Danville Street Sighting - 1972 Chevrolet C-20 Custom Camper

I've been a big fan of the 1967-'72 GM pickups since I convinced my dad to purchase a '71 GMC stepside when I was a kid. Most of them around here are either restored customs or tired work trucks now, so a clean stock truck is a great find. This one is a 1972 Chevy C-20 3/4 ton Custom Camper fleetside longbed, and I really like it.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1976 Ford Ranchero 500

Over the past several months, my friends have gotten me into a new pastime: flea markets. Every so often we get together early on a Sunday morning and hit the Laney College Swap Meet in Oakland. It's a fun little place full of bargains and occasionally sellers who think they have something made of gold-plated unobtainium, both of which make for amusing interactions. It has contributed significantly to my diecast collection, and also triggered my interest in customizing small-scale toy cars thanks to the low price of used examples at the swap meet.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1985 Mercedes-Benz 409D Trueblood RV

There are a lot of old motorhomes on California's streets and roads, and a fair number of them are fascinating machines from long-defunct manufacturers and conversion companies. Unfortunately, a lot of them are also decrepit, parked in terrible areas and/or serving as permanent shelter for people down on their luck. For that reason I tend not to shoot such vehicles. But this oddball conversion van intrigued me. It's a 1980s-vintage Mercedes 409D van built into a camper by Trueblood RV GmbH of Frankfurt, Germany.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1974 Kent Cortez motorhome

Imagine you want to go into the motor home business. What formula will you use for your vehicle? How will it be constructed? Will you use a donor chassis? What powertrain will you employ? These are all things to consider and they can make or break the resulting camper. Probably for that reason, most RVs are conventional rear-wheel-drive and are often built on an existing truck or bus chassis with a gas or diesel engine powerful enough to propel the big vehicle up a grade with several people and their gear on board.
Now imagine that it's 1963 and you're the Clark Equipment Company. You make forklifts. You want to make a foray into the growing RV market. Where do you start? Well, forklifts are made of steel and have front-wheel drive. The Clark motorhome was designed with an all-steel body from the ground up, and front-wheel drive to maximize interior space with a low, flat floor free of a transmission and driveline hump. Early models were powered by a heavy-duty Dodge slant six hooked up to a manual transmission. The RVs eschewed a truck's ladder frame in favor of unit-body construction and employed four-wheel independent suspension for a smoother ride. What was this new vehicle called? Why, Clark named it after one of the greatest mass murderers, I mean explorers, in history, the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1986 Vixen 21TD

I don't usually pay attention to recreational vehicles. They're typically a truck chassis with a bus-shaped fiberglass body that follows a similar general shape template across the spectrum for window and door placement and such. Manufacturers make their own "unique" styling touches like sculpted fiberglass front and rear fascias, fanciful graphics and off-the-shelf headlights and taillights frequently supplied by Ford or some other big car company. This motorhome throws much of that out the window.