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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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Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. DOTS Truck Monday is with us once again, and today we're going to check out a vehicle that qualifies as both truck and car: a '64 Ford Falcon with truck bed, aka Ranchero! Then, because polls lessen the sting of Simon Legree's workplace lash- which always seems to fall on one's back with particular malice on a Monday- we'll all vote on our favorite street-parked Alameda Ranchero. I found this customized Ranchero parked in front of Mel's Bowl, just after sunset on a Friday. That's right- the owner is rolling on shomer Shabbas! Then there's the additional blasphemy of a Maverick emblem on the tailgate; normally we aren't purists about such things, but Maverick? Still, this Ranchero is in good shape and the custom touches are fairly subdued for the most part. A 289 4-speed Ranchero! Of course, it might actually have...
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We saw another Dart in our "Down On The Street" series just last week , but when have we seen a Dart wagon parked curbside in Alameda? I shot these photographs during a rainstorm over the winter; I'd planned on reshooting the car in brighter light, but I think the car looks more like a tough Detroit survivor- which it most certainly is- in the gloomy lighting and raindrop-blurring of these photos. More about this Mopar kiddie-hauler after the jump. It's had a restrained rat-rod-ization, which I think always looks pretty good on a station wagon. Of course, the '64 Dart also looks pretty good dressed in unadorned beaterhood . Painting stripes on the roof is a nice touch. I haven't heard this wagon run, so I can't vouch for the presence of the lumpy-cammed V8 the paint job deserves. The standard powerplant in '64 was the 170-cube Slant Six. This car is an official Radiator Hoes vehicle! The Hoes have a strong Alameda presence, so count on seeing some more...
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I enjoy the nice, shiny, well-preserved cars in this series, of course, but I really love me some beaters! Cars that haven't been coddled for one minute of their decades-long lives! This Cyclone is one of my all-time favorite Alameda cars; an original 289/4-speed machine, it's been roaring around the island for at least the last 15 years and probably longer. It sounds good, looks mean, and lives on a busy street. Sure, it's slowly rusting away, but it's got decades to go before the slow-motion California-style rust finally brings it down. I've talked to the owner of this car a few times (we were neighbors for a couple years in the late 1990s) and he's extremely proud of his wheels. As I recall, he's either the original owner or the second owner, and he has plans to get the body and paint done... someday. There's some rust-through on the hood, but you figure it took 44 years to get this bad... plenty of time to fix the body! The Cyclone name was later applied...
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Up to this point, we've had one three-time DOTS vehicle owner, WhatWouldJesseDo , with his Mini , Bluebird , and Puma appearing in this series. Today we're adding another Triple DOTS Club member; the owner of this very rough Ford truck also owns the equally rough '61 Thunderbird and '70 Impala . All three of these fine Detroit machines park on the same parking-challenged block, being moved as needed to avoid street-sweeping tickets. Unlike the T-Bird and Impala, however, the F-100 gets driven regularly. In fact, this is the daily driver of the three. The standard F-100 engine in 1964 was the 223 six-cylinder, with the Y-block 292 as the optional V8 powerplant. This truck sounds like it has the six under the hood. Vehicles rust in extremely slow motion (and from the top down) in Alameda, so there's nothing to stop a simple, sturdy truck like this one from surviving with minimal maintenance for 40 or 50 years. I often wonder what's being stored under that heavily bungeed...
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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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When we saw the '73 Plymouth Scamp last week, I promised we'd try to put a dent in the unfortunate deficit of Chrysler A-bodies in this series. So, reaching into my stash of DOTS photos (I ain't sayin' how many I have, but you can count on seeing an Alameda street survivor each day for quite a while), I'm presenting this proud '64 Dart 270. Sometimes it seems that the 1964 -66 Mopar A-bodies get overlooked, being overshadowed by the wonderfully nutjob toilet-seat-on-the-trunklid styling of the early 60s Darts and Valiants and the angular look of the ones that followed. Still, they weren't exactly wallflowers. The 270 was the mid-priced Dart for '64, placed between the cheapskate 170 and the upscale GT. Standard engine was the 170-cube Slant Six, and you really couldn't go wrong with that engine choice; generally the engine was the last thing to die on these cars. Of course, some opted for the 225 six or the damn-near-as-reliable 273 V8; yes, you could get one with a 4-speed! Those headlights...
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Since now I'm in the mood to look at mean-looking Detroit beaters, I'm breaking out some shots I took while enjoying a burritos-and-beer repast in the Oakland Coliseum BART parking lot prior to a baseball game. Apologies for the fuzztastic quality of...
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Since now I'm in the mood to look at mean-looking Detroit beaters, I'm breaking out some shots I took while enjoying a burritos-and-beer repast in the Oakland Coliseum BART parking lot prior to a baseball game. Apologies for the fuzztastic quality of...
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According to the poll we included in the VW Thing post last week, Jalopnik readers give a definite thumbs-up to the inclusion of VW Beetles in the Down on the Street series. Looks like DOTS Beetle Week lost by a whisker... but don't worry, Beetle fans...
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