Oddly enough, I distinctly remember my dad jumping on the almost-but-not-yet opened I-91 connector back in the day, in either our ’57 Plymouth or ’61 Chrysler. There was of course no traffic yet, and my sister and I were yelling that he was sinning as he had this sheepish grin on his face like we got away with bank robbery. It opened the next week.
I will continue to purview these calming pictures as I plan my daily commute around rush hour. Looking to relocate in the next 3 years, and everything on my location search is based on avoiding large cities.
I hear ya 10 minutes to get to work half an hour to get home is getting old, I leave our biggest city with cruise set at the speed limiter and return midday or after crawling on the very same motorway,
I’m even considering getting one of those cars with the new fangled automatic transmissions the irony is we have a tanker thats been reconfigured to left side discharge for city deliveries and it has an 18 speed manual trans yet the linehaul units are all automated trans.
Jeez the thing has no license plate on it either. The only traffic is on the overpass, current model mini trucks.
I can’t envision a scenario where a roadway such as this is sans traffic, in my area. I can’t read the road sign, or I’d go get it.
This says Mayfair on the side, so I am calling this a Dodge.
Quite a haul of photos CanadianCatGreen has posted at the Cohort.
The lack of a plate isn’t entirely random – it appears to be parked opposite a classic car dealer in Edmonton. The Google StreetView location is here (screen shot below):
. . . and here’s my ’58 Ford in front of a house in Mountain Lakes. Both photos were published in the December 2022 issue of Parsippany Focus magazine.
It’s been a long time since I read it but, IIRC, the car in the book ‘was’ a four-door sedan. King got a few of the car details wrong (some were done to fit in with the story), and one of them was that there was a 1958 Fury four-door sedan. TBH, from the image in this feature, I can actually see it.
Another was a dream sequence in the book that had the dual-pod instrument cluster morphing into the eyes of a face. Quite obviously, he was referring to the earlier, symmetrical 1955-56 dashboard.
King got a fair amount wrong about the car, which was kind of a problem since the main character in the book was, um, the car.
As jonco43 mentions, the shift lever “dropping down into Drive” was a big blunder. Another was on the trip out to the airport parkade, when Arnie’s father noticed the odometer running backward, mentioned it, and Arnie said he’d been meaning to look at the speedometer cable, then his father thinks to himself “Surely his gearhead son didn’t think the speedometer and odometer run off the same cable, did he?”. Uh…they do.
I had to look in close to see the tell-tale stuff showing that it was a recent photo. It made me think of the 1950s highway/interstate promotional films, and how few cars there are:
I recall when an interstate route between downtown Norfolk to the oceanfront in Virginia Beach opened. Many residents were terrified as they heard if you missed your exit, you couldn’t get off. I was surfing at the time and would pick up my buddies and we’d strap longboards (That’s what we road the waves in 1968) on the bar atop my parents Oldsmobile Delmont 4-door sedan. No one was ever on the roadway. Even the state troopers were absent. We’d hit 90 miles an hour and get to the oceanfront in half the time. The only incident we ever had was when a flock of birds scattered and we nailed two or three on the skegs of the surfboards. Today, that same set of lanes is a morass of vehicles going 45 mph.
Reminds me of when we drove across Kansas in 2005 on I-70. Less traffic on that 4 lane interstate than nearly any 2 lane highway here in California and everyone was doing 62MPH MAX with a 65 speed limit. Many were slower. I’m flying past the few that were there at all at 66-68 with one eye on the rear view mirror sure they’re going to pull over my 20 year old BMW with California plates for 2 over the speed limit. They didn’t, but that was the lightest traffic I’ve ever seen on a freeway/interstate. Much like the title picture.
posted by canadiancatgreen
“Hello, AAA Towing? It’s a red 58 Plymouth sitting along the side of Route 5. It’s been nothing but trouble since I got it.”
I love the car, but am not a member of the Red Car Fan Club. I look at that and all I see is the need for endless polishing of oxidized red paint.
Oddly enough, I distinctly remember my dad jumping on the almost-but-not-yet opened I-91 connector back in the day, in either our ’57 Plymouth or ’61 Chrysler. There was of course no traffic yet, and my sister and I were yelling that he was sinning as he had this sheepish grin on his face like we got away with bank robbery. It opened the next week.
