Somewhere here recently we got into a discussion about old garages being too short for the “modern” cars of the late fifties and sixties. This fine CC ’67 Cutlass Supreme four door spends its days (years) in this Model A-sized garage, with its nose getting perpetually rained upon. It’s on one of those dug-out affairs, built into a sloping lot, with the garage opening right at the sidewalk, so there’s no way to extend it. Need to get a shorter car…noooo!
I need to coax this mole out of its hole one of these days, as it would make such a fine addition to our CCCCC. BTW, for you more recent readers, that acronym stands for the Curbside Classics Complete Cutlass Chronicles; here’s a new home page for all thirteen chapters. Check them out; nothing like it available anywhere. Now we need to get to that other epic task, the CC Complete Guide to the Great Brougham Epoch (“CCCGGBE”). Next winter, hopefully.
1. My 1969 brick ranch house has a one-car garage. It is a tight fit for my modern compact hatchback, making me wonder how the original owner of the house fit a 1969-sized automobile in there.
2. There’s a place on US 421 well north of Indianapolis where old Cutlasses apparently go to die. There must be 30 of them on this lot rusting away. I keep meaning to photograph it.
I drove past that place last weekend and likewise, did not have time to stop. He has quite a selection of derelict Cutlasses.
My house is a 1910, so the garage was definitely a later addition. We can get our Odyssey in, but only barely, and even though it’s a two-stall garage, it is a narrow and tight fit. It was owned by the same family from ’48-’05, and I’m pretty sure the garage was built around ’50. I’m guessing they had to drive (then) compact cars to have any hope of using it. I’m just thankful to have a garage at all. 85% of the houses on our block have on-street only. That’s what happens buying a house built before even the Model T was very commonplace. I wouldn’t trade it, though. The house 102 years old and holding up better than most from the 80s.
I briefly owned a house with a model A garage that wouldn’t accept a modern car, It was just as well as when they subdivided the lot for the apt building that was built next door they didn’t leave enough room to get a car to it. It was an investment house anyway and I never actually took title to it so I didn’t care. It came on the market way under market value at a time when prices were rising quickly in the area. I sealed the deal within 6 hours of it going on the market then was approached by another investor with significant holdings in that immediate area to pay me and my agent sufficiently for our troubles.
The house that I did end up buying had a nice wide and long garage but since it was built by a family that was really short I couldn’t wouldn’t walk through it w/o ducking for every joist. As he built it on 3 piers and the bottom plate was seriously sagging and rotting I ended up jacking it up and putting a concrete block foundation under it so it has near 8′ clearance now.
Most, if not all of the houses on my block have long narrow driveways (neighborhood built in 1926) and I don’t think anyone had a garage originally. Most of them have Garages that were built in the 50s (you can tell by the Mid Century Modern Doors) but It seems near impossible that anyone got anything larger than a 1955 Chevrolet/Ford/Plymouth down the narrow driveway into the large garages. There’s no way anything of serious brougham epoch could shimmy down the driveways.
There is the other scenario, some houses, especially those built in the mid to late 60’s reaching into the early 70’s have huge garages, my friend tell the tale of his parents built in 68 ranch house having a garage big enough for a full size wagon and an 18ft boat with the outboards side by side, and there washer and dryer was still in the garage and it still had space for a work area and a beer fridge…..amazing.
Exactly what I have at my house, built in 1970. There is about 3 feet behind my 09 Accord right now and a c couple more in front. I think I could easily fit the largest barges of the 70s in there, side by side, with no problem at all.
Lived in New England all my life except college, never had a postwar house. Ergo, never had a postwar garage. But someday soon! A girl can dream…
My parent’s house was built in 1908. Our house was on a lot and a half, rectangular in shape. The house and garage were separate, as was the custom of the time.
We believed the garage to have been built in the mid teens early 20’s, as it has a poured concrete floor and newer (machine cut, not rough hewn) timbers than the house. The house had a field stone foundation, with a dirt floor originally. It also had the knob and tube wiring that the house had originally, but I’m not sure when electrification came to that area. Hell, that house still has the pipes for (natural) gas lighting throughout.
In fact, we didn’t change the wiring in the garage to Romex until the late 70’s! The garage itself was a tad unusual, as it had two sets of the old style swinging doors. The original owners must have been fairly wealthy, I’m guessing.
By the time my folks bought the house in the mid 50’s, you could only park one car in it. I think my dad put on an overhead (roll up) door, I’m not certain. The garage was deep enough to hold my father’s 1953 Cadillac and the 1957 Ford Fairlane that followed it. The 1964 Mercury Monterey that followed was a much tighter fit, but doable. After that, the cars got smaller again, so no worries.
Whoever came up with the specs for the garage was truly forward thinking!
I lived most of my life in my mother’s family home, built in 1924. When we moved in after my grandfather died in 1969, the garage was a dilapidated chicken coop converted to garage. It was big enough for my 66 Deville convertible, however, in the mid 1980’s, we tore it down due to being extremely ramshackle. The guy that tore it down collapsed it by pushing on an outer side. It was that bad. My mother vetoed the idea of building another garage. She said it would raise property taxes.
Next door, there was a short brick garage that my grandfather built. (My granddad’s family built 3 or 4 houses on our block). That short garage had a loft, and a pit for working on a car. I always wished that garage had been ours, even though inside length was about 15 feet. I’d have bought something to fit. The neighbor who bought the house after my granddad’s brother died bought a Volkswagen squareback to fit.
My widowed aunt owned a 1950’s ranch with an attached one car garage that I always used. Although tight, any car would fit in it, but getting it in and out could be tricky. I never had any problem, but the the potential for major damage was very high.
My current home was built in 1928, and the garage probably dates from the 1950’s. Just a one car, but room for a workbench, etc. I think they called them one and a half car garages at the time. I sure wish it was a two car. One car inside, one car outside, two antique cars in storage units, and the wife’s car in front of the house.
The wife says 5 cars for 2 people is crazy. I agree.
My house was built in 1958 and has an attached 2 car garage. Although I have often had two fairly large cars in it (like a 94 Club Wagon and a 68 Newport) it was only doable by shinnying the Ford van’s driver’s door up against the wall and using the side passenger doors as central ingress/egress, like an airplane. And there was not much room to spare front to back with that big Chrysler.
Frankly, I cannot imagine, say, two 1958 Oldsmobiles side by side in that garage. But, I guess that back then, there would have been one big sedan and a second car, like a Rambler, Lark or VW.
My prior house was built in 1927 and sat on a 40 foot wide lot. Behind the house was a sideways-facing 2 car garage that probably dated to around WWII. There was a doghouse built out of the back for one longer car, and for a time I parked a 64 Imperial there and a 61 T-Bird there. The challenge, however, was getting big cars like those backed up a narrow Model A-sized driveway and turned 90 degrees into that garage on that skinny lot with a fence on the border. There was a lot of maneuvering to be done there. That garage was one of the reasons I am so happy with my straight-in garage in my current house.
too much.
My first car was a 66′ Cutlass coupe – gawd I loved that car. Too bad my love for crazy deep-snow driving was even greater..
Anyway, I bought that car for $500 back in 1985. Literally a little old lady Sunday special – 64,000 on the odometer. The day I first saw it it was sitting ass-end out of the garage that had sheltered it for 19 years. A garage 3 feet too short. 85% of the car was cherry – the last foot or so? Not so much…
thanks for the memories Paul….
My first car was a 1966 Cutlass too! A base 4 door that my High School auto-shop teacher bought new in 1966… (330 V8 with a 4 bbl Rochester Carb and a two-speed ‘Jetaway’ automatic transmission with a variable-pitch stator!). I paid $300 for it in 1974…
I added the passenger side mirror and pinstriping myself… I worked for one of the best pinstripers in NY (http://www.localbrush.com/profile.html) after I put the tape stripe on the car… took a lot of ribbing for it too!
My poor Cutlass had a nice place to park though…
mmm, sweet. Well familiar with Gary – I grew up in Syosset. The Cutlass was from Bellmore (I think….). The 330 rocked for a 17 year old… pleasant enough until the secondaries kicked in – then BOOM!!!!!! – you had whole new car. YEEEEEEhaw!!!!
I replaced mine with a 1974 Opel Manta Luxus! It actually handled and stopped! lol
Been to the old Syosset Theater many times (when it was new!) and lived in Greenlawn/Centerport for a while before I move to the west coast.
It would have to be a tight fit for width too surely? The other aspect is you can’t store anything in the garage with the door open – not that there would be room for it anyway!
My paternal grandparents’ house was built in 1909, with a period-correct size garage.
My gramps’ ’72 Caprice Classic was nearly as wide as the garage itself…
Being a license plate collector, I heard the stories from several different people over the years: “Well, we had plates going back to 1907/1916/1928 in the old garage, but it got torn down because it wasn’t big enough for the car.” In the early 1990’s I found a garage in Seattle that had old license plates on all three walls, the ceiling, and the inside of the door. The people had been parking a too-long 1963 Coronet wagon in there for a couple of decades with the garage door never closed so that all the license plates had dew rust on them. The fact that a 1963 Coronet wagon was too long tells you it wasn’t a huge garage.
I suspect it was built in the early 1920’s from the styling of its house. One thing always puzzled me about that place – the sidewalk from the street to the back door of the house ran under the roof in such a way that water dripped off the roof onto the middle of the sidewalk – anyone using it in the rain would be well and truly dripped on. I have no idea what they were thinking of, in Seattle.
My grandfather added 3′ to his garage so it could house his 1956 Pontiac. That was back in 1956.