Jive-Bomber submitted a new blog post: Cruisin' California in '52 Continue reading the Original Blog Post
In the settings icon of the video you can slow the playback down as slow as .25 speed. I slowed it down to see all the passing things early in the video. Cool! Also- looks to be 1956-1957. I saw a 56 Eldorado convertible. Every now and then a car from the early 30's goes by, wow they must've felt like losers with all those 50's cars... today the design difference over 20 years is not that dramatic.
Where's my time machine? I need to make a trip. I enjoyed this video in the rural countryside more than the city ones. Being an artist and a modeler I see thousands of potential paintings and hundreds of potential dioramas in that nine minute video.
At 8:17 is that snow in the background on the hillside or mountainside? What type of video equipment was around back then that you could shoot such nice video? This is amazing. Someone should find this road and take the exact route the original video taker did with this to see how much it's changed. It would be depressing to see the change because this is just absolutely beautiful. Thanks for posting this.
Thank You J B. The views are very real when colorized. I enjoy seeing real cars in their natural habitat. This was the time when my head was moving to see all the action. My father would take me for trips in his dump truck. ( a '50 Ford modded for overload ) He hauled gravel and asphalt. ( yummy ) The state did not care for his disregard of MPH signs. Anyhow I'd like to comment on some little bitty stuff. One is the crankcase venting path ( oil drip stain ) on the road. Ten years later air on busy roads was becoming noxious and hazy. PCV showed up none to soon. Next remark is that lane boundry lines were painted white until much later. Last is the look of trash and litter was very common on certain roads. Government steps to keep litter down were yet to come. ( adopt a H'way, Civic Service programs and yes litter bags in the car ) The common move was to toss stuff out the window.
I lived in Eureka, CA in 1954. In August we had an earthquake and it scared my Mom so bad she told my Dad he could stay in California if he wanted but she, my sister and I were leaving tomorrow for our home state of Oregon. .....the next day we all piled into our rusty 'ol 41 Olds 4 door and that was that! Loved the video
I took the advice above and slowed the video down. Observed lots of fastbacks,visors,fender skirts. Lots of gas stations,diners,repair shops. What a ride!
This new edition is a much improved colorization project. The custom rainbow colors are still there, but not as much as the earlier ones we have seen. The landscape in So Cal looks like it did in 1952. Hello, It is only two to three miles from Woodland Hills to Canoga Park areas. There is a sign in the landlocked area that shows a Pontiac or Buick woody blazing down the road. The first sign of Woodland Hills: And a Woodland Hills Chinchilla Farm. Rare, but popular back in those days. as folks did wear fur coats made of dead animals, other than processed leather. Finally, at 8:56 Canoga Park is now the main viewing city. That took almost three miles down this road. One side of that main cross street with the gas station was Woodland Hills and the other with the tall sign is Canoga Park. Jnaki This stretch of straight country style open highway would have been a great place for full acceleration adventures. Straight road, empty lots and property and wide open spaces. But, someone in the either city had other ideas with a posted sign of 25 mph. BOOOO! Note: This whole area is the start of the Los Angeles River in its minute forms. Then it meanders and runs past our Westside of Long Beach house, all the way to the Pacific Ocean near the Queen Mary Boat docked area. Note 2: But, beware, caught in the shadows of the long row of trees and branches are plenty of spots for the local police to hide for unsuspecting speed merchants… yikes! For all of the wide open spaces, the late 50s-early 60s Aerospace Industry bought the open land. With the industry, they brought in the huge flocks of people in the adjoining community of homes. Gee, my wife’s family was a part of the aerospace industry in the early to mid 50s . So, perhaps, they would not have ended up in Pacoima from their travels from OKC to California. Pacoima is nearby and in the large Northwest LA Aerospace industrial area. Luck of the draw, as they moved to Manhattan Beach as the industry changed and also opened up factories in different areas of So Cal. @Davkin Time machine, yes to the exact spot in time. But, the wide open spaces that looked so great in that area of NW Metropolitan Los Angeles, are now packed in homes and industry. It is no longer Canoga Park but called West Hills to give it a spiffy name. YRMV Note3: As a side note, further research provided an odd ball bit of information. During our desert motorcycle racing, our European scrambles race era, we went to a place called Corriganville. It was way out in the far reaches of Los Angeles area. It took a long time to drive there. But, the top racers came to a race at the famous movie set of “Crash Corrigan” and his cowboy adventures for films. The highlight of the race was that I was in the top three at the start of my class race. Alas, the name, Crash Corrigan must have stuck in my brain. I was accelerating around a dirt trail that was bordered by a tall thick set of bushes. As I rounded the blind corner, my handle bar got caught in the branches sticking out and yanked me down to the dirt. So goes my fast start and lead, to be left on the ground licking my wounds and following the “crash” part of the local lore name. YRMV
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