I saw a Lucid Gravity on my evening commute tonight. I think I’ve maybe seen one other one in the wild before, but I’m pretty sure this is only the second. At least only the second one I’ve noticed.
I saw a Polestar 3 small SUV on the commute home yesterday, don’t think I’ve even noticed one before.
We saw a Hyundai Ioniq 9 at the local brewery the other night.
Obviously not the same car
I saw a Dodge Hornet R/T this morning. Even though they’ve been on sale since 2023 I really haven’t seen many around. Or at least I didn’t notice them, since they look like every other generic crossover on the road. And apparently Dodge canceled the Hornet after the 2025 model year mostly due to slow sales.
I just had an actual Citroën SM pull up next to me at a traffic light about half an hour ago. Those are very uncommon in the US. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in person before, at least not outside of a museum. I really wish I could have gotten a photo, but I was driving, and the light turned green. It was the same shade of green as the one in the lede photo of the Wikipedia article (the car, not the traffic light).
I saw my first new postal truck today. It looks like Beavis or maybe that’s Butt Head. I was never really sure which was which. For reference Beavis is on the right.
Naw, i think they look more like they came out of the movie Cars. BTW, I’ve seen a few if them on the expressway; first being trailered somewhere for delivery, & they driving but have now actually seen one in a neighborhood delivering mail!
I saw a fabulous old Jaguar today.,Probably a late 60s model.
I saw a late 70s Thunderbird a few days ago. I was looking at it head on and thought it was a Lincoln, mainly because of the headlight covers (shutters? doors?).
Looking at a 79 T-bird and a 79 Continental, I can forgive myself, they do look pretty similar.
The end of California’s current serial format of 1ABC123 will soon run out. This one, 9YFV918, was on a VW in Sunnyvale.
In California, the end is near for these license plates.
I’ve been seeing some plates beginning with 9Y. I have not yet seen any 9Z plates. Maybe they’re already out there?
California’s current serial format of 1ABC123 will soon run out. Soon we will see license plates like 001AAA1.
I just recently started paying attention to that. I’ve seen a few plates beginning with 9X over the past few days, but I haven’t personally seen any 9Y plates yet. But admittedly I haven’t been looking that hard.
I’ve been paying attention and there aren’t that many out there now.
I saw my first 9Y this morning.
speaking of:
In Chile, the license plate stays with the car for the life-time of the car (unlike Austria, where the license plate stays with the person)…
so, since it is chronological, you can tell the year of the car by the license plate …
Format is: ABCD-12 … and we are now at VVxx-12
That’s how it is in California, too, unlike most US states. This results in vintage cars often retaining their vintage license plates (assuming the car was in California its whole life). You’ll sometimes see 1960s cars still wearing their old black plates from that era, and 1970s and early 1980s cars with their old blue plates.
Yesterday I drove 100 miles, San Jose to San Francisco for the Giants game, and back. Of the hundreds of cars on the road (thousands?), of the plates I was able to spy I saw two 9Ys — only two out of hundreds / thousands.
California DMV has a program called Year of Make (IIRC) where you can install an old, vintage black license plate onto your classic car if and only if the car was manufactured when those old vintage plates were in effect, and if and only if your car was old enough (40 years or older, IIRC).
My 1963 classic car had an old blue plate on it when my wife bought it but she wanted a vintage black plate on it. That was the plate in effect in 1963. We’re not the original owner. The original owner bought the car in California but at some point moved to Germany and had it registered there (and had lost the original black plate). When he moved back to California, when he registered it he got the old blue plate.
My wife bought a vintage black plate on eBay and through that program she was able to register the car with that plate. The old blue plate is hanging in my garage.
I just looked it up and the program is Year of Manufacture, not Year of Make. Eligible cars must be 1969 or older.
21.260 Year of Manufacture (YOM) License Plates (VC §§5004.1, 4463, 4463.5, California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 13, Article 3.3, §§205.00-205.14)
I have been seeing more Teslas, I think one shares a reverse commute with me. Yesterday I saw a red Tesla. I think that was the first red one I have seen. I have seen black, white and gray but not red.
Happened to walk by the open balcony door just in time for a white-over-bronze late-Sixties/early-Seventies landyacht to pass by. I think it was a Buick.