In the winter, when our hikes are urban instead of in the woods, we sometimes change it up by walking the alleys instead of the streets. Here’s a motley collection of typical Eugene-mobiles parked by these alley houses.
First up is this gen1 Saturn SL2. These are finally getting scarce on the ground. There’s no doubt that these Saturns were able to rack up some pretty impressive miles. One of the more amusing things here has been the persistent inability of some readers to understand that just because I called Saturn a Deadly Sin (GM lost some $12 billion on it) does not mean that the cars were.
That’s not to say that I was ever enamored of the cars, as I thought they came off rather crude and cheap compared to the Honda Civic, which was the benchmark for the original Saturn. Of course, that was a moving target, as Honda sent us a new Civic every four years back then, with ever greater refinement.
Might this Saturn be experiencing some old age infirmities? The unlatched hood suggests that possibility.
Just another Subaru wagon, from back in the days when Subies were bought by granola-crunching folks wearing Birkenstocks in Oregon, Vermont and Colorado. Now it’s been the fastest-growing brand for the past decade or so, and is getting to be very mainstream.
I think it says “Loyale” on its rear door, which means it’s one of the later years of this body style, after the new Legacy came out.
I think I may have shared this ’82 Datsun 810 Maxima with you. But it’s worth a second glance, as these have become distinctly rare. But there’s a Maxima diesel wagon of this generation I shot and wrote up almost ten years ago and I just saw it in traffic the other day.
Quite the contrast to today’s Maxima.
That goes for the interior too.
Japanese brougham.
I’ll have to go down this alley again this coming winter and see how many of these are still there.
Nice finds there Paul, it is nice to see these still hanging around. Now I wonder how long those Hyundai Accents will stick around for?
I live in an older area of Jacksonville that has many blocks with alleys, but I don’t think I would walk them. I guess it’s just me, I look at alleys as the extensions of folks back yards. And it wasn’t so long ago that I was nearly mowed down by a car running down an alley to the surface street.
Interesting collection of cars, nothing powered with a V8 nor any pickup trucks or SUVs…how refreshing.
It is refreshing to see a group of just cars these days, though I’m a little disappointed they’re all current-standard drab colors. Back in the day we used to have red cars, green cars, purple, orange…they can’t all have gone away.
Hard to tell in the picture, but the Saturn is purple. Plum Metallic is the factory color name.
I live in Jacksonville, too; actually Orange Park. Having lived in Riverside during high school, I regularly cruised the alleys, and still do, at excessive speeds. Maybe that was me you had to dive out of the way of! LOL! But seriously, I consider them to be open to the public. Back in my younger days when I started my landscaping company, girls used to LOVE riding the alleys in my F-150 on rainy, off days. It was always a blast. How I never sideswiped a utility pole, I’ll never know, but numerous garbage cans lost their lives. Ah…the folly of youth…
The only thing close to a truck in these pictures is the door behind the Saturn. Looks like an 80’s model S-10 door.
In the 1980s, my classmate at the university drove a two-year-old Maxima in identical colour as in the featured car. He gave me a ride once in a while, and I came to love this particular generation very much. Unfortunately, my classmate was mechanically inept and had no idea about the required maintenance.
One day, when we were driving on the highway, the seat of my pants picked out the distinctive vibration, coming from the soft metal scruppering on the disc brake. He didn’t believe that I could discern different types of vibrations from the car by feeling them. (Eventually, my sign language interpreter explained to him that being deaf means boosted sensitivity in other senses as to compensate for the hearing loss.)
I demanded that he pulled over to the next strip shopping centre off the highway so I could inspect. It turned out that the brake linings were wearing down to the rivets that held the pads together. The discs were deeply scored and should be replaced, too. The prospect of imminent brake failure frightened me, and I refused to continue riding with him. I elected to take bus home.
My classmate thought I was being drama and it would be all right to drive home – just a couple of miles more. Foolish thinking as he found out half a mile away when he couldn’t stop quickly enough behind the 18-wheeler that stopped suddenly due to the inattentive driver in front. Totalled his car. Police officers cited him for neglience to maintain the vehicle.
Had he listened to me (no pun intended) in the first place, he would still have Maxima for a few more years.
Wow, I have never heard of police citing someone for neglecting maintenance on a vehicle.
I am surprised he couldn’t feel that there was something wrong with the brakes every time he applied them.
Yeah, my classmate told me afterwards that police officer noticed the expired inspection sticker (Texas used to have those annual safety inspections in the 1980s). One thing led to other…
You shouldn’t be surprised at how inept people can be when it comes to their vehicles.
The SL2 is identical to the one I found (1995) for a family member in ’03 for $1000 with around 130k miles. I was working for a Nissan/Saturn dealership and the woman who owned it had just bought a new L200 and complained she was only offered $800 on it as a trade in. I offered her $1000 as is, lost the parts sale but gained a well maintained car cheap.
It needed top motor mount, CTS sensor, o rings for an AC hose and a power steering pump seal. Same color, 5speed, but steel wheels with factory wheel covers instead of the alloys on the pictured car. It lasted until 2012, at 267k miles the timing chain broke and to the you pull it went. Always used oil as did all the twin cams, but only repairs I recall after the inital repairs was a clutch master/slave assembly, shifter cable assembly and brake switch, besides normal wear items.
I sometimes wonder if the woman regretted getting the L200, they were trouble prone cars.
That generation of Subaru DL/GL/Loyale is long since extinct in Vermont, apart from one or two (literally) preserved examples that show up at car shows. They DO know how to rust!
For that matter, I think the show cars might’ve come from Oregon…