This is a recurrent theme in our vintage image galleries; that of families and their cars. A topic that generally brings plenty of commentaries, as these images provide a nice way to check out the long-gone world around these folks and their cars.
Not that all the folks in these images belong to the same family, since some are clearly in gatherings of some sort or another. Some rather large ones. So I would hope they rode in more than one vehicle…
Should you wonder, part 1 of this series is HERE and part 2 HERE.
1949ish Ford: My wife fell in love with the little twin girls!
In the Studebaker pic, where do they put all those kiddies?
In the back seat; just like the three kids and dog in the Mustang. This was all perfectly common back then; pile into the back seat. It also helps explain why 2-doors were commonly preferred by parents with young kids. No risk of accidentally opened doors causing one or more to be lost along the road somewhere.
Except the rear seats in early Stude coupes were split with a non-foldable armrest/console (with seemingly a different design each year) that made it hard to fit even 3 kids in back (although the two kids that did fit got recessed footwells of sorts, rare in a Studebaker). The three-across seating was in front on the bench seat. Later Hawks starting in ’59 got full-width rear seats, and from 1961 onward Studebaker finally did five-seater coupes the normal way – buckets up front, bench in back instead of the reverse.
Perfect booster seat for the little one! 🙂
That is what I’m seeing too. Might not have been the safest thing but I’d bet that it was used like that back in the day.
That pic is of the 1953 model; they made it even more useable as a booster seat (or an ironing board) for the 1954 models:
…and like this for 1956, with scooped-out area for little feet
Lots a folks used them for just that purpose.
In the pic with the first generation Falcon, that rear view mirror is way forward of the driver’s side window, out on the front fender…I looked at some pics on the web and only found one that had the mirror on the front fender like that…most of the others had either the mirror around the driver wing-vent, or had no side mirror at all. Anyone have a clue as to why? Was it an option, maybe for towing?
Some have always considered that a better location as it eliminates the blind spot. That’s why in Japan fender mounted mirrors were mandated for decades. I suspect he read somewhere that it was a better location when he had this aftermarket mirror mounted. Cars did not come standard with any outside mirrors back then.
Many foreign cars and early ’60’s Pontiacs mounted the outside driver’s mirror on the fender…more in the line of sight of the driver. Like Paul says-in the mind of many, that’s where it belongs.
I not so fondly recall a family vacation (1961) when my father insisted on using our 59 Studebaker Lark ( even lacking a radio) instead of our big comfortable 55 DeSoto. Traveling through the miles of desert without AC in that cramped little POS to visit old friends, who for some inexplicable reason had moved to Colorado, I couldn’t wait to get back home. Fortunately no photos were taken. The memory is bad enough!
Does seem odd. MPG maybe?
The other reason is that in 1961, that DeSoto was 6 years old, which was considered to be getting up there in years back then. Unless it was very well maintained, it may well have been considered less reliable than a 2-year old Lark.
I got my first camera when 6 years old in 1960. However, the family photos are all inside during Christmas. Only one outside in the back yard of our new house in the San Fernando Valley in 1967 after the pool was finished. There are also no pictures of my father’s or mother’s cars yet plenty of mine. My father didn’t take pictures and my mother did only later in life for her native plant trips.
The only “family” picture I have in archives was this. I knew was Uncle Jack on the right and Uncle Bert on the left. Yet, just at this moment of posting I came to the realization that the fellow in the back is my grandfather, OMG!
Even when one rationally knows your grandparents where young in some far gone era, it’s still amazing to witness it for yourself…imagine how it would be in color film!
My favorite among this bunch is the family with the Mustang. Not just for the feat of travelling with three kids and a dog in a Mustang, but also just the randomness of having someone take a picture of your family while filling up with gas.
I’ve got to wonder who took the picture. A gas station attendant? Was there a sixth passenger in the Mustang who photographed the other five? A passerby? And it’s amusing that aside from the mom and perhaps the older son, none of the others seem ready for the picture to be taken (though the boy has his cap gun proudly holstered, so he’s ready for anything).
Shots like these offer a genuine window to the past.
Great picture. Appears to be a Mustang GT with dual exhausts, rocker panel trim, and front fender badging.
To Paul. Dad contended that the Larks standard transmission and the DeSotos size would be better on mountain roads. Probably true, but I loved that big DeSoto and always hated the Lark. Actually it was a lemon, despite frequent problems, numerous visits to the dealer, and even driving to South Bend there was never a solution. Finally he gave up and traded for a 61 Valiant. In 61 parents passed up chance to buy the last new 61 DeSoto. Finally in the summer of 62, much to my regret they traded the 55 DeSoto for a 62 Plymouth Belvedere, IMO one of the ugliest cars ever built! But that is another story.
If that is one family in the first photo, how did they all fit in that 61 Buick? The old saying “Big as a Buick” would not apply with this large family. This one would have been more to their liking and comfort.
The fact that there are so many folks assembled, so much car showing on both sides of the group, is amazing.
Our endless “73 Plymouth” was like that too.
By then , the bumpers, bumper guards, were adding length too.
Nice.
I wish I had more old family photos like this .
-Nate
Fantastic photo restorations. Really adds much modernity, and timeliness, to each image. And does the subjects a great deal of justice. Cars look very current. Very impressive, all around!
Great series; thanks! Is the mirror on the Falcon fender stock?
Good thing the kids, in the “Stang”, pic, are so little. Still, that’s a crowded trip.
Lady in center of ((wearing red/blue)) “final pic”, bears a bit a resemblance to my mom.
The ’62 Plymouth was butt ugly …..but not the ugliest ever …the ’62 Dodge was even worse than the Plymouth.
The front armrest in dad’s ’65 Caddy Sedan deVille 4-door hardtop was my “child seat”!