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?
I had a neighbor with a Porsche 944. It seemed everyone else drove gaudy Brougham-ized Fords and Lincolns… a casualty of growing up during the Malaise Era.
I know what you mean. These that I mentioned stood out because they were surrounded by Impalas, Olds 88s and other big ordinary 4 doors.
We lived in an apartment until I was 10, so our mostly working-class neighbors didn’t have much that was expensive or exotic. A few were memorable, though. One lady in the building had a mid 80’s LeBaron convertible, one of the angular ones from before the hidden-lamp restyle. Burgundy with white leather. A friend’s father had a black Vega Kammback, which even in the 80’s was something of a rarity. Someone in the same building owned a first-series Valiant, with what seemed like a massive grille to a kid plus those wacky fins. It lived under a car cover most of the time, but “escaped” occasionally. Another fellow a building or two away had an older Peugeot 504–I always liked the big chrome lion mascot. And one of the most interesting to me was a ’65 Bonneville coupe owned by someone in the upper part of the complex. Like the Valiant, it lived under a cover the majority of the time; unlike the Valiant, it didn’t seem mobile. Beat up but tons of character with faded baby blue paint.
I do remember a Peugeot on our street… because as a kid I couldn’t figure out the name. I asked dad what was this “Puke-gut” car.
Being born in ’77, any cool cars to me came from the ’60s or early ’70s, and rusty Michigan did most of them in. With that being said, my parents’ own driveway had my (at the time, very rusty) ’65 Mustang and my mom’s ’88 Mustang GT convertible, which was the coolest car on the street by a long shot.
A neighbor kid who was probably five years older than me had a ’66 Chevelle two-door sedan that he had painted “Heart Breaker” on the back of. The car itself was cool, even if the graffiti wasn’t. Some older neighbor girls had a beat-up, rusty framed ’66 Galaxie hardtop that they painted pink. It didn’t last long, and even as a 12-year-old, I noticed a completely missing passenger frame rail. Yikes! I remember that it had 352 badges.
An older guy in the neighborhood had a mint ’66 Galaxie hardtop in aqua and an even minter ’72 Mach 1 with a 351-2V three-speed. It was bright yellow and I lusted after that thing whenever I saw it. He had it up for sale for the princely sum of $8500, but I couldn’t afford it! It’s strange we lived in such a Ford neighborhood in a GM town.
I grew up in a working class neighborhood in the fifties and sixties and that meant Fords, and Chevies, and Plymouths, oh my. There was a Hudson Hornet at the other end of our block for a couple of years. The youthful me was always impressed with how roomy this beast seemed, and by all of the chrome on the dash. One of our next door neighbors had a Mercury with the breezeway roof and I thought that was cool. Other than that there was little of automotive interest on my street, with the exception of a couple of older guys with hot rods. One guy about four years older than me had a ’50 Chevy fastback with a 327/4 speed combo inserted in place of the stovebolt. Another guy had a ’53 Ford into which he had transplanted a 390 out of a Thunderbird. It was quick in a straight line but I’m sure it handled like a pig.
In the late 80’s/early 90’s the most interesting cars I remember seeing on our street are a 1971 Chevy Impala 4 door hardtop, a 1973-76 Ford Gran Torino Wagon and a 1975-78 Mercury Bobcat.
The two most interesting cars where I grew up were my cousin’s 1946 Plymouth that he stuffed a 354 Hemi into. I was just a snot nosed brat when he had it.
Then there was the state troopers 62 Ford that everyone but him claimed had a SOHC engine in it. I know the thing ran like a bat out of H… with it’s butt on fire. He hauled me down at 95 MPH with in 2 miles from a dead stop
A Range Rover Mk1, definitely. In exactly this color. Owned by a contractor who also had several horses; he and his family lived a few houses down the road. About 40 years ago.
Nice body roll!
Unfortunately I never had the pleasure to see the man cornering like that…
Although I’ve never seen one in person, I’ve always liked the early Range Rover Mk1.
I was born in 1957 in a working class part of Eastern England’s fen country.A few neighbours had cars I remember besides my parents.There was a battleship grey Rover with Lincoln style suicide rear doors,a 2 tone Mk1 Zephyr still in good condition for over 10 year”s old.My parents had Ford’s usually British 6 cylinder Zephyrs,a Mk1 Consul and Cortina and a pair of Falcons from the USAF base near my Grandparents.
Tony was a young rocker who was always fixing and selling bikes and cars at the end of our cul de sac,he had an American 55 Ford wagon, Pilot,various British Fords,Vauxhalls and Hillmans and a few cars from the USAF base passed through his hands.I remember seeing a turquoise flat top Impala with a 6 and 3 on a tree at his parents house.He also fixed and sold bikes usually Triumphs and BSAs.
It would be a tossup between a B5.5 VW Passat wagon formerly owned by a neighbor 2 houses down (replaced by a MK6 Jetta SW TDI after an accident), a Jaguar XJ6 (recently sold, but cataloged for a future CC article. The owner lived on a different street than me, but in the same subdivision, which is size of a block), a mint 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix GT coupé owned by a next door neighbor, a 1964 Dodge Polara max wedge owned by a chain smoking GM retiree and his wife, and a 1971-72 Chevy Chevelle/Malibu SS 454 owned by a house on a different street, but same subdivision.
Our next-door neighbours (the area was then countryside, now the outer suburbs of Vancouver) had a Gullwing Mercedes.
I think I need say no more.
Well, maybe I can say more.
At the other extreme, Mr Rose down at the corner had a yellow and white BMW Isetta.
My best friend’s father drove a Mercedes 200 Fintail and had a NSU Prinz in the garage.
Another friend’s mother drove a 1951 Ford sedan, later replaced by a 1957 Chevy sedan. Just old beaters in the early 1970s…
Here goes …
Across the street the man had a Borgward, then a Beetle, and finally a Fintail until he passed away long after I’d moved out.
