When hanging around San Francisco, one will spot a variety of classic vehicles, often owned as daily drivers since parking makes it nigh impossible to garage one car while driving another. This means you’ll see a lot of cool cars that probably shouldn’t be parked out on the street; exposed to pigeon and human attackers. It’s great fun to see what you can find out there — I kind of want to make a Scavenger Hunt for cars around the city. Here’s two of note that I spotted around Japantown.
BMW 2002 tii (~1973)
The orange coat of paint was brilliant and deep, and unfortunately not captured well on my cell camera. The tii version is the highest performance version of the BMW 2002, and consequently the most sought after. The tii came with a 130 hp, 4 cylinder engine, which for the time was pretty impressive. In addition to the extra power, you also bigger wheels, bigger brakes, and some appearance mods that generally plussed up the offer. Special note — I love the giant American bumpers that were tacked onto this 2002. See my previous “I Hate Big Bumpers…” post.
Volkswagen Type 1 (~1956)
Wow. This thing looked good. The exterior body and paint was immaculate, and the interior looked halfway done with a restoration. I’m no Beetle expert, but I’m guessing this fella was at least a 1956, and probably had a 40hp engine that did 0-60 in several days.
A little history: The VW Type 1 was kicked off by Dr. Ferdinand Porsche (of Porsche) under direction from Hitler, and was his solution to providing an economical car to the German citizen. Unfortunately things didn’t get off to such a great start — in pre-war times, the only way to get your VW was by earning enough stamps through a kooky Hitler savings program (more on the Beetle history here) — and it wasn’t until a few years post-war that the car gathered a global appeal. Well, it certainly appeals to me.
Want to drive... so bad...
