Christmas Day has arrived and I am sure many of us Curbsiders like to sit down and enjoy a Christmas movie or two with our families. Being car enthusiasts, most of us not only enjoy the movies but the cars that are used in those movies. Like the actors in the movies, a well-cast car can have a timeless performance. Most Christmas movies aren’t centered on vehicles; however, many Christmas favorites have some interesting or iconic cars. Let’s look a few Christmas movies and the Curbside Classics that star in each.
My all-time favorite Christmas movie is Frank Capra’s 1946 movie entitled “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Yes, I know it is cliché to pick as the favorite, but it really is an excellent film. James Stewart plays George Bailey, a small time businessman who is just getting by and tells his guardian angel that he wishes that he was never born. Since most of us have probably seen the movie, I am not going to rehash the plot in detail, but we know the movie starts off by telling the biographical tale of George Bailey. Early on in the movie we saw George Bailey full of life and ready to take on the world. He and his wife start out their life in adulthood driving a 1917 Dodge Brother’s Touring. The Dodge was sensibly sized with a 114” wheelbase and was powered by a 213 cubic inch 4-cylinder engine that produced 32 hp. While this was a good car to start out with, by the end of the movie, which was set in the time just after World War II, it was outright ancient. George had built his business and his family, but was still driving that old Dodge simply because he couldn’t afford to upgrade. At one point George’s son says “Daddy, the Brown’s next door have a new car. You should see it.” and George snaps back defensively “Well, what’s the matter with our car? Isn’t it good enough for you?” The car had become a symbol of George Bailey’s lack of financial success.
While not as symbolically important, George’s friend Ernie the Taxi driver pilots an interesting Desoto. His taxi is a 1936 Desoto Airstream but it has a custom taxi body. James F. Waters was a San Francisco-based Desoto dealer. He purchased numerous Desoto franchises across the United States and became the largest Desoto distributor. He operated his own custom coachworks which produced custom Desoto cabs designed to meet the New York City taxi requirements. In 1935 New York City required purpose-built Taxi cabs capable of seating 5-adult passengers in the rear. At that time only Checker and General Motors were able to build a taxi to those specifications. James Waters made a deal with Chrysler to convert stripped 7-passenger Desoto S-1 Airstream 131” wheelbase sedans into taxi cabs that would meet the NYC specifications at his Detroit factory. He then offered these taxis to fleet operators through his Plymouth-Desoto dealerships.
This photo shows the opening portion of the roof.
Sunshine Radio Executives worked with Waters’ engineers to help design the taxi’s for New York City service. They featured a sliding roof panel which slid open to expose the New York City skyline, living up to the “Sunshine Taxi” name. Some of the other features added included a warning light on the dash which alerted the driver if the rear door was opened, grab bars for the rear passengers, a passenger compartment divider which was fitted with heavy-duty Pullman style jump seats, and a meter activated “Sunshine radio.” The front bench seat was replaced with a bucket seat for the driver and while the passenger side was converted to a luggage compartment as these Desotos were trunk less. Initially the taxis were built for Manhattan’s Sunshine Radio Service but were later expanded to include other fleet operators, including the large west coast operations. These Water-Desoto cabs remained in production until the mid-1950s. New York City taxi regulations were changed in July of 1954 which eliminated the 5-passenger standard, allowing for standard sedans to be utilized ending the custom bodied taxi market. Who would have guessed that sleepy little Bedford Falls resident taxi driver Ernie was driving a big city Waters-Desoto taxi?
Another Christmas favorite of mine is the 1983 film “A Christmas story.” The main family car in this movie is the 1937 Oldsmobile Six Touring sedan. I will only touch briefly on this car as Mike Butts did a detailed write-up about this car, which is an excellent read. Although this movie is about young Ralph Parker’s Christmas experience in the 1940s, the Oldsmobile is featured in a few key plot points, namely freezing up on cold mornings and the infamous flat tire change scene. Despite the Oldsmobile being cantankerous in cold weather, Ralph’s father liked that big old Oldsmobile. His feelings were best captured with my favorite quote from the movie “Some men are Baptist, others Catholic; my father was an Oldsmobile man.”
