I was driving along Washington St. (Route 202) in Boonton NJ with a trunk load of groceries, when I came across this colorful pair: a 1946-48 Chrysler and a 1956 De Soto–and I had to stop and take a few cell phone shots!
A couple of observations come to mind when looking at this scene. The first thing I noticed as I passed by was the vivid pastel colors . . . then the chrome, the faux-streamlined styling, and the crisp whitewalls. It’s so different from what we see today. The ’50s roadscape must have been a very colorful place, although we tend not to think about it that way now, because many of the images of the ’50s that we see are black & white. The Olds Cutlass bringing up the rear (an ’80s product) seems so minimalist and dull compared to these exuberant creations.
Seeing these cars parallel parked at the curb stirred an ancient youthful memory. It’s not like seeing such cars on display in a show field. I was a toddler in the late ’60s and early ’70s when such giants still roamed the earth. A ’40s Chrysler and a ’50s De Soto parallel parked on an older commercial street–it seemed as if a wrinkle in time had occurred.
Another question is, “Which one is bigger?” I had a little trouble finding specs, but I believe they’re both about the same length. However, the green ’40s job somehow looks bigger and more massive. The later De Soto is definitely lower.
The older Chrysler seems to dwarf the newer De Soto in this view. Blue NJ inspection sticker is from 1974.
Walking between parked cars in the ’50s–don’t trip on those bumper guards!
Each day in America about 46,000 new cars hit the streets, and about 32,000 are junked and off the road forever. The gradual change from the old giving way to the new is so imperceptible that we don’t even notice it in our daily travels. But go back decades, and the difference is stark and dramatic. As a matter of fact, I think that the biggest outdoor visual change between an adult’s early life and life today is the cars typically seen on the street. And for some reason when people see old, now seldom seen cars that they remember from years ago–it makes them happy! Even people who are not “car people”.
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P.S.: Here’s another kind of “Curbside Classic”: I photographed this praying mantis on the hood of my car the other day. I’m trying to think of a meme caption for it, but I’m not coming up with anything.
My God, Poindexter – you got through the entire piece without mentioning that the DeSoto you found was the one-year-only 4 door hardtop!!!! I am not sure I have ever seen one of these in person, despite being on the lookout for several years.
That aside, this is the ten year leap only if you count the old Chrysler as a 46. It if were a 47 or 48, imagine the drama of the ten year leap contrasted with the full-on Forward Look.
Ordinarily I would say that I would have a hard time choosing between these. But Fluid Drive Mopar sedans are a dime a dozen while 56 Mopar 4 door hardtops are almost never seen. Choice made – Desoto!
And not just the 4 door hardtop – has there ever been a random traffic shot with a Rambler cab and a pre-Lark Studebaker cab one right in front of the other?
That was the first thing I noticed too, along with the green and white paint scheme I don’t see anymore. I think the Stude is a ’58 with the flatter roof; the taxicabs didn’t get the stick-on fins or headlight pods.
That traffic picture looks like the Pan am building in n y c
Very close. Park Ave. going around Grand Central Station.
The beautiful lampstands have been removed!
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7526487,-73.9780567,3a,90y,166.89h,85.58t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1smTo9HgWYlr3Qj0KczPdRQw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192
Why??? [cry emoji]
At least they added guardrails. The Rambler is thisclose to sideswiping the corner of the building, it must have happened a few times. Also, that pic looks almost like B&W where only the cars were colorized.
The green and white Studebaker taxi is a rare,1958 Scotsman Econ-O-Miler, one of the 1,118 built. They were the 120.5″ wb Y-Body of the President and Packard sedan but equipped with the Champion 186 ci flathead six and heavy-duty components for taxi service. The 1959-’60 Lark Econ-O-Milers on the shortened 113″ wb chassis shared with the station wagons, the 259 ci V8 also became available along with the six. The Y-body was only utilized by the Econ-O-Miler for 1959-60 but became the basis for the 1961 Lark Cruiser. Why no Lark Cruiser top-line sedan was offered for 1959-’60 is one of the many mysteries of Studebaker marketing.
