(first posted 1/28/2017) CC reader Michael M. sent me a link to a gallery of photos shot on Van Nuys Blvd. in 1972, by photographer Rick McCloskey, and part of his book, Los Angeles in the 1970s. It’s a nice slice of youth and automotive culture of the times.
Golden time.my Dad was in California in early seventies,going to UCLA.He had the time of his life.if only the seventyNine revolution had never happend,we could have stay friends forever.Hopefully someday we will be close friends again.
Awesome pictures! This was before I was born. I was born in 1973, a year later. But I love the cars that were driven at the time. 🙂
Get a load of those gas prices! Those were the days.
My father had a 56 DeSoto back when gas was 25¢ a gallon. He had to sell it because he couldn’t afford to feed it.
That’s about $2.00 in today’s money. And cars today get at least twice the mileage or more. People have the wrong idea about gas back then; feeding the typical V8 car back then was NOT cheap.
Why do you think I drove a VW?
Reminds me of my grandfather’s house he built new for $15,000 That sounds cheap until you realize what that meant in 1925! (around $200,000 today). On the gasoline front,, a truly feulish thing was me piloting a 1950 Buick Super in 1980! ? Makes an H2 seem like a Chevette!
True that. I drove a ’64 GTO and switched to a ’68 Falcon a year later.
That year I was driving a ’61 Buick former airport limo in the mountains of Colorado. Never filled it up. Couldn’t afford to as a non union framer 🙂 I.m pretty clear eyed about the past. I had a ball….and you couldn’t beat the iron. Its a whole different world today.
Uh, oh ~
Will the ‘fuel prices back in the day’ thread become as virulent as the dreaded ‘Oil Thread “? .
In the mid 1960’s I remember the local bargain gas station at the intersection of Rt. 109 and the main road to town was .27 cents / gallon .
They guy owned his own tanker truck and drove it to Boston to buy ‘barge bottom special’ gasoline, it often had debris in it and back then most vehicles only had a screen or porous bronze typ intake filter that would allow lots of crud to get into your carby .
Then I moved to California in 1970 and the Powerine filling station was .32 / gallon, even then filling the tank was a challenge .
Blue Collar Americans, College Students etc. rarely had over 1/2 tank .
We didn’t mind driving ‘hair shirt’ vehicles either, I imagine most assumed they’d buy a fancier car after college .
-Nate
Gas was expensive out in California. In 1972-73, I was running a Sunoco station on the South Side of Richmond, Virginia. I sold Sunoco 190 for 24 cents a gallon, and 260 for about 35.
Even the gas pumps were more fun to look at in the 70s — love that classic Mobil pump! Young people have always been social and wanted to go out. Cars back then were part of the party. You could pick a used car to fit your personality. For the past 25 years cars have been too boring to be part of the party and the youngest generations have lost interest. Jeep is a notable exception.
I wouldn’t say that, modern (post-80’s) cars are plenty interesting to my generation.
Every generation gets hit with this. I read a letter to the editor in a mechanics magazine. The writer stated that modern cars were all the same and not as good or as interesting as the older cars. The letter was from…… 1953! And the writer actually pointed out the (now classic) ’53 Studebaker as an example of the “ugly” new Generation! ? Same as it ever was!
Don’t underestimate what the kids are doing today. Their 80’s and 90’s Hondas are just as interesting to them as those 60′ Chevys were to us.
And technologically, they’re miles ahead of anything we were doing in our twenties.
Puh-lease. Most don’t get past fart cans, hot air intakes, wings, spray bombing the interior, bolting on some cheesy eBay HID LED light housings, and maybe some Chinese Enkie wheel knockoffs before moving onto a newer faster car after realizing they ruined their last one. Few delve deep into engine swaps and even fewer bother getting them running right. This isn’t just a good ol days rant either, quality car customization is, and always has been, few and far between. And there are definitely trade offs in skills or lack there of between generations.
Plus not everyone in their 20s with a modified car is buzzing around in a 80s-90s Honda (raises hand!)
Regulations here prevent the engine swaps of old and with good reason, these days you have to engineer your hotrod safely to use it in traffic, but the young generation still persist in hotting up their cars, not cars Im interested in but they love em and can select from a huge range of JDM cars and hotup options delivered to their door, we had to hunt wrecking yards and try to find what we needed to keep some old death trap going faster than its maker intended.
