In the movie Inception, the protagonists at one point are involved in a shoout and car chase within a dream. As they race through the pouring rain, evading their pursuers, the same 1982-87 Chrysler New Yorker continually appears. I kept noticing the stretched K-Car and how out of place it seemed.
I had watched Inception the night I took these two terrible photographs in Brisbane. It felt almost surreal to see this pickup conversion of a 1974 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, being used by maintenance workers on the busway no less! Was I dreaming? Was someone manipulating my subconscious as I slept?
As it turns out, I was very much awake. Still, it was such a bizarre sighting considering Cadillacs were not sold in Australia in the 1970s and these pickup conversions were rare. Sadly, it was a nightmare trying to take a good picture!
What is the most unexpected car you have seen in the most unexpected place?
I had a field construction tech that drove a big Mercedes out onto jobsites in the mud. I was always amazed where he drove it.
When I was in Amsterdam in 1991, there was a 1956 Oldsmobile 88 convertible often parked on Regulardwarstraat. It dwarfed the surrounding multitude of 80’s hatchbacks and toylike Fiat minicars.
It also seemed an off choice if you wanted a 50s car, it wasn’t the more common Cadillac or Chevy choices.
A car/truck such as this parked at a Mother Earth Greenpeace Rally.
I saw a privately-imported Geo Prizm parked on the crowded streets of London, England in 2006. It still had an expired 1990 Virginia inspection sticker on the windshield.
I’m surprised when I see an American “appliance” car here. Mustangs, Escalades, Ram pickups are not everyday sights, but I don’t take much of a second glance when I see one, and the main reason for buying them seems to be to attract attention. A Taurus won’t do that, but I’ve seen them.
I used to regularly see a 2005ish UK-plated Suburban drive down my street in Edinburgh. It was a dull spec and dull colour and it seemed to be the worst of both worlds – boring, but too big and a gas guzzler. I always wondered who was driving it.
Saw a dodge stratus and U.S. Model escort the first time I went to Italy
While traveling to Florida in 2009, we stopped for gas in a rural part of Georgia. After fueling up and getting back in the car, this appeared in front of us. No idea what year, but the grille badge says “Mitchell”, and evidently the company made their last car in 1923. This one is probably older than that. Very possibly the oldest car i’ve ever seen driving on public roads:
Oldest Ive seen was an International high wheeler on Marine parade during the art deco several years ago it was not a display vehicle being too old just something put into use for the weekend and legally registered.
Two come to mind.
First: I’ve mentioned this in comments here before… The Isuzu Bellel Diesels that were clattering around Fairview, OK in the late ’60s. Distinctly NOT early-adopter territory for Japanese cars.
Second: A Packard Hawk in a farm field between Enid and Ponca in 1975. It looked good and supposedly “runs good”, and I could afford the $400 price. My tools and skills were all VW, so I decided not to buy it. Probably a good decision, but I still wonder…..
1959 300sl roadster parked at an auto parts store with the top down…
This Rolls at an electronics store
I also keep seeing RHD Japanese microvans around, near Portland, Oregon
I agree on the Microvans and here is one that has been imported that I photographed a few months ago before it got Oregon plates. Also have seen a few imported large Mercedes Benz Vans from the 1980s.
I was stunned to see this sweet, original looking Buick Skylark convertible parked near Grosvenor Square and the American embassy in London last fall. This CC made a great day even better!
The Citroen SM that lives on Victorian Roupell Street, close to London’s Waterloo Station. Not my photo, but I’ve seen it there many times, and always pause to marvel.
http://twitpic.com/6jzq0p
Saw what I’m almost certain was an SM on a trailer going past work a week or so ago. It was hollowed out, painted flat black with numbers on the sides and piles of parts ahead of it on the one car trailer. I assumed it was a wacky 24 hrs of LeMons project.
William, saw that car out in the wild a few times recently …
KJ in Oz
Theres a Lincoln Continental ute conversion around here its on the cohort I caught it parked one day.
My best example of this still has to be a few years ago when I spotted the Marmon Sixteen taking an exit off of I-465 on the east side of Indianapolis. Mrs. JPC’s picture remains one of my favorite images.
