There’s never a shortage of nostalgia here at TTAC. On any given day you’ll find at least one writer waxing poetic in our Slack chatroom about a long-departed car, be it a classic (or “classic”) model from childhood or, more often than not, a piece of crap deserving of the scrap heap.
We’re all going to play the nostalgia game today, because I’m asking you to think back. Way back. Specifically, to that impressionable time in your life after your feeble, developing brain began retaining memories, and ending just before you received your driver’s license. Your main method of transportation at the time was probably a bike — something you pedalled furiously up and down your childhood street in pursuit of your friends (or perhaps while being pursued by bullies).
Look to your left and right. Sitting in at least one of those driveways is a vehicle you wished was yours. What was it?
In your author’s case, it’s not an easy choice. Not because my childhood street overflowed with American muscle or foreign exotics, but because it was such a smorgasbord of regular cars.
Maybe my land yacht fetish started while staring at the late-70s Buick Electra sedan (baby blue) and Century coupe (copper) sitting directly across the road. For a time, a white 1980s Ford LTD cooled its heels next door. Down the road, a coffin-nosed Oldsmobile Toronado added some attainable personal luxury to the landscape.
Not exactly the stuff youthful dreams are made of. Despite its reliability and standard six-cylinder, the sharp-edged Toyota Cressida a few houses down wasn’t bowling kids over with its sporting prowess.
There was, however, a couple of notable exceptions. One was the Triumph TR6 — orange, with Union Jack emblazoned on the rear flanks — that moved onto the block later in my childhood. The pièce de résistance, though, was something of a ghost. You never saw it rolling down the street or sitting in the driveway, glistening under the summer sun. And yet it was one of the best exotics to come out of the 1980s.
Magnum, P.I. drove one. Yes, contained in the garage of one neighbor, sitting under a protective covering that never budged an inch, was a red 1981 Ferrari 308 GTSi. And for some reason — a motivation I can’t fathom — the owner never drove it. That car, for all of its sporting potential, racked up zero miles during its time on the block. Seems like a crime against autodom, no? Surely, ownership of a Ferrari demands that you drive it once in awhile, rather than stashing it away like a savings bond to accumulate value?
Childhood Steph had bigger plans for that car.
What about you, Best and Brightest? In the hazy, wistful memories of your youth, what vehicle tempted you from the driveway of a neighbor? Which person on the block had the best set of wheels?
Easy.
I forget his name…older than me by 4 years or so young man in H.S. drove a mid 80’s black Ford Ranger with a 3 or 6 inch lift, nice after market wheels and what I believe was a flowmaster exhaust. Sounded great and looked great, I wanted it.
Neighbor had a Jensen FF or interceptor in sand yellow. Too young to remember which. But it was a company car. I recall that, it was too exotic for our shoebox neighborhood.
Never heard of Jensen OR the FF, but I just googled it and thats a beauty!
Well, for sure it was the early ’70s uber-classy ice blue BWM 3.0 coupe that lived a block up the street, driven every day by its equally classy-looking silver haired lady owner.
Two: My grandfather used to drive me around in his burgundy-over-tan ’73 Mercedes-Benz 300d. Oh! The smell of that car… I still remember how that car seemed to hold the road.
And at some point, my dad worked for a Canadian millionaire who bought a few businesses in South Florida so that he could write off his snow-birding. For about a year-and-a-half, he stored his then-new ’85 Rolls Royce ItDon’tEvenMatter in our garage. One of my dad’s duties was to keep the thing in good order, which he did mostly by driving me around in it every Saturday for about a half-hour. I kept begging my dad to, just once, drive me through the Burger King drive-through for breakfast, so I could eat on the fold-down table in the back seat like a big shot.
A few houses down from me lived a ’71 Mustang Mach 1, in red. Loved that car.
(Didn’t hurt that it was in “Diamonds Are Forever,” either.)
