One of the benefits of our current vacation spot is the proximity to Stephanie’s sister’s house in San Mateo, barely twenty minutes away on the other side of the mountains. That means we get to visit with our niece and two nephews, and the other day we walked home from school with Aidan, since he was eager to show me all the CCs on the way.
Chronologically, this clean 1969 Charger R/T came first, but since there’s another similar ’68 Charger on the CC pages today, I decided to give top billing to the ’60 Impala. But Aidan was eager to show me this one, as muscle cars of this vintage seem not to have lost their magic powers on on even today’s boys. It was not a hemi, so 440 it is.
And Torqueflite equipped, at that.
I’m not sure Aidan had this Fox-body Marquis in mind as a genuine CC, but I did as I’ve yet to find one in Eugene. And I know CC’s JPC used to own one, although I don’t think his was a woody. Aidan was steering me towards a certain Skylark convertible down the street that he was particularly fond of.
“There it is, it’s coming right by us! Oh; we’re going to miss it.” I whipped around and peeled off a shot or two as quickly as possible. I didn’t know if I really got it properly, but sure enough…and I can see why it’s caught Aidan’s attention. Nice.
And there it goes, with a healthy rumble from its low-restriction dual exhausts.
Back to the Marquis; yes, this was the Mercury counterpart to the Ford LTD II, the final evolution of the Fox-body sedans and wagons that started out life as the Ford Fairmont and Mercury Zephyr, and were replaced by the all-new Taurus and Sable.
Look familiar, Jim? I seem to remember him liking his Marquis wagon, except for the very short range due to a small capacity fuel tank. That is annoying; I’m really liking the 500+ mile range of our Acura wagon.
One more shot for good measure; Stephanie and Aidan are ready to move on to the next one.
Which wasn’t this, exactly. But then I remembered from a recent CC that the coupe versions of this vintage Fleetwood was a relatively rare occurrence. So here it is, in a shade that Tom K or Carmine will identify for us.
Aidan was eager to move on and show me this three-some. I’m not sure if the ’60 Impala is connected to the beach buggy and ’37 Chevy truck, but I rather suspect so. Birds of a feather…
Somewhat surprisingly, the Chevy has a custom grille, and no badging, but looks stock otherwise.
It also appears to still have a job, hauling those three wine barrels.
The interior looks quite stock too.
This is a typical example of one of so many VW Meyers Manx imitation beach buggies that were once so common, especially in California.
I think I’d prefer a wee bit of padding on my seats, but we were all young once. The dashboard lives up to its name quite literally, as it appears to be one very solid chunk of teak or mahogany.
The Chevy’s red paint is pretty heavily oxidized from all those decades out in the sun, but otherwise, it’s in very decent shape for what is obviously an original car. The climate in the Bay Area is extremely benign; a bit more sun and a bit less rain than Oregon, so the trade-off is more sun-fade and less moss.
Has a car ever been more horizontal than this one? Or should I say vertically-challenged? I love these ’60s; the ’59 is mighty camp, but the ’60 is more…real. It’s as wild as they should have ever gotten, had they had the good sense to keep the ’59 as a rejected design proposal. Carl Renner’s “flying wing” roof on the four door hardtops is splendid, never mind the 360 degree visibility. This design feature was my favorite part on these cars when they were new. And still is today.
The 1960 rear end is much better than the ’59, and marks the beginning of a Chevy tradition of round triple and double taillights spread across the rear end. The ’58s were more like a sneak preview. The crossed flags above the “V” on the front and rear ends of this car as the tell-tales of a 348 under the hood (348 engine history here).
Which made me wonder if it could possibly have the ill-fated Turboglide automatic. It was hard to see from this shot, obscured by the sun-screen, but I walked over to the driver’s side to confirm that it was the Powerglide. Is there a running ’58-’61 Chevy with a genuine working Turboglide left in the world? We need to do a story on that very disastrous and expensive flop. There’s little doubt in my mind that on of the reasons Chevy hung on to the tried-and-proven PG for so long was because of the TG fiasco. They probably lost a fair bit of money on it.