One year only? Didn’t the ‘57 – ‘61 line all feature 4 door hardtops?
A great, unlikely find. Possibly this might have been a set for a movie, but the Cutlass and the Le Mans don’t really fit the time portrayed.
I think I would have stopped too!
I’m thinking that this must have been some sort of show, or cruise-in, or staging for a cruise or parade. The 40’s car is in a no parking zone.
Fast forward another 10 years to 1966, and we see another marked difference in how a Chrysler looked, as Elwood Engel replaced Virgil Exner.
More recently, not so much of a difference between a 2006 and 2016 Chrysler. And to my eyes, a large number of present-day sedans look very similar in shape. Same goes for crossovers and to a lesser extent, SUVs.
Those 65-66 Chryslers actually carried on the Forward Look in a new body style, however unintentionally. Gorgeous lines.
Hard to see much difference in almost every car line in the last 20 years. It’s as if all the car makers go together and passed around a NASCAR template, and they’re still using it.
One of my favourite Chrysler models from the ’60s. Slim and sleek in profile, nicely done grille and taillights. Probably copied from someone else but it doesn’t matter, the ’66 was a nice upgrade from the more angular ’65s. The ’67s were not as nice as they tried to copy Olds/Buick up front, and I don’t know what they were thinking with the taillights that year.
Thanks for sharing this shot.
You’re right, everything today is a jellybean shape, and one looks the same as the other.
The automotive landscape WAS very colorful until the last 15-20 years. This infatuation with NO color (achromatic) is so ugly and boring to my designer eyes. I used color to help sell designs for over 40 years; I never used white, gray or black to present any design work.
Two of our 3 cars are painted in COLORS while my wife’s CR-V is a boring silver metallic. OTOH, as I bought it as a new leftover we had a choice of two and both were silver…… 🙁
Maybe one of these daze the buying public will wake up……maybe? DFO
Even the muted and restricted color offerings of the late 40s would be a bonanza today. Actually, it seems that at least a third of what pass for new colors today get inspiration from that era.
My current two vehicle colours are monochromatic. One is black, and the other one is white. The one before the latter was white. The one before the first one was black. I have to go back 20 years to when I had a burgundy car. There was also a beige one in between all those.
My first car, not counting my blue Beetle, was a Sienna Metallic Dodge Dart. Beautiful colour, it really shone when I cleaned it.
The 1950s were a colorful time. You could even special order Mercury outboards in a variety of colors. They did not become phantom black until 1962.
That reminds me of a photo posted on Hemmings blog, showing somewhere in Cleveland in the mid-1960s, a 1954 Chevy used as a winter beater just behind a 1965 Dodge Polara or Monaco. https://www.hemmings.com/stories/2021/10/26/cleveland-1960s
The changes happened so rapidly. I have an old Mechanix Illustrated from 1966, where Tom McCahill tested a 1946 Buick and Ford against a ’66 Buick Wildcat hardtop, and a ’66 Ford Galaxie 500 XL. What a difference in 20 years. He “borrowed” a ’46 Buick for his first road test, which he then submitted to Mechanix Illustrated, and his 25 year career was off, and only ended at his death.
Today’s popular vehicles are shaped more like the old Chrysler than the new DeSoto.
I love the photo at the bottom of dark gray streets, gray buildings, gray lamp posts and a rainbow color of cars. Without those cars all I would see is a dark gray Gotham City straight out of the early Batman movies…blah! Give me colors and chrome, thank you.
I was born in the early 50s and don’t remember seeing many immediate post war offerings from any manufacturers, at least not ” The Big 3 “. Apparently, people who bought cars from the independent manufacturers were more likely to hang on to their cars? One uncle had a Kaiser or Fraser but all the others, on my Mom’s side of the family drove Fords or Chevys. The ” generation ” of Chrysler cars after this one were more commonly seen in my small town.
As far as colors go, remember when car manufacturers were introducing special/limited editions in colors that would only be available for a few months?
The birds-eye view of taxis rounding a corner is impressive. Only three Checkers and no DeSotos. Dodge, Ford, Chevy, Mercury, Plymouth, Rambler and even a Studie.
