As I mentioned in Part 1, this is my second time posting about the Concours d’Lemons show. Self described as “The Oil Stain of the Car Week” it had a slightly different feel than the last few times I’d attended. It’s getting more popular, and there were a few cars there that really didn’t fit in. For this post, I’ll try not to repeat cars I showed last time, but I’ll also include quite a few pictures of cars I saw on the street or in parking lots outside the Lemons show itself. In fact, one of the highlights of Car Week for me are the sightings of interesting cars, often juxtaposed against other equally interesting but very different cars, or just cheek by jowl with the ordinary cars that fill our streets daily.
The lead picture is somewhat representative of the cars at the show. The Tercel is a modest car, ignored by collectors (but not here at CC), though this example is perhaps a bit too nice. And note what’s parked Curbside beyond the Tercel. Not in this show, just grabbed an empty parking spot. That’s an example of what one sees all over the Monterey area during this week.
The 1987 Mazda B2200 pick up is a rolling time capsule, original with just 35000 miles on it. Now, admittedly these trucks are still daily sights here, working for a living with gardeners and house painters, but it fit in well here. But the restomod LS-powered Toyota FJ40 should have just stayed home. At least, that’s my opinion.
Similarly, this Kellison was too perfect. But at least it’s weird enough to fit the Lemons ethos. The Kellison was a fiberglass-bodied kit car sold from the fifties until about 1970. Judging by the size of this one, I think it may be Corvette based, but smaller versions used Bugeye Sprite and even VW platforms. Paul spotted one here, though some body details look different between the two.
Somehow I felt the Ferrari 458 fit in better than the LS-power Cruiser. It had Kansas plates and the owner had driven it to California. I learned later that the owner is a YouTube celebrity named Tyler Hoover who creates the “Hoovie’s Garage” channel. I watch way too much YouTube but have bypassed that one. Apparently it had been wrecked at some time, rebuilt and carried a salvage title. It made a nice contrast with the Fiat 500; both were on display in the “Needlessly Complex Italian Car” section of the show. The Fiat won the class.
This was an example of another kind of car one sees at this show. It’s a Nissan Leaf, repowered by a Kawasaki motorcycle engine. The ZX next to it is another kind of “Lemon”, a Japanese car from the broughamy pre-Lexus and Acura era.
The driver of this Mercury, a Marquis not a Monterey, showing off its verdant flanks and snow white roof (and wheels), must have spotted the Porsche and figured he was in the wrong place. So he tried to back out, only to be blocked by a TransAm.
Now THIS Firebird is a true Lemon: Period correct (and for a period about ten years after it was new), well used but quite roadworthy.
Another Mercury, this one assembled at the San Jose (aka Milpitas) Ford plant just one county north of Monterey. This 1975 Bobcat Runabout Villager was PERFECT – better than new. The owner, a mechanical engineer in the colorful shirt, was probably not even born when it was new. We chatted a bit. It’s one of several Bobcats and Pinto’s that he owns. He’s had this one over ten years and has been restoring it for some time … and he admitted that the panel fit and upholstery quality is better than anything that the Ford plant would have turned out in the late Seventies. He showed me the precise alignment of the plaid pattern in the perfectly re-upholstered front seats, compared to the (mis)alignment of the pattern in the original rears. Jim Klein, this guy might want that Pinto shell you just featured as a Junkyard Classic. I wonder if he reads CC.
Time to go visit France in “The Unmitigated Gaul” section of the show. A DS21, complete with Star Wars paraphernalia (?), a nice R16 and a 505. Plus more.
For sale. For a not totally unreasonable price. And not too far from my house. The owner was reducing the size of his fleet, and decided that he’d keep only one Citroen, a Traction Avant. This is a 1978 AK Dyane, or Acadienne (a French play on words like DS/Deesse). Registered and titled here as a 1970 2CV to avoid smog inspections required on post-1975 cars. 602 cc, 4 speed, inboard disk front brakes. Very appealing …
This BMW 502 looked pretty sad, like it had been sitting in a German barn with hungry rats munching on the interior for a few decades. I like patina as much as the next guy but this was too far gone. But what do I know, because the Concours judges voted it “Worst in Show”. In case it’s not clear, that’s the top prize.
