On the heels of the 1953 International Travelall, how about we admire a same-aged Chevy Suburban, spotted at a rest area of the Blue Ridge Parkway, pulling a vintage trailer, no less. What a great catch.
Vic Montgomery shot and posted it, and I’m loving it. other than the mildly-widened wheels, it looks stock. Of course, it’s impossible to say what’s under the hood, but I’d like to think there’s a 261 Stove Bolt six under there, maybe warmed over just ever so mildly for hauling duty. Check out the license plate.
It reminds me of my camping trip drive down Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway in my ’63 Monza four speed, in October of 1973. Despite it being the height of the fall colors, the place was essentially deserted, except for a few tourists on the Skyline Drive. 570 miles of continuous mountain parkway, following the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What a driving paradise, and if one pulled off, it was like stepping back in time, as it was still very old-time Appalachia in the hollers there back then.
I had the road mostly to myself, and I could drive as fast as I wanted to in the Corvair. I had only just gotten it a few weeks earlier, and this was the perfect way to get acquainted with it and its handling strengths and vices. Actually, I never experienced any vices, as it sat pretty low (I assume it had the optional sport suspension, although I’m not sure), and I knew never to hit the brakes in a curve, no matter how fast I was going, but just let it scrub off the speed as necessary, keeping all the tires working hard rather than let the rears get light from braking and lose traction. By the time I was halfway into the trip, I was utterly in tune with the car, and I never had a scary moment as long as I owned it. Every new Corvair owner should have been required to make the same trip.
Wow! What a rare treat to see a seemingly untouched vintage Chevy Suburban, complete with camper, being used for what it was meant for. Awesome shot, and I love the front license plate, LOL.
Nice, that’d be a great rig for a low speed trip, stopping at all the scenic lookouts.
I am saddened by another motorcycling year coming to a close without a BRP trip 🙁
So true, you certainly couldn’t be in a hurry to be anywhere. It is a nice reflection of easy-simpler days gone by.
Yes it is sad that the motorcycle season was so short this year in the north east states anyway.
Very nice indeed ! .
That’s a later model (’52/’53 IIRC) AD as it has vent wings and push button door handles .
Suburbans came with a front sway bar that really helped the handling and body roll .
-Nate
True the Subs and the Panels had sway bars and they worked well when swapped to the pickups.
First heard about the BRP in the 70s. Living in Florida but with family in Pennsylvania it wasn’t exactly an easy side trip. Then in the late 80s, when I was transferred to Tennessee, I noticed when traveling on I-81 that there were several exits pointing towards the BRP…. way off in the distance.
I’ve often thought of trying to set aside a day to try it, but it has gotten so popular I’m guessing any trip on it would now be made at a crawl.
One more, in a near endless string of regrets.
But there are plenty lightly traveled winding roads in your neck of the woods. Take them.
My comment doesn’t make it clear, I currently live in Florida and what few “interesting” roads I’ve run across are quickly being straightened and widened.
When I go back to Pennsylvania to visit I appreciate all those winding 2 lane roads at the Pennsylvania end of the trip.
In the fall of 1984, I was assigned to an environmental project in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia near the town of Elkton. I and a couple of co-workers rented a house on a hillside in Massanutten Resort – a great view. I drove my then six-month-old 5-speed Honda CRX 1.5 from my home in Florida to the project area to use as my daily wheels for the month I was on the project (I got reimbursed for mileage). We were in the Valley during the peak of the fall colors and it was absolutely spectacular. I also had a hoot of a time driving the CRX on the winding roads up there. Very early one Sunday morning, I drove up to Washington DC for the day via the Skyline Drive. There was hardly any traffic and I had a blast ripping through the curves just below the bottom of the clouds. Unfortunately I got stopped by a Virginia highway patrolman – a graying, tough-looking man I’d say around 50 or so. I tried to look as contrite as possible while he silently looked over the blue-and-silver Honda for a few minutes. Finally, he looks at me and says “I know you’re having fun out here, son, but cut it out!”. He walked back to his cruiser and drove away while I struggled to keep from fainting on the spot.
Sweet. I live literally two minutes off the parkway in between its beginning (or end depending on how you look at it) in Cherokee by the great Smoky Park, and Waynesville NC
Awesome. I think the southern terminus is the beginning.
Wigwam Hotel in Cherokee is my fave!
