Seeing this shot that John Lloyd posted at the Cohort of himself and his siblings in front of the family 1955 Pontiac station wagon inspires me to ask if you all have some old photos of yourself with the family chariot? I know some have been shared here before, but this might be a good place to collect them in one place.
The only one I have in my possession is this one I’ve shared before with the ’65 Coronet wagon in Towson. It’s Easter 1967, and my grandmother (with hat) was on her first visit to us from Austria. She had never traveled more than about 50 miles or so from her birthplace near Innsbruck. I’m there at the rear side door, and my two younger brothers are on the tailgate. Sadly, the older of the two passed away just two months ago. My older brother is not in the picture and my sister moved out when she turned eighteen.
The mailman’s three-wheeler is parked down a bit on Colonial Court. The neighbor’s ’64 Fairlane 500 wagon is visible. The VW and the other cars parked on the street belonged to students from nearby Towson Stae College (now Towson University) before they restricted parking. The neighbors on the other side had a ’66 Chevy wagon.
My father shot many hundreds of slides for a number of years, but I’m afraid the whole large collection of them may have been tossed in some recent family turmoil. FWIW, he was too cheap to by Kodachrome, so the Ektachrome he used meant that that the slides were all pretty badly washed out the last time I saw them a couple of decades ago. Which suggests this shot was actually taken by my older brother, who had a film camera.
And there’s this one, a shot of the dearly beloved ’62 Fairlane at the Dairy Sweet, circa 1963 or so. That dumpy Rambler American is one of the few cars that made the Fairlane look half-way good. Everything is relative.
Dad, sister, me & Fairlane in Israel, 67 or 68…
…and in current FoMoCo. Sister is visiting soon, I’ll need to replicate the old pic. Dad has sadly left us in 2013.
Me, age 3, and my grandfather. The car had been owned jointly by Dad and and his sister; it was their ride through high school and college. Dad said it had the ‘Power Pack’ option, a V8 with 4 barrel and dual exhaust. When they split the home, they left the car with Grandpa. Grandpa didn’t drive much, as they operated a busy cafe that was open 60 hours a week, with their home dwelling attached behind it, and they even had a 2nd car, a 1959 Electra. They sold the car in 1969 with about 35,000 miles on it. I bet that one of today’s show cars is this same car.
1970, 3 year old me playing croqet with my two aunts, sister and Yiffee the keeshond.
My uncle’s 1946 Ford project car in the background, which I spent many hours sitting in. My grandfather looms in the far right, I think he took a dim view of project cars.
The 71 LeMans we had for most of my childhood, this being on a ski trip at My Washington BC, around ’88 with sister, Mom and a colleague of my fathers.
Me and my siblings, minus my youngest brother, who was a new born and not ready for a picture, in front of our 1970 Ford LTD Country Squire.
My sister, Dad & me in front of his 1968 Galaxie 500 taken in 1971
c1965 – my wife Joyce, her younger bro Steve and their Mum Mum with her Dad’s Hillman Minx, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire