Ever since I left the US in July 2014 when my visa could not be renewed, I still had the America bug and I had been hankering to go back. I’d always wanted to do a road trip vacation, and when Brandon told me he had never been to the West Coast, it was settled. I planned out a two week vacation, starting and ending in Los Angeles. I was expecting to see some Curbside Classics seeing as it was California, but I was surprised by the sheer volume of interesting cars.
The trip started in Los Angeles, and during my first day in LA I probably spotted more Curbside Classics than I would have in a month of living in NYC. Sadly, a lot of those cars remained unphotographed including, frustratingly, the first three 1986-91 Cadillac Sevilles I’d ever seen, and have been eager to write up. Other misses included a mint condition Ford Elite that teasingly drove past me twice, a Chevrolet Celebrity Eurosport, a colonnade Chevrolet Chevelle, and a Ford Maverick. I did spot this neat first-generation Plymouth Barracuda near where we stayed in Hollywood, though.
LA is littered with Accords and Camrys, as I expected, but I was surprised by the sheer volume of Camaros, Mustangs and Challengers everywhere! Speaking of Camaros, I spotted this all-original first-generation right next to Griffith Park Observatory.
I’m curious as to what engine lies under the hood. Is it a humble six-cylinder? It was refreshing to see a first-generation F-Body still being used as a daily driver.
Seinfeld fans will appreciate this Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country convertible I spotted in Hollywood.
photo courtesy of LA Tourist
I didn’t think to get a photo, but these tour vans caught my eye. They are all just Express and E-Series vans with sheetmetal hacked out. I can’t imagine how much worse they are to drive. Incidentally, the Hollywood Walk of Fame is like LA’s Times Square (albeit less busy). You go there once to see it, and you don’t bother going back.
On the topic of things that are dirty, how about this local business? You have to admire the entrepreneurial mind that conceived this idea. This van was parked across the street from another van bearing the logo of another local business, Vagina Guitars. It must be a family name.
Did somebody let Lindsay Lohan drive again?
I wasn’t expecting to love Los Angeles, but I enjoyed myself so thoroughly that I want to go back and explore the city more. I spotted this 1967-69 Ford Thunderbird around Venice Beach…
…and this Porsche 356 on the very same block! There was also a 1973-75 Oldsmobile Cutlass nearby that I neglected to photograph. I have a sneaking suspicion Venice is full of even more treasures. Nice area, too.
No trip to LA would be complete without a visit to Disneyland, in Anaheim. Space Mountain is still my favourite ride, but the Cars ride in Disney’s California Adventure was a lot of fun and has a whole section resembling the movie’s Radiator Springs.
The neon lights everywhere were gorgeous! The ride itself was a lot of fun, too, as you hoon around in a car and then race other park visitors.
Elsewhere in the park, I spotted this classic car. Can anyone identify it?
Here’s the rear.
After a couple of days, we took our Malibu and headed north along the scenic Pacific Coast Highway. As I’m a few months shy of my 25th birthday, I couldn’t partake in the PCH cliché of renting a Mustang convertible. Every second car along the highway is a Mustang convertible. As you near San Francisco, the multitude of rental Mustangs and Malibus become Camaros and Chrysler 200s. I missed an early W-Body Cutlass Supreme convertible, from the ear before they got the squinty front and ugly cladding. I also decided it wasn’t worth crashing my car driving 55mph to take a photo of a 1988-89 Mercury Tracer. Oh, and here is the obligatory photo of Big Sur.
We stayed for a night in Morro Bay, where I saw this 1995-99 Buick Riviera. Surprisingly, this was not the only Riviera of that era I saw on our trip. I’ve never warmed to the styling of these; they look like a cross between a Beluga whale and a cigar.
I’ve always loved the look of these Saleen Mustangs, especially considering a lot of tuning-house cars tend to come out looking so gaudy.
I can think of worse ways to enjoy a beautiful morning by the beach than sitting in the leather-lined cabin of a Lincoln Mark VIII.
As we were leaving Morro Bay, I spotted this in a car park near the gas station where we were refueling. A Chevrolet Corvair wagon? It’s looking worse for wear, but it still looks good after all these years. Surprisingly, it wouldn’t be the last Corvair I would see on the trip.
