The Nova Custom was the mid-level trim package; you could get get the '75 Custom sedan for $3,415, and for another 75 bucks you'd have one with that lo-po 350 I mentioned earlier.


Of course, since 1975 and older cars are smog-exempt in California, there's nothing stopping the owner of this car from adding, say, 300 additional horsepower using cheap off-the-shelf performance parts. I'm often tempted to go the Nova + small-block route for my next project car, though I'd probably use one of the Buick/Olds/Pontiac Nova clones.


The Chevy dog-dishes look great on this car, which has been serving as basic transportation since Gerald Ford was in the White House. The four-door mid-70s Nova doesn't have enough collector value to survive on "classic" status, so this one is still with us thanks to its usefulness as a motor vehicle.

Since photographing this car downtown, I've found where it parks when off duty. Yes, it's a 33-year-old daily-driven Toyota. Who needs power door locks and cup holders?


According to the original California smog sticker, this Celica has the indestructible 20R engine. Only 90 horses, but they'd keep galloping for hundreds of thousands of miles.


2,270 pounds. That's 23 pounds less than the tiny '09 Yaris... and the Celica has rear wheel drive! Which one would you take? Airbags or character?

The '73 Mustang convertible, while based on the same chassis as the original 64-1/2 model, weighed in at a hefty 3,198 pounds. That was 584 pounds more than the first Mustang convertible, and matters weren't helped by the Malaise engine selection for '73: the base six groaned out a miserable 88 horses (versus 101 for the '64-1/2 six), while the 302 V8 didn't do much better at 135 horsepower. Should we talk about the weight of the '09 Mustang? Hey, at least the power is there!


But who cares? It's a red convertible with a luggage rack- head to the beach!


I sure hope that's a temporary vinyl sticker slapped on this pony's flank, because that paint job looks pretty good. OK, now on to our poll; you can click on the name of each entry to see more photos:

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It's been lowered a bit and sports the obligatory large exhaust tip, but overall it looks quite intact. Perhaps it spent the first 20 or so years of its life as a sedate daily driver.


I saw quite a few of these emblems at the Motoring J Style show a month ago. Hey, do you think we'll start seeing Echos with Platz emblems? Avalons with Pronard badging?


Yes, that's a NorCal Drift Academy T-shirt being used as a seat cover; let's hope the owner of this car keeps the body in one piece and the engine block unventilated as he slides around the track.

Like so many daily-driven beater Beetles, this one got hit and had some replacement body parts installed... then never painted. Why bother when it will just get hit again? That's thinking long-term.


You used to see a lot more Beetles with spacers on the engine lid, to improve cooling. There's no factory temperature gauge or idiot light in these cars, so generally your first warning that terrible overheating is taking place involves frying a valve or piston in the #3 cylinder (the one with airflow blocked by the oil cooler). Remember those big RVEECO external oil coolers?


With 53 rampaging horsepower, the '69 was one of the more powerful Type 1s. You could buy a new '69 Beetle for $1,799. No automobile made in Detroit (or Kenosha) could even come close to that price; a 1969 AMC Rambler listed at $1,998, and the '69 Ford Maverick sold for three bucks less. A new '69 Datsun 510 was a little closer, at $1,896. The King of Cheap in 1969, however, was the Fiat 850 sedan, with a $1,466 price tag. Hey, it's Friday- let's have a DOTS Of The Week poll! Vote for the street-parked Alameda vehicle you liked the best; I'm predicting a Monte Carlo-M6 battle here, but perhaps the Mitsubishi van will get enough weirdness points to take the win.

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Though the Monte Carlo was based on the Chevelle, the fenders got these distinctive bulges. The factory rally wheels and center caps look good on this car, and I think the lowered front suspension works as well.


The Monte Carlo was about 150 pounds heavier and 300 bucks costlier than a 307-powered Chevelle coupe, but you got a 250-horse 350 engine as standard equipment. Give the Chevy salesman an extra $420.25 and you could get the SS package, which included a 454 churning out 360 horsepower (though for some reason you couldn't get a four-speed manual with the 454-powered Monte).


