Here is a brief gallery of parking lots around America. Decades vary, locations too, and of course, the vehicles. A few of these came with information, either in date or location. A few didn’t provide any, and some are my guesses. Yet, let’s see what commenters can bring up on these, correct the record if necessary, and let’s do a visit down memory lane. Let’s start with the opening image, which is somewhere in New Mexico, circa 1954.
Tacoma Airport, Seattle, 1957.
O’Hare Airport, 1964.
Eugene, Oregon, circa 1957.
Daytona Beach, 1966.
Omaha, Nebraska, 1968-69.
Airport Parking, 1968.
Mendocino County Fair, circa 1978.
Ft. Lauderdale, circa 1976.
Even in Eugene, The Land That Rust Forgot, the oldest car is only about 10 years old.
That O’Hare lot looks like a rental car agency lot??? So many sedate sedans and a plethora of Chevys as well!
There is at least 4 Impalas in that first row at Ohare
Also, as most of the cars in that row have been backed in and there is a sign, I suspect that row is perhaps reserved for a fleet of cars.
A somewhat popular parking lot feature for decades in the US, that never caught on here in Canada, is the extra accommodation property managers allotted between parking spaces, to allow car doors to open. As seen in the last Fort Lauderdale pic. The two to three foot wide spaces between cars, as marked by paint stripes never really caught on popularly here. Certainly, not to the same extent, as seen in the US.
Those double paint stripes aren’t terribly common in the US either, but they sure are nice. Even if the spaces aren’t necessarily wider, I feel the double stripe helps to encourage drivers to park more within the lines – and as you mentioned, that makes entry/exit from adjoining cars much easier.
About the only place I still see that style of lines is at Costco.
I’d like to comment on the first title photo. It was taken in 1951-1952, I assume.
They aren’t quite contemporaries, but close.
The Nash is from 49-50, so it is a couple years older.
Note how much older it looks in comparison to the Chevrolets and the Ford.
Not just in the front end, but also in the body shape.
Nash really doesn’t update its look until 1952, and even then – it still doesn’t use a full width grille like the Ford and GM cars did that year. The Nash looked distinctively different, even after being updated. The GM and Ford “look” was everywhere, so the Nash didn’t blend in very much.
While we can appreciate the styling of the Nash today – I better understand how it wasn’t everyone’s choice in comparison to the other US makes available.
Compare – 1950 Chevy to Nash
1950 Nash
Eugene was already the most varied in ’57. Ranch Wagon, Studie, ’48 Buick sedanette, stripper series of Rambler, and Willys Aero. Not a common combination in most places.
I love the pic of the 65 chevy wagon I think these were some of the best cars ever built trouble free and eazy to repair bullet proof power glide 250 /283/327 every thing was reliable pree polution controles great gas miledge and powerful enigens
The ’56 Chevy 210 could be a dead ringer for my Dad’s first car, if the Kodachrome enhanced color is in fact correct at India Ivory and Sherwood Green two-tone. It’s hard to tell if that is green or blue… A little help JPC? 😉
The only difference being the subject of an earlier post today: Even though my Dad’s 56 was only a Two-Ten (two-tone 😉) sedan, his was sporting the gangsta-white-walls back in the day….
Handsome car that looked best in two-tone paint. Whitewalls could perk up even a set of dog dish caps. Of the Tri-Five, I’ve always liked the 56 best. I was a car-crazed little kid when my great aunt arrived in our driveway in Fall 55 in a new Bel-Air sedan V8+PG in that plum and white two-tone so popular in the Midwest. It was a fine car that she drove for 11 years until replacing it with a 67 Tempest. I’d take one of these over a 57 in a heartbeat.
My Dad felt the other way and really wanted a ‘57 Bel Air, but as a 19 year old kid at the time, a slightly used ‘56 was easier to afford.
The car you see pictured above is the car in which I took my first ride (home from the hospital of course). Not long after that, it was traded on a ‘60 Dodge Seneca, the same model year as me!
As a kid around 10 years old, I was just becoming quite interested in cars and especially Cadillac’s since my parents just purchased their first one (used 1975 De Ville). I was so excited when the 1977 new Cadillac’s came out and loved pulling into a parking lot and scanning the entire lot for the new Cadillac’s or any Caddy’s for that matter. Two most memorable ones were pulling into a favorite restaurant of my parents and seeing a brand new 1978 or 79 white Coupe De Ville. We walked in and I bet my parents that I could pick out the owners of that shiny new Caddy. They didn’t think I could and maybe I just got lucky, but I did it. The other one was on a Sunday drive and we stopped to eat as some place we hadn’t been to before. I immediately spotted a 1979 Sedan De Ville Phaeton in light gray with the black cloth top. I got out and ran over to check it out.
Still fun scanning the lots even today in the times of boring SUV’s and trucks. So this article and pics was great to see and bring back good memories.
The 7th photo, the sign on the hanger reads “Lake Central Airlines”. Could this be the Indianapolis airport which was the hub for the airline way back when??
The airline was eventually absorbed into Allegheny in 1968.
Beat me to it. I agree it was probably Indy. If it was taken in 1968, it would have to be late in the year, as there’s a ’69 Pontiac wagon to the right of center, next to the red 4-door ’68 Ford.
Is that a Packard Clipper between two Cadillacs in the 1957 Tacoma photo?
So many wonderful photos ! .
I too loved just walking parking lots as a child, my parents hated it and hassled me to death, nowadays I’d prolly have the cops called for “casing the parked cars to break into” .
I’ll take the two tone 1950 (?) Chevy in the New Mexico pic .
-Nate
The Riviera Resort Motel building in Daytona Beach still looks very much the same. It now operates under a different name, but the building looks just like 1966:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/SP7APf8UcxQ8WPxK7
It’s great to read that others loved parking lots as kids. My Mom saved a letter I wrote to my Dad when he was on a business trip when I was about 5 years old (yes, that’s how we communicated then. A phone call? But it’s LONG DISTANCE!). The entirety of my letter: “Dear Papa, we went shopping today and parked next to a Pontiac.”
The company I worked for had the parking lot repainted sometime in the late 70’s or early 80s. I don’t know what specs the maintenance manager used but the parking spaces were too narrow for American sized cars. It was something to see the confused employees trying to get in those spaces. They had to redo the project the next weekend.
Great pictures, what a shock to the system the late ’70s and early ’80s must have been to Detroit. Besides Mendocino in ’78 and the odd VW here and there, it’s pretty much all-American, all the time. I’d love to see the same locations and angles taken today.
I too enjoy seeing the modern day shots from the same or similar angle and try to find the ones that are in locations I’m familiar with.
In this case of course the Seattle Tacoma airport is in my neck of the woods and some place I’ve visited many times over the years. This is the best I can guess for the approximate location.
https://www.google.com/maps/@47.4432787,-122.3013326,3a,60y,278.94h,83.88t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sNXx6K6Gldqsyy-_FRm7h6Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu
It zoom out to the satellite view you can see the original building specifically the windows and the decorative 3 x 5 grid of squares on the top left end of the building and the windows on the bottom of the tower structure.
That “somewhere in NM”, pic is aptly named. Looks like a parking lot in “no where, NM”.
The colors! That’s what strikes me the most. Compare that to this scene on my street in Winnipeg, photo taken just last night.
Well, at least the cars match the cloned townhome facades. 🙂
Whatever the public will accept, it seems.
In this vein, would be interesting to see several North American cities re-popularize Chuck Norris action jeans, and ’70s moustaches.