Easy…Sergeant Tony Rowe and his “Toy Soldier,” a Chevelle NHRA hotrod he brought with him from the US to Mannheim, Germany. He lived right across the courtyard and served with my father. On race weekends, he’d bring TS home on his flatbed Mercedes truck. The sound of that thing cracking full throttle at rest as it reverberated off of both housing area buildings was simply glorious. That Tony also happened to own an “AMG’d” out light metallic green S-Class Merc AND a Porsche 928 only upped his cool factor.
I grew up across from a golf course and worked there as a caddy from age 14. There were a lot of late model cars in the parking lot to droll over. My fav was the 1967 GTO.
Two:
1. Split window stingray in that 3 dimensional silver color that glistens in the sun. Even today it brings back such fond memories. My next door neighbors father would watch her kids every day, and any time the weather was nice, he’d drive that beautiful stingray corvette. I loved that car with a passion, and it made me want a corvette for the rest of my life (until I realized I’m too tall to drive one).
2. Delorean. I know they suck, but in Highschool a kid in my class had one that he drove to school every day. In Highschool? thats AWESOME.
Nothing to lust after in the neighborhood – but…
Summer 1980 – first real job – pumping gas.
Owner of the station was a jerk – but he had a 69 Corvette Stingray – dark maroon over tan leather – t-tops.
One night leaving the station he dropped the clutch – and the front end came up for a good 20 feet.
I wanted that car.
In the apartment complex I lived in during the early 1980s, there was a guy who had a pristine-looking 1966 Thunderbird convertible. It was baby blue with a white top and white interior. I was in love. Here’s a pic of what one looks like.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/22/db/c1/22dbc16ca94146dfa500fe0f3571e25a.jpg
Except for a few muscle cars – mostly owned by teenagers or hidden away in garages – there wasn’t much that I lusted after. It was mostly 70s/80s family grocery getters.
One girl in my HS did have a super minty silver 1967 Firebird that looked so good compared to my bombed out rusty ’68.
Played this game on easy-mode until I moved out of parents by not having any neighbors for about half a mile, and I can’t say any of my neighbors gravel dust covered vehicles inspired much jealousy.
Now though, I’m living in a city and a couple houses down from a guy who owns a Gotta Have it Green Mustang GT. Couldn’t explain why, but ever since I saw my first one my senior year of high school, it’s been my one and only dream car. His is even a 6-speed just like I want.
Early 90s, my neighbour had a ’67 Buick Riviera he was fixing up (he had it roadworthy just before moving out of the neighbourhood). I didn’t know much about it, just that I liked it (him spending hours on a Saturday tuning the engine also annoyed my parents, which should have been a warning sign for me).
We also had someone down the road years later who had an early Viper and a slantback Hummer (which seemed oddly expensive for our neighbourhood), and a much braver individual with a Jensen-Healey.
Foxbody fastback Mustang 5.0 (in black, of course). Thankfully, I grew out of that obsession, but I still have a soft spot, aesthetically, for that particular 80s-era, boxy, louvered rear window muscle car.
Looking back, it makes me pine for the days when a car could look aggressive without gaping (and mostly faux) intake maws.
As a child, the neighbor across the street had a real piece of crap. I liked it because it was interesting, and I had no idea what it was (unlike other cars I saw).
It was red.
It was a cabriolet.
And I called it the “diamond car.”
It was a Renault Alliance. The neighbor won it in some kind of raffle.
My neighborhood growing up was an idyllic setting for my youth. It was a newly built neighborhood in a nice Cleveland suburb. Almost every family that moved in had children and there was always someone outside to play with. There were a few cars that were my favorites though. Family down the street had a kid a couple years younger than me. Father owned a drywall contracting business so he mostly drove a Nissan pickup that he’d occasionally use to ferry us kids around in the bed. In the garage he also had a mint condition C3 Vette. His wife though drove my favorite car, 1991 300zx Twin Turbo. Another neighborhood kid also had one of my favorites in a garage, his mother passed away from cancer when he was young, but his father kept her car, a 1990 or 91 Eagle Talon TSI AWD in their garage. It couldn’t have had more than 5000 miles on it. It was being saved to be his car in 10 years when he went to high school. It didn’t move from the garage until that time. Another friends dad had a early GTO vert as well that he’d take out on nice days. Beautiful condition car.
