Vintage shots from days gone by!

Springfield June 53, Spider Webbs Commercial Motor Freight 65 next to Walt Faulkners Hart Fullerton 22 and in the background the DNQ Safaroff 52 loaded up on it's way home.

 

Got any ear plugs?

 

There was a guy around here who had one of those. His wife, as I recall, made sure everybody knew it was really hers. I believe they made a lavender version of this model as well.

 

Only Easterners would put fake wire wheel hubcaps and whitewalls on those Corvettes. We ran chrome reverse with blackwalls on ours. Even the stock hubcaps look better than silly fake wire hubcaps. Guess we are lucky they didn't have skirts

 

Any relation to the Knoch interior guy?

Pat

 

Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes in Northern Michigan?

 

Pat yes they are cousins I believe. Jim

 

Stock hubcaps are certainly nothing I would put on a "sports car". Harley Earl at work.

Those are not fake hubcaps but are Dayton wire wheels. Dayton has used Wally's car in their ads for years. He still has the Dayton wires on it today.

 

Suh-lap

 

Secret Service Summer Santa

 

Hubcaps or wheels, they are still not attractive especially on C-1's. We ran chrome reversed or real American Mag wheels both of which look a lot better.

 

Riverside

 

No fancy race suits for these guys, just come directly from the family BBQ to the race track.

 

Jim B you seem to want to paint guys back east with a broad brush which is your prerogative but I lived in SoCal for 16 years and know firsthand that the way guys did cars in your neck of the woods was just as diverse as it is east of the Colorado river.

Here is a picture of Wally’s 62 and even though I am not a died in the wool wire wheel guy on early Vettes, I believe it looks pretty good. I also know when the picture in question was taken in 1962 there were no guys in California running Americans (other than maybe some Palamides-which I seriously doubt) as Americans (TTs-which were the popular style) I believe had not even been cast until 63 at the earliest.

As to Harley Earl, I am actually a fan but he had a tendency to go overboard with gadgets and do-dads that gave the car a “look” but not sure if they really added anything IMO. If GM had left Earl as to his own devices, the Corvette may very well be a memory as his 53-55 version was anything but a hit. If anyone probably saved the Vette, it was probably Duntov who made it into a real sports car IMO and instead of putting a washboard on the hood and elephant tusks on the trunk, instead opted for high lift camshafts with dual quads or fuel injection. He also never put hubcaps with a pretend knockoff on any of his specials but used the real deal-Halibrand knockoffs. When the C2 came along they finally woke up and made a true knockoff an option.

We may agree that the early Vettes looked much better with the day 2 options which starting in 63/64 allowed for some nicer wheels for sure.

 

My Dad, Haliburton Ont. Mid to late 50s, '53 Chev, 303 British

 

My Dad on the left with my uncle the trapper. Haliburton Ont June '55