The question here is: do the later G-body Monte Carlos belong in this series? Say, the '82s and '83s?

Looks like this van wasn't actually sold in North America, according to the Guamanian dealership emblem. Back when the Alameda Naval Air Station was in full effect, you used to see plenty of license plates from Hawaii and a few from Guam in town, as the Navy would transport sailors' vehicles when they got transferred from base to base. Most likely this Mitsu was originally brought to Alameda in that fashion.


It sure looks a lot like the Toyota Van Wagon, doesn't it?


I believe this van is powered by Mitsubishi's 4G64 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, but information on this boxy little beast is sparse indeed. Looks like it's possible to get a few extra ponies out of them...

Not sure if a student could afford 24s, but how many teachers would slap sparkly "24" emblems on the pillars? The '69 Continental that parks just down the block could well be a student car, though it's summer vacation now and the Lincoln is still there.


As we know, most Jalopniks prefer a dekotora to a donk, but there's no need to get all riled up over a '76 Regal 4-door with 24s if you don't groove on the donk thing; wheels can be replaced.


In '76, the Regal came standard with a 140-horse 350 engine. Since 1976 cars are not smog-exempt in California (1975 and earlier cars are exempt from emissions tests), that's most likely the engine that's hauling this car's vast bulk these days (though a 455 could probably be swapped in, as long as it looks like a 350 to the smog techs and passes the tailpipe gas test).

Looking at the past BMWs in this series, I'm realizing that I ought to go photograph one of the late-70s/early-80s 5- and 7-series cars I see around town. They're DOTS-worthy, yes?


This car lives quite close to the 1972 Fury, which can be seen in the background of this photo. Same era, totally different philosophy.


The price tags on the two cars differed quite markedly as well. The '74 3.0 CSi coupe sold for $10,634, while the '72 Fury III 4-door hardtop listed at $3,813. You got a 150-horse 318 V8 standard in the Plymouth, while the BMW cranked out 170 horses from its 3-liter six (of course, an extra 85 bucks would get the 185-horsepower 400 in the Fury). I know, apples and oranges. All right, time for the poll! Which Bavarian machine do you like best?

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Still, it's a convertible and the top still looks intact, so it will stay on the road. Perhaps some ambitious owner will get the bodywork done at some point... or use it as a parts car for a nicer Dart convertible.


The "GT" badging means this was the top trim level for the Dart in '69; the GT came standard with a Slant Six, though the dual exhausts on this example suggest the presence of a V8 under the hood.


The '69 Dart GT with optional 273-inch V8 listed for $2,976 new. That was 39 bucks more than the 302-equipped '69 Mustang convertible and $330 more than the '69 Corvair convertible. Yes, you could still buy a Corvair in 1969, though hardly anyone did so; actually, the 327-equipped $2,941 Camaro convertible is a better comparison.

The K platform was quite versatile, but Chrysler only seemed to show off "K" emblems on a select few vehicles. There's a Turbo Caravelle in my neighborhood that I might shoot as well, since those hood louvers are extremely Turbo Mullet Era-esque.


The LE was the upscale Aries, and the standard engine was the 97-horse Trans Four. The plastic grille and the last of the Sealed Beam Era headlights really tend to remind us that the Malaise Era was only three years gone in '86.


The gray color may suggest Navy origins for this car, though a lot of San Francisco government agencies had gray Ks as well. Alameda had Aries police cars for a few years in the early 80s, if you can imagine such a thing. Now, on to the poll, and stay tuned for something older, sportier, and more German tomorrow.

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This car definitely runs and drives, but with gas prices closing in on five bucks there's no telling how much longer it will be possible for its owner to quench the thirst of its 351, 400, or 460.


Now that's class! A Cougar emblem in the little opera window! See, the Malaise Era wasn't entirely about diminished expectations- you could get down and funky with that special someone in the luxurious vinyl comfort of your Cougar's back seat, while the same activities in a cramped 60s Cougar would be more like a game of Twister inside a packing crate. Don't forget the Acapulco Gold and Foghat on the 8-track!


