1960 Ford Thunderbird; Stuart, Florida 1991
In some ways, I’ve never grown up. I still occasionally like to play Galaga, ride my bike, watch TV shows like The Dukes Of Hazzard, Leave It To Beaver or The Twilight Zone (common denominator: curbside classics), and eat a box of Mac & Cheese. One other thing I used to do as a kid was take pictures of old cars I saw parked. Boy, do I still do that!
My grandparents retired to Florida and I would go down in the summer by myself to spend a week or so there with them. I really enjoyed these times. We’d go to the beach, play shuffleboard (actually quite a fun game), go to amusement parks and other typical Florida pasttimes. Not such a typical Florida pasttime, I would take my grandfather’s old Raleigh bike and my camera and ride around the retirement complexes and other places nearby to look for old cars to shoot. A lot of the old folks tended to have old cars, so 10 or 20 plus year old rides were much more common than around our house.
1991
I was no photographic prodigy. Many of my photos are not really usable here and will remain unseen, so these are the “best” of the bunch. Some are almost as interesting for the cars I inadvertently caught in the frame as for the subject car. Even the common cars of the time are mostly uncommon today.
Only at a place like Curbside Classic could I be confident that people would look at very amateur 30+ year old photos of old cars on the street and find them totally compelling. Quality not withstanding, hopefully you can all geek out here, where we understand and celebrate your psychoses.
1991
Pontiac’s 65/66 full-sizers are some of my favorite cars of the era, which has been true pretty much ever since I was capable of having a favorite car of the era. I remember being excited when I found this 1966 Pontiac Bonneville convertible. Wish I would have got a photo from the front!
1991
Like the 66 Bonneville, this 1965-66 Corvair Corsa was probably a garaged secondary/hobby car rather than a regular driver. I believe this was taken in a business parking lot. I always found the facelifted Corvairs to be really pretty cars. They combined some of Chevrolet’s best styling themes of the 60’s with the unique proportions of Chevy’s rear-engined, loveably dangerous oddball.
1986
Another mid 60’s classic seen about town was a 1965 Ford Mustang fastback, which I remember being red. Though only about 20 years old, it was probably restored or at least refurbished. It’s hard to tell from the picture if it has a V8 emblem on the front fender, there’s possibly a smudge in about the right spot. A six cylinder fastback would be pretty noteworthy. Like virtually all the cars in my photos, it has whitewalls. What a different world, I think even the Ford Courier in the background has whitewalls! (at least the Mack dumptruck doesn’t)
1989
This 1973 Eldorado convertible is definitely not a garage queen. It belonged to a resident at the Vista Pines 55+ condominiums in Stuart (Martin County, east coast north of W. Palm Beach) where my grandparents lived and where there were no garages or even carports. The retirees who drove this car clearly had a sense of style over and above most of their peers, judging by the much more typical cars in the background.
1985
I was never a big photography enthusiast, though I wish now that I had been more. That was probably because my parents were into more sophisticated photography, so being a bit of a rebel, I was not. As an indication of their photo habits, there aren’t a lot of photos of me from my childhood seen around my parents’ home. That’s not because they didn’t take photos of me, but because all the photos were processed as slides and if one wanted to look at them, it would involve going through the many, many little blue dual-pod plastic boxes, setting up the handheld slide viewer (if it still works) or the slide projector (if it still works) and finding the photos.
I definitely remember this 1974 Buick Electra. I think it was actually non-metallic gray and in great condition for being over 10 years old. The lack of a vinyl roof looked good and was certainly a wise choice for sitting in the Florida sun. It was among the largest beasts found in the condo complex and as such, an object of some lust on my part. Yes, I was a strange kid, nurturing a particular affection for Buicks even then.
1985
When the old 1963 Plymouth Fury still runs fine, why replace it just because it’s 22 years old? That trusty Mopar probably ran fine for the rest of its owner’s driving career, however long that was.
Not my actual camera, but very similar!
Many of my photos were taken with a 60’s vintage Yashica black and white 35mm camera. This was a hand-me-down from my parents and was the first camera I owned. It was, of course, a totally manual camera with every adjustment needing to be set by hand. The focus was tricky, because it wasn’t like most cameras where you twist the dial on the lens and the image goes from fuzzy to clear. The image always looked the same, but the center of the image was two parts that would align when the focus was set properly. So you would twist the dial to make the images line up as closely as possible then take your photo. I’m sure there is a technical name for this technology, maybe somebody can fill me in. (Thanks to Jeff Sun, it is a Split-image rangefinder) Needless to say, I had mine processed as prints not slides!
