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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. Cadillacs sold pretty well, even after most of a decade of Malaise-y gas prices and general sense of diminished expectations, so you could still buy a great big angular slab of rear-wheel-drive Fleetwood as late as 1984. Here we've got a raggedy '79 Fleetwood that's been sitting on a major commercial strip for a couple of weeks now. This stretch of road is a popular spot to park cars for sale, since the traffic is so heavy. This Caddy, however, has no For Sale sign in sight; it may belong to the resident of a nearby apartment building, or it may be abandoned (this car has the telltale purple window tint, indicating that it is probably on its last owner). The APD is vigilant about this sort of thing, so a date with a tow truck may be in the offing. These things listed at $21,735 from the factory, or about 65 grand in 2008 dollars. Power...
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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 had the quasi-abandoned '70 Karmann Ghia last month, I got a flood of emails from rusty-state readers who were aghast that such a rare car would be allowed to go to The Crusher. Thing is, Karmann Ghias aren't at all rare around here; I've been passing today's car- which is located just a few blocks from my house- for months and months, figuring I'd get around to shooting it one of these days. And here it is! This one might not be a '74, but the bumpers place it somewhere in the Malaise Era. It's a Beetle under the skin, but for some crazy reason the sporty Karmann Ghia actually weighs more than the utilitarian Beetle: 1,919 versus 1,831 pounds. Both cars got the 46-horsepower 1600 engine. Yes, US emission-control regulations were tough on the air-cooled VW. The price tag on the Karmann Ghia was pretty nice for a...
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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. Most of the time, the manner in which I locate and photograph these cars follows the same pattern: I grab my camera and walk to a neighborhood I haven't checked out in a while and shoot anything interesting I find along the way. Other times I spot a car while I'm driving somewhere, and I pull over and shoot it. Easy enough. Then we've got the cars I stalk ; I see one driving or someone tells me about another, and I spend weeks trying to catch them parked in a spot suitable for photography. This Manta is such a car. At least three readers have emailed me its usual parking location (on a crazy side street barely wide enough for one car to drive), but I could never catch the Opel when it wasn't absent or sandwiched by other cars blocking the front and rear views. Finally, when heading over to San Francisco one day, I found the Manta 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. BMW 2002s aren't hard to find on the island, and we've seen this '72 , this '73 , and this '75 so far. I've built up a mini-stockpile of 2002 shots, so let's check out another '75 Bavario-Alamedan today. This one's rough, but it's more "fixer-upper" rough than "downward spiral" rough, if I'm guessing correctly. It doesn't seem to drive much, but it has the look of a car with some spare parts waiting for it in the garage… and someday they'll be installed! 1975 is the newest a California non-diesel vehicle can be and still be exempted from the dreaded emissions test. That means that you can do something to upgrade the horsepower on this car from the factory 98 to a number with three digits, all the while staying legal. With all those junkyard 3-series engines available for next...
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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. Today we're going to check out a 30-year-old Detroit car that's an honest-to-god daily driver and parks in the heart of Alameda's downtown. It's got its share of bumps and bruises, but it's managed to survive the hoonage that has killed off most of its second-gen F-body brethren by now. It's also managed to survive the owner's temptation to build a phony Burt Reynolds-esque Trans Am clone, and for that we should be thankful! It's not a Sky Bird Esprit , just a plain ol' Firebird. In '78, the price tag on one of these with a Buick V6 was $4,545, which $1,254 less than the Trans Am's price. That's quite a bit of money for a few acres of decals and- we're not kidding here- just 75 additional horsepower over the V6. I've always liked these Pontiac rally wheels, because they look very similar to the...
