This was shot in 1967 as confirmed by the photographer, despite the age of most of the cars. A gathering of early CCs.
A note to all readers: the Cohort isn’t just for recent CC finds. If you have vintage photographs with some automotive (or related) content, feel free to post them too.
Nice picture. White walls and baby moon hub caps. I just joined curbsideclassic and talked about my 1966 Volvo 122S. There were not too many Volvos in the USA back then. There is one at the Enco Station behind you. It also looks like 3 guys who may have been on a weekend pass. Thanks for the memory.
Fantastic John. Big thanks for sharing.
Interesting comparison of body styles between the
59 Chevy and the 59 Ford behind it …
Also interesting comparison between the ’59 and the Tri-Five Chevy behind the Ford.
The first thing I noticed after the Chevy was the Volvo at the Enco station. Georgetown is just north of Austin, Texas (the state capitol). Austin boasts several institutes of higher learning, the University of Texas being most prominent. Georgetown also has Southwestern University, a much smaller private liberal arts university not unlike Rice University in Houston. Perhaps the Volvo belonged to a faculty member of Southwestern. Nah! That’s just a stereotype. 🙂
The man sitting on the right fender doesn’t seem to have the right haircut for a soldier, sailor, or airman. The other two with their classic 1960’s crew cuts might be military. Fort Hood, the massive army base, just outside Killeen, Texas is just a short drive north of Georgetown.
See comment below. Except for possibly Austin, Texas was years behind in discovering the sixties. And even Austin couldn’t hold a candle to San Francisco.
In Texas back then, a Volvo owner would probably have been a college professor. If that car don’t say “commie” to a Texan in 1967, I don’t know what does.
If my ex-wife’s grandfather was any indication, not everyone who drove a Volvo in those days was some wild-eyed left-leaning intellectual. He was an airline baggage handler and devout Southern Baptist (married to the church secretary, no less) and the model of traditional Southern propriety. He bought a 122S at the end of the model year for not much more than the new Beetle that he wanted.
Why a Volvo? Because the salesman at the VW dealer in Charlotte was rude to him!
I find the Volvo=professor stereotype to be madly incorrect and very boring, hearing it practically every time an old Volvo is shown (or certain other imports). The truth is that the 50s Import Boom was created by a wide spectrum of Americans, not just pinko professors. Keep in mind that the import boom started by American GIs bring back cars from Europe, not just right after WW2, but also during the early 50s, when there were many still stationed in Germany.
These were car guys who were attracted to the various and unique qualities of the imports (economy, sportiness, etc.), and goot hooked on them. The Volvo was a popular upgrade from a VW Beetle, as it was more powerful, sporty, and had was built well.
I knew folks with a wide range of professions who drove Volvos and other imports, including mechanics, engineers, and all sorts of others. It’s a worn out cliche.
Speaking of ex-GIs, the car my ex’s grandfather was driving at the time he bought the 122 was a Simca 1000 that his son (my ex-father in law) brought back from France. He was stationed there at the time de Gaulle kicked us out. His enlistment was up soon thereafter and with that came a new job, a new wife, and a new ’67 Impala. He gave the Simca to his dad.
“goot hooked on them…”. Are you channeling Swedish Paul?
GREAT photo ! .
I noticed the Volvo before I even looked at the Chevy .
At that time , there were Volvo 444 & 445 Sedans here and there all over New England , mostly owned my Teachers it seems to me .
-Nate
New England. I had a 1957 Volvo 444 before my 1966 Volvo 122S. One of my early trips in my new 122S was a drive to Essex Junction, Vt to visit a friend whose father was transferred to IBM from the Hudson Valley. The Northway (I87) was completed up toward Lake George. I believe I had to drive toward White Hall and up Route 7 to get to Burlington then the 5 corners of Essex Junction. I can still smell the new car smell and see the brightly illuminated dashboard. What a treat. Volvos, Saabs, Renaults etc were the preferred cars of the no TV and FM classical music crowd. I was just 20 and on the leading edge of the Volvo crowd. My muscle car friends all laughed at me. Then we were drafted one by one and the fun was over.
