My city block must be the Studebaker capital of the world, since the existing two Studebaker Larks have now been joined by a Studebaker Wagoneer. Pretty good for a car that hasn’t been made since 1966. My neighborhood also has a AMC Pacer, AMC Gremlin, and a Ford Pinto(!). What unexpected or rare cars do you have in your neighborhood.
There’s a garage near me that has an old Jeepster in it. Looks like it hasn’t moved for a while. I’d like to see it go to a good home.
There’s a shopping mall not too far away with a big underground parking structure. I was just there today. On the lowest level are a couple very old cars. One’s under a cover. The other I don’t recognize, but I’d guess it’s 1910s or early-'20s.
Near where I grew up was a house with two Volvo P1800ESes.
The people next door bought a beater Daewoo Lanos for their kid. Last produced in 2002 and Daewoo is long out of the US market (GM runs things now).
Who would buy a 10+ year old Daewoo? I mean, I like old cars. I have a 98 Corolla that I drive and one of my kids still uses my 87 Mazda 323. But, sheesh. At least there are dealerships and such for these. How many of these things were sold in the US anyway? How hard is it to maintain one of these? And I seriously doubt it’s a collectible or anything.
Not too much here, but in California I had three or four interesting neighbor cars.
One guy had a yard full of Studebaker Hawk GTs and restored them for hobby/profit. I still lust for a late-model one with one of the big engines. He had two of the very rare turbocharged model.
Another neighbor had an absolutely beautiful early-60s Ford Galaxie convertible, red with a white interior of course, with the rear cowl deck (went over the rear seats and lowered top and made “Batmobile” bumps behind the driver and passenger).
Best, though, was probably the guy who had a Delorean and drove it regularly. It was the first one I ever say that was painted (dark blue). For years I’d made jokes about painting your Delorean, and there it was…
And then there’s me - I was “the guy with the cool cars” in my neighborhood for quite a while.
Another car I lust for is a concours-grade… Yugo. There’s a rare US model in mint conditio that shows up for sale occasionally.
Then again, I drive by one frequently, too. A car wash uses it as their sign base.
There’s a Chevy Corvair here. Sometimes I’m tempted to stick a sign on it saying “Warning: Unsafe”.
What do you call a Yugo at the top of a hill?
A miracle
What do you call two Yugos at the top of a hill?
The factory is up there.
What is Appendix A of the Yugo’s owner’s manual?
Bus and train schedules
How do you get a Yugo to go from 0 to 60 in less than a minute?
Push it off a cliff.
Euclid Beach Park, a defunct amusement park near here had a ride containing 3 large "retro rockets" that swung around in a circle. After the park closed, in 1969, the rockets were reconfigured to drive on the ground. Several times a year, my former next-door neighbor had one of them parked in her driveway.
There was a car parked out front the other day that was completely trashed from being in a hailstorm…extremely unusual for San Jose.
In my small apartment complex, there’s a Yugo with a bumper sticker that says “Horn broken, watch for finger.” , a guy with usually at least two vintage VW restorations in progress / daily drivers (his shop is down the street), a nice vintage Chevette and a lowered, highly customized S10 that’s pretty recognizable.
I’m trying to think of some of the good weird old cars around here, but the weirdest thing has to be a guy who has this funky old crop duster type airplane with wings that fold up so he can put it on a trailer. It’s usually in his driveway, but it’s narrow enough that he can occasionally park it on the street.
There’s also another guy who apparently has some sort of weird wheel base shortening fetish, most notably with a 60’s vintage 4-door Impala that’s had about a furlong taken out of it in order to make it into a two-seater roadster. He did an amazing job on it and, other than looking completely goofy, it looks like it came that way from the factory. I need to try to be friends with that guy…
Yeah yeah yeah, and Yugos have a rear window defroster to keep your hands warm while you push.
I’d still like to own one of two Yugo cabriolets ever imported to the US; the former marketing VP has one with about 100 original miles and in car-show (e.g., hand built and finished to look better than the production stuff ever could) condition.
I used to see a car around town that was a rolling billboard for a custom paint and body shop - it had a show-winning paint job - one of those ones where you can see Russia if you look hard enough into it. It was the most butt-ugly sonovabitch I’ve ever seen - like, a late 50s Stude station wagon, I think? The script on the side read, “If we can make THIS car look this good, think about what yours will look like.”
Oh, and one other one. There’s a house in my neighborhood which appears to contain a regular nuclear family with two adults, kids, etc, but who are a two car household: an old 70’s Subaru Brat and a Subaru Baja. It’s like you could drive something other than a Subaru car-truck, but why would you?
ETA: the Brat also still has the weird plastic “chicken tax” seats in the back.
A few blocks from us there is a 30s vintage touring car that has not moved in the four years we’ve been here. It’s just rusting in place, sadly. There’s also what I think is a restored '56 Packard 400, but I’m not positive. Every once in a while, a beautiful 30s coupe goes by here; it’s been rebuilt into a cherry red hot rod. There’s a 60s vintage Ford Falcon just down the street.
In my little neighborhood, there are at least 4 car collectors. One guy up the street has show-quality classics. Across the street from him is the VW guy. On the corner is the Old Ford Truck guy.
Partial list within 1/2 mile radius:
Jeep Commando
Volvo P1800
BMW 2002
30’s Ford Hotrod
VW Thing
Fiat Spider
Ford Trucks: 61 Unibody, 53ish, 65 Longbed
Karmen Ghia
Ford Torino GT
69 Ford Galaxy convertible
and on and on and on…
Some guy named Dave with about a half dozen Porsches. The license plates all say “DAVE” and the model number.
There used to be a '58 Mercury down the hill and a '62 Ranchero on another street.
In our old neighborhood with mostly small duplexes, there was a guy who kept a Pantera in his garage. He drove it a couple times a year.
In our current neighborhood, there is an old body style Ranchero, and the guy next door to us used to be known as “Jeep Guy”, since he had about four customized CJ’s (and an aberrant Bronco) he would swap out between daily driving and storage every couple of months. He sold them all a couple of years ago and bought an new Rubicon. Nice, but not nearly as interesting!
Nothing in my current neighborhood, but where we used to live a man up the street restores cars. He has a early model Thunderbird that’s candy-apple red with a white interior. It’s so tiny! I couldn’t get my long legs in the drivers seat!
Not a neighbor, but the number of years ago I saw an Amphicar. I did a little research and found that the collectors club president lives here in my state and I did a story on him and another owner. They are so cool. I’ll see if there’s a link to my story.
EDIT: No online video but here’s a description of the segment. http://www.ket.org/kentuckylife/900s/kylife910.html#story2
We went to dinner at a little place a few blocks from us last week. In the parking lot was a DeLorean that looked like it had been painted with house paint and a brush.
Oh, yeah, how could I have forgotten? That was the garage mate of the red Galaxie convertible! Very cool little vehicles, not sure I’d want to take one into the water, though…