Aidan said he was saving the best car for last, and it’s hard to disagree. One doesn’t exactly find original 1949 DeSotos sitting on the street everywhere, and he’s been wondering about this one’s story for quite a while.
Especially with that bullet hole in the back window. Did it once belong to gangsters? Twelve year old inquiring minds want to know.
Are there still dead bodies jammed into the trunk, to explain why its tail is riding so low?
Does its vanity plate give some clue to its story? “Ice” does have several meanings.
The DeSoto probably wasn’t the fastest car in 1949 to use for nefarious purposes, but it would be hard to beat its roominess, even when wearing the big, pulled-low fedoras that criminals are always shown wearing in movies of that time.
And the back seat had gobs of room for abducted victims, or tommy-guns hidden on the floor. Or just for ducking down for in-coming bullets. Room for all kinds of possible uses…
With Chrysler’s 112 hp 236.7 cubic inch flathead six under the hood, this was not the fastest way to outrun the cops. But since the cops tended to drive V8 Fords, a full-speed chase meant that the flathead V8 inevitably would overheat, so maybe there was some logic to this choice. Or maybe I’m hanging around a twelve year old too long.
Oh; we’re back home…nice cars, Aidan! Thanks for sharing them.
Related: Chevrolet 348 “W” Engine History
Some great curbside classics! I wish I’d had cars like those on my walks home from school. I’m surprised to see the di-noc on that Marquis in such good condition. The Fleetwood coupe is a very rare find, especially in that condition. Probably some elderly person’s baby. And the DeSoto reminds me of the car my grandparents rode in for their 50th wedding anniversary in 1999. It too had a bullet hole in the rear window. I’m not sure if that was intentionally done by the livery service for period effect. I don’t remember what type of car it was, only that it was something circa 1949.
A very busy morning, and this is my first visit here today. Not a clinker in the bunch today – Good job Aiden! As for the DeSoto, my theory is that criminals didn’t need to drive fast because back then Chrysler was the no. 2 selling company and every car they built looked alike to the masses, so a crook’s DeSoto would blend into the background like a white Taurus or a silver Camry today. Stealth beats speed any day. 🙂
My Mercury Marquis wagon was indeed a woody, just like this one, only with beige paint and dark brown cloth interior. When dressed up and equipped like a Marquis should be, these were very pleasant cars. Though I never cared for the styling on the sedans, I considered these wagons quite handsome. Minor nit, the Ford version was just called LTD, not LTD II. On the street, though, LTD II was the common name because the Crown Vic was still the LTD Crown Victoria and everyone was still used to calling them LTD as well. It was a confusing time to be a Ford fan.
I am generally no fan of the 59-60 Chevy, but this one is really nice. I love that greenhouse as well.
Yes, Ford was really messing with us with the LTD’s name games. LTD Jr. might have been a more apt choice for the Fox version..
People did sometimes call the Fox LTDs by the LTD II name, in order to distinguish them from the Panther LTDs (which is what people in 1983 were used to being the “LTD”). But the “official” way to distinguish them was to call the Fox the “LTD” and the Panther the “LTD Crown Victoria”, as Ford badged all of the Panthers under the latter name once the Fox LTD was introduced (the Crown Vic name had previously only been applied to the upper trim level). That eventually won out, the Fox LTDs went away after four model years, and then no one called anything an “LTD” anymore. Over at Mercury, the Marquis/Grand Marquis went through a similar process.
In the early ’80s, in the wake of the 1979 oil crisis, it seems to have been assumed that traditional full-size cars weren’t long for the world. The original plan was probably for the Panther LTD/Marquis to be dropped at the same time the Fox LTD/Marquis came out, or that the Panther might continue to be sold alongside the Fox for a year or two at most. That’s probably why the Fox LTD was called “LTD” and not “LTD II”. The Fox was intended to be “the new LTD”, not a temporary supplement like the 1977-79 LTD II. Although even the Fox LTD was only a temporary solution for this market, until the revolutionary all-new FWD family car that Ford had under development was ready.
