Danville Street Sighting - 2005 Lotus Elise

We're on the final countdown to Christmas which means only a few dozen more times having Mariah Carey forced upon you, and a few more installments of "All I Want For Christmas Is 'U'". By now you know the drill: car brands with the letter U in their name. Buick, Datsun, Peugeot, Austin-Healey, and now Lotus. This is a 2005 Lotus Elise.

Danville Street Sighting - 2009 Pontiac G8 GT

Today is my birthday, and it's my party and I'll cry if I want to. It still bums me out that the Pontiac brand is gone, even ten years later. Especially after a couple of bright spots amid the general decline of GM's Excitement division. The Pontiac G8 was a rebadge of the Australian Holden Commodore, engineered for left hand drive and other compliance with American road laws. It lasted only two years here in the states based on the VE Commodore, then enjoyed an almost equally brief resurgence with a Chevrolet badge as the Chevy SS based on the redesigned VF. Today the Holden factory in south Australia is itself shut down, no longer building the iconic rear-wheel-drive coupes, sedans and ute pickups that carried such monikers as Monaro, Commodore, Maloo, Statesman and Caprice. For decades the Commodore platform was a strong seller in Australia, but rising fuel costs, environmental concerns and the spreading worldwide plague of the SUV ate into Holden car sales. General Motors imported some cars into the US, apparently as an excuse to keep the Australian factory open. Frustratingly, the Pontiac G8 and Chevrolet SS were barely advertised and always remained niche products for enthusiasts in the know.

Danville Street Sighting - 2001 Qvale Mangusta

I've had a subscription to Motor Trend magazine for over fifteen years. One of the first issues I remember receiving, November 2000, featured a nine-way comparison of sports cars. It was the first time I ever saw mention of an unusual Italian car called the Qvale Mangusta. In my Need For Speed-fueled childhood the Porsche 911 Turbo, Corvette Z06, Dodge Viper, Ferrari 360, BMW Z8, Mustang Cobra R, Shelby Series 1, Pontiac Trans Am and the like, made total sense to me. But the test also featured a red car with very odd styling and a bubbly retractable hardtop. It had a 4.6 liter Ford V8 producing 320 horsepower, a five-speed manual and a small back seat.

Danville Street Sighting - 2005 Chevrolet SSR Indy 500 Parade Truck

In 2002 General Motors decided to discontinue the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. The F-body coupes and convertibles were popular budget sporty cars, especially among young buyers looking for rear-drive V8 power. But the body and chassis dated to 1993, the interior was hopelessly antiquated and the competition was upping their game. So what did GM build to replace them? Well, in the case of Pontiac, nothing. Pontiac had things like the Grand Prix GTP, but no sporty coupes that could truly replace the Firebird and Trans-Am in the middle years of the 2000s. Nobody thought a Sunfire or Grand Am GT was a substitute for a Trans-Am. For Chevy, though, GM was readying an all-new performance two-door. Hoping to take advantage of the retro styling craze popularized by the 2001 Chrysler PT Cruiser and 2002 Ford Thunderbird, Chevy rolled out the SSR (Super Sport Roadster).
A pickup truck.
...With a retractable hardtop.
...Patterned very loosely after the 1947-1953 Advance Design Series pickups.

Alameda Street Sighting - 2008 ZENN LSV

We now live in a world where the electric car has gone mainstream. Unlike the small leased fleet of GM EV1s or the smattering of electric-converted Ford Rangers and Toyota RAV4s of the 1990s, people are now rushing out to buy Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts (the latter actually a gas-electric hybrid of sorts). Luxury and performance electrics like the Tesla Roadster and Fisker Karma sedan now exist and can command six-digit prices. The Tesla Model S just won Motor Trend Magazine's 2013 Car of the Year award, a first for an all-electric vehicle. But it's been a bumpy ride for electric cars, and the road to mainstream adoption is littered with small upstart companies that hoped to make a difference. In a blog that features all manner of cars from A to Z, it seems fitting to end the year with ZENN.

Sacramento Street Sighting - 2003 Lamborghini Murciélago 40th Anniversary Edition

I don't usually feature modern exotic sports cars. I might take a picture or two but rarely do I stop and do a full shoot. The typical Ferrari F430, Lamborghini Gallardo or Lotus Elise just doesn't get me excited. A Murcielago? Eh, maybe. I'm more likely to stop and do a photo shoot of a Ford Pinto than the most cliched Lambo of the 2000s. If I'm going to shoot a Murcielago, it had better have some presence.

This one has presence.

I was exploring Sacramento after visiting the California State Auto Museum and passed this striking Lamborghini parked on a street. I promptly pulled a U-turn and parked so I could photograph it.

Oakland Street Sighting - 2001 Isuzu VehiCROSS Ironman Edition

Have you ever had guilty pleasures, the kind of thing you like but either don't want to admit or don't understand why you like it? This is one of mine, the Isuzu VehiCROSS. These little 2-door sport-utes are as much a fashion statement as they are an off-road vehicle. Many today see the VehiCROSS as an exercise in absurdity and the ugliest thing this side of the Pontiac Aztek.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 2003 Wuling LZW 6360Bi1 Dragon

As feature vehicles go, a white minivan typically doesn't earn a second glance from me. They're just not exciting. So why did I bother to photograph this thing?
All right, yes, I admit it. This is a pretty boring subject. At first I thought it was a Japanese 'kei' van like a Daihatsu Hijet, but it had "Marathon" badges and an alphabet soup emblem on the front - the latter a common practice with Chinese vehicles.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 2003 Daihatsu Move Custom

And now for something completely, utterly different. This, my friends, is a Daihatsu Move. Yes, brought over from the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. Notice it's right-hand-drive. You won't find too many of these here in America.