We’ve featured a few of these galleries with cars in suburban driveways before. These always carry a feel good spirit, and they’re certainly a nice way to check out cars of the period and the suburbs in their early days. But for today, we’ll paly with a slight variation on the theme, with a few shots of cars nicely stored in their garages.
I love how the ’59 and ’60 Chevy fins match the house designs.
Some of the house designs are just as interesting as the cars.
Like the house with the “60 Chevy”, in the carport.
There is another house with a Chevy on the side in a car port. That looks very old time Las Vegas to me and can still be seen in the very old parts of that town.
Love the 66 Chrysler.
I counted at least two green Chevvies, a green Falcon, and that Chrysler. Green was much more popular then. I suppose silver / gray has taken its place.
My parent’s late 60s driveway would have been an outlier, circa 1969 our split level in the suburbs had a Plymouth Valiant and a Mercedes 250S parked out front.
Loved the shot of the 3-car garage with the ‘59 and ‘57 Fords, but what’s car # 3? The chrome piece on the trunk lid looks like it has a Chevy bow tie, but the taillights don’t look quite right.
Looks like a ’56 Chevy, I think the taillights match.
I expanded the photo as much as my phone would allow and it looks like you’re right. Thanks!
Expanded it on my laptop. Yup, 56!
My favorite is the 8th picture – it looks like it has a story to it and we’re just walking past on a warm summer’s evening. Has someone just washed their Impala, I wonder. It’s an image with an air of calm prosperity.
What was the criteria to assign plate numbers? In the 4th picture, the 57 and 59 Fords are only 2 numbers away, giving the idea that the numbers are not related to the model year. The Chevy has a totally different format, numbers only. Perhaps from another state?
In many states back then, the states issued new license plates annually – so car owners needed to mail in their registration applications every year. Families with multiple cars often mailed them in together, which sometimes produced sequential license plates.
The plates in that picture appear to be from Massachusetts – I’d say from 1961. Massachusetts used a confusing set of number sequences back then, and I don’t entirely understand how they were assigned. But regular-issue plates usually had a letter prefix, followed by 5 numbers, like those “P” plates. But, I believe that car owners could “reserve” a plate with five or fewer characters for an extra charge (which was something like $2 back then). That could be how the third car ended up with a different plate sequence (I’m not positive that the 5-digit plates were reserved, or not… so it could be just another series of standard-issue plates too… like I mentioned, Massachusetts was confusing).
Most states’ license plate sequencing weren’t as confusing as Massachusetts, though.
Thanks!
PRNDL….that’s a 1956 Chevy; still know that look very well! Sigh…… DFO
Thanks! Your ‘56 looks like a honey!
I’m not used to seeing those taillights straight-on and in such a strong shadow as in the 3-car garage picture.
Photo #7: I made this meme:
My favorite photo is #6 with the ’59 Chevy in the garage of the MCM house. My Aunt had a ’55 or ’56 Olds hard top sedan like the one in the first photo. She bought it new and kept it until she traded it in on a new ’69 Pontiac Grand Prix.
The huge postwar residential building boom in the US just predated the increase in size of American cars by the late Fifties. Our previous home built around 1954 had a decent sized two car garage but it had individual entry doors with a center post, which provided barely enough clearance to fit our New Beetle over its dual mirrors. Fortunately it had a big driveway which housed our other cars with plenty of room. I’m sure it would have been a challenge to fit a ‘59 Chevy, let alone a Cadillac.
Photo 9, a 1966 Chrysler, maybe a Newport.
Jealous of the three car garage!!
Oooh…the things I could park in there!!
The 1968 Charger was a nice surprise at the end. Love all those Chevy Gullwings. Keep all these great photoessays coming, please! 😊👍🙏
Looks like rust along the bottom edge of that “Charger”.
The full-sized ’59 Ford SEEMS somewhat LARGER than the ’57, from the rear anyway. I assumed those two models would have been about the same size.
yes 3rd car in garage is a 1956 Chevy and because their no v under the Chevy sign it is a 6 cyl
Love the charger in the last shot! Sad that the Cocker Spaniel is dead now…
Great photos ! I too like the exuberance of the houses .
Today it’s hard to believe how difficult it used to be to sell a used ’59 Chevy .