I remember well the annual blurb in all of the car mags every summer about the changes for the coming year. Every year, it would be announced that the Panther cars that had been slated for discontinuance would be produced for another year with either no or few changes. Ford eventually saw that the plans from 1980-81 were not working out in 1984-85. The Fox LTD disappeared and the Panther LTD (or Crown Vic) outlasted it.
I will say that I enjoyed the 3.8 V6/3 speed C5 drivetrain in my 86 Marquis much more than I did the 5.0/AOD setup in the 85 Crown Vic that replaced it. Fortunately, the Marquis did not eat any head gaskets under my ownership.
I’m still hurt that Mercury never got around to the “de Sade” option for the Marquis 🙂
Super cool that your nephew wanted to share all of this with you.
My two oldest kids (ages 11 and 9) recently told me they wanted to show me an old car they had found parked on the street, since they know I like old cars. When they took me to the car, it turned out to be a late ’80s/early ’90s Chrysler LeBaron convertible. That made me feel VERY old.
Speaking as someone whose interest has historically been almost exclusively in American cars, it’s a sign of the effect that reading CC has had on me that I’m mildly disappointed that a walk in the Bay Area didn’t net a single vintage Toyota or Datsun. Just one or two as an addition to all the fine American vehicles that Paul and Aidan found, of course….
Well, we could have easily added a few “vintage” Japanese cars, but that depends on the definition of the word. Older Japanese vehicles are still so common that I tend not to notice them unless I’m making a point of it. I tend to forget that Japanese cars from the 80’s and even 90’s re not a common sight in other parts of the country.
It’s a slippery-slope thing, I’ve found. Having more context for certain cars then draws others into focus.
The power windows and factory a/c combo is unusual for any ’69 Charger, let alone an R/T. Even more amazing is that it lived in California and didn’t end up painted orange and trashed on Warner Brothers’ back lot. IIRC the producers of The Dukes scoured the state on a constant search for ’69 Chargers.
Aidan is one lucky kid. The automotive highlight of my walk home from elementary school in the Houston burbs circa 1978-80 was a ragged-out black ’65 T-Bird. Other than that it was a sea of newer Ford or Chevy pickups and GM A and B-bodies of every description.
I recall two prizes on walks to and from school, roughly in the decade between 1965-1975 – a rusty 59 Ford Galaxie that hardly ever moved, and if I got really lucky, the little old lady with the stunning black Forward Look New Yorker had it out in the driveway instead of hidden in the garage.
I learned to drive in a 1946 DeSoto. It was equipped with that engineering marvel, a Fluid Drive transmission. The one that you had to let off the gas to shift from low to high. Those things were built like a tank.
We were returning from a visit to Grandpa’s house on a two lane highway when a truck going the other way lost a dual wheel in front of us. I think dad was only going about 35 or so at the time. The wheel came into our lane ands nailed the DeSoto on the left front fender and bumper. The wheel got punted into the weeds about 200 feet away. Since we were 2 blocks from home Dad just kept going. When we got home and every one got out to check for damage, there was none, other than a black mark on the bumper and fender. A modern car car would probably suffered major damage. They really don’t build them like they used to.
Those were the days when bumpers really lived up to their name. Your neighbors 6 volt car won’t turn over fast enough to start, no problem. I’ll pull behind you and give you a push, drop your arm when your ready to drop the clutch. Five MPH bumpers? Hell, these were 15 or more MPH bumpers! If they kept building them like this, there never would have been federal bumper laws. Yet for all the tank like construction, these cars with thick steel everything weigh less then modern plastic adorned cars. They sure don’t look like it. And the headroom and rear seat legroom is huge compared to cars of today. Nice collection of CC’s, That 60 Chevy looks to me like a Batmobile with 4 doors and a roof.I was about to comment that it was nice to see non rusty cars without moss growing on them, but Paul already made that observation. As for that Fleetwood, that roof is insane. I would to say something kind about it’s looks, but…
Now if that DeSoto were a Ford or a Chevy of similar vintage, everyone would know that its low-in-the-rear stance was caused by the engine being currently stored in the trunk rather than in its working location under the hood.
