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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: Nissan Pulsar – gen2 & gen1
How many show-car concepts over the decade have featured a “convertible” body, where the car could be transformed from one body style to another? In my memory, several; it’s an irresistible draw for...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: 1960 Chevrolet Impala
This 1960 Impala needs no words of commentary; it’s one of those profoundly visual and self-explanatory cars. For a frame of reference and background, I direct you to its predecessor’s 1959 Chevy...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: The Last Mitsubishi Cordia In The World?
As is all-too obvious, I have a particular soft spot for older Japanese cars, especially the more obscure varieties. So when I walked into this Cordia, I just had to stop, shoot and write. I haven’t...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: Super-Rare 1971 Opel Manta
You never know what will wash ashore on the beaches of Half Moon Bay. Heading for the coffee/wifi cafe to send these dispatches, what do I find in the parking lot, but a pristine 1971 (or ’72) Manta....
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation – Highly Un-Los Gatos Edition: 1977 Datsun 810
We lived in Los Gatos from 1987 to 1993. It was already becoming a high-priced enclave for Silicon Valley high fliers then, and now it’s utterly transformed. The Ford, Chevy and even the Honda dealers...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: Triple ’67 El Caminos and Reclusive ’56...
I have a growing cache of Eugene El Caminos, and was going to break them out soon enough. But taking a stroll around San Mateo, I ran into three ’67s within a few blocks of each other, so let’s...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Sunday’s Posts On Saturday Edition: 1981 Dodge...
On Sunday, we hit the road back home to Eugene. I’ve shot more cars than I’ve had time to post, and we’ll come back to some of them soon, like on a coming President’s birthday (hint). I’m going to...
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Curbside Classic CA Vacation Edition Final Post: 1966 Cadillac Coupe DeVille
Here’s my quickie farewell California post: an always popular Caddy Coupe DeVille, vintage 1966. Once again, I’m going to be sparse with my words, and let the pictures do most of the talking. And of...
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Curbside Classic Truck Saturday: How GMC Uglified One Of The Most Handsome...
Yesterday’s pursuit of ugliness is going to spill over a bit into today’s TTAT. I consider the late’55- ’56 Chevy’s face to be one of the finest ever in the history of trucks. It’s a terrific...
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Illegal Alien Van Nabbed: JDM Toyota 4×4 HiAce
Running into this Japanese Domestic Market Toyota Hi-Ace in Eugene was about as unusual as the cold weather that week. It was a frosty December morning after an overnight low in the single digits;...
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Curbside Classic: 1991 Alfa Romeo 164
(Curbside Classics paid a quick visit to TTAC Command Central in Portland on Saturday, and came away with a few goodies to share from that CC Elysian Fields this week) With the presumed return of Alfa...
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Curbside Classic: Potential ’66 F-100 Pickup Replacement Found – 1993 Toyota...
I’ve given it some thought over the years, and there’s only one truck that I’ve seriously considered as a replacement for my F-100, and this is it. In fact, it’s almost a perfect update on the Ford,...
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Curbside Classics We’d Like To Find: Vintage Ad Scans As Temporary Substitutes
My stash of old car magazines fell off the shelf in the craziness of re-arranging my office. It’s not very large, but time always stops when I open a C/D from 1963, 1967 or 1971. In just a few...
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Curbside Classic: 1992 Mitsubishi Eclipse
You try finding an intact gen1 Eclipse; it took me months. And forget about it being a Turbo; they’ve all been riced, diced, sliced and mashed into oblivion. Was there ever more of a young guy car...
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Bus Saturday Finale: Scenicruiser Design Inspiration Discovered
The Greyhound Scenicruiser was iconic, and set off a rash of imitators world-wide. Based on a design of Raymond Loewy supposedly inspired on an earlier patent by Roland E. Gegoux, it was hailed as a...