Sadly, those mean ol' bean counters at FoMoCo decreed that the super-cool sequential turn signals would be axed for this generation of Cougars, but the full-width taillights were partial compensation.

Actually, the real DOTS Holy Grail would be a Wankel-powered Citroën (or, better still, my all-time favorite musclecar: the '69 SC/Rambler), but finding this thing really made my day. The Citroën GS was made from 1970 through 1986; I suspect this is a mid-to-late-70s car, but can't say for sure. It's still got European plates (and a California temporary registration sticker in the rear window), so most likely it's a recent immigrant and the owner is still battling the DMV to get it fully street-legal here. Never mind the weak dollar- if you need a Citroën straight from France, you pay what's necessary!


This car parks across the street from the '74 VW Thing we saw a couple weeks back, but I don't think they share an owner. A Thing/GS daily-driver combo would be a winner, though.


Does the GS have the famous Citroën hydropneumatic suspension? Of course it does; just because your car has a mere 1.2 liters under the hood doesn't mean you can't have a proper Citroën ride!

Most folks call these cars Chrysler Imperials, but Imperial was a separate brand during the 1950s. Things got more muddled later on when the name was resurrected in the early 1980s, but in 1956 you had two choices: Imperial or Crown Imperial.


Here's the only shot I was able to get of this car for quite a while. The '56 Imperial came with a "poly" 354 engine; not a Hemi, but still quite powerful with 280 horses. Total weight? 4,680 pounds, about a half-ton lighter than it looks.


The interior is pretty nice, and check out that underdash A/C unit!

Malaise or not, the B310 Sunny (as it was known in Japan) got the job done. You got the gas-sipping 1.4 liter A14 engine and pretty solid reliability. It was crude by the standards we've come to expect in an econobox these days, but you weren't paying to haul around 800 pounds of sound insulation and fake wood interior trim.


Not only is this one of the last of the rear-wheel-drives, it's one of the last of the import station wagons; the Turbo Mullet Era was more about minivans and proto-SUVs than wagons.


I suspect this car has spent some of its life in an area with salty roads, because this isn't California-style rust (we tend to get top-down rust here, starting around the windows). OK, time for our Datsun poll! What's your favorite DOTSun so far? I'm including the '83 Sentra because it's got Datsun emblems in addition to Nissan ones.

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The standard powerplant for the '69 C10 was the General's reliable 250-cube inline six, but you could get the added grunt of the mighty 292 or any of the usual small- and big-block Chevy V8s.


We see another fine example of California-style rust here; it's taken nearly 40 years to get to this point. Most likely the cab interior smells like mildew during the rainy winter months, but so what? It still hauls stuff!


Though one must wonder how expensive gas needs to get before all the 30- and 40-year-old Detroit-built work pickups are retired in favor of newfangledy fuel-injected ones that have leather-trimmed cupholders and get (somewhat) better mileage. $6/gallon? $7?

We've seen an '89 Graduate already in this series, but the 1985 was the first year for the "entry-level" version of the Alfa Romeo Spider and that makes this example seem more significant.


You didn't get alloy wheels or luxury goodies when you bought a Graduate in '85, but you did get a real Italian sports car for just $14,395 (two grand more than the V6-powered Fiero GT). Which would you buy?


It's in pretty decent shape for a street-parked 23-year-old Italian commuter car. Good enough shape to win our first-ever Favorite Italian DOTS car poll? Let's find out! I thought of including the Pininfarina-styled Datsun 411 and MGB-GT in the choices, but decided against it.

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I spotted this B parked while going out to dinner a few weeks back (on the same commercial strip where we saw the '71 Karmann Ghia). The sun was setting and I was using a borrowed camera, but I was able to capture this super-rare machine.


Yes, MGB fans, I know you can make these cars drive pretty well with huge swaybars, sticky tires, and more power... but in stock form they'll get blown away by your average mid-70s Civic.


That Pininfarina design sure is pretty, though! These things sold new for about $3,600 back in the early 70s, which was $1,300 more than a Datsun 510 and about $900 less than a BMW 2002.

When I started shooting photos, the owner came out to see what manner of weirdness was being inflicted on his wagon. As is almost always the case, once I explained the DOTS thing to him he was quite enthusiastic about showing off his car to the world, even opening doors and hood so I could get better photos.


The interior has been semi-restored, but most of what you're seeing is original stuff. The 330 Olds engine is the original powerplant, of course.


You could get a new '67 Vista Cruiser for $3,339, a few hundred bucks more than an Impala wagon and about the same as a Ford Country Squire.

Porsche definitely got into the 80s thing with the sell-the-brand-name backlit PORSCHE lettering on the back of the 944.


The 944 is a beautifully engineered car, with near-perfect front/rear weight distribution and lots of shiny aluminum stuff... but just try to work on one! No, don't! You can buy a pretty clean 944 for peanuts (the '87 944S listed for $28,250 new, a few hundred bucks cheaper than the '87 Buick GNX), but the bill to replace a timing belt or clutch pushes the cost of ownership orders of magnitude higher.


This example seems to drive every day and looks decent in spite of paint fried by the California sun. Now I need to find a 924, of course, so we can look at some Porsche Malaisitude.

OK, Land Cruiser experts, here's your chance to fill us in on exactly what I've captured here. I think it's an early-80s African- or Australian-spec HJ45 troop carrier, but that's about as specific a guess as I'm willing to take. Whatever it is, we're now seeing just our second DOTS Land Cruiser, after the '71 FJ40 of last summer.


Getting parts for this beast is probably quite challenging in North America, but how often do you need to get parts when you're driving a vehicle that makes even the Toyota Hilux look shoddy? As long as the owner doesn't wreck it, all should be well.


Where's the winch? It's got the Warlord Grade roof rack and room for a dozen Lord Humungus-style henchmen (and their crossbows), but you wouldn't want to be stuck in the post-Apocalypse world with no winch!

It's got a rollbar, the doors have been removed, and perhaps the engine has been upgraded from the original 46 horsepower. This Thing is ready for some serious off-road action... which it won't find in the utterly flat and quite urban terrain of Alameda.


The Beetle's interior seems pretty luxurious next to the Thing's, but you can see the family resemblance in the steering wheel, speedometer, shifter, etc. I hope the owner hasn't lost the doors, which can be removed without tools.


The rainy winters here tend to promote rust in body parts that collect water, such as these engine air intake covers. It's taken 34 years for the rust to get this far, so no urgent action need be taken yet!

Honda was still branding the CRX with Civic emblems in the mid-80s, but the little two-seater felt like a totally different car. The HF got a mere 58 horses from its 8-valve 1300 (compared to 91 in the hot Si's fuel-injected 1500), but 58 horses is plenty with a 1,713-pound car.


I've had a couple of these cars, and they'll keep going forever if you don't blow the head gasket (i.e., don't overheat it), change the timing belt when the time comes (interference engine), and can get it to pass the smog test (mind-bogglingly complicated emissions gear). The two-seater part is somewhat limiting, but it will haul plenty of stuff; I've used a CRX to bring home large items of junkyard loot, including a Chevy 350 short block and a variety of transmissions, and you can fit 8' long 2x4s in the car with nothing sticking out (run them from left rear corner to right front corner, between the seats).


That settles it- I'm going shopping for an HF right now... and I'm gonna convert it to run on propane!

You don't often see Galaxies this nice at car shows, and this one is no trailer queen; it's a 41-year-old daily driver. Four-buck gas be damned!


It's an original 390 car, although Rocky has upgraded from two to four carburetor barrels (don't worry, numbers-matching Ford purists, he saved the original fuel-delivery gear). The 500XL was the "sport" trim configuration of the full-sized Ford for '67; it appears that the 428 Police Interceptor engine wasn't available on the 500XL, but your friendly Ford dealer could have made it happen. The real question is: did anybody put the 427 SOHC "cammer" engine in a brand-new street Galaxie?


