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Undoubtedly the idea of stumbling across a Porsche 356 in neglected but solid original condition is the stuff of gearhead dreams. The relative mechanical simplicity of the 356 and it's iconic shape lend itself perfectly to the idea of driving and enjoying it in slightly deteriorated original condition. More »
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They may have just been used cars back in 1962, but the lineup in front of Lancaster Lincoln Mercury has certainly aged well. Given the opportunity, the chances of us leaving Lancaster Lincoln Mercury without at least the red '58 Desoto and the '57 Plymouth wagon shown here would have been slim to none. More »
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It's not hard to understand why 1956-1957 C1 Corvettes are the favorites of the first generation for many 'Vette lovers. New for 1956 was the signature side trim and the beautiful single headlight design seen here. More »
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Looking at cars for sale is a big part of the automotive obsessed lifestyle. Every once in a while when you are scanning ads one car will stand out for no particular reason and stay with you. That is exactly what happened when we came across this 1956 Chevrolet Nomad currently on Ebay, and a strong desire to own it has been with us ever since. More »
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What has four wheel drive, four doors, a sky high body lift and Virgil Exner styling? With the exception of this 1956 Plymouth wagon currently listed on Ebay we're pretty confident the answer is absolutely nothing. More »
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Imperials first featured stand alone taillights in 1955 and 1956. Although the taillights were integrated into the fins of the newly designed 57 models, separate taillights made a brief return for the 1961 and 1962 model years. (Photo Credit:bsabarnowl) More »
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Chances are you've already heard Bing Crosby sing White Christmas or Silent Night this month, maybe you've even heard his weird Christmas duet with David Bowie from the 1970s. Now you can hear Bing Crosby sell you a 1956 Thunderbird. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the City That Rust Sorta Ignored: Denver, Colorado. Here's a '56 that's managed to avoid the oldies-and-cruise-nights circuit. More »
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We've all seen the stash of confiscated classic cars in a Green Zone garage, but what automotive treasures survive on the Iraqi street? Take a look at what Iraq-based reader Mark Trail has found for us! More »
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The Rocket Surgery Racing '56 Renault 4CV was, in the words of LeMons Chief Perp Lamm, "three weeks from being ready" when the race started... yet the Rocket Surgeons last-second frenzy-o-wrenchin' got the car onto the track Saturday afternoon. More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! After yesterday's QOTD, it just makes sense to go shopping for project cars with cool names! More »
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Maybe if Super 8 film hadn't been such a comprehensively terrible medium, I'd have kept making films; who knows, by now I might have become The King Of Eastern European Dental Fetish Porn! More »
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. I just drove to Denver, so let's admire a Denver survivor! More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! We took it easy on you last time, but we're getting into some serious Hell Projects today. More »
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This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out interesting street-parked cars located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. We're back for more of Tomsk's Orange County photographs! More »
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It's Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Since the ongoing Carpocalypse is on everyone's minds, let's go with the late-50s Carpocalypse today! More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. It appears that we have a new Ultimate DOTS Neighborhood in Alameda, one that's provided us with the '67 Imperial, the '69 Volvo P1800, the '67 Olds Vista Cruiser, the '70 Lincoln Mark III, plus several cars you haven't seen yet… all in a one-block area! Some are clearly owned by the same lover of old iron, but the whole neighborhood seems to be infected by the glorious madness of vintage machinery.
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time we stepped into the garage in which the gentleman with the pitchfork conducts his business, the choice had to be made between two 1973 PCH Superpower machines, one Italian and one British. Only one car can win, and this time Italy triumphs, with the $2,500 Pantera beating the Lotus Elite, with 70% of the votes. Today we're going with a topic that's been on everyone's mind lately: what will you drive after the Fianciapocalypse? The vehicular options readers suggested were sound, but, in my opinion, the best way to ride out hard times is to become the unquestioned leader of a powerful religio-militaro-pharmaceutical cult, complete with desert compound and "soldiers" on dune buggies… and for that, you must drive a car whose mere presence shouts "Warlord Prophet approaching!" For that, only vintage British luxury will do, and you're in luck: here in the early stages of the Downward Spiral-O-Civilization™, you can get great deals on Rolls-Royces and Bentleys!