A must-see stop along the Pacific Coast Highway is the magnificent Hearst Castle, in San Simeon. Media magnate William Randolph Hearst employed pioneering female architect Julia Morgan to design an elaborate estate on his family’s old land. Inside it is full of beautiful antique furniture, including 14th century ceilings imported from Europe. The pools are also architectural marvels.
Our next stop was San Francisco. As expected, the City by the Bay is full of Tesla Model S, and every block seems to have some kind of 1960s-1980s Mercedes-Benz. Interestingly, the city is also full of Infiniti J30s. I spotted several in Los Angeles as well. I’ve always been amused by how space inefficient these were. Despite their midsize dimensions, the EPA classified them as a subcompact based on the interior and trunk measurements!
Speaking of droopy sedans from the 1990s, I spotted this Ford Taurus SHO. The lack of a stick shift is a downer, but this is still one of my favorite American cars of the 1990s.
Meanwhile, the stretched and tweaked and decorated K-Car derivatives are some of my least favorite 1990s American cars. I’ve heard these later New Yorkers be referred to as “Virginia Slims” cars because Iacocca never bothered to make the platform wider. The K-Car may have saved Chrysler’s hide and made Iacocca a media darling, but like Henry Ford, Lido stuck around far too long and lost his touch. These lame duck sedans are proof.
This neat Chevrolet Celebrity caught my eye in the Marina District, but I couldn’t stop to take more photos…
…nor could I more thoroughly examine this Cadillac Seville. These temptresses kept appearing when I had no way of snapping decent pictures, and I’ve wanted to write about them for ages. This one would be from 1988-90, as it has the 4.5 V8.
This Chevrolet Lumina APV was nearby, looking quite smart. I realise that GM missed the point with the Dustbuster minivans, chasing style at the expense of practicality – after all, they were scarcely roomier than a short-wheelbase Caravan, and had an awkwardly large dash – but they just look so cool. Your mileage may vary; you’re probably noticing I’m a bit of a GM tragic.
Of course, I saw El Caminos in Los Angeles (duh!), but the first one I photographed was here on the Golden Gate Bridge. These don’t catch my eye as much as other cars of the era because I live near a gentleman who imported a 1978 El Camino, and I see it around on occasion. Interestingly, this generation and the 1964-1972 models have been preserved in the highest numbers. Where are all the 1973-77 models?
I found this amusing: a Chrysler 200 in Desoto Cab Company livery. Seems appropriate now that Chrysler has dropped its upmarket pretensions, although the 200 is an odd choice for a cab given its merely adequate interior dimensions.
This Acura Legend I spotted in a parking garage was in mint condition. While these are nice, they look far too close to a contemporary Accord for my liking. The second generation was more desirable.
While in San Francisco, we went to Twin Peaks, explored Cow Hollow, walked the Golden Gate Bridge and drove along the Embarcadero. Of course, one must always visit the Painted Ladies, also known as “the houses from Full House”. While driving to them, I spotted this beautiful Chevrolet Nova that looked like it just rolled off the showroom floor.
Speaking of Cow Hollow, this hilariously named neighborhood is beautiful, upscale and uphill from the Marina District. Here is an MG Midget I spotted there, done up in traffic-cone orange.
I spotted this post-1988 Buick Century in the Mission District. I hadn’t seen these wheels on a Century before, but coupled with the rich navy blue paint they make this A-Body look smart. I also am a sucker for big Buick taillights, but I am not a fan of how long GM kept the A-Bodies around.
The personal luxury coupe market may have been dying by the 1990s, but I saw plenty of MN-12 Thunderbirds during the trip. Most were from the later years, but here is an earlier example of the 1989 Motor Trend COTY that earned program head Anthony Kuchta a brutal dressing down from CEO Red Poling for being overweight. It’s just big boned.
San Francisco was the furthest north we drove, but we didn’t just return to Los Angeles. Let’s end this article with two beige Cadillacs. I believe this is an ’87-88 Coupe deVille.
When The Boss wrote the song made so popular by Natalie Cole, I guess “Beige Cadillac” wasn’t catchy enough for his liking.
You can see how much more substantial this 1991-92 Fleetwood looks, after Cadillac visually overhauled their DeVille/Fleetwood for 1989. The 1985 GM C-Body may have been a marvel of packaging, but they didn’t have much visual presence.
Tell me, though: Why has beige been such an enduring favorite color? And this is coming from someone who likes brown cars! Beige just always reminds me of orthopedic shoes and hearing aids.
