Chugster 3

The parrot on my shoulder has started informing me the market cannot bear much more of these old jalopies, so here’s the last installment for now.  Speaking of jalopies, that’s a word I deliberately chose not to use until now.  Anyone know the origin of this word?

The vehicle below . . . puzzles me in its origins as well.  I’d call it a Cienfuegos rat rod, Cienfuegos being my port of entry, where I took all of the photos in today’s post.   And as to the identification, I’m just guessing, so I might be slightly off on some.

Here’s the first car I had a chance to look at close up.

1949 Chevrolet

 

1956 Chrysler and 1956 Chevrolet

 

1950 Chevrolet

 

1951 Ford

 

1985 Kamaz

 

1958 Pontiac, and that’s a gas station in the background

 

1950 Plymouth

 

1956 Willys

 

1952 Chevrolet

 

1952 Buick, with the portholes recently bondo’ed in?

 

1957 Plymouth Belvedere

 

1958 Chrysler

 

1956 Dodge followed by the ubiquitous 1970s Lada

And a personal favorite from my time in Africa . . . any one guess?

???

And here’s the final shot in the series, the commonplace Chevrolet but with a pearlescent paint job, which doesn’t show that well on this photo.

Almost all photos by Will Van Dorp, who was auditioning as a car show model above.  Think I have a future?  I saw a very efficient “booth babe” (someone else’s term, not mine) at the NY Boat Show last month;  she had more guys checking out the products at this particular booth than at any other booth.

In contrast to the photos of the cars in Cuba, here are a few from my hunting ground in the Georgia woods.  See them all in the camouflage?

I saw no Hudsons on the tropical island, although I did some a few Studebakers and even one Corvair.

And as you’ve seen, Buicks were plentiful, with or without portholes.

That blue sedan–five photos up–is a Peugeot 404 from about 1970.

And finally . . . jalopy . . . here’s the origin of the word, and here’s that location.

By tomorrow, chugster hopes to dive back into the water and re-emerge as tugster; either that, or he risks getting bit by the parrot who serves as chair of the board.