Would anyone buy a truck of any sort with just 60 horsepower today? Nissan was proud of that power level back in 1965! This truck is remarkably complete and includes some no-doubt-impossible-to-find bits, such as a nice steering wheel and all the dash switches. Let's hope some vintage Datsun lover grabs these parts before the Crusher gobbles them up!

I think this is one of the coolest emblems ever made. In fact, I like it so much that I took it home!

Of course not! Yeah, I could have gone out and shot any one of the dozen or so VW T2 Transporters on the island that remain un-DOTS-ified, but that will have to wait for another weekend. I spotted this El Camino while checking for the supposedly-street-legal Dai Hard Daihatsu Charade LeMons car that lives nearby, in the same household as the '69 Morris Minor Traveller.

Dai Hard must have been in the garage, but it was worth the (two-block) walk to see this El Camino. I've always preferred the angular look of the '64-67 GM A-bodies to the more bulbous '68-72 models, and I think the Chevelle was the best-looking of The General's intermediates during this period. This Chevelle-with-a-truck-bed has a mean-looking coat of primer and cowl-induction hood scoop, and it appears to be a rust-free example of a fairly rare street-driven cartruck.

Those of you who come to 24 Hours Of LeMons races already know Jeff; he's the guy who makes the LeMons carnival function correctly when it clanks into your town. A former pro racer who got his start in his early teens with a hooned-out autocross MGB, Jeff now prefers Italian iron. Remember his DOTS '65 Giulia SS?

When he first obtained the Cortina, it was powered by a semi-hot Fiat Twin Cam engine. After the punishment of quite a few rallies, the ol' Fiat gave up. What next? Hmmm... you can get wrecked Honda S2000s pretty cheap these days!




My crappy photographs don't really convey the super-slick setup of this Anglo-Japanese monster; Jeff was a fabricatin' demon to get this Hell Project together. All the Honda wiring and ECMs are in use, and it runs fine; all that remains is a bit of brake work and a couple of thousand little details. 1,800 pounds and 247 horsepower is a combination that sounds pretty good to us! And with legendary wheelman Jeff at the controls, it's gonna be terrifying a blast! Anyone who has ridden with this guy in a rental car on a race track can vouch for that. Did you know that a Honda CR-V can do 110+ at Carolina Motorsports Park? Neither did I!

And that's just the beginning of the fun stuff to be found under Jeff's house. The entire footprint of Chez Jeff's Oakland abode is taken up by an 1,800 square foot garage. For starters, here's Mrs. Jeff's ride: a lowered 1966 VW Transporter with a built-to-the-hilt 2,000cc engine.

Just inside, you'll find this 1971 Fiat 850 Sport Coupe, also belonging to Jeff's SO; don't those Alfa wheels look good on it?

When she doesn't feel like driving the bus or the Fiat, there's always her '69 Alfa Romeo Duetto.

Sometimes Jeff needs to change things up with this 1971 BMW 2002Tii with "lots of mods."

Tired of four wheels? Hop on one of the Lambrettas!

Tired of internal combustion? Hop on a Bianchi!

I find quite a few old Volvos in my local self-service wrecking yards; for example: this 144E, this Amazon coupe, this Amazon wagon, this 145 wagon, this Amazon coupe, and dozens of 240s. Please, those of you considering putting together an E30 for the 24 Hours Of LeMons- try racing an Amazon instead!

Given that Alameda is separated only by a 100-yard estuary from Oakland, Donk Capitol Of The Universe, you'd think that great big wheels would be a common sight on the island. Not so, partly because Alameda's car freaks are more likely to be into old-school musclecars and/or dorifto-type Japanese stuff… and partly because the APD is well known for its heavy hand with the ol' fixit-ticket pad.

I suspect that this Nova wagon- which features plenty of paint over body rust- is sort of an ironic donk, if such a thing is possible. It lives on the same block as the mean-looking '73 Electra, and I suspect the two cars share an owner with a sense a humor.

What do you think? Pretty funny or head-clutching abomination?