Up the street our next-door neighbor sold Lloyds out of his tiny one car garage, before I can remember, but there was a decaying new LLoyd in there until I was in high school. By the mid-60’s he drove some kind of ’50’s Mopar wagon that was not memorable, but replaced that with a 2nd gen Ford van that he converted into a camper by cutting out the floor and lowering it.. He was very proud of the fact that he didn’t raise the roof like other van conversions.
Up the street from him the family had a ’53 or ’54 Chevy that always seemed dowdy to me compared to the already legendary tri-5’s, though nobody called them that then. In the early ’60’s they added a Valiant and then replaced the Chevy with a ’64 Impala, or maybe a Biscayne. That in turn got replaced by a ’72 LTD which was their first car with whitewalls, and a vinyl roof. The first brougham in our hood … Sometime in my adulthood the Valiant disappeared, though I drove it a few times, and then the LTD was replaced by a 2nd or 3rd gen Escort. None of those cars were in themselves interesting to me, but the lack of brand loyalty and then moving to 4-cylinder subcompact after decades of larger car ownership was interesting in hindsight.
Down the street, our next door neighbor usually had big flashy Chryslers, culminating in a Córdoba which ended up sitting curbside a lot in his final years.
Below him was another import family; at various times, a TR3, a Volvo 544 and an Austin America. The Austin replaced the Volvo but the TR3 outlasted them both until the late ’80’s.
Finally, before this gets too dragged out, a large family with kids my age, who had a mid ’50’s Ford wagon when they moved in, almost immediately replaced by a brand new 1st gen Tempest wagon. 4 cylinder, rope drive. They drove until they moved, replaced by a young couple with a bright orange Honda 600Z coupe. Pretty soon they had kids and bought a Datsun 510 wagon, 4 speed. My mom taught their mother-in-law who lived with them, to drive a stick … I think the younger generation had no patience.
Most memorable? Probably the Borgward, and the Fintail, followed by the 600Z. All of this in California, starting in the early ’60’s (I was born in 1956).
Growing up in the 1960s as a small boy, I always saw the same ’58 Plymouth drive by, and was always impressed with the tailfins. The neighbors on one side had a 55 or 56 black Ford which they were always working on, but I thought it was a macho car! Eneighbors on the other side kept a brown and white ’57 Chevy Belair sedan for years, and every now and then a guy in the neighborhood had an old Auburn boat tailed speedster that he drove by in, and I remember it being loud! Later in the early 70s, after we had moved, two other neighbors always had some kind of muscle car…a 65 customized Ford Falcon, a 64 Corvette ( I got to ride in that one), 68 Camaro, 65 GTO, and a 72 AMC Javelin. Where are all of those cars now???
In Florida in the 80s, a neighbor and father of a playmate had a yellow Datsun, probably the 300ZX. This was notable because on the Treasure Coast at the time, most people (all retired and born between 1900-1930) were driving Panthers, Cadillac Broughams, FWD and RWD GM C-Bodies, or Chrysler Fifth Avenues. The entire place was a mess of hood ornaments and whitewalls. Except that Datsun. It stood out.
Later on, in Connecticut in the early 90s, I remember older cars standing out; two old ladies (sisters or perhaps in hindsight they were a couple/”friends”, I never knew) lived in a house down the street and had an oxblood mid 70s Ford Gran Torino coupe. Seemed an unlikely choice, but it was their car. They never drove alone.
Another older lady with a lead foot would roar by in the morning in a grey ’79-’85 Olds Toronado with bad exhaust. My dad nicknamed her the “Little Old Lady From Pasadena” such that for a while I referred to Toronados as “Pasadenas”.
Around the corner was a small strip of commercial stores, and there, on a day to day basis, would be parked a dark green mid-70s Ford LTD sedan, of the hide-a-way headlight era.
Finally, as the 90s progressed and we moved to a nicer town and nicer neighborhood, I remember 80s cars as the new standouts; two elderly neighbors’ two Plymouth Reliants (one the original box, one the mildly facelifted ’86+), and our next door neighbors’ Dodge Colt wagon and Toyota Cressida. Also the showy neighbor who always had to have the the hottest/trendiest new car and would lease; thus his driveway contained the revamped MB in the late 90s, the PT Cruiser, the Saab convertible, the Hummer, the new Beetle, and pretty much everything else that was different and new between 1997-2003, for 6-12 months at a time. I think he has kicked the habit since.
the guy across the street had a gorgeous ’67 Eldorado in a deep metallic brown..
up the street was a ’63 Impala SS. White w/red interior. Auto. A few doors down was a ’67 GTO. And us? ’54 DeSoto with glasspacks, ’65 Corvair Spyder coupe and our ’68 GTO convertible (still have that one). We rocked a pretty cool cul de sac.
Next door one side was a Jaguar 420G and on the other side an Austin 2200 Landcrab and a Hillman Imp, and later a Mini Clubman.
Mum and Dad had a Triumph Toledo and a Chrysler 2 Litre at the same time
Some of the most interesting cars were in my own family. My oldest brother drove a ’46 De Soto when he was in high school. It had Fluid Drive and an amazing amount of chrome on the dashboard. My next older brother had three Fords at various times, a ’39 Deluxe Coupe, a ’49 standard sedan (the ex-bootlegger car) and a very nice ’59 Mainline two door. The topper was owned by one of my teachers, who lived a block away. She had a gorgeous ’59 (I think) Studebaker Hawk, deep burgundy with black leather. Sometimes she’d give me a lift to school in that Stude – fast!
I grew up in the 90s-early 00s so there were only so many memorable cars. The cars I most remember were the first next door neighbors at our second house who had a mustard yellow C3 Corvette, which I got a ride in, the house across the street which had a white 70s rubber bumper MGB and initially a white 89 Lebaron convertible(they actually traded up and up until the final Sebring Verts), a few blocks away there was a house that had two Jaguar XJSs, one ratty one and one really clean one with gold spoke BBS wheels(sadly they’re now gone and the house is badly deteriorating).
