Growing up as enthusiasts, one of our key points of exposure to awesome cars was simply finding them in the wild. It was even better when a cool car lived in the neighborhood you lived or went to school, because it meant a chance to see it regularly, get familiar with it, and admire it.
Some of us even form childhood bonds with these cars, these roadside sculptures, these monuments to engineering. They can become our favorites, canonized in the pantheon on greats. Best of all, they don’t have to be mind-blowing to rock our worlds. Whether something exotic or something affordable yet neat, as long as it captures the imagination and inspires, it’s cool.
For about three years, I attended a school outside my immediate neighborhood, and on the way there, I’d see a Ferrari 550 Maranello that lived outdoors in front of a modest home. It was completely unexpected, and yet, there it was — the last pretty manual Ferrari used as a daily driver. The GT cars were always Enzo’s favorites for the road, and I got to see one of my personal hero cars almost every day on the way to school.
Today we’re asking you what the coolest car in your childhood neighborhood was, or any other neighborhood you frequented for school or friend meet-ups. It doesn’t have to be the most astonishing thing on the books, it just has to have moved you in some way. Who knows? It could’ve even been the beginning of something great.
(Photo credits: Bring A Trailer)
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Liced kinda out in the sticks and our neighborhood was smallish. The coolest car was a mid 70s Chevy Nova and a Lil Red Wagon Dodge truck. Since we later found out the Nova was owned by a pedo, thus spoiling the image, I’ll go with the Lil Red Dodge truck.
The coolest car in my social circle was an 83 Mustang GT that was so low to the ground you could almost push a beer can along the road.
In a very mid neighbourhood in a place with 6 months of winter and road conditions and climate that genrally eats cars, every year come May there were 2 cars that would make weekend appearances.
A maroon ’93-’94 911 Turbo and a silver NSX. Not too far away from there today and about once a year I still see the NSX.
My next-door neighbor had a blue 1957 Belair. I think I saw it leave his garage once. I was more infatuated with the faded red 1966 Pontiac Bonneville coupe I saw every day while on the bus to school.
I’m an old. But the coolest cars I remember growing up, were owned by a guy down the street, a few years older than me. When he got his license and a part time job to be able to afford it, he and his dad got matching yellow ’69 Super Bees. They would park them on the front lawn in the summer, and lovingly wash them with only the mildest of automotive soaps and polishes on the green bermuda grass. So cool.
I ran into him decades later, and he told be that it was one of the proudests moments of his entire life.
I had seven childhood neighborhoods:
1. Triumph TR3 (‘57)
2. Renault Dauphine (‘60)
3. Rambler Marlin (‘65)
4. Willys Jeep Station Wagon (‘61)
5. Shelby GT 350 (‘68)
6. Ford Bronco Half Cab Pickup (‘73)
7. Dodge Charger (‘68, mine)
I think we lived in the same neighborhood, or parallel universe.
I grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Brooklyn that was full of teachers, firefighters, and cops, so it was mostly boring domestic cars and some Japanese cars. The craziest car I saw in my neighborhood as a kid was a red C4 Corvette. I thought it looked cool with the pop-up headlights and it was a much more interesting shape than all the other cars in the area.
The cul-de-sac I lived on was home to a C4 Corvette, a 911, an ’87 RX-7 Turbo, a Supra, a Caravan SE with Turbo, and my dad’s Conquest TSi. I never really thought about that before but Jesus.
We moved a lot, but for a few years I had a neighbor who raced BMWs, and had an M1 in the garage and an M3 out front.
First childhood house (1987ish): my parents’ briefly owned ‘68 Charger 440 six pack. Second house (1994ish): Detomaso Pantera!! Our neighbor had been the drummer for the Kingsmen! Guess that went well for him. Third house (2000ish): a black Testarossa. Similar to your Ferrari story, it wasn’t a particularly fancy neighborhood.
My parents neighbor had an F430 and a McLaren SLR, in addition to an SL55 AMG and an SL250 pagoda. He was big into the Merc brand. I always tried to see if I could get a ride in the SLR, but it never materialized.
Grew up in a neighborhood with a bunch of WW2 vets who bought the houses in the late ’40s. Neighbor across the street had a ’71 Buick Riviera; next door neighbor had a ’65 Oldsmobile Cutlass 442 (yes, it was a trim line until 1968).
I grew up in a pretty modest suburban neighborhood, but there were a handful of gigantic houses on a lake and you had to drive past my house to get there. The two cars I remember seeing drive by from time to time were a Lamborghini Diablo and a Hummer H1.
