A Chevy lover lives here, or at least a classic Chevy lover. The license plate on the 1950 Fleetline Deluxe indicates it’s probably a recent purchase, and it appears to be in better shape that 1962 Impala peeking out from the garage. Maybe it will displace it soon. Or maybe space will be made for both in the two-car garage. The Hyundai, meanwhile, lives outside.
But why is this California in a nutshell?
The way I see it, the 50 Fleetline represents about the last era before imports started making serious inroads to the California car market. The 62 Impala, in Anniversary Gold no less, is from GM’s golden era, but the California car market is already starting to show that imports will be the future as the domestic carmakers, GM especially, rest on their success. The Hyundai represents the car market today. Does this Chevy lover drive a new Malibu or Impala? Of course not!
Not pictured are the two new Teslas parked in the driveway of the house next door. Maybe at least one domestic carmaker is the future of the California car market after all.
I wish I had documented the driveway of the family that lived two houses up from us when I was growing up in the Bay Area. The first cars I remember there were a ‘53 Chevy, supplemented by a new and modern first-gen Valiant. The Chevy was replaced by a ‘63 Chevy, while the Valiant soldiered on even after that Chevy was replaced by a ‘72 LTD, which perhaps hinted at a shift in brand loyalty. At some point they downsized the fleet to just the LTD, then downsized the big Ford to a Focus. Five cars in about 65 years, all domestic, but following a similar path of size growing and shrinking, and from 6 to 8 to 4 cylinders and front wheel drive.
The 50 Chevy has a new plate. So either a recently resurrected and restored find or an out of state purchase. Newer plate on the 62. The house is one of those classic designs with the shallow roof and windows up top that are all around like stucco bungalows are in Berkeley and Oakland.
It is sad though that once they let them makes lots that narrow that they sat the house on it sideways. This one they didn’t even bother to move the door around to the front, or point the garage door at the street.
When my father bought a home in a brand new development in Canoga Park, circa 1966, it was a ranch style 5 bdr. house and none of the garages pointed towards the street. This method was very common.
Yes very common, but most I’ve seen they at least pointed the front door to the street instead of the side yard.
The Hyundai gets black plates, but not the two vintage cars (where it would actually be more appropriate)?
California should never have reissued the historic yellow, black, and blue plates. It probably helped plug a hole in their budget, but it cheapens the currency of actual vintage plates.
It’s hard to tell in the picture, but the Impala has vanity plates as well, probably from before you could get black vanity plates. I don’t believe California has reissued the yellow or blue plates, and the new black plates are pretty easy to distinguish from originals. Other than looking cool, the value of the original black plates was that it showed a car had been continuously registered in California since at least 1963 when the plates were first issued (which brings with it certain notions of how rust-free the car is likely to be, right or wrong), and that’s still the case. I’m just not sure how much the new ones cheapen the old ones.
“I don’t believe California has reissued the yellow or blue plates”
That’s correct- The state surveyed enthusiasts to gauge interest, and the yellow (’56-’62) and blue (’69-’82) did not pass muster.
On the upside, the new black plates use seven digits (unless the owner personalizes them), so you can still distinguish the original plates form the later issues.
Yeah, not enough people voted for the blue plates. I took part in the poll since I have two cars from that era that could use a change of plates.My 68 Mustang came into California in very late 1972 and so has a blue plate. I have a correct set of black in the garage which start with “W” like my Cougar.
The catch is that the 73 Dodge could use the blue plates, which it had, instead of newer white plates. The law does not allow YOM plates on my 73 but then when I got my original black plates put on the Cougar there was no regulation either. I simply found someone at a DMV office who said sure and didn’t question me. I’ll do the same for the Dodge one day when I can set foot into a DMV office.
Oh, and the new issue black plates can be made to have 6 figures. You just have to pay another extra on top of the black plate for personalized but the combo would need to be vetted. I know someone who has such a plate but the numbers come first instead, which gets around vetting, and I always give him a hard time.
You can still put plates of any era on California cars, once they are individually inspected and approved by the DMV as “year of manufacture” plates that match the YOM of the car. So the idea of original black plates having meaning is mostly over. A couple of caveats. You are supposed to have the original year sticker on the plate, and put the new stickers on separate plate tabs mounted adjacent to the plate, but people often ignore it and simply stick the new stickers where they were supposed to go. Also, from 1956, plates were issued in sequential number and letter sequences. The more OCD types (like me) can parse the approximate issue dates of the plates by their sequence, and one finds plates issued in, say, 1957, on a 1962 car, or 1964 era plates on a 1969 car, which grates.
The old plates must still be in a pair to qualify, so single plates on E-bay are one heck of a lot less expensive than a pair of old plates in good condition, which qualify for YOM.
I wish more states reissued their old plates like California is doing with the black plates. Instead they keep coming up with these goofy graphics on white backgrounds literally nobody likes, when the old two color legacy designs are actually distinctive to the states and more legible.
As for collector investors, let me find my tiny violin. It’s always “good old days” “they don’t em like they used to”, but then a vintage thing is reissued and now it’s “oh no, my investment in the old thing is ruined!” 🙄 Can’t satisfy anyone these days.
Surprisingly this afternoon a car with the black CA plates passed us on the freeway. The wife commented about them being old plates and I informed her that CA has been offering them again and that is why it was on a late model car.
I should note I am in Washington so you don’t necessarily see CA plated vehicles every day.
As a lifetime Californian who grew up with black plates and had them (original) on my first car and first two motorcycles, the only thing I see in common between the old and new is the color scheme. Font is different and of course they can’t have the same 3 letter/3 digit combo as a still-valid old plate, so I don’t consider them a re-issue, just a nostalgic tribute. Nothing wrong with that.
The new black plates are made using the same molds as the original ones, at Folsom Prison (one of the few prisons that still makes license plates). So they have that in common.
Always liked the fastback 50s GMs. Especially the Caddy.
Agree on the fastbacks. And the Chevy looks great in that period seafoam green.
One of my neighbors, he was a senior in high school when I was a freshman, had a 1950 Chevrolet Fleetline two door. His had the six removed and replaced with a 327/four speed combo from a wrecked Corvette. Larry would occasionally take pity on me trudging the mile and a half to school and offer me a ride. The 327 certainly did wonders for acceleration but I doubt that the brakes or the suspension had been upgraded to deal with the increased power. Larry ended up selling the car after the school year as he had been accepted at West Point and wouldn’t have been allowed to have a vehicle on campus.
My how times change! These Chevy’s were sold to people who were sang to by Dinah Shore singing “See The USA, In Your Chevrolet”. If she were still around she could sing ” See The USA In Your New Hyundai”. No in just ain’t the same.