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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 haven't seen many Hondas in this series, though I'm still hoping to find a very early Civic or- better still- a 600 on the island. The early-80s Civic wagon is a good example of the Japanese cars that shifted American car buyers' opinion from the "cheap, gets good gas mileage" view of the 70s towards the "these things never break" view widely held today. They were once everywhere, but nostalgia doesn't adhere too strongly to a reliable appliance... and so most were crushed as they hit 300,000 or so miles on the clock. 2,033 pounds. That's right, this car barely weighed one ton, and it would haul four passengers and plenty of cargo. With only 69 horsepower, lots of wind noise, and no cupholders, a car with the same specs as the '83 Civic wagon would be laughed out of the showrooms by car buyers today....
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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 looking at a vehicle owned by our first four-time DOTS honoree, WhatWouldJesseDo . Well, I think this is Jesse's truck; my Black Metal V8olvo emailed me about his new truck, and I found this Hilux parked on his block. When you have a '66 Datsun , a '61 Mini , and a '70 Puma GT , you need something to haul parts! Give it a coat of camouflage paint, install a water-cooled Vickers machine gun on a crude mount in the bed, and fill all available space with jungle/desert/mountain/urban fighters and maybe some looted livestock, and you'll see the Hilux in its natural element. It also looks good with a nice shiny paint job, parked in the battle-free East End of Alameda. In fact, this may be the cleanest 25-year-old Toyota truck I've ever seen; most others around here have seen 800,000 miles of hard use hauling plumbing...
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Our last Japanese representative on DOTS Truck Monday was the '80 Plymouth Arrow , but the last one actually bearing the name of an overseas manufacturer was the '74 Datsun of a couple months ago. That means we're due for another Japanese Truck Monday, so let's take a look at this fine tape-striped Late Malaise Toyota pickup. Oh, sure, these things are still everywhere (including the motor pools of every strongman, warlord, and wannabe Lord Humungus in the world), but immortality shouldn't disqualify a vehicle from Down On The Street! I found this rack-equipped 4X4 parked on the same block as the '53 Packard Cavalier and just around the corner from the '74 Plymouth Satellite Sundance Edition ; perhaps the presence of those two stellar DOTS heroes blinded me to the presence of this fine work truck for all these months. Check out these fine Late Malaise tape stripes! It's true that the 22R engine in this truck might not have been the mighty bass-boat-haulin'...
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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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After all these months of DOTS, we've only seen two water-cooled VWs (a Rabbitamino and a Quantum ). The island is buzzing with air-cooled Beetles (so many, in fact, that I could probably show nothing but Type 1s in this series for a solid month), but what happened to all those Rabbits? They used to be everywhere! And let's not even talk about Dashers and Sciroccos. So, I've been keeping a lookout for vintage water-cooled Wolfsburg machinery, and was rewarded with a few more Rabbitaminos and this 4-door '83 Rabbit. VW ditched the Rabbit nameplate for North American Golfs after the 1984 model year, so this is one of the last of the original Rabbits. I did my high-school driver training in a very loose dual-brake-pedal 70s Rabbit... which, come to think of it, was the last time I've driven a Golf of any sort. The LS Rabbit for 1983 came with 74 fuel-injected horses... which wasn't all that bad for a Late Malaise Era subcompact. Of course, 74 horses coupled with an...
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