Sunday, May 22, 2011

Carspotting: Subaru Brat, Toyota van, Airstream RV, International truck

You may remember Alameda as Murilee Martin's Island That Rust Forgot.  It used to host a large naval base.  But with the end of the Cold War, the base closed and the remaining buildings have either been abandoned or converted into commercial real estate.

A random parade caused me to get lost yesterday on the island.  I hit a dead end and came across this parking lot, which belongs to some kind of electric start-up company.  I had to take some pictures of the cars there.

This Subaru Brat was what lured me in.  Brat stands for Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter.  Those rear-facing plastic seats were welded in so that the vehicle could be imported as a "passenger vehicle" rather than a "light truck".  Loopholes.

I must say that the weather yesterday was just about perfect.  Look at that blue sky!

That former naval control tower in the background houses the start-up company.  Judging by the cars in the lot, that's gotta be an interesting group of people working in there.

I assume the hubcaps are from a newer Subie.

The water around Alameda is littered with mothballed naval and merchant marine ships.

I had to check out that weird RV.

As I walked to the RV, a guy in that army green Dodge truck drove out of the parking lot.  I waved to him and wished I had gotten a better picture of his rig.

I've never seen this model before.


Does anyone know the story behind this model (or even the name of the model)?

Rust definitely remembered this International.  The top comes off; it's a convertible.

My friend R had a white International like this one.  His uncle in Alaska gave it to him and R drove it down to California.  It had a couple of auxiliary tanks.  He didn't have much of a commute in college and he could go for a couple of months between fill ups.






All U.S. military personnel have these stickers on their cars.


These old Toyota vans are everywhere on Alameda.




1 comment:

John L said...

The Brat is a Brumby in Australia. They didn't have seats in the back though.