Ice cream shops and classic vehicles go together like chocolate chips and cookies. The most recent instance of my spotting such a combo was this past August while in Lexington, Michigan, not far from Port Huron, with that write-up hopefully to follow. These pictures go back to Labor Day weekend of 2012, when I had traveled to the northern tip of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. The Bob-In Again was a cute, family-run diary bar and restaurant that had opened in 2004 and closed just six years after I had taken these shots, after fourteen years in business.
A beautifully maintained, classic vehicle can serve as an effective billboard, and this ’56 Pontiac beckoned me right off the road even though I had wedding festivities to attend. I was sorely tempted to spoil my dinner by stopping in for a cone. Thankfully, my insurance underwriting cost-benefit analysis mindset took control, and the thought of showing up with ice cream drip stains on my freshly pressed suit was enough to keep me on track on the day I had first seen this classic.
I loved consuming all things dairy when I was growing up. It was the 1980s, and not only were there reruns of Schoohouse Rock! extolling the benefits of proper nutrition which included adequate calcium, but there was the ubiquitous “Milk: It Does A Body Good” ad campaign that the National Dairy Board had launched in 1984. Like many young kids, I wanted to grow up to be big and strong. Good bones were going to be a part of that, if all of the kid-oriented commercials and edu-tainment programming that aired during cartoons after school and on Saturdays were to be believed. It wasn’t just that I wanted to eventually grow taller, but I genuinely liked many things in that food group. I would eat Kraft singles by the small stack right off of their cellophane wrappers. I’d regularly drink glasses of milk, even without chocolate syrup. I even liked cottage cheese.
Then there was ice cream. All of the Dennis brothers had a sweet tooth, but if all of my eventual cavities are any indication, my penchant for sweets was especially strong. I don’t remember my parents having any overtly negative reaction to this (which is weird, considering we didn’t have “sugar cereal” in the pantry), as long as I had eaten whatever main meal had been set in front of me and I brushed my teeth at night. A typical dessert for me while in the third grade would have been “one bowl” of ice cream, which amounted to multiple scoops of vanilla piled high in the white Corelle china bowl, with marshmallows and crushed pecans on top, covered generously with either Hershey’s syrup or Magic Shell, which was a topping that hardened within minutes of being drizzled on top. I’d eat it all and sometimes even lick the bowl afterward. Literally.
In the days of my youthful metabolism, these habits continued into adolescence… until something changed. Milk no longer tasted as good to me by my pre-teen years, and I just stopped drinking it. I’d still have cheese from time to time, but not to the extent that I had when I was younger. Cottage cheese was now gross, so there was no more of that. I still liked ice cream, but it started to do wonky things to my stomach. I wondered if maybe it had been some cheap brand my mom had started to purchase that didn’t sit quite the same way, being the coupon-clipper she always was. It took a trip to the family physician to determine that I had developed an intolerance to lactose, and ice cream had to go.
I really was upset about this, at first. Why had my young body decided to change the program? My mom’s remedy was the introduction of ice milk to our freezer. This was in the days long before information was available on the internet with a few keystrokes. Ice milk is basically ice cream with significantly less butterfat. I’m shocked to learn in 2024 that while ice milk generally has less lactose than ice cream, the actual difference in percentage is much less than I had previously understood it to be. Maybe this is why this ice milk experiment lasted for only so long before I moved on to sherbet. What I really remember is how ice milk just wasn’t the same. Everything with fat just tastes better. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Someone in my Gen-X age group would have observed a ’56 Pontiac like our featured car to be far removed from this brand’s extremely popular “Excitement Division” image in the 1980s, which turned out Grand Ams, Firebirds, and Sunbirds hand-over-fist. I’d wager that many non-car-people could recognize a Chevrolet from any of the tri-five years as such, which may not be true of the Pontiacs, years before more widely recognized styling cues had been introduced, like twin-nostril grilles, plastic body cladding, and smoke- and waffle-effect taillamp lenses. To the young me, while this two-tone ’56 would have been recognizable as a GM product, and while I would have ruled out Buick (lest my Flint card be permanently revoked), it could just as easily have been an Oldsmobile.
By the ’80s, what the above ’56 Pontiac would have looked like to me is an off-brand Chevrolet, like the “ice milk” in the dairy counter of the local General Motors ice cream shop. Like a Chevy… but not quite. This is ironic, given that Pontiac was the next step up in the Alfred P. Sloan ladder of brand hierarchy. This example in what appears to be factory Glendale Green Metallic and White is a Chieftain, with the upmarket Star Chief also available that year. As a hardtop, it was also given the Catalina designation. What I can’t tell is if it’s from the 860 or 870 series of Chieftain, and this is after multiple comparisons of pictures of both. The 870 had slightly nicer interior and exterior trim, but that’s about all I was able to determine. (Please help me out in the comments.)
