It’s once again a week for traveling and discovering new places across the US. With that in mind, let’s revisit these travelers of the past with images dating before commercial flights became the norm.
These folk are a good mix; some are swanky, some are laid back, yet all are looking forward to a good time. All thanks to that empowering phenomenon of the 20th Century; the car. Our favorite subject here at CC.
You’d never get all those suitcases in that 59 Ford in any trunk today!
Given the day, no wonder you could pack for a two-week trip and the trunk on cars then could hold it all! I recall my dad loading up the trunk on his new `68 New Yorker for a wife & 3 kids when we went to CA. that year. We had room to spare!
Top Photo:
Getting the vibe she is headed to the train station. Traveling light with just one bag as opposed to a trunk for a cruise ship across the Atlantic or over to Hawaii.
Love the photos. However, the first picture is a poor advertisement for Central Chevrolet!
I had to laugh at the irony of that picture as well.
Maybe they’re taking the stuff out of the dead Ford and they’re loading up a new Chevy.
This is a fun theme and nice assortment. I don’t know the locales, but it’s not too hard to “step into” any of these photos.
Luggage: The gradual move away from linen/leather to plastics…
Valiant: I don’t remember that trunklid handle-medallion thing…it really caught my eye…
Cans/beverages? I wish I could read the labels…
Chrysler triple-stripe whitewalls: I remember when those were the latest thing (not that those are Goodyears pictured)….I see the repro-tire folks are making them here in 2024…
The beer cans have to be Carling Red Cap.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/288582288622394906/
By the way, Carling Red Cap Ale was made in the former Peerless factory in Cleveland!
https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/922
I agree but was unable to log in 6 hours ago to say so. Although this picture is a closer match with the separate banner at the top of the oval banner.
The garage behind the ’59 Ford is unique. The logs appear to be the structural framing, not just nailed-on decorations as they often are in fake adobe “mission” style.
It’s not a garage. It’s a rustic cabin, and they’re staying there on vacation. Cabins were commonly very primitive back then; just boards for walls.
The 67 Chrysler is sporting a Dodge wheel cover.
And the owner of the 59 Ford looks like he’s pulling a few cold beers from a cooler. I hope he brought a can opener.
I thought that can in the ‘59 Ford picture might’ve been STP oil treatment with an older logo. You’re probably right about the beer, though, since he has two more cans in his hand. Any ideas on the brand?
I hope he wasn’t planning on driving!
These photos really speak to me. When I was a kid in the mid-late ’60s, for a couple of years we lived in the Northern Interior of BC. The rest of the family was on Vancouver Island or in the greater Vancouver area. 500 plus miles one way. Airline tickets were prohibitively expensive, as was renting a car once you got to Vancouver.
A couple of times a year Mom and Dad would load up the ’58 Bel Air trunk, park my brother and I in the back seat and off to Grandmother’s house we would go. No A/c, no car seats, parents both smoking the whole way… We didn’t know any better and loved it.
Even today I love a good road trip, though (unlike my wife) I am a proponent of packing light!
Gee, outside the lede picture of the convertible, it seems most all the other cars are the less desirable four doors. Don’t they know what is cool and uncool?
Indeed!
I love seeing your interesting collections of mid-Twentieth Century automotive life. The one theme that this group emphasizes is the car trunk (except for a single photo in this group of a station wagon). Later generations will not remember car trunks and how much they were a part of life, a part now very long gone.
There’s gobs of new sedans still with trunks. Camry? Tesla Model 3? And a whole raft of others. They’re not exactly long gone yet.
Back in the day (early 60s) I remember older guys at the time advocated sipping on a cold one (just one) during a long road trip even though they would not do so in the city.
Oddly, guys my age did not seem to pick up on this habit as I recall and it probably died a natural death. Notice that the fellow grabbing the cans is around middle age. Different times.
There were several states that did not adopt vehicle open container laws until fairly late (maybe in the 1970s or even the 1980s) and it was perfectly legal to drive while sipping on a cold one, as long as your blood alcohol level was still below the legal definition for being drunk.
I still occasionally amaze people in my abilities to make things fit in vehicles. This is where it comes from.
Watching my Dad and in later years myself doing a Rubik’s cube in the trunk of whatever sedan I was loading. Everything being twisted and turned every which way until everything was securely loaded AND you could get the lid to shut!
As I’ve said before here, I was born and raised in Southern California. Every other summer we drove back to central Kansas to visit my Dad’s family. Route 66 in our then-new ‘56 Ford Fairlane two door hardtop. My Dad had been a hellion in his youth and had driven a tank in the Philippines for the duration of the war, so he liked fast cars (ours had the 312 Thunderbird with a 4 barrel). My brothers and I always felt safe, Dad might’ve been fast but he was safe.
The open road, the desert, then cornfields, streams lined with cottonwoods, the massive expanse of the Navajo and Hopi lands, Flagstaff, mountains, New Mexico, interesting pueblo architecture….so many terrific memories.
Thank you for posting these pictures.