Danville Street Sighting - 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray

Each year for the 4th of July I like to celebrate America's Independence Day with a special feature. This year we're doing American muscle and sports coupes in red, white and blue. Rounding out our assortment today is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray coupe finished in beautiful Nassau Blue metallic.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Mercury Comet 202

Around the city it seems like the favored kickaround classics are the Mopar Dart/Valiant twins and the Ford Falcon. They're tough, simple, reliable and practical. And in a town where parking spaces are nigh impossible to find, a small footprint and solid bumpers are helpful. While Falcons are relatively plentiful in urban environments, a Mercury Comet is a little less common. Here's a '66 Comet 202 sedan.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury

I'm not really sure how the words "Sport" and "Fury" go together. I guess it's something like "Mustang" and "Cobra". When you don't think about it, it makes perfect sense. The name Fury comes from the three Greek goddesses of vengeance. So a Sport Fury must be a very athletic, angry goddess.

Danville Street Sighting - 1966 Austin Cooper S

Most everyone knows what a classic Mini looks like. It's up there with the Volkswagen Beetle and Ford Model T in terms of recognition, because all three cars were important milestones in mass-market vehicle design. The Mini was sold worldwide under various names between 1959 and 2000 and cemented its place in history with over 5.3 million copies. Only about 10,000 were originally imported to the United States through 1967. This is probably one of them.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Jaguar 3.8 S-Type

Do you remember the Jaguar S-Type sold between 1999 and 2008? It didn't sell all that well stateside, despite the retro styling craze that saw the success of the Chrysler PT Cruiser and 2005 Ford Mustang. Perhaps it was difficult for American buyers to relate to a retro-styled Jaguar that hearkened back to the days of the 1960s, and wasn't an E-Type. It was inspired by, and named after, this.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1966 Dodge Polara Wagon

Much of the United States is buried under snow as I type this, and I'm again hearing the words "polar vortex" tossed around. So I figured it's as good a time as any for this snow-white Dodge Polara, a wagon big enough to evacuate yourself and your whole family from the siege of bitter winter storms.

Hayward Street Sighting - 1966 Pontiac Ventura

It's no secret by now that I love vintage Pontiacs. The 1965 and '66 lineups are some of my favorites. This one is a '66 Ventura sedan. The Ventura name was usually a trim upgrade on the full-sized Catalina during the 1960s but it was a model series in its own right from 1966 to 1969.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1966 Toyota Stout 1900 Pickup

An old Toyota pickup to me is nothing special. The Hilux and its successor, the "Truck" or "Pickup" are mostly just old trucks driven by landscapers and junk collection companies. A vintage 1960s-era Toyota Stout, on the other hand, is kind of a big deal to find. An unrestored, generally complete Stout that runs is a particularly rare find. Finding one completely at random, forgetting where it was and then finding it again months later completely at random is really something, or at least it is for me.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler 300 Convertible

One of my very first street sighting posts on this blog, #6, was a 1966 Chrysler 300 two-door hardtop in San Francisco. Now we're approaching five hundred. Here's another '66 Chrysler 300 in San Francisco, but this time it's a drop-top.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 Convertible

I've gotten word from friends back east that another late-winter storm has been dumping tons of snow and frigid temperatures on them. Fear not, friends, spring is coming. In the meantime, have a classic red convertible.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1966 Datsun 411

This was one of my most anticipated scores for the blog, at least within the city of Alameda. Everyone knows the Datsun Z-cars, and a fair number are familiar with the Fairlady roadsters, but the early mainstream passenger cars are much less often seen in the United States today. The Datsun Bluebird is a model best known to Americans as the 510, sold from 1968 to 1974. But before that, Datsun was a bit player in the compact market in the US, selling small pickup trucks and dowdy little economy cars. In late 1963 Datsun brought out the Pininfarina-styled 410, a car that made a Datsun sedan a little more interesting to look at in one's driveway. The 411 was added in 1965, which traded the 1.2 liter four-cylinder for a 1.3 liter unit producing 67 horsepower.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1966 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa Turbo Convertible

There are already a lot of Corvairs on here, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Chevrolet Corvair is a fairly unique car, and a customized Corvair is even more so. This one is perhaps the most unique factory specification as well, a turbocharged 1966 Corvair Corsa convertible.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Pontiac Catalina Convertible

