Vintage Snapshots: Parking Lots In The 1950s & 1960s
– Posted on July 16, 2024
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For a car nut groomed in the 50s & 60s, parking lot pics from this era provide me with a chance to look back and test my memory as to the identity of each car….If I can’t figure it out I go searching for the answer…. In Old age, fun is much different.
It is indeed!
As a 1947 Vintage Rolls Canardly (Roll down one hill and Can ardly get up the next), what a great memory of Lost American automobiles AND Lost stores. Giants like Sears and Woolworth, once considered invincible are sadly Gone With the Wind, replaced by the net. Those were the days!
I have a gut feeling that the second B&W photo is of a parking lot for the newly opened Disneyland in 1955. Massive with the very typical low line of oranges trees in the background. Orange groves were still common down in that area of Southern California in 1968. I walked through an orange grove to 9th grade, the west end of the Valley, in 1967. Also a hint of smog in the distance.
That photo also proves at least one American bought a Vauxhall Victor from the friendly neighborhood Pontiac dealer…
The photo with the Vauxhall is of Campbell Plaza in Tucson. The Santa Catalina mountains are in the background. This was Campbell Plaza’s grand opening, April 7, 1960.
Look at all the parked cars with OPEN WINDOWS! Pre-A/C and pre-2024 era car crimes! All those domestic-made colorful cars. Beetles, lots of them.
Love the fellow who decided to squeeze his Cadillac on the end of the aisle, blocking the Kaiser Manhattan. If he returned before the Caddy owner, he’ll have to get in on the other side, then avoid ripping off his side mirror.
Such a variety. Within a year or two, the same model looked astoundingly different. So when you get a parking lot shot, the variety is remarkable.
Real-world contemporary appearances. Unlike today’s local meets, these classics weren’t classics and they look like they are used up. Rust, dents, discolorations, trashy, drippy, and I bet 5% have a rusted muffler and smokey oil exhaust. A lot are California cars, but in Chicagoland – you smelled a significant number of cars as much as you saw them. Mufflers that couldn’t stay on with coat hangers, fell off and usually ended up rolling into the curbs or parkways.
I understand how easy it was back then to sell America on the idea that the world would end up overpopulated and environmentally poisoned. Hanging above those California, St. Louis and other parking lots, was smog. Bad smog. Dirty air that you could feel in your eyes and feel in the back of your throat. That didn’t even include the neighborhood industrial plants pumping out colorful clouds that smelled like fingernail polish. Don’t miss those days!
These postings of parking lots are amazing.
I had noticed the Caddy at the end but didn’t register that it wasn’t in a striped spot. So a parking jerk back then.
I really, _really_ enjoy spending time looking these over closely .
-Nate
Great photos. I was a kid and teenager during this era and you could really tell an old car from a new car back then! Now I can’t tell the difference between a 2014 and a 2024 Nissan/Toyota/Honda/Hyundai, etc…all boring compared to the 1950s and 1960s.
My thoughts too, about the new cars!
My wife is always asking me “I like that color, what kind of car is it?” I pretty much have to answer “No clue”.
I agree with your sentiment, though not my continent so not familiar with the images, there does seem to be a sense of optimism and of people going about life in lovely sunny weather
By “color” is it black/white/gray or one of these “exciting” new drab slate colors they keep coming up with, like matte pea and battleship grey? People ask if I’m going to repaint my jeep a different color when I restore it since it’s red, to which I tell them no. One of 20 color options for 1987.
Was the third photo taken near Sebring ?
I guess Sebring. Too many enthusiast cars to be anywhere but there or at Road America/Elkhart Lake. But it doesn’t look like Wisconsin and they didn’t have Florida Highway Patrol cars at Elkhart.
First picture was definitely Southern California. I recognize all the stores. 1956, yellow California plates and the newest car a ’56 Buick?.
Yes, it’s the Lakewood Center on Lakewood Blvd. The May Co. building in the background is currently a JC Penney.
