I became aware of this development while working at the Arse Freeze-A-Palooza 24 Hours Of LeMons 2009; two teams were sporting the Chickens Of Screamage on their cars' hoods (a Mercedes-Benz W201 and a '73 Ford Capri), and they claimed to have purchased them dirt cheap. My former employer has excellent-quality reproductions available, but they're not exactly what you'd call cheap, and who needs excellent quality when you're just going to slap the thing on the Bondo'd-out hood of some low-budget hoopty? Here comes eBay to the rescue! Yes, for $44.00 shipped, you can have a two-tone Screaming Chicken decal, in a bewildering variety of not-found-on-real-Trans-Ams colors. Damn near 16 square feet of awesomeness– I may have to get one for every car in the MM Motor Pool!
[eBay]

Well, probably not- a career of filming Ukrainian junkies performing lewd acts with surplus Soviet Navy dental gear requires more dedication to one's craft than I can muster. Anyway, during 1984 and 1985 I put together a few short Super 8 films, with my sleazeball friends as cast and plenty of beater vehicles. You've already seen the protagonist of The Green Death, a cautionary sex-education film warning America's youth of a brain-dissolving STD, siphoning gas for his '68 Cyclone, and now I've dug up a few outtakes from The Phone Police, a crypto-documentary showing the psychosurgical methods employed by lab-coated, Ford Granada-driving rent-a-cops employed by The Bell System. We've got the beater 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air owned by my friend Willy (seen here flying off the hood of his car) and the evil ex-rental-car 1979 Ford Granada that spent most of the 1980s as La Familia Martin's vehicular punching bag; I believe it had already been wrecked and repaired with junkyard parts on three occasions at the time of The Phone Police's shooting.

In other words, I'm not making any promises that this Firebird left the factory as one of the 3,196 Trans Ams built for the 1970 model year, given the widespread availability of aftermarket reproduction Trans Am body parts and decals. We might not even be looking at a '70 model here. But, really, who cares? It's a solid-looking 39-year-old Pontiac that still parks and drives on the street, and that's what we love about the Island That Rust Forgot.

The '70 Trans Am came with a 335-horse Pontiac V8, which gave the 3,550-pound car pretty impressive acceleration. Compare that to the 3,106-pound, 348-horsepower '64 GTO, however, and you can see how the inexorable process of Model Bloat requires ever-larger doses of horsepower just to tread water.

Look, the DOTS '66 Mustang lives on the same block, and the DOTS '65 GMC pickup lives nearby as well.

Vehicle: Ford Fairmont wagon (I believe it's a 1978, as the '79-on models seem to have amber front parking lamps).

Location: Jaffrey, New Hampshire

It's about 100 feet from where I photographed the International Harvester, Thunderbird, and Model A (not the Model T, that was up the street).

Another one I've been stalking, this car's been in town for years, but I haven't caught it street-parked until now. The rub strips on the doors are in interesting condition, as if they're very lightly but completely surface-rusted. My first impression of it was "wow, Ford couldn't even be bothered to make it look like FAKE wood", as it's a brownish color. It wasn't a standard thing, certainly, as this Google-sourced photo shows, but then, it doesn't have the awful black bumper trim either, so it could be a poorly-chosen aftermarket thing.

The cargo area's got tools and a couple bottles of motor oil inside, indicating that the owner works on the car himself (or herself, I suppose). The interior appears to be in decent shape (and matches the exterior, even!), but I couldn't get that good a shot of it, due to the rain (which was steadily increasing while I was shooting the car).

All four dog-dishes are present and accounted for, though one's got a good-sized dent in it, and the body's mostly straight, with only a few small rust patches and impact marks (right front fender, front edge of the hood, and the damage to the left rear door). The emblems, aside from the Ford lettering on the grille, are well on their way to becoming Ghosts of Emblems Past.

Yes, it's a Matra M530. If you got this one right, you probably spend way too much time obsessing over off-brand European machinery. Don't worry, that's a good thing!

since Jalopnik readers seem to enjoy odd french cars,i stumbled upon this one last weekend.
In a Paris parking garage i saw this Matra M530.
I had never seen one in RL so i had to look some things up.
They were made from 1968 till 1973 .and came with a Ford Taunus 1700 cc 4 cyl engine.
here's some basic info.
to me,it looks like the ugly nephew from the Matra Djet

Too bad i couldn't make some pictures from a larger distance.
I did the best i could.
you could make it a ' guess the car' quiz?

Cheers,
a big fan of your jalopnik features DOTS an PCH.
WaffleChocolatBeer ( yes i'm belgian,not french)

Unfortunately, I can't find the name of the reader who sent in these photos, but we can enjoy our unintentionally anonymous photographer's description:

I just came across this beautifully conserved Peugeot 204 in Saint-Brieuc, France. It was parked on the same street as the Commerce chamber I was heading to for a press conference on the Global financial crisis.