The two-door hardtop Catalina configuration was popular in the ’56 Chieftain line, with 46,300 units making it the most popular 860 sold, and with another 24,700 in the 870 series finding buyers. Overall sales of 405,700 placed Pontiac in sixth place for 1956 production, trailing Oldsmobile by about 80,000 units. For context, greatest sales volume in the industry belonged to Chevrolet, with 1,567,000 units, followed by Ford with 1,408,000. Just one year before, the clean-sheet ’55 Pontiacs were considered modern, good-looking cars and were popular, with over 554,000 units sold. The 27% sales drop for ’56 was substantial. Viewed through today’s eyes, I like this ’56 for being an attractive GM product that hasn’t been overexposed, which enables it to represent the mid-’50s in my mind without many other more recent associations.
The Bob-In Again may have bobbed out, but my rediscovery of these pictures has only served to reinforce that one moment is sometimes all we have to stop and enjoy (and photograph) things before they disappear or morph into something else. Also, in a happy twist, my body decided at some point in adulthood to let me have dairy without complaint, so even beach days can be made better with a walk to a nearby ice cream cart. Pontiac’s not coming back, but my enjoyment of ice cream has. I’m so glad I can have the real thing. Again.
Petoskey, Michigan.
September 1 & 2, 2012.
Brochure pages courtesy of www.oldcarbrochures.org
Ah, but it all melts away in the end, including old Pontiacs themselves (as down the throat of the recycle smelter they go).
Well, all but the fat deposited in undesirable geographic arrangements upon one’s body – that, THAT tends to be stubborn to take its leave, as the current shape of your current interlocutor might possibly currently attest (but of which, kindness-to-the-eyes prevailing, no pictorial evidence shall be provided).
It is not taste (or fancy), btw, that fat is taste, but science. It’s how our sniffy and licky bits work, so I read. The sensible path is to limit it to the good ones, and to not-large lashings of any (perhaps rather like the style of this sensible-shoe Chieftain), such that our arteries and associated plumbing has a chance of higher mileage, and the rest of us with it.
Nice post, Mr D., and though that goes without saying in your case, I still like to say it again now and again.
Here’s an old Oz ad for a lower-fat milk. It’s sort-of in line with your prognosticating, and hopefully might raise a smile. (The sound is pretty poor, and it’s in Australian too, unfortunately, but hopefully, the dry-as-dust gist of it is got).
https://www.google.com/search?q=milk+ad+and+only+2+per+cent+fat+ad+aus&oq=milk+ad+and+only+2+per+cent+fat+ad+aus&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIJCAEQIRgKGKABMgkIAhAhGAoYoAEyCQgDECEYChigATIJCAQQIRgKGKAB0gEJMTIzNTFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:bfd3c25a,vid:Tj_PI5J680k,st:0
Re the ad: Always a great feeling when the checkout staff silently compare your waistline to the your purchases.
She’s a definite comic type, like the waitress in W.C. Fields’s Never Give a Sucker an Even Break.
Love that “flick”! Get to see “WC” being both his “personna” and a working person.
Always think they all had some fun making it.
My dad, I recall really liked it too.
I need to find and watch this now… Thanks for linking it!
Justy, your comments almost never fail to make me smile… I not sure what happened, but my phone isn’t allowing me to see the ad you linked. Maybe on my home computer? Thanks for the good words.
In the interests of “good health”, I’ve resorted to drinking 2% milk, which is as low as I care to go…1% is like water, and if I wanted to drink water, well! I rarely eat ice cream/sherbet nowadays, I have discovered gelato, though! Every time I see one of these Pontiacs, I am immediately remined of Lucy, Ricky, Ethel, & Fred and the trip to California on “I Love Lucy”
(dating myself there, but it’s in syndication everywhere!) Glad that your aged body has allowed you to once again enjoy lactose infused products, but remember the old saying: “Once an adult, twice a child!” LOL!! 🙂
I’m reminded of the episode where the car jack pierces the front fender when Lucy & Ethel change the tire.
I now realize it wasn’t the Pontiac where they change the tire, but still worth watching:
Saw that “episode” fairly, recently. The driving scenes always get me laughing. They’re motoring along the road, top down. No evidence of wind, drafts, at all.
