Prior to American Graffiti, there wasn't much interest in older vehicles, everyone wanted the newest car or truck!
This has got me thinking about all those weird English cars that I remember when I was a kid. Since Canada has that British Commonwealth connection, there was a bunch of them. They seem to have all disappeared.
watched "bullitt" for the umpteenth time the other night. i wonder how many green volkswagens there were in san francisco in 1968?
Within 2 miles of where I live is a company the secures cars for TV/Movies. It’s called Camera Ready Cars. They supply vehicles for the movies and tv of course for many different eras. If I put back in stock front springs or spacers, the stock wide whites and wheel covers, and fender skirts I could rent out my 56 with daily, weekly, monthly, etc. they need them to look stock. Many are just parked for a drive bye. They have hundreds on call and enclosed trailers for pick up and delivery. Some shoots you can be with your car but not in the filming. I know guys with nice looking 4dr 50-60’s daily quality who have made more money with their cars than they ever paid for them; most have modern mechanicals and easy to drive.
Even a lot of the cool cars from the ‘50s are not very common. Most people would not believe that the mid fifties Fords sold as well as the Chevrolets. Taste changed and the Chevy remained popular. Not so much for Mopar.
I keep thinking about how the automobile is just an appliance to most people. We are the anomalies in society. How large is the current population, roughly 340 million here in the U.S. In reality how many are there interested in cars as anything else but that appliance?
In a lot of areas, mine for sure, Ford, Chevy, and Dodge Plymouth were the norm. Lincoln and Caddy were mainly upscale people like Lawyers, Judges, Bankers and Doctors and out of reach for the common working stiffs. Of course there were also the store owners and others that had a standing order for Ole Doc’s Caddy or Lincoln when he traded it in every year or two. Since there were less of them new, it’s no wonder that after the third or fourth owner they were junked. Nobody wanted an old car with 100,000 or more miles on it, they were basically worn out and not to mention out of style. The old Fords and Chevys though, some got a second life on the race tracks, and a lot of them got saved by young folks who liked them and couldn’t afford a new muscle car.
I used to be able to get cheap parts cars for 57/58 Plymouths until the movie Christine came out. After that good luck. Try to buy a 2 door hardtop 57/58 Plymouth complete that needs restoration today and the prices are stupid. I've always had my 57 but during that time I did own a few Chevys and a Stude along with a few other 57/58 Plymouths. I liked the Stude, but when I owned it back in the late sixties they were out of business and parts were hard to come by.
That is entirely correct up until the point when they decide "out with the old and in with the new". Suddenly, at this point, the car magically transforms from purely an appliance into something that is highly valuable simply because it is old, and therefore must be collectable. After decades of driving the life out of the car and it getting to a point where it needs to be replaced, it surely now must be the 'holy grail' to prospective collectors and restorers....
Can’t speak for others, but I built hot rods in the ‘60s and ‘70s, before American Graffiti came out, and never had any desire for the newest car or truck. Maybe it is a personal defect to want to build my own. Those “appliance” cars that went to the scrap yard for a blown trans or engine made for great build material.
Couple of thoughts here. Every once in a while a low mileage original car turns up that has been in dry storage for many, many years. It is always something like a 1956 Rambler or a 1987 Taurus. Never a 1957 Bel Air hardtop or 1970 Superbird. Second thought, no matter how obscure or useless the car, there is a car club of enthusiasts for it. I tend to sympathize with them because I am fond of the unusual and like to find the merit in any car no matter how offbeat.
One of my friends, his '49 Oldsmobile was in Goodfellas. Early in the movie, they were selling cigarettes out of the trunk. His car was not shiny, the others the production company wanted to spray the shiny cars with something to make them duller. Some were okay with it, some were not and took their cars home. I know one guy who has had his cars in many a NYC based movie. He has a Pinto, a Chevy II, actually 2 of them and a Falcon. He says he does well with them. He had a stroke 2 years ago, so he's not driving too much of anything right now.
Gee wiz guys! It’s not what a car starts out to be it’s what it is turned into that makes it kool So to answer the question No
Wow. Very few interested in old cars before the 1980s?!? No interest prior to American Graffiti?!? I think the Hershey swap meet started in the mid ‘50s, Portland in the mid ‘60s. I wonder what the hell they were selling before George Lucas made his little film.
Chevy won because of interchangeable parts , from 55 to 97 , you could swap SBC, BBC, moist chev trans year to year , as an example , ford had 2 351's that were completely on their own , couple different 427's , 428's , 429's , 430's , 360's with no or little changeability ...