Wigwam is great! A little farther up, past where I live you reach the highest elevation (6063 feet I believe) and the Pisgah inn which is a great place to rest and eat. You can hike a mile or two up to mt Pisgah which has spectacular 360° views.
Great to see this–I hope to take a leisurely drive through there sometime. The Suburban would fit right in to our period Great Smoky Mountains photo:
[Happy Thanksgiving, CC-ers!]
Neat photo. I would guess that this is from 1954 – the most recent car I can see is the Buick with the reverse-angle A-pillars in the lower right-hand corner.
I had several first gen Corvairs. My 1964 Convertible was the best handling with the somewhat revised rear suspension. The worst was my 1961 Lakewood Wagon, I put wider wheels on the rear and it helped.
Hey George, great photo, love those vintage shots.
Thanks, RH—I shared it with Paul back in January, who kindly posted it here: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/vintage-snapshots-and-photography/vintage-snapshot-great-smoky-mountains-overlook-early-1950s-who-can-id-them-all/
Wonderful!
I know exactly what you mean with getting in tune with the Corvair because I had the same experience with a Beetle in the Black Forest. I was driving really slow, only to the point where the oversteer started. Then another beetle passed me and I tried to follow. Soon I noticed that it will hold at higher speeds with just a little bit of counter steering. It became second nature on that drive. The scenery was similar too.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a spectacular trip, scenic as well as the twisties for a motorcycle or a nice handling car providing you don’t get stuck behind a motorhome, or a vintage Suburban with a camper, LOL.
These brand new Shasta retro vintage trailers are pretty cool, would be great for a restored vintage car road trip.
The wife and I considered buying one of these, as we own a couple of real vintage campers. We decided not to, after seeing in person that the interior materials were not as impressive as the outside was.
Save for a few exceptions, what is on the inside is simply modern particle board instead of the old plywood and solid wood. Both of our vintage campers use the real stuff, so this didn’t impress us at all.
We ended up getting a modern 18′ Shasta Oasis instead. It’s not as pretty outside but serves our needs well, with no compromises to make it appear vintage.
Vintage camper’s wood interiors are probably my favorite feature. Too bad they didn’t invest in a quality interior, maybe Shasta (Airflyte) was afraid the pricing would be too high to sell if they did.
I’ve been thinking about getting a trailer to tow with my 1/2 ton pickup, this lightweight (5250 dry) 23 ft. double slide murphy bed floorplan is amazing, huge inside yet small and light for easy tow.
Sad. Substituting plywood for particle board would have cost the manufacturer only a few hundred dollars — and would make the trailer lighter as well as more desirable visually, as the material could have been exposed on interior surfaces. (Clear finishing would be a wash, against whatever the PB was covered with ?)
Penny wise . . .
“…I had the road mostly to myself, and I could drive as fast as I wanted to in the Corvair….” Paul, in recent years, the Blue Ridge Parkway (including Skyline Drive), running through western North Carolina and Virginia, etc., has been rigorously patrolled for speed, with limits of 35 mph and 45 mph in most places; therefore, high-speed runs are very risky. I know this personally from riding sport bikes all through that area (see my red helmet in the picture of a group of us on the Parkway). Tickets are handed out by federal police, not from the local jurisdiction, and the fines can be sobering. You will need an attorney if you get a ticket in most cases.
So I understand. Folks that weren’t around there at the time would have a hard time believing me just how dead the BRP was back then, that October. I would drive for considerable distances before seeing a car come the other way. The restaurants, rest areas, campgrounds, etc. were all almost deserted too. I never saw a single cop the whole distance. Or one motorcycle.
I treasure the memory of that trip, and realize it’s an artifact of a very different time. And it’s one of the reasons I live where I do, as I can still find similarly-dead stretches of highways and roads in Oregon and the Great Basin area.
Very evocative of similar trips 30 years ago as the new Fangio myself. Albeit in a far, far-flung place, State of Victoria, Aus., (size of UK, pop of 5.5million, 4.5 in capital). Where there are still astonishing roads in the east of the state with massive-timbered drippy-wet forests, ultra-green hilly farmland, endless turns and twists, from snow to tree-ferns and coast in a few hours (for local readers, Noojee to Inverloch, Jindabyne to Buchan to Lakes Entrance and much else), very few others around even now; not an artifact at all here, PN. (So book your ticket, man, life marches fast!)