I love the Poncho wagon with the tailgate top up .
-Nate
There were three houses on out street that had driveways. All three had garages.
Another one had the garage but no driveway.
The vast majority of us were “street parking”, folk.
Growing up in Southern California, just about every house had a garage, two in our area had two car garages. We had two vehicles , my folks new’56 Ford Fairlane two door hardtop and a’53 Chevrolet pickup (5 window), which had to park in the driveway.
The first garage I can remember is the separate garage off the side of our house in New Jersey. This 1958-62. House easily back to the 30’s as there was an old coal fired furnace in the basement that now used fuel oil. By 1960 that was out for a modern gas furnace. That old furnace was scary as hell to me. I can still picture it from the top of the stairs which was as close as I would get. The old wooden garage never kept a car, I may have been in it once or twice, filled with tools and other junk so obviously inherited from former owners.
The house in Catonsville MD had no garage but did have a dead end cul de sac next to it for parking. Our house in Canoga Park, of the San Fernando Valley, now had a two car garage in 1966 and all houses after. Neither parent used the garage for their car but I did the moment I turned 16. I didn’t mind manually opening the garage door.
Most garages were a tight fit for wide ’50s cars. Even garages built in the ’50s, like the one with the ’57 Buick, were still made for earlier cars. Only the modernistic house was ready for the ’59 Chev.
As pointed out earlier, the houses are almost as interesting as the cars. In the fifth photo, the one with the 59 chevy and Valiant/Lancer, anyone over four feet tall would be hard pressed to stand in that upper level.
I grew up in the 40s-50s and 60s. The thing that changed was the width of the white walls. The late 40s very wide. 50s thinner but still somewhat wide. Then thin in the 60s.. And now gone. I still think white walls look good on certain color cars.
Picture #3; trying to figure out what is behind the ’56 Chevy. Is it a ’57 Buick?, based on the vertical rear window bars? These old cars bring back memories. Dad had a ’57 Chevy 210 2-dr 283 and when it was parked at home, sister and I would sit on the corner of the rear bumper, and hang on to the fin design the car had.
Yes, it’s a 1957 Buick.
Photo 5: 1959 Chevy
The epitome of Mid-Century modern with the car and house.
Interior sky light was the craze at the time. Many were eventually covered over with a new roof.
Based on the trees, my guess is California or Florida
Photo 7: 1960 Chevy
Quick fade of the mid-century modern as it falls out of favor.
Based on the landscape, I bet on Florida.
The cars are fun, as always. But the pictures themselves (and the technologies used to make them) are just as interesting to me. Quite a few of these were pretty obviously taken on Kodachrome, the late lamented slide film. (1, 3, 6, 8, 9) The others are probably Kodacolor or a similar color negative film. Many of those probably looked brighter back in the day. (One of the features of Kodachrome is that it generally doesn’t fade over time; if anything it gets *more* saturated.
“Paul Simon”, tune playing in my heard about now. (our “Kodachrome” did get taken away indeed).
Thanks for the memories. Our homes and our cars were a great part of our lives, especially for those of you who lived in the suburbs. Growing up in The Bronx, the car was parked on the street except for five of the colder months when my mother decided that she preferred not to ride around the block – and ride around the block – and ride around the block looking for a parking space. By the time we moved into midtown Manhattan in 1958, the car was gone. My wife and I and family live in the suburbs near Nyack, NY. I much prefer it to city living.
The ‘56 Two-Ten in the third picture down cold be a dead ringer for my Dad’s first car. Same color and everything.
Pic 5, the single car garage underneath the house, reminds me greatly of our place in New Jersey in the very early 60’s Split level house in nice suburbs.
On garages though. I guess they were always cramped at best, but now with so many people opting for a large passenger trucks along with a double cab full sized pickup, only one will even fit in the garage, and not the 20+ foot long pickup. I’ve got a BIL with a double cab, short bed, and when he visits his truck sticks out into the sidewalk, it won’t even fit in the driveway, let alone the garage. And it’s a shortbed Toyota, not a full 8 foot bed Chevy. Much as I decry what I perceive as monstrosities, planners have realize and acknowledge what is going to be parked there and account for it.