Danville Street Sighting - 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche

Today is my friend Colin's birthday, so today I'm featuring a car he really likes. It's a 1981 Rolls-Royce Corniche convertible.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 Toyota Celica GTA 10th Anniversary Sunchaser

I love the story behind this car. When I was going to college in San Francisco, I used to occasionally see a very tired-looking black and beige Toyota Celica driving around or parked during my walks after class. When I realized the Celica was in fact a rare Sunchaser convertible, I vowed to photograph it for this blog. Due to its poor condition at the time I feared it would soon be going to the junkyard.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1981 DeLorean DMC-12

Many of my readers are no doubt familiar with the Back To The Future franchise and the significance of October 21, 2015 as the so-called "Back to the Future Day", when Marty McFly traveled to the future. Well, I attended a double feature screening of BTTF I and II in Livermore's Vine Cinema on that night, and what turned up outside the theater but a DeLorean? A fan had driven his car there for the screening. Maybe it's cheating, but I know where at least three other DeLoreans live and none of them are ever parked on the street.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 AMC Eagle 4WD Wagon

As Thanksgiving approaches, we pause to reflect on things we're thankful for in life. Which begs the question, what cars are we thankful for? One of many I'm thankful for is the AMC Eagle.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 Lancia Zagato

This was almost my Halloween post. Halloween for many people is all about getting scared, and what can be more scary than keeping a Lancia Beta running in America? Then I checked my local Craigslist and found three of them for sale in good condition. So they're still out there. Funny thing is, I've been trying unsuccessfully for two years to track down a blue Beta coupe in Bernal Heights, and found this one quite by coincidence in another neighborhood nearby.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1981 Bradley GT II Electric

This is a Bradley GT II Electric, the final evolution of the Bradley GT kit car. The Bradley was a curious concoction, a fiberglass sports car body on the chassis of a VW Beetle. Like many kit cars of the 1970s, the Bradley GT could be assembled at home, but the company also offered factory-built cars which had a higher level of quality than the average Joe wrenching in his back yard. The GT II had a revised body shape that made it look less cartoonish, but maintained the DeLorean-style gullwing doors and pop-up headlamps. Late GT IIs (1980-81) were factory-built with electric power. I don't know how many were ultimately constructed, but I've only seen three of them in recent memory and two of those live at the same house.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 Toyota Corolla Liftback

My, my. A Corolla. You must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel to be featuring a Corolla, Jay...