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Welcome to Project Car Hell , where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We had as close to a tie as you're going to see in the Hell Garage, last time around, with the '77 911 Turbo just barely beating the '78 911 Turbo in the poll. Now it's time to return to some mano-a-mano PCH Superpower action, and not only that- it's time to look at crazy orphan cars from across the ocean, cars that will make passersby shun you like the freak you are admire your rebellious spirit. France versus Britain! Simca versus Humber! You got your Reliants and your Lloyds, but when you're talking about weird British marques that Americans can't identify… well, it's tough to beat a Humber. You get your Rootes Group-ish Chrysler-influenced styling, Lucas Electrics, and ahead-of-its-time technology (well, not really, unless the time is being set in Detroit) with the Magnificent Humber Sceptre ! Just look at that fine hunk...
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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. I've been thinking about the Imperial quite a bit lately, since there's a very clean hardtop '71 Imperial Le Baron now sitting in my driveway. We'll get the story on that car a little later, but for today I've got some photographs of a vast, angular '64 Imperial Crown four-door hardtop that I found parked right around the corner from the 1942 Pontiac Torpedo . First of all, when we're talking about an Imperial, we need to reiterate this important Imperial fact, lest we enrage the purists: this is not a Chrysler Imperial; Imperial was its own marque during the 1955-75 period, so referring to such a car as a "Chrysler Imperial" is like calling an Eldorado a "General Motors Cadillac." No wonder these things were outlawed at most demolition derbies! Everything seems to be cast out of great slabs of solid...
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We're still in lovely Costa Mesa, California, where Tomsk photographed this '67 Plymouth Fury for us. The hood ornament and "Commando V8" badging indicate that the car shipped with a 270- or 325-horsepower 383 under the hood (although there's no telling what sort of powerplant lives there now, what with the ready availability of so many flavors of Mopar engines over the decades). Jump like the cost of filling this thing up with high-octane to read Tomsk's observations. galleryPost('DOTSBECostaMesaFury', 9, '1967 Plymouth Fury Down On The Costa Mesa Street'); This fine specimen of droptop Plymouth was captured in an area of Costa Mesa, CA that houses a veritable treasure trove of vehicles guaranteed to make the dragon in your life have a love explosion in his or her pants. I'll be submitting more of this neighborhood's inhabitants for tha Jalop's collective...er, "viewing pleasure" over the coming weeks, including one vehicle...
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newVideoPlayer("67_Fury_Belvedere_Valiant_476.flv", 506, 423,""); "Dawn Of A New Day" sounds much better than "Plymouth: Only 34 Years To Go," though of course Chrysler's marketers at the time had no idea that the Plymouth brand would barely outlive the current century. What we have here is the '67 Belvedere (a "whale of a lot of car for the money"), the "rich-looking compact" '67 Valiant and the '67 Fury, whose "beauty and luxury make it hard to believe you're in the low-price field." Hmm, for a minute there we were thinking we were actually listening to Chrysler's most recent "new day" marketing campaign . Well, except without the animated kid, of course.
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Remember the '62 New Yorker we saw nearly a year ago? We all liked its evil-beater look, but these cars looked pretty good when nice and shiny, too. It was quite a find when I spotted this '62 in the island's East End, parked in the exact spot in which the 1971 Chevy Blazer normally parks. I see the Chrysler parked there every once in a while, never at the same time as the Blazer, so I suspect they're owned by the same person. Love it or hate it, but you can't ignore this face. Like the nose of a space cruiser! Maybe Chrysler will retro-ize this look at some point. And the taillights- wow! These cars didn't just look good; the 300s could get going pretty well, too. The standard engine was a 305-horsepower 383; if that wasn't enough, you could spring for the dual-quad 413 in the 300H, which gave you a mighty 380 horsepower... and if that wasn't enough, a 405-horse version was available. Sadly, you couldn't get a 4-speed from the factory, but dealers back...
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With all the vintage GMC and Chevy trucks on the streets of Alameda, I need to be sure I don't neglect the Fords and Dodges when DOTS Truck Monday rolls around. We had a '64 Ford F-100 recently, but it's been several months since our last Dodge pickup. This '62 seems to be a work in progress, since it seems to alternate between being up on jackstands in the driveway and parked on the street with a drain pan under the engine. I'm not sure whether it moves under its own power or gets pushed between the two locations, but these trucks are so simple that it shouldn't take much longer before it's driving regularly. I'm not 100% sure that this Dodge is a '62; it might be a '63. Year-to-year changes were pretty subtle for work trucks back then. This example has the classic California body rust, which generally takes decades to get all the way through the sheet metal (unless you live right near the ocean, in which case the process happens much more quickly...