Hands down standout for me: proportions-correct Bugatti Veyron on I68 between the Sabraton and Pierpont Road exits outside Morgantown, WV, last November. Two-tone black and silver. I say proportions-correct because it was travelling eastbound in very light traffic while I headed west, so I cannot be absolutely certain it wasn’t a kit car, but to my fairly good eye, it looked correct. I work on the main car dealership strip for the Lehigh Valley so I see exotics daily. Mostly Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches and various in-house tuner German supercoupes and sedans at the Starbucks across the street, but this really caught my eye.
Also saw a one year only 1991 Nissan Axxess and a Renault Fuego Turbo in the same area once, but that area was my favorite junkyard, so I don’t know if that counts as an unexpected place, despite the rarity of those cars in 2015.
One more comes to mind. The first Acura (Honda?) NSX I ever saw was on a school trip to Germany in summer of 2000. Flew past us on the Autobahn (we were in a bus limited to 70 kph) near the Nurburg exit. Always thought it was funny to travel to Germany and see a rare Japanese car that was sold in the US. Just not many sold around where I grew up in WV.
We get the occasional semi-rare car in at work. Some notables being a 68 Firebird convertible in for tires last week, a 71 Monte Carlo for tires a few days earlier, a beat up Subaru XT for an oil change last fall, a nearly mint Cutlass Ciera International Series coupe for oil change this spring, a rusty 6000STE for a tire last year (complete with A-Body door rust and an adorable 91 year old female original owner), and a 66 Electra 225 hardtop, fully restored, for tire balance last summer. That one was a beaut.
Land Rover Defender hi-cap pickup with demountable camper in a crummy town in southern Vietnam, French plates.
Merc C Class with Australian plates in Scotland.
I’m amazed that A. Those Cadillac pickups exist and B. Someone appears to be using one for work. In Australia! It reminds me of those cop shows/movies where the hero cop drives a pristine classic car for work use everyday. Aye, right.
I’m always surprised (although I should be used to it) at the crappy old beaters Dutch people use to drive to Scotland on holiday, partly because flights are cheap and fuel ain’t, and partly because I have a crappy old beater and never in a million years would I take it to the continent.
I’ve seen a handful of Skodas, Holdens, and SEATs with diplomatic plates in the Washington, DC, area. Always odd to see foreign registrations on non-locally available cars.
Myrtle Beach, SC, is a hotbed for Canada only cars, as that area and the roads leading to it see lots of Canuck vacationers. Nissan XTrails, Mercedes B-Classes,Chevrolet Orlandos and second generation Kia Rondos abound.
I saw an Aston Martin DB5 in the late 90s in the street of my town (Salem, MA). It was in front of a garage that specialized in vintage Bugattis, which has since moved to New Hampshire
Probably 4 years ago, I was just leaving the hardware store when someone pulled in driving an early 50’s Cadillac. This was in the evening in the middle of winter in southern Ontario (think snow & road salt). The driver, his wife and kid got out of the car. There was a block heater cord dangling out of the grille. I asked and indeed he was using it as a daily driver. I would’ve loved to take pics of the car but had no camera on me at the time. (I didn’t own a cellphone then.) Unfortunately I’ve never seen the car again.
Spotting an Aston Martin Lagonda driving the other way on a country road last summer was quite unexpected too.
Thought of some more:
16 years ago, road trip to the east coast. I saw some kind of European van with the body of another car grafted onto the roof to make a raised roof camper. Had European plates on it too.
Last month, again on a road trip to the east coast, I saw two hatchback Pintos in the same day. One was on the highway, was a bit rough and hot rodded. The second was in the parking lot of the fast food joint we stopped at to eat, and looked brand new.
Same trip, while walking in downtown Charlottetown, PEI I spotted a Renault convertible parked. It had a tow bar on the front. Presumably it was towed behind someone’s RV.
A Tatra T-613 in Memphis, Tennessee.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-european/curbside-classic-tatra-t-613-elvis-drank-slivovice-instead-of-rc-cola-with-his-clam-chowder-and-moon-pie
Yesterday at a Days Inn near us in Toronto I saw a Defender 4-door with Sao Paulo plates. It had stickers from all over North and South America on it, and camping gear stored on the roof. I assume the owner was looking for a regular bed and shower for the night. I always keep an eye out for old and unusual cars, and several years ago I saw a 1986 GAZ Chaika limo at a car show in the Distillery District. The owner said that it originally came from Bulgaria. (I have yet to see a ZIL, although I hear there’s a few in Cuba).
I saw a Zil in the Toronto area, but it wasn’t curbside. I was in the car corral at the annual car parts swapmeet held at the International Centre near the airport.
