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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70s middle class suburbia. Neighbor across the street had a pair of Fiat 124 Spyders he would wrench on in the middle of the night under sodium spotlights. Eccentric, worked for IBM like lots of the neighborhood Dads, but also a serious audiophile. Had a large DC generator for his homemade stereo because AC power was too noisy. Refrigerator sized speakers hanging from chains in the shag carpeted living room. He would ride by the bus stop in the morning top down, wrap around shades, tweed sport coat and leather briefcase, like a character out of Get Smart.
I grew up in the 90’s. In the early 90’s, my best friend’s dad bought a 1969 Boss 302 in primer grey. He drove it home and parked it in the back of his garage (it was a 2 car garage, 2 cars deep). It sat there for the entirety of our childhood. Untouched. Dusty. Primer grey.
I’m older now and a still in contact with that childhood friend. I just texted him and asked if his Dad still has the Boss. He does. Still parked. Still primer grey.
Probably not the coolest, but one memorable one was a farm truck. 70 something Chevy dually. It had a bunch of burn damage on the back end from catching straw under it on fire. They did the logical thing to ensure that didn’t happen again: cut holes in the hood and ran the exhaust straight up through it.
Across from my grade school there was an MG parked on the street that looked just slightly….off. It was there for years off and on. The rear tires seemed a little big, the front looked a little low, but other than that it looked like an MG. Later I found out that the owner had shoved a chevy 350 under the hood, and done so is such a way that it was barely noticeable. Even had the stock hood! I never found out if it was just a cool sleeper or they were going to race it or they were just trying to get out of a relationship, but to my blossoming 6th grade wrench monkey mind that was the coolest thing possible.
Until my uncle’s 66 impala SS 4 speed came along.
Growing up in the ’80’s, my next door neighbor had a DeLorean and a Porsche 356, but I thought my Mom’s 1965 Stingray convertible with the Big Block was cooler.
In a land of 6 month winters we saw a ton of wild stuff in the early 60s and 70s.
One guy was building a funny car in his garage for several years. We think he ran it but it and he sort of disappeared.
Another guy had current INDY cars, we never knew the story on that. But they were loud AF.
Another nut was building a land speed rocket for the salt flats over serveral years, in two piece fuselage that joined in the middle of the two lengths.
Another guy was building NASCAR cars for Dick Trickle just as fast as Trickle could wreck them.
Now my neighbor has 3 Ferraris and a 930 and a couple of MB’s and RR’s.
So if I get bored I just go play with his stuff for an afternoon.
My Mom would wonder why it took us an hour to walk home from school.
A different world.
Some guy in my neighborhood had a Buick Grand National. I never knew where he lived, but I saw that car everywhere for a couple of years, so he must have lived nearby.
Not a neighborhood car, strictly speaking, but: when I was a boy, I went to half-day kindergarten. There were four of us boys who lived near each other; our moms would take turns driving us to school at lunchtime. One day, one mom couldn’t make it, so she sent her husband (I believe he was a pilot for Federal Express) instead.But rather than borrow his wife’s car, he picked us up in his new C4 Corvette. As the biggest boy, I got the front seat; another boy got the front footwell; and the other two boys–lucky them–got to roll around unsecured in the baggage area under the rear glass. It was the coolest fucking thing ever, and a soon as we told our parents about it, he was banned from driving any of us anywhere again.
Easily when my Dad had a blue 1968 Camaro and right across the street my neighbor had a red 1969 Chevelle SS. It was always so awesome to see both cars taken out on a sunny day when I was young.
Someone had a hot red Mitsubishi 3000GT and my friends and I, being so innocent, used to think it was a Ferrari.
Someone on the opposite side of my neighborhood in the late 2000s had a yellow Carrera GT for about a year or so. I think that was also when the price of CGT’s was at the very lowest too? It definitely wasn’t a Boxster because of that sweet V10
Oh, this one’s easy. There was a red 1970 GTO with “FOR SALE $3,500” sprayed on the windshield for most of the 90s. I regularly fawned after it while walking home from the bus and became Pontiac-obsessed at the time. I begged my parents to buy it for me to restore when I was old enough, and eventually they said they would if I could talk him down to $1,500. I went to the house with my friend’s dad, knocked, and pitched the owner. His response: “Come back when you have a serious offer.” He moved away a year or so later and the GTO went with him. Still hurts.
Honorable mentions: Several XJs, late 80s Trans Am, Dodge Colt Vista, VW bug and westy, 1964.5 Mustang, and an abandoned mid-60s Pontiac Tempest that someone ditched 50 or so yards from highway 101.
BMW E9 (3.0CS) and this was in the mid 80s, so on it’s way to become a classic. R107 500 SL and most memorable Ferrari Testarossa. Right next to our place
Someone down the street had a model T or A or similar in the early 90’s. It was really cool to see a real old car as a tween.
[ early 90’s city in Poland, full of eastern block cars and some western european or japanese econoboxes ]
In my chlidhood area was a guy driving two-door Volvo 242 with melody horns on it’s roof. It played Dukes of Hazzard theme every time he arrived or was leaving home. That seemed very cool for 4-year old me.
