It’s a slow news Friday, and I have way too many of these random street scenes, so let’s keep busy for a while identifying and praising these old timers. We’ll start with a real easy one I just shot a few hours ago, and increase the challenge factor. And BTW, one or more of these cars is a future CC, so fear not if you feel it’s getting short shrift today.
So the idea is to determine what is the oldest possible date these shots represent; i.e., the newest car vintage would determine that.
This one’s a little trickier. Do ignore that one obviously newer dark car behind the tree and bush in the driveway. I can’t tell what it is, but it’s too new, for sure.
Just for good measure, we’ll step across the street and shoot the same block from a different perspective.
If that is Civic in the middle of the third pic then it has to be 1999. If not, then the 626 would date it to ’98.
Yes, I think 1999 as well becauser of the happy turtle-faced taurus.
I don’t know the year for the Golf, but I’ll guess 1978. I’m not googling it anyway, despite having PLENTY of time in my hands now.
For the second shot, I’ll say the Acclaim. Nice LC you got there. I see 4 CC candidates: The Kidney Krusher (Land Cruiser), the HiAce, the Nissan pickup and the Acclaim.
Pic N°3 is tricky, since the 5-series, the Accord and the Taurus are of a similar vintage. I’d say 1996-7.
Then you have the 3rd gen Protege, which I’d guess is more or less 2002. The 2 rice burners in the back seem to be CC worth too.
I don’t know about anything else, but the Accord is the one pick is 96-97, but the Taurus is 98-99. I only know this because they had amber turn signals in 96-97 and switched to red in 98 because it looked cleaner I guess.
I have random knowledge about cars that have been around since I was born (1988 and I, like somebody else who has commented, know a little too much about the lighting structures of Accords as I’ve had 2 (a 95 and an 03).
Pic 3 is complicated by the fact that you also need to know when spinner hubcaps were invented.
The Rabbit in #1 is at least a 1981 model. The 70’s models (and I believe the 1980) had a much smaller taillamp.
My memory says the large, nearly full width taillamps were unique to the Rabbits built in the US. These also got square/rectangular headlights instead of the round ones.
I agree with AthensSlim. The Buick Apollo, which I hope is the next CC, is a ’74 in my favorite color.
That has to be a Pennslyvania built Rabbit. German ones had the rear quarter panel marker lights that are long in the horizontal direction. US ones are installed upright.
The brownish car in the background of that first Rabbit/Golf photo is a Buick Apollo, probably around 1973.
The Rabbit is a first generation one from 1975-1979.
I owned both a maroon 1973 Apollo and a medium blue 1976 Rabbit, so that photo is sweet.
First Picture:
1978 VW Rabbit
1974 Buick Apollo
1972 Datsun 510
#1: Don’t know when they started offering a diesel in the Rabbit, I’ll guess ’81
#2: ’88
#3: ’96, the oval Taurus gives it away.
#4: ’00, I think that was the first year for the green Protege in the background.
I know it is not a 1977 Rabbit because of the enlogated tail light assembly. The 1977 had a narrower lens array and round head lights. While the 1977s had ‘old fashioned round headlights’ they still had the euro styled suspension tune. My sister got a mad in Pennsylvania 1978 that deove like it had a suspension engineered on gummy bears.
MoppyMop –it’s a 99-00 Protege ES
The spinning hubcaps do complicate things. Wikipedia tells me that spinners in general were popularized by some rap song in 2003, but that they were around almost 10 years before that. The plastic variety, however, I think came during the post-Fast and the Furious tsunami of rice. That film came out summer 2001.
ahhh yes “Ridin’ Spinnaz” by the 36 mafia.
The song is awful and ridiculous, but the video is good for a laugh.
I apologize in advance for this terrible link;
Something about seeing your first car brings back good memories. For me: 69-72 Datsun 510.
The second picture is 1991. The Base Model SV20 Camry in the background has the 1991 Restyled taillamps.
The white camry in the 3rd photo is also a 1991.
I’m guessing 1981 – 1982 for the first picture judging by Rabbits taillights.
1990-1991 for the second picture judging by the Plymouth Acclaim and Camry in the background.
And about 1996-1997 for the last picture judging by the Taurus and Integra.
Hopefully straddling between two years is okay.
The Rabbit in the first picture is really throwing people. It has to be no earlier than 1980 or 81, because the Rabbit has the vertical side marker lights and wide taillights of a Westmoreland PA built car, plus it’s a diesel. Westmoreland started making gas engined cars in 79, but diesels were German built until 80 or 81.
The second shot is early 90s from the late K car thing in the foreground, amid 80s Toyotas, and pic 3 and 4 are dated by the 96 Taurus.
Are we sure it really is a diesel? That’s not a factory emblem.
That’s a GM diesel emblem, from ’82ish…
That Apollo looks good though…
Yeah, I looked in a photo album for a picture of my 1976 Rabbit and it had much narrower taillights.
My 76 had a carburetor. At some point, wasn’t part of the rear hatch labeling denoted “Fuel Injection” at some point?
Isn’t that a 1980s era Toyota van?
Friend had one, termed the “Chariot” after the “Lost in Space” TV show land vehicle.
http://www.carlustblog.com/2010/01/the-chariot-from-lost-in-space.html
A bizarre contraption but I still see a few around from time-to-time but very few here in the middle of the USA, fly-over country as so many coastal city slickers refer to this interior nether region where, perhaps, there will be more survivors than more populace areas when the upcoming social nation-wide apocalypse occurs.
At this point, I just read (or jot down, if it’s pre-’79) the VIN and look it up later…
Since I had both a 1975 Rabbit and then a 1979 one (the latter in that same shade of baby blue), I know that the elongated taillights started with the 1981 model. The ’79s were the first to be produced in Westmoreland, PA (gas only); I bought mine in October 1978. The diesel Rabbit actually came out in 1977 — I remember test driving one. As I recall, it wasn’t until the 1980 model year that Westmoreland started producing diesels.
The German-made 1975 model was quicker than the “Malibu-ized” ’79, but the latter was much quieter and had fuel injection. The interiors of the two cars were quite a contrast: the ’79 was all baby blue, including even the shift lever boot; the ’75 had 4 different colors: white headliner, painted yellow exposed steel pillars and window sills (matching the exterior), gray cloth seating surfaces and partial carpeting, and black dashboard, steering column/wheel, vinyl seat backs, and rubber flooring.
1982
1992
1999
Let’s see, the first photo, I knew it was probably a Buick or an Olds (many say it’s the Apollo, and I’ll buy that) and judging by the body style, no later than a ’74 (I had the ’74 Nova 4 door once), the Datsun parked behind it is from the same time period of not later 70’s, the Rabbit is a US Rabbit from ’83-84, before then they were much like the Euro built Rabbits with the 80-82 variants getting new side marker lights and rectangular headlamps (sealed beam of course).
Pic #2 sports either the Dodge Spirit or the Plymouth Acclaim, 1990 or so, the Toyota van, 1986 or there abouts, the pickup is a Mitsubishi from the mid to late 80’s to early 90’s vintage and the Land Cruiser is from the early 80’s
The 3rd pic has an ’89-90 Chevy Lumina, a ’96-97 Honda Accord and I think the white car behind it in the parking lot may be a late 80’s 626 but can’t say definitively, the other cars to the left of the photo are too far away to decipher but the Taurus with those hideous cheap spinner wheel covers (aftermarket and really don’t belong on the car – or any car for that matter) is late 90’s.
The final photo, same Taurus, the green sedan may well be a 97-99 Honda Civic, an early 90’s integra and I can’t tell what’s parked behind the Acura.
Okay, a little off topic, but I saw in two different parking lots yesterday, 1) a 72 or 73 Torino station wagon, pretty straight with no visible rust, tracking straight and sounding good, and 2) an absolutely pristine Toyota 4wd SR little (Corolla?) station wagon. The latter looked to me like an original car, not restored.
The Rabbit is a 1982 model. I had a 1980 Diesel, and was an expert at spotting year diffs on VWs in the 80s. Note the wide tail light assembly. That changed in 82. But it retains a vestigial curve to the tail gate steel where the 79—81 smaller tail lights were located. In 83/84 that curve went away.