For years until the early 2000s whenever I crossed into Canada, regardless of duration of trip, distance of travel or destination within the country, I would see one Lada. No more, no less, and never the same one twice.
In 2012, Skowhegan, Maine, at 5 o’clock rush hour traffic. A very old Rolls Royce, year not known. The next day I saw it again 70 miles north of Skowhegan on the Canadian border in Jackman and I got to talk to the owner. It was a 1914 Rolls Royce and he was driving to Prince Edward Island for a Rolls Royce rally. He and his wife were very nice. He said that this was their honeymoon car. They had it shipped to New Zealand to tour the islands while they honeymooned! Super nice people to talk to. Couldn’t help but feel envious of them.
Citroen 2CV passed us driving down Rock Road in Wichita this winter on a cold slushy day.
On a trip to Tromso, Norway, which is in the Arctic Circle, I had two unexpected sightings. The first was a 1972 Mercury Montego coupe, sitting on the roof of a short concrete building, where it was being used as part of a sign for the restaurant in the building. Needless to say, I had to eat there… On the same trip, I heard a distinctly American rumble and turned around to see a 1977 Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser, replete with woodgrain trim, roaring down the street. It sounded like the car had blown its muffler, so the Rocket V8 made quite a ruckus. I still remember the sound reverberating off the buildings as he drove by.
Sweet ! .
Living in Car Crazy Los Angeles means there’s always something strange , odd , weird or rare simply driving by .
-Nate
So true. In the past couple of weeks I’ve spotted two spectacularly restored cars within two blocks of my home in Santa Monica, one a 53 Corvette and the other a Porsche Speedster. On separate days both were parked at meters with their tops down and perfect interiors on display, no owners in sight. You think to yourself, am I dreaming? No, this is SoCal, a car lover’s paradise.
That applies to the San Diego area as well. When I lived there up to 2007, at various times I came across a ’54 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, a ’55-’56 Packard 400 coupe, a ’55 Desoto Fireflite Coronado edition, a ’56 Dodge LaFemme, a ’48 Lincoln Continental, and a ’66 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible, all as daily drivers in my own neighborhood, and at my independent Mercedes repair facility, a mid-80’s Zil limousine waiting for repairs. I’m sure there were others, these came immediately to mind. There was never a dull moment for car spotting down there.
Plenty of Mexico only models frequent the San Diego and LA roads. They always grab my attention. A mid 90’s Dodge Ramcharger in the Home Depot parking lot comes to mind. Ford and VW sub-compact pickups. The occasional brand new Peugeot. I imagine it is the same fascination for folks living. Near the U.S.-Canada border as well.
I’ve only ever noticed two Mexican-plated vehicles. We don’t get many that make it all the way to the mid-Atlantic. Spotted a Nissan Micra (K12 generation) in Raleigh, NC sometime around 2006-07, and a BMW 1-series 5-door in Williamsburg, VA last year.
My most surprising find of a Mexican plated vehicle was a mid-1990s Escort I saw in Ithaca, NY about 5 years ago. It had Mexican plates from one of those states near Mexico’s southern border.
Here in Worcester, MA, I’ve only ever seen one vehicle with Mexican plates. It was a Chevy S-10 Blazer from the 1983-94 styling generation (although I think it was a 4-door, which would peg it as a 1991 or later; did these continue to be sold in Mexico later than in the U.S.?) with Jalisco plates. I saw it a couple of years ago, on a multiple occasions. The owner may have been in town for an extended visit. Interesting in that the Mexican population locally is small. There are lots of Latinos, but mostly Puerto Rican, or to a lesser extent Central American.
Yep ;
As I currently live in South Central Los Angeles I see a never ending stream of Barrio Beaters , Ghetto Hoopty Rides and of course , those wonderful older Drop Tops owned mostly by older Black Men who made it and have a cherry old ride to cruise ’round the Hood in .
The endless quantity and variety of beaters down here is STAGGERING .
Lots in Down Town L.A. where I work and of course , scads of over restored old Chevies (be still my wildly beating heart !) anywhere in East Los where I like to have lunch most weekdays .
-Nate
A 1953 Bentley R-type at a little rural country diner. No pic here because it will eventually be a CC.
US: A Toyota Hilux from Estonia (I think) on I-95 in Rhode Island. A VW T5 Transporter with Virginia plates on the East Side of Providence, RI – perhaps a VW employee?
