Perhaps you recall Pou Bel, the aptly named Citroën deux chevaux? Well today I found him a mate: Culotte. That’s French for underpants.

It’s funny, I’ve been taking these photos of cars lately, but I’m not really a car person. Mostly it’s just entertainment for me on my walk to and from work, but I’ve also found that among the hundreds of parked cars I pass by each day, which essentially all look the same, every once and a while one will catch my eye. Usually it’s an older soul, oddly shaped, often foreign. Some are neighbors that I recognize again and again, like the pink Cabrio. Others I catch once and never see again.

It’s kind of like collecting, but without actually having to own the thing. There really ought to be trading cards for cars. “I’ll trade you my rookie Toyota Prius for your 1969 AMC Javelin.” Ha!

The other part I really like is identifying the car afterwards. I’ll make a mental note of the badge on the back, usually a make and model, and I actually look forward to searching for it, comparing my photo to the others out there. It turns it into a sort of game where I get to read a little bit about its history and wonder how this particular car survived through the ages for a chance encounter with me.