It’s time for some outdoorsy virtual traveling today, with the help of these images of rides of the past in parks and camping grounds. The locales and the vehicles are varied, and the timeframe covers from the early ’50s to the mid-70s.
At least one image is from outside North America (the Beetle in Australia), and I believe the 1960 Chevrolet Parkwood wagon belongs to a collection I posted a while back. Other than those details, sit down and check out the cars, camping customs, and outdoor spirit of the era.
Seems like mostly Fall pictures ? .
I love the ’56/’57 Beetle Down Under .
-Nate
Tan VW reminds me of early camping adventures up and down the Pacific coast. Lots of gear could be stowed up front and with rear seat folded down.
I had forgotten that in the past cars could tow trailers. These days it takes a SUV or truck to tow.
Today’s trailers are a whole lot bigger than these!
I tow a 7 metre travel trailer with a 4 cylinder car now.
Todays trailers are also a whole lot lighter than those old ones, so kind of equals out.
Great fun to see all these—and with fairly spartan camping setups at that.
The first image reminded me of those Ford LTD “quieter than a Rolls/Jaguar” ads:
That brings back the sound of rain on a cotton canvas tent, and the sound of my mother telling me not to touch the canvas or else!!
I do need to go VW camping sometime, still haven’t done that.
+1 on not touching the sides during the rain!
The ’56 Two-Ten looks just like my Dad’s first car, except for the V on the front of the hood. His car had the straight six.
That ’56 Chev 210 is identical, down to the color, to the one Dad bought in Fall of ’55, except for the fact that Dad got the lousy stovebolt 6 instead of the new and excellent V8. A decision he soon regretted as it burned oil almost from the get-go, so he traded it for a slightly used ’57 Ford Country Sedan in summer ’57, a car that served our family of 6 well for several years.
Cars did indeed tow trailers back in olden times, with rear air-shocks installed our ’77 Gran Fury Brougham towed both a horse trailer and a 19 ft Starcraft boat for years, and did so quite well.
Pic 5 is a Canadian Meteor. Haven’t seen the ’58 model before!
What? You mean it doesn’t take some huge SUV or over-sized truck to go camping? Say it isn’t so!
The woman in the 2nd picture with the rolled up jeans is so 50’s. I did the same thing as a real young kid back then. By the mid-60’s, now in the greater Los Angeles region, it didn’t seem cool to do that anymore.
The tent in the 3rd picture. Huh? Hope they don’t run into the wolf who can huff, and puff, and blow their tent down.
Is that a 60 Falcon peaking out from the trailer?
Heavy load and a hard pull
The other car in the photo looks to be a ’58 Meteor (Canadian Ford), so it’s quite possible that the car behind the trailer could be a ’60 Frontenac…?
I love these photos! Yeah, this is how we camped back in the day.
In pic # 9, isn’t the door on the wrong side of the trailer? Seems like it should be on the curb side.
Good catch. Unless it’s a RHD market photo. Otherwise I assume the image has been reversed.
The photo might have begun life as a color slide and gotten reversed in conversion. That would also explain the fuzziness.
Few Fuselage-era cars had factory passenger side mirrors as this car appears to have. Not one is visible in the ’72 Chrysler brochure, but it may not show all options.
Parc du Mont Tremblant 1958
I think that 72 Newport is only the second time I have seen one of the 2 doors without a vinyl roof. The first was bought new by my best friends father, a solid black one.
My aunt’s 65 Fury, with her 65 Apache. Somewhere, I have pix of her 61 Chevy wagon, with her earlier Apache, and her 70 Ambassador, with the same 65 Apache.
I love the first picture with the ’66 LTD. Such a stark contrast between the luxury of the LTD interior and the bare-bones tent they will be (or have been) sleeping in.
On a slightly different theme, many families had “fishing cars” usually consisting of an old, second or third hand station wagon. There were for the diehards who wanted a vehicle with a trailer hitch and large V8 to pull the family boat to their favorite fishing lake or bayou. These were “beasts of burden” who received minimal attention, but seemed indestructible as long as you fed them oil and gasoline and topped off the transmission now and then.
As a kid, I remember seeing these listed at the bottom of auto dealer ads in the metro New Orleans newspaper. Mopar wagons seem to be listed most often!!
The ‘65 Ford LTD particularly, but also the 68’ Pontiac 4 door hardtops, both cars look totally out of place, next to a camping setting. Both are much more suited the entrance of a high end luxury hotel or perhaps the opening night of a major event with their chauffeurs standing near by.
In fact back in 1965, the then C.E.O. Of Ford Australia drove and was also driven in a right hand drive 1965 LTD four door pillarless hardtop. I can only assume that Ford Australia did the right hand drive conversion. I often were this car ended up?
Of course Ford Australia did assemble, from imported CKD packs, 1965 Ford Galaxie 500 4 door sedans as there premium high end luxury car, but the C.E.O.s ‘65 LTD was a one off.
This is the first time I have noticed the extra piece of chrome trim on the C pillar of the 65 LTD just behind the rear door window, looks a bit awkward with the window up.
Seems to look better with the window down, as in the old advertisement somebody posted further up.
I hadn’t noticed that before, either, and I’m old enough to have seen these on the road. I guess the C pillar was visually too thick in black vinyl without it.
Cars used to pull trailers. Luxury cars pulled trailers. A family in these days did not consider a truck for their garage, unless they lived in a rural area. So they bought an affordable car and attached a trailer. Consequently it’s pretty amusing to see an LTD used as a tow vehicle, or a Mercury.
These cars often went on roads more suitable for
a Jeep, bouncing slowly and bottoming out. Even back in the early 1980s in Colorado back country, it was common to see a passenger car creeping down a jeep trail.
We just used what we had back then. This is a reason why I mutter under my breath when I see a $90,000 SUV “roughing it”.
My Superminx would tow that small van the Falcon is hiding behind, those vans are light.
The first SUV suitable for recreational travel trailer towing would have been a 1955 GMC Suburban with Pontiac V-8 and Hydramatic. Still an uncomfortable beast for the driver and family compared with a Pontiac passenger car.
No trailer, but we did stop beating the ’65 Impala wagon to death on desert washboard trails and got a ’69 Dodge Sportsman van.
Yeah that poor Falcon wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, with that trailer on it….
I agree, the last 25 years or so have seen trailers get a LOT bigger, and fancier. People don’t want to “rough it” anymore I suppose. Now, too, there are probably more people who RV full time, instead of on a weekend or two a month if that often. My family had a travel trailer we bought from a family who pulled it with a new Suburban (back in the mid 70s). They went somewhere just about every weekend. We used it a fair bit but not that often, and I actually lived in it one summer while Dad was remodeling my room.
Those old Falcons were gutless but would easily pull that caravan, it helps if you know how to drive but thats not a big load for a six cylinder car it wouldnt tax my 66 4 cylinder wagon, my 63 Holden six when new towed a double horse float to shows all over NSW it had air bags and vacuum trailer brakes and a 179 cube six hydramatic and it did it just fine drum brakes all round.
The 1966 Ford LTD, where did this photo originate? It is the EXACT same car of my parents. Sold it in 1992 in San Jose CA. New guy license plate as SHARKFAN.
Somebody said Apache, I was thinking Nimrod. People built their own. Plywood on a steakbed 6 3 on the tree. The Joads.
Dad bought a Ziegler tent camper, 1963, a guy made in his garage. A wheel bearing went out, no replacement, and the whole axle got retrofitted. It probably had 60 lbs tounge weight. 1960 Chevrolet Brookwood 6 powerglide tractor.
Keep in mind most towed on 2 lanes at 30-45 mph. The Interstate system was growing. Flatten the hills and straighten the curves.
As a youngster, we had a homemade plywood camper that my dad had brush painted with his favorite color, aluminum silver. The inside was all wood, he made bunk beds in front.
We towed with a sea foam green
Studebaker 4 dr, with mohair fabric interior. I still remember how itchy that was!
We only used it on road trips from Oregon to Tacoma Wa. To visit my dad’s high school classmates.
IMy older brother and I camped in it once on a trip to the Oregon dunes. The tour buggy we rode had giant old aircraft tires.