Wordless Vintage Snapshot: 1954 Cadillac, Corvette C1 And Pedal Car – Toys For The Whole Family
– Posted on April 3, 2024
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Some of the very few GM cars I’d care to own right in one shot! Lucky family!
Likely “well heeled”, owners.
7 decades later and those colors are once again popular 🙂
If I were a top executive at GM in 1955 and entitled to two company cars, these would be the two. Quite the driveway!
The kid looks like he might be outgrowing the pedal car already.
True. It must be some kind of special event or holiday, as the young man is wearing his “Sunday Best” suit, complete with a dress shirt and necktie! This was when we all dressed up for church on Sunday, or for special family events (weddings, funerals, christenings, etc.). Mom is behind the wheel of the Corvette, so she was the “Cool Mom” in the neighborhood, LOL! Dad’s Caddy serves as the backdrop, so he must be the photographer who took this picture.
Things were much more formal back in the day, as even the school uniforms of that era involved dress shirts, leather dress shoes and neckties! No polo shirts with khakis and hush puppies for us, No Sir! Nothing but a white dress shirt with a button-down collar, school necktie, with charcoal gray slacks, black leather belt, gray or black socks and black leather shoes were acceptable school attire. Deviations from those rules were met with swift punishment and a note home to enforce compliance! Do you understand? Yes, Sister!
Got to see the ‘eye doc”! To me , looks like the kid is in “PJ”s, barefoot.
It’s almost like you could custom fit the Cadillac front and rear sections to the Corvette to make a sporty Cadillac. That would be something else.
Which weighed more? The “Caddy”, bumpers? The “Vette”? H’mm.
Goldilocks called, she wants the Corvette, LOL!
Great find, Rich
Love how the rear end treatments go from fin-tail on the Cadillac to boat-tail on the pedal car!
That must have been one wealthy family.
I would have thought mom in the caddilac
I love the Caddy best .
-Nate
That is a driveway I’m envious of, and I have a pretty cool driveway.
Fantastic pic. Back in the 1960s I lived in an upper middle class neighborhood. Ten blocks away was a working class neighborhood. My family had two T-Birds. I was bullied by those kids in the other neighborhood, and will never forget it. I will never forget, nor forgive the hell I experienced just because my family had a nice home and nice cars.
Our neighborhood was quite “uniform”. No “nice homes”. Some of the houses were “nicer” then most of the others.
Love the photo! Great piece of Americana.
The ’54 Cad and the C1 ‘Vette make for quite the driveway! Could the Vette been dad’s car and the CdV mom’s car? I can relate to the family that had two Thunderbirds. In my case we had a ’65 and a ’66. We lived in a middle class neighborhood and the T-Birds were viewed with suspicion, but my dad worked hard building his own business and deserved them. Unfortunately the T-Birds were unreliable – electrical problems and hoses rupturing more often than they should have at the most inopportune time.
After a lifetime as a devotee of Ford products, Dad bought his first Cadillac, a deep aqua CdV in 1968. I would have preferred a Riviera but learned my opinion didn’t count. He ordered a Cadillac. The quality of the Cadillac far outshone the T-Birds and I still love that car. Too bad GM became more interested in selling more and more units than continuing to build the best.
Bill Mitchell was one of the greatest designers ever, but under whose command did those gosh-awful bloated ’71-’76 models get built. I love to rip on Roger Bonham Smith, but the over-the-cliff poor quality ’71s were not a result of Roger B. Smith. GM got caught up in sales numbers and short-term profits instead of ensuring they built the best quality car for the dollar spent.
They lost their mojo and until car people reign at GM once again I don’t envision things changing. They should have run the Northstar motor as many miles as the 472 was run prior to introduction in a production car. The maddening thing to me is GM knew how to build the best and chose mediocrity instead. I still have the Caribe Aqua Cdv and am happy I kept it.