On the Street – 196x Austin Seven, 1968 Plymouth Valiant, 199x Nissan NX

I’m not quite sure what year this lovely right hand drive Austin Seven (better known as the Morris Mini) is. Given its branding it predates 1962 since that year is when the Seven brand was dropped. The interior switch panel visible inside through the rear window places it as a 1960 or later model since the 1959 had a flat stamped panel rather than the later recessed one.

The 1959 Mini Registry site was very helpful in narrowing the year range, but unfortunately there’s not such an exhaustive reference for 1960-1961 models so I couldn’t peg it exactly.

It took me a while to identify this one, I placed it as mid-60s initially but it’s actually a 1968 model. A 1968 Plymouth Valiant Signet, to be exact. Neat to see something like this still on the road today, given the lack of collectibility such a mundane people mover has compared to its sportier contemporaries.

The strange looking Nissan NX was a flash in the pan for the North American market, only being sold between 1991 and 1993. I’d never seen one before and figured it must have been a grey market import at first. No idea what the exact year is since there’s precious little information available about this model’s variations over the years online.

Locked Up

Got 20 doors of the lockers from Hollywood Bowl installed in their new home and cleaned up a bit.

The ‘Entrance’ sign from the parking garage fits nicely up on top too.

I need to rewire it at some point since it still has the original crumbling cloth insulated wiring inside. Once it’s safely functional I’d like to hang it somewhere the layers of stickers and tags on the back can be shown off too.

Old dot matrix printed info card gives an idea of how long it’s been since some of these had been rented.

Lovely chrome, and painted logo.

The banks of lockers I bought are all probably all from when the place opened as Timber Lanes in 1962, based on their original color scheme. They started life a pale brownish color, with alternating rows painted the orange seen on the back of this door. At some point they were all painted over with the current color to match the newer Brunswick 2000 style lockers that were added to the space. I think I’d like to pick out a period appropriate palette and do a scatter of different colors on the doors eventually.

The objects in their natural habitat, prior to removal for preservation. I was a little surprised at the absence of certain prolific taggers’ work from the back of the entrance sign.

I also made some progress on another project. The new CNC cut control panel and Lexan top plate for my Konami Simpsons cab came in a little while ago. I got a chance to install it last week! Here’s the old…

…and the new…

So much better. The control panel art is a used original piece I picked up off someone on the KLOV forums, up close you can see an insane difference in the print quality and sharpness compared to the reproduction piece on the old control panel.

1970s.jpg

Zenith Avanti console television with Space Command ultrasonic remote, Gemini Colorgem VHF/UHF rabbit ears antenna, Atari Pong console. May not get the channels you want, but has all the woodgrain you can handle.

I got the TV gratis from a guy doing some spring cleaning in a super rad dome house out in SW Portland. I think it was probably a period fixture from around when the place was built, along with the the electric blue shag carpet in the room it came out of. Was almost sad to be taking it out of its natural habitat.