Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1967 Plymouth Barracuda Convertible

The holiday season is nearing the home stretch now. Time for another replay of "All I Want For Christmas is 'U'". Are you sick of it yet? Buick, Datsun, Peugeot, Austin-Healey, Lotus, Triumph, and now back to America with a 1967 Plymouth Barracuda convertible in a seasonably festive downtown area. While the other cars this month were dug out of my archives, this one was just spotted a week ago as of publishing.

Danville Street Sighting - 1973 Plymouth Satellite

Remember the Plymouth Satellite? Lots of folks don't. But I do.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1962 Chrysler 300

I have a difficult relationship with early 1960s Chrysler products. I grew up loving the Forward Look cars penned by Virgil Exner. But after 1958, things started to get weird. For your consideration is our second 1962 Chrysler 300 hardtop.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1967 Dodge Coronet Deluxe

When I was a kid I picked up a Johnny Lightning diecast of a blue 1967 Plymouth GTX. I loved that toy car. Since then I have been a fan of 1967 Mopar coupes and convertibles, particularly the Plymouth Belvedere, Satellite and GTX. The B-platform was shared with the Dodge Coronet and Charger, the latter of which I also had as a Hot Wheels toy. Coronet was one of Chrysler Corporation's most popular models for 1967, yet was never on my radar that much growing up.

Glendale Street Sighting - 1939 Plymouth P8 DeLuxe 2-Door Touring Sedan

Super Bowl weekend, 2017. I took a trip down to Universal Studios Hollywood for my first visit to the theme park. I stayed in the Glendale area, a fairly quiet place known in large part for Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery. While driving around town I happened upon this mild custom 1939 Plymouth P8 two-door Touring Sedan.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1935 Plymouth PJ Deluxe Touring Sedan

Summer is winding down and I'm really feeling screwed out of car shows. Thanks to COVID, 2020 has literally been the year without car shows at least in my area. Every so often I get to see a private owner taking a vintage car out for errands or a weekend drive, but not since the 4th of July have I really seen a gathering of more than one classic at a time. And that was only two cars in a parking lot. So today we'll try to satisfy your appetite for classic American iron with this 1935 Plymouth I pulled out of the archives from 2017.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1973 Dodge Royal Sportsman

My last post here dealt with a 1973 Ford Econoline van. In that post I mentioned that Ford's van sales were down that year. Now we look at its primary nemesis in the marketplace, the Dodge B-Series. I see this fantastic Royal Sportsman passenger van on the road often in my area, much more often than I ever see it parked. This van even popped up in traffic while shooting the 1957 Austin-Healey 100-6.

San Jose Street Sighting - 1970 Plymouth Barracuda Gran Coupe

Every year for the 4th of July I like to do a group of features called Independents' Week, focusing on independent American automakers. But since my archives are out of those right now, we're looking at defunct mainstream American brands in the colors of the American flag. We've already had a pair of Mercurys representing red and white. Third in the set this week, representing the color blue, is a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda Gran Coupe.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1963 Plymouth Valiant V-200

This week I've had an informal theme of 1960s Plymouth convertibles, but so far it's been the big Fury on display. Here's something a little smaller.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1969 Plymouth Fury III

It wasn't really my intention to do a theme of Plymouth convertibles this week, but I happened to have a few of them in the archives and I know I have at least one reader who is into '60s Mopars. These aren't the muscle cars people think of, though. Today's feature is a 1969 Plymouth Fury III convertible.

Danville Street Sighting - 1967 Plymouth Sport Fury

Well folks, it's summer and that means warm sunny weather for top-down convertible cruising. At least in the parts of the country where it isn't storming right now. If you're sitting at your computer and it's thundering outside, my condolences. At least you can enjoy California vicariously here.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1963 Chrysler New Yorker

It's hard to believe it took me the better part of a decade to get this car onto the blog. I first sighted this 1963 Chrysler New Yorker in San Francisco while on a road trip around California with friends in 2007. At that time it was parked in the Inner Richmond neighborhood and sitting on American Racing directional sawblade wheels. I only got a couple of snapshots of it that day, and spent my entire college years exploring the city with that Chrysler on my list of vehicles to find and shoot in depth. It was only after a day trip in which I covered the entire road grid of the Sunset District that the car turned up again. The first time I located the New Yorker it was very late in the day and my shoot came out poorly, half of the car in the shadow of the houses across the street. I came back at a later date and did much better.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1951 Dodge Coronet

In my final post of 2016 I said I hoped to be more active in the new year. Here we are halfway through February and nothing to show for myself. So in recognition of Valentine's Day and to show my loyal readers some love, here's a pink 1951 Dodge Coronet coupe I ran across in Alameda last year.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1970 Plymouth Satellite

It's still rather interesting to me the way that car companies used to do models using the same body for several different trim levels and nameplates. In 1970 you could walk onto a Plymouth dealer lot and purchase a standard Belvedere, or you could spice it up with a Satellite, Sport Satellite, GTX or Road Runner. The lower Belvedere and Satellite models were available in a full complement of body styles, but the Sport Satellite was limited to hardtop coupe, sedan or station wagon and the GTX was hardtop only and the Road Runner was coupe or convertible. This car appears to be a regular Satellite hardtop. Satellites were offered with a 225 slant six or 318 small block V8, with a two- or four-barrel 383 V8 optional.

Oakland Street Sighting - 1966 Plymouth Sport Fury

I'm not really sure how the words "Sport" and "Fury" go together. I guess it's something like "Mustang" and "Cobra". When you don't think about it, it makes perfect sense. The name Fury comes from the three Greek goddesses of vengeance. So a Sport Fury must be a very athletic, angry goddess.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1963 Plymouth Belvedere Station Wagon

When cruising around for classic cars on the streets, I sometimes find that the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco yields interesting subjects. A sort of mecca for both tourists and eclectic locals, the Haight has mostly on-street parking for its various homes and businesses and I've run across a number of classics there. This '63 Plymouth Belvedere was a great spotting.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1962 Plymouth Fury

Ever have those times when somebody needs help parallel parking? I've been there, on both sides. As a suburbanite I don't get a lot of practice parking parallel and certainly not often in the tight spaces in San Francisco. So I cringed when I saw a car put on its turn signal while I was photographing this 1962 Plymouth Fury sedan and start to pull in front of it to park. I stopped taking pictures and helped the lady avoid damaging the classic car with her Jetta. I've seen this Plymouth around the city multiple times but have rarely caught it standing still, so this feature includes photos from two different sightings a year apart in the same neighborhood.

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.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1951 Plymouth Concord

One of the curious things about the 1950s to a modern observer is the complete market dominance of the full-size car in the U.S. To many in that era a large car represented space, safety, stability and status. Oh yes, and value. Some drivers favored the little foreign jobs like the early Volkswagens or some of the British MGs, Triumphs or the odd Austin or Morris that were popularized by returning military servicemen after WWII. The Japanese were still a few years away from attempting a toehold in the United States with diminutive Toyopets and Datsuns. Even such American small cars as the tiny Crosley, prewar Willys Americar and postwar Aero, upcoming Hudson Jet and Nash Metropolitan would prove to be little more than bit players in their respective times. Large American cars owned the roads and if you could only afford one car for the whole family, you might as well get the biggest and best car in your price range.

Berkeley Street Sighting - 1966 Dodge Polara Wagon

Much of the United States is buried under snow as I type this, and I'm again hearing the words "polar vortex" tossed around. So I figured it's as good a time as any for this snow-white Dodge Polara, a wagon big enough to evacuate yourself and your whole family from the siege of bitter winter storms.