I spotted plenty of Curbside Classics in LA and San Francisco, but the next stops on our journey would yield even more automotive delights as we headed into the desert. Fortunately, we had our Malibu, a more reliable choice than a horse with no name.
Very nice collection! I really should take a trip out to the west coast again just to see the cars and stock up my photo files of cars!
We now know where all the J-30s went: San Francisco!
If you come out to Santa Monica, you’ll find the streets filled with CCs, many of them still in use as daily drivers. I can walk out the front door any day and find a feast of automotive history around here. One of great bonuses of living in SoCal and its benign climate. Saw this beauty out and about on Christmas Day.
Ahhh, the memories. In the early 80s the Navy transferred me to a base in northern California and with relatives in LA I tried to drive the PCH a few times as a means to travel down to see them. After the first one or two attempts I realized the trip would take much longer than I planned and I wound up diverting to a speedier route.
I would return to California a few times in the late 80s and early 90s but then landslides made travel on the PCH difficult.
As far as the cars….California is a car lover’s nirvana. In the 80s one of my aunts in LA had a 70s Nova in near mint condition while her SIL across town had a late 50s / early 60s VW bug. Both aunts are still “with us” but the cars have passed through to newer owners.
BTW, about the El Caminos, the 73-77 generation all seemed to “migrate” to Texas. When I was transferred to central Texas after California I noticed a lot of 70s E-Cs in that area. A co-worker had one that resembled an ice cream sandwich: brown top and bottom with a cream colored middle. If you really want to “spot” a rare car/truck it will be a Dodge Rampage/Plymouth Scamp….the small Chrysler Corp version of the E-C. (Sort of a Dodge Omni “ute”.) I don’t remember seeing many of these in California or Texas in the 80s and they are much rarer now….as are their sedan and coupe counterparts.
I often wonder what people in places like California (or Western Australia, where I regularly saw people driving to work in 60s cars) think about some of the photos on the cohort.
I mean, some of us in rustier places see a mundane late 90s fleetmobile and think “wow, haven’t seen one of those for years!”.
These are regular sights here, but I still get a lot of pleasure from seeing the pictures knitted together with a visitor’s knowledgeable and well-written perspective. Plus, though I’ve contributed a few pictures to Cohort, I am often slow on the draw when cars are actually driving; for example, the gorgeous 4 door propellor-nose Studebaker that drove past when I was walking home yesterday. Not an everyday occurrence here, though I had seen a couple of Stude pickups in the past month.
I’d guess the low line Packard coupe is about a 37. Thanks for the tour. In an ideal world I would follow in your tracks driving a restored Continental MkII in midnight blue with cream leather and would make room in the trunk for that beautiful 356.
We shall see if this comes to pass…
Cool collection of pictures! Seems like a great trip you had there. Particularly like the Corvair and the Camaro.
Los Angeles, yeah, maybe not a place one expects to love but it has something attractive that’s hard to determine (besides the weather).
Nice finds. I’ll take the 356 and the El Camino thanks.
No trip on PCH is complete without a stop at Paradise Cove in Malibu. Soaking in the ambiance that was Rockford’s home, reliving all of the classic car chases from the late 70s.
Great pics and future stories from the LA to SF trip. I’ve always enjoyed the cars out there.
Great selection; can I have the first generation Camaro please?
The Corvair Wagon was a two year only and called ” Lakewood ” . if you could keep an old air cooled VW going , Corvairs were nice , IMO .
I often say to people : ” L.A. has more cars than Detroit ever did ” .
Yes , living here is a Gear Head’s dream but it’s too dang expen$ive (and I live in The Ghetto) plus all those oddball folks who gravitate out here to become rich & famous even though they’re stupid or morally corrupt .
I’ve done that same drive in many different oldies , mostly older air cooled VW’s .
As I grew up Down East I’ll never get tired of seeing all the wonderful old cars still driving ’round daily but I get pissed off seeing what I consider good vintage vehicles in the junkyards….
Glad you enjoyed your trip , come back soon ~ America has many fine places to take Auto Trips .
-Nate
Gosh, I’d love to do that trip in the 356. However the old VW will have to do, although I think I’d like to make my way out to Seattle, pick Mrs DougD up at the airport, make our way down to San Diego…
Nice shots.
