My Saturday morning of cars

I saw a lot of cool cars yesterday. A lot. I dropped off the Honda at 7 a.m. to get it serviced. I then started walking the ten blocks to Hanzel's for this month's installment of Seconds Saturdays. When I was about halfway there, Peter was driving by in his Eurovan and offered me a ride.

When we got to Hanzel's, hardly anyone was there. With some time on our hands, he showed me his shop, which was nearby.

This was an unusual motorcycle, an MZ Skorpion from East Germany.

After the visit, we headed back to Hanzel's. This Citroen 3CV Prestige was very unusual. It was made in Argentina. It's called a 3CV because it had a larger engine than the French version. Among other differences, it is a true hatchback (the rear window is a part of the hatch that opens) and the rear windows open outward by an inch or so. The owner lives in San Francisco but was stuck out in the boonies. He called Henry Hanzel and asked if he worked on Citroens. Henry said yes, but a guy in Santa Cruz specializes in 2CVs. The owner said he'll have it towed to Henry's anyway because his AAA tow limit was 200 miles. Henry's was 180 miles away and Santa Cruz was beyond the limit.

This is Pete's (of ZomBee fame) Smart car. It has a few mods, including wider tires and transmission software. He claims it feels like a modern-day original Mini Cooper.

This gray market 1984 500SL was beautiful. Other than the seats, everything else looked great.

This Dodge Polara air pollution patrol car is not a joke! I had no idea.

The great thing is that regular people who have no idea about the car meet drive by or park like nothing is going on. Here is a Honda Insight belonging to a local resident. I also saw a D1 Audi A8 drive by the show.

Citroen Mehari.

Does anyone know if these Datsun sedans shared the same designer as Alfas? Or did the Japanese just copy the Italians?

On my walk back to pick up the Honda, I saw this little display at a body shop.

And I had to take a picture of this new snub nosed BMW parked next to a restaurant.

Finally, on the way home, I hit a traffic jam and this badge engineered Isuzu Trooper/Acura SLX was in front of me. Even the paint scheme belonged to Isuzu. Honda was really desperate for an SUV back in the day.