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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. Alameda is definitely a VW Transporter sort of town; you can find all the major Transporter-loving groups here, from original-owner curmudgeons to Spicoli -grade surfers. Yes, even though Alameda is inside San Francisco Bay and thus gets waves better measured in inches than in feet on its beaches, we still have plenty of surfers here. Windsurfers and kite surfers, that is, crazies who think nothing of braving the 50° water, howling winds, and vicious currents on their boards. And when they're done flirting with death for the day, they need a proper vehicle to store their bongs haul their gear back home. We've seen many roof-rack-equipped Transporters in this series, including this '56 , this '57 , this '60 , and this '66 . Since this chalkboard-patina example is parked at the beach, I suspect its roof rack is often used to...
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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're due for another French car, so let's break out the heavy artillery today! Would you believe a showroom-condition '53 Citroën Traction-Avant parked on the street? Neither did I, but that's just what I found on the same block as the '66 Volvo Amazon and around the corner from the '57 Pontiac . I'd never seen this car in town before and I haven't seen it since, so it's either a one-time visitor to the island or an Alameda car that normally lives in a garage. This is one of the few vehicles that could actually fit in one of the typical basement "garages" dug under Alameda houses during the very early days of the automobile. Back in 1911, everyone knew that cars would always be tall and narrow, with vast ground clearance, and they built theses garage accordingly (those who built huge "entertainment...
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We've reached yet another milestone in the Down On The Street series- that's right, the 1960 Triumph TR3A was the 350th street-parked Alameda vehicle that we've seen here. Those of you who are new to the series should check out the Down On The Street FAQ before you blow the rest of your work day checking out all 350 machines; that's right, every single one of those little images after the jump is a link to a bunch of car photos. What the heck, it's Friday- you gonna let The Man keep you down? 1932 Ford 1937 Cadillac 1939 Chevrolet 1941 Chevrolet 1942 Pontiac 1943 IHC 1945 Ford 1946 Chevrolet 1947 Plymouth 1948 IHC 1950 Dodge 1950 Ford 1950 Ford 1950 Plymouth 1950 Pontiac 1951 Dodge 1952 Dodge 1953 GMC 1952 Dodge 1953 Packard 1954 Chevrolet 1954 Ford 1955 Mercury 1955 Plymouth 1956 Chevrolet 1956 Imperial 1956 Volkswagen 1956 Morris 1956 Willys 1956 Ford 1957 Volkswagen 1957 Cadillac 1957 Chevrolet 1957 Chrysler 1957 Pontiac 1958 Mercedes-Benz 1959 Porsche 1959 Morris...
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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. It's been a while since we've had a British sports car in this series (I believe the last one was this '71 MGB-GT ), so let's celebrate this year's final stretch of open-air motoring weather with this nice Triumph I found parked in one of Alameda's wealthiest neighborhoods. As for this car's model year, I've chosen 1960 pretty much totally arbitrarily; the TR3A was made from 1957 through 1962. This might not even be a TR3A, since Triumph put the TR4 engine/transmission in the TR3A and called it the TR4B in 1962. If you're a Triumph expert and you're reading this, take a break from grappling with The Prince Of Darkness and let us know how we might identify the year of this car from the photographs below. If this car is a TR3A with the original engine, then we're looking at a 2,016-pound car with 100 horsepower;...
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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. It's Truck Monday once again, and I've finally got a really old non-General Motors truck to show you- not that we don't love rattly old GMC and Chevy pickups with beer cans rattling around in the bed, of course, but we mustn't forget that The General had some competition back in the 1950s. From what I can tell, this truck could be a 1951, 1952, or 1953 model, so I'm choosing the middle year. Any of you who can find some distinguishing feature that nails down an exact year, please share it with us. We haven't had many Dodge trucks from the 1950s; just today's, the '50 , and the Air Force ambulance. Look, it's the '60 Cadillac just across the street! This block has been a real DOTS cornucopia, producing the '65 Mustang GT , '78 Datsun 280Z , and '86 AE86 Corolla . I might have to shoot the early-80s...
