I think I saw a VW Variant (chinese Passat B6 wagon) yesterday. It had some Chinese script on the back (though that's also a way to tune your car) and the instrument panel was surrounded by a large hunk of silver plastic, which I don't recall seeing on the European Passats. Unfortunately, I simply cannot find a rear view of a Variant to confirm.

Seen today, the front part that goes with this previous sighting :



last one of its kind, a 1990

Nice Custom Cruiser!

I actually spotted an Austin Cambridge in the Richmond Hill section of Queens, last month.

1988 Chevrolet Caprice Classic Wagon





1973 Chevrolet Caprice Classic [/i]Coupe[/i]

Sadly, turning them into dancing cars seems to be a Classic now...

i'd like to Coupe ( coupe also means cut in french ) some pieces out of it to put it back to its original state..

Anyway, i guess it has to follow its owner's Caprice..

But apart from the dancing bits, very nice car

I saw the Chinese Variant again, and this time, I was able to photograph it. Unfortunately the other two pics turned out crap, so all I have is this:

EDIT: The Chinese Variant doesn't have anything written on the back, so just a pimped B6 Kombi...

This generation of Magotan (Passat in Germany) was not sold as a wagon in China anyway. They tested it, but it never got on sale:

https://carnewschina.com/2010/05/18/volkswagen-passatmagotan-wagon-to-be-imported-in-china/

And the letters are the logo from Shanghai-Volkswagen, but the Magotan was built by FAW-Volkswagen.

I'm still pissed that I couldn't get the photo of a real 2010+ Jetta Wang which was idling next to me.

A bit pimped, but still, a real Chinese Jetta!

@Gamer: you are living in the Volkswagen-Land, but you shouldn't be too sure about the originality of such cars.

I have a funny anecdote: in 2003, when I visited my friend Hiroshi in Japan, he had put Chinese badges on his brand new (3 days old) VW Polo (made in Slovakia).
He is that freaky, that he even said to the VW sales manager, that he want to keep the litte foam-plastic for protection on the doors, also the paper on the carpets and the plastic foil on the seats.

So we cruised along Yokohama and no kidding(!) two days later in the evening, he found a discussion in a Japanese Audi online forum, that someone has spotted a Chinese Polo-prototype, driven by a Japanese test driver and a German engineer on the passengers seat

How did they know it was a german engineer? Okay, of course you dont look japanese. But why not french or italian?

I guess it was random guessing. As if Volkswagen only employees german engineers.

Well, the blokes in the Audi forum assumed, that I was a German, because it was a VW.

like they would assume you would be French if it was a Renault , Italian if it was a Fiat or American if it was a Chevrolet..

Haven't seen many rare cars in the past few weeks, but here are two that I was able to get a picture of:

2002 Lincoln LS V8:

There are 3 or 4 of these in the area.

2004 Volvo V70 R Wagon:


Had the 6 speed manual. Took this at a school's parking lot in Fremont, CA. Unfortunately the girl who owned it was not very nice when she saw me taking a picture of it.


Vehicles missed were a 1991-95 Chrysler Town & Country and an all stock 1978 Chevy Malibu Classic Coupé (4NBW910). The latter was when I was getting on Highway 680 in Danville, it sped past me pretty quickly and it was raining so I decided it wasn't worth pulling my phone out for a picture.

That's happened to me too. One girl saw me take a picture of her car in an apartment complex (I can't remember what it was anymore as this was years ago), she came up to me, fully-tatted and looked like she just got out of bed, insisted I was working for the government and demanded that I delete the picture.

I've been a lot more careful about taking pics of cars ever since.

Ah yes. In 2012 I revisited the US and took some photos of 90s cars you wouldn't see over here. Then I was too hasty and photographed a silver 2000-01 Nissan XTerra pulling into a parking lot. Guess what happened then...

It's a question of dexterity, experience and training. You can excercise it.

As we licence plate freaks do have this problem more often than car spotter and photographers, it's recommended to train taking photos quickly and offhanded in passing.
Before I traveled to Northkorea, where there are restrictions about photographing, I trained that more intensively.

Thanks to the modern digital photography it's much easier than back in the analog times.

That Volvo is beautiful! Why is that girl so bothered about it?
Is this car stolen?



Ford F-Series Super Duty

I'm not sure, people get upset for the dumbest reasons nowadays.