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Lawrence Welk's band performing a brain-damagingly bouncy rendition of "The Camptown Races" around the campfire with a '56 Dodge as the subject of their serenading? Bring it on! We're a little skeptical about the claim that the Dodge broke all the records at "Bonn-E-Ville" (though a '55 Dodge did set 306 records after driving 31,224 miles in 14 days there); we think Lawrence should have done a big brake-stand burnout with that 315 Hemi on live TV. More »
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A 1956 Olds 88 was the first car I ever rode in, so it was pretty cool to find this ad, in which "Pete," apparently under the influence of then-legal peyote, speaks of himself in the third person to the local Oldsmobile dealer and explains why GM would never, ever dump the Oldsmobile marque. You got a big (for '56) 324-cube Rocket V8 with your 88, plus the knowledge that the very first rock-and-roll song used the Rocket 88 as its subject matter. More »
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Welcome to Project Car Hell, where you choose your eternity by selecting the project that's the coolest... and the most hellish! Last time we took a lung-charringly deep breath of the sulfur-tainted air in the Hell Garage (where the boombox refuses to play anything other than the 1910 Fruitgum Company), we learned that 54% of PCH readers prefer a Chevy-powered MGA to a Chevy-powered TR6. Who knew? Today we're going to up the ante and go with a couple of relatively high-buck projects; one is a type of car we've seen before and the other is plenty obscure. More »
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Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. Today we're going to head over to a part of town that was created by filling in a few hundred yards of San Francisco Bay back in the 1950s; usually I don't find too many DOTS candidates in this neighborhood, because all the houses have big garages and the Camrys and Tauruses tend to get the street spots while the cool cars live indoors. More »
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We're escaping from behind the Orange Curtain- for the moment- and heading 430 miles north to Oakland. Oakland is just across the Estuary from Alameda, and it has nearly as many old vehicles per square mile as the Island That Time forgot; SuperCarnitas found this nice-looking Ponton not far from Oakland's Auto Row. Make the jump to see all the photos and read what SuperCarnitas has to say about his find. More »
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Cadillacs aplenty in this series, and a few Lincolns, but how about Chrysler's top-of-the-line marque? I'd been seeing this '56 Imperial around town for years, but only recently was I able to capture it holding still for the camera in a downtown parking space. I'm pretty sure it lives on the island, but it's either hiding on a side street I haven't checked or sleeps in a garage. This 52-year-old is in incredible original condition- not a flawless show car, but as close as you're going to see in a car this old that sees regular street use. More »
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We had another close one yesterday, but the '69 Crown managed to edge out the '59 Datsun in the race to the Lake Of Fire in the Choose Your Eternity poll. We've seen some pretty affordable cars lately (well, affordable to start with, before you start buying parts), but what about Hell Projects that raise the pressure in the boiler by starting out with gut-punch price tags? You must finish a project that you spent 30 or 50 grand just acquiring, right? And if you need to spend $5,000 on a windshield or crankshaft... well, what choice do you have? Can't give up now! We've picked a couple of cars that, if restored, would bring tears to the eyes of vintage racers and eagle-eyed concours worshipers alike, and would fetch vast sums from the same crowd. If restored. More »
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When you see an eBay Motors auction with the top bid sitting at $6,000,000 and the reserve not met, you know you're probably dealing with something Italian and bursting with more history than Rome itself. And, sure enough, here's 1956 Ferrari 500 Chassis #0650, one of 20 built and winner of the inaugural race at Laguna Seca. It sure looks pretty, doesn't it? Bet it sounds good, too. If you had the money, would you drop an atomic bid on this lil' red devil? [eBay Motors] More »