In Europe, not counting European-built American cars such as Jeeps and Chrysler minivans…
Poland: Several US-market Ford Escorts and Mercury Tracers in Krakow, as well as a Chrysler Sebring or two.
Ukraine: An early 2000s Ford Mustang with New York plates in Lviv. As in Poland, an assortment of American cars, such as Ford Explorers, Lincoln Town Cars, a Pontiac Vibe, and a jellybean Ford Taurus. Also, a 2004-2008 Acura TL.
Portugal: This sounds mundane, but I was shocked by the number of 2001-2005 Honda Civic sedans. I always thought Europe only got the “Swindon” 3-door and 5-door hatchbacks from this generation.
Thirty years ago, I worked construction for a few years. Early one late summer morning at the corner of Routes 15 and 5 & 20 at East Avon, NY I look up to see a 1932 Packard Deluxe Eight Sport Phaeton, an Individual Custom by Dietrich, the V-windshield models considered the ultimate cream of custom-bodied Classic Packards.
Later, reading a feature in The Classic Car, CCCA’s club magazine on this very car, it was a frequent Caravan’s tour participant being driven by the long-time second owners who acquired it from the original owner in the early 1950’s. It now resides in a major collection and is frequently seen on the concours d’elegance circuit.
To say it was a stunning surprise and a major pleasure to see it would be making understatement.
A Chevrolet (South Africa) Firenza saloon in Dagenham in the late 1980s. Perhaps surprising I spotted it at all as it looked almost like a normal Vauxhall HC Viva apart from the badging.
I once saw a Citroen 2CV filling up at a gas station in Lebanon, TN, and a C4 Corvette convertible in Quito, Ecuador.
I live in rural middle Tennessee, and I see a European-style USA license plate here at least every couple of years. I find that at least as surprising as seeing oddball cars. In the same area, I saw a late model Peugeot hatchback parked at O’Charley’s. A couple of the magazines used to drive the roads around here a few years ago (Jean Jennings rolled a Ford Focus less than 30 miles from me), and so I did chalk up any oddballs or unreleased models to that.
Last summer I stumbled across a Lancia Thema 8.32 in Chicago, of all places. I may or may not have scaled a fence to get my shot:
For that, I would certainly have scaled that fence!
Bugatti Atlantic and Mil-Bug Type 35 race car at an Early Ford V-8 Club show in New Hampshire a few years ago. The Atlantic is the same car that currently resides in the Mullin Collection in California.
A Plymouth Superbird. In Belgrade, former Yugoslavia. In 1971. Orange in colour and surrounded by people 3 deep.
Must have looked like a spaceship to the locals. And too an 11 year old, only 3 months out of New Guinea, a spaceship it was.
No pics alas.
Oh, yeah. Then there was this in 2012….
I have seen one of those. Only one.
Was it at a McDonalds or a KFC? 😉
There used to be a Model T club where I lived in Upstate NY and I can’t say that I was too thrilled being behind them. Those T drivers must plan during their meetings the best, worst time to be on the road. They’d be rolling 12-15 long and on a two lane highway but yeah, those would be the most out of place cars I’d see.
Seeing an older Buick isn’t all that unexpected at a Wal-Mart, but seeing this nice much older one certainly was…
I was surprised to find this Lincoln Mark LT in… Vienna, Austria. It must belong to one of the many embassies close to the Belvedere palace.
An Original Avanti, anywhere. I find their presence creepy. And I never see the driver/owner. It’s as if they’ve appeared out of thin air.
Seeing the rare ’57 Hudson featured on CC in July a week or so later while on the road on vacation in Missouri was a bit of a shock, especially as we passed on the highway as if the Hudson was just another average car on an American road trip.
In a roundabout way, I learned that ’57 Hudson was on its way to California when I spotted it. From what I learned, you saw it on its way back – 25 miles away from where I spotted it. Truly unusual!
I came across a British car show while on holidays in country Western Australia about five years ago. Apart from the usual suspects like MGs, Triumphs and the inevitable Rolls-Royces, I was stunned to come across a pack of vintage Bentleys. From the photos I took, there were at least eight.
I used to see a guy driving around Freimann (Munich suburb where I lived 2000-01) in an ’84 or ’85 Chevy Caprice Estate station wagon. Cured my homesickness (if for a moment) with its beautifully burbling 305 V8 amid choruses of clattering diesels and thrashy four- and six-bangers!