That's what the seller of this '65 Chrysler Newport did, and now- for reasons we don't understand- he's trying to sell this gorgeous machine on eBay. If you've already got a Plymouth Belvedere painted to look like a pack of Belvedere cigarettes, then you owe it to your blackened lungs to add this Mopar to your stable. This tip comes courtesy of JC Whitless, who asked the seller "How many dead prostitutes will fit in the trunk? I need to know if it will hold more than five, as my daily commute route has changed due to carpooling" and got the helpful, if confusingly punctuated, response: "AT LEAST 10 ,,PEOPLE." There ya go!
[eBay Motors]

They end up at the self-service junkyard, which means they get a month or so to be picked over for parts before being fed into the cold jaws of The Crusher; the remains are then shipped out of the Port Of Oakland to China. This 190c still has lots of good stuff on it, including a fairly complete interior.

Most of the cars at this yard went through an auction and failed to get a minimum $150 bid. Would you have bought it for 150 bucks?

Within days of its arrival, I must have received a half-dozen phone calls and emails alerting me to the super-rare Corvair Greenbrier in my neighborhood. Naturally, I had the camera in hand and was walking the several blocks to its parking space right away. Hooray, our second DOTS Corvair, not long after the first one.

From what I can tell, the external appearance of the Greenbrier didn't change much during its 1961-65 production run; I'm guessing it's a '62, and maybe I'm right! There's some good Greenbrier info at this site.

Ever since I saw a hopeless beater Mercedes-Benz 600 being shipped to Europe from Oakland, I've assumed that no mere mortal could ever hope to purchase such a car for his or her own personal Hell Garage. Spending a couple grand for shipping of a ratty parts car would imply that a much more terrible totally restorable project 600 should be priced in the tens of thousands of bucks, right? Right? Ha ha, my friends, just look at those bankers hurling themselves bodily out of their 30th-floor office windows- this recession is great news for Mercedes-Benz 600 shoppers! Once you take a glance at this 1965 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB limo, your best move will be to pretend you never saw it head straight to Oregon. The current top bid is just over three grand at the time of this writing, and we're pretty sure you could score this three-ton white elephant kingly chariot for not much more than that. The body is "surprisingly straight," the M100 engine is still there, but some of the impossible hard-to-find hydraulic gear is long gone. No matter, you'll solve those problems and many more!

The Grosse is one amazing machine, we won't dispute that. However, standing on the gas pedal in a car that weighs nearly 6,000 pounds might be less than satisfying, even with the mighty M100 under the hood. You need a Benz with all the style and comfort you can't afford deserve and the spits-in-the-Malaise-Era's-face power that other carmakers dreamed of back when the Corvette got by with 165 horsepower. We refer to the Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9, of course, and a real one has never been more affordable! This 1977 Mercedes-Benz 450SEL 6.9 (go here if the ad disappears) is priced at a rusty-Sentra-grade one thousand bucks. When you consider that the original adjusted-for-inflation price of this car was nearly $139,000, we're talking about a how-could-this-happen 99.3% depreciation, on one of the greatest cars ever built! The seller doesn't bore us with all sorts of useless trivia, such as mechanical and/or cosmetic condition, and the photographs were taken with a camera inside a plastic bag smeared with mayonnaise, but who cares? You know that even Werner von Braun would edge away in horror from this one-way ticket to Crazy Town you'll have this fine Autobahn monster running in no time!

We haven't seen many Belvederes down on the Alameda street so far. In fact, this '68 wagon has been the sum total, prior to today. Given that Belvedere Adrian is an Alameda native, that just seems wrong.

I found this car parked in the same spot in which I photographed the 1975 Toyota Celica last summer. I hadn't seen the Belvedere around town before, so I thought that it might be just a one-time visitor. Since I took these photos, however, I've seen this car several times; not only is it a very straight and original V8 Belvedere, it seems to be doing daily-driver duty.

We've got representatives of each of the Big Three (sadly, no AMC products), from the days when Detroit ruled the automotive universe. Four from GM and one apiece from Ford and Chrysler. Tomsk writes:

1964 Buick Riviera: This second-year example of Buick's personal luxury coupe has arguably seen better days, but you've gotta admit, it looks positively menacing.

1963 Mercury Monterey: With Mercury having been against the ropes since...well...a long-ass time now, it's worth remembering just how rad their products once were. Take this 1963 Monterey Custom 2-door hardtop, complete with the "Breezeway" roll-down rear window and the accompanying oddball roofline.
Am I alone in having a burning desire to cruise this baby down the main drag on Saturday night with a certain J. Wagner snuggled up next to me on the big bench seat? Didn't think so.