A few years earlier it would have been half DeSoto and half Checker.
I’ll be a contrarian and observe that today’s lamented monochromatic auto landscape may vary regionally. Sure there are plenty of gray cars where I live, but the popularity of the Subaru Crosstrek, Prius and Prius C, and Jeep Wrangler, among others, means there are also lots of bright colors. And though taxi cabs are a rare sight here now, at least one of the Bay Area cab companies uses green and white Priuses that look a lot like many of the cabs in the old photo above. Other than our neighbors’ bright orange Honda 600, which came along late in my youth, most of the neighborhood cars I remember from childhood across the entire decade of the sixties, with many of those cars going back to the fifties, were pretty dull. The seventies were briefly a resurgence of color of course.
I don’t know how people could see out of 1940s cars – the hood is so long, tall, and level, plus the small side and rear windows. At least to someone who grew up with the 1966 version of this car.
Increasing greenhouse in the name of visibility was a major selling point of ’50s cars, both hardtops and sedans.
What a delightful pairing of classic Mopars! Seafoam green was a common color in the late 40s and early 50s; seems like only the modern Fiat 500 has it now.
I love the blue and white 2-tone of the DeSoto.
It’s delightful, it’s delovely, it’s deSoto. I remember as a boy there were lots of these old ’40s Chrysler products. Mostly Dodges and Plymouths relegated to second car duty. The way they hung around was a testament to the quality of that era’s Mopars.
For color, deliver me from black, gray, and white. The last time we went car shopping we pulled up at the dealership and there was a beautiful unusual shade of blue car right out front. The wife says “Is that a Bolt?”, I reply “Yes”, she says “we’re buying a car today, aren’t we”. Still love it and we never lose it in a parking lot.
No comments on the praying mantis yet. I’ve only seen two in my life. The first one was when I was about 5 and I had no shirt on. It was on my stomach and I didn’t know that it was there, until one of the older kids, about 8, pointed it out. I was terrified but he begged me not to kill it. He scooped it off of me and explained how special that they are and he set it free. The next one that I saw was in the lettuce in the salad bar in a national fast food restaurant that I won’t name. It wasn’t their fault that he was there. I used the tongs to pick up the piece of lettuce that he was on and took him outside to set him free. Old Mopars and a cool bug are enough to make a memorable day.
I was born at the end of 1954 and by the time I was five, My Dad had bought a new ’59 Impala. It replaced a used ’55 Chevy which I have no memory of. I was pretty aware of new cars because my Dad worked for GM assembly in San Leandro. I had never seen any cars from the 30’s being driven on the street during my primary school years of the early 1960’s. Many cars from the early 1950s, such as shoebox Fords, and dull Chevy sedans were still common. Most cars I saw were late ’50s and new, and almost new 60’s models. Right around 1959 or 1960 my Dad and I found a Model T coupe on a used car lot a couple of blocks from our house. My Dad encouraged me to check out the car, which at the time, was only a little more than thirty years old. I grew up in Oakland, next to E 14th, St. between Fruitvale Ave. and 75 th. Ave. It was a prosperous blue collar neighborhood at the time.
Maybe too late on this comment, but I’m two years younger than you Jose and grew up one town to the north. I remember two regularly driven Model A’s in our neighborhood well into the late sixties. One was in excellent condition, so perhaps actually a hobbyist car, but the other was heavily patina-ed and driven by an equally patina-ed elderly woman. Not unlike the ‘68 Torino I’d see regularly near our house on the Peninsula, 40 years later. I don’t actually remember many of those late ‘40’s Mopars but the next generation of Dodge and Plymouth was very common in my childhood.
The front car isn’t a DeSoto it’s a 1946 Chrysler ..
Which is exactly what he said it was: a 1946-48 Chrysler and a 1956 De Soto.
*VERY* nice .
I’ll take the ’48 .
Thank you for the 1960’s Cleveland photo too, my eldest sister still lives in Cleveland Heights , I’m sure she’ll enjoy it .
New England is a drab place, make no mistake .
I too remember the many colorful cars but also the gaping rust holes in most anything over 5 years old .
-Nate