|
Browse by Tags
All Tags » Down On The Street » 4X4 ( RSS)
-
|
Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. You know, after 379 vehicles in this series, we've had just one Jeep, and that was a 2-wheel-drive mail-carrier's DJ5 ? Oh, sure, we saw this 1945 GPW 'Jeep' , but that was built by Ford! Meanwhile, we've had five IHC Scouts. What's the deal here- is Alameda's Navy-town heritage enforcing some unspoken anti-Army bias that results in old Jeeps getting vandalized? I got no idea, folks, but I knew I had to go out and find the oldest street-parked Jeep within easy walking distance of my house in town! Yeah, OK, a 24-year-old Wagoneer isn't exactly a to-die-for classic, but you don't see many of the pre-Chrysler Jeep SUVs these days- why, this thing has got actual emblems from the AMC Death Throes Era . And how about this fine, incredibly realistic-looking "wood" paneling? Is there any large SUV in the Bay...
|
-
|
Welcome to Down On The Street , where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Once again, Alameda has managed to provide a cool International Harvester for our enjoyment, and this time it's a great big '65 Travelall D-1000. Around here, we don't sneer at modern leather-trimmed SUVs because they're faux-macho minivan substitutes- no, we sneer at them because they're making us soft! Here's an example of an off-road-ready machine made by a manufacturer of farm equipment, with an interior appointed in luxurious steel . You could get yourself a Travelall based on the D-1000 half-ton truck chassis for $2,705 back in 1965. The half-ton '65 Suburban sold for $3,270 and the Jeep Wagoneer 4-door was $3,395. What a deal! Of course, you'd have to pay more to upgrade the Travelall from the 240-cube six to the 304 V8 (a wise investment for a vehicle weighing well over 2-1/2 tons). This appears to be a two...
|
-
|
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...
|
-
|
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...
|
-
|
Let's say you're an Alameda resident who drives to work in your Unimog every day, and the price of diesel is inflicting some serious pain on the ol' pocketbook (not to mention the challenge of parallel-parking the 'mog when you go shopping downtown). You could bite the bullet and make an offer on the CRX HF that lives a few blocks away... or you could add a nimble, economical RHD Land Cruiser Troop Carrier to your fleet! Guess which choice Mr. Coast Guard Unimog took? OK, Land Cruiser experts, here's your chance to fill us in on exactly what I've captured here. I think it's an early-80s African- or Australian-spec HJ45 troop carrier, but that's about as specific a guess as I'm willing to take. Whatever it is, we're now seeing just our second DOTS Land Cruiser, after the '71 FJ40 of last summer. Getting parts for this beast is probably quite challenging in North America, but how often do you need to get parts when you're driving a vehicle that...
|
-
|
I probably shouldn't have tried to write a DOTS post a couple hours after coming home from a crazy weekend of racing, but I did... and totally spaced on the Truck Monday tradition. Not that the Datsun 1200 isn't a great car, but we're supposed to have a truck here to start our week, dammit! To make up for that screwup, I'm going with a truck I've been saving for a special occasion: a rusty, crusty survivor straight from the Alaskan bush! You don't see a lot of Alaskan plates in Alameda (Hawaiian ones used to be fairly common, with the huge Navy base on the island and many sailors bringing cars from the islands); this truck seems to have become a permanent resident, so we'll probably see boring ol' California plates on it one of these days. I like to imagine this thing grinding down some icy dirt road with a bunch of tools rattling in the back. I'm not sure whether "Scout II Traveler," "Scout Traveler," or just "Traveler"...
|
-
|
Our last Japanese representative on DOTS Truck Monday was the '80 Plymouth Arrow , but the last one actually bearing the name of an overseas manufacturer was the '74 Datsun of a couple months ago. That means we're due for another Japanese Truck Monday, so let's take a look at this fine tape-striped Late Malaise Toyota pickup. Oh, sure, these things are still everywhere (including the motor pools of every strongman, warlord, and wannabe Lord Humungus in the world), but immortality shouldn't disqualify a vehicle from Down On The Street! I found this rack-equipped 4X4 parked on the same block as the '53 Packard Cavalier and just around the corner from the '74 Plymouth Satellite Sundance Edition ; perhaps the presence of those two stellar DOTS heroes blinded me to the presence of this fine work truck for all these months. Check out these fine Late Malaise tape stripes! It's true that the 22R engine in this truck might not have been the mighty bass-boat-haulin'...
|
-
|
We've seen an early Bronco in this series, so it's only fair that we have a DOTS Truck Monday featuring the Bronco's competitor from The General. This '71 Blazer parks on one of Alameda's major thoroughfares, not far from the Unimog and the '63 VW Transporter , and it's clearly someone's daily driver. I can't tell for sure whether this is an incredibly well-preserved original driver or a restoration, but I suspect the former is the case. Well, most likely the upholstery has been redone; there's no way it could be that nice after 37 years in the California sun. You see, a late-60s-vintage Oakland A's sticker means the vehicle is likely an Alameda native, which means there's a good chance its owner takes obsessive care of a vehicle bought new and considered irreplaceable. They don't make 'em like this no more , etc. The A's connection is somewhat interesting in the case of this truck, because the favored post-game watering hole for...