House on my paper route had an Espada that was street parked- a bit rusty and the owner was brazing in some repair panels that he badly made himself. The neighbor had a first series Corvette and a 69 Stingray- he later traded both in on a C4 so there went the cool ones
When I was a kid, the coolest car I noticed nearby was a black rounded thing with a big tail. I admired the Hell out of that car!!!
I now know it was a 930 Turbo. And I also now know it was very very out of place in my smallish town full of boring domestic cars.
Late ’80s-early ’90s in lower middle class SoCal…my neighbors had a lot of stuff that wasn’t necessarily considered that weird or interesting at the time, but stands out a bit in retrospect: a Subaru XT, a NUMMI-built Chevy Nova Twin Cam, an AE92 Corolla coupe. I can remember so many families with kids where at least one of the primary cars in the household was a coupe: a first-gen Prelude, a G-body Grand Prix, heck, even my mom’s S10 Blazer was a two-door. Possibly most memorable was the triple-black (paint, vinyl roof, fine Corinthian leather interior) Chrysler Cordoba up the street with the vanity plate “MELS TOY.”
In the neighborhood where my parents live now, where we moved in the late ’90s, the most oddball for sure was the Merkur Scorpio that was down the street for the first few years. It’s a semi-rural area with larger lots, so there have also been a number of yard-art cars over the years; I’m pretty sure the ’65 Opel Kadett coupe is still there, but the field of Ponton and Heckflosse Mercedes-Benz sedans got cleared out about 20 years ago.
In the 5th grade, I was in the school safety patrol (back when they trusted 5th-graders with the lives of 1st-graders). One of our jobs was opening car doors for kids in the drop off lane. The 2 cars that were fought over the most were an E-Type cabriolet and a C3 Vette (this was the late 70s). The Vette was especially cool due to the door handle being on the top of the door where it starts to swoop outward with the rear fender.
My friend’s older brothers had a Mitsubishi 3000 GT (not sure if it was the turbo AWD one) and a 2nd gen Toyota MR2.
A 1970 Plymouth Superbird in Sublime. Street parked it and it was his daily driver.
It was a Bricklin ( Yep, same as featured in today’s showdown) and it was “Safety Green” a local businessman owned it and as I recall he only owned it for 2-3 years and sold it.
After my parents divorced, my mom dated a guy with a Bricklin. Never got to ride in it but seeing him pull up and the gull-wing doors pop up was pretty damn cool. Also had the first car-phone I’d seen in person (this was late 70s).
To me, as a wee lad, seeing the Bricklin was like looking at a spaceship and the color only made it even more exotic! It was always parked outside of a local business that was 3 blocks from my childhood home and. I’d often take a stroll down the street just to gaze at it!
Hmm.. sounds like a cool guy! Do you secretly wish your mom had married him?
Definitely would have been nice to grow up in the upper-middle versus the lower-middle class.
So, a Bricklin with a brick?
I grew up in a lower-middle class neighborhood in East SF Bay Area. Between 1966 and 1974, the one block we lived on saw these cars as residents at one time or another: 2 Hilman Minx, 2 Datsun 510, Datsun 520 pickup, Fiat 128, Fiat X1/9, Fiat 850 Spider, VW Beetle, Ford Cortina, Morris Minor, Chevy Impala SS, Alfa Romeo Giulietta, AMC Gremlin. During that time, the Bay Area bought 40% imported cars. Which was coolest? Probably the Giulietta.
Here are a few random ones from my childhood in the 60s-early 70s:
One guy in our town had a red ’56 T-Bird (with the removable “porthole” top) and a red Amphicar. He’d drive the Amphicar in the bay occasionally, then spend the next few days cleaning any leftover salt water from it.
Another guy was in the volunteer fire department and raced to the station in his worked-on ’69 Pontiac GTO Judge; he lived a block over, and you felt that car start up.
A friend’s family had a ’67 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special; that car had a presence. Riding in that car was awesome.
An ice blue E-type roadster driven top down by the hottest blonde Mom in the neighborhood. That glorious image explains so many of my subsequent bad choices.
Both probably looked better with their tops down.
In the seventies on my street alone there was an E-Type convertible, a Citroen SM, a first gen RX7, a restored army Jeep and a seemingly endless supply of first gen Honda Civics. All the big American boats and muscle cars were the next block over.
The new ’63 split-window ‘Vette that my next-door neighbor bought their kid.
I don’t live there anymore, but my parents new-ish neighbor has an H1 Alpha from 06 with the 6.5L diesel engine. He must have spent upwards of 3-400k on it considering how rare they are today.
Dad said he’s never seen it outside the garage since they moved in. I imagine it costs about $20 just to turn the ignition.
If it’s really an Alpha, it has the 6.6L Duramax, not the 6.5L that powered most H1s. That alone accounts for most of the extra cost of one.
Fat fingers