Very nice! Some really good pics
I’m jealous! Looks like fun. And I’m impressed you were able to make yourself notice ’80s-’90s cars that still look like wallpaper to me.
I hope someday to live where old car season is all year round.
73ImpCapn
The Great Southwest! Lots of single digit humidity, push a car out into the
field and ten years later you just have to buff the paint a bit.
Here is your dream trip: El Paso, TX to San Diego, CA. Every kind of car
nut is out here, on any given day you will see, well, EVERYTHING.
Tiny little towns with 150 people that own a dozen cars from the past 80
years.
Lots of old RVs too. Lots of Old Farts (I am chairman).
If they ask you Red or Green always say Green.
Nah, you want to start in Amarillo, TX. Home of The Big Texan (best steak I ever had, and the original “if you eat this 72oz steak in an hour, it’s free”), and take I-40 which is parallel to Route 66 in many places.
Works for me, gentlemen, thanks!
Staying off the Interstates is a good way to see old cars in the Southwest.
If they ask Red or Green, say Christmas style (that’s both).
A most excellent tour! The PCH is indeed a beautiful drive. I have done it south between LA and San Diego, but never north. Maybe someday.
My last trip there was before i started writing for CC – my oh my, the pictures I would have taken. I remember that there was nothing so common there as old Mustangs and VWs. But the best were in the little seaside towns along the PCH that surfer-dudes were still using as regular transport.
That 356 is just how I like them.
You covered some of the same stretches we did last year, and yes, the absurd number of Mustang convertibles was amazing. I guess driving this stretch has become a must-do for many tourists. I remember it when it was a dead little stretch of road with a few locals and hippies.
In Maui, the roads are also littered with Mustang Convertibles, all with a Hertz or Avis bar code inventory sticker on one of the windows.
I wonder if the locals snap them up at the Hawaii car auctions, of if the rental companies ship them back to the mainland to keep the small Hawaii market from depressing resale values.
Lots of great finds there but my favorite by far is that ’68 T-bird. People are hard on that gen but I’ll tell you what. I saw a killer ’63 at a car show recently and spoke to the owner. It was a fully restored car done right where it all looked original.
Anyway he let me sit in it and what a let down. The seats were tiny and you sat on the floor. I kinda get that on a Mustang but T-birds were way bigger and I expected more comfort. The 67-69 looks like it had plenty of room inside and normal seats.
It’s too bad we had that heat wave in CA a couple of weeks ago. It wiped out all of the wild poppy flowers you would have seen driving up 101. Look forward to more pics.
I especially love a road trip in a vintage vehicle. Here is a picture of the car my husband and I drove in to attend the Maine Lobster Festival last summer.
There are not a whole lot of Mavericks left .
We had a whole fleet of the 1974 models @ LAX because they got a whale of a deal on them , all 6 Bangers with A/C in mustard yellow .
I’m not a Ford Man but they were pretty good cars IMO .
-Nate
“The Hollywood Walk of Fame is like LA’s Times Square (albeit less busy). You go there once to see it, and you don’t bother going back.”
You’re exactly right, unless you live in the LA area. Locals visit the Walk of Fame every time friends visit from out of town.
That Camaro at the Griffith Observatory… I remember seeing a piece on it and the owner on the local news some years back. The owner, an employee of the Observatory, bought it new and his driven it every day since. Bone stock, six, three on the tree.
Here’s a bit about the Camaro and its owner, the Observatory’s Director. A very high mileage car:
http://abc7.com/archive/9433180/
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/oct/30/entertainment/et-krupp30
Very nearly perfect timing! Tomorrow, April 1st, will be the thirty-seventh (37th) anniversary of buying my ’57 Austin-Healey from Austin-Healey West, in San Francisco. They were then located at 187 Shipley St., the little alley behind Folsom, between 3rd & 4th streets. They later took over a former trade-shcool premises at 875 Folsom, during the time I worked for them around 1979-1980.
Before getting the Healey, I made many trips up & down Hwy1/PCH in my MGBs. I took the Healey down PCH to Monterrey in August ’78 with the guy I bought it from, Ray Caivano, to see the historics at Laguna Seca that year, and lots of other trips up & down the coast.
From “home base” in SF, frequent trips to Santa-Cruz & up around Jenner were always a treat in the Healey. Oh sure, sometimes you’d get stuck behind a Kombi microbus (struggling to reach 25mph up some of the passes…) but most times back then, the road wasn’t too overcrowded.
