Much as we car freaks might wish to pretend the Malaise Era never happened, we must face the reality that smog motors and rattletastic build quality were the hallmarks of Detroit products for quite a while. This '77 Volaré, spotted just down the street from the Ketchup und Mustard Transporter, is here to remind us of that reality.

This Volaré is beat, but it's still rolling decades after most of its brethren were sent to The Crusher. And that's something.


It always drove me crazy that the ads for this car pronounced its name "Vo-LAR-ay" (because of the song, of course), but the emblems on the car had the accent on the wrong letter. For this reason, I pronounce the name of this vehicle as "Vo-la-RAY."


This is an A-body car, of course, cousin to the Dart and Valiant.


That means that you can do all the hot-rod tricks to this car that you might do to a Dart... except that if you did such tricks in California you'd be unable to smog the car.


It's good to see that Chrysler was still slapping great big 60s-style Plymouth hood ornaments on this car, even as late as 1977.


This car has been modified with a not-very-securely-mounted third brake light (the power wires seem to be the only thing attaching it to the car). Like many Alameda cars, it probably never leaves the island, so it never exceeds the city speed limit of 25 and the light will stay in place just fine.

Mopar style!

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