Kind of funny thinking about it now, those all seemed so cool and exotic to me at the time but it turns out I was salivating over a K car, 3 very undesirable British Leyland sports cars, and disco Vette.
We moved around a lot, but two neighborhoods in particular had more old cars than the rest. The first was in north Seattle, around 1991 – 94. Our neighbor was a great old lady from Germany who had lived on the block since the late 60’s. She was like a grandmother to me. She always had a teal green ’68 Buick Wildcat 4-dr hardtop that I think she handed down to her son, even though he lived elsewhere and the car was always parked at her house when he wasn’t driving it. For a short period of time, he tried to buy her a 1975 Chevy Impala to drive, but she didn’t like it and the Wildcat ultimately stayed for years to come. Down the street, another neighbor had a 1976 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, light gray inside and out. . .my dad almost bought that car but decided it wasn’t so practical for our family. Around the corner from that house was a light blue ’73 Impala Custom coupe with a black vinyl top. I remember riding my bike past that car on a regular basis, and being fascinated by it to the point that I briefly attempted to build a life sized replica soap box car out of wood. That quickly proved to be too big, heavy, and expensive to bother- never mind it would have required real brakes and a decent engine to move the thing down the street!
After that we moved to Edmonds for a year, and once again, there were lots of old cars in the neighborhood. One couple had a pair of brown 1975 Monte Carlos. A widower had a black 1959 Lincoln Continental sedan with the backwards slanted rear window. It was just parked in her carport, but even under a patina of dust, it was gorgeous. Yet another neighbor had a 1965 Chrysler 300, and that car was a daily driver. But I was most smitten with a dark brown 1972 Buick Electra Limited, with a tan vinyl top and interior. It was ratty from sitting outside under a cedar tree for many years, but I soooo wanted to buy that car. The parents did not approve, and it was probably for the best given the rust issues it had! Ah, good memories. . .being a kid was great when it came to cars.
Northern Virginia in the ’70s: Next-door neighbor had a Porsche 356 under a cover that he was going to fix up one day. He never did. Probably the most interesting daily driver was a Fiat X1/9 that an empty-nester couple had in their driveway. We weren’t too impressed with it as kids, since our taste in sporty cars ran more in the direction of Firebirds and Trans Ams. Another neighbor had one of the ungainly four-door Thunderbirds with the laundau irons on the roof. It was white with a black top, which didn’t flatter the already, ahem, controversial styling.
It was an older neighborhood with big lots — some were an acre or more. One of the neighbors ran a Mustang restoration business out of his home garage, and his yard was always littered with at least a half-dozen Mustangs in various states of disassembly. Another one of the bigger lots had a couple of old Jaguar Mark 2s sitting side-by-side in a yard full of unmown grass, rotting away. They disappeared when that family moved out. I remember hoping at the time that they didn’t go to the crusher.
Northern Virginia is great for car shopping. Not only is the area affluent but there a lot of genuinely intelligent, worldly, educated people around. That makes for interesting taste because there’s more to aspire to than mere status (though there’s plenty of that as well). Mid-Atlantic region remains a great place to find classic imports for sale today.
Anything on the block that was 40s era and a coupe. There were a batch of them. We had a 41 chevy coupe and I have no idea why. Possibly because my sister fell half way out of the passenger door of the sedan we had before. My favorites tended to be Fords with flathead v8s. I remember a bunch of them but one 1940 and one 49 coupe were my favorites. I have no desire for exotic machinery but you can light me up with one of these.
Where I grew up in Toronto in the 60’s and early 70s, there was the standard mix of large American cars and a few imports, many of which we’d probably love today but not remarkable at the time. Sprinkled in this mix, however, were some cars I did notice. I remember across the road a young family’s only car was a blue MGB GT. A neighbour two doors down had a Citroen DS, post-69 with the swivel lights. Three blocks away was a BRG Jensen CV8. And the piece de resistance was, in 1972, a then-new and stunning Ferrari Daytona Spider in silver. One of the Scaglietti originals, because no one was as yet chopping Daytona coupes. Driven by a darkly mysterious guy who I was told later had gone to jail for fraud…
Since my parents lived in the same house on the same street in a solidly middle class Los Angeles neighborhood, from 1948 until dad passed away in 1980 and mom in 2003, I saw a LOT of interesting neighborhood cars come and go through the decades. Of course my greatest memories are from the 50’s and 60’s, when our little 15-house cul-de-sac seemed to radiate new cars on a regular basis. At various times there was a ’58 Thunderbird, a ’67 Thunderbird, a ’60 Ford Fairlane 500, a ’53 Kaiser Manhattan, a ’54 Ford Skyliner, a ’68 Pontiac Grand Prix, a ’49 or ’50 Lincoln Cosmopolitan, a ’62 Thunderbird, a ’53 Mercury Monterey, a ’54 Plymouth Savoy, a ’62 Ford Galaxie 500 XL, a ’57 Dodge Coronet, a ’51 or ’52 Packard, a ’57 Chevrolet station wagon, a ’57 Plymouth Belvedere, and our own family’s stable of cars, early ’50’s Fords, a ’55 Oldsmobile 88, a ’58 Chevrolet Bel Air, a ’59 Ford Galaxie, a ’63 Mercury Monterey, a ’65 Lincoln Continental, and my own ’64 Pontiac LeMans and ’70 Cougar XR-7. I could go on, but you get the idea. It was a fairly close-knit neighborhood, and families stayed put for a long time, so every time a new car appeared at a neighbor’s house, seemingly everyone in the ‘hood would come out to ooh and aah, and I would be leading the pack, investigating every square inch of the new arrival. Neighbors were always out washing their cars in the front driveways on weekends, which led to much interaction and car kibitizing. A lot of fun memories of a bygone era. As the years wore on, even though I was back visiting mom frequently, I gradually lost interest in who was driving what, and as cars evolved into so much sameness through the 80’s and 90’s, it seemed as if there was nothing remarkable on the street anymore.
