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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 pickup appears to be a late-90s political time capsule. Usually, when a vehicle owner's political beliefs- be they of the strident Left or the enraged Right- are sufficiently powerful to make painting messages on the vehicle's body seem like a good idea, that person keeps the messages up to date . Not so with this '70 Chevy; after the mid-to-late 1990s, it appears that no cause fired the truck's owner up like his or her loathing for Bill Clinton. Proposition 209, which abolished ethnic preferences in California schools, dates from 1996. You'd think there'd be at least one recent right-wing talk-radio bumper sticker on the thing, but it's all totally vintage. Now I need to find the lefty counterpart to this truck; perhaps a VW Transporter with big "EL SALVADOR IS SPANISH FOR VIETNAM" signs on the flanks...
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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 our fourth Chevy Impala; we've seen a '65 sedan , a '65 Super Sport , and a beautifully wretched '70 prior to today. I'm always reminded of the car driven by Bud (Harry Dean Stanton) in Repo Man when I see a full-size Chevy from this era. The original Alex Cox screenplay (yes, I live by the Repo Code to the extent that I have a copy) was very specific about the make, model, and year of every single vehicle in the movie, and Bud's car was supposed to be a '70. Even with the bent front bumper, this car is way nicer than my 1:25 scale Beater '70 Impala model , but it's got the right number of doors. Actually, it's possible that this car is really a Caprice, since there are no identifying emblems (the Bel Air and Biscayne models didn't come in two-door versions for '70). The interior looks...
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It seems impossible, but we're on the 286th street-parked Alameda vehicle in this series and only now are we seeing a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. How could that be? The first generation of Though the Monte Carlo was based on the Chevelle, the fenders got these distinctive bulges. The factory rally wheels and center caps look good on this car, and I think the lowered front suspension works as well. The Monte Carlo was about 150 pounds heavier and 300 bucks costlier than a 307-powered Chevelle coupe, but you got a 250-horse 350 engine as standard equipment. Give the Chevy salesman an extra $420.25 and you could get the SS package, which included a 454 churning out 360 horsepower (though for some reason you couldn't get a four-speed manual with the 454-powered Monte). The question here is: do the later G-body Monte Carlos belong in this series? Say, the '82s and '83s? galleryPost('DOTS70Monte', 13, '1970 Chevy Monte Carlo Down On The Street'); DOTS 1-200 • DOTS 201...
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newVideoPlayer("70_Nova_OJ_Simpson_476.flv", 463, 387,""); The 1970 Chevy Nova was a pretty good car, simple and quite versatile; you could get one with a gas-sipping 153-cube four-cylinder engine, a hoon-a-pa-loozic 396 big-block, or just about anything in between (though the standard 307 was sort of a dud). Not only that, it was a better automobile than O.J. Simpson... who seems angry at the suggestion that the Nova is cheaper to run than he is.
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newVideoPlayer("70_Chevelle_SS396_476.flv", 463, 387,""); Sure, it's Maximum El Camino Day , but we mustn't forget that the classic El Caminos of the '64-72 Musclecar Era were Chevelles with truck beds. Here's an ad for the '70 Chevelle SS 396, which wisely doesn't make any references to the 396's LS6 big brother. Hey, maybe the G8amino will have hood pins as a factory option!
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We all know that a genuine numbers-matching '70 big-block Chevelle is worth beaucoup bucks, way more than you'd pay for Grandma's 6-banger Chevelle with a crate 502 dropped in. And some say that celebrity-owned cars have that extra something special that fattens the price. So, if L.A. rapper The Game's ex-Chevelle is a real factory SS, what's it really worth? [eBay Motors] galleryPost('TheGameChevelle', 6, 'The Game Chevelle Could Be Yours');
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After seeing the somewhat wretched DOTS '70 Chevy the other day, it's hard to imagine such a car appealing to sharp-dressed businessmen (who apparently keep the car parked in the living room). Tufted cloth! Rich-looking trim! Yes, the '70 Caprice was pure class.
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Yes, in the 70s car buyers often had to make car choices that were akin to choosing between eating a dirty ashtray full of silverfish or jumping into the Blue Pond at the Porta-Potty cleaning facility. Case in point: would you prefer the '70 Pinto Squire... or the Vega ? Meanwhile, the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere was knocking together B210s and Corollas that would last 300,000 miles.
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This car might not actually be an Impala , since any emblems have long since departed. It could be a Caprice, or maybe a Biscayne or Bel Air. No matter; "Impala" is the generic term for early-70s big Chevy cars, and that's what I'm calling it here (I'm pretty sure the low-end big Chevrolets in '70 didn't have the wheel lip moldings we see on three of this car's four wheel openings, so it's probably not a Biscayne). So, while you obsessive GM B-body experts debate this car's identity, the rest of us can enjoy its exquisite beatertude. This car has hit some stuff, folks, and it's been hit in return. Harry Dean Stanton's character drove a '70 Impala 4-door in "Repo Man," which gives this car an extra helping of hipster cred. Or not. Anyway, it's interesting that the original screenplay was very specific that Bud must drive a '70 Impala. So when the shit comes down, the owner of this car can be heading north at 110 per. The owner of this car also has a Joad Family style early-60s pickup truck...
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Those of you who follow DOTS with any regularity have heard me bemoaning the lack of surviving 60s/70s Japanese vehicles still on the street; we see a disproportionate number of Detroit machines from that era here, due to the higher Perceived Coolness...
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