Mi-a-ta, /mē-ä-tä/, noun : An MGB that works.
I hadn’t heard of the Camaro ZL1 before I saw one today. 650 HP and 0-60 in 3.5 seconds? Day-ummm!
That was exactly my reason for buying it. My real dream car was a TR6, or I’d settle for an MGB, but I also wanted something that would actually be reliable. I imagine all the jokes about Lucas Electrics are at least somewhat exaggerated, but no matter what a ~40 year old car will never be anywhere near as reliable as a new one.
I saw one of the original 1969 ZL1 Camaros today. One of 69 built. All aluminium 427. Legendary car.
A Lamborghini Huracan, being transported on a flatbed. Too nice to actually drive, I suppose. 
A scrupulously-maintained Nash Metropolitan, while at the farmer’s market. Had a good chat with the owner.
White Studebaker Lark convertable. Early 60’s, because it had that upside-down trapezoid chrome grille ( like a Mercedes Benz grille ) rather than the more modern and attractive full width grill of the later ( and last ) Larks.
Audi R8 convertible
Old car memories chapter 43:
My grandparents owned a Lark. After my grandfather died, my grandmother (who didn’t drive) just let it sit off the end of the driveway on their farm to “make it look like someone was home”. Due to the dry climate the outside kept fairly well but the interior just rotted away. But I think the waist-high weeds around it weren’t fooling anyone. Plus in the 70s and 80s who would have thought that a Studebaker was drivable?
I saw one of those last month. I thought I’d posted about it, but didn’t see that I did.
Fun fact: in the 1950s and early 60s Mercedes Benz cars were sold through Studebaker dealerships in the US. That may have something to do with why Studebaker used a sort of Mercedes style grille in those days.
Wow. Interesting!
After I posted that I went and researched it a little more. The Studebaker - Mercedes tie up was shorter than I thought. Some sources say 1957-64, others say 1958-63. Maybe some are going by when the deal was officially signed and terminated, others by model years sold. But anyway the gist of it was that Mercedes wasn’t that well known in America in the 1950s, and they wanted to get a larger foothold here, so the struck a deal to sell cars through Studebaker’s still relatively large dealer network. Studebaker meanwhile hoped that distribution fees from Mercedes sales would help keep the company afloat. By 1963 Mercedes was slowly gaining popularity and didn’t want to be associated with a failing company, and terminated the deal and started setting up their own dealerships. Apparently at least some former Studebaker dealers became Mercedes dealers as a result.
Here’s one article on the Studebaker - Mercedes tie up.
That does interestingly correlate with the time Studebaker was using Mercedes style grills.
Coincidentally, saw one of those today as well. In a McDonald’s drive-thru, no less.
Tonight the most interesting thing was a mid-1980s Buick Skylark, the sort of car that probably would have rusted into oblivion decades ago in the Midwest but is still chugging along in California. In fact it had one of the blue license plates California used from the late 1960s through the mid 1980s. It was in pretty decent condition for its age, too.
A Greenbrier by Chevrolet van. I had never even heard of it before.
It’s really, really mundane, but it was interesting to me just to find out how much it cost.
I took the Prius to the Seattle dealership today to have some sounds checked out. While I was waiting for the shuttle driver to take me to work, I looked at a Camry. It was all black, black wheels, black badges, etc. It had paddle shifters on the steering wheel. It looked very nice inside. Actually, it looked nice on the outside too. I looked at the sticker, and it was about $27,500. With a couple of rebates, it was about $24,500. I would have guessed over $30,000. But then, the last time I bought a new car was when I bought my Cherokee in 1999.
A Shelby AC Cobra (probably a replica but there a few real ones in town) on a beautiful sunny day. The best part is that the passenger was an older guy and the driver was probably in his early 20’s. My guess is it was the older guy’s car but the smile on the driver’s face was priceless.
A Ford Falcon, probably one of the earlier years but hard to tell as I only saw it briefly travelling the other direction.
This afternoon I saw a mid to late 1980s Plymouth Reliant, AKA the K Car. Another one of those cars you’re likely to only still see in California. And like the Skylark (or maybe it was actually a four door Regal) from the other day, it had an old style blue California license plate.