I almost forgot, of all the interesting 50’s and 60’s cars that inhabited our street, one in particular ALWAYS caught my attention, and it didn’t live there, but visited our next door neighbor frequently. I’ve mentioned this story before, I believe, but the sister of our neighbor often came swooping up our hill in her ’62 Eldorado Biarritz convertible, black with red leather interior. She would park it in front of our house because the cul-de-sac straightened out there (much to my everlasting delight), and it sang a siren song to me. It mesmerized me, it was a stunning vehicle, it represented the pinnacle of motordom to me, and I would always be out there looking it over. Never got to ride in it, but if I could conjure up a classic Cadillac in my own driveway now, it would be that one.
I never had that opportunity, but I could see myself in your shoes drooling over that ’62 in much the same way. One of my favorites, I’ve put together a good mental picture of your scenario.
The closest I came was my first ride in a Cadillac. The neighbors behind us had a ’62 Sedan DeVille, cream or pale yellow if you prefer, with a red interior. I was about 6 and the lady owner took my mom, sister and I ice skating Along with her kids.
My earlies memories are from about 1985. The cars in our cul de sac seemed quite mundane, but I’d like to get my hands on just about any of them now.
We had a Fiat 126, next door had a RWD Opel Ascona (it was an automatic, which was enough to make you stare in those days) and two doors along had a Vauxhall Viva HC. On the other side of us, his ‘n hers Mk2 Escorts. A Renault 4 next along. The guy across the road was obviously a Rootes man, had a newish Talbot Solara and a Hillman Imp.
Next to him was a rubber bumper MG Midget, probably quite new but even at 4 yrs old it seemed special to me, and of another era. A teacher at the end of the road had an Audi 100 which seemed very glamorous and was always shiny. My strongest memories of these cars are when the neighbourhood housewives would go out in the snow and help to push a car, shoving their doormats under the driven wheels. Our 126 never had any bother.
The people around the neighborhood I grew up in had the most boring, nothing cars imaginable. The Reeds had a 64 Fairlane sedan, the Ryans a series of Ford and Merc wagons. The Marshs, Chevy wagons. The family next to my grandparents had a white 65 Chevy Biscane, before they got radical and bought an AMC Hornet sedan.
My tribe must have been the local radicals: Studebakers, Ramblers, a 59 Plymouth with huge tailfins.
The Ryans did better in the early 70s: the father had a Mark III Continental and one of his daughters had an MGB for a bit. Sort of made up for the other daughter’s ratty Pinto.
A neighbor had a vega or monza wagon that never moved until they moved away in the mid 90s, that was probably the most interesting one I can think of.
My neighbour ( across the road from my house )restored cars..as a hobby.
he had an Austin Cambridge
A model T Ford
and a Fiat Topolino or little mouse in Wine over black.
None of these cars were ot on the road a lot..but you saw them regular.
His daily driver for the most part was a Nissan Bluebird 910 series
One of my neighbours had a Chrsyler Alpine..which he had for years and the got an Alfa 33 in burgandy colour.
I think the “poshest” car as a daily driver was an Audi 80..That was in metallic gold..Always remember that car..From 1987 the hatchback shape.
Somebody had a Renault 12 estate..which seemed to last forever..IIRC correctly he was a carpenter.
There was a policeman with a VW Beetle..Had it for years.
My best friends dad had a series of Mazda 323’s From the 3rd , Fourth and fifth generations..And they all seemed to have been sky blue.
In my day, the neighbours kept their cars a long time.
Only my next door neighbour changed his car every 3 years or so.
And always for an Opel Kadett ..saloon models only.
How did I forget???
One of the residents on the street much further down the street worked as a DJ in the National Radio station he had a Ford Capri..MK 3..It was in a sort of Rose/pink(ish) sort of colour.
Was only the 2.0 Litre model…but still.
A few streets away there was another estate and they had ALL the interesting cars.
A Mark 1 Honda Civic.. (Very rare car..Only ever saw one.in the country until my brother arrived with one and I got to drive it a bit )
Somebody had a metallic blue/greeny Audi 100 , the C1 4 door saloon.
Audis were as rare as hen’s teeth then.
A nissan Paririe MPV/people mover ( this was the 1980’s- so this was a glimpse of the future back then )
A Honda Aerodeck..with the flip up lights.( I never knew what that car was..until I read the back- And I thought I knew cars)
An unrestored Jaguar Mk 2 ( in Battleship Grey)and several Riley Elfs ( same address )
And a Fiat x/19..
Awhh..heady days..that’s a good mix of cars..I think.
I was spoiled !!!!!!!!
Our next-door neighbor in ’60s Palo Alto was an architect and car buff who always had eclectic choices in front of his house (whose old single-car garage was too full of other stuff to hold a car). The first one I can remember was the 1953-ish Morris Minor Convertible he’d had from new; this was later joined by a 1955 Buick Roadmaster that he obtained when his mom decided to give up driving.
After the Minor died or was sold, he purchased an early (’71 or ’72) Dodge Sportsman Van with the windows all ’round, useful for carrying his three kids on trips but still an unusual choice in place of a station wagon at the time. But, they had wagons too, and there they were loyal to Opel: first, a 1966 Kadett, and later two Ascona/1900 wagons (the first of these was destroyed by their teenage son in a single-car accident).
Our neighbors across the street had an early 50s Plymouth wagon, and my ever-cheap parents purchased it from them for around $100 when they put it up for sale. Sadly, it was on its last legs mechanically then — though no rust, and still nice-looking, this being California — and was soon replaced by an equally decrepit 1964 Chevelle wagon …
Given that my childhood was spent in rural Indiana in the 50’s, almost anything in our local community would be of interest today, whether it be a Henry J, a Studebaker pick-up, or the next door neighbor’s 57 Chevrolet 210. Lots of pick-ups and and garden variety Chevies and Fords.
Five cars especially stand out in my memory:
A secretary down the road from us had inherited wealth and in 55 bought an all white New Yorker two-door hardtop with A/C and power windows. She had platinum blonde hair and made for quite a sight driving down our road on a hot summer day with the windows rolled up and the Airtemp turned on.