|
-
|
We've only seen two trucks from our favorite farm equipment maker so far in this series (the '48 KB-2 and the '80 Scout ), but those aren't the only International Harvesters on the island. Here's a '76 Scout II (equipped with a warlord-style camouflage paint job) that I spotted in the same East End neighborhood as the '84 Plymouth Reliant . Though the overall look of this truck is incongruous in a neighborhood full of crypto-Mission style turn-of-the-century bungalows, but wait until the Final Days are upon us and the atomic fire rains from the skies! Then this Scout will be full of freeze-dried food and ammo, headed at top speed for the compound in the mountains and leaving the rest of us to fight over charred rat carcasses in the rubble. And what better soundtrack for that drive to the compound than a little Bad Religion? Or maybe it's just an especially menacing commuter vehicle with single-digit gas mileage. galleryPost('DOTS76IHCScout', 14, '1976...
|
-
|
While we had an 80s Toyota on DOTS just last week , we're really overdue to see an example of one of my all-time favorite Toyotas: the '83-86 Tercel Wagon. I've owned more of these than any other kind of car (admittedly, most were City Tow auction cars I turned around quickly, but I had a couple of drivers I kept for quite a while). I've always had a soft spot for funky old Toyotas (maybe because my very first car was a '69 Corona) and it saddens me to see how their cars have lost so much soul since the Tercel wagons, AE86s, and small pickups of the mid-1980s. The crazy thing about these cars was that the funky drivetrain setup actually worked pretty well. You had a longitudinally-mounted engine sending its two-digit horsepower back to a weirdo V-drive-style transmission , with a little tiny differential under the engine oil pan and a driveshaft going back to the rear axle (the 2WD cars seemed to have the same transmission with the rear output shaft deleted). The front...
|
-
|
Even though we saw a Dodge truck just a couple weeks back , it's been much longer since we saw our last Dodge pickup . That means it's time for us to feast our eyes on this industrial-strength Power Wagon. The grille design means it's either a '70 or a '71, but once again I'm (mildly) ashamed to admit I can't figure out the exact year of a DOTS vehicle. Power Wagon experts, fill in the blanks! In any case, this is one of the last of the original American Power Wagons. What a name: Power Wagon! Too bad there's no reactor in the bed, because then it could be the Nuclear Power Wagon. This truck lives on the island's East End, in a parking-challenged neighborhood, and it's clearly someone's daily driver. Must be fun parallel-parking this brute! Sure, it gets 8 MPG and the ride feels like a shopping cart in a rock quarry, but the driver of this truck can snort in derision at drivers of luxurious modern pickups. galleryPost('DOTS70PowerWagon'...
|
-
|
You know what the problem is with this country? You can no longer buy road vehicles made by a manufacturer of farm equipment , that's what's wrong! Maybe it's time for Ford to bring back the Fordson tractor, though that wouldn't be the same. I was reminded of the sad lack of vehicles with combine harvesters in their lineage when I ran across this 1980 IH Scout , and since our last few DOTS trucks were a GMC , a Ford , and a Dodge , today seemed like a good time to go with a non-Big Three American truck. Unless someone has grafted the grille off an '80 onto an earlier Scout II here, we're looking at the very last year of the Scout. This one has the optional Nissan 6-33T turbocharged diesel, which was good for 101 horsepower and 175 ft-lbs of torque. Oh yes, and it's the "Limited Edition," which means that less than an infinite quantity of them was available. This one is in very nice condition- not a speck of rust and a very clean interior. Don't...
|
-
|
I'm pretty sure this Willys station wagon is a '56, based on the helpful info at the CJ-3B page , which states that the three-bar grille with the middle bar close to the top was used only in that year. Even if it's not a '56, it's almost certainly from the 1950s , so I'm at least close . Willys experts, now is your moment to shine! Tell us what you know about this fine vehicle. Whatever the year, this is a seriously cool machine. I've been seeing this thing around town since I was a kid, so it's an Alameda institution by now. And, just in case you couldn't tell, Willys wants you to know that it's got four wheel drive. From a distance, I though this thing might be a Land Cruiser/Rover, but up close it was clear this truck didn't come from Japan or England. Seems like there should be winch in this picture, or at least a dead deer lashed onto a fender. Wait, not deer- ducks! While Alameda is pretty urban (population density higher than San Francisco's), you still see a fair number of head...
|
-
|
We've got a fair number of civilian-owned military vehicles in Alameda , including the Pinzgauer , the M43 Dodge Ambulance , and the 1945 Ford GPW Jeep . Well, those old soldiers can just fade away, because now we've got this monster living on the island...
|
|
|
|