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How about an engine family that included V6, V8, and V10 variants and is still being manufactured today after more than 40 years? Starting with the 273-cube V8 in 1964 (itself a descendant of the mid-50s-vintage A series engine) and proceeding through vast numbers of 318s and 360s (and let us not forget the screamin' 340 Six-Pack pictured above), the LA design ended up as the basis of the 488 and 505 V10s used in Vipers and SRT-10s. While the Slant Six has pretty well established itself as the top contender for the All-Time Most Bulletproof Detroit Engine Award, its 318 stablemate makes a strong bid for second place. [Allpar]
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You hear a lot about the late-60s Chargers, the Malaise Era Chargers, and the current crop, but what about the forgotten '66 and '67 models? Some think they're homely (and suspiciously similar in design to the AMC Marlin), but 40+ years sit pretty well on this '66 that the unstoppable Kitt found in her Denver neighborhood. In this case, the car's proud owner was present and happy to open hood and doors to facilitate photography of his Dodge (which, sadly, lacks the optional 426 Hemi). galleryPost('DOTSBEDenver66Charger', 54, '1966 Dodge Charger Down On The Denver Street');
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We love our Chrysler A-bodies around here, no doubt about that. For that reason, I'm overjoyed to have finally found one of the later A-body-based Barracudas in Alameda. Cool as the 'fastback Valiant' early Barracudas were, the 1966-69 cars were the ones that really looked like their sleek carnivorous namesake (the E-body Chryslers- those that avoided being hooned to death back in the day, that is- are probably worth too much to the nostalgio-freak crowd to be seen parked on the streets of Alameda, but I'm still hoping to find one). A high-school friend of mine had a gold '67 like this one, equipped with lumpy-cammed 340 and 4-speed, and it probably took 15 years before his car's burnout marks finally disappeared from the stretch of Encinal Avenue in front of the school. My friend was also an ardent supporter of the Alameda High tradition of Open Header Fridays (eventually crushed by do-gooder teachers and motorcycle cops with strong ticket-writing hands, the tradition...
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Big four-door 60s Chrysler products (such as the '66 Monaco we saw recently ) aren't really worth a lot of money these days, so when that 318 or 383 finally gets a death rattle... well, that sound often means a one-way ride to the Final Parking Lot. This 1965 Dodge 880 hung in there longer than most, but now it's a parts donor (right next to a '79 Magnum ) Make the jump for a second gallery. galleryPost('Junkyard65Polara880Top', 6, '1965 Dodge Polara Awaits The Crusher Part 1'); galleryPost('Junkyard65PolaraJump', 8, '1965 Dodge Polara Awaits The Crusher Part 2');
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I had a vague recollection of having posted a '64 big Chrysler in this series, but it turned out to be a DOTS Oakland Edition '64 Newport . So let's cross the Estuary from Oakland back to Alameda and scrutinize an oxidized-but-highly-original '64 Chrysler 300 today. This four-door hardtop, which lives in the vicinity of the '72 Capri , has survived many, many miles and yet still serves as everyday transportation. The standard engine in the '64 300 was a 305-horse 383 V8 . Of course, by this time the car might have had a 440 or 413 swap- you just never know with mix-n-match-friendly 60s Detroit cars. No focus group would ever permit an automaker to have such a grille as this today; focus groups want bigger cupholders and a higher driver's seat, not vivid styling. I like the "textured" paint, but those wheelwells deserved to be filled up by bigger tires. galleryPost('DOTS64Chrysler300', 15, '1964 Chrysler 300 Down On The Street'); First...
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After two consecutive days of old Junkyard Find Dodges, we might as well see yet another one. It's a sign of how many 60s Chrysler A-bodies were manufactured (and how rugged they were) that you see more of them in the junkyard today than you do, say, 20-year-old Hyundai Excels. This one is a bit new to have the pushbutton shifter, but it's still packed with parts that will no doubt live on in another Dart, Valiant, or Barracuda. galleryPost('Junk66DartTop', 6, 'End of the Line For 1966 Dart Part 1'); galleryPost('Junk66DartJump', 10, 'End of the Line For 1966 Dart Part 2');
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The junkyard is fun (and our wannabe 24 Hours of LeMons car hungers for parts), so I'm going to follow up the Junked Opel GT with the latest interesting find at an East Bay self-service wrecking yard: this 1966 Dodge Monaco. It's got a big-block (feel free to decode the build tag and tell us whether it's a 361 or 383, Mopar lovers) and still showing a sense of style even as it awaits its final ride. Make the jump to see even more photos. galleryPost('Junk66MonacoTop', 6, 'Junked 1966 Dodge Monaco Part 1'); galleryPost('Junk66MonacoJump', 15, 'Junked 1966 Dodge Monaco Part 2');
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