Sticking with 1980s Christmas movies, we can’t forget the cult classic “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” The movie was written by John Hughes, who as I wrote about in the past, had an excellent ability to cast iconic vehicles. Hughes often created Chicago-centric movies with suburban dwelling families in their proverbial woodgrain station wagon. Christmas Vacation is no exception, with Clark Griswold’s family steed being a 1986 Ford Taurus wagon. Much more modern than the LTD based Family Truckster, Clark must have had longing memories of his old monstrosity of a wagon, as his Taurus is also custom equipped with woodgrain. The reality is that the revolutionary Taurus not available with woodgrain panelling. Being a car that represented Ford’s movement to modern vehicles meant that anachronistic features like wood paneling would be the complete opposite of the cars mission.
The most prominent scene with the Taurus involves Clark getting into a passing match with a 1963 Dodge D200 crew cab truck. The end result is that Clark gets the Taurus stuck under a transport truck’s trailer and shortly after becomes airborne, much like the original Family Truckster. The Dodge truck was also quite remarkable, being a crew cab model. While ubiquitous today, they were quite unusual in the 1960s. 1963 was the first year for Dodge’s crew cab truck and it was the first of the big three truck makers to introduce the 4-door truck. It had a 146” wheelbase and was limited to the ¾ ton D200/W200 line. I couldn’t find the specific production numbers for the crew cab models, but Dodge only made 11,963 D200 trucks in 1963. This number included both the regular cab and the crew cab models, and undoubtedly the vast majority were regular cab models.
While the aforementioned cars are well cast, the most memorable vehicle from the movie was Cousin Eddie’s RV. Much like how dogs often look like their owners, Eddie’s crude and rough around the edges RV is much like him. This beat up motor home is not the ideal vehicle to be parked outside the picturesque Griswold suburban home. When Clark first sees the monstrosity, the conversation that ensures is as follows:
Clark: So, when did you get the tenement on wheels?
Cousin Eddie: Oh, that there? That’s an RV. I borrowed it off a buddy of mine. He took the house, I took the RV. It’s a good looking vehicle, ain’t it?
Clark: Yeah. Looks so nice parked in the driveway.
Cousin Eddie: Yeah, it sure does. But don’t you go falling in love with it now, because we’re taking it with us when we leave here next month.
(Clark spits out his eggnog)
Under that dirt and rust, here is what the Condor II should look like.
Under all that dirt and rust, is a 1972 Condor II motorhome. Unrelated to the modern Condor RVs, the Condor Motorhomes of the 1960s and 1970s used Ford chassis and powertrains. The Condor motorhomes of this vintage utilized a Ford P series (Parcel Delivery) or M-series chassis. Eddie’s 1972 Condor II is likely powered by a Ford 390 FE V8 backed by the bulletproof C6 transmission.
We can’t talk Christmas movies without having included at least one Santa Claus movie. And since we are talking cars, we have to discuss “The Santa Clause” from 1994 starring car guy Tim Allen. In this movie, Tim Allen plays Scott Calvin, a divorced dad who shares custody of his 6 year-old-son. On Christmas Eve Santa accidentally falls off their roof and Scott Calvin has to deliver Santa’s gifts. Over the next year he evolves into the new Santa. But before he takes the reins of the reindeer, Calvin is driving a definitely car guy approved family car – a 1990 Ford Taurus SHO. Equipped with the 220 hp Yamaha 3.0L V6 capable of revving to 7000 rpm and a 5-speed manual transmission, it could accelerate 0-60 in 6.7 seconds, pull 0.82 g on the skidpad while still getting 34 mpg highway. This was no Vulcan powered snooze mobile. I have to wonder if Tim Allen had any influence in selecting the car in question.
Tim Allen does have a small collection of collector cars, but to my knowledge he hasn’t and doesn’t own an SHO. However, he does own another hi-performance family sedan from the 1990s, a 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS with the Lotus designed LT5 engine from the Corvette ZR1. While the Impala SS existed at the time of the movie, the Taurus was probably a lot more acceptable to the producers. Other than us fellow car guys, most regular people probably didn’t know that there was anything special about the Taurus.
I hope you enjoyed my little sampling of cars and Christmas movies. There are many other Christmas movies and cars to discuss, but I will leave that up to you in the commentary to add your favorites. From those of us at Curbside Classic, we wish you the Happiest of Holidays!
Here are all the “It’s a Wonderful Life” cars:
https://bedfordfallssentinel.blogspot.com/2012/11/take-drive-through-bedford-falls-choose.html
Two favorites: Potter’s “barouche” carriage, and Wainwright’s 1931 Duesenberg, which would have been pretty old in 1947. Time seems to move slowly in Bedford Falls; the houses, the buildings, the people, and everything else seems very Victorian/Edwardian.
Because of the flat tire scene in A Christmas Story, I keep extra lug nuts in the trunk, just in case!
When I first saw that movie it brought back memories of the first time I helped my father change a tire. We were driving my Mom’s 49 Plymouth when we got a flat. This stays with me because of the lug nuts that were threaded for one side of the car and I figured Ralphie’s Dad’s Olds had the same setup and therefore losing a lug nut was quite a disaster.
And the other thing that I remember is that we didn’t tighten the lug nuts ” correctly ” so within a few hundred miles we had a bent wheel. Unfortunately, the wheels on this car, with the exception of the spare, were all body colored. The car would wind up with wheels of 2 different colors.
BTW, it’s not car-centric, but my favorite Christmas movie is Christmas in Connecticut. But then, being a Navy guy, I sort of relate.
Oooooh I’d love to read more about Tim Allen’s SS…I’ve never heard of any with the LT5 until now
Tim Allen’s Impala SS was a custom build by GM’s John Moss. The LT5 was swapped in and modified, including being stroked, to make more power. It was built during the 1990s when he was starring in Home Improvement, and dubbed the Binford 6100. At that time the LT5 was the hottest engine GM had. To my knowledge he still own’s the Impala SS today. Here is a video on with more detail on the car:
I take woodgrain on the Taurus as Clark once again getting swindled by a car dealer with their own marked up accessory packages (like landau tops and various “special editions”). There is a minor mandala effect because of that movie though, because I really could swear I’ve seen numerous Taurus Wagons with woodgrain, but there are zero examples I can find unrelated to the movie.
For me it’s the extensive rust on Eddies (presumably?) aluminum RV somewhat takes me out of it and due to the HD era and the movie becoming Christmas staple we’ve all seen a bazillion times, the severe rust looks as painted on as it is, with no holes or any other telltale signs of real Midwestern rust. The D200 has that too, though rocky mountainous northern Illinois might be the more obvious nitpick in that scene.
Never thought about the wood grain that way, but that’s perfect. Happy holidays!
For me it’s the extensive rust on Eddies (presumably?) aluminum RV somewhat takes me out of it
That Condor was just ahead of it’s time, “Fake Patina” is all the rage now!!!
Matt, I like your theory on the woodgrain! I also had the Mandela effect on these wagons. Prior to writing my John Hughes article, I could have sworn I had seen other’s in the wild too.
In respect to the “rust” on the RV, I try not to think too hard about these details in movies like this.
?! what ?! . no ‘Rudy’s Taxiola’ from P, T and A ? .
Such sacrilege .
There are great as is the linked ‘wonderful life’ site .
-Nate
Although we watched PTA during the holiday season, it is a Thanksgiving movie which is why I didn’t cover it in this article. I did cover it in my John Hughes article though:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-cinema/cc-cinema-the-cars-of-john-hughes-movies/
But I didn’t specifically detail Rudy’s Taxiola, but it gets mentioned in the comments a few times. It was an interesting car, but played only a minor role.
I just went back to that article on the cars of John Hughes movies. We actually watched Uncle Buck last night (I have it on DVD) and the smoking, wallowing, backfiring Grand Marquis is always a favourite. I’ve also got Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – time to watch it again.
Pretty sure that Dodge Sweptline was used in “Fire in the Skies” also. Favorite movie quote from Christmas Vacation, “Shitter’s full Clark.”
I understand, Vince .
For me these are always top holiday movies although I’ve not watched them in a couple years .
I too liked John Candy’s (R.I.P.) beater in Uncle Buck, at the time it was new some idiot reviewer said the entire movie was ruined by that back firing…
That crew cab Dodge in Fire In The Skies used to belong to an old Friend of mine, IIRC it was a 1963, sadly it was terminally rusty and so broken for parts and a nifty trailer rig shortly after that movie .
-Nate
I am a fan of the original Miracle on 34th Street. I always loved the scene near the end when little Natalie Wood yells “Stop the car, stop the car!” when she sees the house that Santa promised her. I always thought the 1940 Ford Standard coupe was a little below the station of Mr. Galey the young attorney in the movie.