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Dculberson was checking out the car deals on Craigslist when he came across a 1954 Ford that looked familiar… yes, it's the DOTS 1954 Ford we saw almost a year ago, now equipped with grille and Carson top, not to mention a nice 302/5-speed combo. I've always liked this car, but the $9,000 price is a bit out of my personal Hell Project budget range, plus I'm still waiting for the owner to put his other car (which is easily one of my all-time DOTS favorites) up for sale. By the way, I've been seeing FOR SALE signs on the DOTS '71 Buick Le Sabre as well; looks like the tough economy has folks in Sell Mode. [Craigslist SF] galleryPost('DOTS54FordForSale', 3, 'DOTS 1954 Ford For Sale');
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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. Here's a car that I found parked in front of one of my favorite East End bars, the Lemon Tree. For a moment, I thought I'd found a genuine 1950s Speedster, but the four-lug wheels gave away its VW Beetle roots. You need to make sure you've got all four hubcaps when you drive one of these! Still, it's an interesting car, based on a 60s or 70s chassis, and so I figure it qualifies for this series. There's no telling what engine it's got, though the most likely candidate is some member of the souped-up, larger-than-1600cc Type 1 family. Chances are this machine is quite a bit quicker than a real Speedster, though the handling might not be quite up to Porsche standards. The original Speedster was a stripped-down, lightweight 356 Cabriolet, initially sold only in North America. You could get one for $2,995 in 1954, 700 bucks cheaper...
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We're now 14 months into the Down On The Street series, and the total of interesting old vehicles found parked on the streets of Alameda, California, reached the three hundred mark yesterday. Newcomers to this series might want to check out the Down On The Street FAQ before making the jump and viewing the smorgasbord of old iron that thrives outdoors on the Island That Rust Forgot. 1937 Cadillac 1939 Chevrolet 1941 Chevrolet 1942 Pontiac 1943 IHC 1945 Ford 1947 Plymouth 1948 IHC 1950 Dodge 1950 Ford 1950 Ford 1950 Plymouth 1950 Pontiac 1951 Dodge 1952 Dodge 1953 GMC 1953 Packard 1954 Chevrolet 1954 Ford 1955 Mercury 1955 Plymouth 1956 Imperial 1956 Volkswagen 1956 Morris 1956 Willys 1956 Ford 1957 Volkswagen 1957 Cadillac 1957 Chevrolet 1957 Chrysler 1957 Pontiac 1958 Mercedes-Benz 1959 Morris 1959 Volkswagen 1960 Cadillac 1960 Cadillac 1960 Mercury 1960 Studebaker 1960 Chevrolet 1960 Volkswagen 1961 Morris 1961 Rambler 1961 Ford 1961 Plymouth 1962 Chrysler 1962 Chevrolet 1962 Dodge...
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Cadillacs aplenty in this series, and a few Lincolns, but how about Chrysler's top-of-the-line marque? I'd been seeing this '56 Imperial around town for years, but only recently was I able to capture it holding still for the camera in a downtown parking space. I'm pretty sure it lives on the island, but it's either hiding on a side street I haven't checked or sleeps in a garage. This 52-year-old is in incredible original condition- not a flawless show car, but as close as you're going to see in a car this old that sees regular street use. Most folks call these cars Chrysler Imperials, but Imperial was a separate brand during the 1950s. Things got more muddled later on when the name was resurrected in the early 1980s, but in 1956 you had two choices: Imperial or Crown Imperial. Here's the only shot I was able to get of this car for quite a while. The '56 Imperial came with a "poly" 354 engine; not a Hemi, but still quite powerful with 280 horses...
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We've reached another milestone in the Down On The Street Series, with today's vehicle being the 250th vintage (or at least interesting ) street-parked vehicle I've photographed parked on the streets of Alameda, California. It's been a little over a year since we saw the very first DOTS car , and I never thought I'd be able to find as many as I have. Doing this series has turned me into an annoyingly slow driver when I'm in Alameda, as I'm constantly cruising at minimum speed and scanning parked cars for potential DOTS candidates; by this time I've developed the ability to pick out an interesting parked car just from a nanosecond's glimpse of a grille at a distance of several blocks. So make the jump and check out the cars! Since our server hamsters all die when we try to show more than 200 images in a post you can just go to the 200 DOTS post to see the earlier DOTS cars, I'm just going to show you cars #200 through #250 here. Those of you with questions...