It’s been almost thirty-two (<32) years since I've been back out there, I think I'm a bit overdue for a roadtrip myself!
That was a good read, sparking lots of old memories; looking forward to more stories from your travels!
Brings back memories, we spent 3/4 of a day driving around LA before heading west ahead of afternoon rush hour. The things that struck me in LA was the old dually Toyota pickups and the trucks etc parking in a special lane in the middle of the road for deliveries. Must go back some day.
I personally have driven most of Highway 1, from Dana Point at the southern terminus to Santa Cruz, and from Albion to Leggett at the northern terminus. I’m hoping to fill in the gap from Santa Cruz to Albion (with SF and the Golden Gate included) sometime soon.
The drive from Santa Cruz to Big Sur is what made me decide to move from Pennsylvania to California. Those of you who’ve never been out here don’t know what you’re missing; I’ll never move back east!
Driving the PCH at some point is very high on my list of “vacations I’d like to take if I had about two weeks and significant funds”. I’ve never been to CA at all but that seems like the perfect way to experience it.
Lots of nice finds too! That 356 is quite something to spot parked curbside. As to the El Caminos, I think the 73-77 generation suffers from being seen as less desirable than the generations on either side. The 68-72 cars share that iconic A-body front sheetmetal with the muscle car legend Chevelle SS, and the 78-88 models are about the same size as the 68-72 with the sharply creased, clean style of that generation Malibu. The 73-77 models, on the other hand, are quite large, sharing a platform with the porky colonnade “midsize” cars, plus they have that somewhat baroque mid 70’s styling. It’s a love it or hate it proposition and I think fewer people fall into the “love” camp!
Having owned a Mark VIII, I agree with your comment there as well. That cabin was a very nice place to spend time, and that view overlooking the water would make it near perfect!
Been a long time since I visited my old stomping grounds, Got too expensive, was too hot and too over populated for me. Was fun to see recent photos and Southern California has no CC shortage, for sure. Won’t move back, but in the day there were plenty of good times. Nice read.
Most car guys know this, I suppose, but not being from LA, I didn’t; but seeing the movie many times on TCM, your picture of the Griffith observatory looked familiar and it is the place James Dean got his Mercury’s front tire slashed in Rebel without a cause. After looking it up, I was surprised how many movies the observatory was in; including that great ’53 classic “The phantom from space:-)” Who knew.
I really can see myself in a MN12 Thunderbird.
So Cal is always a good place to catch old cars going about their business and The PCH is scenic, in particular Santa Barbara and San Luis Obisbo (with the weird and wacky Madonna Inn) but it gets more crowded with every year.
I like LA but hate the Hollywood walk of fame, crammed with pudgy tourists, actors in ill fitting marvel comic outfits and hawkers selling tours, maps to the stars etc.
But the family wanted to go and I didn’t want to be a killjoy so……and why anyone would pay money to be paraded about in a butchered E350 or Express van is beyond me.
some great cars, the Camaro especially so.
and the Packard , Barracuda , 67 Thunderbird…..
The car next to the Corvair Wagon not sure what it is, Chrysler product ?
what the hell happened to the paint , sun damage ?
even in sunny Australia you dont see damage like that,
in the southern states anyway.
The car next to the Corvair wagon is indeed a Chrysler product; it’s a first-generation Dodge or Plymouth Neon. (The two were pretty much identical save for badging).
That paint looks like it’s partly a rattle-can or primer job, though sun damage may have been what originally caused that and the surface rust on the roof.
On my way to work this morning , a guy in a cherry ’47 Chevy Fast Back Sedan passed me , looked at my scruffy old Nash Met. , tooted and drove on…..
Living the life here .
-Nate
I didn’t mean to hide all the other cars built before 1975 roaming around San Francisco and Oakland from you…..
Glad you got to look around Morro Bay. I lived there a couple of years when I was attending college a few decades ago. There was a guy who had a yard full of Javelins and an AMX parked out front. Another guy drove around town in a very clapped-out Ranchero dressed like a painting contractor, even though he reportedly owned two or three motels. My neighbor bought an old Dodge Tradesman van with seashells glued everywhere but the windows — he said he got a great deal on it. Those small coastal towns seem to attract more than their share of quirky people.