Crossing the Channel now to England. Here are a three-wheeled (Reliant) and four-wheeled (Mini Marcos) duo.
And a six-wheeled British vehicle also. Between the Mini Marcos and the six-wheeled was another four-wheeled British car, which I had seen and photographed at the Little Car show a few days earlier.
It’s a Berkeley, a car I loved as a kid, from pictures in British car books, as it shared its name with my home town. The original 3 cylinder two stroke engine has been replaced here by a Honda VFR800 motorcycle V4.
A few more Lemons, before we move outside the show grounds to highlight some other around-town sightings.
An upside down Camaro grafted ont0 a fully drivable Ford Festiva base. Yes, the “tops” of the Camaro fenders do clear the ground and there’s a rolling chassis under there. It’s raced in 24 Hours of Lemons events so it is fully qualified to be here:
A nice Hudson; the Avanti behind it didn’t do anything for me.
Donna Reed’s Edsel. I have heard of Donna Reed but I am too young or just the wrong demographic to know anything about her. So the signage was helpful.
A couple of GM trucks. One a lot more common than the other.
And a couple of Mopars. This was not the only Ghostbusters themed car I saw in Monterey. There had a been a similarly decked out Mini wagon at the Little Car Show. Sorry, I don’t get it. Almost as foreign to me as Donna Reed, both the original and the remake.
I’ll finish the Lemons show with this pairing, both with AMC genes. And then we’ll walk around town a bit. Note that in the interest of geographic accuracy, the Little Car Show was actually in Pacific Grove, and today’s post was all photographed in Seaside. These towns are on the coastal side of Monterey County and straddle the city of Monterey. 
Parked just across the street. Not my favorite Ferrari, but at least the driver of this 308 GT4 was willing to squeeze it into a Curbside spot. Car Week may be the only time when Ferrari’s outnumber Tesla’s in Monterey.
This guy was looking for more protected parking. I’m pretty sure that’s a Chevy 250 six in this roadster; what a great alternative to an SBC or even a Flathead V8.
As I mentioned earlier, the juxtaposition of cars makes for great photo’s. The picture says it all here. Two iconic sedans.
Two sporting Fords.
A pair of Corvettes.
Ignore the background and it’s 1970 again.
Or 1960. And there’s another air-cooled car hiding behind the 356.
A Franklin. The white Mercedes ML in the background kept photobombing my pictures of air-cooled cars. Those tires – yuck.
But the Corvair was very nice, even with slightly non-period-correct wheels.
Are whitewalls coming back? I hope not – at least not on 35 profile tires.
More pairings – will the Mazda Tribute be attracting attention at a car show in 2080?
Both of these cars are featuring oversized add-ons. Since this is the first, and quite possibly the last, Nissan Rasheen I’ll ever see, I don’t know if that grill guard is OEM or aftermarket. This reminds me that while I was thrilled to see all these cars, and I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at them too, this is probably all in an hour’s sightings for Tatra87 in Tokyo. But I’m not sure he’s seen one of these.
It’s been mentioned in comments here on CC, but never featured. This is a Brazilian VW, Type 145TC, supposedly designed by Giugiaro as a successor to the Karmann Ghia. Sold only in Latin America, almost 20,000 were built from 1972 to 1975.
I’ll close out with one more group shot – an AutoZam convention. The fourth gullwing car in the background, a DeLorean, is modestly keeping its doors tucked in. Next year these AZ-1’s should be eligible for the Little Car Show, as they are getting close to being 25 years old. Thanks for tagging along. If any Bay Area CC’ers are interested in a field trip next year, let me know.
Lots of good stuff here and a delightful amount of variety. Looking in the background of your photos shows the variety extends indefinitely.
I will be the sole proponent of the big Marquis, saying it looks divine, although I would have to paint the wheels black and get different wheel covers.
If you’ve never seen Hoovie’s Garage, you are just as well. While not bad, he intentionally makes some really dumb moves on purchasing cars. I don’t quite get the appeal.
That looks like a fun event!
