Mystery car pix

magnette

@fintail re the Opel Rekord


Yes, I thought that was unusual as in what is presumably 1964 not that many Opels would have been seen in Britain. It is left hand drive so not from Ireland where Opel were selling cars by the late 50's and generally British service personnel would have bought RHD cars to bring back, so they must be tourists from the continent, which was common enough in London or the south east of England but pretty rare in Wales at that time.

I travelled on that ferry a couple of times while they were building the bridge. It cut off an alternative 60 mile detour around the top of the estuary to get from Cardiff to London or Bristol, although a more direct route than driving was by train to London as virtually below this point the Victorians had built a railway tunnel in about 1880.

fintail

And in front of the Anglia, a Spridget, perhaps. Hard to tell the others, but the rear of the small van at the front of the line reminds me of the Matchbox Anglia van.

magnette said:

@fintail re the Opel Rekord


Yes, I thought that was unusual as in what is presumably 1964 not that many Opels would have been seen in Britain. It is left hand drive so not from Ireland where Opel were selling cars by the late 50's and generally British service personnel would have bought RHD cars to bring back, so they must be tourists from the continent, which was common enough in London or the south east of England but pretty rare in Wales at that time.

I travelled on that ferry a couple of times while they were building the bridge. It cut off an alternative 60 mile detour around the top of the estuary to get from Cardiff to London or Bristol, although a more direct route than driving was by train to London as virtually below this point the Victorians had built a railway tunnel in about 1880.

fintail

One of those cars designed with a T-square, I think Clarkson quipped something like that.

My uncle had a Fomoco product that also had a driveway burning incident, and it too had cornering lights. But this time, a 91 Taurus, maybe a better spec with those lights. I remember it a little, light blue with a darker interior. He replaced with a LeSabre he kept for many years.

tjc78 said:

Panther, yes. 1980 Mark VI Givenchy. Pop's car. Almost burned to a crisp in the driveway one morning while warming up to take me to school.

fintail

A few easy ones here:



This sign is a legend in Seattle, around 1970, Boeing had some hard times, including losing the SST program IIRC, and there were heavy layoffs which brought a short yet sharp economic malaise to the area, as the economy wasn't as diversified as it is now, Someone put up this sign to mark the times. Some entitled contrarian types of a certain demographic whine the same is happening in Seattle now, due to a few WFH types leaving or large corporations not having 100% of their HQ offices downtown, or the hippie tourist attraction sit-in on Cap Hill named after Cher's son, to which I can say you can continue that theory when housing is the same relative to incomes as it was then.

tmart

I’ll grab the Country Squire bringing up the rear, Chevy in front, Olds in the middle.

bhill2

Yeah. Hopefully the owner of that (newish) Country Squire wasn't one of ones laid off. He must be heavily upside down on it at that moment.

andys120

The Chevy is a '62, the Olds is MY '61 and the wagon is a 1969.

andys120

The plate reads "SAAB 96" but this variant of the 96 was sold with a different name>

ab348

andys120 said:

The plate reads "SAAB 96" but this variant of the 96 was sold with a different name>

One of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_Sport

ab348

Another one of '60s L.A. from the Huntington Library. Expands greatly.

magnette

@fintail

Yes the Anglia 100E van was modelled by matchbox is down towards the shore and the old car before the Spridget looks like a Vauxhall L type Wyvern / Velox -I'm not sure about the white car in front of that because the man standing in the way blocks the view but based on the rear wheel arch and window I think its a pre-Farina Austin A55 Cambridge

magnette

The tone of the colour in these LA pictures is so good.

quite a varied mix with a Peugeot 403 to the left and a Kaiser (Manhattan?) with the blue roof
at the top of the hill

andys120

Right to left>

1961 Oldsmobile, 1960 Chevy Biscayne or 210, small Japanese import (Datsun 210?), mid -50s Kaiser, 60-63 Mercury Comet wagon, Peugeot 403.

fintail

Small car behind the Kaiser is a Ford Anglia 100E.

ab348

That L.A. pic is from 1962 and is another one from the time that the Bunker Hill area was being redeveloped. Apparently at the turn of the 20th century it was an area of lavish Victorian homes but by the middle of the century many were becoming rundown and downtown was spreading that way. The building under construction is the Water and Power building, one of the first new ones in that area, which is now unrecognizable compared to the pic. The L.A. Music Center, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and the Walt Disney Concert Hall are all adjacent to it now along with many other new structures..

fintail

Tehran, maybe 1965-66 or so (should zoom in well):

stickguy

A couple of Ford taunuses (tauni?) behind the tail of the gray van. Left dude, looks like a US vsliebt, and early 60s small rambler (American?) top right.

magnette

Directly in the middle of the gap that blue car to the left of the black Peugeot 403 is what looks like a Morris Oxford series III. However this is Iran, so it is more likely to be an Indian assembled Hindustan Ambassador - that version looks about right to be from about 1964 I think as they were still using the same dies in the seventies but the badge changed from the Morris one on this car to the later squarish Hindustan one at about that time I believe.

I think the white car on the far right of the back row by the Jeep is another indian car - a Premier - Indian assembled Fiat 1200 - I think Iran may have actually assembled those from Indian CKD units too.

magnette

A couple of years later and many cars would be the local assembled Hillman Hunter - the Paykan - which was a really big success for Rootes group exports as CKD sets assembled in Tehran. I think those started to get assembled there in the very early 70s

fintail

I was thinking the car just behind the rear of the grey van, and the one behind that, might be then-new Opel Rekord(s)?

