Scooters – RDZ Photography

While we have returned to the USA to ride out this challenging time, there are some interesting topics that have yet to be covered on our time in Argentina. One of those are the funky vehicles of the country.

Lets start with the city buses. Unlike most cities in the US, the buses in Buenos Aires are privately owned, and are known as Colectivos. They are very colorful, and run what seems like illogical routes.

Note this line’s name – Nueva Chicago. Based in the south end of the city, the neighborhood was home to the stockyards. These stockyard came after the famed Chicago stockyards, so of course the neighborhood became known as ‘New Chicago’. Today the neighborhood is more commonly known as Matadoros, but the bus line retains the original name.

This photo transitions us from the buses to the quirky trucks that haul all sorts of stuff around the city.

I didn’t get enough of these trucks as they would just appear randomly.

A stop of the Subte…. Buenos Aires has 6 different subway lines and it seems each has it’s own style car, including two lines that have cars with no air conditioning so the windows open.

A trip to the country gives a good example of the number of huge old Mercedes Benz trucks that troll the roads of Argentina.

Also in this area was this – an Argentina El Camino perhaps. So much with this scene, a funky truck/car, a gaucho and the drivers door open with no driver to be seen, and they were parked nowhere close to anything else.

A jeep with some interesting replacement bodywork.

A few beer trucks…Always very cool.

A 1970s Ford LTD as a taxi way down in Patagonia.

This guys mom must not have told him never to play in traffic. In reality we saw numerous street performers doing their act in traffic stopped at lights.

To me it appears Buenos Aires has more motorcycles and scooters than any city in the Western Hemisphere.

There are also a stunning number of nicely restored VW Buses.

But in the end the cars are the best..

The red streamer hanging off the back is supposed to bring you good luck and keep you safe.

With the strong Italian culture in Buenos Aires you must have a cool old Fiat.

A ubiquitous Buenos Aires taxi – low fares, a strange collection of vehicles all painted the same color scheme, and drivers who are even more interesting. I read horror stories of the taxi’s but we took them all the time with no problems. My favorite taxi ride was to go to a commuter train station, but the street to get us next to the station was one way the wrong way – no problem, pull onto the street one block up and BACK DOWN the block to get us there. At least we were pointed in the correct direction the entire time!

And we end this posting with this stylish Cadillac that belonged to the one and only Juan and Eva Peron.

Late December found us back in Chicago again. For this cold, rainy day we made our way to the far (far) suburb of Volo to check out the Volo Auto Museum

As it turned out it was far more than an auto museum.

But first we passed through Niles, Illinois – and the Tower of Pisa (half height replica)

Finally we arrived at the Volo Auto Museum. It is a collection of 18 different buildings and shelters. Volo is unique in that almost everything is for sale so we saw a great collection of classic cars with prices on them.

As we made our way into the first building it was apparent that they had far more than just cars including a collection of nicely restored jukeboxes.

A Zoltar from the movie ‘Big’. There is a large collection of movie props scattered throughout the museum.

Pedal Cars – They had one of the largest collections I have seen (Gilmore had more, but not by much)

Motorized Bicycles – the famed Whizzers.

Kiddie Rides galore

As noted previously, they have a large collection of props from movies, or marketing from the various entertainment groups like Disney or Warner Brothers.

And a small, but classic, camper collection

A great scooter collection.

Snowmobiles.

A very early Ford with tractor drive wheels and ski’s on the front.

But we are here for the cars.

Some of the ‘cars’ are very custom designs – like a Skate Car

Lots of movie and TV cars. All of the cars you see in the movies and on TV are really one of many of the exact same car (often 10 or more). Volo prides themselves in getting one of these original cars.

Usually they are looking for the car that was used for the publicity so it is not all beat up.

Let’s start with KITT from Knight Rider.