Didn’t we see that red and white 1960 Chevy flattop on one of your previous vacation trips to California? Not that I mind seeing it again, this time through a kid’s eyes….
You, sir, have an excellent memory! I often wonder how much readers remember of what I posted years ago. Yes, back in 2009,when we were also visiting them, I took a walk around the neighborhood and shot it. Its paint was a bit less oxidized back then, and it was sitting out in front of the house, not on the side.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/12/curbside-classic-ca-vacation-edition-1960-chevrolet-impala/
And thanks to San Francisco’s crazy real estate market, these little bungalows are all worth close to a million bucks, if not over.
“And thanks to San Francisco’s crazy real estate market, these little bungalows are all worth close to a million bucks, if not over.”
Mind boggling. How do normal people pay for them?
Defining “normal” is a bit difficult here, since so many folks are employed in the high-paying high-tech sector, which of course is the reason for the high prices. But those that make more modest wages are in a tough situation indeed.
Many commute from the central valley, where prices are much lower, or rent, or…
This reality has been in place here for a long time. Prices seemed totally crazy to us in 1987 when we moved to the Bay Area, and we paid $495k for our house, which was pretty decent sized in an rather pricey area (Los Gatos). A painful jumbo mortgage, back at a time when interest rates were much higher too. Our former house is worth well over $3M now, if not more.
Is it the hours that it worth $3 million or is the lot worth $2.5 or so and the house is the remaining value.
Primarily the lot, which was a full acre with a creek running through one corner. But we also improved the house a lot, which was one of the oldest in the area, built in 1866. I don’t have pictures on this PC to show you.
The more general answer is that when real estate runs very high, it’s due to scarcity driving up lot values. Any house structure and improvements are worth only so much: its replacement cost. Above that, the value is all in the lot, which can become absurdly high due to imbalance of supply and demand.
Which is why cost per square foot is rather meaningless when discussing a value of a property. It’s relevant in terms of construction and replacement cost, but not really in term of sales prices. Folks have been buying up little old houses for decades around here just to tear them down and build a big new house. So the price they paid for the “house” essentially becomes the lot value (plus the cost of demolition).
So very true. What’s called putting McMansion’s on the lot out to the limits of the lot line given code. Despise those houses and how they ruin the look and charm of the old neighborhoods in the Bay Area especially the Peninsula. Also true what tech money has done to housing and if you aren’t in tech your are screwed. Your little 3% raise isn’t going to get you a house moving at 20% a year. What is happening in the City of San Francisco is beyond belief and I lived there for 10 years. In my dreams I see Apple and Google moving out to Bakersfield.
My walk home when 12 (1976) wasn’t this interesting. Just amazing to my eyes.
I was initially a fan of the ’59 Impala like everybody else, but have really come to appreciate the ’60 – the rocket detail on the side is one of my favorite parts. A loaded red four door hardtop would be one of my tops picks – this comes close.
What is on the center of the back of the front seat of the DeSoto? It looks like a courtesy light of some sort – doubling as an opportunity for the local dentist to pick up a few bucks after a fender bender.
Lucky kid to find these and a top tour guide to give him the details. A nice walk indeed.
The thing in the Desoto seat caught my eye too. I think part of it was an ashtray, but I bet you are right on the courtesy light part.
Brings back memories!
I grew up/lived in San Mateo until about 14 years ago (live in San Francisco now). Our house was on west 16th Avenue, which is in the Hayward Park subdivision. The particular neighborhood in the pictures looks like it’s between 3rd and 9th Avenues, east of the railroad tracks, but west of Highway 101. However, I could be mistaken.
It’s nice to see many of the old bungalow-style houses still looking good.
-Dan
You’re not mistaken; that’s the area.
The red and white Impala deserves top billing; it is an icon from the era. My uncle had an identical car, a very popular model and color combination. Most in small town midwest were 283/Powerglide equipped. Those who bought the 348/Turboglide generally were not happy campers.
Also in the family was the 49 DeSoto sedan – in black rather than white, reflecting midwestern rather than California climate and style. My aunt and uncle traded it for a new Exner 55 Firedome baby blue and white coupe – about the time CA style began to sweep the country. No wonder I wanted to become CA Guy by age five.