Huge “I Love Lucy” fan here, and I love that episode. There are few I don’t. I think I remember 1% milk tasting like that Carnation powdered milk. Not my favorite.
You know my father worked for Carnation from 1952-1968 and I never had Carnation Instant Milk. I did have a lot of Carnation Instant Breakfast when it was new on the market in the 60s. Mixed with regular milk. Today I drink 2% and have for so long I can’t stand the mouth feel of regular fat milk. The 2% is just perfect and I have a 16 oz. glass every morning since 1973. However, regular fat does not bother me when it comes to ice cream be it Haagen-Dazs or Thrifty’s ice cream.
As to the Pontiac I recall our next door neighbor, in Canoga Park 1966-68, drove one. If memory serves me correctly I believe he was an engineer in an aerospace firm in the Los Angeles area.
Great find and essay Joseph! Thank you. Love the colour scheme on this Pontiac.
When I was in primary school in the late 1970s, a local dairy test marketed a flavoured milk here in Ontario, called ‘Super 2’. Available in banana, strawberry and chocolate flavours. I still remember the packaging, some of the promotional material, and a couple TV ads. Can’t find any imagery on the web, showing the branding. Though, I do remember it tasting pretty good. Especially, the banana flavour. I did find this article, from the Ottawa Journal of Thursday, August 7, 1980, addressing one of the product’s sexist ads.
Thanks, Daniel! I’ll bet those ads would seem G-rated compared to some stuff today. Those flavors all sound like winners. I do like the mindfulness that the current day has brought with it, for the record.
According to an article about the 1955-57 Pontiacs in Collectible Automobile, April 1995, the 870 trim line in the 1956 cars could be distinguished from the low-end 860s by a chrome molding below the side windows and visored taillights, as well as “fancier” interiors. The car photographed by Joseph had the visored taillights. I can’t quite make out chrome moldings beneath the side windows, but they appear to be there in the first pic. So this car is likely an 870.
That’s more about the 1956 Pontiac than I knew when I got up this morning!
Rollfast, thank you for that research and solving the mystery! Honestly, I spent more than five minutes looking for that info.
Grandparent’s last car was their `56 Pontiac Star Chief Custom Catalina 4dr. hardtop–shell pink & white. When I was 5, Grandpa would let me reach over & start the car. One day coming home from the hardware store (for whatever reason a 5 yr old would have) I reached over and SHUT THE CAR OFF as Grandpa was going through an intersection! Thank God he had the presence of mind to slip it into neutral and start it again as he coasted thru! LOL My sister thought it was funny but Grandpa didn’t. I got a mild spanking.
Wow! That only got ya a “mild” spank session!
That sounds like a beautiful car. Kids are naturally curious, so I get it. But, as JT alluded to above, the spanking I would have gotten for doing the same wouldn’t have been mild. LOL
I loved ice cream as a kid, and could never get enough until I did one day: I was out at the Mennonite farm where I spent a few weeks each summer. After a long day baling hay, Mrs. Y mixed up a batch of fresh peach ice cream and my job was to stir the old fashioned ice cream maker. Then we wrapped it in a towel and all drove over to her parents’ farm, where a number of relatives and friends showed up…all of them had brought full ice cream makers too.
All the different flavor ice creams were set out on a table along with some old school cookies and full size plates. And that was it; ice cream supper. I heaped my plate with ice cream and cookies. And I survived to tell the tale.
And not one of them was even a wee bit overweight.
I still love ice cream, but I now have it in more moderate quantities. As to low fat milk and ice cream, yukk to all of it.
Paul, this makes me think of the psychology behind what it’s like when we can have as much as we want of something, like at a buffet. This experience might have put me off ice cream for a while, but I’m sure my love for it would have returned before too long.
I’ve disliked milk as a “drink”, all my life. Been a calcium taker most of my years.
My two brothers both liked it. One drank ‘copious amounts” of it.
My sister is closer to my end of the spectrum.
Something about the “marketing term”, “Strato Streak” does not suggest anything special to me.
Love the green/white color pairing. Makes the car look quite “dapper”.
Bet it would be fun to drive a bit, ride a bit. Even washing, shining it could be fun.
I agree that this color combination is especially attractive. And “Strato Streak” sounds like a roller coaster I’d try to ride this summer!
Or a fast streamlined diesel passenger train from the late 40s to the late 60s-early 70s. In pre Amtrak days when we had real rail transportation.
That’s a nice car, and looks like it was kept in pretty decent shape for something that was probably largely intended to decorate the parking lot and to evoke nostalgia for a drive-in ice cream/dairy bar (that’s what we call those places – a dairy bar – out here in this part of the country). I always find it kind of sad when a car that is used that way sits on flattened tires and has dull paint. This one looked like it could just up and drive away. And maybe it could.