I can't really tell, which year it is from seeing it, all I know is that the car was actually sold between 1965 and 1976. It also was the best seller in France for three consecutive years (1969; 1970 and 1971). There were 5 versions: 4-door sedan (like that one), 2-door coupe, convertible, station wagon and delivery van. That one seems in very good condition, but the little sunroof protection (can't remember its name) was probably recovered from a blue one.

Please take note of "oh so vintage" details like the yellow headlights and the black/aluminum license plates. The latter mean give us two options: The owner has had it since at least 1993 (that year, they changed plates to white/black letters in the front, yellow/black letter in the back), or it has been in the same "département" since at least 1993. The change in the law stated that if the registration changed that the owner would need new plates, he would have to adopt the new color scheme.
Also, did you know that the yellow headlights have a cool historical story? I learned that recently as a matter of fact. It goes back to Wolrd War II. When the Germans invaded, their vehicles had white headlights. To distinguish the ennemies, the French autorithies decided to make yellow headlights mandatory. It's only in 1993 (again?) that we came back to white headlights.

I was in a rush when I spotted this well-used classic, so I couldn't get many photos; since then it hasn't returned to this spot. My knowledge of vintage campers isn't so great, so we'll need to depend on our more knowledgeable readers to fill us in on just what we've got here.

Le Casse gives the viewer all those things and more! Omar Sharif behind the wheel of that all-time great high-speed chase vehicle- the Opel Rekord- and Jean-Paul Balmondo trying to escape him in his screamin' Fiat 124. You may have to suspend your disbelief a touch, as that 124's rear suspension manages to survive a dozen or so death-blow curb impacts, but that's what movies are all about! Thanks to Stefan for the tip.

Unless, of course, the cargo includes a waterbed and a a few hundred hards of purple shag carpeting!

It appears that the guy in the 5, finding himself behind the CX, takes a "short cut" across the countryside in order to reappear… still behind the CX. Some pretty good Franco-hoonage here, and that's what counts!

This 3/4-ton hauler belongs to the Alameda Unified School District, and probably delivered the crates of pencils, gallon jugs of Elmer's Glue, and that terrible pulpy gray paper that I used in elementary school. Nobody notices a plain white cargo van; I've probably seen it hundreds of times and only now have I paid enough attention to photograph it.

It suffers from the usual Northern California top-down rust, which should eat through the metal in another decade or two.

Most of us could go a lifetime and never see a Europa outside of a car show or vintage race, but Plecostomus found a nice one in El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula, otherwise known as Los Angeles. Here's what he had to say:

I found a DOTS Lotus Europa today. I'd never even SEEN one in person. And it follows the rules— it was parked on the street (Los Alamitos Blvd— why anyone would park a Europa on Los Alamitos BLVD is beyond me... it's like asking for the car to get destroyed)

It was some kind of commemorative edition with badging that said Constructor's Championship and several years (likely referring to F1)

Duster_UK took these shots a couple months back. What a find!

Got some Lancia porn for you - I took the attached pictures yesterday (Sunday) after leaving the Barbican Arts Centre in the City of London. The car was parked on Chiswell Street EC1. I should explain that the City of London is the financial part, where all the banks are, the oldest part of London. There are some residential properties there, but as you can imagine it is seriously expensive. Being a Sunday the parking restrictions are relaxed which might explain how this Lancia came to be parked there (it also means I could take my own car into town - new Fiat 500 by the way).

On to the Lancia, which is of course a Lancia Fulvia 1600HF. The registration plate suffix is 'L'. which means the car was registered between the 1st August 1972 and the 31st July 1973. However as you can see the licence plate is black with silver letters in a non-reflective material, and only cars built before 1st January 1973 are permitted to still use this old style colour scheme. It's clearly badged as an HF, although I thought all the HF models had the larger inner headlights, I'm not a Lancia expert. The car looked to have a nice used patina but was in fine condition overall.

I also have a literal metric fuck-tonne of photos I took from a local classic car show last weekend. There is about 400 in all, although I have not yet sorted the good ones from the dross. However I do have some Jalopnik money shots in the form of a working Lucas coil under the bonnet of an over restored MGB GT, a mint TR6 with the bonnet up and jump leads attached, and lots of Lotus Carlton shots (including the under bonnet VIN plate identifying it as a Lotus model). There are various Rovers (a P4 and a P6), an Escort Mexico, some Triumphs (including a Herald and TWO Stags), various porrigdey Austins named after quaint English towns with cathedrals, an NYPD P71 Crown Victoria, a Buick Skylark (70's, I haven't identified the year yet).

So to test out my theory I left the camera at home today and went about my day. In the afternoon, while walking to a meeting, what do you know, I come across a beautiful vintage Ford Transit (Mk II I think, the '78 to '86 production run, yes the Ford streak continues!).
Well technically I stumbled upon a beautiful yellow one first, and then, hidden by a moving truck, there was a grey/blue/bondo beater one with a high roof ( a camper top of some kind) that was even cooler, or at least more sinister.
The guys in the moving truck were quite amused by the weird dude in the Corduroy suit, snapping pictures of two old vans with a look of genuine happiness on his face...
I hope you find these two vans as I cool as I did!
bon weekend

I think the Jensen GT was one of the best things to come out of the Malaise Era, but I have yet to see one on the street. Great find, Dr. Danger!