Its the engine swap of my era the new regs are designed to circumvent, yes you can still stuff the biggest V8 you can find into the smallest car it will fit no problem,, but if you want to drive it on the road you need it certified as safe.
Oh “mother may I?” /p Please, protect me from myself.
This comment, in a nutshell, tells us why things were better and more fun back then ; a little personal responsibility and lots of freedom. Add in some creativity and less damned governmental intervention and voila! good times.
Go wrap yourself in bubble wrap wuss.
It’s not quite that simple Luke .
I wonder if you were there then .
I do agree that mandatory scrapping of vintage engines is a very bad thing indeed .
-Nate
Seriously. When did industrial design take suck a nosedive? Modern gas pumps are literally hard edged boxes crudely fitted with hoses and plastic buttons.
Most products today are soulless. Don’t get me wrong, The technology is great, but there’s no emotion. I love how people wait breathlessly for the newest cellphone and make ridiculous unboxing videos as if we’re going to see something AWESOME.., No it’s a black rectangle. My TV is a black rectangle, my fridge is a black rectangle, My PC is a black rectangle. Industrial design (styling, anyways..) is almost dead. The Pontiac Aztec and the original iMac may have been ugly, But at least they’re recognizable.
Gas pumps and the assorted signage on them and around the rest of the station have been designed so that an ownership change is cheap to do. No more replacing the old pump and oddly shaped giant gas station sign because of the last company’s obvious shapes.
The boring blockiness is a feature, not a bug.
Well that’s confidence inspiring….
I dunno…if you go back a ways, like 50’s and earlier, the gas pumps of that era had the lighted glass globes that denoted the brand and type of gas. Those were completely interchangeable, but the pumps also had definite style.
The sign? Yeah, those were a bit more work to replace.
When the monkey filling your tank costs $21+ per hour to operate alternatives will be found
Yeah a Moderne classic! Loved those!
Lived in my post war early suburbs shack in Van Nuys from 98-2010. Love these vintage shots.
And loved Van Nuys. People on the other side of the hill always made fun of it and in the mid 70s I was hearing about how awful and gang infested it was. Years before I moved there.
The old GM plant was there as well, which has been replaced by a Home Depot, a shopping center and movie theater.
Friking awesome pics. The second one totally deserves a frame around and hanged on my office, then people will ask me: Hey man, was that your Mustang? And I will answer: ohhh I wish!!!!
I would kill for that Shovelhead. For those not into bikes, picture #6.
Yes; me too. Normally I’m not a fan of Dyna – style shocks on a chopper but this one works for some reason.
Of course, you realize that all those hot chicks are grandmothers now. Assuming they’re still alive, of course.
I like older chicks. I’m 50, wife is 61.
Yes, pushing or past typical retirement age, like me. We all get our turn in life.
As a 65 year old, I was thinking this myself.
Remembering the past……….
Look at this mans personal collection in Colorado, just outstanding.
Tremendous money spent to purchase and restore, can’t imagine todays value.$$$
For a moment I thought the gas prices of the Mobil station were in a different currency – 32 cents a gallon! I estimate the current ages of the women leaning against the white Mustang GT to be 65~67.
I’ll bet that gravity and time have not been kind to those honeybuns.
It would have been about the same in Australia too. Now we pay a lot more than America.
A few interesting things that stand out to me.
Los Angeles before it sucked.
People riding in the back of a pickup truck without getting arrested.
Guy sitting on a hood without it denting.
Cragars and white line tires look awesome together.
The elaborate paintjobs on some of these cars are impressive, whether they’re to your taste or not, those took a whole lot of talent and dedication to execute and they’re actually being driven on streets! Far cry from today’s plasti-dip craze.
Los Angeles sucked back then, too.
“People riding in the back of a pickup truck without getting arrested.”
Not only riding, open “beverage” container was legal (if your were 21+) since the driver could not reach it. We did that a lot back then.
Too bad Youth is wasted on the Young! No! We all had our time, I hope we made the most of it. Then and especially now. Great pics, They bring back memories.
Nice chopper, Jose!
Its funny how custom styles don’t change much. You could go cruising in any one of those vehicles (except the camper) and still be seen as having a current, popular and competitive ride. So many customs, low riders, hot rods and muscle car customs look the same.
Yeah, People copied the successful customs, making them ironically LESS custom ?. A major factor in making bone stock cars stand out at cruises/shows.
Irony indeed.
Ah, come on now, that camper is awesome! Made even better by that woman staring out the window….
That’s very true, the crossover between lowrider Impalas in particular are striking. The candy paints, the graphics in the side sculpting, low profile white line tires, low stance(hydraulics?) are hallmarks of the trends still very popular in the 90s, if rap videos from the era are any good indicator. Only differences are the owner demographics and Dayton wire wheels instead of Cragar mags.
In general the conformity really burnt me out of custom cars a long time ago. Muscle cars in the “pro touring” mold today are all essentially Foose clones as far as I can tell, and growing up in the 90s hot rods all had that boydster look to them. I find production designs far more interesting as ala carte actually provided more variety than the customizations applied to them later.
Those were the days my friend. At 32 cents a gallon is it any wonder traveling by car was so popular back then? Great pictures capturing an era I can relate to because 1972 is when I graduated high school.
32 cents a gallon, adjusted for inflation would equal out to $1.87 today, so it really wasn’t as cheap as it sounds. Often people would pull up to the pump and ask for (you didn’t pump it yourself back then) one or two dollars worth because that was all that they could afford.
At a $1.87 that works out to 46 cents an litre. Today I’m paying 94 cents a litre for regular. Back in 1972 we went with an Imperial gallon, larger than the US gallon. So in theory we got better value for our money. Not so today sadly.
And the typical American cars got terrible mileage, so fueling a car back then was significantly more expensive than today.
Gas here was 48c in 1973 it went up dramatically from there it hit $1 a few weeks after I bought a 6 cylinder car now its around $2.50 per litre 1/4 of a gallon and thats for el cheapo 91 octane 95 or 98 are more,
my Hillman hums along on 95 unfortunately, and a gallon 4.5 litres goes nowhere, that may improve with headers a 50mm exhaust and twin throat weber carby or it may get worse time will tell,
I’d forgotten about Hughes Markets; they were bought out by QFC, yet another Seattle biz enlarging its borders.
Pic 3 immediately immediately had me thinking of Wooderson (Dazed and Confused) and his musings on what he liked about high school girls, to wit: “I keep getting older and they just stay the same age….”
These really seemed to be the glory days for the San Fernando Valley but similar scenes played out in every area across the country. Great shots, though, every single one of them, thanks for posting them.
hehehe.
These shots are fantastic
In 1981 I went to California for a work convention and, since it was our first trip there, decided to take an extra week to take in the sights and visit my uncle in Bakersfield. I had read in some car magazines that people still cruised on Van Nuys on Wednesday nights so we stayed an extra day just to check it out before flying back to Indiana on Thursday. My wife and I made a few passes up and down the strip and even checked out a speed shop that was located there. There were plenty of interesting cars, trucks, and people out there that night. Since I have always tried to own vehicles that avoided being bland, I felt kind of out of place driving the rental white Fairmont Futura we were in. I recall telling my wife ” I sure wish we were in our car.” At least it gave me bragging rights with my car buddy friends.
So glad I read your post about these pics probably being taken on a cruise night. For a minute there I thought this was a typical evening in ’72 and that was really depressing! Cruise night or no the pics are incredible, like something out of a movie.
Nobody is perfect but the two girls in the white shorts are very, very close.
To quote the Beach Boys: I wish they all could be California girls…
+1!
+1 on that observation, FSO. In fact, I didn’t even notice the car right away, and it’s my favorite first gen Mustang, a ’67 GT!
Portland, Vancouver and even Eugene had scenes like this. Get bored with one, head to another one. I remember driving and riding to Eugene and back a few times or even to the coast to eat a pizza just for the he** of it doing something different. We lived out of cars in those days. I always had a change of clothes on mine. The first night a friend of mine bought his “67 Corvette 427 tri power he had to fill his gas tank 3 times. Ah, those were the days, it was REAL freedom.
Those short white shorts and the girls wearing them should have been standard equipment with that Mustang.
Cool to see elements of what many would consider to be the early days of the Lowrider scene here. And the people! Guy on the bike looks an awful lot like 1993 George Michael. Young Lady directly smiling into the camera in the dark tee could be Butterfly from Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof”:
That hottie in your picture cjiguy plays a supporting role in a current TV show, NCIS: New Orleans, just in case you were curious.
