Earlier today, Brendan Saur shared a picture of some of the cars on his street when he was but a tot. Which made me think, do we car-crazed people who hang around here ever forget the cars on the streets where we grew up? I know I haven’t.
The cars in the neighborhood where I was raised were somewhat older than those around the home of five-year-old Brendan. But I remember them vividly. I was born in 1959 and lived in a middle class subdivision that was about my age. Most neighbors bought their cars new, and an Oldsmobile or Buick was mostly as extravagant as anyone got. I won’t go into a house-by-house list (although I could) but will share a few of the most interesting. First was the red 1964 Studebaker Avanti that my best friend Tim’s dad bought new and kept until long after I had moved away. The hot one with the supercharged R-2 engine and the four speed stick, it is a car I have never forgotten.
Tim’s mom later got a hot red ’72 AMC Javelin AMX with gold hood stripes, bucket seats and a 360. The ’72 Javelin was not all that common as it was, but the tricked-out AMX was much more of a rarity than I understood at the time.
I also had Pontiac GTOs coming at me from both sides of my house, and can count a 1965, ’66, ’68 and ’71 models, all of which I rode in. The navy blue ’65 was owned by an indulged kid, but the others were owned by a buddy’s mother. Of the four, the ’71 was the only automatic.
Finally, there was the elderly couple a block behind us who liked their Imperials, which they always bought used. At different times, they had a 1964, a ’67 and a ’72, any one of which I would love today.
So, howabout you? What were the most interesting cars on the street where you grew up?
Oh and this! A green Hudson like this sat across the street in Levittown. Sitting amongst the airy early 60s Impalas and Galaxies this thing just spooked us kids. We said it was haunted and would cross the street so to avoid it.
The venetian blinds in the rear window bring back memories. I had totally forgot about those. Used to see those in cars all the way up to about 1970 vintage cars if I remember correctly. Usually rural people by that time though.
I’m 18, so the cool cars that are on my street are there right now.
The first is an early fifth-gen Mustang, driven daily by a middle-aged lady at the opposite end of my block.
Next is a 1985-87 El Camino, surrounded by various modern trucks and a 1988-ish Lesabre owned by the household son (whom I believe is in college).
Across the street from that house is a guy with a light gold BMW E36 coupe, a ratty third-gen Corvette that is kept with lights popped up, and the recent addition of a 1983-1987 Grand Marquis two-door.
Next door to this person is a man with a first-gen Miata that is taken out on sunny days.
At the other end of the street, surrounded by various late model Japanese cars, is a Panther Marauder. For the longest time, this house also had an early Panther and a G-body Malibu, but they disappeared around the time of Cash for Clunkers.
Finally, around the corner is an older gentleman who owns an heating oil business that inherited several classic cars a few years back: a 1952-1953 Cadillac convertible, a Model A truck, a 1955 Chevy, what I believe is a very early Suburban, and a Jaguar XJS that he bought much more recently.
Oh, and in my household there’s a 2015 Pilot driven by my mom and the only Saturn Astra (a 2008, driven by my dad) that I’ve ever seen.
The Pilot is a lot more common that I want it to be, considering how much I don’t like it. Chief among my personal issues is the terrible visibility (there’s no height adjustment, and no matter how the seat is moved the rearview mirror blocks the right half of the windshield), and the breaks don’t feel like they’re actually attached to anything, and indeed are almost completely unresponsive unless you stomp the pedal. Also, the cargo area is awful unless the seats are folded down; this does not happen often, because there are seven people living in my house.
The Astra is the better car, in my opinion, but it’s got its own issues. Build quality is spotty (as apparent by the air leak at speed and the failure of all the electronics on one of the doors), it has very little power, what power it has is cut in half when the Check Engine light comes on (a frequent and random occurrence, which my dad has spent too much trying to make go away; eventually he gave up and he drives it as-is), fixing its issues and general maintenance is relatively expensive because of its European design and parts (in spite of sharing the platform of the Cobalt and HHR), and even then fuel economy is only about 28 MPG for a compact car geared for economy (that I have had shift into 4th gear at 30 MPH).
It does have its upsides, though. It’s a fun car to drive, in spite of its lack of power; it’s extraordinarily maneuverable. Visibility is pretty good for a modern car, although having 4wd and various other high cars shine their lights through the back window gets old. It’s got a good trunk size, although the hatch isn’t the best shape. It’s also a good car to teach how to drive with, as it’s the car I learned to drive in. It’s a genuine European car, with all of the positives that entails.