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Curbside Classic Outtake: 1968 Lincoln Continental
While I prepare the next full chapter of Lincoln’s (mostly downhill) roller-coaster ride, here’s a couple of shots of a 1968 Continental sedan. To my eye, the degradation of the original’s purity is...
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Curbside Classic: 1977 Lincoln Town Car
Here it is, the last of the species autosaurus giganticus. Never again would beasts of this size roam our freeways and driveways with their EPA stickers (10/12) still freshly removed. It was the end...
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Curbside Classic: 1985 Lincoln Town Car
Thirty-two years is a long time. That’s how many years the Panther chassis-based Town Car will have been made when the last on rolls off the line in 2011. And to what can we credit this remarkable...
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Curbside Classic Outtake: 1986 Continental
Our cavalcade of vintage Lincolns draws to a close (whew!) and the Lincoln file is exhausted, save for the finale. We’ve obviously plumbed the depths of Lincoln’s long decline, probably best typified...
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Curbside Classic Canadian Visitor Edition: 1966 (Vauxhall) Envoy Epic
The Canadian car market has always been dominated by US makes. But the “special relationship” has also resulted in some curious efforts to maintain a sense of unique identity, or respond to the...
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Curbside Classic: 1982 Dodge Rampage
The passenger car-based mini pickup niche is as old as as the Crosley Roadside, if not older yet. It’s also a highly ephemeral one, that seems to repeatedly draw car makers to it like moths to the...
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Curbside Classic: 1985 Winnebago 23mpg LeSharo Turbo Diesel RV
Like cars, or even more so, the quest to find fuel efficiency in RVs has come and gone with the price of fuel. In the early eighties, when gas was around $4.00 in today’s dollars, the RV business...
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Curbside Classic Jr: The 1955 Ford Mini Me – 1956 Ford Consul Mk II
Too many Cubside Classics shot, not enough time to write about them extensively. So we’ll call it CC Jr.: heavy on the pics, light on the text. The great import boom of the fifties involved...
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The First Curbside Classic
You might think I’ve been taking pictures of old cars on the streets forever. Not so, actually. I’ve been ogling them, but I always saved my film for family. Probably not completely coincidentally, I...
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Shanghai Motor Show, Curbside Classic Edition
In Shanghai, you can see the latest cars, and the cars of the future with no future. You also can see a tiny bit of the past. Citroen brought two classics. The Traction Avant was popular with French...
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Commenter the duke is being promoted. He’s now the king of CC Clue, for nailing Monday’s most difficult ’51 Packard. We bow down before you. For today’s clue though, we don’t need no uppity royalty,...
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Biological mimicry is when a group of organisms share common perceived traits with another group. One relative rare classification of this otherwise fairly common phenomena is automimicry, when a...
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We set a new record with the Datsun 210 Clue: 50 guesses! Wow. And SFO In Training nailed the woody. And for those that question what’s going on here, this is our way of warding off dementia. You know,...
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You all seem to like C pillars, so let’s do another one. This time, the vinyl roof grain historians are going to have a big advantage as compared to the chrome window surround experts this past Monday....
View ArticleCurbside Classic Outtake: 1990 Infiniti M30
Comments to last Tuesday’s Curbside Classic pointed out the lasting stylistic influence of the BMW 6 Series on such cars as the Acura Legend coupe. That reminded me of this out-of-focus shot I took of...
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Kudos to Steve-O, who was able to distinguish between fake vomit, grandma’s fridge, and naugahyde to identify the Dodge Aspen. And his was the first guess, of many. Regrettably, today’s clue is small,...
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Last but not least, it’s time to play CC Clue. Nothing like blogging to make the time fly by. Daniel J. Stern identified the Volvo 122 on the second guess of that round. Can he do it again? Do I need...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Outtake: What’s Wrong With This Picture Edition
I was torn about whether to use this Firebird for a Curbside Classic, until I saw a terrific “Screaming Chicken” T/A the other day. Only problem: I didn’t get any shots. But it made me determined to...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Clue (Updated With Hint)
Still too easy! rpol35 unveiled the ’68 Chevy on the first guess. Must try harder to make it harder. And why is this color so popular in Eugene? Did Maaco get a deal on a tanker truck’s worth? Did I...
