Down by the waterline on Portage Bay, there's lots of places you can store a car for a while without a problem. It's amazing how many "survivors" like this there are in Seattle. All these years, and none of the systems that hold liquid have rusted through? Amazing.
If you like talking about cars, this is always an interesting car to talk about. Observations:
* This car was crazy expensive. In 1976, It went for about $36,000, or four times the starting price of a Cadillac two-door. I once heard that back in the day Rolls had cranked up their prices even more just to make the cars more exclusive and thus somehow more appealing to the uber-rich. Apparently, that really happened as the price of the Shadow went to about $65,000 in 1980, or $250,000 in today's dollars. Of course the cheapest new Rolls you can buy now starts north of $340,000, so never mind.
* Were these cars worth the crazy cost? Depends on how you look at it I guess. One source will tell you, "Every Rolls-Royce vehicle is
meticulously handcrafted to the highest standards, with artisans
meticulously shaping every curve and stitch to perfection. This
dedication to quality ensures that each car is not only a marvel of
engineering but also a work of art designed to stand the test of time."
On the other hand, just because something is "made to perfection" that doesn't means it's reliable or durable. The Shadow's complex braking and suspension system have given it the reputation of a car that bankrupts owners who try to keep it running. The last Plymouth Duster was also made in 1976. It sure as heck wasn't made to perfection, but it wasn't always in the shop.
Magnolia is a very quiet residential neighborhood were folks can park a "someday I'll restore it" car on the street for years without any concern that something will happen to it. All the cars in this post were photographed in less than one square mile of territory near Lawton Park.
This rose pink 1961 Cadillac Fleetwood would be quite valuable if restored. But that's a big if.
This 1984 Dodge Ram looks almost brand new.
Little Dead Corvette. We finally found a use for the luggage rack: use it to store the driver's door panel.
The 1970s Chevy or Ford pickup we see on every block here, along with a "someday I'll restore it" 1979 International Scout II.
A car I'd really love to have. 1970 Chevy Malibu with 307 V8.
I hope the owner finishes the restoration of this very nice 1964 GMC. Also, a Chevy van from the glory days of American van culture.
1982 Mercedes 240D. These Benz diesels run forever.
1961 Ford Falcon Ranchero.
1989 Suzuki Carry. Another Seattleite joins the kei truck revolution.
These Chevy 3100 series pickups from the late 40s to mid-50s are now commanding five figures to buy even when they need complete restoration. This one is not the more desirable '5-window', but it has the valuable sun visor. I blogged that Falcon wagon when I saw it 4 years ago.
1979 MG. A blast to own if you have the genius needed to keep it running.
Someone has Frankensteined the hell out of this Beetle.
Hey, 1979 Chevy Camaro Z-28, why aren't you busy terrorizing a high school parking lot?
And finally just to give you an idea how many old cars are street stored on Gilman Ave W, here we have a Toyota Camry, Volvo 200 Series and a Dodge Ram van all from the 80s.
The Fremont neighborhood in Seattle has long since ceased to be affordable for ordinary human beings, but it retains some of its quirky character in the form of a lot of old cars and trucks.
This 1949 Ford F-1 has been nicely restored. That's a pretty nice chrome grill for a working pickup from this era.
The mid-80s Chevy El Camino, still a fairly common sight on the west coast.
This 1976 Datsun 280Z was the first car in the series with fuel-injection. It was way ahead of the dinosaurs Detroit was offering at the time.
1987 Dodge Ram. Far less common that the old Ford and Chevy trucks you see on every block here.
1980 Toyota Celica. One of the few cars from that era that is hard to kill.
And finally, right in front of the Ford F-1, quite a contrast: A 1990 Mercedes 560 SEC. This car cost around $85,000 new. That would be over $200,000 in 2024 dollars.
There are a lot of old Land Cruisers on the west coast. Almost all of them are the looks-like-an-old-Jeep 40 series. In 1967 Toyota astutely observed that there was a market for a Land Cruiser that was more of a family vehicle. Thus the FJ55, which was the same 4X4 with a new skin. Toyota was was ahead of the curve on the future of the SUV market.
The pride of the Czech Republic since 1925, more than one million Skoda vehicles are sold worldwide every year. They've never been sold in the US, and this is the first one I've ever seen here. The Vermont license plate makes me suspect it was originally sold in Canada, although a lot of interesting European cars were brought back by G.I.s during the Cold War. The engine in this car is just over 1-liter in displacement and it has about 50 horsepower. Not much, but more than a Volkswagen from the same era.
So it's 1996, and GM's Saturn brand sells 226,000 cars, a little less than the brand's peak sales of 286,000 in 1994. Now in the car's 7th model year, a lot of things have already gone wrong. And it's all downhill from here.