My mother’s good friend had a new 60 Lincoln Continental four door hardtop in metallic green, also with A/C and every option. A huge car and a rare sight in that area at the time.
And there was my third grade teacher’s mint green @57 or 58 MG Magnette sedan, purchased by her late husband at SH “Wacky” Arnolt’s dealership in Warsaw, IN. You have to know the unique history of this man to understand why so many exotic cars, including his own Arnolt-Bristol sports cars, ended up in northeastern IN at the time.
Another neighbor had two Mercedes-Benz cars, a 58 190SL roadster, white with a black removable hard top and red leather upholstery and a red 61 W110 diesel sedan. Not sure where these two were serviced; I think the Studebaker dealerships in South Bend and Indianapolis that sold M-B cars also serviced them, IIRC.
Although the picture I shared earlier may lead you to believe that all cars on my street weren’t that interesting, there were some cool ones. Among those I found interesting was: a Nissan 300ZX (which I never saw leave the driveway), early-80s Saab 900, Saab 9000, 2nd-gen Acura Legend, Jaguar XJS, Audi Allroad, Toyota Corolla All-Track wagon, Land Rover Discovery, Saab 9-5 wagon. Two separate neighbors also owned vintage Triumph and Alfa convertibles.
Those All-Trac wagons were everywhere when I was a kid in upstate NY. They were quite popular in central, Ohio too, come to think of it, so I guess it’s safe to say they didn’t live as long as their FWD counterparts.
Those 2nd-gen Legends seemed quite slick, too, as were the Saab 9000s. There were so many interesting “second-tier” luxury options back then; these days, Audi’s moved into the first tier and all the others are gone or simply unremarkable.
Two cars immediately come to mind.
A black Studebaker Hawk, 1958 or so, a few doors down the street. Always kept impeccably clean, until it started rusting rather badly.
And a 1968-ish Pontiac GTO purchased new by our neighbour’s son, who was a few years older than me. I remember getting a ride in his arrest-me red GTO one morning, when he drove me to my high school.
He made sure I got there on time – what a ride!
Subscribed .
-Nate
When I lived in Enola, PA I had a neighbor with a BMW 2002 and another neighbor with an Avanti II. The guy across the street had a 1974 Charger.
When I moved to Boiling Springs, PA the car landscape became very boring. The only car of interest near me was a Chevrolet Concours, the predecessor to the Cimarron and contemporary of the Ford Versailles in that it was a tarted-up Nova that sold for a lot more money than it really warranted.
Eastern Ontario in the late ’60s – early ’70s, mostly the standard assortment of North American compacts to full sizers like pretty much everywhere else. Ones that do stand out were a very early Triumph Spitfire up on blocks – functional as I recall, just being kept off the tires while the owner was away. Next door had a black ’67 Pontiac Parisienne 2+2 convertible with red interior – very sharp. There was a Peugeot 404 owned by a family that had come from France – not sure if it was brought with them or purchased locally. A few Minis, a reverse slant window Anglia, a Fiat 850 spider, an Audax Minx – probably a later one badged as a Sunbeam. A couple of fair weather ones I got to ride in were an MG TD owned by the aunt of a first grade friend, and a ’38 Chrysler Royal rumble seat couple.
Born in 1974, first street I lived on had nothing that stuck in my memory other than dad’s ’66 Chevelle 4 door and his business partner’s BMW 2002 (in colors the reverse of each other – the Chevelle was Madeira Maroon with Fawn interior, the BMW was “diaper white” with red gut).
After an in-town move there was a neighbor who had an early ’50s one-ton Dodge truck and a Fiat 124 coupe at different times. Walk to school passed a late ’70s Lincoln Town Coupe too large for the driveway that overhung the sidewalk, a lime green Buick-Opel and a rust-free ’71-73 Chevy Vega (must’ve belonged to an out-of-state college student). Another neighbor had a big-bumper Maverick sedan, bright blue inside and out, that went from nice oldish car to rusty junker before its’ elderly owner gave up driving.
Changed schools, walk in the other direction (shorter but partly uphill so an even swap), a W124 Benz diesel that made such an incredible clatter and plume of smoke in its’ endlessly long warm-up cycle that it etched into my brain that Mercedes-Benzes were terrible junk no sane person would inflict on themselves and a firstgen Toyota Tercel sedan in bright red that had a certain modest rightness to it.
In our own driveway 🙂 ! Lessee… during the Sixties and early Seventies we had a couple of Checkers, a ’67 Saab 93 wagon with the Monte Carlo engine, a Sonnet II, an Ami6, a ’63 DS19 cabriolet, a Suzuki pickup and a Mini Brute, and a ’35 Packard. Then things started to get strange when my dad brought home a “normal” car, a ’72 Pinto… home life was never the same after that. No one else in our little part of Brook Park, Ohio could measure up to us when it came to odd cars 🙂 .
They may be “interesting” to some people. They were interesting to me because they were, uhm, they were cars!
Fiat 600, Fiat 850 Coupe, Renault Dauphine, VW Beetle, Ford Taunus 12 M, Ford Taunus 17 M, Simca 1201 Rally, Renault R 4, Opel Kadett A, NSU 1200, DKW 250 (sorry, that’s a motorcycle),
I grew up all over the Northeastern US, from Calumet City, IL to Brattleboro, VT. But I was born in Butler, PA – 36 miles north of Pittsburgh – and for much of my life, family on my dad’s side lived in and around there.
So there’s the qualifier. And anything around Pittsburgh is, and always will be, home to me.
Grandpa and Grandma built their house on Route 38 about three miles north of Butler. We lived with them for a few months in 1966. Next door at the Hartles, a family member would come to visit in a black ’64 Impala SS. He’d back down the short driveway onto PA 38 put it in first and nail the gas pedal. Across the road, the Revellis had a ’60 Dart – the full size one. Next door to the Revellis, the Hilliards’ son Lenny owned a brand new, black (not vinyl but painted black) over yellow ’66 Plymouth Belvedere II.
