If you’re up for another drive down Sunset Boulevard in 1966, hop in and this time we’ll go the other direction, and turn the camera to the south side, which we haven’t seen at all yet. And we’ll start with this perfect shot of two contrasting cars in front of the Leaning Sunset Tower apartments, which would be gutted and turned into the Sunset Tower Hotel.
If the VW looks a bit large compared to the Continental, it’s because these early Contis really weren’t very big cars; essentially four door coupes and convertibles.
a rather familiar sight back then: motorcycle stalled at intersection, and being kick-started back to life
I love the Jaguar in the gas station with Toronado on the side street shot, made subtly best by the “Don’t Walk” signal on the traffic light.
What a lovely cruise down Sunset on a morning when it’s -6 degrees Fahrenheit outside here. Just seeing that dude in the Mustang with his arm out the window warms things up immeasurably.
Love the rental car places too, the Hav-A-Car place with $4 Beetles (and a 911 pulling up between shots) and Mustangs and then Budget Rent A Car place advertising “Cads” for $11.
LA looks so clean in these late morning pictures, very inviting, it’d be a lot of fun to be actually able to go back for 48 hours. Maybe the “Airline-Steamship Reservations” place next to the Cock’n’Bull has a getback getaway package, and could hook you up with either the Corvette, E-Type or Cadillac parked out front…
I feel like I’m seeing a disproportionately large number of Corvairs. The Japanese invasion had barely begun – I only see one Japanese car, possibly a Datsun 411?
And I’m definitely not eating at the Scam Restaurant!
The early Toyota dealership was located on Hollywood Boulevard next to Hartunian Ford (on its’ eastside). This was just eastward of Vine a few blocks. There are some images online which show up. Bob Smith Volkswagen was up on Highland just above Hollywood on the east side…you only get the signage outside in views. Do not recall where the Datsun dealer was. One Toyota lot was also built in Glendale on the south end of Brand but I’m not sure when it first opened. By the early ‘70’s those gorilla mobiles were turning up in alarming numbers. But Pinto’s were like bugs for a time.
That Model A pickup truck in the middle was completely unexpected. In 1966, it was probably about 35 years old, easily old enough to be considered a classic. Still, lots of people today use 50+ year old trucks to do work – look no further than Paul’s 66 Ford.
It is hard to tell from the photo if it is still doing work or if it is a retired classic. There is nothing in the bed, and it seems pretty clean and straight, so I’m guessing the latter.
Model A were very popular collector cars going back to the ’50s. It was still fairly easy to find well-kept originals. They were very common. Our neighbors in Iowa City had one in the early ’60s; we loved to play Elliot Ness in it.
But nobody in West LA would have been using this as an actual work truck at this time.
In the late 1960’s antique car shows usually consisted of 30% Model T’s, 40% Model A’s and the remaining 30% being everything else. Usually heavy on Packards, a mixture of GM products, and a few Chrysler products. If you were lucky you’d get 4-5 independent marques, primarily Studebaker, Hudson, Nash and then one or two of the really interesting brands (Graham, Cord, etc.).
Chevrolets were often surprising by their absence. They were normally outnumbered by Fords 10:1.
Where I grew up in rural Western Illinois (in the early 60’s) a guy on break from college was a Fuller Brush salesman for a few summers, he drove a dark green Model A…that car was only around 30 years old at the time, and considered a real antique, it’s the oldest vehicle I remember seeing at that time (other than our annual visits to the Iowa Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant IA) A 30 – year old car in 2021 would barely attract much notice…
Chevrolets weren’t as very popular collectible autos until people started restoring the 1955-57 models.
Thanks for another great street cruise. It is clear that California was leading the trend towards compacts as there are so many out and about.
The old stuff was not common at all there and then – the Model A truck was a treat in particular. As was the 54 Hudson and the 53-54 Chrysler with the wire wheels.
For we StudeSpotters this was an interesting lineup – I expect to see stuff from their high(ish) production periods – Bullet noses of 50-51 and 59-60 Larks. But today we get the low production stuff – a 56 Champion/Commander (worth less than zero because of the bad rear end damage), a GT Hawk and the 64 Commander 2 door.
What has really jumped out at me on all three of these is the large number of ’63-’66 Darts.
The first-generation Mustang appears to have been wildly popular in Los Angeles. The 1961-63 Buick Special/Skylark and Oldsmobile F-85/Cutlass also pop up quite often.
It also seems as though the 1961 and newer Lincoln Continentals were popular in Los Angeles. Cadillac was the national sales champ by a large margin, but, in Los Angeles, the sales gap between the two rivals appears to have been smaller, judging by these photos.
The new Mustang had a window display right on Hollywood Boulevard and it was beautiful. Pretty hard not to sell them in droves with that kind of walk by advertising. If you stopped by the on-ramps to the Hollywood freeway down by Van Ness there wasn’t a new car in existence that didn’t swing by at some point. And Hollywood Sports Cars was right by there for an added eyeful. Oh, and contrary to what I’m seeing posted, vintage cars and European imports were everywhere parked in driveways and garages in Hollywood. I grew up there and skateboard or bicycle took you down every backstreet or alleyway to see what the cameras were missing. Even Model T’s we’re about.
Is that a Hertz Shelby Mustang just peeking into the scene on page 1?
Looks like it to me.
The ‘mission’ style apt buildings in these pictures are unique to LA, while the business storefronts on the Strip look like any city.
But since trends start in California, this probably means that businesses elsewhere copied the Sunset Strip, while apartment builders elsewhere didn’t copy LA.
Schwab’s pharmacy is called out in Jan & Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve”. Later on we see “Dino’s” Dean Martin’s restaurant, and next to it the building with the famous address “77 Sunset” which probably wasn’t the actual street number. The awning above the door is missing as is Cookie parking cars.
