http://cache.jalopnik.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jalopnik.com.png http://jalopnik.com/tag/oakland http://jalopnik.com/tag/oakland

102 years ago last Thursday the newly formed GM bought an interest in Oakland Motor Car Corporation. Pontiac was introduced as a companion brand to Oakland in 1926. By 1933, Pontiac was so popular it absorbed the entire Oakland Company. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5740310&view=rss&microfeed=true

Imagine you're an AirTran pilot. You might be nervous about your job, or Southwest's corporate culture. Then you might see this video, where you're promised instruction on how to roll a 400-pound granny down the jetway. Helloooo, new corporate overlords! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5670060&view=rss&microfeed=true

Sometimes you just can't believe what you see on your way to the junkyard. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5532801&view=rss&microfeed=true

East Oakland can be a tough place, and so the Ice Cream Man must also be tough! A slot-mag-equipped Whiting truck, with broken windows and hand-scrawled ads for $1.00 root beer floats… might as well call it the Boogie Man! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5434426&view=rss&microfeed=true

We saw a few outtakes from my deservedly brief stint as a filmmaker last week, and now I've dug up a 25-year-old VHS tape of the crypto-car-centric 1984 epic The Phone Police. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5425419&view=rss&microfeed=true

Many of us have looked at a beat-to-hell sedan, then reached for the Sawzall and created an open-air summer cruiser. Then, when the weather turns cold/rainy, it gets junked. But if you're Belvedere Adrian, you keep driving it for decades! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5423929&view=rss&microfeed=true

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. How could you not love this battered old Toyota? More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5343125&view=rss&microfeed=true

I can't recall the last time I saw a GM Skywagon in the junkyard; these things have been getting lovingly restored for decades. This Vista Cruiser, however, didn't get that memo… and here it sits. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5312393&view=rss&microfeed=true

Now that I've sorted out all the SCSI termination headaches on my 1998-vintage slide scanner, I've digitized some more of my old 35mm negatives. Here's a trio of old cars I shot in 1989. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5258463&view=rss&microfeed=true

I headed over to West Oakland last night, to check out the Boiler Bar May Day Party, featuring a slew of art cars and a few of the contestants from the Escape From Berkeley race. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5238457&view=rss&microfeed=true

Want to check out the Golden Mean, a fire-belching Volkswagen Beetle-based giant snail that seats six and packs an 800-watt sound system inside its shell? With snake charming to boot? Head to Oakland tonight! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5236868&view=rss&microfeed=true

Les Firestine Ford disappeared from Oakland's Auto Row many decades ago, but this promo film- apparently shown in theaters around the East Bay- makes the Deuce Coupe seem like a pretty good deal, even now. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5228048&view=rss&microfeed=true

This is Down On The Street Bonus Edition, where we check out street-parked vehicles located in places other than the Island That Rust Forgot. We continue the San Francisco fun with this BMW-powered RV. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5153580&view=rss&microfeed=true

What do you do when you're driving through industrial East Oakland and nearly get sideswiped by a bus with one front wheel about to fall off and the open engine cover whacking parked cars? More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5146861&view=rss&microfeed=true

When you've poured gallons of sweat and stacks of cash into a beloved project car, your heart gets crushed by Fate's hobnailed boot when you come home to discover it's been totaled while parked. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5139078&view=rss&microfeed=true

Remember the 1967 Mercury Cougar we saw down on the Alameda street, just a little over a week ago? Well, I was shopping for some race-car pieces at an Oakland self-service junkyard yesterday when I spotted a primer-black Cougar that looked very familiar. Yes, just weeks after this 41-year-old car had been holding the Mercury flag high, that mean ol' tow truck hauled it away (I took the photographs in late July). I suspect the car was bought by the owner of the beater '68 Mustang as a parts car and then scrapped after being picked over like a leftover Thanksgiving turkey. Make the jump to see all the photos, before and after. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5048267&view=rss&microfeed=true

We took a look at Hanzel Auto Body Works, located in Oakland's historic Auto Row district for 90 years, last winter and saw that Henry Hanzel's shop is definitely the epicenter for all things Citroën in Northern California. A few weeks back, I got an email that started "I'll be cutting up a rusted-out Citroën DS at my shop in downtown Oakland tomorrow if you would like to come by." How could I pass up such an opportunity? Not only was there the promised sliced-and-diced DS, but several solid DSs, a 2CV, a Traction-Avant, and Henry's daily-driver DS wagon parked out front. Jump away for all the photos. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5044702&view=rss&microfeed=true

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 »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=396196&view=rss&microfeed=true

Hyperocky's DOTS '67 Ford XL 2-door hardtop looks great, but we must remember that not all big Fords of its era are quite so nice these days. Plenty of beat-to-hell examples manage to clank along for decades before their date with The Crusher's jaws, as was the case with this extremely rough '66 I spotted at an East Bay wrecking yard last weekend. It appears that the dashboard and quite a few interior bits have been salvaged, so at least some of this Ford will live on in other cars. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=394727&view=rss&microfeed=true

Rickey Henderson, Earl Warren, Too $hort, and Gertrude Stein all came out of Oakland, and now it's the turn of this street-parked Jeep FC170 to put the East Bay's main city on the map yet again. If and when I run out of DOTS cars in Alameda, all I'll need to do is take a quick hop across the Estuary and start photographing Oakland vehicles; as you can see, they don't disappoint. Akier spotted this fine example of forward-control awesomeness in the Temescal district and was on this truck with his camera like Alice B. Toklas on a batch of hash brownies. Make the jump to read what Akier has to say about this find. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=391551&view=rss&microfeed=true

When you're having a quinto-Belvedere tailgate party at the Oakland Coliseum, you pay to park in the official stadium lot, but when you're swilling cheap beer and wolfing chile verde burritos prior to sneaking into the good seats with your bleacher tickets watching a ballgame from the bleachers, you don't want to pay to park your car. That's why me and my cheapskate friends park in the free Coliseum BART station parking lot for most games, where we often have the opportunity to admire vintage machinery driven by commuters. Some of you may remember the Menacing Bee Van from last year, and here we have a quintet of other interesting rides spotted in the same lot. Apologies for crappy phone-camera image quality. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=383924&view=rss&microfeed=true

Sandwiched between an asphalt plant and a huge yard used for storage of shipping containers from the nearby Port of Oakland, this road is a good shortcut to get to one of my favorite East Oakland junkyards. It's also a popular spot for illegal nighttime dumping, with heaps of dead refrigerators, concrete chunks, etc. often clogging the shoulders. Every so often you get a parts car that's been relieved of its worthwhile components and dumped here, and the latest such car is an '82 or '83 Z28 Camaro. There was a time when I'd have stopped and grabbed some parts myself (there's always something useful on such a car), but these days space restrictions force me to maintain a very selective parts hoard. Can you feel the Late Malaise spirit? Make the jump for an additional gallery. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=360720&view=rss&microfeed=true

With all this talk about Citröens around here, it's sad that I hardly ever get to see them in real life. That's why it was great to discover that there's a shop specializing in Citröen repair in downtown Oakland, just a few miles from Alameda. Commenter VWMiniSpeedster's great-grandfather opened the shop in 1918, and the family also owned a dealership selling Citröens, Panhards, Morgans, and Lloyds during the 1950s. Nowadays they still fix the old French machinery and have quite the collection on the premises. Make the jump for more photos, a description of the shop's history, and (for you wannabe 24 Hours of LeMons contestants) a chance to get a deal on a potential race car! More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=353620&view=rss&microfeed=true

Can you imagine a brand marketed above Pontiac and below Buick, Olds and Cadillac? Neither could GM after 1931, but before that Oakland was such a brand. Proving platform prostitution isn't a new idea, this 1929 Oakland All-American Six is basically a badge engineered Pontiac with a fancy interior. The story here isn't really the car though, it's the history. Somewhere around 1949, a mechanic parked this car in his garage, and it sat there ever since. Preserved even in the San Franciso climate, the Oakland is nearly perfect, right down to the velvet on the doors. Make your way over to telstarlogistics and ogle the incredibly clean flathead straight six, completely rustless doors and still intact emergency kit. What a find. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=347357&view=rss&microfeed=true

Since now I'm in the mood to look at mean-looking Detroit beaters, I'm breaking out some shots I took while enjoying a burritos-and-beer repast in the Oakland Coliseum BART parking lot prior to a baseball game. Apologies for the fuzztastic quality of my low-end cellphone camera, though I do think the grainy pixelated look does a good job of capturing the spirit of this fine automobile. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=296891&view=rss&microfeed=true

While consuming a burritos-and-beer meal (served on the trunklid of the Crown Vic) in the Oakland Coliseum BART parking lot prior to watching yet another A's loss, I found my appetite disrupted by the sheer menace of the image painted on this yellow-and-black custom van. The sinister, knowing facial expression. The utter lack of limbs of any sort. The sunglasses. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=284184&view=rss&microfeed=true

Back when we lived Oakland work sometimes carried us over the Bay Bridge to Treasure Island to spray umber and ocher colored water about sets. Even though the island was only halfway across the bridge, getting there required paying the full bridge toll! While sitting in traffic the idea of a personal hovercraft was often entertained. The toll money saved could have then been spent on some goggles and foul weather gear, so that on rainy days we could make like the Gorton's Fisherman down Powell street on our way to the water. – Mike Bumbeck More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=268140&view=rss&microfeed=true Back in early 21st century Oakland we started to see later eighties and early nineties Oldsmobile Cutlass Cieras, Chevrolet Celebs, Buick Park Aves, and even the occasional Pontiac 6000 rolling up and down San Pablo. At first they were mostly stock, but time brought Daytons and plenty of metalflake. We found out later these cars were collectively known as Scrapers. Although the whistle tip fad has come and gone the Scraper lives on, and has come to influence the kids. They're always coming out with something new in the O, and the Trunk Boiz got some hella hekka critical mass. – Mike Bumbeck More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=267244&view=rss&microfeed=true

I just took this shot at the gas station located at the corner of Ashby and Claremont in Berkeley... or maybe it's technically Oakland. No matter; the critical psychological barrier of Quadra-Buck Gas has been breached here. Yeah, yeah, nitpickers may have noted that it's Full Serve Premium, but we can expect Cat Piss 83 Octane, self-served by wringing gas-soaked rags over your fuel filler, to be up to Quadra-Buck standards any day now. – Murilee Martin More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=263759&view=rss&microfeed=true

Here's a California joke for you: More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=263699&view=rss&microfeed=true

Even with most of Oakland's customizers of vintage Detroit iron going with GM products- a trend with deep historical roots going back to the popularity of the '50 Chevy in old-school lowrider culture- there's a group of Oakland guys who've broken free of the GM trend and gone with the Ford Falcon. Daniel has hipped us to a fine documentary about the Falcons of Oakland; make the jump to his site to check out the trailer. – Murilee Martin More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=261696&view=rss&microfeed=true

At the Oakland Coliseum BART station yesterday, we spied this '69 Buick Skylark sitting proudly by itself in the parking lot. Not so much a donk as a car heavily influenced by donkism (and Oakland, proud home of 2 $hort, is certainly on the leading edge of donkitude, what with the box Caprices teetering on absurd-diameter wheels you see towering over traffic around here), this Skylark actually looks halfway decent with the treatment... More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=261377&view=rss&microfeed=true

There's a photograph of the bridge abutment between the two suspension spans of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in the liner notes of Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy that I've always loved. Because while the Golden Gate may be the most perfectly beautiful bridge ever built, it's also kind of crap. First of all, it takes longer to get to Bottom of the Hill from the East Bay if you take the Golden Gate. But more seriously, the 10-foot lanes make driving over it an experience that can be rather nerve-wracking for the driver. The Bay, by contrast, is easy as pie. Other than the traffic. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=233266&view=rss&microfeed=true

For those of you who never did time in the Bay Area, we'll lay it straight out: when the Bay Bridge is closed, the normally bad traffic goes from indigestion to amoebic dysentery. And to demolish the old Western Approach to the hoary gray workhorse (and actually our favorite bridge anywhere (yes, we love you, too, Vincent Thomas, don't worry)), CalTrans has shut down the eastbound lower deck of the structure, causing traffic toward Oakland to either divert south on 101 to the San Mateo Bridge, or to cut through the City, head over the Golden Gate, up to San Rafael and over the Richmond Bridge. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=198320&view=rss&microfeed=true

Only a pitcher for the Oakland Athletics could be picked up by the California highway patrol driving 120 mph in his Ferrari, fail a sobriety test and then be locked up in jail on suspicion of a DUI. Where we come from, we call that guilty of a DUI. But then again — we're from Detroit — we don't have a working bus system, much less a judicial system — what do we know? More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=181068&view=rss&microfeed=true

Saturday night, a massive sideshow took place, the first one in a long time in Oakland. Involving over 1,000 people and what the OPD calls "dozens of motorcycles and hundreds of vehicles," the sideshow started at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention center, stopped at a burger joint, and petered out at the Goodfellas' motorcycle club's house around 4am. In the ensuing chaos, potshots were taken at the police. No word on how many, if any arrests were made and if any vehicles were confiscated. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=122736&view=rss&microfeed=true

A month back, we posted about Oakland's problem with sideshows on the city's streets, as well as a new law designed to shut them down by targeting participants. Apparently, the law hasn't been used yet, as there hasn't actually been a real-deal sideshow in Oakland since April. The East Bay Express reports that since adding more officers and cars to the late-night East Oakland streets, sideshows have all but disappeared. Thanks to Dateline for being late to the game, and boo to us for not being hip to the goings on in the 'hood. More »
]]> http://jalopnik.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=122099&view=rss&microfeed=true