Old Cars on Shilshole Bay Marina

A lot of folks store their extra car in the big lots out where Ballard meets the water. There are quite a few curiosities parked out there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three old VW buses in one shot. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chevy redesigned the Corvair in 1965 after the car's reputation was pretty much already ruined. As to whether this second-generation Corvair Corsa was safe or not, I don't really have an opinion. Some of these cars were turbocharged. Those rims are from a BMW.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not the same car twice, just the same color. These old Benz diesels are hard to kill.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plenty of old Beetles in the land that rust mostly forgot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This MG is immaculate. It must only be here for the day.

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, on the other side of the road. If you own a 1983 Lincoln Continental Mark VI and a 1966 Dodge D100 van, you are my kind of weird.

 

 

Tweet

Old Cars in Fremont

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.

Tweet

1960 Mercedes 190 SL, and an easily-defeated razor wire fence

Made from 1955 to 1962, the 190 SL is a beautiful car with superb mechanics. With only about 3,000 copies made per year, a nice one will set you back about $130,000 today.

Now someone went to a lot of trouble to put barb wire and razor wire on top of this fence. Were they perhaps too busy trying not to cut themselves to ask why?

Tweet

It Costs How Much?! 1985 Mercedes 380SL

Cars built by Mercedes today aren't particularly expensive. You can get in the door with an A-Class for $33K. That's not much more than the list price for my VW GTI. Times have changed. When I was a kid, Mercedes were very expensive cars. This 380SL started at $44K in 1985. That's $111K today. In 1986, the last iteration of this car, now called the 560SL, went to $48K or $122K in 2021 dollars. I mean it's a nice car and all, but wow that's expensive.

 

Tweet

Time Travel Photos: '85 Mercedes 380SL, '64 Ford Galaxie 500 XL, '73 Volkswagen Westphalia Camper

Used my time machine to visit a beautiful spring day in the 80s.

Tweet

1983 Mercedes 300CD

Now that some Mercedes models cost little more than a Toyota Camry, it's easy to forget how prestigious the brand used to be. This car had a base price of $34K when new. That's $87K in today's dollars. Old Benz diesels are a common site in Seattle; they pretty much run forever.

Tweet

1965 Mercedes 190

Also known as the Finback, the W110/190 was the first car to be designed with crumple zones and extensively crash tested. I see a lot of these around, suggesting they must be hard to kill. The owner of this particular car wanted to keep it around badly enough that he replaced the front fenders and hood with sheet metal from two other cars.

 

Tweet

1958 Mercedes 190D

Older, diesel-powered Benzes are very popular here. This is the oldest one I've seen. In the 40s and 50s, Mercedes was a company that made simple products in a country rebuilding from the war. Now in the late 50s, it was once again becoming a technology leader. That doesn't particularly show in the old 190D here, however, it was in 1959 that Benz introduced the first car with front and rear crumple zones to absorb kinetic energy. Known in the US as the 220, I'm sure that car will be making an appearance on this blog.

Tweet