This is Chuck.
As you may have guessed by this photo, Chuck has been around a while. Born and raised in Rural Missouri, he nevertheless was never quite cut out for the country life and eventually became a banker, then a car dealer, and then once again a banker.
He’s owned some cars which would go on to become very Curbside through the years, and being a rather meticulous guy, he took photos of most of them. Pictured is his ’55 Ford, obviously bought early on in his car days.
As I myself have never ceased enjoying hearing about his multitudinous vehicles, I figured it’d be fun to pick out the cream of the crop and tell their (and his) stories, which I will do in the coming weeks.
To be continued…
A true “Crown Victoria” given the crown of chrome across the roof.
The only Crown Vic I ever owned was a tiny plastic model originally taped to the top of a Post Toasties cereal box. I wish I still had it (and the whole collection, including a model based on the prototype 55 T-Bird with the Fairlane V-shaped side trim). I loved the real Crown Victoria, a rare site when growing up in the midwest though I’ve since seen quite a few at car shows and on the streets in SoCal. No spinners, though.
The Post Cereal Fords were manufactured by F&F Mold in Dayton, OH. My first F&F was a ’55 T-Bird convertible. My last was a ’69 Cougar.
I have a modest collection of F&Fs today including a mint ’65 Mustang coupe, fastback, and convertible.
Very rural from the looks of that TV antenna setup. Great photo, I like it.
I’ll swear those hubcaps were the “custom” hubcaps in lots of AMT 3-in-1 model kits of the early 1960s. Cool.
Wait till you see the front of this car…
The hubcaps are Olds Fiesta units from ’55-56 Oldsmobiles. Along with ’56-57 Dodge Lancer units, they were the tits.
Starfire hubcaps holy shit havent seen a set of originals in years they were all the rage once upon a time.
I think those were Olds Fiesta hubcaps. In any case, they were all the rage once upon a time… Dear old dad had those on his ’48 Ford Pickup (with Olds V8 power!), back in the 60s.
I had a pair of those hubcaps for a while, but my car at the time, a ’48 Ford, still had its 16-inch wheels on the front, and I didn’t want to run them on the Merc wheels on the back, so I sold them. That was easy, there were always guys who wanted them.
Too bad his Crown Vic wasn’t a glass-top model, then he would really have something! Those were beautiful.
If anyone cares to search, there may well still be one in the Meramec River in what used to be called Times Beach, MO. It was dumped in there by a friend, along with my old 1952 Chevy and all his other junked cars!
Good hunting…
Wasn’t Times Beach shoveled up & burned years ago? Something about used oil with dioxin used on the dirt streets to keep the dust down.
Wow, CA Guy, I still have the entire set of 3″ plastic Ford models that I got from Post Cereals in 1955, still in the original box! There is the Crown Vic, a Customline Tudor, a Country Sedan station wagon, the Sunliner convertible, and of course the T-Bird, with the final production side trim. I played with those often in our backyard gardens, creating little highways and neighborhood scenes. I would religiously wash them each time I used them, so today they remain in pristine condition. I still treasure that simple cereal premium, it was such a boyhood delight.
I had the great fortune when I was in high school in 1962-1965 to occasionally be given a ride home by a classmate’s mother in her ’55 Crown Victoria, two-tone Snowshoe White and Regency Purple. Even though it was aging even then, I thought, and still do, that this was one of Ford’s most attractive designs. I was fascinated by that car, with it’s distinctive chrome roof band and that wild purple color, a very elegant and quintessentially ’50s era car. Wish it had lived up to its name and design heritage in later years.
Oh, man, like this one? You still have the whole set? Wow! You lucky. I’m sure I had some, and I’m sure they got thrown out.
Two great things about this commercial:
1) Those are Plasticville buildings he’s got around his car collection.
2) The kid has a screwdriver in his hand and he’s using it to fix his own bike.
I had the 55s and the 57s – full sets of each in red and in yellow. Don, I don’t remember any of them coming in an original box, just either taped to the cereal box in my local small town grocery, or later inside the box for the 57s. I wonder if your set was sold separately from the cereal?
I had to eat a lot of cereal to acquire them since I was an only child and the folks didn’t eat cereal. I remember some other odd lots of similar plastic models acquired from cereal, including a black 59 T-Bird convertible that was very nicely detailed, and some Mopars, including a 1960 Plymouth convertible. My cousin had quite a lot of these as well – in fact multiple sets of all of them. His larger family ate more cereal. We had a blast playing with them.
All of these particular cars were deemed worthless by the folks who threw them away when I went off to college, along with the comic book collections. However, saved were many of my bigger toys from the era, including promos, Japanese tin toys (56 Ford Wagon and 55 Ford Ranchero but no Crown Vic), Hubley white metals, etc., all fun to have around today. I am astounded by the prices they can fetch.
Mike, great video.
Is that Chuck’s 57 Fairlane behind the Crown Vic?
I am really looking forward to seeing and reading about this gentleman’s adventures; it’s the stories behind the cars that make the interesting to me. Hope we won’t be kept in suspense too long.
Yeah, Mike, exactly, that’s it. The Sunliner is a turquoise blue (with a tiny steering wheel poking up), the Customline Tudor is the same color, the Country Sedan is yellow, the T-Bird is red (also with a tiny steering wheel), and the Crown Vic is tan. Great video, that was us in 1957 (I was the kid with the screwdriver, always fixing things). Apparently they did come one at a time inside the cereal box.
And CAGuy, you could send in for them as a set, they came five in the box, with a folded corrugated compartmentalizer, each one tucked into its own space. The original mailing label from Post is still on it (Chicago 77, Illinois). I must have eaten a lot of cereal, too, (although my brother and dad would have helped out, we were always eating GrapeNuts and Raisin Bran), and sent in the box tops, or else there was a coupon on the back, and that and maybe 25 cents got you the whole shebang. I’ll have to post a picture when I get a moment.
You’ll be interested to know, too, that I still have a collection of twenty or so promos, beginning in 1956 and running up to 1966. Sadly, my very first model, a 1956 two tone blue Ford Fairlane Victoria four door hardtop, disappeared several years ago. I have had these cars squirreled away forever (no, I’m not a hoarder!), thank the lucky stars my folks didn’t throw anything away.
This is amazing, guys, I never would have thought this subject would have surfaced again in a jillion years. You have to wonder how many of these silly little things are still out there!
Don, more than you would ever imagine – I have a friend in the DC area who trotted one out when I mentioned them last year while on a visit – he had purchased it at a yard sale. I’ve seen them at auto swap meets out here but usually not in sets or even with both sets of wheels or with the steering wheels intact. I think Dennis Doty wrote something about the Post cereal cars in Collectible Automobile a few years back. So cool that you have a boxed set and the original box. You may be surprised at what you could get for it.
I am impressed that you have some of the early promos (before about 1961) that would be made of cellulose acetate that tended to warp. I have a few from that period, including a 53 Studebaker Starliner, 57 Chrysler, 58 Edsel, 58 Continental, 58 Oldsmobile 98, 59 Cadillac, some have warped a bit, some not. No Fords, I think – will have to look. Many newer ones I got directly from Ford when Dad bought new Fords (you sent in a coupon) are from the 60s and in their original boxes with mailing labels, including a gorgeous 63 T-Bird and rare 66 Galaxie 7-Litre.
I too am looking forward to the stories related to the guy and his Crown Vic. I thought the basket handle roof chrome was beyond cool, then and now.
Don’t really remember the Post car premiums. My parents never bought Post cereal, only Kelloggs. However, I remember the thrill of getting a promo car. I got a 62 Monterey and a 68 (?) Cyclone from the local Mercury dealer. The Monterey was played with until it disintegrated and I gave the Cyclone away around 1971.
Fast forward to the mid 1990’s, my aunt gave me the same Cyclone model as I had. In pristine condition, in the original box, she had kept it all those years. I ended up selling it to an antique dealer along with a bunch of other stuff a couple years later. The dealer gave me $ 50 for it. I think I walked out that day with around $ 200 total. The antique lady may have been too generous with her offers, however. She and her husband were out of business soon after that.
