The Inspiration Behind Roadside Rambler

In August 2010, I was on vacation in Switzerland with my family. We had rented a small house in a quiet little town and were walking around when I suddenly thought of a fun project for the trip. Since there are lots of different makes and models of cars in Europe that aren’t sold in the United States, I wanted to document all the new makes that I hadn’t seen before in America. The simplest way to do this, I reasoned, was to take a picture of the brand’s logo on the back of a car. From this spawned the great Car Project.

This was the first picture that I took for my project.

As you can see, the logo isn’t exactly prominent in this picture, but it’s still readable and recognizable as that of Škoda. I soon began to expand my car logo photo project into one encompassing pictures of the cars themselves as well.

Since then, I’ve expanded my roadside rambling across several states and countries, and I have now amassed pictures of more than 3,500 different cars and 271 logos (distinct, but not all different brands).

The cars that make me stop and take pictures on the street aren’t always the flashiest, most expensive sports or luxury cars. Make no mistake, I’ve covered those too, but I’m more drawn to the cars that time hasn’t been kind to–the types of cars that people have forgotten long ago. That said, there’s no shortage of cars in the collection, so there should be some to suit everyone’s taste.

Running this website is so much more fun when people drop by and leave comments and maybe stories about the cars I post. Corrections are welcome, as are submissions. If you find an interesting car on the street, snap a few photos and send them to roadsiderambler@gmail.com. Maybe it will inspire you to start off on your own adventure.

Happy Rambling!

The Professor