Down On The Street

Whenever I ride through the north end of Solana Beach, my eyes always take in the cars sitting on the lot of California Import Auto. I've shot a number of cars in front of this shop and featured them here. Including this crusty VW Bus and this Renault R8S. Here's another rear-engined Renault that I captured with pixels on Saturday morning.

Even cooler than the R8S is this Alpine A110, semi-obscured by a wind-blown car cover.

This is only the second of these storied rally machines that I've laid eyes on. The first one I saw in person was last year in Stuttgart.

Tidy tail...

...with great vent scoops:

 Great gauges in an otherwise minimalist interior:

Only the French can pull off three-lug wheels:

 

But my favorite details were the vintage (or at least vintage-style) decals:

 Both would make great t-shirt art. Hint, hint...

 And two cars down was this Doka.

 Look familiar? I posted it back in Feb '11 when I caught it out at Elfin Forest. Pretty sure it's owned by an employee/owner of the shop as it's frequently out front.

A Car I Didn't Realize That I Needed

A 1960 Facel Vega HK500.
Painted in a lovely and appropriate French blue (my favorite shade of blue) and a healthy dollop of patina. Nice knock-off steel wheels lend a sporty yet restrained look.

Under the hood resides a dual-carb Chrysler 383 V8, good for a rated 360 HP.
And magnificently mated to a proper 4-speed manual tranny.

mmm... burl wood

Nice cushy leather - this is a real man's car.
Even though it's right-hand drive, I'll take it. Cool mid-century Euro/semi-exotic looks and a dependable (and cheap and easy to maintain) Detroit powerplant. Too bad it's in Australia. And too bad it's priced at the equivalent of ≈$64k.

Read more about this sweet ride on Bring A Trailer.com.