Automotive

Spotted: Too Many Turkeys, Part 1

It's Friday after Thanksgiving, a beautiful autumn morning, and we are out looking for interesting cars. What better place to start than an AMC Gremlin?

By the way, because we had too many vehicles today, we are dividing the presentation into two parts. This set will include all cars that are beige, yellow, gold, orange, red, burgundy and so on.

This next car is actually America's first SUV, the American Motors Corp Eagle, with 4 wheel drive.

We slide into the commercial vehicles, with this 4x4 Chevy utility truck, which is exhibiting some "patina" as Junior is driving with his dad in the passenger seat.

We stopped at the body shop and my wife walked through, checking out all the interesting cars...

A very nice Dodge van glowing radioactively in the alley's sunshine

This nice GMC truck was an authentic "shade tree" vehicle - next to an extremely old garage

Now a Ford

Then the ever-popular El Camino made an appearance

A rather decrepit Chrysler LeBaron GTC convertible.

The Chrysler was atrocious but not as bad as this Buick Reatta Convertible, built in the "Craft Center" in Flint Michigan, by "craftsmen" by hand - destined to be GM's finest of the '90s. WRONG.

We found this car in the back of a warehouse off the edge of the residential neighborhood. I'm from the era where we still (almost) believed what the OEMs claimed in their advertising.

America's Premium Motorcar.

When Better Cars are Built, Buick Will Build Them

Buick. The Spirit of American Style

Isn't it time for a Real Car?

Yes, I'm sore. Because I've had many Buicks and I lament the loss of the leadership they once had...

But look here. This cheered me up immensely. A PERFECT Dodge Dart Swinger in front of a matching, pristine house.

Moving over to imports for awhile, how could we pass up a Fiat 500? I happily put our spotting-mobile in the picture so it could fit with today's color theme

Look how much larger the new version is - a bit like the new "Mini"

We found a very very nice BMW 2002

And from roughly the same era, a Datsun 510, "the poor man's BMW"

Moving along to a beautiful VW Squareback, my wife walked up the drive to get these shots

Too bad the next interesting car was this GEO Metro convertible. A crappy little car, it was America's favorite tow-behind-the-motorhome vehicle for a decade or more.

Imagine the silver-haired gent cruising around Palm Beach, top-down, with a purple-haired Mrs. Slocum at his side

Good old Chevy truck behind it, too.

Stepping things up a notch, if you know what the English term "festooned" means, you will realize this Dodge truck is the epitome of festoonosity.

This great Thunderbird was parked in front of a house that we once imagined owning. It was perched on a hillside and consisted of about 20 telephone poles with a giant round redwood hippie pad suspended from them