i spotted this dog taking his old man out for a ride here in portland…… thatsa gooood buoy!! Evoking the mythological creature of Indigenous peoples of North America, the Thunderbird entered production for the 1955 model year as a sporty two-seat convertible. Unlike the Chevrolet Corvette, it was not marketed as a sports car. Rather, Ford created a new market segment, the ‘Personal Car’ to position it.
this cayman was spotted on highway 26 moving east-bound towards portland. on the road and in-motion the cayman really shows its appeal….. a lovely car, but forever destined to be eclipsed by its big brother’s shadow.
while not as rare a sighting as the tatra, i don’t see too many vintage airstream trailers in these parts. my only wish was that it was towed by something more period than the yawn inducing suburban. In 1969, upon their return from the Moon, the crew of Apollo 11 were quarantined in the Mobile Quarantine Facility, a modified airtight Airstream trailer, until it could be determined that there was little likelihood of their having brought back lunar pathogens with them.
i suppose the odds of spotting a tatra on the road are about as rare as winning the lottery, though spot one indeed i did! sporting a rear-engine air cooled V8, The Model T603 was allocated only to senior members of the comuninst bloc political and industrial establishments. Small numbers of T603s were exported to most of the central European countries allied to Czechoslovakia at the time and to Cuba. Sales to private individuals were not normally possible, although a few T603s appear to have been privately owned in East Germany. During the car’s twenty year production run, 20,422 cars were built, mostly by hand. To the west of the Iron Curtain the car was unknown, though some were used by Czechoslovak embassies in western capitals.
(photo courtesy of boice tomlin) cars-i-have-seen blood brother boice tomlin spotted this porsche 911 in bloomington indiana, quickly assembled his photographic arsenal (iPhone) and successfully captured the specimen we witness here. nice shot…. thank you boice !
i was headed north on a beautiful country road in monmouth oregon when what did i spy but a genuine farmer on a genuine tractor. the rural areas to the west and southwest of portland are quite intriguing……. so much so that i am considering trying to purchase a few acres where i can plant my survival seeds prior to the impending societal collapse. 
i loves me a good volkswagen bus. i spied this one tootling down interstate 5 with a sticker in the window proclaiming “0-60 in 11 minutes”. it was piloted by a young lad who looked not a day past 19 and every bit a character. i remember my friend steve lodefink had a volkswagen bus in college…. t’was in sweet condition and i believe it was a ’76 in two-tone cream yellow and white. i also recall him telling a tale of how he fell asleep at the wheel and the bus flipped over on its side and skidded that way for 100 yards coming to a rest in jackpot nevada. luckily ‘old fink emerged with nary a scratch. magic bus.