The white car with its nose against the palm tree appears to be a 57 Ford (based on the reverse angled A-pillar and the front wheel opening shape.
Also, the green and white 4-door on the far left (partially out of the frame) appears to be a Forward Look Mopar from 1957-58.
2nd photo – Always like to find AMC/Nash cars… there’s an early Rambler in that one. Bonus – a Vauxhall Victor (?) near the Rambler. Also a ’56-57 108″ Rambler near the left edge.
The second photo (first B/W) is of Campbell Plaza in Tucson, at the corner of Campbell Avenue and Glenn Street, circa 1959. (The newest car in the photo that I can identify is a ’59 Chevy.) The Santa Catalina mountains are in the background. At some point in the 1960s, the sidewalk in front of the stores was extended outward, glassed in, and air-conditioned; it wasn’t the greatest of ideas for a west-facing façade in Tucson. Eventually the walk was opened up again.
The pic with the white, “Falcon”, front & center; see an unusual # of white cars in that lot.
Now a days, white is one of the “5-6” colors available. Not so in those days.
What is the dark car parked behind the Vauxhall in the Tucson photo?
I think it might be a Hillman Minx Mk.III
https://auta5p.eu/lang/en/katalog/auto.php?idf=Hillman-Minx-Mark-III-Saloon-21355
Reminds me that I found a Hillman ignition key in the street a few months back. I’m likely the only person in the neighborhood who knows what a Hillman was.
I was pretty sure it was British but the Hillman didn’t occur to me. Ironic because a 1954 Minx sedan was my family’s first car though I was only three years old when it was replaced. And though we took that Minx on some surprisingly long road trips on California freeways, it never went as far as Arizona so it can’t be our car in the photo though 😀. In an example of how insidious Meta’s algorithms are, I was recently fed a Facebook Marketplace ad for a ‘54 Minx for sale near me, same color as my parents’, though this one was a convertible. In fact the 2 door Minxes were called Californians.
As a little kid, this kind of car congestion, never appealed to me. I eventually asked my parents not to take me with them to shop, at the nearby large shopping mall, on Saturday afternoons. As the packed parking lot, and big crowds inside, was a turn off. Was much happier playing sports, with my friends.
I didn’t like it at first, when my parents retired to the country. But I soon learned to love the more natural settings, and appreciate the low volume of car traffic. Made car spotting more special.
I grew up in Pennsylvania, and I definitely know what snow is. If I’d seen the lead photo at the time it was taken, I’d definitely have said, “Wow, I want to live there when I grow up!”
Photos of Clifton’s Cafeteria through the decades:
https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/photos-historic-cliftons-cafeteria-through-the-decades
The latest on Clifton’s:
https://boingboing.net/2024/05/13/cliftons-cafeteria-is-back-but-is-called-cliftons-republic-now.html
Wstrn PA kid too. Know all snow, slush, slop.
Wow! Picture 7 looks like the mauka side of Ala Moana Shopping Center! “Mauka” is in the direction of a mountain; “Makai” is towards the sea. I lived in Hawai’i back when this photo was taken. Now…there’s a bunch of high-rise buildings cutting off the view of the Ko’olau Mountains.
First pic is Eastland shopping center in Covina. Was anchored by 3 story May Company department store. View is from Huddle restaurant at shopping centers west end.
I think l vaguely remember the toll House building being somewhere in new England in the mid to late 60s, as about a 5 to 9 yr. Old. The picture looks about like it was taken ca. ’65. What an awesome red :63/’64 stude hawk GT in the photo! I think that you can tell the year from the grille medallion placement
If that first photo isn’t the Eastland Shopping Center in West Covina, California, it has to be a similar place not far away. I grew up in Covina, and I remember when Eastland opened. It was a BIG deal.
Photo #5 is Disneyland on its opening day, July 17, 1955. I just saw it in a gallery The Atlantic put together. I turned 9 years old that day.
Luv the red chevy convertible 😍many cars are beautiful classics !