After the fall of communism in the early 1990s, exporters were pulling alot of used mid-late 1980s GM full sized 4drs and wagons out of the northeast to sell to the former communist countries so it could have been from one of those shipments. And not all of the cars were entirely legal as they were fairly easy to steal and the proximity of the container shipping harbors and docks in NJ made the stolen cars quick to ship out.
back in the late 90’s coming home from work one snowy winter evening I had a 61 Plymouth fury wagon go sailing by me. as someone mentioned earlier in Ontario, in winter and it was moving! when I caught up it was running 130-140kph(80-85mph) thru the slush.
had never even seen a 61 fury wagon before never mind in those conditions.
made me think of Richard dreyfus in close encounters chasing the ufo.
slowed down after a few minutes and let it go but it was something to see roaring thru the night especially with those two little round taillights staring back at me.
For something slightly out of place a 2door 57 Chev at my local Peugeot/Citroen dealer, I cant find the shot of the 58 Corvette that was in the workshop but the same owner has one
My wildest sighting actually on the road was a Lamborghini Countach with the big rear wing, on a freeway near Melbourne about eight to ten years ago.
I was driving along in the old Ford Laser, minding my own business when I heard this almighty roar. Looked in the mirror and saw this unmistakeable shape hurtling toward me. He must have gone down quite a few gears to pass something – or maybe he just wanted to impress his passenger. Sure made an impression on me!
While in Lima Peru a couple of years ago there was a ’67 Dodge Coronet parked across the street from us the entire stay. As a rare site in the US I was really surprised to come face to face with one in South America.
In March of 1996, I took a trip to the UK. I had graduated college the previous December. At any rate, as my friends and I were walking from the tube station, I saw a massive late 70’s “downsized” Coupe DeVille leaving a gas station. I looked the price of a liter and did some quick math–must’ve been about $5 per gallon, which was about four times the going rate in the States. Knowing what my 1978 Olds 98 averaged with the 403–about 14-15 mpg–I figured the driver was either rich or insane. Or both.
Of course, I also had my first exposure to the Mini. Obviously, that wasn’t exactly unexpected in mid-90s London, but I had little exposure to British cars outside of Jaguars and older roadsters. I just couldn’t believe it when I first saw one. I remember thinking “Someone drives this thing? On a public road?” I went in for further inspection–it’s called a Mini! Little did I know that a eleven years later, I would own a classic Mini (1962 Cooper 997).
Here’s mine, about five years ago on the autovia between Cadiz and Seville Spain I passed a Dodge Cummins dually towing a trailer. Can’t for the life of me imagine many other roads in Spain that would accommodate it. The runner up was an 80’s Camaro in Gibraltar.
The first thing that springs to mind is a yellow Dino 246 GTS parked outside of a comic book store not far from here.
Near Krabi, Thailand 2012 or 2013. See an old Mustang in Bangkok every trip. The owner lives up the soi from friends. The car looks a bit different every trip with new mods
In 1993 near Tofino, BC, had a campsite for 2 nights beside a German couple and their toddler, and their Unimog, complete with German plates.
In 1998 in Fussen, Germany, saw a Dodge Ram half ton parked in the middle of the town. Must have been quite a feat to park it, I thought!
In 2013, in St John’s Newfoundland, there was an F150 in the same campground, but it had French plates. I’m guessing it was from St Pierre et Miquelon.
And sometime in the 1990s, a London Taxi (Austin FX4) rolling around the streets of Calgary. My advantage: I was riding IN it, with 3 friends. It let out a trail of blue smoke from the clapped out diesel, but we still entertained ourselves doing U-turns in impossibly small spaces!
Mid-70s white Corvette in Tel Aviv, where gas is $8-10/gal. Plain late 90s Accord with Ontario plates parked in Rome. A pair of seemingly-identical 1959 Cadillac de Ville convertibles driving a wedding party under the Sydney Harbour bridge. Assorted dull American cars in various places in Europe with amber signal lenses. Why would someone import a full-size Olds 98 to France?
In 1969, while in the Navy, I was in Athens, Greece in the square in the middle of town, I saw a 1958 Lincoln Continental 4 door hardtop. The owner bought it from the American embassy and had to import all the parts to keep It going. It was his whole life!
Citroen Berlingo in the parking lot of the Home Depot in Moncton New Brunswick.
Went to this junkyard full of forgotten treasures… I haven’t seen in YEARS.
