Looking into making a move to the great state of Oregon this Summer and just inquiring on some opinions from the car guy locals up there. How's the DMV regulations on these old hot rods, weather, people, roads, etc. Figure if any of you Portland hambers have time to tell me about your happy town just shoot me a line, looking for any help I can get really. Thanks!
Portland is a great town for hotrods if your wipers work...you cant beat the people in the car culture there either,I NEVER had a anyproblems with DMV....that being said and after spendig 25+ years there and a member of rose city street rods over 20 years ......I moved to Tucson Az. and its in the mid 70s today and sunny..........but the N/W is still great and sometimes I still miss it
Not in Portland, (too far, politically, to the left for me) but we lived in West Linn for 28 years, and now in Bend. High and dry desert, like Tuscon only we have 4 seasons. LOTS of car guys all over the place, more shows, cruises and swaps than one guy can handle. Portland is a very busy city, about 1M people, maybe 2M in the metro, tri-county, area. Portland gets wet, very wet. Any amount of snow/ice will shut the place down, which is quite humorous to those of us on the 'East side'. Portland, and the entire Willamette Valley area, is hard on cars due to the constant humidity, not high, just constant. Much kinder on the 'East side' here in Central Region where we average only 12 inches of precip per year. Portland is probably closer to 60-70 inches, but seems like 200.... Portland and the metro area have fairly high property values, considerably less 30-40 miles outside of the metro. Although I love the climate in Bend, it too has high housing costs, and similarly, away from the city, prices drop. I have property both in the city and out of the city. Like most of the country, Oregon sales prices have sofened and some deals can be found. Oregon DMV has their share of quirky rules, but if you have a clear ***le you're safe. The Oregon DEQ places some additional restrictions on certain vehicles in the Portland Metro as well as the Medford Metro areas requiring smog checks before tags. Currently, unleaded fuel is about $3.10 and diesel is about $3.50, up from last week... and all gas now has alcohol. If you want to talk and get my biased opinon, give me a call, 541.617.0613. Gary
I live in Portland, and drive a 49 Ford Business Coupe. I have 49 Oregon plates on it and it's registered as a parade car or something. Anyway I never have to renew the tags. The DMV here is totally cool with vintage stuff and I've not once been pulled over for the vintage plates. The weather can take its toll on you, it rains alot and there is cloud cover for most of the year. I think Portland has the best summers though, so it makes up for the dreary grey. Most of the roads are in good condition here, but there are a few that the buses tear up and will seriously throw around a bias-plyed vehicle. One of the best things about Oregon is that we don't use salt on the roads when it snows. I've lilved many places and traveled all over, Portland is one of the best in the U.S., you won't regret it!
I left Portland when it got too crowded in 1972 (300k people I think it was). Now they have "intelligent" stop lights every block. Back in the 60's you could drive 30 MPH from 12 mile corner to the Burnside Bridge and never stop (the lights were all synchronized). We used to go for rides in the country (which started about SE 212th St). Now it's all paved-over all the way to Mt. Hood, and all the farms are gone. If you want to drive in the country, you have to get off at the Montana state line exit. I visited my old neighborhood in the 80's, and all the trees were gone, and the houses were being torn down to build more apartments. If you're serious, I would stay out of Multnomah and Clackmas counties. Probably start looking for a nice place near Hood River. The weather is much nicer, and you can watch the Indians fish (all the rivers are dead, so only Indians can fish now). All the big industries died off in the 70's. Mostly just yuppie type jobs, or mental health professionals. No sales tax, but the property tax makes up for any savings.
We vacationed in Portland last spring ... the most impressive thing we noticed was the general courtesy shown on the highways. Oregon drivers (statewide) are the best I've seen anywhere. Another thing we enjoyed - everywhere we stayed for a night in a motel, a 10 block late afternoon walk in any direction would end up in a conversation with car people or finding interesting stuff in alleys.
ESCO, Freightliner, Gunderson, Weyerhaeuser, NACCO, PCC Structurals, just to name a few. Manufacturing is dying everywhere, not just in Portland. I'm an engineer which means I have a "yuppie type" job. I'm as much a yuppie as I am a chinese jet pilot.
In the 70's the fruits and nuts around Portland took the book "Ecotopia" to heart and started their political lobbying and social engineering. Basically, if you work a real job for a living and drive a car you're a second cl*** citizen, and if you "live on the streets" or ride a bicycle you can do no wrong. If you like run amuck land use planning laws, the idea of forcing people into "close in" tighter and tighter, more densely packed "urban" living areas, all accompanied by horrendous property taxes, you'll love this place. They've even got an additional layer of government sandwiched in between the county and state levels for the three counties around Portland ****ing up additional local taxes and you can't vote for any of it's bureaucrats except the top one! The local bureaucrats and politicians have managed to drive the lions share of good paying manufacturing and commercial business out to make room for the cutesy, trendy, "upscale" but not so very well paying, retail (just how many Starbucks can an area support for Christ's sake) In the last 15 years they've quadrupled the number of automobiles, taken most all the four lane thoroughfares in and out of Portland and made them two lanes with bike paths resulting in 8 to 10 times the number of cars per available lane mile at rush hour, removed a very large percentage of on street parking in the downtown grid, and desynchronized very nearly all the traffic lights on the formerly synchronized routes that made commuting around here a breeze, all in an effort to have (as some of the local politicians have publicly stated) 24 hour gridlock (not with total success at present, but they're trying hard). When you add in to the mix the unstated policy of totally stopping enforcement of all vehicular and pedestrian laws on bicyclists, and most all on pedestrians, if you drive a car for any reason, you find yourself dodging them and their vocal epithets (usually accompanied with very suggestive sign language) with great regularity as they ride the wrong way on one way streets, blow stop signs, and ignore any other rules of the road (or side walks for that matter). Indeed, the local fruitcake of a mayer even rode with the most militant of the bicycle groups (renowned in these parts for kicking car doors in just for the hell of it) soon after taking office. All in all, a wonderful, if somewhat wet place to live- 30 years ago! By all means, if you're planning on moving to the Portland area from the geographic region where I intend to move to, please do, and ASAP! It'll help stabilize the price of the house I intend to sell and make one where I want to move to more affordable.
Dont let the down town folks get you down, yes it ****s sometimes when in rush hour traffic , that does make you homesick for Idaho,montana or colorado, but the car kulture is strong here , we have lots of swapmeets, car shows and rod runs , in the summer we have several on wensday nights one of which draws 1,000 to 1,400 cars of all types from rats to one off show cars and within 3 hours drive you can really start adding to that , like HOT-ROD-A-RAMA , and we also have lots of awesome custom shops like Big Johns Butchure shop or Mad Max Creations and Steves Auto Restorations, all in all its hard to find time to do it all here edsel
I can't post here now, edsel will tell me to get out to the shop and get busy on my truck. but after reading all these radical posts. I must live in a different Portland Oregon. I think we get less than 30 inches of rain a year and not enough snow to stay on the ground overnight about 3 days every third year. one of the greatest car culture citys on the planet (except maybe Austin Texas from what I read on the HAMB haha) very seldom rains but it does drizzle alot. climate is mild and the coast is rugged and beautiful, the mountains are rugged and beautiful, the desert is...... aw do you see a pattern here? now about the politic's, I don't read papers, watch tv, listen to the radio, and am damn particular who I talk to. I live on acres and don't know my neighbors. so I might be the one to ask Jim
YOU KNOW IT !! GET BACK TO WORK !! I cant go for a ride in the 48 Hemi until you finish the truck. Edsel
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