It’s also the car due to be replaced next, as my dad wants to get an Audi and give the Astra to me for college. Unfortunately, the maintenance and overall running costs for this one are a big of a dealbreaker for me. In spite of the power issues, if it was cheaper to run, I would go for it; however, this one’s not cheap enough for a college kid. I recommend this car overall, though, as objectively speaking it’s a quality car; however, this particular Astra has turned out to be a lemon, and honestly my viewpoint is a bit jaded from listening to my dad complain about it for the past six years.
Sorry about the rant, I just needed to get that off my chest.
A Marauder, another older Panther and a G-body Malibu? Sounds like that person has similar taste in cars to me, as I’ve owned all of the above. Though my ownership of the Marauder did not overlap with either other Panther (’91 and ’97 Crown Vics).
Growing up in the south part of the Netherlands, there were very few interesting cars around, however, our neigbours across the street had this parked in front of their house (exact colour and wheels):
Our own car when I was growing up, again, exact colour and wheels as seen in the picture, plus a towing hitch (and a licence plate that read 58-SG-29), was a 1977 Opel Ascona. My father blew the head gasket in ’92 when I was 8 years old, and it went to the junkyard with less then 90.000 km’s on the odometer. I still remenber it being loaded upon a trailer in front of our house… Missed it ever since.
I’ll arbitrarily limit my memories to before August 1956, when I got my first car. We had waterfront on a small lake that was still far enough out in the country that it hadn’t gone upscale yet. At the time Pop still had the 1950 Packard sedan that he’d bought new and driven home from the factory. A 1919 Cadillac that had been cut down from a hearse to a flatbed truck sat for a long time in Pop’s equipment yard. I don’t remember it ever moving under its own power. Mrs. Pavlich had a green and yellow 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air 4-door with full power including the front windows. Her son who lived with her for a few months after he got out of the service had a maroon 1941 Ford coupe with California license plates, which I got after he bought Washington plates for it. The Joneses were pioneers in that they used a dark blue 1948 Chevrolet pickup as their main driver. They also had a 1940 Studebaker sedan that I didn’t see move very often. The Shiremans had a 1938 Oldsmobile sedan which had the knobby little taillights stuck on at the belt line like afterthoughts. Mr. Davis had a black VW bug that he used for everything, including pulling skinny second-growth fir logs to his yard from his lot down the road to cut up for fireplace wood. A guy whose name I can’t remember had, for a short time, a 1939 Lincoln Zephyr convertible sedan in black on tan leather, a gorgeous car in which I bummed a ride to the school-bus stop one fine morning. The only other car I remember now is Bill Holstin’s green 1953 Oldsmobile 88 sedan – I still have the license plate from it.
I was born in 1953. Our own cars were a 1941 Chevy Master Deluxe Town Coupe and a 1947 Cadillac Fleetwood. The next-door neighbor had a 1940s Nash. Next door on the other side was a green 1949 Cadillac convertible. Across the street was a 1956 Buick Century two-door hardtop; when it started up and started to move, it sounded different from other cars because of the Dynaflow transmission. A block away, I could see a house up the hill where a 1958 Ford Fairlane 500 four-door sedan resided. I would sometimes see a 1950-ish Mercury down the street, and every once in a while an Edsel station wagon would trundle down the street. Another neighbor had a 1940-something Dodge with its extra brake light.
When the next-door neighbors to the west built a couple of rental duplexes on their property, a woman moved in with her 1959 bare-bones Ford two-door sedan with a six. There was also a guy with a 1962 Grand Prix.
The parents of one of my grade-school classmates had a 1959 Ford Country Squire; someone else in my class came from a family with a 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood. If I walked home a slightly different way, I could see a 1953 Kaiser. Another way took me past a 1957 Mercury Monterey two-door hardtop–if I looked in, I could see the power window switches.
These are just the ones I remember. There were lots more.
A few oddities come to mind. The first was the Eagle Limited sedan driven by my pharmacist’s wife. It was two-tone white and brown and it had brown leather interior. She drove that car for years. I remember asking her how she liked it and she said it was the best car she had ever owned.
