inside a Pacer's shell (though the Pinto and Vega might fit). The point here is that the Pacer was completely crazy- no, wait, we mean incredibly innovative! Tough as it might be to believe today, the Pacer sold pretty well and was once a common sight on the road.
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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. Most of the time, the manner in which I locate and photograph these cars follows the same pattern: I grab my camera and walk to a neighborhood I haven't checked out in a while and shoot anything interesting I find along the way. Other times I spot a car while I'm driving somewhere, and I pull over and shoot it. Easy enough. Then we've got the cars I stalk ; I see one driving or someone tells me about another, and I spend weeks trying to catch them parked in a spot suitable for photography. This Manta is such a car. At least three readers have emailed me its usual parking location (on a crazy side street barely wide enough for one car to drive), but I could never catch the Opel when it wasn't absent or sandwiched by other cars blocking the front and rear views. Finally, when heading over to San Francisco one day, I found the Manta in...
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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. BMW 2002s aren't hard to find on the island, and we've seen this '72 , this '73 , and this '75 so far. I've built up a mini-stockpile of 2002 shots, so let's check out another '75 Bavario-Alamedan today. This one's rough, but it's more "fixer-upper" rough than "downward spiral" rough, if I'm guessing correctly. It doesn't seem to drive much, but it has the look of a car with some spare parts waiting for it in the garage… and someday they'll be installed! 1975 is the newest a California non-diesel vehicle can be and still be exempted from the dreaded emissions test. That means that you can do something to upgrade the horsepower on this car from the factory 98 to a number with three digits, all the while staying legal. With all those junkyard 3-series engines available for next...
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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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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 . After the Shark and Minnow Midget/Continental combo, it only seemed right to share some photos of another street-parked Midget (ideally, one not overshadowed by some monster land yacht), and Kitt has shot such a car for us in her South Denver neighborhood. This one's for sale, and instead of a price it's got a printout of the NADA Guides retail value; hey, it's worth a try! I've done a fair amount of Midget driving, and they're a lot of fun… provided you carry every tool you own in the boot- you'll need 'em, thanks to the one-two punch of Lucas Electrics and SU carbs- and don't mind the disconcerting experience of viewing the undersides of truck trailers on the freeway. galleryPost('DOTSBEDenverMidget', 6, '1973 MG Midget Down On The Denver Street'); DOTS FAQ
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It's time for Nice Price Or Crack Pipe once again, where the readers decide whether a car's seller has anything close to a grip on reality when it comes to asking price. Last time we were here, the $7,900 Chrysler Cordoba got a Nice Price thumbs-up from 48% of voters; not a majority, but the closest we've seen yet. galleryPost('NPOCPPinto', 3, 'Pinto Squire For 20 Grand'); Old guys like me, who suffered through a childhood of Pinto passengerhood followed by teenage years of beater Pintos clogging up the roads (now I'm having a PTSD flashback of being a helpless passenger in a Pinto driven by a very dramatic high-school girlfriend who yanked the parking brake at 80 MPH on the Nimitz Freeway- in the rain- so that the resulting loop-de-loop spinout- miraculously missing other vehicles and the guardrails and ending safely on the shoulder- would teach me a lesson about… well, I forget, so it wasn't as effective a move as she'd hoped) might rejoice that...
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