1965 Chrysler: This majestic child of Ma Mopar, though clearly fallen on hard times (Dig the precision-engineered driver's window repair!), still has that certain presence about it. That certain GIGANTIC presence about it.

1956 Chevrolet: Considering how much coin Tri-Five Chevys command these days, you'd think a clean, stock looking '56 Bel Air 2-door sedan would at least be hidden under an industrial-strength car cover and parked in the driveway. Well, that isn't the case with this one, which apparently calls a Costa Mesa cul-de-sac home. I've always thought the '56 was the best looking of the three shoebox Bowties; how about the rest of the Commentariat?

1968 Pontiac Catalina: The current Pontiac advertising tagline is "Pontiac is Car." Unfortunately, the models other than those belonging to the G8 and Solstice families are not Car; they're things you use to cover the oil spots on your driveway.
However, there was apparently a time when all new Ponchos were indeed Car. Exhibit A: This 1968 Catalina ragtop. If Oprah had given these things away, she'd be President Winfrey now. Stick that hyperbole in your pipe and smoke it.

1962 Cadillac: This 1962 Cad (I'm fairly sure it's a Sedan deVille) has seen better days, but what state would the true Jalop rather have it in: An over-restored beauty you'd be scared to take out of its plastic bubble, or this property-value-sucking, pseudo rat rod form? Exactly.

Within sight of this old VW can be found the 1924 Ford Model T, the 1919 Ford Model T, and the 1971 Chevy C10 pickup. It takes a dangerously obsessed very devoted Karmann Ghia aficionado to be able to identify a K-G's year with any precision; I'm looking at the bumpers, taillights, and turn signals and guessing mid-1960s here. If any of you can provide a more accurate model year for us, please do so.


Air-cooled VWs tend to rust even in Alameda's dry climate, though this vehicle has rusty areas that suggest a brief stint in road-salt country. But so what? It's a reasonably early Karmann Ghia and it runs, so life is good for this VW's owner. This is the oldest example we've seen on the island so far; prior to today, we've had this '70, this '71, and this '74.

Wimbles knows how to work a camera, took the time to ID all the vehicles he shot, and even cropped/resized them to the gallery-friendly 1280-pixel width we like best. This is the very best way to send in DOTSBE photos. I'll let Wimbles describe what he's found:

I'm relatively new to Jalopnik but I've always been interested in your Down on the Street series. I'm a college student going to school in San Francisco and I see a lot of cool old cars parked on the streets when I'm in town. Lately I've been photographing more and more of them in DOTS style and I figured I'd give it a shot trying to submit some for DOTSBE.

For starters, here's a 1973 Ford Torino sedan. This is probably the first one I've ever actually noticed on the street and caught my eye because I'm used to seeing the arguably better-looking Gran Torinos. Fancy seeing a plain blue, beat-up standard '73 Torino in a place as progressive as San Francisco! It was seen parked on Telegraph Hill.

I'm not sure about the year of the Dodge A-100 Tradesman, but it looks to be approximately a 1968 model judging by the style of badging and the reflectors on the doors. I could be wrong. Until I saw this one, I wasn't aware that the Tradesman name was used prior to the B-Series vans of the '70s. It appears to be in generally good condition for its age, though it has some worrisome rust on the passenger side doors. It was seen parked on Telegraph Hill near COIT Tower.
This van has been seen on DOTSBE before, but it was part of a series of street parking profile shots by Martin Taylor.

Continuing the Mopar series is a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda. I see this car parked and driving every so often and have had two opportunities to photograph it (evident from the markedly different weather in the various pictures). It is equipped with the 273CI Commando V8. It was photographed in the Financial District. Interestingly enough, I have seen another Barracuda (brown, '67-69) parked on this same street in the past and have gotten a couple of snapshots of it, but nothing DOTS-worthy.

Next up for this run is a 1979 Plymouth Sapporo which lives just north of Alamo Square. I have seen this car driving once. I actually stumbled upon its home by sheer coincidence while returning from a long walk to the Panhandle in a fruitless attempt to grab some DOTS photos of the Porsche 356 and Volkswagen Transporter Syncro 4WD extended cab utility body pickup I had briefly snapped on a previous date.