The second is the bare bones black 2-door 1978 Oldsmobile 98 that our next door neighbor special ordered. It was an LS model, not even the Regency, and it was stripped. He didn’t want a vinyl top, and he basically ordered it with NO options at all. I remember him telling me it came with a 2-way power seat and he didn’t even want that. He was very cheap!!!!!
Most of the strange cars in our neighborhood were in our driveway (Studebakers, Lloyd, DKW, ’59 VW Westphalia, Citroen, lots of SAABs and Subarus) But the neighbors south of us had a Borgward Isabella. The neighbors north of us had a first year VW Dasher which became known as the “Smasher” as it was embroiled in a series of mostly minor fender benders. Was finally totaled when a tree fell on it.
when I was 12 years old there was a single guy that lived down the road from my family ,that had a shiny new red 1968 or 69 Oldsmobile 442.
And this same guy parked this 442 in front of the 12 ft wide mobile home that he was living in at the time. Talk about having your priority’s strait! .
I worked at a heat treating shop in the 80s that had 2 Supercharged Avantis in a storage room off the main plant. Just sitting there. Just wanted to share that because of the Avanti pic
The family next door had a 1978 Lincoln Continental Town Car and a Buick Century wagon, colonnade vintage, both in a dark emerald green. Then he traded in the Conti for a copper 280ZX Turbo. As their three girls turned 16, they got a white 1980 Camaro (base model), a metallic blue ’84 Subaru GLF (the two-door hardtop), and a red ’88 Celica ST.
The family two doors down always had a pair of Lincolns: a Continental and a Mark V, then a Town Car and a Mark VI. When their daughter turned 16, she got a black Tracer two-door hatch.
As a boy, I found the mid-life crisis cars in my neighborhood amusing — the 280ZX Turbo and two 280ZX 2+2s in copper, gold, and champagne. My father, ever the contrarian, got a gold 1980 Firebird Formula, sans T-tops. Which he promptly gave to my mother…
Wow, JP, I almost think you grew up on the same street I did! A nasty neighbor had a gold Avanti. I think he cared more about the car than he did his kids, he would definitely be considered an abuser today. A young guy who ended up killing himself later on had a green GTO, pretty much identical to the one pictured. There was a Javelin, too, a green one, but it was sadly just a 6cyl. My dad had the Imperial, a bronze ’68, with a hopped up 440 in it. There were a lot of women driving VW Beetles, and one old lawyer guy had a gullwing MB, along with a ’70 Hemi Cuda that he sold for almost nothing just before the prices on them went insane. If only I had known, I could have had it…
When I was a little kid, in the early 70s, it was mostly Oldsmobiles and Buicks. In the mid-70s, W114/115 Mercedes started popping up, along with a few Cadillacs. A neighbor who had been buying a new Corvette every couple of years suddenly got a Porsche 928, which blew my mind. Then Pete Rose, the baseball player, got a Porsche 930 and his then-wife drove a Rolls Royce. Then the guy next to the 928 owner got a gray market BMW 745i. A teenager up the street had a SAAB 99EMS in a smoky silver color. Several men in the subdivision had Triumph TR3s as toys, Dr. Fischer had a Jaguar XKE, navy blue with magnolia leather. Dr. Shahbabian bought a pair of W126 Mercedes sedans and parked them in his circle drive. On a strange note, the people next door had a turbodiesel Continental, and a diesel Seville, both two tone maroon, at the same time. Dunno what the heck they were thinking. Then there was the guy who collected Studebaker pick up trucks, all dark green with red wheels. He also had a candy apple red Avanti…the list goes on and on.
I overlooked the folks on my block…Porsche 924 with some sort of cosmetic package that made it look like a 924 turbo…big flat wheels, rectangular cooling openings in the front valance above the bumper, etc, but normally aspirated. The guy next to them got a BMW 320i, the guy next to them had an enormous Olds Toronado with wrap around back glass. Across the street, matching 79-85 Eldorados, one yellow, the other silver. There was one family who had horses, and they had the only SUV…maroon Jeep Grand Wagoneer.
I live in a Slovak village (cca 2000 residents), and there aren’t many interesting cars around here. People here are mostly driving 10-15 year old Peugeot, Citroen, Fiat or the cleverest enjoy ride in German or Japanese cars with better reliability. New cars aren’t too common, and when so, it’s probably low-cost hatchback.