Nobody on my street had a car worth lusting after, and it wasn’t for lack of me looking. But my piano teacher had a red FIAT 124 Sport Spider…mmmmmmmmmmmmmm…
My mom’s little brother had a brand-new, red Plymouth Laser base model that I thought was nifty when I was about 10. Otherwise my dad & my grandparents had the most interesting cars around in my childhood.
I grew up in the 1980s, and I was obsessed with cars, so naturally my malaise-era lust was great. There weren’t many interesting cars on my street except for a dark red 1976 Chevy Monte Carlo with swivel bucket seats. The shape looked voluptuous to me compared to the “sheer look” cars that were everywhere by then.
At my grandparents house, there were several cars that I coveted. Across the street was a blue 1978 Oldsmobile Delta 88 coupe with rally wheels, the ones with wide center caps. The rear tires were larger than those in front, which was really cool in the ’80s. It was driven by a younger guy with long blonde ’80s rocker hair.
A few houses down, an elderly couple would frequently be visited by a friend, an older man with a brand new 1987 Chevy Monte Carlo Luxury Sport with the “aero” headlamp front end, with wire wheel covers, in glossy black that was always perfectly waxed. While I thought the Monte Carlo SS was the coolest thing, this car appealed to me in a different way.
I can’t fail to mention my aunt’s cars. First, a 1980 Impala Coupe in cinnabar with oyster vinyl interior. I was obsessed with that car. It was dead by 1990, replaced with a very low mileage 1979 Olds Cutlass Supreme in a shade of almost lime green with a white vinyl top, with matching green trim on the wheel covers and green vinyl interior. EVERYTHING in the interior was green. People definitely were not afraid of color back then.
Current neighbor has yellow FD Mazda RX-7… want real bad. However his has been heavily modified for drag racing, I’d want it setup for road course work.
My neighbor in high school was some sort of uppity-up exec and had a company car, that he switched around all the time. The dude had a parade of every luxury car of the era – mid to late 80s – in the driveway.
In the mid-80s, our neighbor had a Pantera! And an E-type, an Aston Martin and a Bug Eyed Sprite. He eventually filed for bankruptcy. My dad had a lowly 944 (non-turbo) and a sweet 912. I really wanted to drive the 912, but it burned up from an engine fire when I was 13.
When young I had an uncle who always had the ‘best’ cars.
He always had 2. One British and one domestic. The British vehicles included an MG-TD, MG-A and Jaguar Mark II.
He changed his domestic cars every 2 years and had some beauties. My favourite being an Impala SS convertible which was the first car I ever saw with seatbelts.
Later The Old Man came into money and always had the best vehicles in the neighbourhood. He changed them at least annually, sometimes more often. Town Car, Mark III, Mark IV’s (designer edition Pucci the best), Mark V, Eldorado, Fleetwood.
Always felt special when he let me drive them and no date ever complained. Often their father would come out to check out the car when I showed up.
I learned from that and fresh out of school and making ‘big’ money spent a great deal of it on vehicles. Primarily PLC’s of the era. However also had a Corvette (L-82) and eventually a ‘disco’ style full sized van. The father’s were not impressed when I showed up in that.
Easy: 1965 Aston Martin DB5 Convertible, right hand drive, dark red over black. Same owner since 1978.
I grew up in an upper middle class part of a wealthy town outside of New York City. We moved in around 1990 but I didn’t see it until the mid 2000s. I was walking my dog one weekend afternoon and heard the distinct sound of an old engine approaching the intersection ahead. I was expecting something pedestrian like an old MG or Alfa so I was floored to see the Aston. Back then, it was worth a few hundred thousand dollars and my part of town seemed an unlikely place for this car since a mile and a half away were houses worth $2million+. When I ran home to tell my parents what I saw, my mom asked “was it red?” Flabbergasted, I said yes. She then indicated that it was owned by the guy who lived DIRECTLY behind us. She always figured it was some old, junk car and never bothered to mention it to her car-crazy son (me). Never approaching that neighbor and asking about his car remains one of the few regrets I have.