Chevy parts were and are still cheap for the most part. That had a lot to do with it. As far as styling goes both the 57 Ford and 57 Plymouths were better looking cars in my opinion and the magazines of the day.
@'29 Gizmo Hello, From the time we grew up in So Cal from 1946 to the time we left after getting married in our twenties, we always remember those old cars sitting on empty lots over grown with weeds. Some of them in backyards covered with canvas tarps and weeds growing almost car height. But, it was a treasure trove of cars just waiting for young folks like us to buy one and give it a new purpose. Jump up many years and there some places that still have old cars under canvas tarps or new fangled nylon/plastic tarps, waiting for something… some one forgot or just gave up the idea of a different life for the old car and just let it sit there. In our So Cal area along the coast, sitting cars as well as cars used daily constantly get a dose of salt mist coming into the shore area where the cars are sitting outside or even in garages. There is never a time of no salt in the air. The constant winds from the ocean always battle the winds from the land and it is a recuring battle that has happened for centuries to see each other’s superiority. Jnaki We have battled the “salt mist” for the years of our hot rod builds, even when we lived 4 miles from the coast in Long Beach. Those winds know no boundaries. Perhaps three miles inland and up on a hill helped our old cars, when our family moved near the old Hilborn Injector Complex in South Orange County. The winds and elevation seem to keep the “salt” incursion back or less of it as the winds moved inland. These two old cars are still around and we saw them on the highway going someplace. But, recently, they were relegated to street parking duty for some odd reason or two. They are not too dull to save…YRMV
I included one of my cars with a registry. It's a 1 of 3000 car and they said about 10% of them survived. The registry is right at 300 of them, so if that is evidence, a highly desired big block 4 speed drag pack car only had a 10% ish survival rate. Imagine the survival rate of a plain jane Mom car. Gotta be tiny and relegated to desert climates. Rust belt cars don't survive much at all. In the 60s my Dad drove some cool but not mainstream cars. He had an early 60's Oldsmobile F-85 with a 215 in it. How many of those are still around? Then he had a 62 Pontiac Grand Prix 389 Tri Power. That was a cool car, white over black, lots of power. I bet precious few of those are around. Both 2 door V8 cars you almost never see today. Back in the 70's I remember seeing a 65 GT Fastback Mustang at Bauer Wrecking. Must have been a GT because I snagged the export brace off of it. Seemed too good back then to a young me, to be in a wrecking yard. Today that car in that condition would command five figures. There have always been hot rodders, hope there always will be.
i am from wisconsin so what gets me watching these old shows is none of them had a speck of rust on them but where i am from it can be rotten up to the door handles it seems. yep i like watching those old shows just to see the clean old cars. go a few years newer on the shows and then you see off topic cars all the time that you no longer see like vegas for one example but they were plentiful on tv and at one time every town had some rolling around.
I'm 77 and graduated high school in 1965. If you drove a four door to school in the early sixties it either ment that you were driving your moms car or Mom's old hand me down car = you turned 16 and got your licence and wanted a car and the folks all the sudden decided that they needed a new car and rather than trade in the old sedan handed it over to you. Or a 55 Chevy six cylinder 4 door sedan was all you could afford as a 2 door hardtop was a whole summers worth of hard work's pay more than the 4 door. Now the 4 door stigma that was big in the 50's through the 70's isn't there with the younger folks near as much as many have never ridden in anything except four doors growing up. That old 63 four door sedan that most of us would never wanted to drive back in the day is just the entry level ticket for people who don't have the funds to buy an Impala SS from the same time frame and they don't see the plain more door as being a bad thing. Funny thing is that a car that I see all the time at local rod trots is an identical twin to the last car my grandparents owned right down to the paint color and interior. It is stone stock and you see it all over the place and the owner has a blast with it.
You have 12 years on me, but in 77 when I finished high school it was the same way. The guys wanted two doors, even if that meant a Vega or Pinto, and the gals didn’t really care, mom’s old 4 door was fine with them, it was the freedom they cherished. I had Ford pony cars, never even owned a 4 door anything until I was in my 30’s. Now I have two 4 door suvs and a pickup with 4 doors, rear are suicide doors, but they are all just transportation. My heart and soul go into the 47 Lincoln coupe and the 82 Vette. They are what get my blood pumping and heart racing! I’m still of the mindset, 4 doors are parts cars. I do exempt 4 door hardtops though…
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