Childhood Family Cruiser?

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Acousticado

Love that Montego, Todd. Around 1973, I owned a ‘68 Mercury Cyclone GT Fastback, just like this one, including color. They were close to being the same car.

Cool - I do remember that version!

[The Watchman]

Originally Posted by TRose

Attachment 84329
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Memories. After practice, our 8th grade basketball coach would load up the back of his red Ford wagon with the team and the cheerleaders, to drive us to our homes. He would slam on the brakes several times during the ride to get the boys and girls all piled up in the back. Learned some impromptu anatomy lessons in that car.

[KevWind]

man talk about a trip down auto memory lane

[rllink]

My dad bought a new car every three years. I wouldn't know where to start. We never had a station wagon or a van. He was a farmer and he owned a construction company so we went through a lot of pickup trucks as well. For the sake of the thread, I'll say a blue 59 Chevy Impala. It had huge tail fins.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by rllink

My dad bought a new car every three years. I wouldn't know where to start. We never had a station wagon or a van. He was a farmer and he owned a construction company so we went through a lot of pickup trucks as well. For the sake of the thread, I'll say a blue 59 Chevy Impala. It had huge tail fins.

The buick in my picture was pre-fin. The 60 station wagon my wife and
I bought had kind of smallish layed down fins, it was near the end of the fin
style.

I'd like a car with fins like Ernie's DeSoto ...



-Mike

[EZYPIKINS]

I remember a 1963 Pontiac Bonneville Wagon.

[Daniel Grenier]

And now for something completely different... I just ordered for myself, a 23 Volvo XC60 and what a mind blowing change it is from the car I learned to drive on: 54 Olds 88!

[RustyAxe]

1957 Pontiac Safari station wagon.
1965 Pontiac Safari station wagon (9-pass Catalina)

[dirkronk]

1950 Ford medium blue Tudor sedan: first (and at the time only) car my folks had until...
1957 Ford 2-door white sedan (alas, not the cooler looking hardtop)

My dad needed a work car, so in a few years they added...
1960 Ford 4-door pale blue Falcon

When the '57 Ford got too long in tooth, dad got mom an upscale cruiser..
1964 Buick LeSabre green 4-door sedan

Dad's old Falcon was getting too high mileage so he traded it in on a
1965 Ford Falcon Futura 2-door (basically the Mustang with a chubby Falcon body) in "Emberglo" (rust red) with tan all-vinyl interior. I inherited this one midway through college and loved it until late 1974.

After that, I was gone and my parents' cars were no longer of the "family cruiser" type. If you're wondering about all the "sedan" choices, my dad was convinced that the cooler-looking hardtop versions (without support pillars) would let the windows loosen up after so many miles and become rattle-traps. He wasn't having any of THAT, by gum.

However, one of my favorite cars of childhood days belonged not my my family but to some very close friends named Bertha & Wink. We'd taken lots of weekend outings and fishing trips with them, and in 1960, when my dad had to use his vacation days on a Marine Reserve trip to 29 Palms, he stayed home in Waco and let mom and me go with Bertha and Wink on the iconic "big trip west" from Texas to California and back. Disneyland/Knott's Berry Farm/Marineland/Grand Canyon/Las Vegas and more. Two whole weeks of adventure! And our ride: a brand new Plymouth Fury...giant fins, baby blue exterior with all white tuck & roll leather (or possibly high grade vinyl) interior. Dang! My 10-year old self thought I'd died and gone to automotive heaven.

Cheers,
Dirk

[reeve21]

My mom had a Chebby. ‘57 Belair. First car I can remember.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by fitness1

...an early 60's Morris Minor like the one pictured - green with a khaki top - Dad called it Sweet Pea like the Tommy Roe song.

One of my dad's friends (who was also his mechanic) had a hardtop version back in the late-60's, that he had intentions of rebuilding/restoring until marital troubles got in the way; always thought it would have made a really cool Gasser or Altered, along the lines of the then-ubiquitous Anglias/Austins/Fiat Topolinos at the local dragstrips - something like this:

[rsay777]

We had a 55/56 Chevy wagon and traveled in the desert of S. Utah. My mom liked to dig up cacti and sandstone rocks to take home for the garden. I remember the summer desert heat and how we had an air conditioner that hung out the window and worked like a "swamp cooler"

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

One of my dad's friends (who was also his mechanic) had a hardtop version back in the late-60's, that he had intentions of rebuilding/restoring until marital troubles got in the way; always thought it would have made a really cool Gasser or Altered, along the lines of the then-ubiquitous Anglias/Austins/Fiat Topolinos at the local dragstrips - something like this:

Ha Steve you jogged my memory we also had 59 or 60 Volvo for a few years
looked like this

[dirkronk]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Ha Steve you jogged my memory we also had 59 or 60 Volvo for a few years
looked like this

Ah yes. The 544, right? The people who lived next door to my grandparents had not one but two of these. This was in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s. In Waco, Texas. Pretty sure the nearest Volvo dealer was 100 miles away, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want new cars that looked like they were from the 1940s when there were so many cooler looking models around. But hey…different strokes.

Dirk