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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. After seeing some kind of weird foreign wagon yesterday, we're going to return to good ol' vintage Detroit iron today. Yes, before The General got all innovative with electron-powered machinery, he was building two-ton cruisers that didn't just park- they dropped anchor. This one is a '74 Buick LeSabre, a car that told OPEC it didn't give a damn about the 1973 Oil Crisis ! I found this car on the same block as the Studebaker Avanti , '69 Buick , and the '65 Ranchero . The Luxus was the high-end LeSabre for '74, and it came standard with a snazzy steering wheel, special hubcaps, and a vinyl notchback seat. The convertible sold for $4,696, about 50 bucks less than the '74 Caprice Classic convertible. Yes, the big Chevy convertible cost more than the big Buick convertible! This example is in great shape, either a low...
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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. Today's car is a model that you'd expect to find on the island in large numbers, given the sheer quantities sold, but that's not the case. In fact, this is only the fifth Chevy Nova (we've had a '63 , a '70 , a '74 , and a '77 so far) in this series. Why so many more Dodge Darts then Chevy Novas? I think the answer lies partly in the incredible durability of the Slant Six and partly in the simple equation [Nova + Junkyard Small-Block + Cheap Beer = Oblivion] . Yes, when you have a car that takes the engine with the best power-to-money ratio in the world as a bolt-in, you figure there won't be many left in a hoon-friendly area like the East Bay after a few decades. Still, this refrigerator-white '74 (which lives just around the corner from the '69 Volvo P1800 ) has beaten the odds, looking like it just rolled...
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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 just one Corvette so far in this series (also a '73), and I assume so few are on the street for the same reason so few first-generation Camaros are on the street: Car Show Guys! Yes, most old Corvettes now live in garages, emerging only for shows and cruise nights; I'm thinking of shooting a few early C4s for this series, but even those are pretty hard to find parked on the street these days. This car is in pretty nice shape and worth plenty, yet here it is parked on the street in Alameda's West End. I don't see it every day, so I suspect it lives at least part-time in a garage somewhere. It does get used for transportation, much to the envy of all those gilded-cage show/cruise-only Vettes. This is the first Malaise Era Corvette, with power out of the standard 350 down to 190 horsepower. Some of that power loss was...
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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 had to happen, sooner or later; somewhere on the island, a Cordoba was waiting- soft Corinthian leather and all- for my camera. Now that day has arrived, with this '78 located in the 1950s-vintage part of the island landfilled into the Bay. Generally, houses in such neighborhoods have garages, which means the DOTS pickings are much slimmer than those in the neighborhoods full of houses built during the 1880-1910 period, but this Chrysler still lives outside after 30 years. First, we must watch the Ricardo Montalban ad that started it all. In Cordoba, I have what I need! Plastic "gold" Cordoba medallions may be found all over this fine personal luxury automobile. Weighing in at a portly 4,021 pounds and motivated by a thirsty 318 or 360, the Cordoba wasn't quite the ideal machine for a time of fuel-price insecurity. By '78...
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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. Strange as it seems, we've only seen one Alameda Monte Carlo so far, and that was a first-year-ever 1970. What about the big Malaise Era Montes, the ones that came close to breaking the two-ton barrier? Welcome to 1977! The 1970 Monte Carlo weighed 3,460 pounds, which was on the porcine side... but compare that to the 1977's 3,852 pounds! Naturally, engine power was one of those best-not-mentioned subjects, with a 170-horse 350 being the best The General could do for you. Yes, that's the '72 Mercury Monterey in the background, though they're not owned by the same person. I spoke to the Monte's owner; he's had the car since it was new and still drives it regularly. Unfortunately, he had the vinyl top redone a while back and the job wasn't done very well. Now the car has an especially bad case of GM Rear Window Rust....
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You think the supply of old cars and trucks parked on the streets of Alameda will dry up, now that we've hit the 300 point? I doubt it, not when you can still find Early Malaise Era landyachts like this Electra being used as daily transportation. Five-dollar gas be damned! I found this car parked near the former Alameda Naval Air Station, where thousands of nuclear weapons once sat it earthen bunkers and thousands of sailors once drove second-gen Camaros. Nowadays they shoot movies and make vodka at the old NAS, and the sound of A6s and P3s no longer competes with the roar of small-block Chevy engines. Heraldic crests! Knights in armor! Seeing this hood ornament, I find it impossible to believe that Buick didn't offer an Electra Brougham for '73. Surely there must be some mistake! Just in time for the Arab oil embargo of '73, this 4,682-pound dreamboat purred down the highway courtesy of a 210-horse 455 engine. That seems like a pretty poor power-to-weight ratio, but keep...
