It’s an overcast winter day in Portland, Oregon, the corner of NE Union Ave. and Hancock St., 1959. I’d sure like to meet the proprietor of this humble little lot, wouldn’t you? More nice trucks, after the jump.
These are cropped from a huge picture out of the city archives that’s posted this week at Vintage Portland. What do you see here?
I see 1 1955 Chevy Suburban, a truck station wagon. Back before they got blinged out and every mom thought they had to have one.
Actually I think that is a Panel truck that someone has added windows to as they don’t match up to all the images I found on the web.
Let’s see, front row: ’53-ish GMC, ’54 or so Chevy, ’55 or ’56 Chevy, Ford wagon is a ’53 or ’54, can’t make out the details because it’s behind the sign, ’50 Chevy (car barely make out the hash marks on the turn signal support), ’53 Chevy, ’54 or ’55 Kaiser. Second row has a ’48-50 Packard and a ’49-50 Mercury. That Suburban is a ’55 or ’56. God knows what year the Beetle is. As if you could tell back then. It appear to have the first upsizing of the rear window, though.
To the right of the billboard is a ’49-52 Chevy four door sedan, no hope of narrowing it down further without seeing the front end. And yep, back then if you had a little independent lot you loaded it with Chevy’s. That’s where the resale was back then.
The Beetle showing its hind quarters at the right of the picture is an interesting detail. It appears to be the only moving car.
Appears to be a split-window (pre-mid-1953) “Deluxe” Beetle. If those are 16″ wheels (possible, they look like they fill up the wheelwells pretty good), then it’s pre-1952.
Are Zee Towels made by Zee Germans?
Tough lot to work, must be a big pick-up town.
“Herb, what they hell are we running here an orphanage? When are we getting rid of that Kaiser and fat bath tub Packard and getting some cars with fins on the lot? You know, the stuff with real curb appeal”
Zee was originally a trademark owned by Crown Zellerbach; it’s currently registered to Georgia Pacific.
Haven’t seen that brand in years, at least not in the South.
Beaters R us standard 5/5 warranty on all vehicles (5 meters or 5 minutes)
If I can stretch my memory that far, I believe the proprietor was Joe Hoag. An adventurous soul, he bought our un-sellable Toyopet and 2 stroke SAAB we had anchored around our lot about three years later. He eventually moved into more upscale digs over on Sandy near 24th. Any progeny still in Portland that can verify my memory?
“…two-fifty, three hundred. Thanks. Now get this piece of junk off my lot.”
I’d take the ’49 or ’50 Mercury for what, $200 back then?
Of course, it could be in not so great condition, being so old at the time.
Cool Kids in the ‘hood rode inside these
I’d love to get a Sedan Delivery from that era. Prototypical sin-bin, what?
Unfortunately, those things were ridden hard, put away wet, and put out of their misery early. I’d have better luck finding an affordable Nomad.
Nice selection today, though they might have been any great shakes at the time the photo was taken. I’d love the 1954-55 Kaiser.
Can you give the location more accurately? NE Union seems to have become SE MLK Blvd. but Hancock St. still seems to exist.
However, when I do a Google StreetView at the corner of SE MLK Blvd. and Hancock Street the buildings don’t look anything like these. Many are equally old or older and just don’t fit.
NE Union became NE MLK Jr Blvd. The orange arrow shows where the car lot originally stood:
VW bugs are fairly common in many old pics of street traffic or car lots from late 50’s to 70’s. Seen them posted here and elsewhere. Even if from MidWest and Great Plains.
Here’s the same area today. Orange arrow indicates a curved-roof building that’s in both pics:
And another shot – this time the orange arrows show the distinctive building behind the car lot, as it was and as it is now. Looks like the road now curves through where the house to the left of the lot was, with a concrete building on part of the land to the right too: