Seeing this shot that John Lloyd posted at the Cohort of himself and his siblings in front of the family 1955 Pontiac station wagon inspires me to ask if you all have some old photos of yourself with the family chariot? I know some have been shared here before, but this might be a good place to collect them in one place.
The only one I have in my possession is this one I’ve shared before with the ’65 Coronet wagon in Towson. It’s Easter 1967, and my grandmother (with hat) was on her first visit to us from Austria. She had never traveled more than about 50 miles or so from her birthplace near Innsbruck. I’m there at the rear side door, and my two younger brothers are on the tailgate. Sadly, the older of the two passed away just two months ago. My older brother is not in the picture and my sister moved out when she turned eighteen.
The mailman’s three-wheeler is parked down a bit on Colonial Court. The neighbor’s ’64 Fairlane 500 wagon is visible. The VW and the other cars parked on the street belonged to students from nearby Towson Stae College (now Towson University) before they restricted parking. The neighbors on the other side had a ’66 Chevy wagon.
My father shot many hundreds of slides for a number of years, but I’m afraid the whole large collection of them may have been tossed in some recent family turmoil. FWIW, he was too cheap to by Kodachrome, so the Ektachrome he used meant that that the slides were all pretty badly washed out the last time I saw them a couple of decades ago. Which suggests this shot was actually taken by my older brother, who had a film camera.
And there’s this one, a shot of the dearly beloved ’62 Fairlane at the Dairy Sweet, circa 1963 or so. That dumpy Rambler American is one of the few cars that made the Fairlane look half-way good. Everything is relative.
In front of my Dad’s 1955 Dodge Crusader
A little better photo of my Dad and me in front of the Dodge.
My Dad’s 1966 Valiant and my Mom
A bunch of cousins in front of the 1955 Dodge. Note it’s a different colour now.
Me and the 1966 Valiant. I’ll tell the (short) story of this car, and the others, when I find time to do a COAL series.
The only photo that exists of my Dad and his 1950 Plymouth.
Very lovely pictures. Thank you for sharing them.
Not a picture with the family chariot, but rather a picture showing my obsession with all things automotive since a very young age.
We lived on a main road that the State had seemingly forgotten about paving for decades. So thousands of cars would drive by every day, over the potholes and bumps. I’d respond quickly to the sound of a rolling hubcap, and add it to my collection. Then occasionally, I’d drag my whole collection up to the street and stand there all day trying to sell one. Hard to imagine these days – letting your little kid stand next to a state highway and sell things to strangers all day. The dog didn’t usually accompany me; this was a staged shot that my dad took. The Granada hubcap here was one of my favorites.
I did sell them occasionally, but never (if I recall) did I sell one that actually matched the car. Most of my “customers” were women who thought I was cute, and didn’t care if their hubcaps matched. But a sale is a sale. This was, however, my one and only shot and entrepreneurship.
Here is a shot of me being walked back to my ’57 Pontiac Pathfinder Deluxe by my chauffeur.
My other P/A alongside the Pontiac
I have shared a couple here before as well. There are some others, but I do not have present access to them.
This is our 1964 Olds Cutlass during a summer of 1965 trip to California. Mom drove, my Grandma rode shotgun and my sister and I were in back. We were going to meet Dad who was there already on business.
This shot was at the motel in maybe Wisconsin or Minnesota (we took the long way to visit some more relatives) where we had to stop when my sister got sick for couple of days.
And this would have been taken in probably mid-summer of 1964. My sister and I had gotten our baths and were in our PJs when someone decided it would be a great idea to take our picture in front of Dad’s 63 Bel Air wagon company car.
Most of mine have been posted before.
64 Galaxie 500XL
The Galaxie when still in the dealer’s lot on a Michigan early spring day.
Having a big day on the town, with dad’s 51 Champion.
About to tear up the roads, with my aunt’s 50 Plymouth
Recreating the 50 Plymouth shot at a show last year. The car seems to have shrunk.
Mom, with her dad’s Chevy.
Me with my Dad’s ’51 Dodge and big sister’s ’61 Rambler American in the background.
3 year old me sitting on the bumper of Mom’s ’62 220s
This picture of my Dad’s 57 Belair and a 7-year old me was taken in the summer of 1960, probably on the road behind our cottage.
You can find the same car and kid photographed a few months earlier, in a post from 2013:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-kids-louis-d-big-sisters-and-1957-bel-air/
Here’s another picture from earlier that year taken in the neighbour’s driveway, for some reason. I suspect the neighbours were away for the weekend, and they asked my Dad to park one of our cars in their driveway so their house would look occupied.
