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.

Let's take a look at the others before we admire today's street survivor:

First, this '72.

Another '72.

Yet another '72.

This '76.

This '77 Traveler.

And this final-year '80. OK, now on to today's truck!


This truck, built during the next-to-last year of Scout production, lives just around the corner from the super-clean '64 Galaxie 500 convertible we saw last weekend. It appears to be a daily driver. Who needs cup holders and faux wood dash trim?

Some might say that Alameda- which is quite urban, completely paved, snow-free, and lacking in any hills of any sort- isn't the kind of place where a Scout makes sense. We disagree, however; a Scout always makes sense!

Can you hurl a paint-splattered ladder into the bed of your truck from 20 feet away and not flinch when it hits? The owner of this fine American machine- which parks just a couple blocks from Chez Murilee- can do that!

Back in '59, a base half-ton Ford Styleside pickup would have run you $1,938, or about $14,500 in 2009 bucks. For that price you got a 223-cube I6 and a three-speed manual transmission. That's way cheaper than the least expensive Ford sedan, which was the $2,132 Custom 300 Six business coupe. What a deal!

And that's not all- this mid-70s Chevy van boasts cubic yards of hipster accessories without being at all ironic and/or pretentious. I ran into this fine machine at the 24 Hours Of LeMons South Fall a few weeks back; its owner is a member of the USS Enterprise Ford LTD team.

Quadruple exhaust pipes, 8-ball shifter, North Carolina plates… and Tommy Chong's signature on the dash. Yes, it's for real!

We're going to fix that problem right now! I've finally found a genuine late-70s Chevy Van with authentic stripes and bubble windows. Let's get in the mood to appreciate this fine vehicle with the appropriate song:


Hmmm... that was actually kind of horrible. I was too young to drive back then, but I'm pretty sure Sammy Johns wouldn't have been my choice for custom-van soundtracks. See, that's what happened with Generation X and our damn cynicism and irony- we couldn't appreciate the simple pleasures of purple shag carpeting and CB radio. Anyway, it's good to see this battered but still recognizable Custom Van Era survivor still moving around under its own power.

I'm not including the Dodge- and Plymouth-branded Mitsubishis here; you'll need to check out the 450 DOTS: The Japanese post for the Colts and Arrows.

1947 Plymouth	1950 Dodge	1950 Plymouth	1951 Dodge
1951 Dodge	1952 Dodge	1952 Dodge	1955 Plymouth
1956 Imperial	1957 Chrysler	1961 Plymouth	1961 Plymouth
1962 Dodge	1962 Chrysler	1962 Chrysler	1964 Imperial
1964 Dodge	1964 Dodge	1964 Chrysler	1965 Plymouth
1965 Plymouth	1965 Plymouth	1965 Dodge	1966 Dodge
1966 Dodge	1966 Dodge	1967 Plymouth	1967 Imperial
1968 Plymouth	1969 Dodge	1969 Dodge	1969 Dodge
1970 Chrysler	1970 Dodge	1970 Dodge	1970 Dodge
1971 Chrysler	1971 Plymouth	1971 Imperial	1971 Chrysler
1971 Plymouth	1971 Plymouth	1972 Plymouth	1973 Plymouth
1973 Dodge	1974 Plymouth	1975 Dodge	1977 Plymouth
1978 Chrysler	1978 Dodge	1978 Dodge	1984 Plymouth
1986 Dodge	1986 Dodge	1990 Chrysler

When you're done here, check out the rest of the 450 DOTS Celebration:

I found this truck on the same block where the Evil New Yorker once parked, and just around the corner from the '60 Rambler American Custom. I can tell its model year falls somewhere within the 1948-1950 span, thanks to the grille and passenger-side vent louvers, but that's as close as I can guess so I'm going to say it's a '49. Any clarifications, early Suburban experts?

This truck, which had a shipping weight of 3,710 pounds, came from the factory with an overhead-valve Thriftmaster 216-cube six generating 90 horsepower. Compare that to the 2009 model, which scales in at an 18-wheeler-esque 6,327 pounds… and packs an engine that grunts out 352 horsepower. So, nearly twice the weight, moved by nearly four times the power. Cupholders and power seats versus postwar style and a bouncy, rattly ride. Which would you prefer as your personal passenger truck?

Being a city boy, I'm no expert on the subject of vehicles made to slog through mud and/or help game wardens catch poachers (or at least look like they can do those things), and damn if I can come up with a decent ID on this out-of-town visitor. Clearly, it's had the crap modified out of it; the one-piece windshield suggests that it's a proto-Defender Land Rover 90, but it appears to have all manner of Series III pieces as well. Now's your time to shine, Land Rover experts! What do we have here?

Check out the selection of adventurer hats in the back!

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.

I'm a city boy, so damn if I can pin down the year of this truck with any accuracy; in fact, I'm not even sure whether this thing is properly referred to a Willys, a Willys Jeep, or just a Jeep. I think it's of late-50s vintage, but no matter; one of our huntin'/fishin' readers will be able to recite chapter and verse of Willys lore just from a single glance at these photos.
The great thing here is that this truck still goes to work after five or so decades; the sign on the door shows that it belongs to the Accessible Home Lift Company.

This is the sixth Alameda Scout in the series (after this '72, this '72, this '76, and this '77, and this super-rare '80 Diesel Scout). I see a few more Scouts around town that I'll get around to photographing one of these days. Why does this totally paved, completely flat, dense-urban island have so many serious off-road, farm-equipment-grade machines? Weekend fishing trips in the mountains? Preparing for the apocalypse? You tell me!

It appears that this truck, which is painted in jaunty two-tone orange/green, has had some spewing-radiator difficulties recently. The list price on the '72 Scout II Traveltop was $3,340. That's $248 cheaper than the '72 Bronco wagon; the '72 Blazer was $190 cheaper, but you had to pay extra for the removable top.

