N. Henderson Street, Galesburg IL, 2/21/86
(first posted 5/2/2012) Here we go again, to Illinois in the mid-1980s (For those of you just joining us, previous Street Scenes posts can be found here: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV). While Japanese and European autos were making substantial inroads on the West coast since the late Sixties, here in the heartland, folks still were partial to the Big Three’s wares. Sure, folks were buying imports here – my parents drove Volvos almost exclusively through the Eighties – but big, comfy American iron was still plenty popular. Is that an X-Body Omega Brougham on the left? I think it is.
West First Street, Dixon IL, 1/29/86
One problem though. Thanks to our bipolar climate, copious amounts of salt is dumped everywhere between late November and early March. As you can see in this photo, the lower valance and rear quarter panels on the Chrysler have disappeared, and the Monaco Brougham is already far along in returning to the elements, despite being less than ten years old. The owner might only have a couple more years to enjoy his canopy vinyl roof, wire wheel covers and velour interior before the floorpan totally dissolves.
238 North 5th Street, Quincy IL, 3/12/86
As I said, imports were not totally absent, just fewer in number compared to California. That Maxima looks awfully practical next to the giant basket-handle T-Bird and tiny Chevette and Omni/Horizon.
I will leave those of you with Brougham overload with this simple, no-nonsense K Car and Illinois-ubiquitous Old Style sign. That’s all for now!
East Illinois Street, New Berlin IL, 4/1/86
Love the K-car with cheap steel wheels and whitewalls… too poor for wire wheel covers but hey, I’ve got wide-ish whites!
It would be really cool if someone in the area could shoot these same scenes (assuming they still exist) today. Would be interesting to compare/contrast today’s cars to those in these photos.
@Stephen Walton
That’s not a bad idea. I might be moving up that way soon maybe we could set up a CC scavenger hunt to do some then and now shots.
Seriously, if you bought a new car in the 70s and it wasn’t at least slightly broughamified, everybody pitied you for having to buy the stripper model.
This is exactly what sold my mom on a 1980 Horizon. Even though it was small, it was “plush” inside.
+1….My family owned a 1979 Chrysler LeBaron 4-door. It had the “Salon” trim, which was supposed to be the mid-level between the base and Medallion models, but the seats were still covered in vinyl. In contrast, my uncle’s Dodge Omni, with its mouse fur velour, felt way plusher.
i inherited a 79 diplomat coupe from my grandma. 225, no AC, AM radio, pale green in and out. this was in 85ish.
my parents inherited her 84 lebaron, which was similarly equipped but a much nicer car. it had the 1/4 vinyl roof in brown and was a nice shade of gold/beige
i painted the mat gunmetal grey, added a popup sunroof, put dogdishes on it and pretended i was illinois highway patrol.
That is exactly how I remember all of the late B body Monacos/Small Furys looking. Usually in trailer parks or outside of bars.
Love the first shot, “round up the usual suspects”
Correction-Midwesterners LOVED their broughams!
I drank a lot of Old Style in Iowa City. It was awful but cheap.
It was always a bit of culture shock to go from the land of ‘Merican Iron back home to Seattle and see wall to wall Japanese cars all with no rust.
U of I/Iowa City alums unite!
Japanese cars with no rust? Only in dry weather! Here they rusted worse than average.
Is that Al Bundy’s gold Duster parked behind the K-car in the last picture?
I was thinking Dart. Yes? No?
it’s a Dart. Can’t tell if it’s a swinger or dart sport from this shot.
Is that bacon frying? No, I think it’s that Chrysler.
Wow, that Dodge Monaco was maybe about 10 years old at the time…….rust never sleeps.
I’d take that 74 Monte in the first pic but by the looks of it Ma Nature was already busy taking back what was hers by 86.
That is some bleak scenery. I can’t decide if the ” bleakness” explains all the taverns or if the taverns just make a depressing landscape more depressing.
If I every forget why I moved from the Midwest to the South these pictures are a great reminder. Great climate and no tinworm!
Illinois outside of downtown Chicago (which was built on an onion swap) is rather boring and ugly being that it’s all flat and doesn’t even have the trees of a state like Michigan.
A trucker told me he’s been through all 48 states and Hell-Annoy is the ugliest. I agree.
I can hardly believe my eyes! I thought only Japanese cars could be rustbuckets, at least from what I read on the comments around here.
Those Foreign jobs were spanking new in those pics.:D
The Japanese cars had already disintegrated by 1986………
Depends on what make. I see a lot of 90s-00s Hondas and Mazdas that are rusty. Nissans are pretty bad too, but there are not too many old Nissans on the road. Toyotas for the most part seem pretty good.
My father is a train engineer (Train Driver in UK parlance) who is based in Kansas City, and it seems that every engineer had a work car that looked like that Monaco- gilded chintz and rust. At the time, they seemed very ‘old’ and you expected ‘old’ cars to rust. My dad used to say that you bought an ‘ugly beater because it ran better than the pretty ones.’ Style changed so much between 1975 and 1986 that it didn’t really click that these cars were only 10 years old and already nearly dead. When this picture was taken, the Taurus was starting to come on the scene, and it is hard to express just how much the jellybeans, W-bodies, Berettas, aero-Accords and other ‘futuristic cars’ changed the landscape. With the blink of an eye, broughams seemed to disappear and things just looked so much more modern. The dearth of trucks is also interesting, as in every rust belt town five years later when the luxo-extendedcab truck boom really took off, the proportion of vehicles would be tipped towards those built on a ladder frame.
