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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. We saw a pretty nice 1968 Mercedes-Benz 280SL about a month ago, so I figure it's time for another '68 Benz. This time, though, we'll be looking at a solid-citizen sedan instead of a rakish roadster, with this 230 I found parked pretty close to the Evil '77 Camaro . Even though the 230 was one of the less expensive Mercedes-Benz machines in '68 (being the entry-level 6-cylinder sedan), it was still quite expensive: $4,544. With a brand-new '68 Chevelle SS396- which was about the same size as the 230- going for $2,899 and even the '68 BMW 2002ti listed at $4,165, you had to be thinking long-term when you chose the Mercedes sedan. Long-term as in 40 years , in this case. This car is used for everyday transportation nowadays, 40 years and who knows how many Astronomical Units of travel later; the interior still looks pretty...
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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. We've seen a couple of Mercedes-Benz SLs here- this '82 380SL and this '87 560SL , but it's been a challenge to find a W113 on the island. Finally, I spotted this beautiful example parked in front of Pagano's Hardware, just around the corner from the '69 Chevy Nomad . I was buying bamboo stakes for the punji pits in my front yard at the time- hey, got to be ready for the Financiapocalypse- so I didn't have my good camera on hand. Fortunately, my cellphone has a not-too-crappy camera built in. Then the owner emerged from the store, but fortunately he was proud enough of his car that he was willing to wait while I photographed it. He'd been shopping around for a restored SL for a few years and he finally found the one he wanted. Yes, it's his daily driver. The 280SL roadster would have set you back $6,485 back 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. Can you believe, with all the first-generation Camaros built, that we're on the 327th Alameda DOTS car and we're seeing our very first one? Are they just too valuable to be allowed on the street? Or did they all go out in blazes of hoonic glory back in the day? If either is true, why do we see so many early Mustangs still on the street? I found this car parked at a meter in front of Jim's Coffee House downtown. Realizing I didn't have time to run home and get my good camera, I decided to make do with the camera in my cellphone . The General made 235,151 Camaros for the '68 model year, compared to Ford's 317,068 Mustangs that year. A V8-equipped Camaro hardtop went for $2,727, versus $2,708 for a V8 Mustang hardtop. With both cars offering roughly similar performance (i.e., terrible handling and braking, decent acceleration...
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Most of you approved of the super-beater '70 Skylark , with a small but vocal minority who felt physical pain at the very sight of the beat-to-hell Buick. I'm pretty sure that the approval rating of today's Skylark will be be fairly high across the board, given that it's a 40-year-old red convertible that lives on the street and all. This clean-looking Buick parks just across the street from the yellow '72 Beetle we saw last year. The Skylark Custom came with the luxury trim package, including fender skirts and plush padded vinyl interior. The standard engine was a 250-inch six, but just about all buyers opened their wallets for the 230-horse Buick 350 (and some went ahead and paid for the 300 horsepower 400). Mmmm, padded vinyl! This car listed at $3,098 new, which was 97 bucks more than the Fairlane GT convertible (and 700 bucks less than the '68 Lotus Europa). These photographs date from more than a year ago; it was actually one of the first cars I shot for this...
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Sometimes months can go by between my photographing of a DOTS car and posting those photographs. Today's car is a good example; I shot the original photos last August, but the island is overflowing with air-cooled Beetles and I have a glut of photos of such cars (yes, Beetle fans, I know I should be posting more of them... and I will, promise). But this particular exposed-engine Beetle, which I'm arbitrarily calling a '69 (though it could be from any year during the 68-72 span), got in some sort of messy collision in the meantime and then moved across town. At first, I thought I was looking at a different car, but checking plate numbers told the whole story. So what we have here is your standard mildly hot-rodded late-60s/early-70s Beetle, with exposed engine but retaining the factory wheels and hubcaps. This could easily be the original engine, or the 15th, and the displacement could be anything from 1200cc all the way up to a stroked "How much money you got?" mill...
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How is it that I've only had one Mercury Cougar in this series so far, and that a Malaisemobile? Even worse, we forgot about all about the 40th anniversary of the Cougar last, in spite of repeated reminders from the Colorado Cougar Club ! Maybe the problem is that the bloat-o-riffic Farrah Fawcett Cougar managed to obscure our mental images of the sleek 60s cats. Anyway, I've photographed several of the sporty Mustang-based Cougars on the island and you'll be sure to see them in this series, starting with this '68. This Cougar lives in the East End, not far from the 1950 Pontiac Chieftan , and it seems to get driven regularly. The 210-horse 302 was the standard Cougar powerplant for '68, but you could get it with a 390 or even a 335-horse 428. Judging by the lack of badging on this car, we can assume it's probably a 302 machine. It's a little bit battered, but it looks to be in good original condition and still getting its owner around in old-school Mercury style...
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Since we had a Plymouth yesterday, we need to have an Oldsmobile today. I dug through my stash of DOTS car photos and could find only one Olds ready to go (and we've only seen two of them prior to today: a '64 Jetstar 88 and a '77 Custom Cruiser wagon ). Does Alameda have an anti-Oldsmobile bias? Such are the mysteries of the Island That Time Forgot. Anyway, here's a 1968 (or maybe it's a 1969- damn if I can tell the difference; Olds experts, please tell us what we have here) Cutlass convertible, to bring our total count of Alameda Oldsmobiles up to three. I found this Cutlass on the same block as the 1954 Ford Mainline and the 1947 Plymouth (and, yes, that's an old Dart parked behind the Olds). This East End block features two old-car aficionados living across the street from each other, each with quite the impressive stable of street-parked classics. This Cutlass doesn't seem to move much, but at least the shady trees keep damage to the convertible top to a...
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We're past 100 cars in this series, and I haven't shown a single Mustang . At this point, I must admit that I'm not a big fan of Mustangs, first-gen Camaros, or Mopar E-bodies- sure, I appreciate them, but they just leave me a little cold. For that reason, I tend to say "Oh, I'll get back to that car later" when I see a 60s Mustang on Alameda 's streets, particularly a six-cylinder example. However, from now on I'm going to give the hot-selling Falcon sibling its due, starting with this mean-looking '68 I spotted on the island's East End. I've shot a couple of pretty Mustangs by now, of course, but a beat-up survivor is always more interesting to me. Therefore, you have to see the ugly one before I show you any nice ones; 'tis the nature of Down On The Street . Don't you hate it when you're spraying primer on a car and you realize you've forgotten to remove or mask off the emblems? Aaah, what the hell- just paint 'em! It's much the same as a cheap landlord who paints all the switches and...
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