4 fintails in a one pic, newest car might be the MB W108 driving to the right at background left, which began production around August 1965. GM-looking 4 door HT-ish thing behind the W108 of the same era, and maybe another late model intermediate GM sedan heading away at background left. Rambler is another good American spot.

ab348

Another from the Huntington Library, Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, 1978. Expands greatly.

fintail

MB W116 in the passing lane of the highway, heading away from the camera, 2nd car from right on the highway.

Parked in the row nearest the beach, 5th car from right, a then-new Celica notchback.

stickguy

light colored duster middle left. And a 75 Corolla (black) along the beach next to a mid 60s El Camino. center from a Nova.

first 3 I spotted that I owned one of!

And a Peugeot 504 next to the Nova.

ab348

Parked next to "Nancy's" is what appears to be a rodded-out mid-70s GM Colonnade coupe of some sort, which might have side exhausts.

ab348

Here's one from NYC, 6th Ave and 48th St., 1967, from the Old Pictures of NYC group on FB. Expands a bit. Look at how dirty that large building in the right background is!

kyfdx

ab348 said:

Here's one from NYC, 6th Ave and 48th St., 1967, from the Old Pictures of NYC group on FB. Expands a bit. Look at how dirty that large building in the right background is!

1960 Ford

Lostwrench3

That's not dirt.
It's construction safety netting to keep falling debris from hitting the sidewalk.

ab348

Lostwrench3 said:

That's not dirt.
It's construction safety netting to keep falling debris from hitting the sidewalk.

I see the scaffolding over the sidewalk but I was referring to the one adjacent to that closer to the camera.

fintail

A Fairlane with reverse lights, posh. Looks like a 62 Mercury 2 in front of the 60 Ford.

andys120

I used to work a couple of blocks away (6th and 49th The round signs hanging from the lamp-posts on the opposite side all say "Avenue of The Americas" even though the city never succeeded in getting NYers to call it that. (To us it was always and ever shall be "Sixth Avenue").

Lots of things in NY city have two or more names. Officially it's the "Ed Koch Bridge" but if you're from Queens its the "Queensboro Bridge", Manhattanites call it the "59th St. Bridge.Likewise the "RFK Bridge" is the "Triboro" to real New Yorkers. I could go on...

ab348

fintail said:

A Fairlane with reverse lights, posh.

It appears to be a 2-door sedan too. Not many posh versions of those.

andys120

stickguy

Studebacker PU. Champ? I will guess 1962

Lostwrench3

Notice the rear box was wider than the rest of the body!
Ok, Pop Quiz. Why?

stickguy

so a 4' sheet of something could lay flat?

bhill2

IIRC, it is because the Studebaker didn't build the box. It was sourced from another manufacturer (was it Dodge?)

Lostwrench3

bhill2 said:

IIRC, it is because the Studebaker didn't build the box. It was sourced from another manufacturer (was it Dodge?)

Bingo! bhill2 is correct.
Those boxes were purchased from Dodge. They were used on the 1959 and 1960 Dodge pick-up trucks.
Ok, just one more thing.
Those Studebaker pick-up trucks were the first American pick-up truck to offer a sliding (_ _ _ _) (_ _ _ _ _ _).

ab348

Yes, a Dodge truck pickup box, which had a character line in the side that kinda sorta matched up with a similar line from the Lark-based front half.

Today I like these pickups, but for years the mismatched box and the low-mounted front bumper that didn't match up to the Lark front end sheetmetal bothered me.

stickguy

Rear window?

ab348

Another one from the Huntington Library today, Mid-'60s L.A., back in the Bunker Hill neighborhood, with a couple of houses not long for this world. Expands greatly.

magnette

@fintail

Fin, I'm with you on those Opels.

And the grey van in the foreground is the then new Ford Transit - originally a British developed model but fully assembled both in England and Germany (replacing a German Taunus based Transit range and the British Thames vans too ) and that range basically becomes the default van for Europe for decades - indeed it is still the same now in some categories, several generations later.

magnette

That house looks even more like the Munsters ? Addams house or possibly should be next door to the Bates Motel

Outside that house obscuring one of the red VWs is what I think is a Dodge (Seneca?) from about 1961.

Nearest on the right is a Rambler - Ambassador ?

Lostwrench3

stickguy said:

Rear window?

Correct!

andys120

Gen II Corvair '65-'69 sports several flower stickers, probably to cover rust spots.

fintail

I like the stickers on the Corvair . I notice the absolute lack of foreign cars aside from VWs - the Japanese were just arriving at gate, give it another 5 years. I'll pick off the white 59 Ford wagon at background left, in front of the smaller house, and a light blue 65 Ford at left kind of beside a guy in a white shirt.

I remember my dad telling me about the big Victorian mansions razed everywhere in the 60s (here too), how little was salvaged, and all of the ornate trim/woodwork was just sent to the dump.

ab348

I'll take the '67 Mustang fastback over the green '68 Firebird parked behind it. Obscured next to the Mustang is what looks like a FoMoCo roofline, maybe even 2 of them.

bhill2

magnette said:

That house looks even more like the Munsters ? Addams house or possibly should be next door to the Bates Motel

Outside that house obscuring one of the red VWs is what I think is a Dodge (Seneca?) from about 1961.

Nearest on the right is a Rambler - Ambassador ?

The Rambler is an American; I think a '64. Top trim level (440).

ab348

Los Angeles again courtesy of the Huntington Library, appears to be around 1964. Broadway near 2nd St., expands greatly.

magnette

The pink/white Mopar looks like a 56 Dodge to me based on the trim line on the rear wing, and in front of it that cream/brown one is also a Dodge - 58?
I think the requisite 60 Ford is the white car in the far distance - its front wheel is directly above the rear window of the foreground Cadillac

andys120

The oldest cars are the '56-ish Dodge or the '55-ish Ford next to it.