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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. There's been no shortage of BMWs in this series, but I've sort of overlooked the 5 and 7 series cars so far. No more! Today we'll look at one of the last of the E23s , a somewhat scuffed but still proud 735i, located in the post-late-50s landfill part of town, not far from the '66 Dodge A100 Sportsman . Driving one of these things back in the 80s showed that you were serious . At $36,880 list (well over 75 grand- and climbing- in today's inflato-dollars), you could have bought nine brand-new Yugos and had enough left over for a couple of pretty clean used Datsun B210s. Tough decision! Nowadays, these cars have depreciated down to about 2-3% of their original purchase price. Pretty good bang-for-buck, in terms of how much German engineering and sophistication you get for your money: a 182-horsepower six-cylinder engine, big brakes...
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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. When we saw the Mitsubishi L300 - which is a seriously rare machine in the United States, though I've just found another one in Alameda- some readers felt that the Toyota Van deserved a place in this series as well. You can find those things all over the place, so I decided I'd wait until I found an interesting one… and now I've found two! Alameda's waterfront on the Oakland Estuary side has all manner of marine-related businesses, from dredging companies to marine engine rebuilders to sailmakers. Sea Worthy Canvas- located across the street from a Toyota parts warehouse (and just down the street from the '64 Olds Jetstar )- uses a pair of Toyota Vans to deliver the goods to salty sea dogs throughout the Bay Area. Actually, it looks like they're using them for sail storage at the moment. These mid-engined vans sold like crazy...
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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 Jaguar XJ6 sold in fairly large numbers in North America during the 70s and 80s, but you don't see many of them on the street these days. Perhaps that's because brutish, ham-fisted Americans (and those Moosehead-swilling, tuque-wearing Canadians) can't be trusted with such precision British machinery… or maybe all those British car jokes really do draw from a well of all-too-painful reality. Either way, a few of these cars are still alive in Alameda; we've seen this total beater '78 and this semi-nice '84 , and now we're going to look at this somewhat rough '86. It's always fun with DOTS cars park near each other; that's the '62 Ford Falcon across the street. I see the Falcon driving around town on a regular basis, but the Jaguar doesn't seem to move much… if at all. The list price on this cat in...
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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. Though we've seen many of Alameda's first-generation Mustangs (a '65 , a '66 , another '66 , a '68 , a '69 , and a '73 ) and even a Mustang II , the Fox Mustang hasn't been well represented here. In fact, we've only had this beater '86 … until now. Yes, parked just a block or so from the '89 Ferrari Mondial T , here's a very nice example of the rare Mustang SVO . In '86, the SVO came with a 200-horsepower 2.3 liter "Pinto" four-banger, essentially the intercooled version of the engine used in the Merkur XR4Ti. Speaking of the XR4Ti , check out that wing! Even though the turbo 2.3 made the same horsepower as the 5.0 V8 and the SVO came with all manner of cool brake and suspension goodies, sales were miserable. Why? Price tag on the V8 Mustang GT for '86: $10,691. Price of the '86...
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Back when we had the Do Fox Mustangs Belong In DOTS? poll , 63% of Jalopnik readers who bothered to vote said they thought it was a good idea. So, I grabbed the camera and set out on foot to photograph the first pre-90s example I could find. 28 seconds later, here's this abused-but-proud '86 LX showing up in my viewfinder (the same thing happened when I went looking for a Malaise Volvo 240 ). These things are still everywhere on the island (along with their Fairmont, Granada, Mark VII, and other Fox brethren). Sure, I could have held out for a '79, or maybe one with 80s graphics, but beaters are cool! There sure isn't any mistaking the decade of this car! All it lacks is the faded black plastic louvers over the rear window. This car has the Canadian Essex V6 , but it's a non-hellish project to swap in a junkyard 5.0 and take advantage of the light weight of the LX. Lose the faux-wire-wheel hubcaps and chrome fender trim, apply a coat of black primer, and this car would...
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There was some grumbling about the first Chrysler K Car we saw in this series, but there's no way I can run across a Government K sedan and not share it with the world. The Taurus and Lumina elbowed aside just about all the "official vehicle" K cars way back in the early 90s (and, to be fair, the K wasn't the most reliable car ever made, especially when operated by lead-footed public servants), but this plain-gray-wrapper Aries managed to beat the odds and stay on the road. It appears to be owned by the same guy who owns the second-ever DOTS vehicle , and it looks like he's fixing it up. Those of you who feel strongly about the idea of DOTS K-cars (for or against) be sure to vote in the poll after the jump. The K platform was quite versatile, but Chrysler only seemed to show off "K" emblems on a select few vehicles. There's a Turbo Caravelle in my neighborhood that I might shoot as well, since those hood louvers are extremely Turbo Mullet Era-esque. The...
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There's a lot of talk lately about the skyrocketing value of the Geo Metro, what with high gas prices and all, but it seems that folks are forgetting about the astounding fuel economy of the Honda CRX HF. The HF got over 50 MPG highway and was orders of magnitude more fun to drive than the Chevy Sprint/Geo Metro, yet you don't hear much about it these days. I spotted this example, in the white/gray/red color scheme most mid-80s CRXs seem to have, parked just a few doors down from the VW Rabbit Diesel pickup and decided that 22 years and 50 MPG gives this car DOTS status, regardless of how many are still out there. Honda was still branding the CRX with Civic emblems in the mid-80s, but the little two-seater felt like a totally different car. The HF got a mere 58 horses from its 8-valve 1300 (compared to 91 in the hot Si's fuel-injected 1500), but 58 horses is plenty with a 1,713-pound car. I've had a couple of these cars, and they'll keep going forever if you don't...
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We saw a DOTS Fiero a few months ago, and the mid-80s are recent enough that the Fiero may be something of an iffy candidate for DOTShood. However, nice ones are getting fairly rare nowadays and I figured we're due for a GT model in this series. That's the reason we're going to take a look at this very clean '86 Fiero GT I spotted on the island's East End, and it should provide us with fuel for a spirited debate on the contentious Fiero issue. Do we love the Fiero, even though the General bean-countered a great concept into something, well, somewhat less than great? The Fiero GT came with GM's 2.8 liter V6, which was rated at 140 horsepower. Of course, many other GM engines have been made to fit in the Fiero's engine compartment, from the supercharged 3800 to the Cadillac 4.9 to the good ol' Chevy small-block. This car had a list price of $12,875, which was more than 4 grand steeper than the Honda CRX Si (which I'm pretty sure was faster and quicker than...
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