I’ve had a long running series of Eugene streetside Outtakes titled “Suddenly It’s 19xx”, based on the oldest car in the shot. When I ran across this shot posted at the Cohort by Actually Mike, I was pretty damn impressed, thinking it was a recent shot. I could see the possibility of encountering this in Eugene, although it would be a stretch. And then I looked at the caption and it says “5th Ave NE 1989” (Seattle). OK; so this really is 1998. And there’s another shot of this same street, but with one significant difference:
I can’t really explain why there’s a tall clown with the Vega now; maybe ActuallyMike can.
1998 was only fifteen years ago; wish I’d started shooting cars earlier. When we moved here in 1993, Oregon was just emerging from a very bitter and drawn out recession that lasted almost the whole decade of the eighties, and the cars were mostly really old. It was a huge contrast from the Bay Area. I should have started CC twenty years ago. And invented the internet.
If only the B210 were the coveted Honey Bee.
Honey Bee was only available in the notchback 2-door.
Ah, I see the Vega has beclowned itself.
Again.
Looks more like 1988 the entire street is cluttered with 70s cars with exception of the 83/84 Century.
…and the third-gen Accord and early nineties Toyota pickup… but yes, I agree, I thought it was 1988 as well at first glance.
it looks ecactly like my 1977 b210(same color)that i bought in 1999 from an old man in salem.5 speed&ran great till gas tank started leaking&i could not find a tank(new or used),sold it to my cousin&he ended up finding a 85 sentra hatchback gastank,after doing alot of work he finally had it fit.still running in beaverton.nice pictures.
I would not admit ever owning a B210. Better we just keep this between us. Errors of our youth.
If Paul had invented the internet before Al Gore maybe he could have been VP as well.
Niedermeyer in 2016
I’m not a native-born American 🙁 It’s the same (and only) obstacle Arnold and I faced in getting to the White House.
How about Ed?
More like someone’s Karl Rove. Behind the scenes; skullduggery and such.
Ed Stembridge?
Pauls son
Oh. That Ed.
Two Eds are better than one…
You are getting as bad as I am. 🙂
1997 I bought a 120y Dustbin as a runabout on a trip to Tasmania in pale yellow and no it wasnt a lemon during a 6 week working stint in the Huon Valley that little shitbox clocked up 5000kms of touring and hardly missed a beat it was slow on hills it rattled on rough gravel forrestry roads at speed and was a crash start in frost in the mornings but it always got there and back. I had a new 120Y rental in 78 that could hit 100mph indicated so while 210s and 120ys are a horrid little shitbox to look at and rust like mad I had a good run from one picked at random coz it was cheap.
Interestingly, I don’t know that the office of VP – “not worth a bucket of warm spit,” as the saying goes – has the natural-born citizen requirement.
It would have to, as the holder of the office must be legally able (natural born citizen) to take over the presidency.
Ah, the Datsun B210… my dad owned one in the mid-1990s, named Datsun Sunny. A sporty little car, fecal brown metallic, later repainted light gray. It came from France with a spare engine in the trunk ) He still has a lot of good memories of it, while I barely remember that car. Haven’t seen one since !
In New England, everything except for possibly the Accord (and even then, only possibly) would have been long gone by 1998 due to rust.
That Century is a very rare 1984 Olympic Edition. They were always Limiteds, white with tan interior. I believe they had the Olympic symbols on the headrests too. Of the few I have ever seen all have had the alloy wheels with gold accents and luggage racks. I’ve tried to find production #’s for them but I haven’t been successful. Cool picture BTW!!!
My wife and I were in Los Angeles in 1984 for LACon II, the World Science Fiction Convention. I had one of those Olympic Editions as my rental car for the week. The first instance of how the Buick Century snuck into my life for about the next decade and a half.
Pontiac did a similar badge package for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, less special than the Century, which did have special gold wheels and trim, these were more like .50 gold colored olympic badges stuck on the fender, we used to call them “special olympic” editions around the dealership…..
There were a number of Red and White 1976 Pontiac LeMans Sports built in Oshawa with Olympic logos, commemorating Montreal that year.
The Buick Olympic Edition and the Vega were both mine. The Buick was very plush inside, and I loved it, but I really didn’t have it very long. I got it second-hand, and the previous owner wasn’t very keen on maintenance, The motor gave out on me after I had the car just a little over a year!
