Campbell Street Sighting - 1993 Toyota Supra

It could be argued that the fourth-generation Toyota Supra is one of the most iconic sports coupes of the 1990s. It enjoys notoriety as one of the stars of the original Fast & Furious film and has long been associated with road course racing, amateur street racing and drift culture alike.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1994 Dodge Grand Caravan Art Car

It's April Fools Day, and this is probably the only time you'll ever see a '94 Dodge Caravan as a feature post here. It's an art car, a Burning Man creation, and there's not a whole lot more I can say about it. It has toilet seats on the windows.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1991 Alfa Romeo 164S

I've never known what to think of the Alfa Romeo 164. The Italian sport-luxury sedan has a look all its own, courtesy of Pininfarina and the last days of an Alfa Romeo independent of Fiat influence. There are some interesting shapes going on in the design, thanks to the overall square shape, bold triangular Alfa grille and deep character line that blends into the narrow strip taillights out back. The 164 featured a lot of technology and a variety of luxury and performance packages. It was available in base, 164L, 164S and 164 Quadrifoglio Verde (as well as a late-model Q4 variant with all-wheel-drive). The S featured a body kit and rear spoiler, 15-inch alloy wheels and a higher-performance version of the 3.0 liter V6 good for 200 horsepower.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1995 GMC G2500 Vandura

"I love it when a plan comes together."

Those were the trademark words uttered by Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith, leader of the ragtag group of ex-soldiers in the NBC TV show The A-Team. The cast of characters acted as benevolent mercenaries, helping people who needed the special kind of assistance a bunch of trained military men could provide. And they did it all in style, traveling the country in a very distinctive customized GMC van.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1992 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser

I never really knew what to make of the Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser when I was younger. Well, the older ones made sense to me, the big boxy ones built between 1977 and 1990. To me, they had always been, and they were kind of cool.

Danville Street Sighting - 1994 BMW 840Ci

I must say, the 1990s were very good to BMW. There aren't many brands that consistently produced good-looking cars throughout an entire decade. I love the E34 and E39 5 Series, E36 3 Series and E38 7 Series. Even the aging E30 and E32 still looked decent into the '90s, the early E46 3 Series was all right, and like it or hate it, the Z3 was the Z3. But one of my all time favorite Bimmers remains the E31 8 Series.

Santa Cruz Street Sighting - 1997 Mazda MX-5 Miata Art Car

There comes a time when one runs into something too weird to ignore. Such is the case with art cars, a rolling sculpture that makes a statement, even if nobody in their right mind can figure out what the statement or even the theme is. It's easy to dismiss art cars as the domain of people who weren't given enough attention as children, and I really don't want to do that. But for the life of me I can't figure out why putting a Dodge Ram grille on a Mazda Miata and covering it with seashells and car parts was a good idea.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1992 GMC Typhoon

All-wheel-drive. Six cylinders. Boxy wagon styling. Turbocharged.
By that description alone it sounds like some kind of mythical Volvo. But it's actually a GMC Typhoon, and twenty years ago an SUV based on the Chevy S-10 pickup was one of the fastest performance vehicles on the market.

Dublin Street Sighting - 1993 Ford Mustang Cobra

I'd like to think I have fairly high standards for feature cars here. I don't just shoot anything old. If that were the case I'd have a blog full of beat-up Chevy pickup trucks and Plymouth Valiants. It usually has to be something historically notable or at least something that tickles my fancy. For that reason I'm hesitant to go wild over a Foxbody Mustang. I have nothing against them; they're just common and kind of generic, frequently beaten to an inch of their life or tricked out by teenagers with cowl induction hoods, bling rims and custom lights. The rare special editions are hard to find and a regular LX 5.0 or GT doesn't excite me a whole lot. So that pretty much leaves the 1993 Cobra.

Petaluma Street Sighting - 1995 Porsche 968 Cabriolet

Some months ago I featured a 1995 Porsche 968 coupe, the final iteration of the front-engined entry level Porsche that began with the 924. The 968 is rare enough as it is, but the convertibles are rarer still. Some 12,776 cars were built worldwide, of which 4,389 were convertibles. I spoke with the driver who told me that only 2,000 were made, which was close. Wikipedia says Porsche sold 2,248 of these convertibles in North America - Porsche Club of North America believes it's actually 1944 cars. Between the coupe and convertible, the convertible is slightly less common in the US - however, we have the highest concentration of them in the world. There used to be two or three of them in my town alone.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1993 Rover Mini Cooper 1.3i

At this point I've featured a lot of classic Minis, and they pretty much all seem to live in San Francisco. What's easy to forget about these little cars is that while they look old, and the basic body dates back to 1959, these cars were built for over 40 years. The last "classic" Minis were rolling off the line when BMW was gearing up to build their all-new MINI Cooper for the 2001 model year.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1995 Porsche 968

The Porsche 968 has always been one of those cars I've been interested in primarily because it's an oddity. I used to get excited when I'd see one, simply because it looked weird and I didn't see many of them. In a way, it was the missing link between the very-1980s 944 and the 1990s 993s and Boxsters. It was the last hurrah for the front-engined Porsche until the Cayenne SUV and Panamera sedan.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport

It's time to have a look at another car spotted near a car show, this time a modern classic: a 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport. I don't normally photograph C4 generation Corvettes in depth, but the Grand Sport special edition stands out from the rest. By 1996 the C4 body shell was getting very long in the tooth despite all the facelifting done over twelve years of production. Chevy chose to wind down the final model year of the C4 with this blue bullet, of which only 1000 copies were built. It came with the optional 330 hp LT4 V8 and a six-speed manual transmission.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1995 Lotus Esprit S4s

Rounding out '90s Supercar Week is this 1995 Lotus Esprit S4s, an edition I didn't know existed until I saw it parked just around the corner from the 1973 AMC Gremlin I featured during '70s Economy Car Week. I've always been fond of the 1990s Esprits; from most angles they just look "right" to me. I know they're parts bin cars cobbled from other manufacturers' components, and the basic design dates back to the '70s when the Gremlin was still being built and Roger Moore was still James Bond. The Esprit is just a cool sports car.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1995 Ferrari 456 GT

Long before I started California Streets, I occasionally found myself photographing cars from several angles and later came to the realization that I could use those pictures for car features. This 1995 Ferrari 456 GT is a curious creature. Ferrari in recent years has rarely been known for their front-engined offerings, except perhaps the 599 Fiorano. So many supercars are mid-engined, it seems the way to go if you want speed without sacrificing neutral handling. So what do you call this? Not only is it front-engined, but it has a back seat! Yes, a four-seater, "family" Ferrari - a formula not tried since the mid-engined V8 Mondial and front-engined V12 400i series of the eighties. Neither of those cars are considered among Ferrari's best offerings. The 456 is a proper V12 grand tourer with looks to match. Its design appears a bit dated now, as pop-up headlights are a bit passe (the 2003 456M GT was the last Ferrari to use pop-ups, and I still like them) and the 17-inch wheels look positively tiny by modern standards. But the 456 was one of my favorite cars in the Nintendo 64 game Cruisin' World and is still a good-looking car. I also am very fond of the metallic burgundy color, which I believe is called Rosso Rubino. The nicks in the paint are unfortunate, but I'm glad to see it's been driven and hopefully enjoyed as a V12 Ferrari should.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1999 Lamborghini Diablo VT Roadster

As a boy growing up in the 1990s, I had my share of supercar posters. Porsche 993, Ferrari F355. I collected models of my favorites as well, some of the more stratified exotics. Ferrari F50, Jaguar XJ220, Dodge Viper RT/10. But few came close to the Lamborghini Diablo in terms of insane performance, instant name recognition and sheer curb presence. It was to the schoolboy of the '90s what its older brother, the Countach, was to the kids of the '80s.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1992 GMC Typhoon

This may at first glance look like a garden-variety GMC Jimmy, but it's so much more than that. Where the regular Jimmy was an off-road oriented SUV with an unfortunate reputation for its rollover risk, the GMC Typhoon was a romping, stomping, turbocharged, all-wheel-drive beast of a performance truck. It's a curious vehicle, developed at a time when performance cars were anything over 200 horsepower and no one had built a fast truck in decades. Then General Motors unleashed a pair of shockingly quick compact trucks based on their S-Series platform. They were a regular-cab pickup called the Syclone, and a two-door SUV called the Typhoon. They sported a turboed 4.3 liter V6 producing 280 horsepower, 65 more than a V8-powered Mustang GT of the era. (According to Wikipedia, some stock Typhoons have actually produced over 300hp). All this power was put to the pavement through a 700R4 4-speed automatic transmission and AWD system with 35% front/65% rear bias. The trucks also featured upgraded suspensions, brakes, and a self-leveling rear suspension. It was unlike anything else available at the time, a truck capable of doing 0-60 in 5.3 seconds while taking the kids to school. The Typhoon was built from 1992 to 1993. Only 4,697 were ever built.