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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 '65 Mercury Comet Caliente last week, and before that the '65 Comet 202 and the '64 Comet Cyclone . No shortage of Falcon-based comets on the island… but how about the Maverick -based Comet? Mavericks themselves, sure- a '70 and two 74s - but now we're going to look at our first Malaise Comet. The Mercury Division couldn't do a whole lot to de-Maverickize the Comet, but they were able to get these distinctive taillights on the car. Sure, they hurt your eyes even after 35 years, but they're definitely of their time . I found this car less than a block from the '65 IHC Travelall . The '73 Comet 2-door listed at $2,432, which was 102 bucks more than the equivalent Maverick (and $55 more than a 2-door base Chevy Nova). The 200-cubic-inch inline six engine was standard, but you could upgrade to the 250 six or...
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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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While at the Motoring J Style show in May, I spotted an amazingly original Datsun 510 two-door parked in the exhibition hall. Turns out it was owned by David Swig, the guy in charge of the event, and now I've managed to get him to bring the car to the former Alameda Naval Air Station (where they now make absinthe ) for some photos. The car was purchased from its original owner, who always garaged it and for many years drove it just once a month or so; this Datsun is solid Compare its condition to that of most 510s, which have spent their lives in glorious clouds of tire smoke and- all too often- wrapped around telephone poles! galleryPost('OrangeDatsun510', 6, '1973 Datsun 510');
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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. 1960s Volvos haven't played a large role in this series; so far we've seen this '66 Amazon , this '69 144 , and this '69 P1800 . Now we're going to add a rare 1800ES wagon, which I found parked along Alameda's San Francisco Bay shoreline (not far from the '68 GMC pickup ). The 1800ES wagon was only made for two years, 1972 and 1973. This '73 listed new at $5,150, or $793 more than a new Olds Vista Cruiser. Actually, the Chevy Vega Kammback wagon was closer in size and styling- though not in build quality- and its $2,323 price tag was less than half that of the Volvo. Perhaps the Datsun 610 wagon was a more effective Volvo sales-stealer back in '73; its price tag was $3,195. This example looks pretty solid for a 35-year-old driver; I haven't seen it since, so I suspect its owner was just making a beach trip...
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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. There's been just one Corvette so far in this series (also a '73), and I assume so few are on the street for the same reason so few first-generation Camaros are on the street: Car Show Guys! Yes, most old Corvettes now live in garages, emerging only for shows and cruise nights; I'm thinking of shooting a few early C4s for this series, but even those are pretty hard to find parked on the street these days. This car is in pretty nice shape and worth plenty, yet here it is parked on the street in Alameda's West End. I don't see it every day, so I suspect it lives at least part-time in a garage somewhere. It does get used for transportation, much to the envy of all those gilded-cage show/cruise-only Vettes. This is the first Malaise Era Corvette, with power out of the standard 350 down to 190 horsepower. Some of that power loss was...
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You think the supply of old cars and trucks parked on the streets of Alameda will dry up, now that we've hit the 300 point? I doubt it, not when you can still find Early Malaise Era landyachts like this Electra being used as daily transportation. Five-dollar gas be damned! I found this car parked near the former Alameda Naval Air Station, where thousands of nuclear weapons once sat it earthen bunkers and thousands of sailors once drove second-gen Camaros. Nowadays they shoot movies and make vodka at the old NAS, and the sound of A6s and P3s no longer competes with the roar of small-block Chevy engines. Heraldic crests! Knights in armor! Seeing this hood ornament, I find it impossible to believe that Buick didn't offer an Electra Brougham for '73. Surely there must be some mistake! Just in time for the Arab oil embargo of '73, this 4,682-pound dreamboat purred down the highway courtesy of a 210-horse 455 engine. That seems like a pretty poor power-to-weight ratio, but keep...
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In much the same manner as the '73 Mustang and '73 Cougar , the Chevelle for 1973 put on quite a few pounds over its predecessor... just in time for the Arab Oil Embargo . Until now, I hadn't been able to find any of the "big" Malaise Chevelles, though we have seen examples of the angular '64-67 Chevelle as well as the more rounded '68-72 variety. Early emission-control equipment was pretty crude, so compression ratios had to come down, down, down to meet the new federal standards. 1973 was the first year of the Malaise Era (I made up the term, so I get to decide that stuff), and the 350 in this car was rated at either 145 horsepower (two-barrel carburetor) or 175 horsepower (Quadrajet). That hurts, but worse was in store. 3,580 pounds. That's the factory shipping weight of the V8 Chevelle for '73. That means the Chevelle scaled in at 45 pounds more than the weight of the V8-equipped two-door '66 Impala (and about the same as the projected weight...
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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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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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So we had our Favorite Detroit Malaise Car poll last week, from which the '78 Cadillac Eldorado emerged triumphant (the combo of a 500 cubic-inch engine and T-tops proved unbeatable). But what about Malaisemobiles from across the waters? This poll includes the rebadged imports sold by Detroit as part of their "if you can't beat 'em, put your name on 'em" strategy of the era, in addition to straight-out imports. Jump like a UH-1 leaving the roof of the US Embassy in Saigon to see the contestants! Note: Since we've got two apiece '74 Porsche 911s and '77 Toyota Celicas, I'm choosing one apiece (yes, we have two '78 Colts, but one is a sedan and the other is a wagon). Now on with the Malaise! 1973 BMW 3.0CSi 1973 Capri 1973 Datsun 610 1973 Ford Courier 1973 Volkswagen Thing 1973 Volkswagen Squareback 1974 Porsche 911 Targa 1975 Datsun B210 1976 Honda Civic 1977 Toyota Celica 1978 Dodge Colt 1978 Dodge Colt Wagon 1978 Honda Civic 1978 Jaguar XJ...
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With the Malaisetastic '80 Plymouth Fire Arrow that we saw yesterday on my mind, I got to thinking about the meaning of the Malaise Era, specifically about the American-built vehicles sold during that period. Not captive imports like the Fire Arrow or quasi-domestics like the Capri, but real Detroit (or Kenosha) machinery. And, yes, I know that Jimmy Carter never actually uttered the word "Malaise" in his so-called Crisis of Confidence speech in 1979; what started as a joke term for the cars of the 1973-1983 period has now hardwired itself into my brain). Then I realized that I've forgotten the quasi-tradition of having a Friday poll for the readers to vote on their favorite DOTS machine of the week, so I owe you some DOTS poll action. That means it's time to jump like the late-70s inflation rate to pick your favorite of Alameda's Malaisewagons! Looking at these cars, I realize that I've been remiss in not photographing early-80s Detroit iron on Alameda's...
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Looking at the Alameda cars I've already photographed, I realize that I have shots of six Chrysler A-bodies stored up. This wouldn't be a big deal, but I've only shown a single A-body so far in the series (no, the '77 Volaré was not an A-body ). I feel...
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