Random Old Car Sightings

I have been short on time this week, and needed a subject that I could pull together fairly quickly. Then came some inspiration from a friend.

One of the blogs I follow is written by friend and occasional commenter, Jim Grey. Jim writes more frequently than I do (6 days a week!) on a variety of topics, many of which involve his mad photography skills. One of his favorite topics is his monthly “Old Parked Cars”. And I remembered that I have caught a few interesting cars in the wild myself in the past several weeks.

For quite a number of years, I have written on old-car topics at CurbsideClassic.com. Those pieces usually involve old cars I find, with several photos taken. As time has passed I have become more selective on what I will stop for and seldom see something when I have time to stop and take pictures. And in my work, I am prohibited from using my cell phone while I drive, so there is no taking of pictures while driving my truck!

But there have been instances where I see an old car in a setting where I am either stopped or am not on the street when I can safely get off a quick shot, and today I will share what I have stumbled across so far in 2025.

OK, I took this one in my truck, but both the subject and I were stopped for a red light. Now, who doesn’t remember the Pontiac Trans Sport? These vans (with versions also made by Chevrolet and Oldsmobile) were popularly known as “Dustbusters” because of their unusual shape that resembled the Black & Decker handheld cordless vacuum of the same name. We know all this stuff happened a long time ago when I feel the need to explain all of these references. How long ago? These were built for every model year of the 1990’s, so somewhere from 1990 to 1999.

OK, here is a better view from when they were new. Remember now? These were known for their plastic outer body panels and didn’t rust – at least not visibly – so they stayed on the roads for quite awhile. But they were never as popular as other minivans and pretty well all disappeared like everything else built in their time that was not named Mustang or Corvette. So I was pretty excited to find one on the road for no other reason than that.

This is a horrible shot of something that was once a common sight – a car that has conked out on the road with the international symbol for “Help Me” – an upraised hood. When I was young there were those who liked to say that FORD stood for Found On Road Dead, and maybe this poor old Mustang did the same thing to its owner in 1969 or 1974.

Or maybe any time you take an old car out on the road you are asking for an adventure, whether you understand that or not. Nothing lives forever, and even a simple old car like an early Mustang (1965 or 66) is full of parts just looking for an excuse to retire. Fix Or Repair Daily was another suggested acronym to be made from FORD. This owner may not have had to attend to the Mustang daily, but he certainly did on this particular day.

This is another shot gotten off a little too quickly. Either my trusty phone camera is slower on the draw than I would like, or I have too many thumbs. It is a shame I cannot just download the shot from my memory.

This is the BMW called the 3-series, which was sold in the U.S. from 1984-91. At first it was the 318i, a 4 cylinder update of the earlier 320i, which had really gotten the attention of the American Yuppie starting around 1980 or so. Within a year or two came the six-cylinder version, the 325 (or several versions, with different letters on the end of the nameplate.)

I shot this because I remember having a hard crush on one of these as I finished law school. Yes, I suffered through my own Yuppie phase for a couple of years. I remember going to my local BMW dealer and standing around for about 20 minutes with not a soul in the not-busy showroom to ask how they might assist me. What is that old joke that includes “German service” in the punch line? But the 325 I really wanted cost about $18 grand back then. I could have had the 318 for around $16k as I remember it, but eventually decided that a Volkswagen GTI could provide me with virtually all the performance, 80% of the Yuppie cred and for thousands less. But all these years later I still let out a little sigh when I see one of these, and this one was really, really well kept.

1955 Pontiacs are rare enough, but a 1955 Pontiac hearse or ambulance? I don’t think I have ever seen one in real life before. These were built by body companies like Superior, which started out as a “professional car chassis” and which used a moderate amount of the stock body mated to some specially fabricated parts. Whether this one was built by Superior or some other company, Pontiac tended to be a lower-cost option for smaller town funeral directors (who often had to provide local ambulance service too.)

Here is an old ad for the Superior version (which this might or might not be). I cannot recall seeing many old funeral cars or ambulances put to work in civilian life. We all remember the 1959 Cadillac ambulance from the Ghostbusters movie. When I was in maybe 7th grade there was a plumber who lived down the street from my best friend, who used a black 1960 Cadillac hearse as his work vehicle. He certainly didn’t get confused with other plumbers. But then who else could drive around in a low-mile Cadillac for so little money?