I saw the car a couple of times throughout the next few years (I once found it parked, took about a dozen pictures on a flip phone that is now long gone) and then it disappeared. After some research, apparently my neighbor sold it on to a collector for an undisclosed sum who, several years later, sold it through one of the main auction houses. The selling price? $1.5 million
No Mr Bond, I expect to you drive!
You win! A totally unreliable, uncomfortable vehicle with debatable build quality and poor to middling performance. However it has “cachet up the ying yang baby”.
Steph, your youthful automotive dreams mirror my own. Caprice, Eagle Premier, Town Car, early D186 Conti, RWD Olds Eighty Eight and FWD Olds Ninety Eight. None of the old folks around me growing up fancied Porches, Corvettes, or even the required 80s IROC-Z.
Daimler SP-250. Mid 1960s England. Only sports car in our old-fogey neighborhood.
Lived out in the country but did have a neighbor across the road.
Early 80s Grand Prix coupe, dark blue and grey two tone with a blue velour interior. Next to that was a mid-80s long bed Chevy 1/2 ton 4×4 that was chocolate brown with a tan interior. It was a married couple with no children and they both had solid jobs – proto-DINKs.
Where I live right now (which is on a corner in the middle of Gallup) the neighbor across the corner had many vehicles sitting around but the one I desire the most is the late 70s Continental Town Car. I have yet to see it move since I arrived but the tires are staying inflated. I fear the vinyl top is not long for this world.
Room for random automobiles must be a nice feature in the desert.
He’s in the city limits but the laws are not strong as long as you keep your weeds down and trimmed. (The neighbor is a retired Maintenance and Operations guy who looks like his final employer assigned work van is sitting there also – must have bought it at vehicle auction.)
I’m lucky now because my Mustang has garage space – single stall garage that is JUST big enough for a 60s Mustang and a little storage. I think the garage’s first life was probably a carriage house (the house is roughly 100 years old.)
I grew up the 70s in NE Ohio in a neighborhood where almost everyone worked at GM or Ford. So, there were many new cars around. My absolute fave was the ones who had two 1978 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz coupes. So big…so cool!! A GM employee of course!
Can’t think of any neighbor or friend’s car that I coveted, on the other hand we had a newer for Mom and an older for dad E-Class growing up in a neighborhood filled with domestics that people commented on.
On my own my 95 fleetwood, E38,W220, V70 and now my W211 wagon have been noticed in not so great neighborhoods that I have lived at. My new nice neighborhood is filled with Odysseys and crossovers with the next door couple driving an MKT and Grand Cherokee, hardly the vehicles to lust after.
Around 9 years old, my neighbor had a 1968 Ford F-100, and I loved it because it reminded me of my late grandfather’s 1971.
The lady of the house had a late 1980s LTD Crown Vic. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now.
Across the street was a Hyundai Excel and a Buick Century (FWD A body). I liked the comfortable seats in the Buick, but it always smelled like blue crayons inside (blue velour). They also had a Datsun B-210 that their little girl (my age) and I used to pretend to drive.
So, aside from the desire to have a truck like my grandfather’s, there wasn’t much I really wanted. The other places we lived were similar in having cars I cared little about. I was obsessed with cars from a very early age, there just weren’t any around us that I really liked.
As a GenXer , in SW Mo., in the golden 80s, my birth home didn’t have anything super interesting.Lower middle class neighborhood. There was a divorced woman 4 houses down, with a 70(?) GTO, beautiful metallic brown/dark bronze color. Her only car, I think it’s the only thing she got out of the divorce. Beautiful sounding to an 8 y/o.