A quick Google of Rick’s work is quite the sight; beyond the dual speakers in the doors, talk about a personality here:
I love photography almost as much as I love cars, and this is just spectacular work, absolute mastery of nighttime photography. So much brilliance here – the long shutter speed to allow blending of flash and ambient distant light, the wide-angle shot of the Bug that brings out curves I never saw, using the Goodyear tire as a framing device, the mix of people posing for the camera and people interacting with each other ignoring the camera in the same pic. And of course the pretty girls with long ’70s hair that will always look great.
Was 18 in 1972 down in San Diego. Wish I had pictures of the same melded with those of the surfing scene and the young women on the beaches. Every summer from 1968-1981 was spent on the beach for kicking back, some body surfing, biking the boardwalk around 4 pm while visiting friends up and down Pacific and Mission Beaches for a couple of beers. There will never be a time like that ever again in either L.A. or San Diego.
Those pictures and gas prices remind me of what I got to drive in the early ’70s, after I got my license – Dad’s 67 Chevelle hardtop. Was I lucky to be one of the cool kids, driving a cool car? Hell no! Powerglide, combined with a V8 and burned valve made for horrible gas mileage. At only 32 cents a gallon, that car was eating me alive. At $5 a pop, I couldn’t mow enough lawns for even two days worth of gas.
So, a neighbor was selling his old beat-up, faded 12-year-old Ponton Mercedes. Manual everything, feeble heater, not even a radio – for $200. It looked like an old lady’s shoe!
But at least, with the four-cylinder and a stickshift, I could finally afford transportation.
The ‘good old days’ vs reality!
Happy Motoring, Mark
“Tonight in Jungleland”
That’s what I hear when I see these photos. Simply fantastic!
The days of $.23 tacos, bean burritos and bell burgers at Taco Bell!
19 cents at Pup-n-Taco, aka F***-n-Taco.
Also Artic Circle burgers 6 for $1.00 or Scotty’s on Sandy Blvd $.11 french fries, And beer at $.26 a quart or wine $.69 a bottle.
This all went to jacked up mini-trucks in the next couple of years. Then no-cruising laws came in with Ford and Carter. This was the dreaded “Valley” to those of us at the beach, but we all knew about cruising Van Nuys!
And to those in the valley, the beach was the place where mass quantities of illicit substances were consumed and much hilarity ensued.
You could be right, but I can’t remember! Nonetheless, I’m cruising up PCH tomorrow, all the way to Big Sur. I’ll let you know if any hilarity ensues.
Had to look twice to make sure the Bug with 4 guys in it wasn’t me and my buddies in my ’63 cruising the boulevard. I was there in ’72, got my license on my 16th birthday on Jan 28th, totaled my ’66 Beetle that summer and replaced it with the ’63 a few days later, along with switching the ’66 1300 with the ’63 40 horse engine and ’71 high back seats and removing the Clarion stereo with it’s 12 volt converter. Had to do it quick before the insurance company towed the ’66’s remains away.
These pictures brought back some fun memories. Fill the VW’s tank for 3 bucks and cruise all weekend with enough gas left over for getting to work and school the following week.
The old stainless steel fire extinguisher we filled with water and pumped up with free gas station air “helped” cool off a few people in our misspent travels. That thing could shoot 50 feet or more!
THANK YOU for posting these wonderful photos ! .
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I too was there in 1971, I had a battered old VW Beetle with the canvas sun roof, Either with my XYL or filled with three buddies .
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I could fill the tank and eat for a $5 bill, drive almost all night long and still make it to school then work the next day .
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Folks talked endlessly about the violent gangs but I never once saw even a fist fight, after the L.A.P.D. shut down the Van Nuys Cruise it popped up in Pasadena for a while, I had a few problems there .
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Good times doesn’t even begin to say how much fun it was then =8-) .
.
-Nate
Well, I grew up in Northern California, graduated high school in 1973, but it was nothing like this. And those gas prices … they didn’t seem cheap at the time. I remember a car-full of guys, scrounging nickels and dimes from our pockets to buy a 35 cent gallon to get us home. Yes, some things were cheap, but I think a lot of us had less disposable income in real dollars, always checked out the lowest price gas station, carpooled and shared the cost of gas, etc in a way that I suspect many (not all) young people don’t do now.