With the transverse-mounted V-6 and air conditioning, it wasn’t the easiest car to work on. I had to buy a special tool to get at the spark plugs on the firewall-facing side of the engine. When I pulled them all out, I discovered that the hardest-to-get-at plug had apparently never even been looked at before; it was worn down to a nub, and was a different brand than the other five plugs! Like I said, the previous owner didn’t take care of it at all. The first thing I did when I got the car was change the oil. It was blacker than black; I think it had turned back into crude oil!
I managed to dig up a picture of the rear of the Buick, which I have posted to the cohort. If memory serves, it did indeed have the Olympic symbols on the headrests. About the only “brougham” extra that car didn’t have was a vinyl top, which was perfectly okay with me.
I just added it to the post.
I’m digging the Dutch Colonial in the background. There are so many cool homes in the pictures that come from up north, DFW is full of nondescript tract homes and McMansions, it’s a rather boring place for architecture. For the most part anyway.
I was pretty happy when I found these old pics the other day. The clown in the second shot is actually me (pun intended). I made my living as a clown for a few years, doing company picnics, promotional events and of course, birthday parties. The Vega and the 1984 Olympic edition were both mine, The Vega was my clown car, and the the Buick was my everyday car. The Buick got pressed into service as backup clown car from time to time, due to its very excellent air conditioning, but as Mr.Klown, I tried to use the Vega as much as possible, for reasons that are probably obvious.
Back then, I had two cars, and no garage. I didn’t even have a driveway! When it came time to change the oil on one of my cars, I’d park it so that the passenger-side tires were up on the curb. It was much better than using a jack. However, the owner of the B210 in the background had me beat in that department. With the B210 parked in almost the exact same spot, he did an engine swap by parking the donor car facing it. I wish I could have witnessed the whole engine-swap process, but I was elsewhere for most of it.
Somehow I’m think of the Mouse VW driven by the clown in John Hughes Uncle Buck.
The second picture made me think of the “Dream of the 90s” skit from Portlandia, the part where Fred Armisen says something like: “Remember the 90s when you could grow up to become a clown? People went to clown school!!!” and Carrie replies with “God, I gave up clowning years ago!”
This is a super sweet street scene, I’d be proud to own any one of these fine vehicles. The block they’re parked on is lovely too.
Carrie and I have that in common! I love that show, BTW.
I find that pretty amazing that in 1998 in the Pacific Northwest you could actually still see a Datsun B210 and a mid-1970s Vega in daily use on the street. Here in PA, the streets were cleaned of relics like that a decade earlier.
Also, that Vega brings back major memories for me. My grandfather had that exact car in 1976. Same orange color too. I learned to change spark plugs on that car at age 6. Actually, we usually just cleaned them…
Yeah, cars last a long time here in the Northwest. Cars go out of style long before they wear out or rust away! When I sold that Vega in 2002, it just had small amount of surface rust in the rear window area. It had about 140,000 miles on it at the time, and only needed maybe a half a quart between oil changes. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still running. Too bad you can’t look a car that old up via Carfax. I’d love to know if it was still on the road.
WHat the hell is with the backwards parked cars in all the photos around here?
Well, although that stretch of 5th Avenue Northeast is technically a two-way street, most of the traffic is southbound, which is why you see cars parked facing the wrong way. I lived on that street for several years and never got a ticket for being parked in the wrong direction.
The Olympic Century is awesome. Any pics of that? Those weren’t sold in Canada in 1984. We got Winter Olympic stickers on all GM products in 1988. A CC Classic article on the Olympic series cars would be fabulous.
I was able to dig out a picture of the rear of the Buick, which I just posted to the cohort. I wish I had more, but I don’t!
It was actually called the Buick Century Olympia. I do not have production figures it was an RPO so hard to track. There were a fair amount of them around but of course that was nearly 30 years ago.
Buick went big on the LA Olympics for 1984, all official cars were Buicks, GMC was the official truck, there even was a specially modified Riviera convertible used escort the torch cross-country, it was donated to the LA County Museum, its in the basement.
http://reynolds1915.blogspot.com/2012/07/fast-friday-buick-carries-olympic-torch.html
Is that an old Land Cruiser down the street? I’ll take that one.
I love the alloys from the Century Olympia, which is also a cool name (thanks CraigInNC, I always thought it was just a Buick Century with some kinda “special” Olympics decor package).
I found one of these on CarDomain years ago, the guy who has it swapped the original 3.0l CCC V6 out for a fuel-injected 3.8l turbo – and kept the exterior bone stock. He has some other amazing A-bodies as well, including a 4.3l diesel powered Century 2-door…
http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2948544/1984-buick-century/