Found a couple interesting cars hanging around Boston. First saw that Jaguar MK IX sitting behind my building downtown. I have seen this car before, but not sitting. Its a sweet ride with that Royal Yachting Association emblem on the grill. The (guessing '68) Impala was hanging out in the Stop & Shop parking lot. There was a hard-had and coveralls sitting in the back, looked like iron worker stickers. Probably stopped off for a case of Winter Lager and some rib-eye steaks. Then finally saw the Jensen-Healey GT just before I got back to the house, its breadvanalicious!
Sorry about the camera-phone quality. I always seem to find cars when my real camera is at home.

A parts car, destined to be picked clean and then discarded as scrap, or a project that just became too overwhelming and/or pissed off the landlord and/or wife to the point where the junkyard seemed like the only way out? Impossible to say. In any case, it appears that a few bits and pieces- including the engine and transmission- remain on this Olds.

The images of this shiny red British Leyland product come to us courtesy of Vintage Racer, the man who sends us so many great car photos. Here's what VR has to say about this find:

So I'm over in West Seattle at a friend of mine's art gallery opening, and this car caught my eye. I've seen them on the tack, but I've never seen one on the street. And considering how wet it gets up here, the fact that's it, and its Lucas Electrics are still running - well, not on a par with the Resurrection, but still pretty miraculous....

Face it, what does the $9,000,000 '62 Ferrari 330 have that a Malaise Era Alfa or Lancia doesn't have? Wait, don't answer that! Instead, consider this: for around 1/9000th the price, you can have a sporty machine from the very same country!

What kind of car can you get for $1,250 these days? Maybe a 15-year-old Sentra, speckled with shopping-cart dings and filled with the smell of countless spilled McDonald's chocolate shakes? Or an Olds Cutlass Ciera with a potato for a gas cap and Bondo-and-rust clusters falling off on every speed bump? How depressing! But wait- what if we were to find you a genuine Alfa Romeo GTV for that price? A car with just 58,000 miles on the clock, because more than half its life has been spent sitting in a garage… waiting for you to rescue it? No, really! Here's a "garage find" '74 Alfa Romeo GTV (go here if the listing disappears) for next to nothing. It appears to be complete, and the seller says the "motor and tranny seem to be somewhat clean and oil free," which we hope isn't referring to their innards. Who knows, it will never might start right up with a simple tune-up! You might need to do a little metal cutting and pasting once you do have it running, because the seller admits that it has "all the usual rust problems of an alfa," and the registration paperwork will require negotiating labyrinths of bureaucracy you never imagined existed a bit of work, due to the car's "unknown title." Is an unknown title worse than a missing one? Never you mind about that stuff- just buy this project and start enjoying the benefits of an Italian basket case daily driver in about 10 years no time!

Everyone loves an Alfa, of course, but what would Fabio drive? A Lancia, of course! You can still buy Fabio's Appia, which hasn't dropped in price by a single lira in the last couple of years, but you might not have the pecs and/or hair to pull off looking cool in a cute little sedan. But buy this '75 Lancia Beta (go "http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/jalopnik/2009/11/75_lanciabeta-ss.jpg"/>here if the listing disappears) and you'll find your image on the covers of paperback bodice-rippers within weeks of getting it running. Of course, that might be akin to cleaning the Augean stables a couple of weekends of work, considering that it needs a "new timing belt to run and a little TLC" (translation for those of you who don't speak Craigslist-ese: "Something terrible is wrong with the engine, including what you hope will be just the timing belt"). But hey, Mr. or Ms. Thousandaire, imagine yourself behind the wheel of a genuine Italian sports coupe and it will all seem worthwhile.

That means that plenty of fairly solid 1970s Civics go straight to the boneyard as soon as a $300 problem crops up. I think it's a shame, because most of the Civic's competition back in the day (e.g., Corolla, Pinto, Colt) tended to be several notches below the Civic in the "fun to drive" category, and even Toyota felt a bit threatened by the Honda's reliability. I still recall feeling humiliated, 20 years ago, that my girlfriend's '73 Civic could eat up my '73 MGB-GT in every category from acceleration to braking to electrical-system quality (yeah, the last one is a fish-in-a-barrel deal). Here's one I spotted in a nearby self-service yard a few weeks back.

Is that 97,000 miles... or 397,000 miles? The interior was pretty decent, so I'm guessing the lower number is more likely.

Mr. Hansen is also the guy who sold a running '72 Mercedes-Benz 280SE 4.5 to a LeMons racer for 500 bucks, so that we might have a Roten Sau shoving those boring E30s and RX-7s into the perceptual background noise. OK, here's "710" for your dancing enjoyment: