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Old gas stations

David Conwill

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,854
Location
Bennington, VT 05201
1949

1949%20Studebaker%20Ad-01.jpg
 
Messages
17,211
Location
New York City
Believe it or not, I knew you would, no kidding! :)

Progress today - achievement - is hidden from view in zeros and ones (and, now, in quantum computing - which causes my brain to seize up), but, back then, skyscrapers were at the advance of technology and looked it.

The leap in progress from those squat older buildings (which I love) in the foreground, to the strikingly strong, bold and skyward soaring ones in the background is obvious and satisfying in a way that a new app could never be.

And as to the tow truck, heck, he's just cute and looks like he enjoys doing his job.
 

2jakes

I'll Lock Up
Messages
9,680
Location
Alamo Heights ☀️ Texas
Hollywood thinks that if they are doing a ‘50s movie, they got
to show shiny Chevy’s and Fords or whatever from that period,
when in fact based from my experience, the majority of vehicles were from
the '30s and ‘40s.
Folks did what they had to do to make them last & run.
Collectibles...antiques????
That was reserved for fine china.

My dad was amazed at what the comic books from the golden-age
were selling for in later years.
"It’s just a 10¢ comic made out of cheap paper!”, he would say.

Ok...that’s it for me...I’ll get off the podium now!
 
Last edited:

BlueTrain

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,073
I don't recall seeing any old cars when I was little, in the 1950s. But by old, I mean no older than, say, mid-1930s. No one had an old Ford jalopy or anything like that. But then, ten long years later, my wife's father had a Ford Model A in his basement (next to the airplane). I think it was a 1929. It had belonged to my wife's grandparents and she remembers going for a ride in it with her grandfather. But if anyone had such a thing around where I grew up, I never saw it. But I did see a horse-drawn wagon fairly often. I wonder how old it was.

Our family car was a 1950 Chevrolet that they kept until around 1961. My mother had died and he remarried a year later to a woman who had a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon.
 
Messages
17,211
Location
New York City
Hollywood thinks that if they are doing a ‘50s movie, they got
to show shiny Chevy’s and Fords or whatever from that period,
when in fact based from my experience, the majority of vehicles were from
the '30s and ‘40s.
Folks did what they had to do to make them last & run....

Very true and you'll notice it in documentaries of the '50s that have actual historical footage - not everyone had a new car in the '50s (or pastel-colored appliance for that matter).

...Our family car was a 1950 Chevrolet that they kept until around 1961. My mother had died and he remarried a year later to a woman who had a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon.

Cars lasted 10-15 years in my family until the second half of the '70s when those pieces of garbage began falling apart the moment you bought them, which, after much soul searching got my father to give up and buy foreign made cars in the '80s (Detroit worked very hard to lose his loyalty but they finally did).
 

LizzieMaine

Bartender
Messages
33,750
Location
Where The Tourists Meet The Sea
My hometown, about 1960. Note the up-to-the-minute vehicular traffic.

LB2007.1.111353.JPG

The apartment where my parents were living at the time, and where I would live until I was two, is the second-floor window to the left of what appears to be a 1929 or 1930 Buick parked at the curb.

My grandparents owned a 1936 Chevy sedan until the mid-1950s, and always said it was the best car they ever had. Our local police chief drove a 1937 De Soto until about 1979, when he left it behind our gas station. I don't remember where it ever ended up, but it was a very impressive car, in a golden-brown color that helped to hide the rust.

Model A Ford trucks were not entirely extinct during my childhood -- often they were adapted into farm or woods trucks. They'd be pretty heavily stripped down, but you could still recognize what they had been.
 

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