Now that winter is coming, how about an escapade to warmer climates? Even better, what if we do so in the past? Beach, sun, and vintage cars. That sounds like a good combo, doesn’t it?
So, let’s pay a visit to the Hawaii of the ’50s and ’60s, in colorful Kodachrome.
Being Hawaii, I decided to include a few non-car shots in this gallery. You know the place deserves it. And to begin our tour, the lead pic is at Kalakaua Ave., shot around 1967.
Oahu, 1950s.
Ala Moana Mall, Honolulu, Christmas 1960.
Quonset huts at the beach, 1950s.
Honolulu parking, 1967.
International Market Place, Honolulu, 1965.
Hawaiian Airlines, 1960.
Honolulu, 1961.
Plantation, in the 1950s.
Geez I wish I’d had a TR3 rental car when I was in Hawaii 10 years ago.
Great shots.
I wonder what happened to all these classics? Crushed and shipped back or thrown into the ocean?
Photo with Quonset huts looks like Waimea Bay on Oahu’s North Shore, and not in the winter when the waves would be much bigger. The other side is more famous. I spent one day at this beach when I finished my week’s work there a day early.
Last time I was in Hawaii was ’86. Honolulu was too jammed with people. Ended up on the big island and on Kauai (the garden island). Were not as developed as Oahu due to all air service was via Honolulu airport.
Now, direct flight to the other islands are available. Lost some of the charm like the quonset hut photo!!
The key to living in paradise is remembering where to find it. My favorite paradise wasn’t found in the Caribbean, or Hawaii, or the West Coast, or Vermont – it was out in the middle of the High Plains of Kansas with an unobstructive view of the horizon on the back of my horse at dawn. Moving at a horse walk across the high prairies on a sandy road is like drifting down a canal – all your anxieties disappear and you are at peace.
I respect that. My paradise is in Alaska (someday, hopefully), although I can definitely see the appeal of the high plains as you describe it. I’d be willing to settle for big sky country in Montana as well. I enjoy looking at these old photos of tropical locales, but I have zero desire to ever live there…or quite frankly to even visit there as well. I despise the heat and humidity and love cold weather. The fewer people, the better…
Honolulu has, and has long had, a vibrant tuner/racer/rodder culture. Local boys would spend their hard-earned money getting their wheels just right, and then show them off on the weekends. On the streets and at local venues. Most of the structured venues are long gone, with the real estate being deemed too valuable for tracks or strips.
For a period, VW bugs were a popular medium, and hopped-up beetles, with mags, lifted and popped engine covers and vivid paint jobs were common. They were my faves. All the other usual suspects were plentiful — corvettes, mustangs, camaros, ‘birds, 442s, etc., etc.
It’s a macho, often gritty culture on the streets there today, moreso than I recall in the past. Nowadays, the younger guys gravitate to trucks and SUVs, with Toyotas being the weapon of choice.
I think you all would have loved Oahu roads in the ’70s, from your CC perspectives.
I’d like to time travel to Hawaii in the ’40s, or even earlier.
My father would agree with you. he went to the U of H in the early 30’s for a couple of years. He got yanked back to California by his parents because he was spending more time surfing than studying.
> he was spending more time surfing than studying.
Somebody had their priorities straight! It took me too long to realize what I learned in school was less important than what I learned outside it, or that getting straight A’s was the most crucial part of being a kid or adolescent.
My mother was a “Navy nurse” there during “WWII” . She liked it a lot.
In the photo with the TR3’s, what’s the convertible between the ‘58 (?) Ford and the early ‘50’s Chevy? At first I thought a Morris Minor, but somehow the grill looks too big. Maybe a pre-Audax Hillman or Sunbeam?
I think that one’s a ‘54 Hillman convertible. We had a ‘52 model.
If I am identifying my airplanes correctly today, that Hawaiian Airlines plane is a Martin 404, likely built right here in Eastern Baltimore County.
Back around 2001, one of these was donated to the museum at Glenn L. Martin Airport which was adjacent to a factory for a company by that name, later Martin Marietta, and now a Lockheed Martin facility. I went there to watch the plane on its final flight home, as it was an ex-Eastern Airlines plane that had been living out its later years serving as an airliner in Central and South America if I recall correctly.
Anyway, the pilot made several passes of the airfield before coming in for a final approach and landing on Runway 33. After the pilot taxied over to the waiting crowd, he got off the plane, came down the ladder carrying a six-pack of beer, and knelt down and kissed the ground. He then opened one of the beers and began to drink it. Presumably, he was just happy to be alive after flying this old plane.