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It’s hard finding the sweet spot with the CC Clue. I made it harder on Monday, and sure enough, not one right guess. All right, I’m going to make this one super easy! Big picture, lots of details and...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Outtake: 1978 Mercury Marquis Brougham
This Marquis Brougham certainly seems the polar opposite of yesterday’s Nissan Pao. It weighs three times as much, is a domestic, certainly not an illegal alien, not exactly artistic or tasteful,...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Clue (with a guideline)
A big omedetou to potatobreath for snagging that illegal alien, the Nissan Pao. Are you with the INS? I know the Pao was frustrating for some of you, but I would like to make a request in order to keep...
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Hank, who I’m pretty sure won a previous CC Clue, had some doubts about which year Olds we had on tap. His first guess was a ’51, and even though he changed his mind, we’ll honor his first shot at it....
View ArticleCurbside Classic Outtake: 1954 Allard K2
Our twice-weekly urban hike from our house to the top of Skinner Butte, which marks the geographic center of Eugene, affords some nice views. But not just from its peak, because along the way when we...
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Last week’s fuel filler door clue for the Blazer was a bust. Everyone piled in on it, right from the start. But I’m going to give the win to CyCarConsulting, because Hank limited the time frame too...
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The Civic’s messy engine compartment was quite a challenge. But blkstss stepped up and called it out pronto. He must have spent some time staring into that abyss of vacuum hoses before. Somebody in the...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Capsule: 1988 Pontiac Safari
Curbside Classic keeps generating spin-offs. The Outtakes were intended to be for the cars that didn’t make the cut for a full-on CC. But I (rightly) got grilled when I put the mile stone 1978 Mercury...
View ArticleCurbside Classic: 1964 International Travelette Pickup
Welcome to Truck Saturday at TTAT. I know a few of you might not be too keen about old trucks, but they are such perfect CC material: they’re old, still hard at work, lots of patina, and highly...
View ArticleCurbside Classic Capsule: 1985 Toronado
Rest assured, I have found a genuine 1966 Toro for an upcoming full CC. And I’ve seen a fairly rare ’77 XS with the wrap-around rear window in someone’s yard that I will hunt down. In the meantime,...
View ArticleCurbside Classic: 1980 Toyota Celica Supra Mark 1
Toyota’s Supra had a rather linear evolution, unlike the Datsun/Nissan Z-car, which lost its way and re-invented itself how many times? Starting out as a soft-sporty coupe with a lazy six borrowed from...
View ArticleCurbside Classic: 1984 Toyota Celica Supra Mk II
Wouldn’t it be fun to be able to go back in time and make different choices about the cars we bought? As I sit here and contemplate the qualities and my memories of the Mark II Supra, I ask myself just...
View ArticleCurbside Classic: 1987 Toyota Supra Mark III
Toyota’s failure to crack the US pony car market over the long term is one of its few major stumbles. When I found the pristine Celica Supra Mk I, and then ran across this sad looking and likely...
View ArticleCurbside Classic CA Vacation Edition: 1968 Buick Riviera
Time to visit the the in-laws and old friends in the Bay Area. When the women and kids head for the mall, and the men turn on the game, its time for me to slip out and prowl the streets of San Mateo....
View ArticleCurbside Classic CA Vacation Edition Outtake: 1978 Porsche 928
It’s been a long time since I saw one of these early 928s. This one is all-original, including those “telephone dial” wheels and mighty dinky rubber. Guess what size they are? 215 60 x 15″. That’s...
View ArticleTheft Alert: 1980 Toyota Celica Supra MkI Curbside Classic
This 1980 Toyota Celica Supra Mark 1 – previously featured as a Curbside Classic right here on TTAC – has been stolen in Eugene, Oregon. Let’s help its rightful owners get it back. This single-family,...
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