And yes, it had a Hemi in it.
Lenny’s theatrics, backing from his driveway onto 38, obviously dwarfed anything of which a 283-equipped Impala was capable. And LOUD…I think he’d Cherry Bombed the thing but I don’t remember.
We moved about five miles away that June, to Pine Hurst Road in another part of Center Township…next door to cousins Dick & Pat and son Ron, who was exactly one day younger than me.
His thing was ’57 Chevies, but was starting to dig ‘Vettes – who wouldn’t back in the C2 years! I’ve written elsewhere on CC about his parents’ 57 Plymouth HT, ’58 Plymouth wagon on blocks, and black ’59 Rambler. Oh, there was a ’56 Chevy 210 2-door sedan in there as a winter rat. I remember their saying they paid $30 for it. The rear quarters below the side stainless were covered in a scintillating shade of corrugated tin.
One day someone came to visit the cousins in a gorgeous Dusk Pearl ’57 BA Sport Coupe. I went outside in the February snow, sat down in front of the car and drew a picture of it.
My obsession with all things Tri-Five has continued to this day.
But the house we were renting needed major structural repair. Dad had tried to bargain with the landlord to buy the place and fix it up himself but when the deal fell thru, we moved into the trailer just vacated by Uncle Ken and Aunt Donna, who’d taken up residence in a John Mellencamp “Pink Houses” style place across the township in the then-upwardly-mobile Northvue development.
Said trailer was located next to Grandpa’s and Grandma’s place on PA 38.
It was the Spring of 1968, and while the rest of the world was going to hell in a handbasket, Lenny was now on his THIRD engine – a 383 – in that Belvedere, which was now starting to look a little shabby. Can’t imagine how much $$$ he had in the car, but I know he’d killed the Hemi AND a 440 prior to the 383, not to mention a number of various and sundry drivetrain parts. He’d put on his obligatory screeching tires show backing onto 38, and then return a little while later on foot.
“What happened Lenny?”
“Aw I blew the rear end out of it.”
The Hartles’ son next door still had the black ’64 SS Impala but as I recall, now had a young child…so he was much more careful than he’d used to be. The front of his parents’ house was no longer the starting line at Raceway Park.
There were a couple rides I’d left out of this narrative…the Johnsons on the other side of my grandparents owned a light-colored metallic ’66 BelAir wagon.
Beside Grandpa’s garage was a non-running “48” Dodge 1/2-ton pickup that I’d learned years later was actually a ’47 titled after the model year changeover. I loved to play in that thing…
And Uncle Ken had what some of you might consider the most interesting car of the bunch: a ’64 Tempest 2-door sedan with a 326-stick. As I recall, it spent a lot of time in Grandpa’s freshly-built garage that summer, rebuilding the engine. While Ken didn’t resort to peelouts like Lenny – Aunt Donna wouldn’t put up with that, he still had a lead foot.
And sometime that summer, our mailman bought a brand new red ’68 Impala Convertible with a white interior. Always got a kick out of him driving from the middle of the bench seat so he could reach the mailboxes at right. And yeah, he put the top down when he could, which was pretty often that summer.
Late that fall my dad was transferred to Niagara Falls, Canada. I’d soon immerse myself in a world of Parisiennes, Meteors and Mercury pickups. Uncle Ken’s Tempest would give way to a stick-shift ’64 Nova wagon that my parents would come to own when we moved to Vermont in 1970.
After I posted my comment, the site reloaded and I saw yours. DUDE- the street I described below was in Butler, PA, on Institute Hill. Wow- small world.
Chas 108, don’t know what the next comments may bring but I think you win the internet.
Western PA, circa 1974- ’70 Pontiac Catalina Sedan (green); 1968 Buick Skylark Custom 2-door Hardtop (brown with black vinyl roof); 1970 Challenger R/T SE (burnt orange); 1969 Dodge Charger SE (brown); 1973 Vega Hatchback (yellow); 1973 Delta 88 Royale Convertible (maroon w/white interior). 1973 Impala 4 door hardtop (brown).
Seeing the occasional Model T Ford being used by a rural family was a big deal when I was a little kid. It wasn’t usually a show car either, just an incredibly dilapidated pickup. Early covered headlight E-type Jaguars or XK-Es, as they were known at the time, were cool sightings even though most of them were just sitting around waiting for rust to finish them off. Porsche 356s were all over UVA’s campus, also soon to be claimed by rust, but actually in use during the ’70s. My dentist had an Avanti II and an early-’60s T-bird. A neighbor had the most amazing 911-based replica of the Alfa-Romeo Carabo. GTOs were around, and most were pretty nice. Kennedy Lincolns were still in use by some, or laid up in driveways and yards by others. One neighbor had a ’58 Corvette, and another had a ’65. Willys Jeeps were cool. Anything from the ’50s would have gotten me excited, but rust had wiped them all out in Virginia.
Hi Jim, I saw just the title on my aggregator page and immediately thought “Avanti!”. Clicked through to the article and bang there it is!
I was in grade school when it came out, and somebody in our neighborhood got one. I can still see it parked there, all radical curves and no grille! Nothing else could touch it. Still a vivid childhood memory.
A neighbor across the street had a Bugeye Sprite. He sold that and got a ’61-’62 Corvette. His next door neighbor had a E04A Anglia that didn’t come out of the garage much. My dad raced HO slot cars and some of the guys in the group would come over with interesting cars. One had a 63 Avanti exactly like the one pictured in the article. Another had a 63 1/2 Galaxie 500 that was white with a red interior. Another had a 66 Imperial Crown Coupe with a built 440. This was all in the late 80’s – early 90’s.