Er, with one rider. This being Aus, particularly Victoria, is not the US, your rights are a little different. 15 mph, for eg, over WILL take your license, and on main roads, 3mph over WILL be booked.
Arrgh, bugger it, just ask the locals first (the areas of great roads aren’t over-policed), and go for it. Anyway, on many of these routes, you won’t be exceeding the limits even when trying hard!
Love the Suburban and attendant caravan. Though not on the sort of roads we’re mentioning here, where they’re just a damn impediment to my best times…
Paul,
Living in backwoods NC right off the parkway, I can assure you that it has definitely become a tourist attraction. But there are some absolutely incredible driving and sight seeing roads that are still like you describe. (276, Rte 80, lake Logan road, and so so much more). There is still a very alive sense of adventure down here if you get off the beaten path.
My then-almost-wife and I did the Parkway from NC to TN a year later than you, in my brother’s Triumph Stag, which by that late in a week’s trip had worn out its welcome big time. Blowing its radiator cap off after getting stuck in Saturday night Asheville traffic was only the latest of its tantrums. As it happened, we did wind up observing the speed limit, the only way to get 30-40 miles in before pulling over to cool off for a spell – good thing the fall colors were so fine and the scenery spectacular. And Yes, we were practically the only car on the road.
Sadly, our next trip to the Outer Banks, this time with out toddler son in the back of an Alfa 2-liter Berlina, caught us too short of time and money for another Parkway trip. Too bad; that would have been a fine car for that road, and little Ben was not only okay with hustling the curves, he would squeal with delight an the really tight ones. I think he still does …
Sir, if you managed to snag your lady despite having broken down repeatedly in the beautiful-voiced but otherwise absurd Triumph Stag, then she was clearly worth it. And all power to you both.
Um..I’m presuming the “almost” became “actual”?
Yes, and eventually Ex … but still good friends. The current and final Mrs. O is the only one I’ve managed to stay both friends with and married to. 30+ years now.
Although we spent a lot of roadside time monkeying with the Stag’s stubborn inability to keep firing on all eight, or put its windows up if it was raining or down if it wasn’t (and turning on the A/C was Instant Overheat), we both kept our sense of humor. The Stag was one of those cars that promise a lot and fail on the details; when it was good it was (exactly like the Little Girl) very very good, but when it was BAD …
Depending on which way you took, You probably went through the Smoky mountain National Park or up 40 through cataloochee and by max patch, or up the highway from Asheville to Johnson city. Any way you take it, it’s a strenuous drive into and out of these mountains. I’ve had quite a few jeeps overheat on these mountain roads in the summer time
I love the photo of the old Suburban and trailer. I took a ride on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Skyline drive in 1979. This was part of my cross country motorcycle trip. I remember the speed limit was 45 mph. in most places. Pretty common to get caught behind slow tourist traffic. Hard to have fun riding so slowly on a curvy road. I would like to drive on the Natchez Trace Parkway in the next year or so.
Jose, one of my enduring pipe dreams is to take a nice ’41 Packard or similarly fine old cruiser and do a full-length Highway 100-to-Natchez run on that. Or the reverse; maybe take the Interstate to Natchez and head back towards Nashville. Drive a car that’s satisfactory at 50 or so, pack picnics, stop and take pictures a lot … preferably in either Spring or late October. That Packard has been the Big Want for many years: same vintage as me, and the separate-fender models were the prettiest Packards ever made. Even a relatively humble 120 would do me fine.
I got to drive the Natchez Trace from Jackson Mississippi to just south of Nashville three times in the ’90s, twice in an ’87 Lincoln LSC and once in a BMW 750. Done during the week with the road virtually empty, it was three of the great drives I’ve ever had. The perfectly maintained road surface, graded curves, excellent sight lines and absolutely stunning scenery. The drives were done at a good pace, but not crazy, the sunset each time was never to be forgotten. Each time I’d ask myself “…and you get paid for this??”. Absolutely great road.
Another fun and vastly underrated drive is the George Washington forest in West Virginia. Stay on 64 west and it will take you into the state forest. Great scenery, no touristas, and lots of little roads to explore
That’s an incredible area. The Monongahela national forest, devils backbone, and miles upon miles of driving, whether you brought a sports car or a 4×4 you will have fun out there.
motor cycles should head west to the bear tooth pass