Lastly, we have a very interesting find. A 2002-05 JDM Daihatsu Move Custom, probably fresh off the boat in America as it has no plates. But they wasted no time in decking this little kei car out inside with everything kawai they could find. It has a sticker on the rear hatch from Uemuru Motor, which is apparently an auto wholesaler in Callao, Peru.

First, we should all thank Scroggzilla for unearthing these videos of a vintage Castrol documentary for us (and Targa-Florio.net for providing the photograph above). The Targa Florio was an endurance race held in the mountains of Sicily; starting in 1906, it was finally discontinued in 1977 for safety reasons. Yes, even by the insanely loose (and relatively lawsuit-free) standards of European road racing, the Targa Florio was considered too dangerous to continue. We've got the whole lineup of worship-deserving machinery here, including MGs, Austin-Healeys, Alfas, Porsches, and- of course- Ferraris.

When you hang around the 24 Hours Of LeMons staff for a while, you realize that they're all a bunch of Alfa Romeo lunatics. GTVs, Spiders, and even the most awesome Alfa wagon ever. This particular Alfa is owned by Jeff, LeMons logistics expert and creator of the famed LeMons trophies. He was on the island last week, so I took advantage of the opportunity to shoot his daily driver. Yes, he uses an all-original black-plate '65 Giulia SS as his daily driver!


It's quite solid, though most of a new front right fender had to be fabricated on an English wheel, and there's the small matter of the just-about-unobtainable windshield.

Actually, GM made two different forward-control vans during the 1960s; first, there was the Corvair 95 (here's a DOTS example) from the 1961 through 1964 model years. The new G10 series half-ton Chevy van debuted in 1964, so there was a one-year period during which Chevy shoppers could choose a rear-engined/air-cooled van or a front-engined/water-cooled one. After that, the forward-control G reigned until 1970.


We've seen the Dodge version of this layout, but the only old-style Econoline in this series was a pickup version. I'll have to keep my eyes open for an early Econoline van.

That means we're due for another one. Symbolizing the manner in which The General sent the Oldsmobile brand itself to The Crusher, this '65 Jetstar 88 (similar to this DOTS '64, with the notable difference that the '64 is still alive and towing boats) has been cast off by its former owner and now awaits the cold metal jaws. Check out those beautiful gauges; I felt compelled to purchase this car's clock, even though I knew it wouldn't work.

You can't make out the car photos in the new/improved page layout anyway, so we'll put the "traditional" PCH image after the jump. Right, back to business as usual in the Hell Garage: last time, the turbo rotary-powered Datsun 510 just barely beat the small-block-Chevy-powered Austin-Healey Sprite, according to the results of the Choose Your Eternity poll. It may be that the certain rage of 510 worshipers upon seeing that blasphemous engine swap tipped the balance in favor of the Datsun- or against it, depending on how you interpret these things- and so we'll continue with a couple of cars with heavy zealot followings: Chevy Corvair and Renault Gordini!

Never mind that Dan Neill wrote that the Renault Dauphine was "a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting." The nerve- he probably got that Pulitzer at a yard sale! The Dauphine was a fine motor vehicle, and then that Renault hot-rodder Amédée Gordini worked his tuning magic on it and upped the horsepower by nearly 16 percent. Yes, the Renault Dauphine Gordini packed 37 French ponies in the back (not the measly 32 you got with the regular Dauphine) and you can get yourself this '65 (go here if the ad disappears) for under a grand! The seller is asking for $900, but you won't have to pay that much once you point out that those "newer tires" are space-saver spares (though we can't help but think that driving on four of those things would be quite entertaining). There's rust. Lots of rust. It doesn't run, but you'll be ditching the Renault engine and swapping in something a bit more powerful, like f'rexample this 2165cc VW unit. Add some turbocharging, a beefed up Type 4 transaxle, and you'll be broke driving the quickest Dauphine in your time zone!