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Lots of wagons among this years Great 8, here's another and this one wearing a bowtie and a lot of orange. The fairly rare '56 Chevy Handyman Wagon has undergone extensive modifications, and it shows. The bodywork amounts to over 100 modifications nad 1300 handmade parts, that's love. Under that custom engine cover is a LS1 V8 and a 4L60E transaxle. The interior is completely one off with hand formed dash and leather bits where it counts. This is a very nicely done rod, even if a bit over-done for our tastes. Kudos to the builders at Rods and Restos for a job well done. More »
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Our last DOTS Ford truck was a month ago, so we're due for one today. In fact, today we're going to have a nice shiny non-beater Ford truck, with plenty of bright red paint and gleaming chrome. This '56 parks on the street every day, though usually it's under a cover, and its excellent condition makes for a nice contrast with the more weathered look of the '48 International Harvester I photographed a couple blocks away. More »
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I'm pretty sure this Willys station wagon is a '56, based on the helpful info at the CJ-3B page, which states that the three-bar grille with the middle bar close to the top was used only in that year. Even if it's not a '56, it's almost certainly from the 1950s, so I'm at least close. Willys experts, now is your moment to shine! Tell us what you know about this fine vehicle. More »
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Yesterday's NSU-versus-Jensen matchup produced a near-tie, with the Interceptor holding a razor-thin lead at the time of this writing. We've been focusing on British iron quite a bit lately, since most of us seem to love and fear such cars in roughly equal measure, but it's probably time for us to leave the UK for a while, right? No dice, Jack- you're in Hell, remember, where the Prince of Darkness reigns! Let's go back, back, back in time for today's contestants, and to add yet another layer of difficulty, we're going to go with a pair of cars offered by seriously grumpy sellers. Thanks to tipster (and Morgan owner) Benjamin for pulling our coat about these cars! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=299377&view=rss&microfeed=true We're still trying to recover from the brain-scrambling one-two punch of the theme song for this ad (sort of a combo of show-tune and the Soviet People's Tractor Collective #498's fight song) coupled with all the images of droolworthy 50s engine parts and mighty Mopars rolling off the line. Swift and mighty in action! I took my two hands and built an automobile! I built a Dodge. I built a Dooooooodge! More »
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Venturing yet again to the old-iron-studded byways of Alameda, I've found this '57 Pontiac Star Chief. While obviously a first cousin to the '57 Chevy, the Star Chief had distinctive- if busy- styling and packed a bigger engine than the Chevy, at 347 cubes versus 283. You could even get the 347 with a triple-carb setup that yielded 290 horses... More »
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With Chevrolet's Nomad concept car likely never to see the daylight of production, we turn our fleeting attention span to history. The original Corvette Nomad concept, shown as part of GM's 1954 Motorama, is up for sale. With a fascia styled to resemble the 1956 Corvette, the Nomad hearkened Chevrolet's two-door wagon of the same name, which was introduced in 1955. But while the production Nomad was built on a Bel Air chassis, the show car was Corvette based — one of two 'Vette concepts GM showed that year at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel. No word on price, but we'd say bring a pair of sunglasses (oh, the brightwork) and the AMEX Centurion, but leave the wife at home. [Thanks to Josh for the tip.] – Mike Spinelli [UPDATE: It's a reproduction. The original was based on the '54 Corvette. Thanks to Htrodblder for the legwork.] More »
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We've left one Starbucks already this morning due to an ant infestation, and as we were on our way to a non-infested coffee shop / wifi spot to resume our bloggorhea-like coverage of the hoopla leading up to the 2006 Woodward Dream Cruise, we happened upon this little gem on the corner of 13 Mile Rd and Woodward Avenue. It's a beautiful restored 1956 Chevy Bel Air Nomad complete with an Edelbrock engine. Although the Nomad first appeared as a Corvette-based concept vehicle in 1954, the two-door wagon was assigned to the Bel Air series and given a unique body and trim specifically for the model. And oh, that trim — especially the fins. As the owner explained to us: More »
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