This is an ongoing series here at CC, that of images capturing kids and cars. Shots that show the parents’ love for their kids and their pride in their automotive possessions. As such, it’s a collection of kids and cars, the occasional grown-up alongside, and what I assume were the family rides.
And if you’re curious about the two previous installments, they can be accessed HERE and HERE.
These are all great ! .
I don’t remember being that well dressed when I were a lad .
-Nate
61 Chevy: It’s exhausting mowing that lawn!
Same kid now wouldn’t cut grass unless he was sitting on an 8500$ zero-turn!
I bought one of those reel mowers, thinking it would be easier to use on a section of my lawn that has a steep hill than my power mower. I can’t for the life of me get that thing to cut grass. There must be some trick to using these I haven’t figured out.
Those old reel mowers are a bit of a trick, you need to mow on a regular bases so the grass doesn’t get too tall, you also need traction, if you push down hill you tend to push down on the handles putting pressure on the back roller while taking it off the drive wheels. Try pushing up hill in short strokes and letting it roll back like using a vacuum cleaner. If that doesn’t work let me know and next time I’ll teach you how to use a vacuum cleaner! Ha Ha!
Good stuff there! When I was a kid, we couldn’t afford to dress me that well LOL
These are great fun (from back when kids “dressed up for church,” etc.), and though I hope all the children pictured are still with us and have had well-lived lives.
The business of the rolled-up blue jeans (I remember that!) seems to have been both fashionable (or, at least, not un-fashionable), and then a practical consideration for growing youngsters.
As to the cars: that’s a nice collection! I appreciate how Ford’s Fairlane really was mid-sized between Falcon and Galaxie (before they all started growing)–it’d be a fun “toy car” today.
Ah. Yur fthful svnt, at the tiller if my aunt’s 50 Plymouth.
A bit later, with dad’s 51 Studebaker.
A few more trips around the sun, and a 64 Galaxie XL
Me, back at the tiller of a 50 Plymouth, “some years later”.
My parents got a “51 Plymouth”, before leaving for my dads “Germany, duty post”. Best of memory, my dad said it was black. (green inside)
My mom drove a few European places in it. Army shipped it there/back, to the states.
All well before I showed up.
#5: little girl in red outfit with hula hoop
Note the 2nd plate attached to the grill (TWY 60829 1958).
Is this a precursor to a tool tag for the New York Thruway?
When I moved to upstate New York in 2005, the ladies in the office advised me to get an EZ Pass toll tag on my first day of work. Forgot all about it when I returned to the south. Eventually swapped it out for Florida Sun Pass.
Great pictures. Any child of depression era parents had a suit! Now those suits were passed up and down a long line of brothers and cousins until they were threadbare, but we had one and wore it. And rue the day you got it dirty or dripped gravy on it.
I never had a suit until I grew up though my mom grew up during the depression. When would I need a suit? I had some button-down dress shirts, slacks, and a tie or two, but that’s as fancy as it got.
In photo #1, Dad was quite a the fan of customized cars. The pedal car has an added rear view mirror and reflectors for headlamps. The 58 Chev has had the inner dummy parking light lens’ painted blue to match the color of the car.
I love the last shot – the new Mustang is out for all the world to see, while the 62 Studebaker hides in the carport. 🙂
I didn’t even notice there was a car under there, much less that it was a Studebaker.
Great pics Rich. Each, very nicely captures the era. I hope all these kids grew up to live happy and fulfilled lives.
My mom with her parents, around 1934 or so.
Mom with her mom, brother and an aunt and uncle in the 1950s.
Mom’s knees, Granny, me and my cousin in the 1960s.
My mom with her parents, around 1934 or so.
I have a pic like that too: my mom, as a toddler, with her mom, and granddad’s 1917 Chevy.
A couple of my cousins with their Uncle’s truck.
Looks exactly , like our 1958 Chevrolet ! We drove that car for five years until 1968 . By then , it had seen better days but we did get alot of miles out of it ! My mother kinda hated to see it go , but we traded it in on a nice ’64 Impala .
My siblings and I in our family’s new 1960 Mercury Colony Park wagon.
Anyone know the purpose of the “TWY” license plate in the grille of the NY plated 1957 Olds? Thx.
Great photos. As has been said cars with people really bring out the time period.
#1 A V8 powered ’58 Chevrolet 4 door sedan with a ’61 Ohio plate. It must have been a special day fit for dressy clothes. Or perhaps it was a Sunday after church. The boy’s pedal car looks like a Murray that has been customized with front reflectors and a car rear view mirror.
