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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. The VW van is a fairly common sight in Alameda, so much so that I keep passing by most T2 Transporters without stopping to photograph them (we've seen numerous T1 buses: 1956 , 1957 , 1960 , 1966 , and 1967 ). I'd been contemplating the inclusion of an early water-cooled Volkswagen van in this series- but still wasn't convinced they belonged - when I spotted this super-clean '87 Vanagon Syncro parked just across the street from the 1957 Cadillac . I'm convinced now; it's Vanagon Monday today! The four-wheel-drive Syncro didn't sell at all well in North America, no doubt because Detroit and Japan were filling showrooms with burly off-road hardware that made the VW look like something only Yurp-lovin' effete snobs (not to mention nattering nabobs of negativism) would choose to drive. South Africans loved the Syncro so...
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Sorry, Ford truck fans, I just can't get the age range of this Bronco down to anything narrower than 1970-75. Here's your chance to tell us what year this green machine was made, and how you can tell! This truck lives on the same block as the very evil '73 Caprice wagon , and just looks so shiny and eager by comparison. Remember when the Bronco was small and didn't pretend to offer any sort of luxury? You got a bouncy ride and a straight-six or small V8, and that was it! Hard to believe, but here's the proof. I can't help but think of the "Press Bronco" mentioned in Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas when I see one of these. Of course, even a Bronco won't help you cover the Mint 400. What's this- an automatic transmission? That just seems wrong . At least it has industro-style flat steel dash panels and switches you can find through a thick layer of swamp mud. Sure, it probably gets 14MPG on the highway and rides like a Radio Flyer with square wheels...
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Back when we had our What's the Cutoff Year For Japanese DOTS Cars poll , the image I used as an example was this '87 Honda Civic 4WD wagon. I'd meant to DOTS-ize this car soon afterward, but I kept getting distracted by cars and trucks that seemed so much more, well, interesting . But 3rd-gen four-wheel-drive Civics are rare and weird- hardly anyone bought them new, they turned into red powder in the rusty parts of the world, and California's stringent emissions tests have doomed many 80s Civics (some of which have the most complicated tangle of vacuum hoses ever placed in an engine compartment ) to the cold jaws of The Crusher. So here we go- today the little four-wheelin' Civic gets to shine! And, since we had a DOTS Car of the Week Poll last Friday, let's have one today- after you check out the gallery, make your vote count! 1987 was the first year of Honda's so-called "Real Time" four-wheel-drive system, which engaged automatically. Toyota's...
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