Danville Street Sighting - "1929" CMC Gazelle

Here we are again on Halloween. After the horror show that 2020 has been, Halloween seems a bit lackluster. My good friend suggested that my Halloween feature should be a car disguised as something it's not. We figured a kit car would fit the bill perfectly. Here is a 1929 Mercedes SSK roadster -- I mean, a Classic Motor Carriages Gazelle.

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.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1964 Mercedes-Benz Unimog 404S

Today is Halloween. With the current zombie craze in popular culture, everybody likes to fantasize about how they'd survive the zombie apocalypse. Well, here you go. A Mercedes-Benz Unimog is a military-grade four-wheel-drive truck known for its off-road prowess and durability. It might also do well for running down hordes of zombies.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1967 Mercedes-Benz 200 Diesel

It's almost hard to believe today in the United States, but decades ago a significant percentage of Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold here ran on diesel fuel. With diesel currently more expensive than premium gasoline in many places now, and Mercedes diesels having helped ruin their own reputation as time progressed, diesel has a long way to go. Even today, in many people's minds there's still a negative stigma of slow, clattering, stinking diesel W123s with the rear end blackened with soot. In today's era of modern clean-running diesels, that's not as much of a problem. They're also inherently more fuel-efficient than many gas-powered engines, so in many cases a diesel can be a smart buy if its fuel economy offsets the increased fuel cost per gallon.

Danville Street Sighting - 1971 Mercedes-Benz 280SL

I'm still a bit ambivalent toward Mercedes-Benz. They are a brand revered the world over for reliable, well-engineered and safe cars. Many consider them the de facto inventors of the automobile. And yet, the vast majority of Mercedes-Benz products do absolutely nothing whatsoever for me. In fact, only a handful have made it onto California Streets, mainly because mainstream Mercedes cars are a dime a dozen in California and they bore me. The cities and suburbs are still crawling with old clattering diesel W123s and even the older sedans can still be found in moderate quantities. But then there is the matter of the SL-Class.

San Francisco Street Sighting - Mercedes-Benz 300d Automatic

Of all my street sightings, this is probably the one that I most regret not shooting more in-depth. The reason I didn't, is because it was before I even thought about starting a blog about cars I found on the streets. In fact, there were two reasons why I shot this car at all. One of my hobbies was posting on a car website called Rice or Not?, submitting just about every interesting vehicle I found. The other reason for shooting it was that a good friend of mine was making drivable virtual cars for the online community Second Life, and I was trying to find interesting cars that could be used for mapping textures on their 3D counterparts, using front, side, rear and close-up wheel photos.
It was only later that I decided to join Jalopnik.com, to submit some of my more interesting local street sightings to weekend editor Murilee Martin, whose "Down on the Street" features were one of the more popular elements of the site. My first "Down on the Street: Bonus Edition" submission was the Hillman Minx that I featured very early in this blog's run. When I continued to submit cars, but they weren't posted, I became discouraged and decided to strike out on my own with a car blog.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1968 Mercedes-Benz 250SL

Mercedes-Benz is known primarily for its luxury sedans, which tend to be rather big and heavy and built like a bank vault. Even the SL roadsters are usually on the weighty side despite their "Sport Leicht" (Sport Light) nomenclature. They weren't always uber-huge though. The name first came about in 1954 with the introduction of the 190 and 300SL roadster and "Gullwing" coupe. They really were pretty lightweight in their own right, especially the coupe with aluminum sheetmetal. In 1963 an all-new SL was introduced, codenamed W113. It featured a 2.3 liter inline-six engine and was called the 230SL.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1957 Mercedes-Benz 220S

This Mercedes 220S (W180 II) Ponton is one of 55,279 [sedans] built between 1956 and 1959. The "Ponton" name comes from its pontoon-shaped fenders. Looking like a far cry from today's uberluxury cars, you're looking at one of the earliest incarnations of the Mercedes S-Class. This one shows up every so often outside the Chipotle restaurant down the street from my university. It's a beauty, too. The black paint just looks right on an old Benz like this one. The exterior isn't perfect, but the interior is. Shame I couldn't get a picture of the inside of this car.

What's cool about a car like this is it gets driven regularly. And because it gets driven, it isn't concours, but it still looks really nice from about 20 feet away. And it's a Mercedes, too, so its 50-year-old straight-six is probably bulletproof mechanically.
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the front license plate changed between photo shoots, which were several months apart. The custom-painted California front plate was replaced with what appears to be an actual 2004 Aruba license plate. One happy island indeed.