Never cared much for the styling on that particular Skylark, especially the side and pinched behind. It looks good in convertible form, though, and I can hear the exhaust note you describe. I wonder if the LTD wagon could be bought with the extended range fuel tank that I ordered for an 82 Granada just before it – capacity was 20 gallons and came in very handy for only $46 extra (see last option on window sticker below). The updates on the last of that Fox platform-based model were nicely done.
Good array of models and years – glad your nephew is interested in vintage cars. I can walk my neighborhood and find a number of CCs as well, though not many before the mid-60’s.
My understanding of the early turboglide (and Buick triple turbines) was that the clutch design would fail. A replacement for the 57-58’s was made available and the 59-61’s production turboglides used the new design. However, using the grade retard for low gear (or range) was bad for the transmission.
The triple turbine was the ultimate dynaflow for Buick, completely eliminating the need for a low range or any shifting in Drive. Buick got a new manager at the end of the 50’s who dumped the triple turbine option. Chevy kept the turboglide. From my point of view, the whole problem with the dynaflows was the lack of a passing gear. The powerglide also lacked passing performance.
The fuel tank may have been small on the sedans, but it was worse in the wagons. I do not believe there was any room for an auxiliary tank. The spare tire well took up much of the room between the frame rails. IIRC, the wagon tank was something like 13 gallons and was an oddly shaped little thing stuck in some mighty cramped real estate.
I have never considered a small fuel tank to be a problem. If I don’t get out and walk around for a few minutes every couple of hours or so my back really, really starts to hurt. I can’t imagine being able to drive or ride in a car for 500-600 miles at a stretch; ten straight hours in a car and I would need professional extracation.
The trunks on those wing-back Chevies are huge. A friend had one BITD and we used to put four people in the trunk and smuggle them into the drive in. It wasn’t that we didn’t have the dollar apiece the drive in would have charged, it was the sport of the thing that interested us. That’s the type of thing that happens when you grow up in a small town in the sixties.
Wow–what a great walk home! Heaven for a kid who is a gearhead, and you’ve done a nice writeup here (as always). I especially like the Marquis (I haven’t seen one in good shape in ages) and the Skylark convertible. I’ve always loved that Skylark design with the flattop wheelwells and the sweeping character line down the side.
I never lived sufficiently close to school to be able to walk, but until I was 10 the bus dropped me off about a 5 minute walk from my house. The two interesting cars I typically passed (this being the late 80’s) were a ’65 Bonneville coupe, in pretty rough shape and often under a cover, and an early 70’s Karmann Ghia. Oddly enough the Karmann Ghia was owned by my Dad’s boss, who happened to live near us for a time.
Fantastic selection. I never tire of the cantilevered roof on the Impala and its siblings.
Oh, man…that ’60 Chevy 4-dr hardtop!!! That brings back a flood of memories. That was my big brother’s first car…a gorgeous copper-color with the white “overhang” roof…I thought he was nuts for ever getting rid of it.
Sure wish I had it today…what an incredible overall killer DESIGN! Everything about it was just cool. I LOVED rolling all the windows down and just sitting in it, listening to the 8-track…Elton’s “Madman Across The Water”…
I would love to find one of these in good shape.
I’ve seen at least one 1958-61 Chevrolet at a show that had a Turboglide shift pattern. The owner wasn’t around, though, so I don’t know if the car actually had Turboglide or not.
love that impala, and Charger your nephews got taste!My walk home from school aged 12 in 1969 wasn’t as interesting.Most cars were British,not for any patriotic reason but because apart from VW beetles everything else was not imported in large numbers,not invented or cost a lot of money. Miss Turner my favourite Art teacher had a Karman Ghia which I liked even though the rust monster was winning the battle.There were a few American cars from the USAF base near my Grandparents to be seen,mostly 4 door sedans and wagons
Good stuff. My favorite middle school walking-home CC was also a Buick convertible! A big red ’75 (I think) with white top and interior, Magnums and whitewalls. There was already nothing else like it in suburban Maine in the ’80s.