The idea of Saturn was that GM was going to finally build a small car good enough to compete with Japanese brands, and, simultaneously, create a revolution in the way GM built and sold cars. The new Saturn factory was a place where management and labor would have a groundbreaking cooperative relationship, and the car would be sold with no-haggle pricing.
So did it all work? Not really.
* GM had promised that Saturn cars would have extraordinary new engines; as good or better than anything ever put in a small car. The reality was that Saturn engines were simple and loud.
* Saturn was selling about half as many cars as GM had hoped. And remember, GM had invested $5 billion (or about $12 billion in 2024 dollars) to make it all happen. Well heck, it should be no trick for the world's largest carmaker to design, build and sell 200,000 inexpensive compact cars. But there's never been another company like GM to burn through insane amounts of money due to its bloated management hierarchies.
And like I said, 1996 is when times were comparatively GOOD for Saturn. In a few years, the brand would be gone. So what else happened?
* GM's other six divisions were livid that most of the company's money was being poured into Saturn, and started demanding their fair share.
* GM had originally bragged about Saturn cars receiving frequent updates. In reality it took a decade for anything new to show up. And when the new Saturns were introduced, it was clear that the brand's distinctiveness was over. The larger L-Series introduced in 2000 was built by bolting Saturn's plastic body panels over a car from GM's German Opel brand. And the replacement for the smaller S-Series, the Ion, was also built on a platform shared by GM's other brands. (Also, in 2006 I drove an Ion from Florida to Texas, and was stunned by what a piece of junk it was.)
* By the 2000's, Americans were buying fewer small cars. Bad news for a brand that makes nothing but small cars.
* Soon, all kinds of off-brand (and unwanted) vehicles started showing up in Saturn showrooms. A 7-seater SUV? Sure, what not?
GM's 2009 bankruptcy provided an excuse to put the brand out of its misery. From cubsideclassic.com, "It’s been estimated that the whole Saturn fiasco lost as much as $12
billion. One of the biggest industrial blunders and losses ever; the
Edsel of the modern era."
Some observations upon seeing a weird 30-plus year old General Motors vehicle looking like new on the street:
* Yep, it looks like a Dustbuster.
* GM vehicles from this era aren't exactly known for their longevity, so good job somebody.
* Love it or hate it, at least GM was willing to try new things. The era of carmakers experimenting with radical designs is over. Everybody builds identical mid-size SUVs and crossovers now.
* Pastel blue stripes. If I'd never seen one of these before, just the stripes would be enough to tell me it was made circa 1990.
Japanese mini-trucks, known as kei trucks are very popular in Seattle. I'm seriously thinking of getting one someday.
Subaru,
Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Daihatsu all made kei trucks, and from a
distance they all look exactly the same. But the Subaru is the best one.
*
The Suzuki, Mitsubishi and Daihatsu all have the engine under the cab,
making for terrible weight distribution, not to mention a hot, loud
ride.
* The Subaru has the engine behind the rear axle, for very easy
access. The Honda has the engine in front of the rear axle. But the cab
on the Honda is so small that a big person has a bit of a hard time
driving it.
* The Subaru has push-button 4-wheel drive.
And of
course these trucks are all right-hand drive, and virtually all have
manual transmissions. Not a problem for me, I'm left-handed.
The American station wagon is gone. Some European brands will sell
you one, as will Subaru, if those cars are really station wagons rather
than "5-door hatchback SUVs" or something.
* This was the last
full-size wagon from Ford. GM would offer them through 1996. Chrysler
last offered a full-size wagon in 1977.
* The biggest Mercury wagon had been called "Colony Park" since 1957.
*
Washington state "collector vehicle" license plates are a good deal if
you just like driving something old. Anything 30-plus years old
qualifies, and they're around $100 and considered to be a "permanent
registration". After you buy them you don't have to pay for new tabs
every year.
The 1959 Chevy is a car that collectors either love or hate, with its distinctive "eyebrows" over the headlights and teardrop taillights. Personally, I think it's the ugliest car Chevy ever made. Few wagons of this era survived, especially as daily drivers like this one.
This car's owner also has a 1951 Chevy which may or may not be drivable. Next door to these cars is a very smart-looking 1961 Chevy C10 pickup that also appears to be an unrestored survivor. And just a couple of doors down is a GMC, possibly also a 1961. Too bad it's wrecked; the frame is probably too messed up for restoration.
There are some old cars that were built in quantity that you never see on the road. Sometimes that's because they weren't very durable. The Jaguar XKE comes to mind. Then there are cars like the third and last generation of the original Dodge Charger. You never see them because every guy who owned one drove it like Mad Max.