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In much the same manner as the '73 Mustang and '73 Cougar , the Chevelle for 1973 put on quite a few pounds over its predecessor... just in time for the Arab Oil Embargo . Until now, I hadn't been able to find any of the "big" Malaise Chevelles, though we have seen examples of the angular '64-67 Chevelle as well as the more rounded '68-72 variety. Early emission-control equipment was pretty crude, so compression ratios had to come down, down, down to meet the new federal standards. 1973 was the first year of the Malaise Era (I made up the term, so I get to decide that stuff), and the 350 in this car was rated at either 145 horsepower (two-barrel carburetor) or 175 horsepower (Quadrajet). That hurts, but worse was in store. 3,580 pounds. That's the factory shipping weight of the V8 Chevelle for '73. That means the Chevelle scaled in at 45 pounds more than the weight of the V8-equipped two-door '66 Impala (and about the same as the projected weight...
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It's been tough to avoid giving most of our DOTS Truck Monday airtime to General Motors products, since Alameda has more Chevy and GMC trucks than any other variety. We've been especially light on 70s Ford pickups, with just the Frankenstein Mix-N-Match F100 so far, so let's start up our Malaise Era 120-horse V8s and take a look at the kind of truck that would have brought a smile to Billy Carter's face (though Billy preferred a Chevy for his personal ride . I'm sure I could find many more mid-70s F-series trucks on the island, since they hold together pretty well and are still able to earn their keep these days. This truck lives on one of the most DOTS-centric blocks in Alameda. Not only does the '66 Mercedes-Benz 250S we see in the background of this photo live nearby, so do the Double Cab '71 Chevy pickup and 1975 Chevy El Camino . I'm pretty sure the current level of crazy gas prices won't keep this 3/4-ton beast of burden away from the job sites...
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With just one Malaise Nova up until now in this series , it's time to set our thermostats at 66 in winter/78 in summer, lower our expectations of future prosperity, and travel back to the Bicentennial Era... when presidents got impeached, wars got lost, and the base V8 in a new Chevy Nova was a 155-horse 350. Actually, the Nova of this era wasn't a bad car; it was cheap and every component was made by the lowest possible bidder, but it was honestly cheap. The Nova Custom was the mid-level trim package; you could get get the '75 Custom sedan for $3,415, and for another 75 bucks you'd have one with that lo-po 350 I mentioned earlier. Of course, since 1975 and older cars are smog-exempt in California, there's nothing stopping the owner of this car from adding, say, 300 additional horsepower using cheap off-the-shelf performance parts. I'm often tempted to go the Nova + small-block route for my next project car, though I'd probably use one of the Buick/Olds/Pontiac...
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After finding a pair of '77 Celicas parked on the streets of Alameda ( this one and this one ), I had a first-gen Celica drought that lasted the better part of a year. Had all the rest been crushed? Then I started catching glimpses of this red '75 around town, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I found it parked somewhere. Since photographing this car downtown, I've found where it parks when off duty. Yes, it's a 33-year-old daily-driven Toyota. Who needs power door locks and cup holders? According to the original California smog sticker, this Celica has the indestructible 20R engine . Only 90 horses, but they'd keep galloping for hundreds of thousands of miles. 2,270 pounds. That's 23 pounds less than the tiny '09 Yaris... and the Celica has rear wheel drive! Which one would you take? Airbags or character? galleryPost('DOTS75Celica', 20, '1975 Toyota Celica Down On The Street'); DOTS 1-200 • DOTS 201-250
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