1991
If you’re going to drive a hooptie, why not do it topless? Unlike many newer convertibles from the 80’s and 90’s, a true classic convertible like the 1975 Oldsmobile Delta 88 didn’t have its roof removed by a specialty company after the fact or have a godawful tiny back seat to accommodate the retrofitted top mechanism or charge customers 50% more for the privilege of not having sheetmetal overhead. A ’75 88 has a huge backseat with no intrusion at all, not even doglegs, with the GM scissor-type top mechanism. The commodious truck space doesn’t take too much of a hit either. You can carry up to five of your seatbelted friends (lap belt only, thank you) to the beach in fine comfort.
A 1975 Oldsmobile Delta 88 was, and probably still is, one of the easiest and cheapest ways to get into a legitimate classic convertible. Olds sold 7,181 Delta 88 convertibles for 1975, which was about twice what they had been making in recent years. Word was out it was the last chance to get an Oldsmobile droptop. Chevy, Buick and Pontiac also sold more convertibles in 1975, but Olds posted the biggest increase. Really any 71-75 B-body convertible is relatively reasonable, just not as reasonable as they used to be, like say in 1991 when you could have bought one like the photo car for 2-3k.
1986
Finally, I shot a car from the front! The 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass looks delightfully original. This car in this condition would be a pretty desirable commodity today. If the car still exists, there’s a good chance it’s a 442 clone somewhere. My scanner’s resolution is not perfect but I can see in the print that the Cutlass looks to have thin white stripe bias ply tires, which means they could be original tires, or at least likely no newer than the mid 70’s. Kinda scary! I really dig the old-lady-tricycle parked behind it.
1991
A pretty 1983 Buick Electra was parked near my grandparents’ apartment, but it’s not quite a random curbside classic. This is my great uncle Gene’s car, which I described in my recent Buick Enclave article. I found this photo in a different group and it’s quite a bit better than the one I used for that article. Shortly after this visit, he would trade it in on a new 91 LeSabre.
That Ford van parked in the background would have to have been either a guest or a worker vehicle, because the condo association forbade any type of truck to be parked overnight. That included passenger vans, minivans and SUVs! The minivan proviso particularly engendered quite a bit of conflict between the association and residents whose kids drove the modern “trucks”. I don’t know at what point the condo association bowed to the inevitable, but it was sometime after this photo from 1991. I google streetviewed the complex recently, and while the buildings look unchanged, there are SUVs and minivans throughout. And no 1983 Buicks.
If you’ve actually read this far and somehow find yourself wishing for more, never fear. I will have a part two for you tomorrow.
These are great photos, not only for the subject cars you focused on, but for the ones in the backgrounds as well. Ford Aerostar, Ford Bronco, an 80s T-Bird, what a trip back in time!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the Memories”!..
Some of the then-contemporary cars are as interesting as the already-classics. That Bronco II! I was 17 in 1991 so I can well remember streets full of those, H-body LeSabres, and Omni/Horizons – one of which was my mom’s that I drove a lot at the time.
Excellent photos Jon! And thanks for letting your geek flag fly for all of us here 🙂
“Split-image rangefinder” is the focusing system on your Yashica. My first “real” 35mm camera was an Olympus rangefinder, the Yashica’s contemporary. Both excellent cameras. Frankly, I often still wish for a true rangefinder focusing system. Once you get the hang of it, it works remarkably well.
A good friend of mine’s dad (he was a dentist) had an Electra just like that. Gigantic car with an interior that just automatically put you to sleep.
OK, but the second version of the Corvair wasn’t facelifted but rebodied.
I always and still do generally like Ford and Chrysler styling better, but there are sophisticated elements to GM designs back then that went beyond the other two. Look at the slick treatment of the side windows on that otherwise galumping 1985 Buick four door hardtop.
Good point, rebodied would be more accurate, since it shares no body panels with the original. I used the term facelifted imprecisely in the sense it was a mid-cycle refresh on the same platform. Unfortunately, there was never a true second generation Corvair!
I’m not sure which 85 Buick you’re referencing. In the background of the Eldorado?
Your pictures remind me of the one time that I took random car pictures when I was a kid. I was about 8 or 10 years old (in the early 1980s), and my parents had given me an old Instamatic camera. Back then, I split my time between living with my parents and my grandmother, and one weekend I brought my camera with me to her apartment – for the purpose of taking car pictures.