As a kid I was torn between the Fairlane Victoria (2dr hardtop) and the Crown Vic. The Crown Vic was certainly glitzy, but in reality it was just a 2dr sedan with a bunch of extra chrome. My real lust was reserved for my uncle’s ’56 Sunliner (convertible) in Mandarine Orange and Colonial White.
As stated earlier, I was an avid collector of F&F-Post Cereal Fords. Below are what remain in my collection today. The F&F units are pretty common on eBay.
Sorry, I thought I could upload multiple jpgs, but I guess not. This is my ’65 F&F Mustang Coupe.
1955 Ford Fairlane Tudor.
1965 Mustang Fastback.
1965 Mustang convertible.
1968 Mercury Cougars.
Kevin, thanks, these are great pics. I had forgotten about the later ones – now I remember that I had some T-Birds from the 61-63 era as well. How I wish I still had the whole collection.
Hey guys, being a newbie to posting, I’m trying to attach a photo of my Post cereal ’55 Fords, hope this works. Sorry if this doesn’t come through, I’ll try again.
Thanks, CAGuy, for the reply, really interesting. Yeah, I got into the promos when I was 9 years old. Still have a ’56 Buick Century convertible, ’57 Ford Fairlane 500, ’59 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, ’59 Chevrolet Impala, ’60 Ford Thunderbird, ’62 Cadillac Fleetwood, ’63 Pontiac Bonneville, ’63 Ford Thunderbird, ’65 Mercury Park Lane, ’65 Dodge Monaco, ’66 Buick Riviera, among others. Unfortunately, the early ones, as you noted, suffer from various degrees of warp, always wondered if there was a way to correct that. I remember getting the 60’s era Ford models from the Ford Times magazine (we were quite the serial FoMoCo family, running the gamut from Fords, a Mercury, and two Lincolns), so the Ford Times was a staple at our house, you merely had to fill out a coupon and send in for them, free.
Don, great set – all the colors.
Nothing you can do about the warping that I’m aware of – it is what it is.
I’m wondering if your 63 T-Bird is the promo from Ford that I have. Although it’s the coupe, it has the Sports Roadster trim and wire wheels (and skirtless rear fenders) – incorrect for the coupe. And the swing-away steering wheel works!
My Dad bought a lot of cars during his lifetime and many Fords, from a 39 coupe to Falcons, Fairlanes, Thunderbird, Granada, Lincoln, a Mark V, with other makes in between, before going over the wall to Datsun/Nissan for the final ones. I do remember sending in those coupons but I thought they came in the Ford Buyer’s Guide rather the FT. But our memories are not always reliable…
Glad the picture came through, now I know how to post photos.
My ’63 T-Bird is the coupe, kind of a bronze color, no roadster trim, no wire wheels, but full wheel covers with the spinner attachment. And the swing-away steering wheel swings away, too! It does have the full rear wheel cutouts, too, no skirts.
You may be right about the Ford Buyer’s Guide, hadn’t remembered that. The mind does get a bit foggy. Seems I recall that you had this freebie opportunity each year at model introduction time, you could only choose one.
My dad had Fords as company cars all during the Fifties and early Sixties. Then he bought mom a new ’59 Galaxie Club Victoria, then a ’63 Mercury Monterey Custom 4-door hardtop (how I loved that rear window, but the car’s mechanicals were a pos), then he moved upscale and bought a ’65 Lincoln, all black, how I loved driving that mini-limousine, followed by a ’71 Lincoln coupe. He finally got the Cadillac he always coveted, a ’77 Coupe de Ville, but sadly only had three years to enjoy that before he suddenly passed away in 1980. So as I mentioned, we were alway kind of a Ford family. I kept the tradition going, sort of, with a ’70 Cougar XR-7 (it had the 4-barrel Cleveland engine, how I wish I still had that, but man, how it sucked fuel), and now I have the ’57 T-Bird I always wanted, in the form of an ’03 retro-Bird model, mountain shadow gray with the saddle tan interior, bought it new, still has only 14,000 miles on it. I fully plan to hang onto that until my last day! Anyway, fun to reminisce with you guys, so many wonderful car memories.