Here’s a nifty leftover from my recent “What’s In The Driveway?” post; a ’62 Thunderbird looking splendid in what seems to be a Dearborn-heavy neighborhood. There are also a couple of interesting imports, with a Saab nearby and a Renault Dauphine further back.
No license plates are visible in the image, so no idea of where this was taken. But I’m pretty sure some CC readers won’t mind guessing.
I love the ’64 TuDor…….
-Nate
Did you mean the ’60 Ford Tudor across the street?
Did you mean the ’62 Ford Tudor across the street? 🙂
LOL, Yes, 62
No, I meant the ’62, my fat fingers screwed up .
I somewhat have a ‘thing’ for full size 1962 Fords .
-Nate
I can’t believe I’m seeing this – a Saab 96 just drove by me on a nearby service road less than half an hour ago! I haven’t seen one in about 20 years. I haven’t even seen a Saab 9000 for a long, long time.
That’s a SAAB 93F, a 1959 or 1960. You can tell by the small rear window and rear mounted door handle (the 93B had suicide doors).
You are right, it’s a 93F. Only made a few months as MY 1960,as a transition model to the Saab 96.
Looks like a Renault Dauphine a couple houses down, that big Lincoln convertible. Quite a neighborhood for cars.
Definitely somewhere in the midwest based on the house architecture style.
There couldn’t have been too many states that didn’t require a front plate in this era. I know Pennsylvania was one.
Those aluminum chairs could only hold so much weight…just ask my older brother!! Dad would make him sit on the metal ice cooler during the holidays.
If you blow up the photo, there’s a Ford Country Squire wagon directly behind the Thunderbird. That
Yes—a black `63 Squire!
Those are my favorite kind of “lawn chairs”. So comfortable…and the webbing can easily be replaced. We had “tv trays” just like that too.
As for identifying the location of the photo, I don’t know. What I do know is that there are A LOT of websites around the Internet that post photos of unidentified people standing/sitting next to/sitting on their cars. An awful lot. This photo shows up repeatedly, but is always unidentified.
I’m thinking that Uncle Frank and sock lady will continue in anonymity.
I’m stumped on the location here too.
But the TV Trays are easier to identify. They’re Cal-Dak trays – I think the pattern was called “Nassau,” and this particular tray design of a black background with pink and turquoise flowers debuted in 1956 and looks to have been sold through the late 1950s.
I have one of those lawn chairs too. Its my garage chair and also packed with the other chairs when I road trip. Light, easy to grab and carry with when walking the dogs and then relax as the dogs explore the dog parks or dog relief area.
Hardly a TV antenna in sight. Maybe this is a small town far enough away from big cities that they were just starting to get TV signal availability in their area.
What’s with the whitewall on the back tire? Did someone try to paint that on by hand, or in photoshop? And why is the guy lounging with a smoke and wearing a tie? Is he a travelling insurance salesman having a short break with the lady of the house? Might explain why the T-bird is there in a neighbourhood it doesn’t live in.
The goofiness of the back tire’s whitewall is attributable to a watermark that someone tried to photoshop away. You can see the watermark’s letters in the enlarged image below:
Uncle Frank proud of his possessions.
Well, I haven’t seen any of these cars recently so I can’t cite the CC Effect, but how about the BIF Effect? Beer in my Fridge.
My fav is the Lincoln ragtop down the street.
Is it possible that this was taken around a US army base in Germany? To me, it reminds me of the cars in my neighborhood filled with ex-GIs and their German wives. Also, the lady is wearing the ever popular socks with mules look still common in Deutschland. No makeup. Her hair also say German to me. Those legs of her look unshaven too.
Just sayin’
LOL–you’re not paintin’ a very pretty picture Dude.
My first thought was also of her being a typical G.I.’s import bride.
The absence of salt damage has me ruling out this image having been taken somewhere within the Rust Belt. The still intact Dauphine being litmus paper to this claim.
As previously mentioned, the absence of television antennas also hints at a somewhat remote neighborhood, without the vicinity of an industrial settlement.
Exactly these two import brands overrepresented in this image (one would normally expect to see a VW Beetle?) point me to a rather open-minded West Coast direction. That is, whatever one or more of those states didn’t mandate front plates, back then
The still intact Dauphine being litmus paper to this claim.
They were still selling new Dauphines at the time this was taken.
Is it possible that this was taken around a US army base in Germany?
I can’t imagine anyone building like this in Germany, which is totally American style wood tract housing. I Googled to try to find images of German GI housing, and they all looked just like German apartments and houses. Germans wouldn’t have known how to build like this.
As to the woman’s looks, I remember women in Iowa City, a university town, looking like that. And it’s also possible she’s a German immigrant.Or more likely, they were visiting from Germany, which would better explain the photo in the first place: a picture of the visitors.
My guess would be suburban Dearborn. No one would dare drive anything but Ford products. As to the imports, most likely r&d, but could be car geeks…maybe both. The guy in the foreground is an engineer. Short sleeves and a necktie. The only thing missing is the pocket protector.
Jet-Age Suburbia, Anytown, USA ca 1963. The neighbors were living large with their 1959 Continental Mark IV convertible.
Looks like a neighborhood in Northwestern Pennsylvania near the Ohio state line.
I was going to guess Montreal but Quebec was using front plates around that time.
Those lawn chairs totally remind me of my parents. I still have one hanging in the garage.
First thing I noticed is that both people are smoking cigarettes. That takes priority over cars for me any day of the week due to health issues.
Indiana does not require a front plate, and has not for several decades. This street looks like a lot of them around here in neighborhoods of modest homes that were common then.
We did not have any really Ford-heavy cities in Indiana, but there were a few good-sized Ford plants around then, including on the southeast side of Indianapolis. There are neighborhoods like this in that area of the city.
Indiana is still located within the Rust Belt. That Dauphine pictured there, therefore, would have been Swiss cheese by then, unless garage kept and never driven in winter. I only saw them around for a couple years, when I was a kid. And even then, there weren’t many of them around, to begin with.
You mean, “there were neighborhoods like this”, I’m assuming
I’ll repeat myself: They were still selling new Dauphines at the time.
They still sold where road salt wasn’t strewn. But where it was, potential buyers got wise right quick. I’d hate to see one of those take on that Lincoln head on. But then again, anyone driving a Dauphine or a Beetle, back then, likely followed a policy of just not getting into wrecks, unlike today’s encapsuled texting-while-driving crowd who live in an imaginative parallel universe
There are no TV antennaes – when did Indiana get TV?
I’m late to the party here–so, benefitting from everyone’s thinking aloud yesterday.
“No front license plate” does at least narrow things down. I am surprised to see the Thunderbird and Lincoln there where the driveways are gravel (rather than asphalt/concrete), and it is striking to have so many FoMoCo products there.
Something about the trees intrigues me—-I wish someone could even semi-identify them; they don’t seem like standard-issue silver maple, bradford pear, etc.
The German-war-bride idea doesn’t sound crazy at all; I have vivid memory of one G-w-b woman in my early-1960s neighborhood, and the pierced earrings which I had *never* previously seen.
Hmmmm, I’ll think about this some more—the image appears elsewhere online, but the resolution isn’t any better, and no apparent clues…
In fact, the driveway nextdoor is also gravelled. This looks like either a late 40’s or very early 50’s-completed quite modest subdivision. The size of those trees, most likely implanted upon completeion of these homes, could also offer a clue, as to this subdivision’s age. Poverty-stricken it by no means isn’t.
Now it’s a matter of guessing where in Germany this former G.I.’s bride originated. I’m guessing somewhere in Bavaria, given that she hasn’t got noodle legs
As an 8-year-old ND boy, seeing my eldest brother cruise into our cattle & grain ranch driveway with his 1962 polar white Thunderbird started me on the road to my life-long fascination with cars. Thank you for this post!
I spy a copper colored 1957 Ford ( Fairlane 500 ?) in the upper right hand corner across the street . My guess is the Midwest Pennsylvania is more hilly ohio is also heavy Ford country particularly around Cleveland. Also the style of architecture is known as mid century modern, very fitting for the Era.
Explain no TV antennaes – when did Pennsylvania or Ohio get TV?
As noted in an earlier comment of mine, cable tv was very much in existence in small towns and exurbs that did not have good reception.
The oddest thing about this photo is that 100% of the domestic cars are Fords; the odds of that are very, very low. And no, it’s not in Dearborn, as Michigan required two license plates.
The presence of the Saab and Dauphine, as well as some attributes of the folks in the foreground suggest a college/university town.
The lack of tv antennae could well be because cable tv was already there due to it being a small town or exurb with little or no reception. That’s why cable tv was invented.
That’s all I got.
Ford had plants operating in Kansas City and Louisville during this era. Perhaps this photo was taken in a small town located near one of those plants?
Ford had a plant in New Jersey during this era (Mahwah), but New Jersey requires front license plates.
I’m with Paul here as I lived not that far in the country then and T.V. reception was poor, very grainy .
Most folks who could afford it paid for cable T.V., it looked perfect .
-Nate
This is fun. I don’t ever recall there being so much detective work done over one single photograph, here on this platform. I hope, it never stops (heh, heh).
Still, what justifies erecting a settlement remote from any industry or city center, to the point where entertainment needed to get broadcasted through a cable? How are the residents of this subdivision earning their income? Who would be the main employer supporting living standards, in such an area? If, as suggested, a university is located in their vicinity, the Beatniks studying there most likely aren’t in a financial position to own and maintain those two exotics. But their professors would be. All that, smack in the middle of a Ford Motor Company fan club
We were still building factories back in the 60’s as opposed to closing factories in the 80’s Rustbelt. The Interstate extended past the center of town, a developer saw an opportunity, and the GI bill enabled many a Vet to afford a down payment. A paved drive was an option.
Would like to visit today. Those trees in the back ground would be three to four thick at the base and the houses added on to so many times you wouldn’t recognize them.
Only in America!!
I am also going to guess that this is an upscale neighborhood, as Thunderbirds were considered higher end cars, not to mention the Lincoln and the Country Squire would not have been working class either.
Given the Saab and the Renault which were not common imports and the guy with the tie and the German looking woman, I’ll take a gamble that this may have been a neighborhood near a university where faculty lived.
If that’s supposed to be an “upscale” neighborhood, I’d hate to see a low-scale one. In the subdivision where I was raised, my parents and older brother moved into it in 1956. The remaining homes were completed no later than at the end of the following year. This subdivision was bordered on two of them resembling the one pictured. One was a couple decades older. Which doesen’t really count. The newer one was comparatively more of a ghetto where the less successfull dwelled. It contained some real oddballs, even.
I’m guessing that the Continental- and Thunderbird owners would eventually move into a newer home and are dwelling in that pictured neighborhood, until their next one is completed. Otherwise, the narrative somehow doesen’t seem to fit