So what was parked in our own driveway? You can find the answer this 2013 post, in another picture taken the same day, featuring the same rather sad-looking kid:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/cc-kids-louis-d-embarrassed-to-be-seen-with-renault-dauphine/
Here is a photo of my sister and I with my mom’s 1970 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser. First day of first grade for me in 1974.
All the photos you’ve shared are awesome, but this one is my favorite. What a great shot and it totally captures 1970’s Americana.
Thank you. There are couple more of the two of us that my mom or dad took of us in a similar spot with the Vista Cruiser’s successor, a 1974 Hornet Sportabout (energy crisis you know) and the Hornet’s successor, a 1976 AMC Matador wagon. I just don’t have them here.
Here is a photo of my mom with her new 1964 Pontiac Tempest that she sent to my dad before they were engaged. He was in the U.S. Army in 1964 and 1965. That was the car they drove on their honeymoon, brought both me and my sister home from the hospital when we were born and the car they drove when my dad’s company transfered us to Birmingham, Alabama in 1970.
Finally photos of my mom and her family on Easter Sunday, 1964 as they were leaving for church.
And here is the photo mom took of her family before church.
My grandfather’s new Bel Air – one of my favorite years for Chevy.
I’ve probably mentioned this before, my dad had the same ’58 Bel Air 4-door sedan, light green with a matching green interior. First company car he had with auto trans, power steering, and radio, and first 4-door in our family. It was a favorite of mine, too, it seemed so much more “modern” than the Tri-fives that preceded it.
This car was a four-door sedan in navy blue and light blue. I’m almost certain this one was a factory-ordered car because my grandfather only would have a six cylinder with stick shift and radio and heater as options, though here he did specify the two-tone paint, and full wheel covers (no whitewalls) because he liked them so much. I learned to drive stick on this car. I sat on his lap – he was a big man and could accommodate me though I was growing like a weed (hence the cap that barely fits) and shifted while he clutched. He died in 1962 and I miss him to this day.
I loved the Bel Air right up to the point where I first eyeballed a new Impala coupe on display at same Chevy dealer’s exhibit at the county fair late in the model year – IIRC it was in copper brown metallic with a white roof. I was over the moon with the triple taillights, round cut-outs in the steering wheel bar, the fake vents on that gorgeous roof design, and fabulous upholstery design. IMHO 1958 was the year when Chevy was more attractive than Cadillac. To this day I’ve never understood the fascination with the 1957 that seemed just a jumble of add-on styling elements to the previous two years.
I have never gotten the Tri-five love, either. To me, back then and even today, they were just inexpensive cars, yesterday’s news when the new models came out. A high school friend’s family still drove their ’55 Bel Air sedan in 1964, it seemed so antiquated by that time. I’m with you on the ’58 Impala, too, an elementary school friend’s family (pretty well off folks) had a ’57 Cadillac, and then a new ’58 Impala, which we all collectively drooled over, never mind the Cadillac! Nice memory of your grandfather, too, my dad did the same with me, would sit me in his lap and let me steer his ’54 Ford (his company car that preceded the ’58 Bel Air, I was probably 7 or 8 then) into the garage while he clutched and applied the gas. It has always been a great dad/son memory for me.
My namesake, Great Grandpa Jimmy in front of the first car he bought. He decided he wanted a car but he never learned to drive. My Grandpa Davey learned right away and drove the family with Jimmy in the passenger seat from Southern Illinois to visit family in Detroit. Davey was TWELVE.
My Dad, Jimmy’s grandson, and HIS first car. A MGTD that somehow ended up in Southern Illinois from Tusisia. Still had the Tunisian plates on it. Apparently he drove the snot out of this one. After about a year it started making ominous knocking deep in the bottom end so had a guy put another XPAG motor in it somewhere in the middle of Tennessee. He figured he was on the way to get his motor so he drove it as hard as possible all the way there and it still didn’t break.
After the TD he bought an MGA coupe. Dad and Mom mangled it into the back of an Illinois Dept of Transportation dump truck and walked away unscratched. He then bought this corvair. This is it and my mom somewhere a couple years before I was born. 1965 I think?
Next was a VW Bus. This is me and Dad in what must have been 1969 I think. I remember this car and I remember Dad pulling out the engine in this carport to replace valves or something. I also distinctly remember driving with him in 1970 to “Pop” Wilson’s Motors out west of St Louis. We rode out there in the VW and I remember sitting around a pot bellied stove in the garage while they talked. Finally we hopped into a dark blue Triumph TR4 and headed for home. I remember crying because we were leaving “OUR” car with this weird old man. I can’t for the life of me find a picture of the TR4.