We moved into my long term childhood home in fall 1969 and I had just turned 5. Imprinted in my mind somewhere over the next several months or so is the starting line up of 83rd Street:
1966 Oldsmobile 88
1970 Plymouth Fury
1965 Mercury Monterey Breezeway Sedan
1962 Buick LeSabre Sedan, 1964 Buick LeSabre Wagon
1968 Chevrolet Impala (my family)
1957 Chevy Bel-Air, 1961 Chevy Impala, 1967 Chevy Impala, 1970 Camaro Z-28
1964 Mecury Comet Wagon
1965 Ford Country Squire
1966 Oldsmobile 98, 1970 Oldsmobile 98
1967 Pontiac Bonneville Coupe, VW Bug
1968 Buick LeSabre
1962 Studebaker Lark, 1968 Chevy Impala Custom Coupe
1964 Chevrolet Impala, VW Bug
1964 Chevrolet Impala
1962 Ford Galaxie 500
Most of the pre 1966 cars on this list turned over within the next 12-24 months. But, it’s an interesting snapshot of a middle class street in Omaha approximately January 1, 1970.
Most interesting? Probably the big coupes, the Breezeway, the Camaro and the Comet which was a red woody wagon. The ’57 Bel-Air was a non op sedan, soon sold to make way for a 1970 Impala hardtop.
How sick is it that I can remember this 44 years later?
Not sick at all… look what I just posted beneath you–I can remember all my neighbor’s cars from ~1988ish. When you love cars, it starts young. And because of all the exposure you get, it’s possibly one of the most easily cultivated hobbies; I’d say cycling and a love of computers start just as young. All the other stuff, you have to put more effort into learning (musical virtuosity, genuine athletic skill or political savvy, for instance), but you can passively observe cars and just fall in love.
what part of 83rd street? I grew up in the part between the crossroads and the westroads, near peony park and the little league baseball diamonds
Keystone area, just a bit North of you.
Amazing
My favorite places back then were “Happy Joe’s” in Harold’s square and “WC Fields” a little further north. There was a Putt-Putt on maple street, the YMCA, and a Skateland skating rink nearby. Back then there was a lot of vacant land near the little league baseball diamonds where everyone went to ride minibikes and dirtbikes. Corkies VW salvage was on the corner of 72nd and Maple. A Goodrich Dairy was on Cass near Peony Park, and the drive-in movie theater was right there between Cass and Dodge, plus a regular movie theater in the basement of the Westroads(or was it the Crossroads, I forget, the two blur together for me). Youngtown and Polly’s shoe store were in the Crossroads.
And of course there was “cruising Dodge” on friday and saturday nights between 90th and 72nd and in the hottest part of the summer time they did it every night of the week. My dad actually used to ask to go with me to cruise Dodge when I was in highschool. Sometimes I agreed. Once I got in a drag race with him in my car! My uncle lived in the fancy high-rise apartments on 90th and Dodge…called Lion’s Head…or Embassy Towers…or something. He kept his Jag in our garage and his T-bird in his own garage.
I’m thinking about moving back soon.
I was the kid who went around asking all his neighbors about their cars, and Brendan’s post earlier today is bringing back soooo many memories (thank you, Brendan!).
With ~25 years’ hindsight, the coolest car on the block might almost have been my dad’s ’84 5000S turbo. What we sorta saw as a highly depreciated lemon full of electronic gadgets has become one of the coolest cars I’ve had the pleasure of becoming familiar with. It had that distinctive shape, with very nice details like the pin-guide glass, along with a very stark functional interior design and it sounded like nothing else on the road.
A neighbor had a Subaru XT, which was rare, but more kitschy than interesting. And with the unrefined mechanicals of pre-Legacy Subarus, I can comfortably call it awful. Still, it was distinctive.
Another neighbor has a ’65-ish LeSabre two-door hardtop in sea foam metallic. At the time, it just struck me as a dated antique and I viewed my neighbor’s ’85 Somerset Regal with more interest. I was a foolish kid of about 5-ish years of age; that car had a lot of presence and was in simply unbelievable shape for Plattsburgh, New York, with zero rust (cars up there, at that time, had holes by 5 years of age if they weren’t galvanized). I’d say the big Buick was possibly the coolest car parked nearby. It’s definitely cooler than the C3 ‘Vette another neighbor had.
The car I loved the most was my neighbor’s daughter’s ’86 Prelude Si; it was like my mom’s Accord but with more of everything. It replaced her prior car, a ’79 RX7, which is in running with my dad’s Audi for the coolest contemporary car.
Her parents drove E30s, one black 325e two-door and one red 325i four door (which replaced a 190E 2.3 that I found cooler at the time; I’d rather take the Bimmer these days).
Down the way, another neighbor had a pair of Saab 900s; one n/a four-door in red, another turbo three-door in black. Those neighbors had no kids and spoke to no one, so for the longest time I associated Saabs with cold people. The neighbors in Xmas Vacation didn’t help that image.
A car which struck me as cool also was a neighbor’s ’86 Maxima wagon, complete with Bitching Betty and push-button entry. Compared to the RX7, Audi 5000 turbo and ’65 LeSabre, I’d have to rank it a bit lower on the cool meter, but it has a certain charm.
A perpetually drunk neighbor had a series of GM personal luxury coupes, starting with a tomato soup-colored ’83-ish Toronado which was replaced by a “deadly sin” ’86 Eldorado in white. I actually found it rather tasteful and contemporary compared to the other big Detroit boats in the neighborhood, which included two Olds 98s from the early ’80s and an already-mothballed Dodge St. Regis (whose clear headlight doors and sheer-look-with-frameless-glass style intrigued me).
Another neighbor had an ’82 Sentra wagon which I really liked–I could always distinguish it by its gear whine–and which he kept forever, while his wife replaced her ’85 Golf (which seemed so much more boring than another neighbor’s diesel Rabbit) with a stripper ’88-ish Camry (back when those cars were less common). Neither of these three cars could be called distinctive or interesting, but as a lowest-common denominator for what passed as an average car, they–along with that Maxima wagon–really show how much diversity is missing from today’s mainstream car market.