Yes, it is a Martin 404, designed to replace the DC-3 on shorter routes. We flew on one from Chicago to Cedar Rapids on our arrival in the US in 1960.
That probably made it ideal for island hopping out there in Hawaii back in the day.
It’s actually a Convair 340. Very similar though. These were in service until very recently as air tankers here in BC, although the radial engines were replaced by turbo props.
Kelowna Flightcraft in BC had (has?) a very large business converting and rebuilding these for many years. They were parked all over the north end of the airport!
Yes, of course. I have a bad habit of mixing them up.
Easy to do here. I looked up both birds on Wikipedia and you could hardly tell them apart.
One big clue was the lists of airlines at the end of each article. While the Convair’s list included Hawaiian Airlines, the Martin’s did not.
I don’t know when the turbo Convairs showed up, but the first airplane ride I ever took was on such a plane in 1967. On the subject of Martins and Convairs it is perhaps worth mentioning that in the years 1948-50 the Convairs had no fatal crashes, while in 1947-50 the Martins racked up eleven.
What strikes me is that literally every single car in those pictures arrived on island by boat.
If I went back to that time and place I’d want the shipping contracts for the many different manufacturers. Man that must have been a license to print money!
Having only visited once, not sure if cars were susceptible to corrosion on the Hawaiian islands at this time frame.
If not, would hope to locate the Dodge wagon (2nd photo) in some type of barn find. Fix it up, slap a surf board on top, with my Social Security & pension checks direct deposited, I could be in heaven!!
Yes, definitely – cars are vulnerable to corrosion in Hawaii due to the sea salt. One can see lots of rusty beaters around the islands. Given the really high cost of living and the relatively low wages here, many locals will try to keep their old cars going as long as they can.
If you drove H1 out to the west end of Oahu, I was told not to because it was considered a rough area populated by native Hawaiians and I wasn’t native, you could see a long Hawaiian Wall. That was car after car abandoned off the side of the H1 forming a wall much like the Berlin Wall. All rusted out and dumped. That was 1984 and probably gone now.
I was just there in Kauai in October. Trucks. Everyone is driving trucks. Body on frame SUV’s and Pick Ups and Jeeps. A lot of Japanese stuff, more than in the Midwest. And yes stuff seemed rusty, we rented a 2017 Kia Forte from a local car rental (great call I might add) and it was getting chalky and oxidized.
My two cents on the Quonset hut photo
White plains beach, Barbers point, Ewa Beach, O’ahu.
If the photo had a more panoramic view, we’d most likely see Diamond Head on the far right.
This is my Dad and my sister in 1945, my dad was in the Navy and my sister Nita was his first born, on Oahu on the base there. I visited the Big Island 12 years ago, superhumid, nothing but bugs, $12 for a gallon of milk, $12 for a rotisserie chicken. Everything has to be mailed there and all the trash has to be mailed out. I engaged in conversations with the residents there over 18 days beginning with, “How did you enter the gated community known as ‘actually living’ in Hawaii?” I’ve never witnessed more economic struggle than I have there. Good on you for those of you that can handle it, I’ll just stay standing here by this waterfall here in Oregon, where there are four even seasons. Oregon only gets 60% of the rain Hawaii does.
More lovely pictures ! .
I visited Hawaii in the 1980’s it was very nice indeed but not to live there .
My father and step mother lived there a few years, moved from Canada and took her red 1971 VW Super Beetle, I’m sure it was the only VW with a gas heater in Hawaii .
-Nate
I moved to Maui in ’77 with the ’67 VW, Kona within a year. VW was a good off road (across lava fields) vehicle to reach remote beaches. Mufflers rusted out even faster than in California.
I was stationed there 1971-73 in the Army but serving at CINCPAC HQ at a Marine post, Camp Smith. First place I ever paid $1/gallon of gas. At restaurants, a six-ounce glass of orange juice was a buck but you could get a quarter of a pineapple for $0.35 – best pineapple I’ve ever had. Despite the prices, it was a paradise back then. The state back then had about a million residents, 680,000 of whom lived on O’ahu, home to Honolulu. Now, there are more than a million on O’ahu alone. Median house price, according to Zillow is $775,000. Haven’t been back since ’83 and part of me wants to visit again but most of me wants to avoid the new Hawai’i and just fondly remember it as it was.
If that IS an early/mid 50s Hillman convt, that top would have 3 functioning positions, would it not? (full up; half-way/”Cabrio”; or full down)..