I just had a conversation the other day with a contractor who came to my house to do a job, saw my 245, and then wanted to talk about cars (well geeze, don’t mind if I do 🙂 ). He was all enthusiastic about a mid-80s B2200 that he had found and purchased with just around 40K miles on it and how it was in excellent shape. His intent had originally been to use it for work, but he decided it was too nice. And he had a point because out here in the Northeast, those little trucks have all but vanished due to rust and heavy use. But it looked (he showed me a ton of pictures) just like the one in your photos.
I saw a detailed writeup on that Leaf on another site, it’s not exactly *re*powered, it’s alternately powered – the original drivetrain is still intact.
The builder’s done a huge amount of engineering to get it to work but is still working out the software to get it to launch well. Ideally the instant EV torque would get things off the line and drop away to extend range as the peaky motorcycle engine takes over but getting that dialed-in on a homebrew basis’ll be as impressive a task as the hardware engineering is.
I assumed it hadn’t been “re-powered” too, given its location in the back seat. I googled it and found that site that has the write-up. I guess some folks just have too much mechanical-creative energy and time on their hands.
Honda Insight repowered by Harbor Freight,
What a shame Pig-outs did so badly in most of the USA.
I still have a weakness for the 505; would like to add a pristine 5 speed manual model to my driveway.
A great assortment and the weather in most looks perfect for wandering around too, I’m guessing it got quite warm later in the afternoon there.
With Radwood having been sold earlier this year, I wonder if LeMons is also looking to potentially cash out and thus increase its exposure by including stuff that, as you pointed out, really doesn’t seem to be remotely connected to the supposed ethos there.
That being said, whether the cars are on one side of a fence or the other, I’m sure they were all interesting to someone or other irrespective of the label on the entry gate. The whole Monterey area is a car spotter’s dream during August catering to every possible taste or desire, thanks for traipsing around and letting us ride pillion with you.
I’m going to be the old man curmudgeon and say what I’ve been holding back for a long time: I’m really rather sick of the whole LeMons thing from the point of view of all the cars having to have a “theme” above and beyond the cars themselves. A perfect example here is that ’62 Dodge with the ridiculous Ghostbusters theme. A ’62 Dodge wagon does not need (or deserve) to have to be dressed up in a Halloween costume; it’s already bizarre enough as is.
This issue has infected car shows increasingly. I get the whole costume/perpetual Halloween/Faierieworld/Burning Man/My Little Pony thing, but how about keeping it to your body, and not on the bodies of cars that are interesting by themselves.
And I’ll take it further: from my anecdotal experience, the more the cars are dressed up, the less likely their owners actually know much about the cars themselves. In some cases, pathetically little. It’s as if the cars are bought just to become the basis of their staging/costumes.
Rant over.
I’m still loving the LeMons thing. That lovely blue Kellison belongs to Jay Lamm I believe.
The spirit of ridiculous fun is sorely missing in a lot of car events, and the fact that you’re ridiculing it means that it’s working. If I lived in the US I’d try to get a CC LeMons team together.
BTW found a 62 Plymouth for you Paul:
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-classic-cars/ottawa/wow-1962/1624862039
It’s in Ottawa so I was also thinking my daughter should get it for her student-mobile.
I get the curmudgeon part 🙂 but the original intent was to go cheap-ish endurance racing with the cars, the “car show” aspect I think came much later. If you just have an old beater Pinto, a Town Car, a Mazda pickup and a Volvo 164 driving around a track for 24hrs that’s one thing, but I suppose it adds something for a lot of people, both participants as well as spectators (mainly friends, family and team members), to “decorate” it – it probably started as a sendup of modern racing sponsorships anyway. And then the themes got more and more over the top, probably culminating in the upside down car etc…But yeah putting what looks like a blow up halloween costume on a preserved or restored Dodge, I don’t really “get it”. It’s not my kind of humor anyway. Was there a Ghostbusters movie with a Dodge wagon, no idea…
There’s no way THAT Dodge was actually raced at a LeMons event or will get anywhere near a track, that’s my issue with these shows, usually it’s semi-wrecks that are halfway to a junkyard (and often end up there anyway) as a last hurrah and if someone wants to decorate them somehow, well, have at it, very much like the Gambler 500 stuff that’s really just a LeMons derivative in the wild instead of a track.