I never even realized the sheer extent of the diversity on the block where I lived as a kid. These days, most of these would be replaced by C and D segment sedans and compact crossovers. There’s definitely less variety in today’s marketplace. So let’s see: a ’79 RX7, an ’84 5000S turbo, a ’65 LeSabre, a C3 ‘Vette, an ’83 Toronado, an ’86 Maxima wagon, a Dodge St. Regis, two Olds Ninety-Eights, two Saab 900s, an Eagle Premier, two E30 Bimmers, a W201 Benz, a Subaru XT, a ’86 Prelude Si, and I’m not even done. That’s some variety!! Which would you guys rank as the coolest?
I’d have to agree with you and say its a tossup between the Rx-7 and your dad’s 5000 Turbo.
I like the Subaru XT, but I have bad taste, so…
The rich kid up the street had a new Plymouth Superbird in High School. It could have been the Dodge version–I was pretty young at the time.
His daddy loved him, I guess.
Not a Superbird but I went to community college with a guy whose father was the local Plymouth dealer, at least for awhile. Jimbo had a Roadrunner with the 383 and a 4 speed. One day as several us were leaving campus he pulled out on the highway leading back to town. I could hear the 383 wind up and shift to 2nd gear. Jimbo kept his foot in it but, when he went for 3rd he found 1st instead. The 383 screamed for a second or two and then blew up in a huge way; he was fortunate that he didn’t end up in the ditch or hit someone else. I’m sure that Chrysler’s warranty paid for a new motor but when next seen Jimbo was driving a different Roadrunner, one with an automatic.
In the early 70s I lived in future CC land. Our next door neighbor had a 69 Grand Prix, the two across the street neighbors had a VW Squareback I rode in and a 50s Pontiac 2 door wagon that I never rode in although I did ride in the Torino wagon that replaced it. A neighbor up the street had a Corvair Monza convertible I also rode in and our own driveway housed a Mercedes 250S and a BMW 2000 plus a nearby neighbor had a Rover 3500s. There was also a Datsun 240Z and a Datsun 2000 Fairlady way up the street. Our next house was less interesting, although our neighbors had a friend with a Citroen DS21 Chapron convertible and there was a Bradley GT kit car a few blocks away.
One car that stands out in mid-60s Levittown NY was a blue late 50’s Citroën DS. Everyone in the neighborhood called the owner “the communist” because, well, he drove a Citroën.
Our neighborhood in the ’50’s and ’60’s had the usual assortment of Fords, Chevys, Olds, and Dodge sedans and wagons. Nothing too exciting. A lady in a club my mom belonged to used to pick her up in a bright red ’40 Chevy street rod, although they didn’t call them in those days. Well, that car disappeared decades ago and then about 5 years ago, there it was at our local car show. I don’t live in the old town anymore but where I live now is not that far. I spoke with the owner and his wife. They were the same folks who had owned it back then. As a retirement project he had restored it to it’s former hot rod glory. I didn’t know them when I was a kid but now have them for friends. I told them that their car was the first hot rod I had ever seen except in magazines.
The rarest car in our neighborhood was a 1960 Edsel Ranger two door from down the street. I have always liked those.
I’m trying to take my mind’s eye back to my neighborhood in the early 1990’s. I turned 5 in 1990.
Certainly interesting to my VW fanatic self was the pristine silver 4-door Rabbit across the street. I remember riding in it once and it had perfect blue interior. Of course, thinking back it was an 81-84 and it was the early 90’s so I guess that wasn’t super uncommon. There was the orange 1974 Beetle three houses down that of course caught my eye every day. The house beside the Rabbit had a ’63 split rear window Corvette that would come out of the garage from time to time. Next door had a ’66 Rambler out back that would be driven every so often. Toward the end of the street was a light blue ’67 Mustang coupe with a white vinyl top. It was later in my high school parking lot, driven by a kid two years older than me.
Other than that it was mostly cars that were ubiquitous at the time but would be CC material today. flip up headight Accords, late 80s-early 90s GM stuff, a red Grand Am comes to mind, 1st gen Tauruses or Taurui?
Even our household only had one car that would have been considered interesting back then, my dad’s ’66 Galaxie. My mom’s ’84 Escort and my dad’s fox body Stang were commonplace as was his ’78 F150. By the late 90s our yard was a mix of vintage Ford and VW iron.
From the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties, I grew up in a small 40-house neighborhood. The car that stands out the most was a 51 Jag XK-120. It sat in a carport covered in dust with flat tires for many years. The man who owned it traveled constantly and wouldn’t sell it. He had two identical giant yellow 60’s Plymouth Furys blocking it in. They were also non-running.
I also remember my father’s 65 Austin-Healey 3000, my brother’s MGB, my 73 Bronco, and the neighbors cars, some of which were a TR6, a Citroen DS, a 74 Challenger, a 240Z, a VW Beetle converted to a pickup, a Bradley GT VW kit car, a Scout, a Travelall, a corvair, a 79 RX-7, a giant 76 Lincoln Continental, a 59 turquoise Impala named “Ol’ Becky,” a 63 Ford Falcoln that was washed religiously, a new 79 Accord hatchback with a 5-speed, a VW Bus camper, 2 front wheel drive GM motor homes parked in the same junky front yard, a BMW 2002, a BMW 320i, and many huge malaise era American wagons and sedans.
Maybe it was just me, but back then cars seemed to be more important to people. When a neighbor bought a new car, it was an event. I haven’t noticed a neighbor buying a new car in at least 20 years. I just don’t pay attention any more, but neither does anyone else.
Actually, my family had some of the more interesting cars…(in my neighborhood)
1974 Mazda RX4 wagon
1975 AMC Matador
1938 Dodge panel truck
Various Triumph TR4s
1976 MGB
1971 International Travelall, and MANY others.
But my grandpa took the prize for interesting wrecks in his Oregon field:
1959 Ford Anglia
1964 Riley 1.5
1965 Mercedes 190
and some other stuff I can’t remember. Exposure to these cars was very educational!