Down On The Street

Or, more fittingly, down on the parking lot of a soon-to-be-demolished onetime Carlsbad resort, being scraped away for a Lowes.

I've been pedaling past the former Olympic Resort in Carlsbad for a few years now. About a year ago my "cardar" spotted an interesting shaped vehicle under cover along the south side of the doomed building. It turns out, that parked amongst the construction vehicles and trailers was a shooting brake of genuine English provenance.

In this case, it's a 1976 Jensen GT. And if the Wikipedia entry is to be believed, this is certainly the rarest car I've spotted in the wild, with only 509 having been built during the car's brief eight month production run.

 

I've always loved the shooting brake body style. Then again, I am a sucker for wagons and hatchbacks. Notchbacks are such a waste, give me the long-roof version of any car where it's available.

And vintage tires had such cool tread patterns and minimal graphics on tall sidewalls. Too bad these old Pirellis are no longer road-worthy

Check out the registration on these blue plates - this car has been off the road for at least 27 years:

At least it looks complete and pretty straight and complete. Maybe some masochist will take on a restoration of it and its 2 liter Lotus engine.

 

One more look at that roofline:

Somebody make it run and lash a surfboard to the roof.