And then MY first car. 61 Triumph TR3. It was literally a barn find. A colleague of Dad was a vocational school auto body teacher. They redid this car (after he rolled it on a gravel road) as a semester project. It died in around 1973 and he pushed it into the barn behind his house. Dad and I towed it home and had it running that afternoon. No spark. It was a bad condenser. Then it was a long year of teething problems on a car that had been sitting untouched for 10 years. Wouldn’t trade the experience for the world! I had to fix or replace just about everything that was bolted to the engine at one point or another. Rebuilt the front end entirely because it was so sloppy my alignment guy told me not only was it impossible for him to align but he couldn’t with good conscience tell me to drive it home. (I did). Eventually I got all the kinks out and used it as my daily driver for two years rain, snow, or shine.
I love it whenever my theory about a large percentage of Corvair buyers having been former import car owners is confirmed. Thanks.
My Father traded in a ’56 Porsche 356 for his first new Corvair, a 1963 Monza.
He said he cussed out the Porsche all the way to the Chevy dealership and then laughed all the way back home.
My Grandmother (‘Granny’) carrying me… the Biscayne was our car, the Pontiac was my cousin’s folk’s.
Another photo of my cousin and me, at our house this time.
Late 1960s with my three siblings and my cousin and her younger sister. I would own the ’66 Tempest for a while after college, and replaced the dead OHC6 with a Chev 350.
One final shot of my Mom and Dad before I was born. The Olds was not their car, I believe they borrowed it for a trip out West.
Minor detail, but that’s a Ford.
Whoopsie!
Me washing the 320i I wrote about as my first COAL. Pretty sure this had to be Summer of 1986 when I got my license. Probably the first time I washed it. And me sitting on the hood of my dad’s 1958 Mercedes 180, I think this was 1972ish.
Whoops, now me in 1986 with my first COAL:
I have exactly one, and I’m not in it, as I snapped the photo … but my mother, Nancy, is. Standing outside of church right after Sunday morning mass, with our old blue Catalina in the background (as I recall, a ’65). Miss you much, Mom.
Can’t see to find photos that include **me**, but lots of memories wrapped up in this—dad’s 1971 Mercury, which I got to borrow during senior year of high school. Car had the optional 4v-429 (pre-Malaise) and was crazy-fast, and I did some foolish driving in it. Premium gas, luckily, was cheap:
I realize I’ve only ever lurked/commented here, but I feel like sharing, so here goes:
Seeing as I’m a Jr., I’ll start with Sr.’s first purchased new car – a 1963 Chevy II Nova Convertible. At this time, Dad was shop foreman at Aero Chevrolet in Alexandria, VA, and got a pretty good deal on this ragtop. He yanked the I6 and Powerglide soon after purchase and stuffed a 409 and 4-speed into it. You can see his self-installed 409 badges on the front fenders. Unfortunately, he was drafted only a few months later and had to sell.
… and something more recent. Me chillin inside of my 1968 Plymouth Fury III circa 2013. I miss this car dearly.
(Also: didn’t realize I didn’t have the appropriate software before posting my reply. Sorry for the upside down thumbnail :/)
That’s ok; you’re just a click away from being right side up. 🙂
Speaking of clicks…..if you “Left Click” on any picture you will be rewarded with a larger picture to view.
I posted this in other article…
If you are using iPad or iPhone to type in the comments and upload the photos, the thumbnails are often flipped upside down, but the photos are displayed in right orientation when clicked on for full image. It’s down to the WordPress software that requires EXIF metadata which iOS devices don’t transfer to when uploading the photos from iOS Photos app.
In the past, I (and others) have mentioned it a few times to Paul. There’s WordPress plug-in that automates the correction process.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/image-rotation-fixer/
I’m technically in this picture, I just hadn’t been born yet… My parents and their Bug in Stuttgart in 1970.
My dad and his siblings, and the ‘55 Chev he got from his dad when he got his license. It was a 6/3-speed, and he told me he blew it up drag racing it…
My dad’s parents, before he was born.
I don’t have any car-related pictures of my mom’s side of the family, since her mom never drove anything, and her dad owned exactly one car, bought about a year before he died (I was …2? 3?) It was some sort of 4-door, but since my gran died years ago, nobody who’s still around, remembers what it was…
It’s a ’37 Oldsmobile. Pretty snazzy with added headlight visors and foglamps.
