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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 a great big moldering slab-o-Malaise iron, which I found parked- strangely enough- on Bay Farm Island, a part of the city built up with new, garage-equipped tract homes and thus not a great hunting ground for vintage street-parked iron (though BFI does have some pretty good vintage BMWs ). What is a great gas-swilling old survivor like this doing serving regular street duty in a neighborhood like this? Is the original owner a visiting relative? Or maybe the rebellious teenage son of the family feels more comfortable driving in the kind of car appropriate to a Bayonne water-heater salesman in 1976 than he would in the usual 10-year-old Corolla. There's just no telling. It's pretty beat, with the usual rear-window-area rot you get on GM cars after a few decades of rainy Bay Area winters, but it's still doing its job. With...
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition , where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot . I just got back from Denver, where I photographed a few cool old cars parked on the street, including a very nice early Mini… but you don't get to see that today. Instead, you get something even better! Denver-based Kitt and EJacobs continue to send in good stuff found in their neighborhoods (south and northwest Denver, respectively), and today we'll be admiring a trio of vintage Detroit wagons that continue to remind us that SUVs didn't always reign supreme in the family-hauling department. Make the jump for many, many photos. galleryPost('DOTSBEDenverWagonsTop', 6, 'Vintage Detroit Wagons Down On The Denver Street Part 1'); The Olds and Plymouth wagons were shot by Kitt . galleryPost('DOTSBEDenverWagonsOlds', 29, '1966 Oldsmobile Wagon Down On The Denver Street'); galleryPost('DOTSBEDenverWagonsPly'...
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newVideoPlayer("/78_Zephyr_Chevette_476.flv", 506, 423,""); Here's a two-for-one Classic Ad Watch deal from the darkest days of the Malaise Era . First up, a Gladding Chevrolet (Maryland) offer for a Chevette with factory air for just 99 bucks a month. Before you jump in the time machine to take advantage of that sweet deal, however, consider the '79 Mercury Zephyr, which was cheaper than both the Toyota Corona and the '78 Zephyr.
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition , where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot . Today we're going to show that old GM cars don't always dissolve into reddish stains on the pavement, even in a damp climate like the Pacific Northwest. Zeet has photographed this pair of very solid-looking examples of The General's products for us; note that all eight hubcaps are still present! galleryPost('DOTSBEOlyGMs', 3, '1963 Pontiac Bonneville And 1974 Chevrolet Nova Down On The Olympia Street'); DOTS FAQ
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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. 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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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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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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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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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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We're mighty pleased with the vast quantities of DOTS Bonus shots from our readers these days, and some readers are going the extra mile and shooting multiple cars found street-parked in their towns. We saw Warpig's Oslo-O-Rama last week, and now it's NiceNurseRatched 's turn. NiceNurseRatched lives in Tampa and she's photographed a bunch of Florida-style cool machinery, ranging from a Nash Ambassador to a Mercedes-Benz 600. Make the jump for the full 146-shot gallery. galleryPost('DOTSBETampaCars', 12, 'Down On The Tampa Street');
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There's just something right about a primer second-gen Camaro, isn't there? Add the obligatory GM rust around the rear window, hang a pair of handcuffs from the rear-view, stop by the 7-11 to grab a pack of Marlboro Reds and a sixer of Mickey's Big Mouths and you're set! Now, we don't know for sure whether the owner of this '77 fits the Ideal Camaro Demographic- hey, maybe this car is owned by a 68-year-old veterinarian who favors those three-dimensional sequined sweaters- but it's more fun for us to assume we're looking at an ICD car here. In 1977, the standard engine in the Camaro... well, you don't want to know. Let's just say that the super high-performance optional 350 put out 170 horsepower and leave it at that. Not only that, the F-body's weight had crept up to 3,500 pounds by '77, about the same as the '65 Impala 4-door and a good 400 pounds more than the '70-1/2 Camaro. Still, I've driven quite a few of these cars and...
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57% of answered in the negative when asked whether third-gen Camaros belong in this series , which means that it's been well over half a year since our most recent DOTSworthy Camaro (though if I can find the right '82 I'll go ahead and shoot it). Second-gen F-bodies are fairly plentiful on Alameda's streets, so it was no sweat finding a good example of an Early Malaise machine for today's post. I ran across this '74 in the vicinity of the '50 Dodge pickup and at least a half-dozen other DOTS vehicles; truly, this car's neighborhood is a rich vein of street-parked classic iron. The Camaro for '74 hadn't quite reached the overwhelming level of Malaise tape-stripe/plastic-snout overdecoration it would achieve a few years later, but you could see it coming. The 5MPH crash bumpers weren't quite as tragic on this car as on many of its peers, but the 145-horse 350 engine (185 horses if you went for the optional dual-exhaust powerplant) moved the car's...
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