A ’50 De Soto like that one was my grandfather’s first postwar new car. Never had any bullet holes, as far as I know. 🙂
You know that after spotting that Corolla behind the red Chevy, I got to thinking that that generation(93-97) is starting to get into CC territory as the first 2 years of that generation are now 21 and 20 years old. has time really flown by?
Back in the late 60’s/early 70’s, my walk to and from elementary school took me past a number of what we now consider CC’s…..the ’59 Chevy Wagon that was a neighbor’s daily driver (later replaced by a ’63 Chevy Suburban), a Desoto similar in age to the one pictured that was sinking into the asphalt around the block and the blue Mini parked nearby. The tin worm got to most of them.
Seeing these brought back many good memories…..thanks, Paul.
It’s so cool that your nephew actually picked out awesome cars to show you, I’d be so proud!
I’ve come to really love the ’60 Chevy, and CC is mostly to thank for that. I’ve always been in love with that roof, but primarily as a feature of the early Corvair sedans in the past. I also always appreciated/was intrigued (horrified?) by the ’59 Chevrolets, and was as much a ’61-’64 fan as anyone, but never really gave much thought to the 1960 models. It didn’t help that you hardly ever see them in comparison with those other years. The handful that have featured on here over the last couple years really turned me on to their charms, especially because (like most people on here, probably) I’m kinda burnt out on the later models. Still love ’em, I’ve just had my fill for the moment. I didn’t have a camera handy, but I came across a lovely turquoise ’60 Biscayne sedan for sale recently – a so-so quality repaint that was kinda fitting and a very original interior in decent shape. It was also a rare non-taxi/no-cop car with the six and a 3-speed. The only flaws were a set of really questionable modern wheels and… get ready for this… a pricetag of $17,000 (!!!!!!!)
People should be required to sign a disclaimer stating that they won’t get enormous money boners after watching the Barrett-Jackson auctions on TV. STOP THE INSANITY!!!
The Fox LTD/Marquis (and Fairmont/Zephyr) is another favorite. I remember the last time these came up on here they got a fair amount of negative comments, which I was really surprised by! Is there more love for the wagon body than there is the sedan? I think both are about equally attractive. I like Paul’s take that the earlier Fairmont was something akin to an American Volvo 240 and I feel basically the same way about these, even if they have wood on the sides (which looks great). They were literally “Fairmont/Zephyr v2.0” and probably should have just been called that. I understand the convoluted logic behind this period of Ford naming chaos, but I think the LTD/Marquis monikers just served to marginalize them.
The DeSoto is amazing. I hardly ever see cars of that vintage in white and it looks incredible on it. If someone described it to me, I’d think “sounds like one ghetto-ass wedding car!” but it doesn’t come off looking like that at all. The chunky Chryslers from right after the war are another thing that CC turned me onto – I never had a single thought about them prior to coming here, and I never knew about the fascinating fluid drives either. See all the good stuff I’ve learned?
That Aiden was interested in whether this car belonged to gangsters or not is also pretty funny to me – I had, what I imagine, was a very similar conversation with a bunch of kids while I was taking pictures of a ’53 Dodge Meadowbrook awhile back. They ran out of a building across the street as soon as they saw me, thinking it was mine, and wanted to know if it was a “mafia car”, how fast it was, if I think a famous person owned it, etc. – and they couldn’t believe it was that old (older than all of their grandmas – they think!)
I told them it could be (def not!), and it was more for driving smooth and looking cool than going fast. They liked that and one said he was gonna get the same car one day. Their one criticism was that the name was dumb, and I couldn’t really explain what a “Meadowbrook” was because I don’t really know – but I did counter with “well what’s a Lexus, right?” They said “psshhhh everybody knows what a Lexus is, dummy!!”
You should write a CC, Mr. C!
I’ve been saying that for years. 🙂
Late to the party but a most excellent selection. Despite the presence of a Caddy my favorite is the Marquis wagon.
Oh and the color on the Fleetwood coupe is Antelope Firemist. I believe JPC’s 1989 Brougham was the same color.