Later we move into a more gentrified neighborhood, single engineer across the street owned a new white SVO Mustang, lifted full size Bronco daily with sweet aluminum wheels.
While a younger teen a DINK couple move next door when the pleasant elderly couple got too old to maintain the house. They owned an e34 5 series and a E30 325is.Black and grey, the 3 was a 5Spd. Both were accountants iirc. They were doing extensive renovation to the house and ultimately got divorced before it was even finished. The wife couldn’t afford the mortgage on her own and had to sell.My parents weren’t the nosey type, so no other details were known.
Summer of 78, as an 8th grader hanging around with a lovely young blonde. She says I have to go now, my father is here to pick me up. Her and her sister jump into a CJ and go roaring off, long hair flying. I thought there goes the coolest guy ever.
Finally I have a wrangler but sadly I am not cool. But it is the funnest car ever.
Late 1960`s I would have been 4 or 5. If I did not bother our next door neighbor, Mr. Buxton, while he was washing his car, he would let me ride in it when he put it back in the garage. A jet black 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix. Everybody else had station wagons and sedans, it was the star of the street.
We had a neighbor with an All-trac Tercel, I guess that was the best and most interesting of the bunch. The other neighbors’ cars weren’t really lust-worthy (this was in the mid 90s): beige early 80s Delta Royale, rusty 1st gen S10 that the guy had to bump start, gold colored ’90-ish Corolla, a few rusty late 70s Chevy pickups. Our own ‘fleet’ at the time had a rusty ’77 Corolla 2dr sedan (4spd, manual everything) in mustard yellow. I really liked that car and hoped I would get to drive it. Terminal rust cut that short. There seemed to be an overall theme of rust in the neighborhood.
As far as the Toronado in the image, that was a slick car. I’m of course partial to the Buick Riviera version of this generation of E-body, since Grandma had one. I was pleased to see a cabriolet version of it driven by Ryan Gosling’s character in last-year’s La La Land…and later on a same-generation Cadillac Eldorado cabriolet when he trades up in the movie. But all three of these E-bodies had style and character in spades.
Now, for the car I coveted…well it was late 2004 and a family down the street from me had just purchased a 2004 Lexus GX470. Unremarkable, I know, but to my eleven-year-old mind, it was remarkable. It was black with beige leather and had the Mark Levinson / navigation package and the rear spoiler. This was toward the height of the Section 179 deduction and the father owned his own business, so that’s why he had bought it. I thought the Lexus was so cool, largely because my parents had never owned a luxury car and did not start buying even cars with airbags until 2006. In fact, seeing the Lexus in their driveway prompted me to walk up and ask the father about it, then I found out they had a son my age, and a lifelong friend was made. My friend’s father still has that car and aside from a defective dash-cracking defect (well-known and finally replaced by Lexus), it has been a gem.
These days, my college-aged neighbor has what must be the only Grabber Blue current-generation Mustang in the metro area, in base model. On the other side, my neighbors simultaneously bought a 2017 Encore and a 2017 Terrain earlier this year.
In ’82 or ’83, my not so freshly divorced mom started dating a guy who drove a Fiero. Must’ve been one of the first available.
It was the first car I remember seeing as a kid and thought, well damn, how do I get one of those. It was cool as hell. It was also the first car I experienced a manual transmission in.
I lived in a small town. I had an aunt who had a Mustang II, grey with red interior. It was a basic 4 cyl. coupe. Little me loved seeing this car because it had “a horsie” on the front :D
Other than that, the hottest cars I knew of around here were a late ’70s Corvette that got out of its garage about twice a year and also a late ’70s Road Runner. Black with yellow/orange/red stripes. Sure today I know they were but shadows of what they used to be, but to me it looked awesome and it sounded very good. Probably louder than stock.
Growing up around 1990 or so, one neighbor had a 1967 Mercury Cougar that must have been restored as it had flawless eye-searing yellow paint, black vinyl top and black interior. I always thought it was cool that he brought it out quite often and drove it, but never was much for yellow cars.