As a car spotting tip, it is always worth looking in the small railway towns where train crews change over. My father drives a train down to Wellington Ks and then stays overnight and catches a train back. Engineers will often take their ‘work car’ down to the other town to use to go out and about while there, and the car parks near the railyard are full of cars that you just can’t believe are still going. My dad’s ‘railroad car’ is a 1991 Honda Civic that suffered a 25mph shunt to the back and has trailer lights where the rear lamps would be and a lack of any body structure behind the rear doors. Other people drive LTD’s and ’70s intermediates and full sizes that are actual Flintstone mobiles that their wives refused to allow to be parked in front of the house. Many of these cars are ‘flying nuns’ where the rear of the front fenders will lift up at speed and have no metal between the rear wheelarch and the bumper.
Train drivers make a good income, usually around $100K a year (in midewest dollars- that would probably be $150K on the coasts). This means they often live in very nice neighbourhoods, where their ‘work cars’ are a cause of condescending memos from the neighborhood association and other lace curtain twitching neighbors.
Although it was very embarrassing to have my dad drive a hooptie in an upper middle class area, there was a very good reason for this. Parking near trains meant that railroad dust would always land on the cars. This would burn through the paint. Whenever his Toyota was out of service, he would take my mom’s ’87 Taurus. This he had to park a mile away to keep from getting ruined by the train dust.
I for one remember the sense of acute embarrassment when my dad would take me to ‘John Hughes Jr High’ in his rotten late ’70s Toyota, when all of the other parents were driving Volvos, BMW’s, or at the very least those new fangled Chrysler minivans.
I’d enjoy a whole CC made up of these stories, Brian. 🙂
I know what you mean. There used to be that thing common among the midwestern working class known as the “work car”. This was the cheap, rusty but reliable beater that was driven to and from gravel parking lots and sat outside all the time. It was supplemental to the “good car” that mom drove and which lived in the garage and was used for family outings.
My law school roommate’s dad worked in the steel mills in northwest Indiana. He drove a periwinkle blue Gremlin to work every day. In the garage was a 71 Ambassador that, even by 1984 or so, was absolutely immaculate (as was everything he owned). As work cars went, even his Gremlin was nicer than most.
Here in the NJ, we have what we refer to as “station cars”, which are beaters that people only park at a train or bus station.
Makes sense now. I’ve seen photos, I believe on Flickr some time ago, of a rail yard parking lot in Montana or Wyoming. It looked like the lot time forgot–chock full of 20 and 30 year old cars, in varying states of (dis)repair but all still runners. Many of them weren’t even that rusty. I wondered if railroad men just gravitated toward older cars, but the finish damage from the soot and particulates makes perfect sense as the reason to maintain a beater!
never thought about “train dust” which would be very hot and caustic
Or, in an earlier era, “station wagons.”
Or, if I may be pedantic, “station wagons” originated as a way for hotels to meet their guests and transport them and their belongings from the train station to the resort.
…as some folks in the Puget Sound area have “island cars”.
There was once a successful tech-company founder where I worked (sadly he’s no longer with us) who was a lifetime Ferrari enthusiast. On nice days he’d come to work in his new Testarossa, which I very much enjoyed seeing around.
On rainy days he drove his “work car”, a Porsche 928. All things are relative.
My work car at the time was a clapped out ’74 Nova. “Work car” because it was the beater I drove to work. Or sometimes, since the “good car” was a Peugeot 504, because the Nova was the car that worked.
my work car is a 2009 yamaha tmax with 35000 miles on it. it gets in the carpool lane, so its worth it, and damn fun. i should do a “scooters of a lifetime”… LOL
I wonder how many of those Old Style signs they made. Off the top of my head I can think of 3 still up within a 5 minute walk from my place.
Those and vintage 7up signs–seems there are still a ton of those around too.
Oh yeah! 7-up must have been a lot more popular then- those things were everywhere.
i remember the ones that had a spot at the bottom for the businesses name
Wow, I didn’t post on this originally, but a thought came to mind as I’m sure for everyone else who was aware of things 30 years ago: This scene could be almost anywhere, such as in the near outer suburbs built around the beltway like Florissant, MO where we lived, and could have very easily been a sight in many places along Lindbergh Blvd.
I agree with JP’s comment about the Chrysler B bodies. 90% of them really did look like that by that time!
Make that K-Car tan, and it could have been ours. Dan – I liked those silver steelies with the puppy dish caps!
that could have even been so cal in the mid 80s. a lot of people went back to ford, mopar, and gm but didnt stay past the late 80s
after my moms miracle $1000 77 accord, i told her to get a eagle summit, then a scion xa. she really likes japanese cars now.
Age tends to fade not only memories, but color photos…particularly prints. Here are some “restorations.”
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We still do…
First pic was taken the day of my birth, 2-21-1986!