Anybody Remember Back When?

[ultrarunner]

You know what they used to say. "At the head of every traffic jam, is a little old lady in a green Dodge Dart".

Or a green Valiant... almost always with home made dump trailer in tow...

That slant 6 hauled a lot of 1 yard concrete gondolas... as many as 12 in a day for driveways...

Here I am getting prepped to set the small driveway at my first house...

 

[bunyip]

I thought it was Volvo, Very Old Ladies Vehicle Only.

 

[Garandman]

You left out those other American compact cars: Chevrolet Vega, Ford Pinto, AMC Gremlin “The flying fishbowl.”

And the worst car I ever owned, by far, Triumph Spitfire.

 

[Ken]

Remember the 1949 Birds egg blue Ford car that was a change from the turtle back fords built in '48
Also cannot remember but did it have the Naugahyde leather seats . the '52 models had?

Pity the Extinction of the Naughta animal in having to produce all those tough car seats for vehicles.
I do understand a few are in captivity Northern Missouri.
ken

 

[ultrarunner]

Probably the AMC Pacer for the Fishbowl?

The Chevrolet Chevette gets my vote for bottom of the barrel... and I was working at a car lot at the time.

One of the first American Subcompacts is the Bantam... 60 mph and 60 mpg... WWII shifted production to the JEEP and the Bantam was no more...

 

[Oaktree]

I used to hitch hike to work and some guy would often be waiting for me in a brown Dart or Swinger. What an fugly color that brown was!

Not as bad as the diarrhea brown that seems to be the color-du-jour for late model tacomas, but I digress.

Getting back to 70s car colors, the one I always though was ugly was the so-called "plum crazy" (kind of a glow in the dark purple) Mopars offered around that time. And it just won't go away...seems a popular color among the vintage Mopar crowd today.

I thought it was Volvo, Very Old Ladies Vehicle Only.

Not around here. If anything Volvos were/are kind of a yuppie car.

I'd say the modern day equivalent of Grandma and her Valiant would be Gram in her corrola, always driving at least 10mph below the limit. Pretty rare to see anyone under 50 driving one, I wonder if you need to produce your AARP card to buy one? :laughing:
Second place would be Suburus...another geezer car, add tree huggers to the mix.
I'm sure Buicks are right up there too with old folks cars.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Probably the AMC Pacer for the Fishbowl?

The Chevrolet Chevette gets my vote for bottom of the barrel... and I was working at a car lot at the time.

One of the first American Subcompacts is the Bantam... 60 mph and 60 mpg... WWII shifted production to the JEEP and the Bantam was no more...

The American Bantam was fairly rare; don't think I ever actually saw one...seems like I remember that you had to order them and they came in a kit of sorts, and you had to assemble them. I do remember seeing magazine advertisements.

Anyone remember the Crosley? There were a few of those around, although I haven't seen one in quite some time. The little engine wasn't much bigger than a shoe box, and everybody I knew lusted after a '55 Chevy or a V8 Ford.

Green Cars Of The Past: 1951 Crosley Wagon

I believe the Bantam company actually designed the Jeep; however they did not have the manufacturing capacity to build the Jeep, and that job went to Ford. I don't think Bantam manufactured any Jeeps at all; if so, it was very few. They contracted to make the trailers.

 

[Garandman]

//Second place would be Suburus...another geezer car, add tree huggers to the mix..

You are hanging around with the wrong crowd. Head over to Dalton (Team O’Neil Rally School).

Subaru completely dominates rallying in North America. Team Subaru Rally cars are built at Vermont Sportscar.

 

[ultrarunner]

The American Bantam was fairly rare; don't think I ever actually saw one...seems like I remember that you had to order them and they came in a kit of sorts, and you had to assemble them. I do remember seeing magazine advertisements.

Anyone remember the Crosley? There were a few of those around, although I haven't seen one in quite some time. The little engine wasn't much bigger than a shoe box, and everybody I knew lusted after a '55 Chevy or a V8 Ford.

Green Cars Of The Past: 1951 Crosley Wagon

I believe the Bantam company actually designed the Jeep; however they did not have the manufacturing capacity to build the Jeep, and that job went to Ford. I don't think Bantam manufactured any Jeeps at all; if so, it was very few. They contracted to make the trailers.

Yep... Bantam built a proto type General Purpose Vehicle for the military... it was done in record time with round the clock engineering...

The military was very impressed and placed orders... but the little Bantam Company could only produce about 200 vehicles a week... WWII needed tens of thousands so the war department gave Willis and Ford orders to produce and the rest is history... Bantam in Butler PA still made trailers for the war department but ended auto manufacturing...

On the picture posted are my 1933 American Austin and 1938 Bantam 60 Roadster... I don't have a picture of my 1950 Crosley Convertible... but it too was small in stature.

 

[ultrarunner]

Anyone interested in Jeeps and how they came about would enjoy this short read...

Bantam jeep story: