Danville Street Sighting - 1970 Cadillac Eldorado

I'll be the first to admit that the post-1967 front-wheel-drive GM luxury coupes aren't on my short list of cars I'd have in my garage. But I do respect them. It takes a particular sort to fall in love with a big, floaty couch on wheels. The personal luxury coupe market segment enjoyed a couple of decades of popularity in America, largely supplanting the muscle car during the 1970s. The king among these was the Cadillac Eldorado, billed as the World's Finest Personal Car. And this one is amazing.

Danville Street Sighting - 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood 60 Special

These pictures were taken with an old phone camera but this car was cool enough that I still wanted to share. It's a 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood.

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.

Alamo Street Sighting - 1995 Mercury Tracer LTS

Riddle me this: What makes a car "special"? What makes a car "sporty"? Where do we draw the line on what makes a vehicle interesting enough to document and preserve? How does rarity figure into the equation and should cars be saved simply because they're rare? For your consideration, today we're looking at a 1995 Mercury Tracer LTS.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1977 Lincoln Continental Mark V

Today marks the seventh day of the fabled countdown to Christmas.

On the seventh day of Christmas my archive gave to thee:
Seventy-seven Lincoln,
Suede Studebaker,
Fine Nomad bling,
Ford Thunderbird,
Beige French shed,
Tuned Chevy LUV,
and a Park Lane down on the street.

I have such an irrational love for Malaise-era big cars. By today's standards, many see them as horrible slow oversized barges that suck down gas and pollute like no tomorrow, fit only for demolition derbies. What are you, some kind of communist? How can you hate a personal luxury coupe with a big V8, plush couch seats, a big proud grille and err... hidden headlights, opera windows, a fake spare tire hump and fake fender vents? So what if it has less than 160 horsepower and has to be smogged in perpetuity? It has presence!

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1959 Mercury Park Lane Cruiser

On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: a partridge in a pear tree.

The holiday season is once again upon us and I've utterly and completely failed to keep this site updated, so here's a little treat for my readers.
On this first day of Christmas, my archives give to thee, a Park Lane down on the street.

It's been a long time since I featured one of Fifties Guy's cars here, long enough that I think he actually sold this one before I got around to writing something about it. But I have these photos, and it was one of my favorite subjects from his collection.

Danville Street Sighting - 1968 Cadillac Coupe DeVille

This week I have an impromptu theme for my posts. These are all cars I've found outside the same Danville auto repair shop on the same side street, just not at the same time. Last one for this group is a 1968 Cadillac coupe that I believe is a DeVille.

Danville Street Sighting - 1979 Ford Thunderbird Town Landau

In my previous feature we looked at a 1956 Ford Thunderbird, which debuted a few years after Elvis Presley got into the rock 'n roll scene. Now we look at a 1979 Thunderbird, a car that was built a couple of years after Elvis died. And much like Elvis, the Thunderbird was immensely popular from the start and they both got very fat around the same time. Unlike Elvis, though, the Thunderbird survived for another few decades thanks to a series of total reinventions.

Danville Street Sighting - 1979 Chrysler New Yorker

The R-platform cars are not often regarded as a high point in Chrysler's history. To some observers, it's a miracle that Chrysler has survived this long, what with a long succession of great cars, terrible cars, apathetic cars and a lot of strange decisions in design and marketing. In the latter half of the 1970s, Chrysler was in deep trouble. General Motors rolled out an all-new fullsize car platform for 1977 that was shared across all of its core passenger car brands. Chrysler management often used a wait-and-see approach for market trends -- if something worked for GM and Ford, Chrysler would usually follow. In 1978, Chrysler dumped their Dodge and Plymouth C-body fullsize lines, leaving only luxury-minded Chrysler to peddle big cars. In '79 the R-body appeared, a reworked midsize B-body with smaller engines, a three-inch stretch and over a quarter ton of weight loss. The platform was old, the engines were old, but the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and did their best with a small budget. This car would serve as Chrysler's big sedans for all three divisions through 1981.

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.

Danville Street Sighting - 1967 Cadillac Coupe De Ville Convertible

It's officially the beginning of summer which marks convertible season. Warm sunny weather is perfect for top-down cruising no matter what kind of convertible you have. A big lazy V8 convertible is great for taking you and five of your closest friends to nowhere in particular. A '67 Cadillac De Ville would be a fine candidate.

Danville Street Sighting - 1949 Packard Standard Eight

This is Independents' Week, a recurring feature here on California Streets around the 4th of July, celebrating cars from independent American manufacturers. That means no Big Three cars from Ford, General Motors or Chrysler. This is a 1949 Packard Standard Eight Touring Sedan.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1955 Cadillac Series 62

As Cadillac runs screaming away from its own heritage in order to compete with its European rivals, the concept of what makes a Cadillac a Cadillac is changing. A new logo for 2015 loses the old laurel wreath around the Cadillac crest. Apparently this was deemed outdated, though the wreath used to denote a higher-trim model. No longer are a floaty ride or squishy couch seats considered desirable, and big engines are reserved only for performance models or trucks. And for the first time, you can get Cadillac sedans with a cramped back seat borderline unsuitable for adults. With all due respect, this is an improvement? This is the future? I understand that you have to compete with BMW, but Bimmer buyers are probably going to buy a BMW anyway. Seems to me Cadillac would want to lure buyers away from Lexus mostly.

Los Angeles Street Sighting - 1979 Lincoln Continental Mark V

Okay, full disclosure. This car belongs to my friend, who purchased it in L.A. a few years ago for $600 to save it from being crushed. These photos were taken the first time I ever laid eyes on it. This is also perhaps the only street sighting to date which I've actually ridden in.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1967 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight Holiday Sedan

Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight. Not quite a Cadillac, almost a Buick. It's a puzzling place to be in the car market and in the old General Motors brand hierarchy. The Ninety-Eight was the fanciest Olds you could buy, but it was still an Oldsmobile. Even I can't figure out whether Olds or Buick was considered more prestigious in the world of middle-class luxury. You could get an Olds or Buick with the fancy vinyl roof, ornately patterned luxury interior trims, whitewall tires, script badges and convenience options similar to a Cadillac. But it would never quite be a Cadillac.

Millbrae Street Sighting - 1982 Cadillac Coupe DeVille Mirage Pickup

Last year I commemorated Halloween with two vintage Cadillac hearses. I hoped to feature another hearse this year but I haven't seen one on the street since a midnight screening of Tommy Wiseau's "The Room" in Oakland. Photographing a black car on a dimly lit street at night while waiting in line for a movie doesn't work so well. So the closest thing I had in the archives was this, a 1982 Cadillac Coupe DeVille converted into a pickup truck. How is that related to a hearse? Well, some people I showed these pictures to believed it was a funeral flower car. I'm not so sure.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1974 Volvo 164E

It's still kind of weird to me hearing the name Volvo tossed around as a luxury manufacturer. They've gone upmarket in recent decades, but living in the San Francisco Bay Area it's very hard to shake the mental image of ratty old 244DLs with colossal black rubber bumpers. One of Volvo's first efforts to break into the luxury field was the 164, an upgraded version of the 144 sedan with a longer wheelbase and bigger engine. The 164 featured 3.0 liter straight-six power, wrapped in a unique front end with round headlamps and a tall, upright grille. Officially sold from 1969 to 1975, a small number were apparently also titled as '76s. This one is a '74, built with Bosch D-Jetronic fuel injection, a facelifted grille, large rubber bumpers, flush-mounted door handles and the first year without front vent windows. The 1974 164 was also available with heated seats, a perfect luxury item for a car from a Nordic country. Buyers had a choice of four-speed manual transmission with or without overdrive, or a three-speed automatic that hampered acceleration dramatically. Regardless, the automatic was popular in North America. I guess nobody really bought a Volvo sedan for its performance in the pre-turbo days.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1932 Cadillac V-16 Dual Cowl Phaeton

There is something of a mythical quality about the Cadillac V-16. These were some of the greatest luxury cars in their time, comparable to contemporary Duesenbergs, Pierce-Arrows and Packards as ultimate symbols of wealth, power and opulence. They were always limited-production, built to order and built to specification for clients in a number of body styles. It is estimated that domestic GM affiliates Fleetwood and Fisher Body built as many as 70 different body variations on the V-16 chassis, and other coachbuilders produced their own around the world to order. The V-16 was offered for eleven model years from 1930 to 1940, and only 4,076 were built. More than half of these were made in the first year alone.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ

My previous post about the 1979 Chrysler 300 discussed the Malaise era's idea of a personal luxury car. Fake wood, hood ornament, baroque detailing, padded vinyl roof, you name it. Exotic, expensive-sounding European name? You got it. Take a look at the 1977 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ and you get all those things. And much like the 300 was a sport version of the Cordoba, the SJ was the sport version of the Grand Prix.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1979 Chrysler 300

September 11 is a bittersweet day for Americans. This is the day when we remember the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City on the World Trade Center and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. We also remember Flight 93, which went down in rural Pennsylvania after a number of the passengers fought the hijackers aboard that plane to prevent it from hitting its target. One of those heroes on Flight 93, Thomas Burnett, lived in my town of San Ramon; there is a freeway overpass here dedicated in his memory. Some Americans also remember this day for the more recent 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. To many, September 11 is Patriot Day, when we remember how we all came together as a country thirteen years ago. Beyond that, this is a car blog, and I generally try not to get overly political here.
So today in honor of Patriot Day, we're looking at a 1979 Chrysler 300.