The only truly old Volvo I saw regularly as a kid was owned by the guidance counselor at my middle school, so maybe the stereotype does apply sometimes! This was in the late 80’s/early 90’s and the car was a PV544, so it was 20+ years old, but in fine shape.
Back at that time old 240s were a dime a dozen, and 140s and even P1800s weren’t rare. But even than it was uncommon to see a 122/Amazon, let alone a PV544!
Having lived in Texas in the early 80s it always had to be Dairy Queen or Whataburger…McDonald’s were very rare sights.
As I’ve said on here before, I would rather have a 59 Ford over a 59 Chevy….but this one looks sweet. I’ll bet this was a medium blue or green like 80-90% of 59 Chevys.
Great picture! I am amazed at how old all of the cars are in a 1967 photo. And I am having trouble making out the white car behind the pickup’s windshield – it almost looks like a Studebaker to me, but I can’t get a good enough look.
I can’t help but wonder if the photo date is really correct. It looks more like 1962 or so to me. Not one newish car anywhere? All of them 6-7 years old? Hmmm…
Yeah, but in “Dazed and Confused” who was filmed in Austin and set in 1976. Most of the vehicules in the movie was 5 year old car average in 1976. http://www.imcdb.org/movie_106677-Dazed-and-Confused.html
I guess then it might be possible to find some 10 year old cars in good shape in Austin in 1967 and I hope that 1959 Chevy got a better fate then the one in the movie “Dirty Mary Crazy Larry”. 😉 http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_28174-Chevrolet-Brookwood-1959.html
So much going on in this photo. The clothes/atmosphere evoke more of a 50’s/early 60’s vibe than 1967. A point in time to relax and enjoy a soft swirl – the following year the country would be turned nearly upside down by dissent and violence. You can tell the car’s history includes a benign climate. My cousin’s 59 Chevy was a total rust bucket back in IN by 1967. Although they created the notorious “dog leg,” this photo clearly illustrates why wrap-around windshields were so popular for a time: what a beautiful expanse of glass. The edgy 59’s front end is in stark contrast to the tamed version on the 60 in the background. Great photo.
“We’re talkin’ Texas, boy. There ain’t no damned hippies down here like over in gawdforsaken San Francisco. And who knows what’s crawling in Los Angeles. No, down here we have good, God-fearing Texas boys who’ll show up as expected when they get their draft notice, and do their time in Vietnam without complaint – just like the country expects of them.”
Keep in mind that what we considered The Sixties (beads, long hair, drugs, radically different rock and roll) only existed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Detroit in 1967 (maybe Austin – I remember that The 13th Street Elevators was a Texas band) – and was only starting to crawl into Philadelphia, etc. at that time. I’d say The Sixties finally hit Erie, PA about 1970, no doubt Dallas-Ft. Worth about the same time. The rest of Texas discovered Southern Rock without ever noticing psychedelia.
For those of us in smaller midwestern cities (like, say Fort Wayne Indiana) and who were only 10 years old at the end of 1969, the 60s looked a whole lot like the 50s, particularly if you had no older siblings.
The only differences were the songs on the radio and the stories on the evening news.
I grew up in Texas, and saw plenty of long-haired hippie types & knew my share of guys who wanted no part of the Vietnam War. I was only 14 in 1967, but my 17 year old brother was wearing beads and listening to Cream. Counterculture types may have been a minority, but they were there.
Dave ;
You’re right but , Texas is still very straight laced most of the time .
I was coming back to L.A. shortly after the Katrina mess and stopped in a remote West Texas truck stop to get Diesel , in front of me was a caricature of the West L.A. fully out of the closet gay typ , buying gasoline and candy ~ the poor young girl behind the counter was flabber gasted and asked me as I walked up ” what the HELL was that ?!? ” ~ I said ‘ nothing , just one of the regular L.A. types , prolly out here on vacation or visiting his folks ‘ .
She rolled her eyes and said ” in that case , I’m _NEVER_ going to L.A. ! ” .
Kids , whatt’re ya gonna do ? =8-) .
FWIW , Texas is a GREAT place ~ I enjoin all here to at least visit once .
-Nate
Looks like a scene from “American Graffitti” before the whole counterculture thing started to happen in about 1966.