From my misspent youth.. Me in my first set of wheels. Circa 1963
One more: Mum, Uncle Keith, Aunt Audrey, my cousin Lynn.
cousin Jeff, me, cousin Dianne, and sister Andrea. The Beetle was borrowed from family friends, and I remember being surprised about the well behind the back seat, and the lack of fuel gauge
A bit later in time. Lae, New Guinea circa 1970. The new Fiat 125S ( what else gave you 5 speeds, 4 discs,and twin cams and an honest 100 DIN HP from 100 cubic inches back then)
From left: Our house girl Esther, my sister Andrea, Mum, yours truly and my maternal Grandfather Albert.
We’re not a photo family, so this is the best I can do. Grandma and Grandpa with one of their younger kids around 1933. Dad would have been 10 at the time, so this isn’t him. The car probably isn’t their car; according to Dad’s stories they were still driving old Ts at that time. Grandpa preferred Roadmasters when he got a little more prosperous.
Is this a ’30 Graham? The louvers and stalky taillights seem fairly distinctive.
1932 Chevrolet, the hood doors are open to cool the engine. Nice picture.
Me and my parent’s 1972 Ami8:
Me again
Our 1st new car. A 1989 Mustang LX with the 5.0 & 5 speed. Ordered at thought the Army PX in Korea. Picked up at Capital Ford in Carson City. Somewhere along the PCH.
Our last car in Korea. A Dodge Aspen of some unremembered year. 318 automatic. Unusually reliable for an Aspen, but a total dog despite the V8.
Not the family chariot but it was my first one when my Dad realized that at 4 years & 8 months old, I was too little to push a reel mower. That was my first experience with anything motorized. As you can tell by the photo, I was certainly enjoying it. Keep in mind that there were NO safety devices on anything in 1957. Still have all my fingers & toes but quit wearing a cowboy hat decades age.
my 67 Fury III convertible, in 1973. My dad bought this car new, and then gave it to me upon high school graduation.
Color me jealous! Although I had this car’s competitor, I would have traded you if for no other reason than the color. 🙂 This one is from around 1978.
In 1973 I was 17. My conservative “hard shell” southern Baptist Father forbade me to buy a convertible, saying it would “get me into trouble”.
Those being the days when a boy obeyed his Father’s rules; I waited until this year to get my convertible.
My 8 year old sister, my Sears Spyder bicycle, Mom’s new ’66 Ford Country Sedan.
My 3 year old, ’73 Challenger Rallye 340 and me. This car made my best friend spend Big Bucks on engine upgrades for his new ’75 Trans Am when I routinely sucked his headlights out.
My 8 year old self discovering just how c-c-cold an Oklahoma snow fall could be, Dad’s beloved ’62 Plymouth. “Take the picture, Dad, I can’t feel my face!”
After spending 2 years driving a slant six 1960 Valiant; Dad said the acceleration of the 361 “Golden Commando” V8 engine in the above Plymouth sold him on the car before he even made it back to the dealership.
“Compared to that slow-ashed Valiant that Plymouth was a Redstone Rocket! I stomped it and it Shiote and git!”
My broken hearted Mother (the Valiant was “her” car) agreed after Dad let her drive the Plymouth.
(Ah yes, the retentiveness of a 7 year old car freak’s mind….)
My 23 year old self and my ’53 Studebaker Champion Regal hardtop, circa 1978.
Fabulous Stude! And just think of how much more comfortable your life could have been had you waited until this past year to sell your Challenger. 🙂
Yup!
“Cudda Shudda Wudda!”
🙁
Between my Father and I there were SO many family pictures posed in front of whatever car he and Mom (and later on me) owned, from the late 1950’s thru 2005!
Many were destroyed when the shoddily built & maintained U. S. Corps of Engineers faulty flood control levies failed and flooded much of New Orleans on August 30, 2005.
WHAT a waste!
My brother, me, and our family’s 1964 Plymouth Fury. Chestnut brown, push button transmission, no air. Dad installed Fingerhut textured plastic seat covers, which added to the sweat factor.
Picture didn’t post. Trying again…
Wow, this post has sent me on a treasure hunt through the family archives. This is me at age 1 1/2 perched in the driver’s seat of Dad’s new ’48 Ford. It was one of my mother’s favorite childhood pictures of me. My love of cars started early!
Scanned pic is not attaching. Have to try again.
Trying again, sorry about that.
