Welcome to Down On The Street, where we admire old vehicles found parked on the streets of the Island That Rust Forgot: Alameda, California. The island has several old Suburbans still racking up the miles; we've seen this '63 GMC Carryall and today we'll be looking at an equally weathered '65 Chevy. This truck parks about a half-block from the '65 Thunderbird and just around the corner from the '87 Mercedes-Benz 560SL, with at least a dozen Alameda DOTS cars living within a couple blocks.
Sometimes you need to do a little Field Expedient Engineering to keep your doors shut, once you've turned over the odometer a few times. This truck has plenty of harmless surface rust, with every indication being that it's still about as solid as it was when LBJ was president (though the interior was a lot nicer back then).
Why did this truck's original buyer decide to go with The General's two-door rather than International Harvester's four-door, in spite of the Chevy costing nearly 20% more? Well, the Chevy could be had with the good ol' reliable 230 or 292 six, and the two-door just looks sportier. Still, with the passage of a decade or four, the IHC looks pretty good as well. Which would you have bought?