Peter Behrens's Blog, page 563

Citroën Camionette, Peugeot 504 & Bibendum

The most chic vehicles here in Wassenaar NL tend to hang out at Le Garage, a shop specializing in French autos. There's usually a bunch of aged Citroëns parked in the streets nearby. I caught this camionette while biking between my office at NIAS and home. Citroen did basic pretty well: these were the perfect small truck for Paris. The rear bumper is just a steel bar.



In a previous post I mentioned my admiration of Peugeot wagons. Ici, un 504.

Basha's Oog

Oog is eye in Dutch. I grabbed this collage from Basha Burwell's intriguing blog on visual aspects of our life here in the Netherlands. Check it out at http://bashasoog.blogspot.nl/

Shanklin, Isle of Wight, Coach-and-four

We're pushing the edges of the thematic envelope here...not an old truck in sight. But AL is supposed to be about vehicles, and roads, and we have both here. That's my father, HHB, age 2, clutching his father's (HB) hand. The scene is the village of Shanklin, on the Isle of Wight, England, at 130 pm on Friday 19th July 1912. I believe the coach is taking passengers to Newport where they will catch the steamer across to Southampton on the mainland. I don't know who took the picture, or why. I've always wondered about the guy in the white shoes. And the driver's sunburnt face reminds me of some west-country character out of one of Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels.

The Dutch 1964 El Camino

So far the coolest, barest Chevrolet I've seen in the Netherlands. Dutch people rarely deliver the American car aesthetic in such a satisfying way, it seems to me.  American cars & trucks over here are usually organized to send out a message of right-wing insouciance. It's the Harley-Davidson spirit. If you run any kind of big US car or truck in the Netherlands you're sending out a slightly archaic, don't tread on me, greying-braids-flapping-in-the-wind kinda vibe. Or that's how I'm reading it. Don't know how they sustain the rebel attitude with gas at $10 a gallon but that's the price of freedom, I guess.  Sure liked this cool, bare, slightly ratted El Camino, though. But i you're going to operate an El Camino in the Low Countries, you had better make sure all the drain holes are operational, or you'll end up with a duck pond back there.

1950 Chevy trucks

This from our Nevada correspondent: "As regards the '51 Minnesota Chevy;  yes, they all have that vent above the firewall; my '45 does, too.
After a summer of erratic effort we got our '50 fired up enough to pull out of the mud and get parked just before we left; new gas tank, new fuel and vacuum lines, rudimentary carb cleaning.  Next summer, maybe, we'll finally attach the body to the frame like it should be... ours is a "3100", which means half ton...Jarrod's looks like it has the longer bed, might be the 3/4 ton.
Indestructible, wonderful, simple...great vehicles"--MSM



Saskatchewan grainer Banff to the Rio Grande 1983

The 1951 Chevrolet truck

from photographer Jarrod McCabe whose Montana-to-Masachusetts trip in  brand-new-old F250 was documented in a series of posts last December:


"1951 Chevrolet found in Emily, Minnesota. couldn't find the owner, just his wife who said it was a '51 but didn't know the capacity of the truck.  I was intrigued by what looks like a manually operable air intake right in front of the windshield." --JM

Mercury Trucks & Pontiac Laurentians

NYTimes ran a piece today on Canadian auto marques. Autoliterate has visited the subject of Canadian-branded trucks in a couple of posts: one on (Dodge) Fargo pickups, another on the beautiful Mercury M-3 truck we came across in Nova Scotia last year.  Also have a look at PB's essay Love Cars, which refers to 1959 Canadian vs. US Pontiacs.

Ambassador of India

At first I thought it was a London taxi. Upon closer inspection, I remained puzzled. Reminded me of a European sedan from the 1950's or early 1960's--a Peugeot, a Hillman, a Volvo? A Russian ZIL? The windscreen visor was a popular feature on early 1950s Chevrolets. But this car was brand-new, with shreds of protective plastic still on the seats. And the interior was quite modern.

It's an Ambassador, made by Hindustan Motors in India. This model has an Isuzu engine. They must be one of the most popular cars in the world, but I've not been to India, and had never encountered one before. Based on an English Morris from 1957, Ambassadors have been produced in India for the past half-century. It's a handsome car. I want one. The only thing that didn't appeal were the cheesy, stick-on badges.
I wonder if these are being imported to Europe and sold here. Would like to learn more abut the motor industry in India: I know Land Rover is Indian-owned now. Is this car, on the streets of Wassenaar, NL,  a one-off owner-import? Or perhaps belongs to the Indian Embassy in The Hague? The plates weren't CD plates but didn't look like regular NL number plates, either. Perhaps Indian?

Land Rover trapped in Wassenaar!

Our neighbors here in civilized little Wassenaar work for the Dutch foreign service, and keep their Land Rover, and their memories of Africa, squeezed into the hedged garden beside their house while they endure a home posting. They'll have to bust out eventually. The machine has certainly seen wilder days--their last posting was Namibia, before that Kazakstan and Sri Lanka. Expensive Dutch road tax keeps the LR in cold storage here, though Wassenaar is such a prosperous town that you see a lot of LR's cruising the handsome little streets. Conspicuous vehicular consumption, I guess. Reminds me of the Range Rover moment in Montecito, twenty years ago.

Dodge Job-Rated & New Mexico Roadtrip

"from Michael S Moore on the road in Colorado and New Mexico:
"We took a trip across the valley yesterday and up into the mountains on the other side to see Patsy before we leave; saw this little opportunity in downtown Gardner, Colorado on the way through...




"Chama, New Mexico--gateway to the Manzaneros, whose roads are the equal of most any I've driven..."--MSM