Curtis Perry Outtake: At the Kalama Shopping Center
– Posted on May 23, 2018
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VW way ahead of the curve with extended-cab pickups!
I’d date the Kalama Shopping Center at about 1959, maybe a few years earlier. Early in the 1960s everyone simply stopped using that curious drawn-out font that “center” is rendered in, on cars and buildings alike.
You were close, 1956 is what the records show.
The “Center” font looked very ’55-’58 to me, but the building looked a bit JFK-era to my eyes, so I averaged those. I’m guessing the wall to the left of the chimney-like thing was originally a plate glass window.
Curious about the bed cap. Do they still make these for T1 pickups? (can’t imagine there’s much demand in the U.S., though there might be elsewhere in the world where sales weren’t cut off by the chicken tax). Or is this an old one, or homemade, or intended for something else but modified?
There are plenty of Type 2s still working for a living in Latin America.
Also, years ago when I had Type 1s in the UK the availability of all manner of specially made parts and accessories for Type 2s was incredible, so it wouldn’t surprise me if those caps are still being produced either in South America, in tiny numbers and at great expense in Europe, or on some other continent on behalf of a European specialist.
Specialists offer new canvas and complete frames.
223 North 1st; online County records lack construction date. Some cool neon, though:
Don’t forget-down the street at the old Kalama Motor Inn (now a Motel 6), Elvis Presley and his entourage stayed there while travelling to Seattle in 1962 to film “It Happened at the World’s Fair”…
Reminds me of a Conestoga wagon. (Even though it’s not a Studebaker.)
There was a VW show at the Avery’s Air Cooled shop in Kelso (just north of Kalamazoo) on Saturday. This Bus was there, its a 1963. The show had over 100 air cooled VWs crammed into their compound. Free admission, no trophies, it was an awesome time. Was totally worth driving 2 hours up from Oregon.
Appropriate to see a canopy truck parked by a grocery store. Canopy trucks used to be the main ‘mobile shopping app’.
A nice set of canopy trucks is shown in this new item at Kansas State Historical Soc:
http://www.kansasmemory.org/item/442369/page/1
Nice photo of a very nice looking VW. My uncle had a Corvair Rampside which was similar. Mike Wolfe drives a VW like this in some episodes of American Pickers.
Mid-century shopping plaza and a dove blue double cab splitty – I’m in love!
The script looks much like the “Schwinn” script used on the top tube of their 60s and 70s bikes.