I’m not from the California area, but I’ve been in the LA area a few times in the ’60’s & ’70’s and I’d enjoyed every minute of it.California is a far cry from from here in New York City. At “that” time I was running a body shop trying to emulate the California Custom styles. These New Yorkers have no appreciation of automotive styling. All you see here are SUV’s,compacts,subcompacts,BMW’s and Mercedes in all shades of gray — HOW BORING. Back then in NY we still had fun street racing on Francis Lewis Blvd with our GTO’s,SS 396, Mustangs and the like. Yeh gas was 32-35 cents a gallon and we hung out on the streets watching the cars go by.
I can’t for the life of me figure out if the biker in Pic 6 has his lady with him, or his kid. Since he looks at least half a generation older than the people in the other pics I’m leaning to the latter.
I thought the same thing!
Cool pics, my Firebird was assembled at the Van Nuys plant in late 1991 and was then shipped to the old continent.
Must have been a great time to be in the car scene back then, but honestly with 3 car meets in my area every single week I can’t complain.
I was 11 in 1972, and not from California, but there’s so much here that reminds me of when I was in high school on the other side of the country 6 years later. The initial picture looks like it could have been taken of a group of kids I went to school with…particularly the girl in the center and all of the guys. Amazing. They in fact just look like the older siblings of many of my friends. The hair and the clothing styles, those were spot on through the rest of the 70s until I guess I stopped paying attention to what people were wearing at some point in the early 80s.
Oh, and the girl framed in the Goodyear tire? Man, I recall when everyone (female) was wearing jeans like that 🙂
Me and my friends, by the way, would have been the 4 dudes stuffed into the VW in the picture above the one with the girl and the tire.
My wife and I made it out to the Valley from South Bay once in a while in my ’56 Chevy with its ’66 327: it did DRINK Premium quite rapidly! That did limit our range due to a student budget to live on. Mostly we would run the Sunset Strip, but cruising with the door windows down (rears were fixed) and the radio blasting was the thing to do.
Plus being in L.A. there were numerous different places to cruise! 🙂 DFO
These pics could have been taken as late as 1978 or 1979. Next really noticeable change in trends in fashion, started around 1980/’81.
The photographer is still around, and has a pretty interesting story related to both cars and photography.
I’ve just spent the past hour scrolling through an album on his photography site:
https://rickmackvannuys.com/the-cast
Scroll down there to click on one of the gallery photos and you’ll get launched into an album of 180-some pictures, and a real 1972 rabbit hole. So many cars, so many happy CA night kids. I highly recommend it.
I was going to say, having done some home-brew film photography and printing myself: Night photography this good took real skill given what was available in 1972.
It seems so strange looking at these pictures and thinking of the recent passing of David Crosby. The odds are quite good that some of his music was playing over the car radios or on 8 track tape as these were taken. No doubt not everyone in the pictures are still here either. It would be interesting to see where everyone is at now.
There’s a very “American Graffiti” vibe to these photos — which is interesting because the film was set in 1962, but was produced closer to the time these photos were made.
All of these pictures would make excellent album covers.
Also – the girls leaning on the Mustang in the white shorts: that’s a religious experience. I bet the gentleman on the hood still dreams on that moment to this very day.
Well, Paul, you touched many a heart and soul with this subject. As for me, a boring conservative driver, i LOVE all of the comments. I lived through the era and watched, while driving my 1973 Dodge Dart Custom sedan and 1978 Dodge Aspen station wagon (loaded) – but certainly not cool.
My gawd, where was I then??? Oh yeah, living in the SF Valley less than 10 miles away. Too righteous for VN Blvd, besides, going to school, working and protesting the war, I didn’t have time for it! But looking at the pics I was sold at the girls in pic 1. Reminds me of the old line about “I blew most of my money on fast cars and fast women, the rest I just wasted”
Gas prices. Those pictured were high. Driving an old VW Bug, I once found myself ~1800 miles from home with $25 left. Hypermiling before it was a thing, I made it home with $10. Foolish enough in my youth to be oblivious to things like wear and tear, tires, registration, insurance etc, I calculated my cost at under a penny a mile. Well, it was under a penny a mile for gas. But still. But still. But still, those girls in pic 1…
Times had really changed in L.A. by the early 1970s from just a few years earlier in the mid 1960s. Have to admit I like the times better in the mid-60s than the 70s.
Be glad you don’t live here now ! .
-Nate