Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. 2002s everywhere on the island, so let's see another!

Our last DOTS 2002 was also a '76, and now we're on the seventh in the series (after this '72, this '72, this '73, this '75, and this '75). That's two pre-Malaise examples, one small-bumper Early Malaise car, and four Monster Bumper Malaise-M-Ws.


Let's take a look at one of those monster bumpers. Granted, it's hard to imagine many cars that were uglified by such bumpers as badly as the 2002 (though the Spitfire managed to accomplish the feat), but the 5 MPH bumpers were way better at brushing off minor impacts than today's body-colored hardware. Was it worth it? More to the point, was 98 horsepower in a 2,383-pound car enough to deserve the Hofmeister Kink?

Send an email to Murilee Martin, the author of this post, at murilee@jalopnik.com.