I recall standing on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building, taking pictures of cars driving by — my intention was to perfect the art of photographing moving vehicles. And I figured I’d surely be able to master that in 24 frames of film.
The next week, I asked my parents if they’d get the film developed, which they did. But upon seeing that I’d spent a whole roll of film taking pictures of cars driving down Welsh Rd, I got quite a scolding about “wasting film.” I never did that again… oh, and I’ve never mastered the art of photographing moving cars. Grr.
Your Uncle Gene’s Buick bears a strong resemblance to my Uncle Al’s Buick. I loved getting rides in that car occasionally, and luxuriating in the cushy, buttony velour, shiny fake wood, and lots of buttons that made stuff move. I’ve loved Buicks ever since.
Wow, what a dispiriting childhood experience! It’s impressive you still developed a love of cars after such early discipline for wasting your film on cars. What should parents expect a kid to take photos of? A kid is going to photograph whatever a kid finds interesting. You know, kid stuff!
The question is: Did any of the pictures turn out OK and do you still have them?
I had exactly the same impression from Uncle Gene’s Buick and other old broughamy cars. I loved the velour, the shiny “wood” and I was obsessed with chrome power window switches. I still think window and door lock switches lost most of their aesthetic appeal when makers stopped using chrome.
I laugh about it now, but yes, I was pretty exasperated at the time. Still, my love of cars continued unabated. But like you said, what did they expect me to photograph? Beautiful landscapes? Have strangers sit down for portraits? Well, I enjoy digital photography now since I don’t have to tell my own kids to quit taking pictures of silly things.
Those pictures did survive for quite a while, but were lost in the Great Parental Purge of 2009. I recall that out of 24 pictures, I got 2 or 3 good ones. Happenstance, I’m sure.
I took a photography class in college, and I remember the professor repeatedly said “Don’t be afraid to use a lot of film!”
Did you ever go back and flaunt the professor’s teaching to your parents, “See, I was supposed to use a lot of film!”
I just remembered the Yashica wasn’t the first camera I had, just the first decent one. When I was 8 or 9, I got a really cheap camera using 110(?) film. I think I still have most of my old photos including ones I remember of things like Legos I built, my friend pretending I stabbed him with a stick and matchbox cars making jumps. Needless to say, matchbox cars in motion did not photograph well. To my parent’s credit, I don’t remember them harassing me for taking silly photos.
Sigh. My dad bought me a Kodak Ektralite-10 when I was in first grade. I shot a whole lot of those little 110 cartridges. Took it to school at least once, so there were pics of the playground, the classroom, Miss Heuston in the middle of saying “Put the camera away, Daniel”, etc. I had an album full of those pics. It was one of those definitely-not-archival “magnetic” albums with stickum on both sides of each cardboard page, and a clear plastic foldover to cover the photos and the stickum.
When my mother moved out of the house I grew up in, I took apart the album. I remember thinking “I’ve gotta get these pics out of this album or they’ll eventually get ruined”. I remember exactly where in the basement I was sitting as I took each photo out the album (some of them with stickum permanently stuck to the back). What I don’t remember is what the hell I did with the photos. I haven’t seen them in over two decades and numerous moves, so I guess they’re permanently gone.
Yeah, that was pretty much my camera except without the flash. Maybe someday they pictures will turn up unexpectedly where you least expect them to.
On the subject of cameras:
My first one was an Agfa Isoly roll film camera. A few years ago I gave it to our teacher of neurology so he could explain the eye to the students. The students no longer understand the similarity of the eye to the camera obscura because they never opened one!
My first real camera (after that Ektralite-10) was a Kodak Retinette IA, a 35mm camera beautifully made in West Germany. It had a Schneider Kreuznach lens. No rangefinder; it was strictly guess-the-distance. The film advance lever was on the bottom of the right side of the camera, not up top, and that was a very convenient place for it—easy to operate with the right thumb without lowering the camera from the eye. Rewinding the film was a chore, though, for the rewind knob had to be turned fractionally between thumb and forefinger; there was no crank. The camera’s leatherette had a peculiar smell, not at all unpleasant. My father had bought that camera while travelling round Germany in the early or mid-1960s when his previous camera failed and either couldn’t be fixed or couldn’t be fixed economically.
Eventually the Retinette’s self-timer jammed halfway through its travel, and that stopped the shutter working, so the camera could no longer be used. Years later, I bought another IA and it smelt exactly the same!