And my street? Let me take a quick look: our ’08 Ford C-Max, mechanic’s Škoda Octavia and welder’s Ford Fusion (not your US mid-size sedan, but something like supermini MPV-SUV-hatchback crossover, retiree’s favorite here) say mostly everything about our street’s cars – boredom.
The most interesting choose (from villager’s view) is Mercedes M-Class, with 6 liter diesel, owned by a former owner of a garage drugstore, now some kind of contractor.
I hope, that in the bright future somebody will own more interesting. I’m afraid that I will be that first person
I was a kid during the 60’s and 70’s in Burlington, Vt…my Dad probably had one of the more unusual cars in that he had a ’68 Renault R10, which replaced a ’59 VW Beetle, which was totaled by the son of a wealthy man who lived at the end of the street, I remember I was a friend of their youngest son, one older son had an XKE, and the other some sort of Mercedes (which was rare enough to me that I didn’t know at the time what kind of car it was). At this point we became a 2 car family, as my Mother had the station wagon (1965 Oldsmobile F85). I walked to school (actually twice a day, as we went home for lunch) and as the walk was about a mile each way, the bulk on North Avenue, as busy a road as there is in the North end of Burlington, I got to see quite a few cars on my way back and forth. My best friend’s family had a Mercury Comet (probably a ’63) and a ’68 Park Lane Wagon. Up the street lived a co-worker with my father, who had grown kids, and used to take me ice skating on North street, they had a ’66 Dodge Coronet…near them were an old retired couple who had a Lincoln Continental…I remember a ’68 Dodge Monaco with the big triangular taillights with made a big impression on me, and a ’66 Pontiac Executive. The family across the street had a son about my age, and owned a very rusty ’61 Ford Wagon, which you could see the road through parts of the rear of the wagon by the time I lived there. Not in my neighborhood, but I remember seeing a Citroen DS and wondering what the heck it was, it was so different looking than other cars.
We moved to Virginia in between (actually lived in Vermont twice). The next door neighbor had a Fiat 850 plus the requisite Ford Wagon his wife drove. Across the street the family had I think a couple of International Scouts. One of my Father’s co-workers on the street had one of the early electric Sebring-Vangard Citicars, and another had a first generation Honda Civic. I walked to school part of the time, but by the time I was in High School I was taking the bus (no, didn’t own a car until I was about to start college)…I had to take my driver’s license test twice, since we moved within a year of my first obtaining one in Virginia, back up to Vermont..By then I was driving at least part of a leg during long family trips.
I grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in Wichita Kansas during the 80s and 90s. Being Midwest minivan land we had a surprising number of interesting cars. I remember an old Alfa GTV coupe around the corner (red, I think late 70s) that I thought came from Mars. I also remember a green MG rubber bumpered sports car (Midget I think) one way down the street and a white Fiat/Bertone X 1/9 the other way. Oh and the my neighbors next door had a cool old Rabbit convertable, black on black. Plenty of old American cars too, some guy had a beautiful early 70s Monte Carlo that he’d added fat tired to and what sounded like a bigger engine (pretty sure it wasn’t an SS.) He was probably in his early twenties and always wore a wife beater with a backwards baseball cap and I thought he was the coolest. My neighbors also had one of those 80s Toyota vans that I use to ride to school in every day (we car pooled.) It seemed exotic to me cause it had rear vents (a/c was very important in the summer) which my Moms Aerostar did not have. What else? Someone on the next block at one point had a Saab 96 which looked like a shoe and sounded like a garbage truck idling. And the old couple on the other side of me had a two tone grey Ford Ltd Crown Vic and a grey early 80s Dodge Aries which were so boring that they almost became exotic by default. Everyone else had a van or truck and then later SUVs.
I grew up in a scruffy neighborhood in Anchorage, Alaska called Thunderbird Terrace. It’s the ’70’s, so there’s so much that I can’t remember it all. I’ll tell you what I remember.
’70 Superbird
’59 Caddy (pink, of course.)
’73 Comet sedan
’73 Mach 1
’73 Z/28
An Austin Marina
A guy who was always working on his ’63 Impala SS convertible… It was prone to not starting and always seemed to have at least 2 flat tires. Oh, and lace paint.
Almost got hit by a brown ’72 Torino wagon riding my bike across the street.
…As for us, we stepped up our game from a ’62 Monterey to a ’71 Chevelle Coupe 350 and a ’69 Ford F-250.