Across the street from him was a house that had two I truly lusted after. One was a Buick Grand National, race-prepped by Kenny Duttweiler. It was at least partially tube framed, tubbed, and had a parachute. Normally it was parked on a flatbed trailer but I did hear a rumor that they once drove it to the local 1/4 mile drag strip (across the state line…a whole 10 miles away) and followed it real close to hide the parachute with…
Their 1990 C4 Corvette ZR-1.
A few years later the older brother of a girl in my class who lived down the street the other direction started restoring a hot-rodded 1969 Camaro 396 SS. He used to test drive it in the neighborhood without the hood on it.
In 1984 I was 7 years old and lived on a circular street in a townhouse neighborhood in Herndon, VA. Directly across the circle from our house was this guy who had bought a brand new 300ZX Turbo 50th Anniversary Edition. Remember, the silver/black two-tone with the gold accents?
I saw that guy out there washing & waxing that Z31 every single weekend. I remember thinking, “If I had that car, I’d do that, too
There were a few houses in my neighborhood in the ’70s that had cool cars. One husband and wife had a new blue Datsun 240Z with a white interior and a dark green ’67 Buick Riviera GS. Our engineer next door neighbor had a mint silver ’64 GTO hardtop with a 4-speed that he daily drove (it sounded great), and my Dad had a green ’59 Mercedes 220S ponton coupe with a lipstick red leather interior. He sold the Benz when the Hydrak transmission started to give problems, and replaced it with a used ’67 Barracuda fastback. There were lots of everyday cars in the ’70s that were unremarkable then but are desired now.
I always liked the Citroen DS near my grandmother’s apartment. Oddly now I probably wouldn’t take a French car if it was free, except maybe the 80s rally cars. In my neighborhood there wasn’t anything interesting at all but that is the malaise era for you. As a funny side note, I thought one of my cousins was rich because they had a Volvo. It turned out they were poor, it was actually a Volare, and I just couldn’t read cursive very well.
Back in the 1970s I was seretly very jealous of my next-door-neighbor’s grandchildren. Their father was a well-to-do-doctor and he bought all of his kids incredible new cars. The oldest son got a light blue metallic 280-Z with a 5-speed. The next son (the golden child) got a gold Trans Am, while the youngest son got a full-sized Chevy Blazer. There was a daughter, too, but the family was very disappointed in her when she married outside of the Catholic church and so her dad bought her only a new Volkswagen Rabbit.
That 280-Z was really something, even with the big bumpers.
Late sixties, next door neighbor had a clothing store called The Pocket..he had a ’55 chevy wagon painted white with the seats redone in blue denim..he swapped the 235 stovebolt with a 292 truck engine and that was his torque monster daily driver.
But the jewel that was parked next to it in the driveway was a 63-1/2 Ford Galaxie fastback….I was told it had a 406, which I understand only came with a manual transmission.
Best part about it was the copper interior and copper exterior….really a beauty for its time. Bucket seats and floor shift console rounded out the package, altogether a great combination.
One day he got hit in the left rear. The rear fenders on that car seemed to be about 8 feet long, and when he found out a junkyard replacement would cost the princely sum of 75 bucks, he gave up and sold it….in exchange for a ’67 fastback with a 289…not nearly as cool as the ’63-1/2.
From the time I was maybe 12 until I graduated from high school there was a very secretive man who lived directly across from our house on our cul-de-sac. Whatever he did for a living required him to be away from home more than he was home. Whatever job it was also compensated him well enough to afford a Porsche 928 I am guessing it was an 1982 model as it had the 16″ flat disc wheels as opposed to the older 15″ “phone dial” wheels. This 928 was painted that beautiful Porsche slate blue metallic color that was popular in the 80’s.
He garaged it, so it was only really visible during the rare times when he was home. That said I can remember riding my bike up his driveway and standing on my tiptoes to see the top of the car through the windows in his garage door. That 928, in that color was the first of my many car crushes.