Check out those buckets and console-mounted shifter! Of course, the bench seat/floor-shift-manual combo is a cool setup in these cars as well; the first car I can remember riding in was my dad's '67 Ford Custom 500 (the stripped-down version of the Galaxie) with a 289 and 3-on-the-floor.

I had the use of an X-1/9 for a couple of weeks when I was a teenager, and I recall thinking "Cool! Italian sports car! This will be much fun!" Then, a few minutes into driving the thing, I thought "Damn, this thing is miserably underpowered... and why are all the dash switches, window cranks, and climate controls broken on a 3-year-old car? And what's that unpleasant noise from the transmission?"


I grabbed a couple of these scoops from a junkyard to use on the Black Metal V8olvo, but we ran out of time to install them. Maybe we'll have them rigged up as brake vents for the Thunderhill race.


The '82 X-1/9 listed for $10,990, a bit more than the Mazda RX-7 GS. The Mazda was orders of magnitude faster and more reliable (provided you treated the Wankel right), but the Fiat got better mileage and came with Bertone styling. What would you have taken?

The 220D had the four-cylinder diesel, not the legendary Mercedes-Benz 5-cylinder, but these cars still racked up astronomical odometer readings.


Unstoppable reliability is great, but the 220D's engine delivered a not-so-peppy 57 horses. For a car weighing 3,000 pounds, acceleration required a great deal of patience on the part of the driver. And at a list price of nearly $6,700- 200 bucks more than a new '73 Cadillac DeVille- you had to be thinking long-term reliability over short-term performance when you bought a 220D.


Hey, how many of these cars still have hood ornaments? The rest of the car is pretty beat, but it's still a Mercedes-Benz!

This one is a beater, no doubt about it, but it's driving every day and holding its head up high at age 45 (while other cars head to The Crusher at age 15 or 20).


The slow-motion manner in which rust works around here means that there's not much urgency when the red stuff strikes; if you grind off some paint while doing bodywork, you can always wait until mañana to get some primer on there. Now we're in the dry season, with no rain likely until November or so.


In 1963, your base Falcon came with a 144-cubic-inch six and cost just $2,257 for the 2-door. That was about 700 bucks more than the Beetle that year, but still one of the cheaper cars out there. Buyers with a fatter bankroll could go ahead and get the 260 or 289 V8s.

I've driven many of these Civics, and they're actually pretty fun to drive. Noisy and bouncy, sure, and other vehicles tower over you, but the late-70s Civic didn't feel stricken by the same level of Malaise that was hammering American and European cars of the time.


The CVCC engine meant Honda didn't have to put catalytic converters on this car until later than most manufacturers, which meant you could run leaded gas in your new Civic. Of course, by the mid-80s the smog-control system for the Civic had become somewhat complicated.


The late-70s Civic hatchback could fit four full grocery bags in the back, in addition to four passengers, weighed only 1,700 pounds (250 pounds less than the late-70s VW Beetle), and cost $4,500. You could get a Chevette hatchback for $3,794 (or $3,299 for the barebones Chevette Scooter), so the Civic wasn't anywhere near the cheapest gas-sipper you could get in 1979.

This car doesn't seem to move much, judging by the dusty windows, but it looks to be complete and fairly solid. I found it parked on the same block as the BMW 3.0 CSi, though I'm pretty sure they're not owned by the same person.


Most of these cars came with 194-cube sixes or 283 small-block V8s, though the options list included the 300-horse 327 (you had to wait for '66 to get a big-block Chevelle from the factory). This car has no 283 or 327 emblems, but there's no telling what's powering it these days; it might be on its 10th engine by this time.


The paint is faded from decades of California sun (and we can assume the interior is in similar shape) and the chrome is peeling off the bumpers, but it wouldn't take much to get this car looking sharp. And now, since polls are fun, let's vote on which street-parked Alameda GM A-body is our favorite so far.