DOTSBE tipster Kitt has introduced me to the Tilt-Shift Maker website, so I thought I'd try it out with the Scout. I'd do it in Photoshop, but I'm still a fan of the prehistoric 1997-vintage Photoshop 5.0 and it lacks the necessary features.

The General doesn't change his truck styling very often- at least, he didn't during the 1960s and 1970s- so this one presents a challenge when it comes to identifying the year. The California smog-check history site says it's a '74, but the black license plates were replaced with blue ones in 1969 and the bulk of body parts appear to be of late 1960s vintage. The way junkyard drivetrains, cabs, and beds get swapped around on million-mile work trucks, there's just no telling, so I'm going to say it's a 1968.


We've seen a few other GMC pickups of this era in the series, including this '66, and this '68, this '71. In fact, this is one of the rare DOTS vehicles that lives right next to another DOTS vehicle; in this case, it's the 1965 Chevy Suburban.

For 1966, Ford based the Ranchero on the midsized Fairlane, rather than the compact Falcon used as the basis for the 1960-65 models. The standard Ranchero engine remained the reliable ol' 200-cube six, but high rollers could opt for the 200- or 220-horsepower 289 V8. The price for the base '66 Ranchero was $2,218, or $133 more than the cost of an F-100 half-ton pickup.


This will be the only DOTS vehicle this week; after posting a street-parked Alameda car every single weekday since May 2007, I need a break. Don't worry, the island hasn't run out of old cars!

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.

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.

I've selected 1953 as the model year for this truck, but it could be a '52, or a '51 with later "push-button" doors (this truck has apparently had a door transplant), or a '48 frame with a '51 cab, or… well, you get the idea. To add to the fun, you couldn't get a Chevy pickup with a chrome grille during the Korean War- chromium being a strategic war material- so the grille on this thing isn't original. Old pickups are so useful that they serve as rolling repositories for generation after generation of junkyard parts, and trying to nail down an exact year on one would probably require a look at the pink slip.


The doors are especially interesting, so much so that I hope the owner never repaints them. Back in the early 1950s, there was a military base somewhere with an early-50s Chevy truck hauling provisions to the Commissioned Officers' Mess. It probably wasn't the (now-closed) Alameda Naval Air Station, which favored Dodge trucks.


This truck is still earning its keep; it parks on the street and goes to work every day (unlike its nearby sibling, the '53 GMC, which doesn't seem to move much these days.

Who would have thought, back in the early 70s, that GM's most profitable vehicles- and the focus of its best stylists and engineers- a few decades later would be body-on-frame trucks? That more Americans would be commuting in them than hauling stuff in them? This Custom Deluxe might not be a great choice for a comfy, bounce-and-rattle-free commute, but it's got more luxury touches than did the plain ol' Custom. That's right, the base 1/2-ton Chevy pickup in '71 was named the Custom, which should have meant that a team of pinstripe and airbrush artists made gave each one unique custom touches after it rolled off the line… but in practice was just marketing magic.


This truck lives just across the street from the 1919 Ford Model T Touring. This isn't the first of The General's 1971 trucks we've seen in this series; this big-block Chevy pickup, this super-clean '71 Blazer, and this '71 GMC pickup may also be found on the island.

I don't know my Jeeps well enough to determine whether this example is a '63 or '64 model. The '65s had "Kaiser-Jeep" badging, so this one is either a first- or second-year Wagoneer. With its Brooks Stevens design, the first-gen Wagoneer is definitely a good-looking truck, and quite rare nowadays.


The '63 International Harvester half-ton Travelall 4x4 sold for $3,011 (and was also a great-looking machine), while the 4x4 Wagoneer 4-door went for $3,332. Farm equipment or military truck heritage? Either way, you're looking at some pretty sturdy iron. And, while we're pricing 1963 vehicles to take you and many passengers to the woods, we can't forget Detroit. The '63 Dodge Power Wagon Town Wagon 4x4 would rumble off the showroom floor for $3,104. GMC could put you behind the wheel of a Suburban Carryall 4x4 for $3,489, while the Chevy version would set you back $3,305. Which would you choose?

I'm pretty sure this truck is the parts hauler owned by the guy responsible for the '74 Buick LeSabre, Studebaker Avanti, '69 Buick Electra, '65 Ford Ranchero, and '69 Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible. Each of those cars lived on the block for a few months, then disappeared, so most likely this is a serious car guy who wheels and deals at all times. And for that you need a big pickup!


The 240-cube six was the base engine for 1966 Ford light-duty pickups, but the dual exhausts on this one suggest that it has some sort of V8. The 352 was the optional powerplant for this truck in '66, but odds are good that a larger member of the FE family now lives under the hood. 390? 428?

Usually, when a vehicle owner's political beliefs- be they of the strident Left or the enraged Right- are sufficiently powerful to make painting messages on the vehicle's body seem like a good idea, that person keeps the messages up to date. Not so with this '70 Chevy; after the mid-to-late 1990s, it appears that no cause fired the truck's owner up like his or her loathing for Bill Clinton.


Proposition 209, which abolished ethnic preferences in California schools, dates from 1996. You'd think there'd be at least one recent right-wing talk-radio bumper sticker on the thing, but it's all totally vintage. Now I need to find the lefty counterpart to this truck; perhaps a VW Transporter with big "EL SALVADOR IS SPANISH FOR VIETNAM" signs on the flanks in peeling, faded house paint.


Since we don't see any 307, 350, or 400 emblems on this truck, we can assume it shipped from the factory with a 250- or 292-cube inline six. Since replacement engines tend to have a revolving door into and out of the engine compartments of old Chevrolets, there's no telling what powers this truck today.