Now, another photo of the same ’48 Ford, this one with my mom in the backyard of our new family home in West L.A., taken summer 1948. This is a kind of typical microcosm of immediate post-war family life in the U.S. My dad had just gotten his first job the year before after being mustered out of his position as a captain in the Army Air Corps. New baby (me), new car, and their first new home together. Our surrounding neighborhood was all new families with a child or two. Mom and Dad scrimped and saved, gradually got the home furnished and landscaped, had another baby a year later (my brother), got another new family car (a ’49 Dodge Coronet), mom was stay-at-home with the kids, dad went to work each day, staying with the same company and its successors until his retirement some 30 years later. Mom remained in the same little house until she passed away in 2003. Pretty stable and remarkable home life for us, the memories seemingly all captured in this long ago photo.
My wife in her 57 Buick 4 holer.
Took awhile going through tons of old photos which had very few cars in them. Had a large folder of photos collected by my grandmother and passed on to me recently by my mother. Even had documents like my grandmother’s 1925 US passport and a relatives 1890 Colorado Citizenship papers.
This shot is a couple of young great uncles and a friend. They are my grandmother’s brothers.
My mother’s marriage in February 1953.
Obviously early 60’s in the New York area below the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx along the East River. Grandparents on right great uncle on right.
Me, my brother and my sister. Easter 1963 Bogota New Jersey.
Catonsville, MD 1965. My father and his father. I remember this car being parked next to out house on this dead end street for two years then it was removed by a relative. I do not recall it ever being used by my father or mother. MY father drove a blue 1964 Galaxie which we drove cross country in 1966 when moving to Canoga Park, CA. Can’t believe I have no shots of that car nor my mothers Comet station wagon.
My high school friend driving down the street in his parent’s car, San Diego 1972.
My Cougar with Buick Electra in the background. San Diego 1971.
If you consider age 19 childhood, here I am under my ’73 Sport Bug in 1975 resealing the EMPI deep sump oil pan. My roommate owned the ’63 Beetle, and my friend owned the ’74 Pinto.
VW, Pinto (with racing stripe) and VW. California in the ’70’s all right. Is that an A/C compressor I see in the engine compartment of your Bug?
Yes, it had AC and a built 1835cc engine. My friends dad had traded in his ’68 XR7 Cougar 390 engine in on a brand new ’74 Pinto as a birthday present for him. My roommate got the ’63 Beetle for free from a relative, we drove 200 miles and I brought my tools to get it running, don’t recall what the problem was but was minor. Here’s the Sport Bugs story.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.curbsideclassic.com/cars-of-a-lifetime/coal-1973-vw-sport-bug-i-got-the-bug-or-buggered/&ved=2ahUKEwiFsaTurMveAhVSHDQIHSqKDoUQFjAKegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw0mHL-sxbMVjNWQhiIFoMbN
Granddad in his ’65 Bonneville, the only time he lowered the top was for this picture. Taken around 1970. Brother and girlfriend in front of dads brand new 1972 Winnebago Brave. Me, my sister and her girlfriend round out the collection from around 1966.
I have lots of prints with me and family cars, but only this one has been scanned so far. Me, dad, sis and the ’55 Pontiac.
My Dad only ever owned a half-share in one car, a ‘sit-up-and-beg’ Ford Popular, with his brother, an arrangement that ceased a couple of years after he was married, so there’s only one photo I can find of me and that car.
Dad, sister, me & Fairlane in Israel, 67 or 68…
…and in current FoMoCo. Sister is visiting soon, I’ll need to replicate the old pic. Dad has sadly left us in 2013.
Me, age 3, and my grandfather. The car had been owned jointly by Dad and and his sister; it was their ride through high school and college. Dad said it had the ‘Power Pack’ option, a V8 with 4 barrel and dual exhaust. When they split the home, they left the car with Grandpa. Grandpa didn’t drive much, as they operated a busy cafe that was open 60 hours a week, with their home dwelling attached behind it, and they even had a 2nd car, a 1959 Electra. They sold the car in 1969 with about 35,000 miles on it. I bet that one of today’s show cars is this same car.
1970, 3 year old me playing croqet with my two aunts, sister and Yiffee the keeshond.
My uncle’s 1946 Ford project car in the background, which I spent many hours sitting in. My grandfather looms in the far right, I think he took a dim view of project cars.
The 71 LeMans we had for most of my childhood, this being on a ski trip at My Washington BC, around ’88 with sister, Mom and a colleague of my fathers.
Me and my siblings, minus my youngest brother, who was a new born and not ready for a picture, in front of our 1970 Ford LTD Country Squire.
My sister, Dad & me in front of his 1968 Galaxie 500 taken in 1971
c1965 – my wife Joyce, her younger bro Steve and their Mum Mum with her Dad’s Hillman Minx, in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire