With winter starting, let’s take a look at this series of drivers and passengers taking the time and putting in the effort to capture these moments. Temperatures may drop, and weather may be less than ideal, but why should that stop anyone from posing with one’s most precious possession?
There’s a bit of everything in this gallery; light layers of snow, heavy blankets, and thick crusts of icy snow. It’s clear some of these folk were enjoying a nice outing, while others just had fun capturing the lousy weather. Regardless, it’s a rather fun mix of images, with one European entry added for variety’s sake.
Such wonderful pictures ! .
These bring back so many memories, some even happy ones .
-Nate
It brings back memories of how poorly many of the old rear wheel drive cars I owned over the years performed while driving in the snow. Even with good snow tires.
But we’re all still here, right?
I remember how they rusted at 3-5 years old. ’57 fords with no headlights at 6-7 years old. They rusted and the headlights fell out.
My parents 13 year old ’66 Olds F85 Deluxe wagon had very minimal rust after almost 13 years in the Midwest US. The car we should have never let go : (
What went wrong after that?
I posted some snow pix before, but I don’t remember where.
My mom and dad, “some years ago”.
My grandfather, on his Cornbinder, plowing.
That might be a picture of gramp driving his Cornbinder in snow but there isn’t any plow on it.
That might be a picture of gramp driving his Cornbinder in snow but there isn’t any plow on it.
The plow was on the back, because that was where the hydraulics were.
I should have known but I couldn’t see it. My uncle had a Minneapolis-Moline with the same set up. I have seen tractors with front mounted plows that had plow frames mounted under the tractor that were operated by the three point hitch. They looked impressive but I never saw how well they worked. Based on how many I’ve seen, it’s probably safe to say that your Gramp had the right idea.
The snow was too deep for Gramps to push it with the plow in 78.
The same garage door and breezeway, before he started shoveling.
I’ve seen tractors with rear mounted snowblowers as well. A problem with deep snow is there is no place to plow it. Check out snowstorms in Upstate New York.
My dad managed to get long lives out of winter-driven cars, with less than stellar rust-resistance reputations, as he followed a couple rules he appeared to live by. Whenever there were significant snowfalls, he wouldn’t drive for a couple days. He’d either take an early public transit bus to work, or when he retired, he’d just stay home. His thinking was that municipalities would absolutely plaster roads with salt during, and immediately after storms. A day or two later, roads would be bare again. With most salt dry, and blown off roads. This was true.
He also washed his cars regularly throughout the winter. Using self-serve bays, that used fresh water. Focusing on the underbody. Many (most?) cars from the ’50s through the ’70s, had no full rear fender liners. Salt and slush would get blasted up inside rear bumpers. And up above spring shackles and gas tanks. And on most cars, remained caked there. Indefinitely, if owners didn’t wash underneath. He’d have me get down, and blast those areas with the spray wand. I’d generally say it worked in the long term. Effective, before treatments like rustproofing oil sprays became popular.
I’m glad to hear he did that. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as Upper Michigan and Northern Lower Michigan, car washes were closed because the weather was too cold.
I actually drove a Fiat Strada to another town in Wisconsin in January. The engine was fully warmed up when I left my then home town. About 1/3 of the way out the engine started missing. The temp gauge was buried on cold! I had to shut off the heater to warm up the engine. I made my destination but I was a pop sickle.
I remember in Minnesota when all public parking lots had electrical outlets. And no not for electric cars.
I bought a new Honda Civic and later when married my wife and I ordered a new Dodge Grand Caravan, both in West Michigan. In both cases I requested an engine block heater. Both dealers looked at me and asked why? “We don’t need engine block heaters here”. I explained that we would visit my family in Northern Wisconsin. They obliged and installed the block heaters. Both dealers told me those were the only times they ever installed engine block heaters in any car.
…both in West Michigan. In both cases I requested an engine block heater. Both dealers looked at me and asked why?
My aunt, living in Kalamazoo, in the west Michigan lake effect belt, had a block heater installed in her 79 Ford van, for two reasons: the van was too big to fit in the garage, and she had had enough of the driveability problems of emissions controlled, carbed, engines, in cold weather. She loved it. Jump in the van in the pre-dawn gloom, and the 351 fired, and ran smooth and strong, like mid-summer. She bought an 82 Colt for a go-to-work car. Had a block heater installed in it too. But Mitsu apparently had figured out something the big three had not, because it ran fine without the heater being plugged in all night. so she ended up never using the heater.
The bottom photo: I guess he’s pulling his boat out of the lake prior to a hard winter. Hope he’s got a bucket of sand to keep from slipping back into the water.
It looks like it may have been an early first snow of the season, which can come surprisingly early. And he may have been caught off guard. With his boat still in the water. If you look under the car, looks like there is no snow. It appears it started to snow, after his car was in that spot. He tried to beat the snowfall.
The ski lodge shot is fab. It’s somewhere in Washington; I don’t recognize it.
The Opel Kapitan is from Munich. That was a fine car to have at the time for a private owner; all them were taxis in Innsbruck back then. But then the Germans had a significantly higher income than Austrians then.
Both the geranium/white `59 Galaxie 500 and the blue `60 Bel Air sedan appear to be brand new. The Chevy has what appears to be a window sticker on the driver’s side rear glass & no front plate.
Before my time, but sloppy scenes like this, is how I used to remember distant winters. 🙂
Mild and moist low pressures laden with snow, would give way to frigid, dry high pressures, and north wind-aided flash freezes.
Buried car pix? Yup, We have those. This was the staff parking lot at the school where my aunt was a teacher.
Salvation is at hand. The County Road Commission plow approaches.
When I watch “Fargo”, in the scenes where the white sky and the white ground blend together, it gives me flashbacks to life in the west Michigan lake effect belt.
Great photos! Heavy drifting used to be a major curse. States and provinces used to plant so many trees alongside highways specifically, to combat heavy drifting and whiteouts.
As low pressure storms would clear out, heavy frigid north winds would create deep drifts where plows had cleared the day before.
The spacing between the trees and the spot you are trying to prevent drifting is critical.
Mom planted a row of pine trees behind the house, as a wind block. Turned out, the trees blocked just enough of the wind that the snow landed directly on the house.
I found this guy sitting on a bench outside a rest area off of I-71 South near Pleasant City , Ohio in 2020.
Having lived in Vancouver for 40 years, East Coast winters can seem like an alternate universe. But they are indelibly, emotionally imprinted.
Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 1962
Love these types of photos. I recall the huge storm (mid-west) in 1973 or 1974. It took the state 3 days to clear a path wide enough for two average vehicles on state route 84 past our farm. I remember riding in the truck to my brothers farm and looking up from the cab and the snow was still about 2 feet higher.
Funny to see all these rear wheel drive cars (CARS). And we got along just fine. Put good tires or snow tires and a little weight in the trunk and you were good. If it was too bad outside, you just stayed home. Now today most everyone thinks they need huge SUV’s and trucks with 4×4 or AWD and god forbid anyone stay home when the weather gets bad.
That black Buick, (yr?) looks like it was in an awful big snow storm! Yikes.
The only time I’ve seen snow like that was a HS ski trip to Seven Springs near Pittsburgh. The charter bus got stuck, even with all of us piled in the rear, so we walked the last mile to the hotel. The back slope had -60 F wind chill, and I stupidly tried it.
I love all of them. That 59 Ford looks like the twin to one I saw at a car show last summer – unusual because it seems that retractables, convertibles and low-end sedans are the only 59s that seem to have survived, at least from what I have observed. I would probably not have chosen that color on a new car, but I would love it now.
These remind me of my childhood in northeast Indiana, when big snows were a fairly common winter occurrence.
For those who had bad experience with RWD in that era, it was my experience that there were good RWD cars and bad ones for rear traction, with Mustangs and post-1968 GM A bodies being among the bad ones. Traditional larger cars generally did OK with decent snow tires.
As a resident of southern Ontario I have lots of experience with snow. In my last year of high school my dad replaced his 61 Olds with a 67 Cougar (with the base 289). The new car was not as good in snow as the Olds, but it was OK. A girl in my class also drove a Cougar, but it had the 390 engine. It was effectively undrivable in the smallest amount of snow. Her driveway had a slight incline and she had trouble with it. If there was any snow, the tires would spin.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, my mother had a 66 Corvair Monza coupe. The snow would never stop it, but corners were a problem. In deep snow it would not turn. An early lesson in severe understeer.
I think what JP says is generally true. Winter driving could vary greatly from car to car. Back in the day I remember a Chevy Bel Air sedan I drove to work through 2 feet of snow. Double the time but made it. Had a RWD Fifth Avenue that needed 75-100 lbs of patio stones in the trunk before it would even think of moving. Current day I drive a FWD Chevy Impala that is going into its 4th winter with just all seasons and I’ve had no problems. It’s predecessor was an Acura RL which even with snow tires was a motorized ice skate.
Driving abilities count too but I think the model of car has a lot to do with how easily or not your winter journey is
Another beautiful day at Whiteman AFB, Mo. circa January ’74
Far Side glasses–so sexy!
Here in the South, winter driving used to be especially treacherous because:
1. Governments didn’t do much plowing or salting, since they didn’t have the money, and it would melt soon anyway.
2. The snow is slipperier than up north since it’s closer to 32 deg, and ice is likely under or over it.
3. The natives didn’t know how to drive on snow because they just stayed home in the past. It still doesn’t take much to close or delay the schools, but most businesses don’t now for just snow unless the power goes out.
I attended school in Charlotte, NC during the ’72-’73 school year. Our family moved down from Michigan, and were amazed when a 2″ snow storm shut down school one Monday morning. Dad had a ’67 Volkswagen Bug and made it to work in record time- No one else was on the road!
Even more amazing, a cold snap kept the snow from melting, and school remained cancelled for the entire week.
We were in Charleston SC in ’68 when it snowed half an inch overnight. Schools closed from shock, and it melted by 10 am.
School systems in NC are now usually organized by county only, not city & county, so they have to take rural students into account, but there’s not much rural Mecklenburg Co. left.
Well, snow might not be all that bad…
Here is a photo of some folks with their Pope Hartford…
My family’s winter lineup circa 1963: the daily driver (Plymouth), the winter driver (VW) the blizzard driver (Jeep). My parents got everywhere they wanted to go.
There’s probably a simple explanation for this, but why in the picture with the ‘56 ford is there snow on the roof of the building to the left and none on the building to the right?
The larger building with the chimney and fireplace, appears well-heated. The other building might not be heated. Or as well-heated. If a roof/attic space (inside) is not well-insulated, radiant heat loss from the building interior would help melt the snow outside, on the better-heated building’s roof. Also, if one roof is directly facing the sun, it would help melt snow as well.
The gentleman on the right, reminds me of actor Gary Crosby. In his later years.
It could also be different roofing materials. The steep metal roof on the left is more likely to shed snow than asphalt or wood shingles at the same slope.
Winter in the Chicago ‘burbs… Mom’s Townhouse and the ’73 Cadillac, circa 1976
Funny how some places are always vehicle traps in snow.
Intersection near my home in 78. The same intersection collected three cars and trucks in 67.
Same intersection in 67.
I keep telling myself “I live in a condo. I pay people to do all the snow removal”. This was after an afternoon of my own shovel actions.
A Laurentides ski station in Qc.