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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. BMW 2002s are plentiful on the island (we've seen a beater '72 , a '73 2002Tii , and a massive-bumpered slushbox '75 so far), though technically this one isn't on the island. I've ventured over to Bay Farm Island (which was once literally an island but is now attached to the mainland at the Oakland Airport, just as the island part of Alameda was once a peninsula), which is part of Alameda but lacks sufficient garage-less housing to make for happy DOTS hunting. However, it's still possible to find interesting machinery where Jack London once went oyster pirating, and I've found this clean round-taillight 2002 there. 1972 was the last year before the Malaise Era , so the power was still there (though the new horsepower rating system pushed the numbers down) and the gigantic bumpers hadn't arrived yet at the time this...
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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. One thing I've tried to do is keep Volkswagen Old Beetles from overwhelming the series; that's because there we've got more air-cooled Beetles than any other type of old car on the island- more, even, than Chrysler A bodies. This doesn't mean, however, that I should avoid them completely- I just need to space them carefully… and our last one was all the way back in June. So here we go- our first DOTS Super Beetle! I'd had a couple of old-style Beetles prior to getting my first Super Beetles, and the switch from the old torsion-beam front suspension to McPherson strut suspension (this being the primary difference between the Super Beetle and the regular kind) didn't feel all that meaningful while driving. However, the new front suspension made room for lots more storage space under the hood. I'm not 100% sure of the year...
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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 has a fair number of International Harvester vehicles (we had a Favorite DOTS IHC poll with the last one , and the 1948 KB-2 pickup won), most of which seem to get regular driving time. Today we're going to check out a no-frills truck that's eager for the collapse of civilization, at which point it will become more valuable than all the Rolls-Royces and Lamborghinis in the state put together. Most of the time, when I see a jacked-up 4x4 with big mud-slingin' tires in a context as distinctly urban as this, it strikes me as a silly vehicle. Not so with an International Harvester! This Scout might not be a '72, but the grille is a '72. No doubt some parts have been swapped here or there, so there's no telling at a glance. If it is a '72, the available engines were a (non-AMC) 304 V8 and a 196-cube four-cylinder. Base...
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we look at old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Another Truck Monday has rolled around, which means we can contemplate work vehicles as we descend into the salt mine for the day's tasks, and this week's DOTS truck is another example of farm equipment maker International Harvester's road machinery. It's been a couple months since our last Scout in this series, and this is the oldest one I've managed to find on the island so far. In '72, you could get your Scout II with a 196-cube four-cylinder engine (that's 3.2 liters, for you fans of the metric system and/or really big four-bangers) or a 304-cubic-inch V8. No, that's not an AMC engine- genuine farm equipment here! Breakers breakers, any takers? It's been a while since CB radios were relevant; whatever vestige of CB that the cellphone didn't kill, cheap and powerful FMS/GMRS radios finished off. Still, a...
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We've only seen a couple of Lincolns in this series (a '69 and a '77 ), and with ten Cadillacs so far, it's time to look at another of Ford's big luxo-machines. I found this '72 parked on the same block as the '70 Volvo 164 and the '87 BMW L6 . I shot this car and the '70 Ford LTD on the same rainy day. Rain might be bad for the camera, but it makes old cars look more serious . This one is missing the front bumper, but otherwise looks pretty solid. The weird thing is the presence of what appears to be a real convertible top; as far as I know, you couldn't get a '72 Lincoln convertible from the factory. Must be a custom job. The Mark IV came standard with a big grunt-happy 460 engine, and at 4,800 pounds it needed all that torque. galleryPost('DOTS72MarkIV', 10, '1972 Lincoln Continental Down On The Street');
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Sometimes months can go by between my photographing of a DOTS car and posting those photographs. Today's car is a good example; I shot the original photos last August, but the island is overflowing with air-cooled Beetles and I have a glut of photos of such cars (yes, Beetle fans, I know I should be posting more of them... and I will, promise). But this particular exposed-engine Beetle, which I'm arbitrarily calling a '69 (though it could be from any year during the 68-72 span), got in some sort of messy collision in the meantime and then moved across town. At first, I thought I was looking at a different car, but checking plate numbers told the whole story. So what we have here is your standard mildly hot-rodded late-60s/early-70s Beetle, with exposed engine but retaining the factory wheels and hubcaps. This could easily be the original engine, or the 15th, and the displacement could be anything from 1200cc all the way up to a stroked "How much money you got?" mill...
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I try to post cars made by defunct manufacturers on a regular basis (e.g., the Studebaker Lark of a few weeks back, but it's been months since we last saw one of Alameda's street-parked Plymouths (and even longer since we've seen an Olds ). So here we go: a nice rust-free '72 Fury to start our day! I found this car parked in the West End, not far from the 1950 Plymouth Deluxe . I consider 1972 to be the first year of the Malaise Era, what with the Watergate break-in, but this car has the chrome bumpers and powerful engine of the pre-Malaise Era. I drove a cop-spec '73 Fury for a while in high school, and I recall it being a pretty decent car (though the engine had less power and the '72s awesome grille had been replaced by a less imposing unit). It's hard not to love a huge expanse of chrome with a big rectangular opening for the car's nameplate! galleryPost('DOTS72Fury', 18, '1972 Plymouth Fury Down On The Street'); First 150 DOTS Cars
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We've seen four of Alameda's air-cooled Beetles so far in this series (a '59 , a '64 , a '66 , and a '69 ). With the 50s and 60s covered, I figured I should shoot a 70s model. With so many old Beetles still roaming the island, that's no problem at all- the only choice was between a standard Beetle and its Super Beetle sibling; I opted for the former. The old air-cooled Type 1 engine was nearing the end of its long run in North America by the time this car was built; the smog belching from the clattery opposed-four wasn't going to be easy to reduce. The '72 Beetles got a 60-horse 1600 engine, which did a fairly decent job of moving the car's light weight. This example is a bit battered, but mostly solid and rust-free, which isn't always the case in California; Beetles like to rust so much that they can even find a way to do so in this dry, road-salt-free climate. The main difference between the regular Beetle and its Super sibling was the front...
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Last time we saw a Mercedes-Benz in this series, 86% of readers polled indicated they'd like to see some 70s Benzes down on Alameda's street (and speaking of The Island City That Forgot To Kill All Its Old Cars, congrats to fellow Alamedan Jimmy Rollins for winning the National League MVP award). I would have gone with this car regardless of poll results, since it represents the end of the W108 era and is in such nice shape. However, as is so often the case with older German cars, I can't figure out the exact year on this one. I'm pretty sure it's a 1971 or 1972 model, but that's as close as I can get (though those bumper guards look like they're off a later car). Mercedes-Benz fanatics aficionados, help me out here. What I can tell you is that the '72 280SEL 4.5 had a sticker price of $10,634. That's three grand more than the cost of a '72 Eldorado convertible (and about $53,154 in 2007 dollars). But you got a smooth-running, 230-horse SOHC V8 (not...
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OK, Capri experts, feel free to bring up the debate about whether the Ford Capri as sold in the USA was really a Mercury or not; it was sold through Mercury dealers, but had no Mercury identifiers on the car. Also feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...
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