Oakland Street Sighting - 1964 Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe

Ask anybody in the United States who never owned one of these cars, and chances are they won't know what it is. Tell them it's a Ford and they'll be confused. Then show it to a kid and they'll tell you it's the Weasleys' flying car from the Harry Potter movies. And indeed it is. It's a Ford Anglia 105E.

Saratoga Street Sighting - 1920 Ford Model T Touring Car

Today is the day after Thanksgiving, better known as Black Friday. It's the day when people forget everything they celebrated the day before and start tackling each other for discounted items on the first official day of the Christmas shopping season. Since some of us are still feeling thankful and the rest of us are out buying on Black Friday, what better car to feature than a Ford Model T? It's the car everyone ran out to buy because it was cheap, and it's black. Oh yeah, and you should darn well be thankful it existed. This is the car that revolutionized mass production techniques and interchangeable parts in the auto industry, and first made cars truly affordable to the average person.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 AMC Eagle 4WD Wagon

As Thanksgiving approaches, we pause to reflect on things we're thankful for in life. Which begs the question, what cars are we thankful for? One of many I'm thankful for is the AMC Eagle.

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.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1983 Mitsubishi Starion

A couple days ago we took a look at a 1920s American luxury car. Now for something completely different, a 1980s Japanese compact turbocharged sport coupe. This is a 1983 Mitsubishi Starion.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1929 Packard Model 640 Custom Eight Roadster

I've posted a couple of times previously about a collector in my area with a nice assortment of pre-war classics. His '40 Buick and '32 Cadillac have been featured here, and there are numerous others that end up in his garage from time to time. It should be noted that as of this writing I have never once asked him to pull a car out of the garage for me to shoot as a "street sighting". Sometimes I just get lucky! Today we're looking at what I believe to be a 1929 Packard Model 640 Custom Eight roadster.

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.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1962 Pontiac Catalina

I keep coming back to Bernal Heights when I'm in San Francisco. It's an eclectic neighborhood and I seem to have good luck finding interesting cars there. The vicinity of the park where I found this 1962 Pontiac Catalina is also where I found the '51 International pickup, '62 T-Bird, '79 Ford LTD coupe and '74 Volvo 164E. There's a 1954 Buick around the corner that I've been trying to photograph for the past couple of years, but every time I stop by, it's underneath a car cover. Alas. I had to settle for this metallic blue Pontiac instead. It's good that I did, because I have not seen it since.

San Ramon Street Sighting - 1967 Ford Fairlane Ranchero

I love the '67 Ford Fairlane. I've been a big fan of them for about ten years now, and I also dig the Ranchero coupe utility pickup-car thingy produced from 1957 to 1979. So it figures that I like the 1967 Ranchero based on the Fairlane.

Alameda Street Sighting - 1958 Nash Metropolitan 1500 Series III

After a succession of several "bad" vintage compact cars that are sort of cool, let's look at one of the early compacts that was a bit of a joke in its own time. This is the second Nash Metropolitan that's appeared here. Both hailed from Alameda, a place that with its 25-mph speed limits appears to be the domain of Model Ts, neighborhood electric vehicles and Nash Metropolitans.

Foster City Street Sighting - 1987 Yugo GV

This is one of my favorite street sightings. This past week I've featured some famously "bad" cars, so here is the king of them all. It's a 1987 Yugo GV.

Pleasanton Street Sighting - 1973 Ford Pinto

The first thing viewers may notice about this shoot is that the lighting varies wildly among the pictures. Yes, it does. I shot this car basically three times on two different days, several months apart with two different cameras. Now that we're past that, this is one cool little Pinto.

Danville Street Sighting - 1975 Pontiac Astre SJ

It's funny how people lampoon one car for being terrible to the point it becomes infamous, and completely forget that rebadges of the same car even exist. Such is the case with the Pontiac Astre. The Astre was a rebadge job on the Chevrolet Vega, now famous for its rust problems and unreliable 2.3 liter aluminum-block engines. The Astre was sold in Canada only from 1973 to '74, then it came to the US market in '75 as Pontiac's smallest and cheapest model.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1976 AMC Pacer X

I adore early AMC Pacers. They're just so dorky, awkward and such a symbol of the 1970s that they've become sort of ironically cool. Between Wayne's World and Pixar's Cars 2, the Pacer is recognizable to all generations. It even made an appearance on Top Gear once, and Goofy drove a yellow one in Disney's A Goofy Movie. Unfortunately the Pacer is also remembered by many for being a "bad" car that failed at its intended purpose.

San Francisco Street Sighting - 1981 Lancia Zagato

This was almost my Halloween post. Halloween for many people is all about getting scared, and what can be more scary than keeping a Lancia Beta running in America? Then I checked my local Craigslist and found three of them for sale in good condition. So they're still out there. Funny thing is, I've been trying unsuccessfully for two years to track down a blue Beta coupe in Bernal Heights, and found this one quite by coincidence in another neighborhood nearby.