I went with a few friends, to get parts for my 83 E70 Corolla’s motor swap from a 79 SR-5 with a 2TC.
So many rarities, I want to write a CC article just showing this junkyard and its inhabitants.
I was very amazed to find, this running and complete, C3 Greenwood Corvette.
Write it up! We’d love to see it. Junkyard articles are always fascinating, if a bit sad.
A Soviet built ZIL limousine-the one that has a front clip similair to a `61 Cadillac at a gas station-repair shop in Bensonhurst Brooklyn about six years ago.
Visiting from Brighton Beach, perhaps?
A poultry farmer in a brand new black Porsche 911, circa 20 years ago. He had a lot of chickens. The younger ones.
Oh, and while I’ve not yet seen it, my father’s business partner apparently owns a left-hand-drive Mazda R360 kei car. Even the existence of the car is kind of eyebrow-raising.
The two strangest were:
In West Virginia, in some horrible town where we saw inside some houses, more like shacks, with dirt floors, about 1986, and I saw a brand new Ferrari Testarossa, bright red, of course. It had a couple in their 30’s in it who seemed to be familiar with the area, and we all wondered “Who around here could afford it?”.
The other was just creepy. Also in WV, but later that night. We were basically lost in the mountains, trying to find a road and there were no signs, apparently that’s common in WV. There was this guy in a white K5 Blazer that kept popping up, over and over again. Always smoking a cigarette that lit up his face in orange every time he took a drag on it. Every time we thought he was gone for good, he would appear again. For well over an hour, he kept appearing, in front, behind, from one side road or another. My mother and her best friend were freaking out. When we finally found someone who told us where to get onto the road we were looking for, we assummed he was finally gone, but 20 minutes down the road, he passed us going the other way. I kind of wish I could have asked him WTF was going on, but I just wanted out of WV.
Wow, that’s freaky.
That Testarossa probably didn’t even belong to that couple. It probably belonged to a city slicker who got stuck in the wrong area of some backwoods ass community, and was killed, and his car taken by some, trailer park, derelict inbreds.
The scary part is the couple you saw were the most normal looking ones. They catch you off guard, invite you for some drinks, then you are followed by the jucket in the eerie K5 Blazer… Then they’ll try and box you in and rob you, or worse.
Kinda like that movie Wrong Turn. You were wise to leave WV.
That area has nothing of interest for me. Screw that.
Having gone to college with a couple of people from WV–my guess is that was the plaything of a coal-company executive or his progeny, or, a young couple down from Pittsburgh, which isn’t that far from northern WV.
An Austin Allegro in Manhattan 1980.
Here is an August 2015 photo from Portland, OR of a 1988 Nova from Illinois. Amazing to see this car so far from home and in such good shape.
Jay Leno pulled up to The Rock Store, a biker hangout on Mulholland Drive in the Santa Monica mountains, in a Duesenberg several years ago.
This TVR Sagaris was in Castle Coombe when I was there in 2009. It was rainy and gloomy and this thing was parked in the street. Of course, there’s a racetrack just up the road.
I found a Seat Ibiza on West 57th Street and Broadway a few years ago. And a 1973 Triumph Stag by the navy yard.
A parking garage in Bethesda, MD, late 1970’s. Parked in with all the yuppie cars… an Elva Courier. Still the only one I’ve ever seen outside a race track.
Back about 1985 I encountered a Bristol on the Virginia Beach Expressway. I think it was a 411, a little tattered, with a thirtyish blonde woman driving it.
I’ve seen four JDM vehicles that were never available in North America, RHD and all, in central/southeastern Virginia. First three were an R33 Skyline on highway 168 near the North Carolina border, a different R33 Skyline in Virginia Beach, and an A31 Nissan Cefiro AWD in my neighborhood in Richmond. The Cefiro was especially unexpected, as I didn’t even know what it was without reading the badges.
Then I learned there is a business in Richmond that specializes in importing JDM vehicles, and it stopped being so unexpected. So when I saw the R32 Skyline 4-door, it was still very cool, but not so unexpected anymore.
One of those R33 Skylines could have been Doug DeMuro from Jalopnik, since he got his GTR from an importer in Virginia.
Is DeMuro’s an R33? I thought it was an R32 (read the article where he took it to a dealership for service just to see what would happen).
If it is an R33 and I’m misremembering, it could have been the first one that I saw on 168. Dark-colored GT-R. The one in Virginia beach was white and didn’t appear to be a GT-R.