I wonder if putting 1950s cars outside of things to attract customers may be something that is nowadays fading from the scene. I will say that I noticed more of those sorts of things a dozen years ago than I do now. Just as I virtually never hear 1950s music any longer (which is mostly fine with me…), but 20 years ago it was still quite prevalent for nostalgia-generating purposes. Now, I’m old, and my only connection to the 1950s is that I know it was the period of time my mother was connected to for nostalgia (since she was a teenager then).
I do Love those 2-tone paint jobs though.
Jeff, I’m glad you mentioned it, because I also wondered where the car went, like in winter. It clearly looked like a driver and garaged. I wonder if it was just out for Labor Day weekend?
The only ’50s references I see anymore are from reruns of “Happy Days”, which was, itself, a throwback nostalgia show from the era in which I was born. I wonder what “Wonder Years” reruns would seem like to me today. Or “That ’70s Show”.
Joseph: If the lactose intolerance problem ever comes back, but you still want ice cream, there are two really good ones out there… Lactaid Ice Cream which comes in a few different flavors, and Breyers, who also has a lactose free ice cream, but I think they only have vanilla bean, which is most everyone’s default ice cream.
I don’t have that problem fortunately, but unfortunately, my wife does.
But if you have no restrictions now, enjoy it while you can and seek out a brand called Tillamook. That stuff is the best ice cream I have ever had, full stop. It’s expensive, but well worth it, just wait for it to go on sale. 😉
As to the ’56 Pontiac, that’s a nice car, in a great color combo, but I still prefer the Chevy or Buick of that year. It’s a shame it’s missing that one wheel cover, as it looks nearly perfect otherwise.
Edit: Now that I’ve looked up a picture of it, the ’56 Olds is kinda cool too!
Great post as always!
Rick, thank you for these recommendations! Seriously, even if I don’t need them (now), it’s good information to be able to pass along.
Funny you mention the Olds, because with its split front grille (if I’m remembering it correctly), it seems to almost have a Pontiac feel to it!
Vintage cars parked in front of businesses aren’t very common in my suburban area. Drive up to the Napa Valley though, and every little winery has some kind of big old farm truck or pick up parked in front. The fancy businesses have restored looking rigs, some of the smaller ones have patina trucks.
I am very partial to green vehicles, but all of the two tones pictured in the brochure look very appealing.
I’m a 2% milk convert, though it’s probably as effective as the guy that orders the big burger, fries, and a diet Coke!
Jose, I’d observe that they probably aren’t that common even in some of the areas of Chicago I find myself more frequently. I could imagine this being more frequent in more rural or quaint areas. Petoskey is a small, pretty, very resort-like town.
And I agree about those two-tone combos looking very appealing. They remind me a bit of some of the two-flavored Life Savers candy!
I would argue that the Pontiac is the full-fat version, with more wheelbase, more chrome, more cubic inches and the 4 speed Hydra-Matic (shared with Olds and Cadillac).
And haven’t you heard? Fat is good for you again. Seriously.
I like this – all the fat, and with extra cheese!
Nice ! this car looks sharp ~ a thing my 1954 Super Chief Coupe didn’t .
I loved it surely but this car has flash .
-Nate
I like the looks of the ’54 Super Chief in 2024… but part of that is probably just what more time has done. It is a nice looking car.
I do like the artful styling and flourishes on this ’56, as well.
Nice pictures which bring back memories. One of my uncles owned a ’56 Pontiac two-door much like this one, I do not know if it was a Catalina, 860 or 870. I remember it was dark green and white with i believe a green and white interior.
My family owned a 56 Pontiac Star Chief 4 door hard top. It was a great car. Most milk lovers are only familiar with grocery store offerings, with whole milk being the real deal. If you shop organic grocery stores and farmers markets you can find Jersey and Guernsey milk which has a much higher butterfat content than whole milk. It is delicious!!! It’s expensive but so good!
Nice shots. I’ve always liked the 2-tone paint jobs on ‘50’s cars, and the green and white looks great on that old Chief. I went through a lot of dairy myself as a kid – milk, cheese, cottage cheese, ice cream – every day. As an adult I’ve cut back on it. I haven’t had milk in years, but I still like to snack on cheese now and then, and I enjoy pizza and lasagna. There’s always a carton of cream in the fridge for our morning coffee, and there’s a carton of Breyer’s Neapolitan sitting in the freezer. I might just have me some later tonight.