OK, eat your heart out Jim Gray. I kid, because Jim is a native of South Bend, Indiana, the former home of the Studebaker Corporation. In 1963 and 1964, Studebaker built the Avanti. There was never anything quite like it – a sleek fiberglass body on Studebaker’s competent but elderly chassis that was sort of a cross between a Thunderbird and a Corvette. Or maybe not. My original car-mentor and father of a childhood best friend owned a 1964 model from new and I grew up loving it.

The Avanti story got interesting when Studebaker shut down its American operation in December of 1963. The Canadian plant that picked up production duties for the rest of the 1964-66 model years did not continue the Avanti. But a Studebaker distributer and dealer named Nate Altman bought the rights to continue building the car, which he did right there in South Bend starting in 1967. Chevrolet running gear mated to leftover Avanti frames and with newly molded bodies were hand built in small numbers into the 1980’s before the company was taken over and the car underwent some controversial modernizations.

I remember trying to talk my father into buying one around 1976. You could chose any automotive paint color under the sun, and any upholstery material your heart desired. The result was not cheap, but was a unique custom-built car that, though genuinely exotic, was practical enough that it could be serviced at your nearby Chevrolet dealer. This particular Avanti II is probably no newer than the early 1980’s, but there were very few visual cues to date these. They were never built in significant numbers and there was certainly never any widespread advertising, so this car is probably completely new to many readers. As for me it rekindles an old flame.

Of all these, this Avanti is the one I was most tempted to stop and photograph more extensively. But a couple of years ago I caught up with the Holy Grail – a genuine Studebaker version, which I wrote up on Curbside Classic (here, if you are interested). So I settled for a quick shot of this one from the drivers seat of my car as I traversed a shopping center parking lot, which is good enough for me.

28 thoughts on “Random Old Car Sightings”

  1. I, too, love the look of the E30 3 Series — it’s still one of the prettiest cars ever made. I had the E46 3 Series coupe (2000 328Ci) and I’ve always had a hard time deciding which one I personally liked more; but ultimately, the E30 just has better lines and less bloat. The Golf GTI is a pretty nice alterntative, I’d say — it probably still fits your description.

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    • There was a lot to recommend BMWs back then, if you really loved the taut feel of a car that gripped the road. Of course, a manual transmission was a must – something that mighty few people still hold to.

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      • There’s seriously nothing that drives like a BMW. I know “ultimate driving machine” sounds like so much BS marketing, but those things talk to a listening driver like nothing else.

        My E46 came with an automatic… and left with a six-speed manual. I agree, the manual transmission is a must.

        Is your truck a manual? (Out of curiosity — I know a lot of those tractors are fitted with autos nowadays).

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      • I started out in older trucks with manuals, but the ones I have been in most recently have been automatics. The autos seem much slower to accelerate (requiring a bigger break in traffic before you pull out to start a left turn, for example) but I will confess that I don’t hate it with as much city and suburban driving as I am doing these days.

        Back in the 80s a friend worked for a guy who had a 7 series (735?) with a 5 speed. The owner let my friend have it for a weekend when he was out of town, and my buddy let me drive it briefly. Wow, was that ever a pleasant car at speed! I think German cars in general were good at that, being built for the high speed Autobahns there – my GTI was also a really good driving car. There are a whole lot of reasons to avoid owning a German car, but the driving experience is certainly not one of them!

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      • I’m not a truck driver (I’ve considered it, but I really resent its being an open invitation to every so-called LEO to harass me and eat out my substance); but that seems like a bad move. It’s not as if trucks have Bugatti-like acceleration as it is. But then, I’m a manual-transmission sort of guy. (And I can see why you’d like the autos with a lot of city driving).

        There are plenty of reason to avoid German cars — I don’t even like buying used ones… I doubt they’ve been maintained properly by their owners.

        BUT… if you like driving (actual proper driving, not just the car-pointing that most people do), nothing else feels like they do. Perhaps it’s Autobahn-oriented design — you definitely want the car talking to you when you’re cruising at 120+… whatever it is, I dig it.

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  2. These are some very fine catches. It seems so many good and worthy finds are those which, for whatever reason, are unable to be captured digitally. This past Monday I saw a very solid and delightfully worn ’53 or ’54 Buick on the street near the St. Louis Zoo. But you just have to take my word for it, as no pictures could be taken quickly enough.

    With spring upon us, hopefully you’ll start seeing more good stuff while out and about.

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    • Oh yes, the number I have NOT been able to photograph has been amazing. Every week I am taunted by a red and white 58 DeSoto sedan that has been sitting outside of a suburban warehouse since late last fall. But I am driving a truck on an interstate highway and cannot do the process of getting off the highway, getting to it and getting some shots off. And it is far enough that I have no reason to be that way on one of my days off. I hope someone gets it inside soon before it goes the way of all the rest of them.

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    • There were a couple of times in recent years when I came across one being advertised, basically clean and solid, and I thought about it as a driver-classic. But then good sense prevailed and I passed. But still . . .

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  5. This very day, on my way back to work from a lunchtime errand, I drove by a Chevrolet Cobalt four-door sedan. Your essay reminded me that I hadn’t seen one of those in years.

    It’s hard to believe they debuted a little over 20 years ago. They have virtually all disappeared. I can’t think of any other car from that era that disappeared from local roads so quickly.

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    • It has been quite awhile since I have ever thought of a Cobalt, let alone seen one. The other one that has vanished is the Chrysler Sebring convertible. Those used to be pretty common!

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  6. I just heard John Mackelroy, the auto analyst on my all-news radio station, say that automakers only make three basic colors anymore for new cars and people just settle for that, rather than choosing a specific color, which they have available, but there is a significant wait time involved then.

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    • I hate that! This was why I insisted on an actual color when we bought our new car last spring. Up until that one that is green, my only 3 nee cars had been black, white and gray.

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  7. Can we all just agree that the Stude Avanti was perhaps the most wonderful swan song of any manufacturer on their way “out”. A car I lusted for from the first time I saw one as a kid. My father, who studied engineering at Purdue before he decided to take a general degree, always told me he considered Studebaker to be an “engineers car”, early with a lot of engineering “firsts”; and I don’t think he ever recovered from getting his Stude Hawk destroyed by a person who ran a red light and t-boned him. He considered the Hawk to be every bit the sports car that a Corvette or T-Bird was. I’m also with you that the actual Studebaker model Avanti was the “pure” version!

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    • I am definitely in your club! The only other example I could cite would be the sixteen cylinder car that Marmon built before the depression killed it. Also an Indianapolis company, by the way.

      I love Hawks! That was the one model I never got any personal exposure to. How cool that your father had one! What color was it?

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      • I’m not sure, since it was “before my time” and my Dad is long gone. By the time I started recognizing cars, he was already driving a company Plymouth. It’s kind of confusing, because there were “Golden Hawks”, and “Silver Hawks”, and then apparently the Silver Hawks just turned into regular Hawks. I’m sure he had one of those, since when we did talk about it, I know he never said it was a Golden Hawk. I’ve seen them at car shows, and I most certainly back his idea that they were basically 2 seat sporty cars every bit as sporty as the T-Bird and Corvette.

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    • Yes, that hood emblem is cool indeed, and was another bit of ornamentation that did not make it to the re-born model. The interiors of those early models were great too – they certainly didn’t look like the inside of the product of a small, failing car company.

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  10. There was a nicely preserved ’77 Cadillac Seville a couple blocks from my office about a month ago. Georgian Silver, black top, black leather. Was leaving one day, took a slightly different route home, saw it out of the corner of my eye, went “Holy crap!” and frantically parked the car and ran across the street… 😆

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  11. I used to have a green 1995 Chevy Lumina minivan, the cousin to the Transport and the Silhouette. I always thought it was ugly, but it was all my wife and I could afford at the time. I grew to love that van because of its practicality and the memories we made in it, but it never stopped being ugly! Just a bit more charming, I suppose.

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  12. Pingback: JP’s A to Z Challenge – R is for Studebaker Lark R2 | J. P.'s Blog

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