I will continue to purview these calming pictures as I plan my daily commute around rush hour. Looking to relocate in the next 3 years, and everything on my location search is based on avoiding large cities.
I hear ya 10 minutes to get to work half an hour to get home is getting old, I leave our biggest city with cruise set at the speed limiter and return midday or after crawling on the very same motorway,
I’m even considering getting one of those cars with the new fangled automatic transmissions the irony is we have a tanker thats been reconfigured to left side discharge for city deliveries and it has an 18 speed manual trans yet the linehaul units are all automated trans.
Jeez the thing has no license plate on it either. The only traffic is on the overpass, current model mini trucks.
I can’t envision a scenario where a roadway such as this is sans traffic, in my area. I can’t read the road sign, or I’d go get it.
This says Mayfair on the side, so I am calling this a Dodge.
Quite a haul of photos CanadianCatGreen has posted at the Cohort.
The lack of a plate isn’t entirely random – it appears to be parked opposite a classic car dealer in Edmonton. The Google StreetView location is here (screen shot below):
https://goo.gl/maps/LmFzoP5CYG42h5BK7
Regardless of the car’s reason for being there, though – this is a great shot!
These were always heavily featured on “Highway Patrol”
Suddenly it’s 1960 . . . I just took this picture of my ’59 Chevy in front of the Condit House, Parsippany NJ
. . . and here’s my ’58 Ford in front of a house in Mountain Lakes. Both photos were published in the December 2022 issue of Parsippany Focus magazine.
Hello? Stephen King? Someone left your car sitting on the side of the highway…
It’s been a long time since I read it but, IIRC, the car in the book ‘was’ a four-door sedan. King got a few of the car details wrong (some were done to fit in with the story), and one of them was that there was a 1958 Fury four-door sedan. TBH, from the image in this feature, I can actually see it.
Another was a dream sequence in the book that had the dual-pod instrument cluster morphing into the eyes of a face. Quite obviously, he was referring to the earlier, symmetrical 1955-56 dashboard.
He also referred to the car having a shift lever shifting into drive.
From memory he got the engine size correct at least, referring to the car having a 318
King got a fair amount wrong about the car, which was kind of a problem since the main character in the book was, um, the car.
As jonco43 mentions, the shift lever “dropping down into Drive” was a big blunder. Another was on the trip out to the airport parkade, when Arnie’s father noticed the odometer running backward, mentioned it, and Arnie said he’d been meaning to look at the speedometer cable, then his father thinks to himself “Surely his gearhead son didn’t think the speedometer and odometer run off the same cable, did he?”. Uh…they do.
Christine is baaaack.
I had to look in close to see the tell-tale stuff showing that it was a recent photo. It made me think of the 1950s highway/interstate promotional films, and how few cars there are:
I recall when an interstate route between downtown Norfolk to the oceanfront in Virginia Beach opened. Many residents were terrified as they heard if you missed your exit, you couldn’t get off. I was surfing at the time and would pick up my buddies and we’d strap longboards (That’s what we road the waves in 1968) on the bar atop my parents Oldsmobile Delmont 4-door sedan. No one was ever on the roadway. Even the state troopers were absent. We’d hit 90 miles an hour and get to the oceanfront in half the time. The only incident we ever had was when a flock of birds scattered and we nailed two or three on the skegs of the surfboards. Today, that same set of lanes is a morass of vehicles going 45 mph.
Thanx for all the great photos ! .
I love that Dodge .
-Nate
Reminds me of when we drove across Kansas in 2005 on I-70. Less traffic on that 4 lane interstate than nearly any 2 lane highway here in California and everyone was doing 62MPH MAX with a 65 speed limit. Many were slower. I’m flying past the few that were there at all at 66-68 with one eye on the rear view mirror sure they’re going to pull over my 20 year old BMW with California plates for 2 over the speed limit. They didn’t, but that was the lightest traffic I’ve ever seen on a freeway/interstate. Much like the title picture.
I like the front in the air stance, gives it a confident highway car look.