#2 Fun at the lake. Kids posing in front of a two tone V8 powered ’57 Chevrolet Two-Ten 4 door sedan with a ’55 Oldsmobile 4 door sedan to the left. There is a boat trailer on the left edge. Neither car has a front plate so the setting is likely one of the no front plate states.
#3 These three are exactly the same size, do you suppose they are triplets? They are in front of someone’s sharp ’50 Cadillac Series Sixty-Two Coupe de Ville with a sun visor. It looks like a spring or early summer day with the bushes in full bloom.
#4 A youngster with a nice clean uniform ready to hit the field for a game. He is in front of a ’57 Dodge Royal 4 door sedan with a ding in the eyebrow molding and possibly a ’50-’52 Plymouth showing it’s tail light on the left edge.
#5 A cute girl showing off her hoop skills next to a ’57 Oldsmobile 4 door sedan with a ’58 New York license plate and a ’58 New York Thruway tag. It was used on the NY state thruway system and was paid annually. A precursor of today’s EZ tag and it’s variations. This car looks like a road warrior with all the bug juice on it.
#6 A cutie walking in front of a near new ’57 Mercury Montclair 4 door sedan with the Quadri-Beam headlamp option and a badge on the fender that may indicate the Turnpike Cruiser 368 motor. It has a Maryland temporary tag and perhaps a parking sticker on the bumper. It likely was raining when it was parked as the wipers are not parked and there is mud in the wheelhouse.
#7 He is doing a good job as the lawn looks very well trimmed. In the background is a ’61 Impala Sport Coupe.
#8 Apparently a well behaved youngster that can be trusted to not move enough to roll off of that ’64 Ford Fairlane 500 Sports Coupe equipped with the 260 V8 and a ’67 Ohio plate. There is a barrel that looks like it is used for trash burning which seems very out of place in a neighborhood of that caliber, And along the left edge may be a ’62 Pontiac.
#9 A girl that looks like she might be up to something standing in front of a ’64 Chevy II Nova Sport Coupe with a ’64 Impala Super Sport convertible to the right. In the background is a black ’58 or ’59 Thunderbird hardtop and a white ’57 or ’58 Imperial 4 door sedan.
#10 He doesn’t look real comfortable in the wind on that well worn tricycle/delivery wagon or whatever it is. In the background is a V8 powered ’65 Mustang with a ’62 Studebaker under the carport.
Thanks for the photos.
Well dressed… yes there was a time in this country when people weren’t slobs!
Me with my Dad’s brand new 55’ Buick Special.
Seeing the pictures of that time period takes me back to the 1960s. My dad had a car like that but it was bark blue. The clothes are exactly what we wore . These pictures are good memories. Thanks Karen Brian
Those great old cars. My Dad had a two-tone yellow & white car with fins and huge steering wheel. He’d ask us ‘Who wants to come with me to the gas station?’ Of course we wanted to go, he’d buy us an Orange Crush. Just lift us up and we’d reach down into the icy cold coke cooler. Air was for tires but he kept it a great mystery what a gas station would need ice for! His secret and he wasn’t telling! We had to figure it out on our own. Picnics and coolers! Dads are invaluable with their own brand of fun. Have a good Christmas all you who had great Moms and Dads. 🌲
I have a small yard and use a reel mower all the time. You may need to adjust the steel bar behind the reel so it is lightly touching the reel. They work kind of like a pair of scissors. It should make a slight scraping sound. Don’t get it too close or it won’t turn. Hope that helps.
My two older brothers and i…
My oldest brother next to Dads 39 Royal he bought after coming home from the war…
My middle brother after his communion next to Dads 52 Chrysler…
When it got hit by a lady backing a dump truck out of her driveway. I was sitting next to the window…
In photo #2, I like how the ’55 Olds peeks out from behind the ’57 Chev. Great paint schemes too.
My folks had both of these cars in the late fifties and early sixties. Unlike the kids in the shot, I was still too young for inner-tubing on the lake.
All of these pictures were taken well later than my own childhood, I’m afraid. Toddler pictures of me would be with pre-War cars. There is a picture of my mother as a girl in her early tens, standing beside a Detroit Electric. Throughout much of my childhood, my father drove a Packard which he bought, new, in 1939: the inside was like a ttravelling living room. He traded it in, in 1951, on a new Packard which was nowhere near as roomy and elegant, but had better acceleration going up-hill, and was more “modern”-looking than most other cars at that time. Cheers!
Two tone blue Cadillac coupe in picture 3 is a 1951 or 52. It has backup light at base of taillight. 1950 has round backup lights located below trunk lid above bumper as 1948-49.