Nice to see the 1983 Oldsmobile Toronado on TTAC.
Hey, it’s NOT a POS HONDA!
I just had my 1985 Toronado Brougham (68,446 miles) smogged yesterday in the high desert of southern California. After adjusting the idle from 400 to 700 RPM and reattaching an errant air pump to air cleaner hose, the car passed with extremely low numbers on the check sheet.
This was right after I installed a new exhaust system with a new cat-back pipe, muffler, resonator and tail pipe as well.
The previous owner had a Maxwell House coffee can wrapped around the obliterated resonator with four rusted wires holding it on!
Now the car runs so silent you cannot hear it – just like my 1972 Toronado.
But the car I saw when I was younger, and the precise car that caused my lifelong pursuit of fine General Motors coupes, was a brand new 1966 Toronado that would visit the retired-persons home across the street from our house every Sunday. My brothers and I would run over to check out the car and always ask the driver to put the headlamps up and down…
One of my Dad’s closest friends lived across the street from me growing up. He drove a Datsun 240Z and his wife drove a Toyota Van.
Both vehicles that I would love to own now.
There are two that really stand out in my mind, and the first was a ’67 Barracuda that someone down the street owned. It was painted a pretty shocking shade of fuchsia, and I would always run to the window or the end of the driveway when it came barreling up the street. The other was a brand-new blue 2004 WRX STi that our next door neighbors bought; I’d seen one a few weeks before at the dealer when our Outback was in for service of some sort and fallen in love, so I took every chance I could get to stare at it. Eventually I even convinced them to take me for a ride in it, and if that didn’t capture a 9-year-old’s imagination, I don’t know what would.
One of our, of many schemes, in high school was to steal the Budweiser semi as it was parked and the Bud Man was making deliveries. Never-mind that doing this actual act would have resulted in many felonies and and unknown number of lesser crimes. Then someone in my group friends pointed out that none of us knew how to drive a semi. We would have been the crown princes of our high school for the weekend!!!
the guy across the street always had something interesting. to a pre-licenced teenager, the nsu sport prinz was probably the most exotic.
In the early Eighties our neighbours across the alley ( the Mums were great friends – the kids less so and the Dads not at all ) had ‘weird’ cars: A Volvo and a Beetle. I remember loving the Volvo due to the bouncy – and perforated! – rear seats. The Beetle just smelled like gas in the back seat but I remember my Mom and her friend having a giggle in the front seats. Great memories.
Several choices, growing up in the outer boroughs of NYC in the 60’s but two that stick in my mind were: an Olds Starfire 1962? The stainless trim on the deep red paint impressed me as an 8 year old. Also remember a neighbor buying a 1966 Corvette and my father saying that the guy must be crazy to spend over $5000 on a car.
Where I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s we were a Dart/Valiant and Chevrolet Bel Aire and Impala family.
Most of the neighbors since they had larger families or towed trailers had station wagons. Fuselage Mopars, Country Squires and GM wagons including fully optioned 71-76 Buick Estate wagon with the hidden tail gate.
Our next door neighbor had a Cordoba that their youth would smoke in and have burn marks in the soft Corinthian leather. Ricardo Monteban would not have been pleased.
Another was a muscle car family. Impala SS. Torino GT, Mustang GT and 72 Grand Prix SJ.
Every few years they would trade those in. By the 80’s they were into German iron.
While the initial attraction was not due to it being in the neighborhood, I always fancied the 63/64 Dodge Polara. I was super into drag racing at the time and the Hodges Dodges Ramchargers super stock funny cars were the coolest, meanest looking cars. Even stock, this car looked like it was ready to blow the doors off any challenger – at least in my mind’s eye. My brother eventually bought two of these used while I was spending all my money on guitars and amps. Change of focus, I ‘spect.
One of my friend’s parents had a ’79 Beetle cabriolet, white with black top, which I coveted. And my aunt had a ’74 F150, green and white, which I thought was fun to ride in.