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.

 

 

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1965 Volkswagen Samba

With 23-windows and a ragtop roof, a restored Samba can command $100,000 or more in today's market. As the second picture shows, the microbus was and still is available in a whole bunch of different configurations.

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1965 Volkswagen Type 2 - '21 Window' Microbus

Let's take a look at the current prices of some of the most valuable collectible vehicles.

1967 Pontiac GTO: $29,900
1970 Chevy Chevelle SS 454 'LS6': $59,900
1963 Chevy Corvette split-window coupe: $68,500
1968 Dodge Charger R/T 426 Hemi: $149,500
1963 VW bus - 23-window Deluxe: $165,000

No, that's not a misprint. Here's another 23-window expected to go for $180,000 at auction. And here's another that auctioned for $198,000 after a protracted bidding war. So what is this unrestored 21-window bus worth? My guess would be around $45,000. Why these things are worth this much I cannot comprehend.

* Here's the Type 2 pickup I spotted.



    

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1963 Volkswagen Type 2 Transporter flatbed pickup

You might not associate political controversy with old Volkswagens, but there's a reason why there are many VW microbuses built between the 1970s and the 2000s on American roads, but the only air-cooled VW trucks you see date from the mid-60s or earlier.

From Wikipedia:

"Certain models of the Volkswagen Type 2 played a role in a historic episode during the early 1960s, known as the Chicken War. France and West Germany had placed tariffs on imports of U.S. chicken. Diplomacy failed, and in January 1964, two months after taking office, President Johnson imposed a 25% tax (almost ten times the average U.S. tariff) on potato starch, dextrin, brandy, and light trucks. Officially, the tax targeted items imported from Europe as approximating the value of lost American chicken sales to Europe.

In retrospect, audio tapes from the Johnson White House, revealed a quid pro quo unrelated to chicken. In January 1964, President Johnson attempted to convince United Auto Workers' president Walter Reuther not to initiate a strike just before the 1964 election, and to support the president's civil rights platform. Reuther, in turn, wanted Johnson to respond to Volkswagen's increased shipments to the United States.

The Chicken Tax directly curtailed importation of German-built Type 2s in configurations that qualified them as light trucks – that is, commercial vans (panel vans) and pickups. In 1964, U.S. imports of automobile trucks from West Germany declined to a value of $5.7 million – about one-third the value imported in the previous year."

The Chicken Tax is still around. Ford has been importing its Transit Connect vans from Turkey in passenger vehicle configuration to get around the tax, then ripping out the extra seats to put the vans into cargo configuration.

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