Text by Patrick Bell.
For today’s gallery let’s look at some fashions to go along with our usual assortment of cars. Fashion, like so many areas of life, is constantly evolving. The new trend doesn’t stay new very long; what once was hip may now make some of us wonder how we ever survived that phase, and what once was outrageous may look tame by current standards. With that in mind, let’s travel through time with a mix of fashions in cars and people and see what surprises await us.
The gang is all here posing with a ’73-’76 Chevrolet Corvette StingRay. I think we can safely assume this is a high school parking lot with a variety of cars and busses in the background. The cars look nice and fairly new for the most part so this may be the faculty parking lot. On the other side of the crowd is a ’74 Dodge Charger and a ’68 Plymouth Valiant 200 4 door sedan. Otherwise I see three Volkswagens that seem to represent the imports, and only one tall vehicle that may be a pickup but looks more like a van to me. Beyond them, it is a typical parking lot of the mid seventies probably in middle America. One that stands out to me is on the left side, third row to the right of a red Vega, a ’66 Plymouth Fury I 4 door sedan.
This shot takes us back a decade plus and the people look well past their high school years. In the foreground a clean ’60 Ford Starliner with a custom two tone treatment on the sides. Across the street is a black ’51-’53 Cadillac sedan and a gray ’40 Plymouth Coupe. The flowers are in full bloom so I would say a late spring or early summer photo.
Hair styles are always part of the fashion picture and the unisex style in hair and clothes made it difficult to determine the kid’s gender at first glance. This youngster and perhaps Mom are posing with a ’65 Dodge Coronet 500 2 door hardtop. This was the sporty model with bucket seats and a console as standard equipment. It looks good in that color combo, and red interiors are my favorite.
Passing by is a ’63 Ford Country Squire also with a red interior and a couple of dogs hanging out the back window. With the boat and bait store in the background this must be water based recreation area.
Speaking of water, now we are at a creek or river to go for a boat ride. It looks like a late spring photo with some snow left to melt. Under the boat is a well used ’55 Ford Fairlane Club Sedan, and to the right a close to new ’64 Plymouth Sport Fury convertible with dual exhaust, trailer hitch, and a New York license plate. That would be a nice one to have in the garage.
The lady looks like there are other places she would rather be.
Green and its many shades were very popular during the late sixties through the seventies, not only with clothes but cars, furniture, carpet, drapes, appliances, and just about anything else you can think of. I don’t think I have fully recovered from the green overload of that era. This lady is wearing it well and it fits with the ’70-’73 Volkswagen Type III Squareback she is standing by. It has a Wyoming plate from ’74 issued in Natrona County where the seat is Casper. The image looks like a nice summer day.
Eyeglasses are also part of the fashion scene and this lady has a nice looking pair. She is sitting on the hood of a ’66 Pontiac Bonneville along with her cigarettes and lighter. The setting looks rural with perhaps a calf in the background behind the fence.
Here we have a lady in a pink dress with a ’66 Chevrolet Impala Sport Coupe with a vinyl roof. Across the street in the driveway is a ’67 Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser and on the right edge a ’65 or ’66 Ford Mustang. It looks like an early fall day and there is a cat lurking in the foreground.
Blue Jeans never go out of style and these look like the bell bottom variety. The lady in this shot is also wearing a leather jacket and is posing with a German Shepherd next to a ’71 or ’72 Opel Manta with snow tires front and rear. It looks like a warm day in the late winter or early spring, somewhere in Europe.
More than likely we have a dad and young daughter here sitting on a ’70-’73 Chevrolet Camaro Z-28 with the Rally Sport package. They are in an upper middle class neighborhood on a nice evening in a tropical location.
This lady is also wearing bell bottoms as she poses on a ’71 Meteor from British Columbia. It is a rural wooded area with a staircase on the right side of the image.
A young couple with a new looking ’74 Chevrolet El Camino SS at a facility that could be an auto dealer. Perhaps this is their new car. It appears to be equipped with the swiveling bucket seats which would include a console, and the Turbine I wheels as well.
Here is a flashy looking couple out on the town with a ’73 Cadillac that has an aftermarket grille cap mounted on the hood.
A young man and his shoeless sister posing with his ’79 Pontiac Sunbird Sport Coupe with some custom touches. The ‘Pontiac’ emblem on the quarter panel is an add on, along with the racing stripe and aftermarket wheels. It appears to be a cool day in the neighborhood.
Thanks for joining us and to all good day!
Love the Manta.
Thanks for the post, some interesting finds for sure.
The last one, with the Sunbird, pretty sure that’s not his sister!
Not sure, she looks like she’s just stepped out of a Led Zep & leisure cigarette session, him not so much.
Lots of family resemblance, especially the nose, eyes and mouth.
I was going to say “not his sister” as well…but I think that Paul has a point.
At any rate, he must have been proud of that car to add the special wheels and tires. I like it!
Just for the record, a Google search led to the Flickr page where this was posted by the man in the photo, and he claimed it was his sister.
This is a fun assortment today—for both the cars and the people. Everything seems to be “of its time,” and I suppose I could come pretty close on the year even if the cars were blacked out and I could only see clothing/hairstyles.
Thanks for reassuring me that the 1960 Ford’s paint was a custom thing—it at first struck me as some rare factory option I’d never taken note of.
#11 does have that “new car delivery” look, and *perhaps* #12’s Cadillac is a wedding-limo-for hire rather than a personal car. Who knows?
That was a great bit of time travel, reminding me of how the past half-century has whooshed by—thanks!
-First shot – that Charger is unusual in having the police versions of the poverty hub caps with the cooling holes. I wonder if this is one of the fairly rare strippo “coupe” model with its bench seat and fixed rear quarter windows. My eye is also drawn to the 74 Pontiac Luxury LeMans coupe in the immediate background!
Second shot – I don’t recall ever seeing a 60 Ford with that kind of two-tone, but don’t doubt that it was offered.
Third shot – in 1965 there was no doubt about the sex of that little kid – only little girls got those page boy cuts, and this little girl looks just like my sister would have looked around that time. Boys didn’t start getting long hair (at least in my part of the midwest) until around 1969-70, and not even then if their mothers wore their hair like this lady does. 🙂
These kinds of haircuts were how you could tell the little boys from the little girls in the 1965 version of my world. 🙂
That’s a great photo. What do you have there? One of those tin toy wind up cars?
My sister was just a bit young in 1965 to advocate for her own haircut. Plus, my mom (who let’s face it was the deciding factor) would never have gone for that. She (my mom) had some thing about forcing my sister to grow out her hair and so she (my sister) wasn’t allowed to cut her hair until almost Jr. High. It was quite something.
Of course, I wasn’t allowed to do anything similar (although I’d have been fine with the concept). Given my mom’s antipathy toward “hippies”.
The Corvette in the first photo looks new. If that is the faculty parking lot, then that Corvette would have caused a fair amount of comment among the student body. We thought it was a big deal when one of our elementary school teachers (a man) drove a new 1972 Firebird Esprit!
“that Charger is unusual in having the police versions of the poverty hub caps with the cooling holes.”
Pretty sure those are the same (full size) wheel covers that came on my Dad’s ’72 Coronet, but with A LOT of brake dust in the fins.
Image:
I think you are right! I was trying to look at the picture without enlarging it.
So common back then, to see someone’s cigarettes and lighter, sitting somewhere nearby. As a non-smoking fan kid, I used to delight in hiding them,.
Seems like such a basic design faux pas to avoid. Designers could easily have placed the entire ‘BONNEVILLE’ badging on the driver’s door. Rather they spanned two adjacent body panels, liable to fall noticeably out-of alignment, in due time.
“I beg your pardon. I never promised you a rose garden.”
Wow. I thought I was the only weirdo who immediately thought of Lynn Anderson when I saw that photo.
This place never ceases to amaze and entertain. LOL
She has a strong Lynn Anderson look. I’m sure many people stated it to this woman, at the time. Plus, the period fashions. The gentleman resembles a popular 1970s character actor. I just can’t place his name.
“… Opel Manta with snow tires front and rear. It looks like a warm day in the late winter or early spring, somewhere in Europe.”
The registration plate is from Finland.
I *really* like the 1969 Ford Starliner .
I’d more likely buy the 1940 Plymouth coupe though .
The VW Typ III squareback is a ’71 ~ ’73 .
Thank you for this trip through time, I remember the 1970’s very well and enjoyed them to boot .
-Nate
I think the tall vehicle in the first photo is a Bronco, of the smallish first-gen variety.
The Bonneville badge being split between the fender and the door is a styling trick to make the car look longer. There is so much chrome running horizontally that you don’t see the verticle door seams so much.
Your eye for detail (car makes, model & year) is amazing. Also, buses is more than one bus. Busses is more than one kiss.
Great photos with excellent identification of the vehicles PLUS commentary! As for the lad in front of the Caddy, those of us old enough owned pants like that.
A particularly terrific set of photos this time around.
The lede photo seems as if it could have been taken in my own high school’s parking lot between 1976 – 1979 (it wasn’t…I’m thinking New Jersey? Close enough.). I’d say it’s the student lot. At least in my HS, the kids drove generally nicer cars than the teachers. And those girls obviously think the ‘Vette is special.
The 2nd photo of the Ford Starliner is amazing to me. Assuming that car was relatively new at the time, his neighbors (e.g., whoever parked across the street) must have thought that he was driving a UFO compared to the ancient things they had. Also, I hope that his grandson inherited his whole outfit (hat, shirt, slacks). Grandpa was the OG hipster!
1966 Impala…That’s not just “a lady”. It’s Susan! Someone across the time-space-continuum wanted us to know that. And now we do.
I hope that dad with the Camaro in FL has a positive relationship with his daughter now. It wasn’t looking so good in 1970. But things change. Fortunately.
So many interesting stories here.
The couple standing by the Black and white 1960 Ford appears to be wearing clothes she sewed His shirt and her dress. That was common back then. Might be wrong but her dress does look home made.
As a young man in the Seventies, I always get mixed feelings looking pictures from that decade. Usually such pics put a smile on my face and then soon after I ask how did the years go by so fast?
Interesting to see snow tires on all four wheels on the Opel. Something I first saw when I moved to Prince George in central British Columbia back in the late seventies. Quite common in the winter out there, not something anyone in Alberta did that I recall. Makes sense though when you have to slog through drifts and unplowed roads.
I think that Z28 HAS to be a 1970, not 70-73. It has a split bumper.
Bet the sunbird couple has weed