Not really all that unexpected, I suppose, it being parked in front of a bank and all….
..on the street in Greenwich, NY….
My oddest sighting was in Lisbon Portugal in 1982. We were walking through the Barrio Alta which is a poor neighborhood, and found a new Volvo 240 station wagon with New Jersey license parked in an alley. While a newish Volvo in a working poor area could be local kid made good and visiting, the US spec lights and US plates were a puzzlement.
I’ve also seen some unusual expedition vehicles but Oregon gets a lot of tourists so they make sense. Examples include a Swiss Landrover 110 with a Westfalia style pop top in Sisters, an MAN cabover class C motorhome at Bonneville Dam and a home made expedition camper on a Magirus Deutz 4×4 in Bend.
Nothing really surprises me in California any more, whether a true CC, an exotic, or a 6×6 expedition van with German plates. Though the Trabant that pulled up next to me in heavy traffic recently definitely made me stare. Probably the most out of place elsewhere, was a new-looking crew-cab 4wd Ford pickup, high end spec (Eddie Bauer or King Ranch), in heavy rush hour traffic in downtown Taipei. Definitely not a work truck, and taking up about as much space as 20 scooters, with driver only on board and nothing in the bed.
This also goes under the category of “nothing surprises me in California anymore”, I guess, but inching home in LA traffic one afternoon through Echo Park, I saw a somewhat dilapidated Citroen DS inching the other way. Echo Park has been gentrifying in recent years, but still…
I guess I’d have to add to that the Facel II (I think; I know it was a Facel) parked in Sierra Madre one Saturday afternoon–I’d only ever seen one in a book. But Sierra Madre has its share of wealthy hobbyists.
Never noticed this was in a driveway, only a lil over a mile, from where I live, and I drive this route every time I go to the library…
An Austin Mini Cooper.
Whilst holidaying in Europe two years ago, we arrived in Lausanne (Switzerland) via train. We stepped off, stepped out of the Lausanne station, looked left and there was this Seville! It was there for the 3 days we were in Lausanne, and was obviously used and cherished, but seemed so out of place in the narrow streets.
In the summer of 1988, I went to France for two weeks with my high school. I kept track of all the American cars I saw. I think there were around a dozen. IIRC, a Seville from this generation was one of them. I think I still have a journal I kept on that trip somewhere; I should find it and see if I can make up a list. The strangest one that I remember, in terms, of “why on earth would anyone go to the trouble to bring one of those over here?”, was an X-body FWD early ’80s Buick Skylark.
Chrysler Turbine Car going the other way on a Detroit expressway in 1965. Of course, I guess that really wasn’t an odd place to spot one, but I sure was surprised to see it.
Only 55 ever made, 46 destroyed by Chrysler. Only 9 kept… With 6 of them, the engines were deactivated and donated to museums.
Only 3 went to private collections… One owned by Jay Leno.
Although, they were never sold to the public… You may have seen a test mule or one of the remaining 3. Lucky you.
Not sure but at least I knew what it was. It sure had an interesting sound. . When visiting my brother in law in Michigan I saw a guy out driving a pre production XLR complete with the usual car cover type cladding. He was driving it in snowy weather on a secondary highway and seemed to have a lead foot. We didn’t know what it was, of course but thought it looked like a Corvette with vertical taillights.
I have seen a right hand drive English black taxi parked on the street in a small town in East Tennessee.
My second runner up is the fact that I have seen not one but two Lamborgini LM002 4x4s in person.
#1 was a red Lm002 that I saw in the late 1980s in NJ coastal town at a flower shop- not usual and not expected- in the pre-Hummer days it really did look freak show compared to other cars and trucks; I later read that one had been owned by Malcom Forbes (who had an estate in NJ), I was a teen ager and didn’t wait around for the owner to exit the shop.
#2 was a silver one in mid-2008 near the Chicago suburb of Northbrook IL at a suburban industrial park, parked in front of a speed and performance business, This one I was able to verity by the vin # against the online LM002 registry as having been a former show vehicle, The paint was a little in need, the round sealed beam headlights really, really were dated looking, and it had lost its panache versus the now larger Hummers. I took a video of it but that was on my work black berry which I later had to give back when laid off in late 2009.
I parked next to a Dodge Attitude with Tamaulipas plates at the Wal Mart in West Monroe, LA yesterday. Very unusual.
Is that the oddball Dodge-Hyundai rebadge job?