Livermore Street Sighting - 1971 Opel 1900 Rallye Coupe

This one is a really old shoot, from 2014, but I haven't seen one of these since. It's an Opel Manta Rallye.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1970 Buick GS 455

Each year for the 4th of July I like to celebrate America's Independence Day with a special feature. This year we're doing American muscle and sports coupes in red, white and blue. First up, a 1970 Buick Gran Sport 455 in glorious Fire Red.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1979 Ford Ranchero GT

I don't know what it was about the 1970s, but someone decided maroon and gold looked good together on cars. I don't mean to offend any Arizona State or House Gryffindor fans, but when I was a kid, I did not like the combination. In 1980 my dad bought a 1966 Mustang convertible that had been repainted maroon and gold. I suppose it's a classic color combination for clothing and such, but on that car I hated it. This '79 Ranchero came from the factory like that. Except on this vehicle, it's not plebeian maroon. It's Cordovan.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Vista

All right, let's end this year on a high note. This was one of my favorite subjects of 2016 and one that I waited nearly three years to shoot.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1955 Oldsmobile 88 Holiday

One of the defining characteristics of 1950s car styling is ostentation. Two- and three-tone paint jobs, tail fins, whitewall tires and lots of chrome trim everywhere are what most people associate with the era. But occasionally one comes across a car that does an awful lot with very little. I have come to really like the simpler designs of cheaper models that make do with less ornamentation. Some mildly customized cars like this 1955 Oldsmobile 88 can also pull it off.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1987 Merkur XR4Ti

It's the mid 1980s. You're a moderately successful professional in the market for a new prestige car. You could buy a Cadillac, or a Lincoln, or a nice Chrysler. But you want something a little more European, smaller, and sporty. You could buy a BMW 3 Series, but every yuppie buys a BMW. So you bite your lip and walk onto the lot at the Lincoln-Mercury dealer, past the squishy Grand Marquis and Town Cars, past the formal-roofed Cougar and hump-trunked Mark VII LSC with their thirsty V8s. On one side of the lot there's a shiny two-tone hatchback that looks like nothing else there. "What's a Merkur?" you ask the eager salesman who caught you staring at this strange car that says it was made in Germany. A four-cylinder with a turbocharger? The salesman proudly tells you this car shares its 2.3 liter turbo engine with the Mustang SVO and Thunderbird Turbo Coupe. You didn't even know you could get a Mustang with a turbo! So you test drive this unusual alphanumeric car. It ticks the boxes you're looking for. Alloy wheels, moonroof, rear spoiler, minimal brightwork, rear-wheel-drive, sport-tuned suspension, five-speed manual, and it pulls when you stomp the gas and the turbo spools up. You take a chance, sign on the dotted line and become the only person in your neighborhood with a Merkur XR4Ti.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1958 Edsel Corsair

It's my birthday today, and I decided that I would choose my favorite street sighting from the archives. I love Edsels and after several years of shooting and blogging street-parked cars, here we finally see one. The fact that my birthday falls just before April Fools Day, ties in well with the fact that the Edsel was a costly marketing failure for Ford Motor Company.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1969 Chevrolet Caprice

March 17 is St. Patrick's Day, a holiday that many Americans use as an excuse to get drunk and pretend they're Irish. That means wearing the color green under threat of being pinched. So here's a green car for your viewing enjoyment, and try not to imbibe too much alcohol.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1956 Ford Thunderbird

When I was a kid I had a fairly limited range of interest in cars and one of my favorites was the first-generation Ford Thunderbird. Children aren't the most sophistocated creatures so I guess the most iconic designs make the biggest impression. For me it was the '57 Bel Air, the '59 Cadillac, '70 Chevelle and various bedroom-poster fare such as the Viper RT/10, Ferrari F50 and Lamborghini Diablo. Take a look on eBay sometime at the most common diecast models for sale and you'll see what I mean about what appeals to kids. That said, the early T-Birds are very pretty cars. I always preferred the '57 when I was young but the '55 and '56 have their own merit and my interest in them has grown over the years.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1981 DeLorean DMC-12

Many of my readers are no doubt familiar with the Back To The Future franchise and the significance of October 21, 2015 as the so-called "Back to the Future Day", when Marty McFly traveled to the future. Well, I attended a double feature screening of BTTF I and II in Livermore's Vine Cinema on that night, and what turned up outside the theater but a DeLorean? A fan had driven his car there for the screening. Maybe it's cheating, but I know where at least three other DeLoreans live and none of them are ever parked on the street.

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.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1965 Buick LeSabre

I could have owned this car.