That is definitely a good looking camera!
The Mustang has 5 lugs wheels, so assuming that it hasn’t been messed with too much it left the factory with 8 cylinders under the hood.
Definitely some great subjects and I’m looking forward to the next installment.
Good sleuthing, thanks. Those wheels probably weren’t available on 6 cylinders, then, right?
The camera is a “rangefinder”. Easier to use and more accurate than zone focusing (“that looks like about 10′”), more portable than a TLR (where you look on the top of a very boxy camera), cheaper than an SLR (your typical Nikon/Canon/Pentax/Olympus/Minolta of the day). Many rangefinders (including yours) are excellent cameras.
Film camera enthusiasts or collectors are in many ways similar to CCers; it’s not always about the Leica (Ferrari) or Hasselblad (Rolls); it’s more about the everyday working cameras like your Yashica.
I’m going to guess there’s a fair overlap between the groups. I’m sure Jim Grey can tell us more as he is firmly in both the analog camera and CC worlds
I spotted the quintessential Florida ride parked behind the Cutlass…the three-wheeled cargo basket bike!
I love the pictures themselves, as well as your choices of subjects. The 66 Bonneville has long been a favorite of mine – some neighbors had a silver-blue 4 door hardtop with a black vinyl roof, which the Dad drove to work everyday. It was a good looking car.
The 63 Plymouth is really interesting as it appears to be a 4 door hardtop – that bodystyle seemed much more rare than it was with other cars, especially Chevrolet.
The 67 Cutlass at the end has a real conundrum in the background – would you rather have a Chevette or an 80 Thunderbird? Or maybe the better question is which you would rather NOT have. 🙂
I wear a 9, 9½, or 10 depending on what brand of shoes we’re talking about.
That rangefinder type was pretty much universal in 35mm cameras before single-lens reflexes like the Pentax Spotmatic and Nikon F took over the market. Contax, Canon, Nikon, Yashica, Petri, Minolta, and Leica M all had it (earlier Leicas had a separate rangefinder and viewfinder). But I remember it referred to as “coincident image” because one would strive to get the two faded-looking images to coincide into a single, contrasty one. Sometimes, especially with viewfinders having a less-than-lifesize image…which was most of them…this could be difficult. That may have been why I have been a single-lens reflex photographer for fifty years (I never could get accustomed to waist-level shooting, despite trying many times over the years with Yashica, Minolta Autocord and Rolleiflex, later even a borrowed Hasselblad). To this day I find the direct-view SLR viewfinder preferable to the newfangled electronic screens displaying the digital image.
By the time I was a teenager, the Kodak instamatic was replaced with my first serious 35mm camera, a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s, similar to the Yashica. Years later I took an adult school photography class and the Minolta was traded for a manual interchangeable lens Pentax K1000 SLR. My latest camera is a modern digital version of these venerable Japanese rangefinder cameras, Fujifilm X100.
Crazy to think that 1960 car in 1991 is like a 1990 car today!
Excellent point … when I was young, a 12- to 15-year-old car seemed special.
Now a 30-year-old car is “meh” for the most part.
Is this a thing that happens inevitably as we get older, or have cars become so bland that I don’t care?
Or do cars last so much longer now that oldies are not as rare?
Bits of all of the above?
Actually…not quite! I mean, yeah, if all you do is count years, but the average age of a car on American roads in 1979 was 5.7 years, and that was up from 5.1 years in 1969. The 2013 average-age-of-car-on-the-road figure was 11.4 years, that is just about double the 1979 figure. It hit 11.7 years in 2017, and the 2020 figure is 12.1 years.
In 1990, the passenger-car figure was 7.6 years, so a ’60 car in ’90 was very nearly 4× the average age. Four times today’s average age of 12.1 years would be 48.4, so about a 1972 model—though even that misses the mark, because the average age hasn’t been moving as a linear function of the current year.
Uh….Too much math!
Great photos. Your comment about whitewalls is interesting. I was surprised that I had not noticed that all the cars had them. My parents were very anti- whitewalls, and when it came time to get snow tires for my mother’s 1966 Corvair it seems only whitewalls we’re available, so my dad had them mounted with the stripes on the inside.
Yeah, I remember in the 90’s pretty much all tires in medium/large-american-car sizes came as whitewalls. Tire salesmen would always ask, “whitewall in or out?” Now, you have to go out of your way to find any whitewalls for sale, usually special order and no major brands.
I would think a major selling point for the Corvair would have been the rear engine giving superior traction in snow (weight over the drive wheels), so I’m surprised people still needed to buy snow tires for them.
It was better than front engine rear drive cars, but it still benefited from the snows. We were in southern Ontario so there was lots of snow. It was my first year driving and it took me a little while to figure out that the Corvair was better at going than stopping in deep snow. Fortunately my learning experiences happened when there were no other cars or ditches around.
I now reveal my Canadian-ness …
I quickly identified the Pontiac as a ’66, figured it was a Parisienne or Grande Parisienne, and then saw the hard-to-read lettering on the trunk:
“What the … ? That doesn’t say “Oldsmobile”, does it? No way, that’s gotta be a Poncho! Hey, wait, didn’t they get a “Bonneville” in the States? Aha!”
Wow, that’s really Canadian! Here in the states, Bonneville was the longest running Pontiac nameplate, 1957-2005. In my mind, it is the most “Pontiac” name of all, behind maybe only GTO. Funny thing is that Pontiac in Canada felt the need to have a more Francophone name, even though Bonneville is actually a French name (but coincidentally, since it’s from the Salt Flats in Utah). There was also the Grand Ville, LeMans, Grand Prix in the U.S., were those in Canada, too? What’s with the French Pontiac names?
Michigan was “discovered” by the French. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Detroit. Chief Pontiac fought with the French against the British and Americans.
I don’t know why they picked Grand Ville but the proper spelling is Grande Ville, so in a way it isn’t really French. LeMans and Grand Prix both have car racing associations like Bonneville. Corsa and Monza are also racing related, but Italian rather than French, although I doubt that many North Americans would catch the references.
Jon, good question!
The four trim-levels of full-size 60’s Canadian Pontiac were (as I recall), in ascending order, the Strato Chief, Laurentian, Parisienne, and Grande Parisienne.
I thought that Strato Chief was the coolest name – it sounded like one of Boeing’s 1950’s strategic bombers.
We did have the LeMans, which I think was an intermediate, based on the Chevelle. In my mind’s eye, it had GM’s corporate “collonade” body style.
In the early ’70s, there was the Nova-based Pontiac Ventura. By ’77 or so, it was renamed the Pontiac Phoenix. I think the Phoenix name was carried over and used on Pontiac’s version of the Citation.
This not even to touch on the weird ’60s phenomenon of the Canada-only Nova-based Acadian and Chevelle-based Beaumont, sold by Pontiac dealers though not badged as Pontiacs.
And of course the Acadian name was resurrected and used on Pontiac’s version of the Chevette.
We also had the Astre, a Pontiac version of the Vega.
Confused yet? ;>)
To add to the confusion, Laurentian is English name for a mountain range that runs across Quebec, also the most popular brand of coloured pencils when I was a kid. The French name is Laurentides which is a bit hard to pronounce for a product name.
I don’t know where Beaumont comes from although it is a French name, but Acadian is the English name for the French speaking community in the Canadian Maritime provinces. The French name is almost the same “Acadien”.
That’s probably one of the five ’74 Electras without a vinyl roof.
These photos remind me of a comment I once read that a main source of entertainment in Florida was watching senior citizens in immaculate, large old cars routinely drive up and over curbs.
Weird, wacky and wondrous things happen in Florida:
https://www.wane.com/news/watch-florida-driver-lands-cadillac-on-top-of-two-parked-cars/
That Yashica camera, mid-1970s, was my first better-than-snapshot camera, and it did indeed have a sharp lens. The enlargements from my best shots were pretty impressive, really. Oodles of detail about camera here:
https://www.kenrockwell.com/yashica/electro-35.htm
As to the cars—this is a great backwards time-trip, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Having never been to Florida, I’m confused about car-survival there: you’ve got the southern virtues of no winter road salt, but then a good amount of sunshine, and then (coastal?) “salt air” working against you. Can some knowing someone straighten this out for me?
There was a article here I can’t find unfortunately (if somebody remembers, a link would be much appreciated!) that mentioned the effects of extreme humidity in Florida, I think it featured a Cadillac or Buick that had had the window cracked and the interior damaged by mold. And I may be thinking of another region but I think there is a two-pronged rust concern; where undercarriage rust is easy to form yet also goes unnoticed until it’s advanced because of the lack of body rust.
Oooh! Next to the Olds Delta 88 droptop is an early ’80s Toyota pickup that hasn’t been beaten to death yet. No designation on the tailgate so unlikely an SR-5 and it looks to be a short bed.