I stumbled into a collection of scanned old Kodachrome slides that really sucked me in. They’re all by or of the poster’s father, in various cars that he drove in the 1950s, while living in several different locales in the Southwest. He was apparently employed as a park ranger some of the time, and he clearly spent his free time exploring the scenic back roads, camping, skiing, hunting and just enjoying the superb scenery.
The first car is a well-kept 1941 Mercury coupe, and it finds itself in lots of places that look more or less familiar to me. These shots and this car are really giving me the itch to get back to the Southwest, ideally time-traveling back to a time when it was so much less densely populated, and there weren’t 4×4 SUVs everywhere. Who needed that back then?
I’ll be posting more, one for each of the cars the photographer drove as a replacement for the previous one.
Great pictures, if I had ever driven one I could write a review around those! The owners clearly loved their car and it took them to lots of memorable places. I think I’d rather have a 4×4 for the first situation as well as the snowplow one, but other than that, easy does it, and it’ll get you there and back just fine.
It is hard to see the detail, but the roof racks look like the ones my dad used to use. They had 2 rubber suction cups at each end and straps that clipped onto the drip rails. The bars were wood, maybe 1 1/2” by 3”. He carried all sorts of things, including furniture and loads of lumber. My mother was always worried, but I only remember one problem when a sheet of plywood came loose. I think that my dad felt that buying a station wagon was too easy.
Drip rail? What’s a drip rail asks the younger generation?
Known less than crank up windows, vent windows and fresh air vents.
Thanks for posting these. Looking through his Photostream, there’s a few places I can recognize from my trip to that part of the US a few years ago. My favorite shot is the Beetle at the entrance to a snow covered Zion National Park.
I’m going to get to those soon. One car at a time. 🙂
Not quite as historically interesting, but even in the late seventies and early eighties my friends and I did lots of this kind of travel in our Vega’s, Rabbits, Honda’s etc. No 4wd, just two doors … And we’d see similar cars out there too; Beetles and Datsun 510’s were very common at remote trailheads and camp spots. Of course, now I have not one but TWO 4wd/AWD vehicles and the new one is even bigger than an SUV. And it still is a challenge fitting all our glamming gear. Thanks for sharing here Paul, as we’re planning our Spring desert getaway.
Great pics! Some cars work great off road. Spent many hours wheeling in my friend Doug’s ’76 Pinto Pony MPG with a trunk full of beer for traction. 🙂
Now, you have to REALLY TRY to get a clear shot of the Grand Canyon from the South Rim, with just your car and no people in it like that one.
Great collection!
“Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away”
-Paul Simon, “Kodachrome”, 1973
Kodachrome is amazing stuff. Very distinct look, bright saturated colors but still somehow quite realistic. Compared to other color films it’s very long lasting. Other films have the dye manufactured into the original film, and developing washes away the dye depending on how much light had hit it. Kodachrome dyes were added during developing; exposing it to light changed how much dye it would pick up. Unfortunately this made the process very complicated which is why it’s no longer made.
I always loved working with Kodachrome. The finest grain of all color films, never exaggerated colors (in my opinion), and terrific durability under reasonable storage. Once Kodak solved the fading problems of Ektachrome, that film became a lot more useful, but it never had the extremely fine grain of Kodachrome, and had a different, more “punchy” look.
Great photos. It shows that the emphasis with cars should be going places in them. The kind of car doesn’t matter. When I was younger I drove my motorcycles all over the country and into Canada. I’m glad I did it then, don’t think that I want to do that now. I’m starting to find myself spending too much time fussing with my old junk, but I still get around in my newer machines.
Gorgeous photos. But why park so close to the edge in picture five? Makes me nervous. Select the wrong gear and you could be in trouble fast..
I agree – it exceeds my risk threshold, though it makes for a great shot. I envision the couple picnicking inside the Mercury, enjoying the unobstructed, panoramic view out of the windshield. And given that the gentleman worked as a park ranger, my guess is that he’s done that sort of thing before.
I suspect that you’ve never run heavy equipment.
Great pictures – I’d like to have visited that America .
These are a delight to see, with or without the Mercury. Yeah, that one shot seemed a bit “too close to the edge” for me, too—but I realize I can’t exactly see what’s in front of the car.
License plates–consulting the Wiki article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Arizona)
The J-98 (snow) plate might be 1949, the others similar sorts of vintages.
In my years living in the West, I never quite got to G.C., and still have that on the life-list. I’ve flown over, but everyone says “you don’t fully comprehend it until you stand right next to it.”
Great time travel and vacation travel today!
In Arizona license plates of that vintage, J was the code for Yavapai County, which is the area surrounding Prescott… so only about 100 mi. south of the Grand Canyon. Folks from there certainly would have been familiar with the country.
And yes, the Mercury looks awfully close to the edge to me too, but I’d feel more secure in that Mercury than I would being the folks in this Kodak ad from the same period:
Even though I grew up in Arizona, I never got to the Grand Canyon until I was in my thirties. Since then I’ve been a number of times, and it’s different every time. The last time was just this summer, and the eastern end was closed because of its proximity to the Navajo reservation. It was amazing to see the canyon with relatively few people, but air quality was suffering because of wildfires in California.
When one is driving to the Grand Canyon, there is little clue of what one is going to see. Even when one enters the park, one gets just tantalizing glimpses from the car. (These days, I don’t see any places where one can park a car just a few feet from the edge!) But it’s there, waiting for every visitor to walk up to it and gasp at its extent. Some years back, we got to take my cousin, visiting from her home in Europe, to the canyon, and the fall weather was fabulously cooperative–cool but not cold, and the air was incredibly clear. It was a great, great experience.
“you don’t fully comprehend it until you stand right next to it.”
True. But even better is to hike down into it.
Even better is to hike down, but back up is a little different 😉
No special snow tires, no chains. Just expert driving ability.
It never fails: about 80% of the time, I have to point out a fundamental error in your comments: yes, the Mercury very much is wearing snow tires, in the rear. And quite visible, in several of the shots.
Great stuff, I’d sure like to do a trip in a 1941 Mercury, although the onset of winter once again has me dreaming of long distance motorcycle trips….
Grand Canyon is obvious (although I prefer Bryce Canyon) but any ideas on the other shots? Is that Sunset Crater Volcano in the shot below the GC?
I love old Kodachromes of any kind, but especially love those that feature cars.
Looking at these makes me ask if the 41 Mercury had the best front end of anything ever built on this body (1941-1948)? I vote yes.
Great photo essay! Thanks for sharing.
Great selection, looking forward to the next instalment.
there’s a definite sense of adventure going on there.
My folks had a ‘39 or ‘40 Mercury coupe. My dad drove it out from Wisconsin when the family moved to California. I was 5 or 6 when he junked it. All I really remember about it is that it was blue, that it had no floor, that it had a gasoline heater that could anneal steel, and that the passenger door would fly open every so often, so leaning against it was discouraged. And watch our for puddles in the road! He loved a Mercury automobile for the rest of his life, though all the California cars did have floors and puny hot water heaters.