I started this blog without any direction.

I’m a fan–no, a connoisseur–of a lot of things.  Cars, cigars, movies, music… to varying extents, I love them all.

I can’t really review them all, though.  Music?  Easy enough.  Movies? I have a Netflix.  Cigars? Well, yeah.  But cars?

Cars were my first love.  Evidenced by late ’80s video footage of me behind the wheel of mom’s Mazda 626, I’ve had the driver’s itch (no, not that one) probably since birth, or conception.

I started to fulfill that urge on a daily basis five or six years ago with a 1996 Toyota Camry V6, in white.  I loved the hell out of that car.  Roary, torque-steery fun off the line, no-ABS fun all over the place, it was a solid ride.  Through friends, parents, and jobs, I’ve driven a smattering of cars ranging from the Pontiac Grand Am to the Porsche Cayenne S, from the 1965 Studebaker Cruiser to the 2009 Toyota Land Cruiser, whether for half a minute or half a week, and I have at least vague impressions of them all, but there isn’t a whole lot of content to write about.  And rarely have I been able to drive the version of the car I wanted to drive: my dad went from an automatic IS 300 to an automatic G35; the first may well have been on rails and the second accelerates like it has a few fiery twigs up its bottom, but neither were as rewarding to drive as they could, or should, have been.

 

Alameda, explained

Alameda, explained

Some backstory: the best blog on the interwebs has been gracing us with a feature entitled Down on the Street, in which legendary minx Murilee Martin brings us photos of a different interesting old car every morning, all shot on the streets of his native island of Alameda.  He calls Alameda the “island that rust forgot”; the combination of old, no-garage construction, always unsalted roads, and somewhat wacky residents means the island is home to myriad largely unrusted vintage iron parked, well, down on the street.

 

Uptown New Orleans is a similar place.  No road salt (we never need it), no garages (most of the houses were built before or near 1900), and no dearth of interesting folk create a perfect environment for the same kind of thing Murilee finds in Alameda.  And I’ve been inspired.

So, one of the functions of this blog, at least, is going to be the exposition of certain interesting and/or old cars I see around the neighbourhood (and elsewhere).

We open tonight.