In 2009 the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association chose a light blue '65 Buick LeSabre as their annual giveaway car for their Northern California shows. I entered to win it, but it was not to be. I enter most of the giveaway contests and have been a finalist twice (red 1965 Mustang notchback and yellow '69 Chevelle SS 396), but have never gotten lucky. This is the car they gave away.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1969 AMC Javelin SST

Today is Easter, a holiday associated with a number of various symbols depending on how you observe it. Sometimes I like to tie in the most appropriate car I can find for holiday features, so here is a robin's-egg blue 1969 AMC Javelin SST. It has nothing to do with bunnies, marshmallow Peeps or the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but it is a rare car in a good spring color on a holiday known for seeking out hidden pastel eggs. And if you really, really want to associate a javelin with Easter time, read the Bible verses (specifically John 19:34) about what happened on Good Friday, three days before Easter Sunday. Beyond that, this is a car blog and it's not my place to lecture my readers on religion.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1956 Chevrolet Two-Ten Sedan

California Streets has been on a sort of hiatus for the past month, owing to real-life responsibilities and a lack of motivation to write. So I employed my rule of "When in doubt, Tri-Five Chevy". Here's a 1956 Chevrolet Two-Ten (or 210) pillared sedan.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1953 Hudson Hornet

On the topic of 1950s Hudsons that have been customized, we look at this 1953 sedan. On my 1950 Commodore and 1952 Wasp features I touched on the various details that identify the various models that shared the same body. It's hard to tell sometimes on a customized car because things get removed or changed, and the 1951-1953 Hudsons did not evolve very much. The 1953 model is identifiable by its hood ornament shaped like an air intake, and a new grille with no triangle. The 1953 also had optional reverse lights above the taillamps. The Commodore was still being offered in 1953 with the long-wheelbase Hornet body, but it was merely a leftover '52 with a new grille. This car has had most of its trim removed and the mounting holes filled with chrome spiky things, but the mounts for the Hornet-specific pieces are visible. The 1953 Commodore did not have the faux-air intake, and the Wasp was a short-wheelbase model. The wheelbase difference on these cars is most evident in the distance between the front wheel and the door.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1930 Ford Model A Rumble Seat Coupe

The Ford Model A is surprisingly well represented among classic cars in the Bay Area. From time to time I'll see one on the road, or tucked away in a parking lot on the day of a local special event. At least one usually appears at a car show. Very rarely do they show up just on the street on a typical day.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1955 Pontiac Chieftain 860

Perhaps one of the most important model years ever for Pontiac was 1955, the year that the brand lost its stodgy, roly-poly image and gained V8 engines across the entire model range. The 1955 V8 replaced the old inline-six and straight-eight engines that had served Pontiac for many years. What the '55 Bel Air did for Chevy, the '55 Chieftain and Star Chief did for Pontiac. The '55 was one of the last "Silver Streak" Pontiacs, the bright trim pieces that ran over the hood and down the sides of the little tail fins. Silver Streak had long been a trademark of Pontiac, and had become something of a symbol of the "old" Pontiac. After 1956, Pontiac was reworked into a sporty brand that would be heavily marketed as such right up until its final years.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1986 AM General HMMWV

Veterans Day is a holiday in the United States that honors those who have served in our armed forces, both past and present. For that reason I'm featuring a military vehicle. And not just any military vehicle, but one of the workhorses of the modern military, the AM General HMMWV, or Humvee.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1963 Dodge Polara Convertible

Regular readers here know that I'm not exactly a Mopar fanboy. By that I mean I like a lot of Chrysler products, but there are also a lot of models and model years I don't particularly favor. Much has been said about Chrysler's amusing gamble to downsize their 1962 Dodge and Plymouth models on short notice, and how it left their formerly fullsize cars roughly the size of their competitors' intermediate offerings. The end result was a line of ungainly vehicles with scaled-down styling cues meant for larger bodies. Chrysler executives fired designer Virgil Exner for the unpopular goof, even though downsizing wasn't his plan and he wasn't actually involved in the reinterpretation of his original design. Elwood Engel was brought in to "fix" things for '63, and the result was the Dodge Polara you see here.

Livermore Street Sighting - 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport

It's time to have a look at another car spotted near a car show, this time a modern classic: a 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport. I don't normally photograph C4 generation Corvettes in depth, but the Grand Sport special edition stands out from the rest. By 1996 the C4 body shell was getting very long in the tooth despite all the facelifting done over twelve years of production. Chevy chose to wind down the final model year of the C4 with this blue bullet, of which only 1000 copies were built. It came with the optional 330 hp LT4 V8 and a six-speed manual transmission.