That said, I haven’t been to any of their events or shows for that matter, I do see participants (as do you) around town, on the freeway, or more often, post-event in the junkyard…so the above is just my take and may well be wrong in some regard or other.
Love that little red Tercel Stubby Coupe.
Thanx, this is great .
I wish I’d heard about the LeMons show, it’s only a day’s drive away .
-Nate
The upside-down Camaro is a project from Alloy Motors in Oakland
https://www.instagram.com/alloymotors/?hl=en
That’s a Packard 120 Station Wagon?
Am I right that the “grille” on a Franklin is just for show?
I love the shot of the Metropolitan next to the Delorean.
My favorite here is the ’70s customized van. These mobile bachelor pads were the cool wheels to have when I was a tween (or at least I perceived them as such at the time), and I couldn’t wait to have my own when I reached driving age. Then, in a period of seemingly a year or two, they all disappeared and were forgotten about by the time I was in high school. I’ve never actually seen a Dodge Street Van though, although I do remember seeing adverts for pre-customized vans from Ford and Dodge and thinking to myself that the custom-van craze had jumped the shark. Sure enough, these went over with van customizers about as well as the Plymouth Prowler did with hot-rodders. By 1980, the much more sober “van conversion” by Starcraft and the like took over, with big picture windows and stripes replacing the porthole bubble window and murals.
The upside-down car is great; I thought the backwards ’59 Chevy was awesome but this is even better.
I know Donna Reed mainly from “It’s a Wonderful Life” but most of the other films she was in I’ve never heard of. I also know “The Donna Reed Show” was popular on TV in the late-’50s to mid-’60s, but is another of those period happy-family shows I could never relate to so have never watched an episode. Really, she drove an Edsel in it? Maybe I should give it a chance, much like I’ve watched “Mister Ed” just for the alternate universe where every second car on the road is a Studebaker.
An Edsel wagon made ” cameo ” appearances in a few episodes of the earlier Donna Reed Show. As the series progressed, the Edsel was replaced by Comet wagons.
That first little red Corolla is a nice little car. But my favorite of the bunch is that green VW from Brazil. That car looks amazing.
My bad. I said Corolla. It’s a Tercel. I’ve always liked that vintage and the Tercel.
Great photos and documentation. The 1980 Toyota Tercel looked very much like what the Austin America could/should have looked like in 1968, if it was suitably introduced with a new body structure for the times. Rather than its dumpy leftover 1950s looks. Matching its advanced engineering, and modern drivetrain layout.
Great writeup! That 308 GT4 belongs to Jason Cammisa -> formally of MotorTrend frame and now doing good work on the Hagerty YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/i7cFP2s1s3I
I’m traveling with very weak signal but managed to see a few comments. I’ll just say that I can do without the Ghostbusters cars (and there was more than one I saw that week) and the fake patina etc gets old fast. But I’ll say that of the three car owners I spoke with (Mazda PU, Bobcat, and the Dyane van) I’m pretty sure they were real car guys like we are here at CC).
That off-white Chevy pickup must be a “regular” at Monterey Concours d’Lemons, as I photographed it there in 2014. That year, there was a load of manure in the bed instead of hay.
I always like an interesting assortment, and any event that can bring a Franklin out of the pole barn is a good one.
I am just amazed that there is still a 62 Dodge Dart sporting whitewall tires and original wheelcovers. Try to do an image search on one and you have to scroll a bit to find another.
Deep in the background of 1st photo is a VW Type II truck. Similar to the photo with the Porsche 356. I remember seeing these as a child. Either would be a great addition to any car collection.
The Mazda Tribute (and Ford/Mercury cousins) do deserve recognition as the forefront of CUVs considering they were among the few that offered a V6 from the beginning of production.
As time progressed, most every CUVs offered a V6.
Today, its 4 bangers with or without turbos and rubber band transmissions.
Yech!!!
What a range. From aR16 to a Reliant 3 wheeler and an AK Dyane – all cars I wouldn’t expect to see in a North American show.