In part 1 of this abbreviated series I mentioned that another reason for the deliberately anonymous car was to avoid an implied liability. This time, I’m going to let the CCommentariat unpick the carefully obscured clues – mostly because I still don’t know exactly which makes and models I’m looking at here.
I’m guessing the bike is a Harley, though.
’60 Chevy & about a ’57 Nash.
Yeah, but the Chevy seems to have Buick fins,
Can we ID the motorcycle?
Looks like a mashup of the rear of a 1960 Chevrolet and Buick, sort of like one might find in Canada.
1960 Chevrolet Bel Air sedan with a 1959 or 60 Rambler. By the extra trim and hood trim, could an Ambassador.
’60 Chevy and I’m leaning ’61/62 Rambler for the other.
I agree with roger628 on the 60 Chevy, but think more like a 56-59 Rambler.
Panhead? What year?
’58 or ’59 Rambler, unchanged as far as I can tell. They airbrushed one taillight from the ’60 Chevy, which should have 2 on each side since it’s clearly not an Impala. Not a very good job of anonymizing!
Liberty Mutual’s phenomenally ugly Cornell Safety Car, which probably hurt the cause of safety, was a much more thorough conflation of all makes.
Impala had triple tail lights, Bel Air had double, and the poor Biscayne just got one. That was the very first rule of car ID i learned.
It does look like a ’60 Chevy, with some cosmetic alterations to the rear deck and light trim. The Rambler is tougher to identify, but the shape is certainly Ramblerish. The heavy side trim looks like an add on.
I love these ‘picture tells a story’ kind of ads. Interesting that the Liberty Mutual agent got there so fast. Maybe he was driving the car that hit her. He does look a little rumpled…late night out? She may well be saying to herself “I can’t believe I bought insurance from this doofus!”.
Oh, we can make the story more sordid than THAT. They look rumpled because they were having a late night together…without their significant others! As they were speeding home, canoodling one last time through the windows of their hurtling cars, misfortune struck! Saved by good fortune, they stare into each others’ eyes: “Mary, I’m sorry to tell you this after our magical evening last night, but your premium’s not up to date.”
I think he’s just drunk, and pleading with her not to tell his boss 🙂
“Interesting that the Liberty Mutual agent got there so fast. Maybe he was driving the car that hit her. ”
Officially, the best line of the week! ?
Neither car looks like it has body damage. Did the Rambler just lose a lower ball joint? Is the agent holding her severed arm up?
Hmmm… There is something 59 Chevy-like there, no doubt. But it’s weird. And if the photo was doctored, they did a damn good job of it.
Actually, it reminds me that there is an entire movie with a purposefully anonymous American car. “La belle américaine” by Robert Dhéry (1961), where the working class protagonist manages to buy a huge American convertible for very little money.
They just used a 1959 Oldsmobile and had it customized (by coachbuilder Pichon & Parat, IIRC) to look more generic. The car’s marque is never mentioned in the film, yet it’s in most shots and the focus of the plot.
Rear shot
Check out the Mercedes in the background (not sure if it’s a gullwing).
I’d say that definitely is a gullwing. Some top notch car-spotting in this film. Pity the acting, dialogue and comedy didn’t age too well.
It looks like a modified ’60 Chevy and possibly a ’61 or ’62 Studebaker Lark.