In late 90’s / early 2000’s in my neighbourhood ocassionaly parked BMW 850i it’s pop-up headlights and tan leather interior realy brought attention.
Ha, how to answer in 500 words or less? Despite being in East Tennessee my childhood neighborhood had an astonishing number of seriously cool cars. Lots of engineers, doctors, and college professors (one of my parents was one) in said neighborhood. My own family had a brand new 1969 Volvo 145 station wagon, a brand new 1973 Mazda RX2 (similar to a Toyota Celica but with a Wankel rotary engine), a slightly used 1973 VW Super Beetle, and a well-used ex-USPS jeep. Around the neighborhood, in no particular order, among others there were *two* Honda Z600s, *two* Citroën DS station wagons (breaks), a Citroën 2CV, a BMC Mini, a 1928 Dodge, a Jaguar E-Type convertible, a Volvo Amazon, a Crosley station wagon, a whaletail Porsche 911, several Corvairs (owned by the same neighbor who owned the whaletail 911), and various non-Citroën French cars such as Peugeots and Renaults. But a particular favorite was a Nash Metropolitan that was used to tow a catamaran, a real hoot to see on the road.
The only car I can think of was a Porsche 928 a couple houses down the street from me. Guy who owned it barely drove it, and ended up selling it and getting himself a slightly newer SL, I think?
Every so often the landlord of the apartments in-between me and the previously mentioned 928 owner would show up in a 2003/2004 Viper. That was also pretty sweet, if not necessarily counted as a neighbors car.
If only the guy wasn’t essentially a slumlord though, he’d be a lot cooler.
Guy across the street had an old mail jeep, just like the one DT salvaged. Loved seeing him drive while sitting on the wrong side of the car.
I’m a bit of an oddbod so the coolest car in my neighbourhood was a panel van… it was a Ford Falcon (XF) with a nasty sounding small block in it… it ruled the streets of “Mexico” in its day apparently
A neighbor across the street had an old covered Opel GT parked under their deck. I would sneak over there and lift the cover to gawk at it. To little Bunky in the early 80’s, that thing looked like a space ship. Two houses up, a guy had a Renault LeCar that was also pretty strange looking.
In the early ’70s, our next door neighbor had a carriage house/apartment… For several years, one fellow that rented had a great variety of interesting stuff through the driveways. My earliest “cool car” memory was when four year-old me about fell of my bicycle when he drove up the shared drive in an E-Type Jaguar roadster (with small-block Chevy swap). Other stuff he had at varying times was a Olds Jetfire (with the turbo), and a Chevelle SS396. Even the more mundane was cool, like an early 1960s Chevy wagon with V8 and three on the tree shift, or a ’69 big-block Caprice.
Otherwise, cool stuff around the neighborhood included my best friend’s dad’s pair of Boss 302 Mustangs, a pristine ’63 Grand Prix, a smattering of Mustangs and Road Runners, and a bit further afield, an early Saab Sonett and some Saab 95s.
My dad had a 1968 AMC Javelin that was really just a used car back then. but I still dug that little 2 door. I do remeber a guy named Shawn that had a 68 Roadrunner and a 65 Mustang. I always loved that Roadrunner on cold start. just a 383, but still, it sounded good.
Someone on my street had both a slantback H1 and a red Viper RT/10, so points for extreme coolness by 90’s preteen boy standards.
That said, my neighbour in the early 90’s was doing a light restoration on a ’66 Buick Riviera, and those’ve held up well.
I was in a Military family – so we lived in base housing and there were very few cool cars.
However there was a neighbor who had transferred back from England with a burgundy MGB-GT as a souvenir, which was kept under a cover. They had a Burgundy Breezeway ’65 Monterey sedan as a daily driver.
Later when they received orders for a transfer to Italy, they sold both cars in favor of a new gold over white ’72 Riviera.
It boggles my mind that someone would look at the narrow city streets of Italy and think, “You know what would be an easy car to drive here? A personal luxury car the size of a destroyer escort.”
You haven’t heard the oft-told tale of the American Captain’s Wife who brings her Coupe de Ville to Italy and drives it to the Commissary while wearing her Mink Coat.
The smart play in those years was to bring a desirable new American car to Europe and sell it – then with the proceeds purchase and bring home an otherwise unaffordable newish Mercedes-Benz or Porsche
My youngest years were deep in blue collar Midwest Big 3 auto country, so our family’s ’78 Mustang with T-tops was actually remarkable to me. My brother had a friend who brought over a mid 70’s Nova with wide rear tires and the rear was lifted. I think they were air shocks, so I don’t know how stable they were in a drag race.
When we moved during my high school years, there was an auto shop ~2 miles away where a red Lamborghini Countach with the tea tray wing would park, likely the owner’s car. It’s possible there was money laundering or other activity going on, since they didn’t appear to run too many cars through there, and it wasn’t a chain or anything as far as I knew.
High school me was floored about how short that car is! It looks like a spaceship in the posters, but it’s a cocoon in person. (A very cool, angular cocoon, nonetheless.)
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.