It’s funny you should mention that, because tonight I was behind a Porsche Cayenne. The badge on the rear hatch said “Cayenne Turbo”. I guess back in the '80s when turbocharged cars almost always features prominent “Turbo” badges, the car was typically offered with a naturally aspired base engine or a higher spec turbo version of the same engine, eg. a Saab 900 versus a Saab 900 Turbo. Now that even relatively low spec cars might turbocharged the badges mostly went away, but I guess Porsche decided to use Turbo to denote the highest spec car, even if the lower spec version is also turbocharged.
Anyway, on to what I came to post:
Here are the pictures I managed to get of the Fiat before the owner drove it away. Sorry the lighting wasn’t so great; that shadow on the front kind of ruins the photo.
It’s completely dwarfed by that pickup next to it. It’s roof looks barely higher than the bottom of the truck’s windows!
One of those regularly appears at the drag races that run concurrently with my club’s road races. The green is faded compared to this, but it’s bright compared to everything else.
One of my favorite cars. In my opinion the most beautiful cars ever built… an Auburn Boattail Speedster. There is a small workout business and they had what looked like a pitch in or grill out with one of those pop up shade tents and a handful of adults and kids mulling about. And there parked right in front was the Auburn. This one was all black with chrome side pipes.
It was only a few miles from my house so I may drive back this evening to see if it is still there and try to talk to the owner. They will probably want me to join their gym which is likely why they had that car parked right in front of the business.
When someone says they’ve seen an Auburn, the first thing I check is their location - most of them seem to have returned to Indiana. You see a lot of Studebakers in the area as well.
On tonight’s commute I saw a very nice, I assume restored, Corvette C2 convertible.
On a completely different note, I also saw a second generation (1981-85, IIRC) Honda Accord hatchback, with the old blue California license plates. It’s interesting how much all car models have grown since the 1980s; the current Civics are probably bigger than the early Accords.
I just mentioned this to Mrs. L.A. the other day. My first car, in 1980, was a '66 MGB. (The one I currently have is a ‘clone’ of my first one.) It was dwarfed by the American cars, of course. But it wasn’t that much smaller than many of the Japanese imports. I thought about buying a Honda Civic in 1999, and I noticed how much larger they were than the '90 I’d ridden in was. The new Civics are even bigger. Nowadays, the ‘B’ looks like a Midget next to them.
On tonight’s commute I saw a military Hummvee (H1) pulling a military trailer. Both had the woodland camouflage paint. It was on US-101 northbound in Palo Alt - Mountain View. I looked for any tac markings but did not see any. Its license plate was something like 86 M998.
I remember those things being so wide that it wasn’t easy keeping it in my lane on the highway, especially when compared to the old M151 Jeeps.
Interesting. Whereas some traditionally HUGE American models are smaller than they used to be - think, a large Lincoln or Cadillac.
We have a 1998 Civic. The thing is too damn low to the ground for me to get into and out of comfortably. The newer ones are slightly higher off the ground; a friend has a much newer one and while it’s not as easy for me as my CRV, it is much easier than our own Civic.
Hah! Our family owned two different Fiats - my brother bought one new, on purpose… and my parents bought a used one from friends of theirs, to give to me my last year of college.
I did ultimately forgive them but it took a while.
Mine was a “wagon”, which meant it had 2 doors, and a bit of space at the back with a liftgate to get to it. The backseats were accessed by tilting the entire front seat forward on hinges - which isn’t as wacky as it sounds, as it really gave you a bit more room to climb in and out of the back. It wasn’t much longer than the one in your photo.
It got good gas mileage, and it took regular fuel (it was new a year or two before unleaded became mandatory, and many stations still didn’t sell unleaded). And while it stranded me a few times, it never stranded me more than 5 miles away from home - unlike my brother’s, which blew its clutch cable when he was driving me back to college one year. We were lucky that we were relatively near the DC metropolitan area; had it died much further south, we would not have been able to get it fixed that day. His car was bigger than the one in your photo, but not by much.
Fiat withdrew from the US market not long after that - good riddance, I thought. When I heard they were coming back, I was amused. Supposedly they’ve improved, but I still wouldn’t have one if you gave it to me gift-wrapped with a 10,000 check to cover future expenses.
The sedans are smaller, but the huge Navigator and Escalade SUVs essentially fill the huge America luxury land yacht niche now. And while the sedans are smaller externally, the interior space has stayed essentially the same. Most of the girth of those big American sedans of the 1960s and 70s was in the hood and trunk.
This morning I saw a Volvo Laplander. The one I saw was blue with some sort of “camouflage” pattern for lack of a better word to describe it, and was outfitted with a roof rack and a ladder leading up to it. And also more aggressive off road tires than the one pictured in that link. If you’ve ever wanted to lead an expedition across the tundra, this is the vehicle for you.
Also, a 1980s Pontiac LaMans, that is that Daewoo compact GM slapped the LaMans name on. It had obviously aftermarket wheels. That seemed like an odd choice of car for that kind of customization, but I guess you have to work with what you’ve got. Or maybe the original wheels were damaged and OEM wheels were no longer available.
Lastly, I saw a cheerful yellow classic Beetle convertible, enjoying the sunny California weather with the top town.
I’ve seen more than one Toyota Soarer here in Florida, including one with custom wheels etc. It isn’t that an ordinary-looking compact sedan is interesting as such, but that it’s a Japanese-only model with no good reason to be here.