Great photo. For some reason I wondered what that location looks like now. I think I found the house in the background on Google street view, at Main and University:
Even numbered years in 1960s Texas had black on white license plates and odd numbers had white on black license plates. My phone screen is small, but it looks like the Volvo has a white plate and the Impala they are leaning on has a black plate though I cannot make out any details. Part of me assumes that fellows like this usually did not have the money to buy an almost new Impala, but a nearly 10 year old Impala would be no problem. Were Moon Hubcaps a thing in the early 1960s?
As Paul among other photographers have shown it is not too difficult to make a street scene look 10 years older than it actually is and there are several examples online of this.
It is hard, but from experience having looked at hundreds of vintage street/parking lot shots, it’s very odd during this era to see only old cars and no new/newish ones. Obviously, it’s hard to pin down the year of the Volvo.
It may be 1967; if it is, it’s a very unusual one, given the age of all the cars.
I love this kind of photo sleuthing 🙂
1. I wondered if the Enco sign could be a clue, and found this on Wikipedia.
“The Enco brand was also rolled out for gasoline/oil products at Humble’s Texas stations, which retained Humble as the station brand until that was converted to Enco in 1962.”
So this is ’62 at the earliest.
2. The Volvo grille is a clue, because they did change subtly through the 60’s. This one (with three vertical divisions on each side) I think means it’s 1963-1966, but it’s hard to find definitive info online.
3. The desert boots, white socks, and skinny pants caught my eye – it says ‘high school 1966’ to me, but then I was living in Nova Scotia at the time – not exactly fashion central. The style looks more mid-60’s than early-60’s to me though.
4. License plates. Not a lot to go on, but in the 1960’s Texas license plates were white-on-black in even years and black-on-white in odd years. Not sure what the Volvo is, but the Chev’s looks white on black. So this may be a 1962/’64/’66 plate, but the bare trees mean that the photo could have been taken in early 1963/’65/’67 (in many jurisdictions you had until March to get the new plate).
If the poster says ‘1967’ I’d be inclined to accept it – and further suggest that it’s January or February, just for the hell of it!
Going way, way, way out on a limb to suggest that maybe there’s a 1967+ F-Series in front of the Texaco. And is that a quad headlight 1964+ Chevelle on the left behind the ’60 Chev?
I squinted at that one for a while too – sometimes I see a ’62 or ’63 full size Chev, and other times I think it’s a ’65 Comet 🙂
Oddly enough I’m reading this at Monument Diner in Georgetown! Stop stalking me….
My first impression was that of the early 1960s. However, I can accept that it may be 1967. Wasn’t living in Texas back then, but I was 1977-90. In the Big D. Anyway, cool photograph. Like seeing so many old cars.
Hey Paul. Sweet looking car. I love looking at old photos with cars in them. 🙂
To me, not born or living in the US, what does COHORT, and all them other abbreviations mean?
COAL means Car Of A Lifetime, right?
The CC Cohort is a Flickr group where you can upload pics. Click on the word in the menu bar at the top of this page to have a look at pics from a wide range of CC’ers. If you want to add pics yourself, just start a Flickr account and then join the CC Cohort; its pretty easy and some of the writers really appreciate and use some of these pics for stories.
If you want to understand some of the terms such as COAL (yep, Cars Of A Lifetime is right), go to the CC Writer’s Guide in the menu bar and towards the bottom (it’s pretty long) some of the different categories are explained.
Thanks, for explaining it, to me.
The Cohort term, I didn’t find an explanation for, in there (for when I forget, again).
‘Cohort’ is another word for ‘group’. Enjoy…
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1648121@N23/pool/
Interestingly, though I know what the word cohort means, I wondered what it meant in the context used here. I thought it was just me.
I still don’t get it.
This gentleman posts on Flikr. I just sent him a Flikr mail asking him to come here and set the record straight. Assuming it’s the same John Lloyd, I’m confident it is.
I bought that ’59 in 1967 in Killeen, so it can’t be any earlier. I was stationed at Fort Hood from late in 1966 to early February 1968, so 1967 just has to be when this picture was taken.
Thanks for confirming, John.
Love that ’59 with the moon caps. It just looks perfect somehow!