Correct, not actually 77 Sunset. You can still find the location and see the view over the city from the rear car park. I think it’s a cinema, or near one now.
There’s also a smack-on view of The Trip club next to the Playboy Tower. It was first controlled in ‘65 by the owners of The Whiskey (aka Whisk a go go) and then re-opened after a short closure when it changed hands in June ‘66. Lasted into the next year and then gone.
The scenery is marvelous, as are the cars as well! It’s always amazing to see the cars that we thought of back then as “huge” only to discover that in some cases, they weren’t near as large as modern day counterparts! I present this example picture! 🙂
It looks like something fell off of Schwab’s onto its neighbor.
On page 2, what is the black coupe in the Union 76 gas station?
That’s the Studebaker GT Hawk. This looks like the 64 with the smoothed-off decklid, so one of the rarest Hawks of them all.
Thanks. It’s one of the few dark colored cars here. Did they originate the front-half-vinyl roof, I suppose in imitation of pre-war town cars? An image search for the GT Hawk indicates it was popular and striking.
Actually, it was Chrysler in 1963 with the “Half vinyl roof”, available only on the Chrysler New Yorker Salon, as shown below. It was an option for the Hawk, standard on the New Yorker.
Great pics! I was taking an informal survey of the number of cars with whitewalls vs without. Most service vehicles (taxis, etc.) and budget vehicles had black wall tires. Most other cars had whitewalls. I am glad I chose whitewalls for my 68 Caprice, they look great with rally wheels and I am leaning toward whitewalls for the replacements for my 74 Charger as it is an SE, white over dark green metallic.
Is that an English Ford in front of the Velvet Crest cocktail lounge?
I lost count of the number of Rivieras.
That’s an Austin A55 (Mk.1). Perhaps took a wrong turning at Warminster and got lost.
Thanks! It must have been a rare sight even then.
When you mentioned leaning Sunset Tower, I had to look it up. Isn’t that The Sunset Tower Hotel now? It appears to look like that in pics and is still standing and operating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Tower
Yes. My bad. In the 1973 shots, it’s totally gutted and I assumed in the process of being torn down. It was actually being converted into the current hotel.
Surprised there’s only one fin-tail Benz, unless I missed some. I remember going to CA in the early 1980’s as a kid and being amazed at the sheer number of Benzes, seeing the first 6.9’s in my life. They were all over Rodeo Drive. I had only read about them in my magazines and knew they cost more than several houses. Saw my first Ferrari’s- GTB(?,) too.
“The Phone Booth” restaurant is a hoot! As to the cars, the 66 Grand Prix does it for me.
Jim recently found for us a ’62 Mercury Commuter wagon in a junkyard; I mentioned the Colony Park version. Here in the 9100 block is a ’62 Colony Park in its prime. And there is another ’62 Mercury – a two door sedan – in the 8700 block.
Also I like the ’64 Buick Wildcat convertible in the 8700 block – blackwalls and top down.
That picture of the motorcycles, the stalled bike at the front is a Harley-Davidson Panhead (48-64), mildly customized, of course. The rear bike is a 62 or newer BSA, most likely an A65R Thunderbolt (single carb). The A65’s outsold the 500cc A50’s readily. Despite looking alike, the 650cc engine had 44hp, while the 500cc only had 22.
Love the pictures. Having lived in Los Angeles, back in 1966, I would have to say that once you strip away the smog and are left with the look and casual pace of life at that time it would have been paradise, if not on earth, then in the United States. I truly miss Southern California in the 60s to the mid-70s.
Oh, and having only 15 million people total, in 1966, might have something to do with it.
Turner (now Terner) Liquors is still there, with its arrow neon sign intact:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/8820+Sunset+Blvd,+West+Hollywood,+CA+90069/@34.0906147,-118.3844451,3a,30.7y,232.74h,93.02t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sGaU4ndtTW41y49E98IqdrQ!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m5!3m4!1s0x80c2bea36b346f09:0xa0c9eff06e7c879d!8m2!3d34.0904558!4d-118.383694
I like the cute English Tudor/Fairytale storefronts (Elsa Gale Millinery, the ice cream shop, M’lady Coiffures). Maybe these were inspired by Hollywood movie sets? They looked so cute and orderly in those days. A lot of the elegant details have been stripped off. Some of the nicer buildings I can’t find on Google street views.
It was a pretty popular architecture style in the area.a lot of houses in the hills were similar.
Beautiful pics! I can almost hear Jack Webb intoning, “This is the city. Los Angeles, Califor-nee-uh . . .”
If I could own any of those cars in mint condition today, it would be a toss-up between the Cadillac sedan (1950 or 1951?) and the Chevy wagon (1953 or ’54?). They would already have been classics when these photos were taken.
That Standard filling station looks mighty familiar. Where have I seen that before? Looks to be a close source for one of Ed Ruscha’s most Well know paintings. I’m so jealous of all that sun too.
I find it interesting that after watching a video of Sunset Strip from about 10 years earlier, it had many Packards featured in it, yet 10 years later there were none.
That’s demolition derby for you. What a great, if not crazy, tv show!
What’s maybe most striking to me in the photo series is the number of genuinely desirable cars out and about in every day traffic, and not just desirable to us weirdos with penchants for the offbeat and mundane. But I guess that’s LA: same as it always was
I think it is just me, but I keep hearing the “Ellie Mae” electric guitar entrance looking at these photos.
Yup, today having a “WAY-BACK” machine to once again crooooze Sunset Strip in 1966, even with the smog, on my ’65 Honda 305 Super Hawk has a tremendous appeal on this morning in N. Indiana that started at -7F air temp!!!
NO smog here tho!!! 🙂 DFO