Rear-engined cars from the 60s are deadly exciting, but why go with European oversteer when you could drive patriotic American oversteer? The Chevrolet Corvair is the obvious choice, and the 1969 model may be the very best one. It's also the very last one, so they're pretty rare; The General was only building '69 Corvairs to prove that he wasn't going to knuckle under to that paranoid communist agent, Ralph Nader, and so the cars were all assembled by hand in the "Corvair Room" in Willow Run, Michigan. That's right, lovingly handcrafted by the same perfectionists who made the Nova the envy of the Mercedes-Benz quality-control department! The '69 Corvair is hard to find these days, but we've found a pair of them for just $2,875 (go here if the ad disappears). Both are running, Powerglide-equipped hardtops, and one is the sporty Monza model. These Southern California survivors have "very little" rust, though decades of blazing Ojai summer days mean that the upholstery is likely on the crumbly and/or faded side. While you're searching for repro carpets and getting the seats recovered, you can also go shopping for a bulletproof leisure suit; you'll need one to protect yourself from the high-velocity projectiles fired at you by Corvair zealots, once you stuff this Porsche 997 six in the back of the Monza (which leaves the other car available as an "instant junkyard" parts car, to be deposited on your front lawn). In fact, you'll probably have the Porsche guys after you as well, so better add some Kevlar longjohns to your sartorial shopping spree. You won't have to worry about the Corvair guys catching you on the road, though- not with 385 horsepower behind you!

The Ford Ranchero is no stranger to Alameda; so far we've seen this '64, this '65, this '68, this '79, and this '79 in this series. Today we've got a Ranchero work truck with a nice flame job (flames always run the risk of looking clichéd, but I think they almost always look good on a Falcon-based Ranchero).


In 1965, the Ranchero was still called a "Falcon Ranchero," and you paid $2,095 for one. That got you the uninspiring-but-reliable 170-cube six with a three-on-the-tree manual transmission. The base '65 El Camino- which was a bigger vehicle- sold for $2,272, but the tough choice for Ford truck shoppers might have been the F-100-versus-Ranchero decision: just $1,981 for a Styleside F-100 pickup. Of course, the Ranchero was the better choice if driving comfort was more important than load capacity.

You can find intra-corporate engine swaps all over the place, but even a 350-powered Chevy Vega or a 4A-GZE-motivated Toyota Starlet is a bit of a snore after you've seen a few. The real engine-swap fun starts happening when you do a mashup involving totally unrelated drivetrain and chassis; that way you get maddening challenging technical hassles and enraged purists thirsting for your heretical blood. It's a lose-lose win-win!

Sure, you can get all manner of potent Nissan powerplants for a 510, but what if you want completely absurd engine revs and all the engine weight behind the front wheels? You could spend crazy downtown money on a wild SR, and then chop a hole in the firewall and move it back… but why not just take a tip from Herr Doktor Wankel and eschew reciprocating mass? That's what the seller of this 1971 Datsun 510 with 1988 RX-7 Turbo engine (go here if the ad disappears) has done, and all you need to do is wrap up damn near everything a few loose ends to get it fully streetworthy! It's got a Frankensteined custom oil pan, some suspension mods, wheel flares, etc. It starts and drives, doesn't have much rust, and the interior is totally stripped ready for restoration. That engine put out 182 horses from the factory, and you'll be able to blow it up get much, much more with the usual turbo tweaks.

182 horsepower in a 2,000-pound car? Why, you might as well be driving a garbage truck powered by a 50cc Honda Cub motor! You need to get the power-to-weight down from 11 pounds per horse to something more stupid sensible, like 500 horsepower in a 1,000-pound car! You get to two pounds per horsepower and you'll have plenty of hill-climbing and passing power, because it's all about the safety! We all know that the cheapest route to 500 horsepower is the good ol' Small-Block Chevrolet V8; you can put together 500 reliable Chevy horses using off-the-shelf parts, no sweat… but what car best suits such an engine? We suggest this 1965 Austin-Healey Sprite (go here if the ad disappears), which is already set up for a small-block Chevy engine. By "set up," we're not sure if that means "Austin engine torn out, space now available for Chevy" or "engine mounts in place, firewall modified," but you'll learn more as you try to negotiate the price down from the $3,000 starting point. It has a "professionally built" chassis and wheel tubs- hey, you need steamroller rubber to propel you into the nearest concrete abutment get all those horses to the pavement- but the planned 4-link rear suspension, she is not finished yet. Does it come with the body and trim parts not shown in the photo? Is there rust? We can't say! Don't worry about that stuff, though, because we can think of plenty of cars with tougher parts availability than the Sprite. Thanks to Radiohound for the tip!