You'll find a lot of cars named for places in California, especially in Southern California. Chevy Malibu comes to mind, named for the affluent beachfront community. Chevy Bel Air, the tony suburb of Los Angeles. Mercury Monterey, the coastal town famous for its Cannery Row. Chevy Tahoe, named for the big blue lake nestled among the Sierra Nevada. Chrysler Pacifica, the surfer town north of Half Moon Bay. And then there's the sunny vacation spot near Santa Barbara, Santa Catalina Island. The Pontiac Catalina began as a top trim line on the 1950-58 Chieftain hardtop coupes.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler Newport Convertible

Car spotting is very much about luck. You can do all the planning and research you want, but ultimately a car is a mobile object and they tend to go places that aren't always the same place you go on the day you go there with your camera. I used to see a big old vehicle under a car cover sometimes while doing my delivery route. One day the cover was off. After work I stopped by and there it was, a 1966 Chrysler Newport convertible.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1966 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu Wagon

I have a soft spot for Chevelle wagons, in no small part because my father learned to drive in a base-model '68 Chevelle Nomad wagon and adored it. Apparently other people have a similar soft spot, because while I was photographing this car a man came over and started checking it over for originality, remarking that he had once owned one just like it. Then he wrote a note to the owner asking to buy the car and left it under the wiper. You just don't see completely original Chevelles anymore. Even the wagons find themselves being built up into street machines these days, as the steel wheels and small engines are tossed in the trash for a GM Performance crate engine and whatever pro-touring wheel style is popular these days. Had this been a coupe I might have passed on it.

Malibu Street Sighting - 1966 Jaguar 420

The Jaguar Mark II sedan is considered a true classic among Jaguar enthusiasts. A lot of four-door Jags have come and gone since then, and not all of them have been great cars. The Mark II was supplanted by the S-Type, which evolved into the 420 during an interim period that fully adopted a blockier, squared-off front with four headlamps. This would become a trademark Jaguar styling cue for decades with the arrival of the new XJ midsize luxury sedan in 1968. The design language had first appeared on the 1961 Mark X. The 1966 420 looked like a slightly scaled-down Mark X, and that resemblance may have had something to do with the Mark X being renamed 420G the same year.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Ford Fairlane 500

Readers may notice that my photo quality and quantity have gone down a bit this week. I'm using up some archive material, much of which was photographed in 2007-08, long before I even started this blog. In fact, the reason I photographed this 1966 Ford Galaxie 500 sedan as much as I did was because my friend was making driveable virtual vehicles in the online community SecondLife and was interested in textures for his models. Basically he needed a good front, side and rear shot, as well as a wheel photo, which could then be mapped onto the 3D model to make it look more realistic and detailed. Only one of my sets of textures ever made it into SecondLife, but that's beside the point.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Ford Falcon Futura Sports Coupe

This is one of those cars I wish I'd photographed more in depth. It's yet another Ford Falcon, but not an early one. The vast majority of Falcons one sees on American roads are 1960-65 cars. The 1966-70 generation seems to be much less common, and I don't think I've ever seen a 1970-1/2 Torino-based Falcon. It makes me wonder, where did all the later Falcons go? Well, I managed to catch one of them.

Best of the Rest 1: San Francisco Corvairs

1961 Chevrolet Corvair sedan

1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza coupe

1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza coupe

1964 Chevrolet Corvair Monza convertible

1966-67 Chevrolet Corvair 500 coupe

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1966 Chrysler Newport

It was a gloomy, wet day when I drove three friends around San Francisco looking for filming locations from the atrocious Tommy Wiseau film "The Room". For whatever reason they love the movie, and came up from Los Angeles to see the places where certain scenes were filmed. One such building, a flower shop which appeared briefly in the film (the establishment is now a pizza parlor), was located in the Mission District. Some time before, I'd heard about a small collection of old Chrysler products in the area. I hoped that I'd be able to find them that same day. As it were, my friends and I drove right past the small alley where the cars reside.
Some time later, when the weather had improved, I took a walk in the Mission to try to find them again. This time I got lucky. Being that the alley is paved and has a name on a sign installed by the city, I assume that makes it a public street and therefore fair game. The first vehicle I saw from this collection, and possibly my favorite, was this Daffodil Yellow 1966 Chrysler Newport sedan.