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This is the 24th 1950s vehicle we've seen so far in this series, and it seemed right to follow up the '58 Mercedes-Benz 220S with something from Detroit. You can't get much more Detroit than an old Ford, so here comes a car from a two-time DOTS owner (as far as I know, WhatWouldJesseDo is the only three -time DOTS honoree). Some of you might recall seeing this Ford in the background of the photos of the pink '52 Dodge we saw last summer. Since that time, the Ford project has progressed enough for it to drive around under its own power and park on the street. It had some rust problems (now fixed), and naturally it's been lowered about as far as possible. The metalflake green roof pain looks pretty sharp, although I'm not sure what the rest of the paint job will look like after the bodywork is done. Or maybe this is the finished paint job! Project or finished car, it's good to see a 58-year-old machine that lives on one of the busiest streets in town. galleryPost...
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Our last DOTS Ford truck was a month ago, so we're due for one today. In fact, today we're going to have a nice shiny non-beater Ford truck, with plenty of bright red paint and gleaming chrome. This '56 parks on the street every day, though usually it's under a cover, and its excellent condition makes for a nice contrast with the more weathered look of the '48 International Harvester I photographed a couple blocks away. Sure, they don't look at all original, but I think Cragar SS wheels look good on this truck. The owner can always put tall skinny tires on dogdish-equipped steel wheels back on the truck, so purists need not fret. This truck has some great emblems; in fact, I think the "Fordomatic" emblem shot is going to replace this '50 Pontiac hood ornament photo as the desktop wallpaper on my computer. So now we have two 50s Ford pickups with bright paint colors in this series, the other being this '50. galleryPost('DOTS56F100', 16, '1956...
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Some of you Mercedes-Benz experts may have taken one glance at the photo above and spluttered " 1958? Why, any fool can see that's a 1959!" However, I swear I did my best to figure out the exact model year of this car. With the help of such sites as this one , I believe I've narrowed it down to 1958 or 1959 (the 220S was made from 1956 through 1959, and the bumper-mounted license-plate lights should mean it's from the last two years... unless it's had a junkyard bumper swap, of course). Anyway, regardless of year, this is the car that Mercedes-Benz aficionados consider the very first S-class. That means it's both a cool old 50s daily driver and a significant piece of automotive history, all on one West End Alameda street! This car lives within a few blocks of the '66 200D . Unlike the '66, however, this Benz gets driven. Unfortunately, the interior has That Mildewing Car Smell, which is noticeable from several paces away. The weatherstripping has most...
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var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/autos/200_classic_cars_found_on_the_streets_of_Alameda_CA'; I'm no longer going to express any shock that my island city continues to provide a seemingly inexhaustible supply of street-parked vintage cars and trucks; we got to 150 Down On The Street posts late last year, we're up to 200 as of today, and I've got enough photos in the can to get us to 250, no sweat. For those of you who are new to the DOTS phenomenon, I'm going to repeat the answers I put together the last time around for the Most Commonly Asked DOTS Questions: Q: Did you really find all these cars parked on the streets of Alameda? A: Yes, every one of them. Sometimes we'll post photos of street-parked old/cool cars from other places, but they get the Down On The Street Bonus Edition title. Q: Why don't you obscure the license plates in the photos? A: These cars are parked on public property, with plates in plain view, which implies that their owners accept that...
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Believe it or not, the last time we saw a 50s Detroit car in this series was the '57 Cadillac , way back in November. I've got quite a few of them photographed, but it seems that my recent focus on the Malaise Era has come at the expense of other decades. So, let's take a look at an extra-nice example of the Major Chrome Era: this '55 Mercury Monterey sedan. I believe GM called this type of swimming-pool blue hue "Hawaiian Blue" back in the day; not sure what Ford called it, but it's very much of its time. And take a look at the three-dimensionality of this trim! Good thing cars don't rust here, because this protuberance looks like prime rust territory. This taillight and surrounding area are beautifully intricate. That's why you bought the Mercury instead of its Ford sibling back then- all the little extra decorative touches. You still got those touches 18 years later on the '73 Monterey , but with more bean-counter restrictions on the opulence...
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