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After spending the late 50s as a big, unwieldy cartruck based on the full-sized Ford Ranch Wagon, the Ranchero then became a small, easy-to-park Falcon cartruck. You could get this generation of Ranchero with a 144- or 170-cube inline six engine, or step up to the 260 or 289 Windsor V8.


This example doesn't show any 289 badges on the fenders, though it may have been fitted with a V8 since being built. Overall, it's a very solid and rust-free machine, and it's good to see it parked on the street every day.


But was the Falcon-based Ranchero too small for serious truck use? I had a '60 for a while and it did fine for my purposes, but I'm not a big hauler of large quantities of hay bales, sacks of cement, or livestock. And, yes, that's a really clean '65 Impala in the background; I'll get some photos if it I see it parked on the street.

Check out that super-80s decal emblem! Pay no mind to the large-diameter tailpipe; that fad will be gone long before all the old Supras disappear.


The hatch spoiler! But don't laugh- a Supra just like this one won the Flat Rock 24 Hours of LeMons last year.


This one is on the battered side, but you know there's plenty of life left in it. Being forced to choose between one of these and a Starion would be quite the 80s dilemma.

In 1977, the standard engine in the Camaro... well, you don't want to know. Let's just say that the super high-performance optional 350 put out 170 horsepower and leave it at that. Not only that, the F-body's weight had crept up to 3,500 pounds by '77, about the same as the '65 Impala 4-door and a good 400 pounds more than the '70-1/2 Camaro. Still, I've driven quite a few of these cars and they're actually fairly enjoyable on the street (and lots of fun with Hoon Grade™ engine upgrades).


Ah, the standard rear-window rust. Even in California, GM cars tend to get this problem. Just paint over it!


The huge Malaise 5MPH crash bumper is blended in fairly well with the vast plastic snout on this car; compare this treatment with, say, the Spitfire of the same era and you can see that GM did a pretty good job of bumper camouflage here.

Love it or hate it, but you can't ignore this face. Like the nose of a space cruiser! Maybe Chrysler will retro-ize this look at some point.


And the taillights- wow! These cars didn't just look good; the 300s could get going pretty well, too. The standard engine was a 305-horsepower 383; if that wasn't enough, you could spring for the dual-quad 413 in the 300H, which gave you a mighty 380 horsepower... and if that wasn't enough, a 405-horse version was available. Sadly, you couldn't get a 4-speed from the factory, but dealers back then were generally willing to make such an option happen for those willing to pay.


The interior is very nice, although that can of starter fluid on the seat isn't a good sign.

You don't see a lot of Alaskan plates in Alameda (Hawaiian ones used to be fairly common, with the huge Navy base on the island and many sailors bringing cars from the islands); this truck seems to have become a permanent resident, so we'll probably see boring ol' California plates on it one of these days. I like to imagine this thing grinding down some icy dirt road with a bunch of tools rattling in the back. I'm not sure whether "Scout II Traveler," "Scout Traveler," or just "Traveler" is the preferred nomenclature; you Scout guys can weigh in on this issue.


It's even a diesel (or at least has diesel emblems). The diesel engine for '77 was a six-cylinder, 92-horse Nissan unit.


Looks like the oxidation brigade has been at work here; the Alameda climate will slow the rot to a crawl. I think Jack London himself would have driven this truck, had he lived long enough (102 years) to buy one. In fact, London probably used IHC farm machinery at his Beauty Ranch in Sonoma County.

This car may spend most of its time garaged, but I see it on the street in my neighborhood from time to time. It appears to be an original, unrestored time capsule of an early Datsun. I'm hoping I'll be able to find the owner one of these days and ask him about this little jewel's story.


Known as the Sunny back in its homeland, the 1200 was cheap, got great mileage, and was way more reliable than its European and Detroit competition. And it has an interesting Japanese racing history as well!


Who knows, maybe this is the original Yankees bullpen car (though apparently the Dodgers had one too).