Cruise-O-Matic: Part Ten

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That is beautiful! When I was a kid, my friend Fred's dad had a late 30's car. I think it was either a Dodge or Plymouth, and a deep navy blue color. It had doors that opened like yours. I rode in it s couple times. Mr. Jones didn't like newer cars, so when he needed a different one by the mid 60's, he bought a Buick that was reddish brown, which I think was a 1954 model.
 
Paint color

the color is called Hyundai Onyx Blue. It is very close to a color they had in 36 Called Dodge Blue.
My Mother in-law was here for Thanksgiving and loved riding in it she is 91 and Her father had one in the 30's.
I had to add turn signals for safety, also added fog lights. I believe it was the third year for dodge to use the Ram.

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John,

There is someone in my town that had a ‘35 Plymouth 4 dr sedan for sale for quit a while that was parked on the corner across the street from us. The roof had a square opening in the center that would have been filled in with a piece of wood and covered some type of imitation leather. I believe your ‘36 Dodge would have been the first year for Dodge to have an all steel roof.

Eddie
 
Louis,
Without a side view of this ‘53 Chevrolet it’s difficult to definitively say whether or not it’s a BelAir. But from what I can tell from this photo it appears that the roof is the same color as the body, either a dark metallic blue or green. In my experience ‘53 BelAir’s usually had a different color roof than the body, so my guess is that your Mom’s ‘53 Chevrolet is a 210.

Eddie
 
Thank you Eddie! That makes sense. It wasn’t my mother’s car, but a shared car of my father and his brothers. They had several as we understand. They worked together in the family company. So far we have identified a few Pontiacs, a few Chevies and a Vauxhall for the years 1947 - 1960. Later they all got their own car but there were still a few company cars for several uses, mainly six cylinder Opels.
 
Eddie, you are correct that the only way to identify it for sure is to see the side. The 210, and even the 150, could be ordered as a two-tone. To the best of my knowledge, the 150 lacked side molding, the 210 had a basic chrome side molding, and the Bel Air the deluxe side molding with the painted insert on the rear quarter, which matched the roof color (if two-tone, as most were).
 
Thanks Tom! I remember these Chevy’s very well. When my brother and I were very small we had a babysitter every week day while Mom went to work. Her name was Mrs. Hoskins and we called her Nannie and her husband we called PapPaw.

Nannie got a new ‘53 Chevrolet 210 2 dr sedan that was dark metallic green. Since she babysat not only Joe and I, but at least 3 to 4 other kids everyday she had PapPaw take out the backseat so that when all of us kids rode in the car with her we could play around on the floor of the back of the car. Now a days that of course would be verboten! Free range kids in the back of a car without seatbelts would be child neglect. But it didn’t seem to hurt us any, I guess we were just lucky.

Eddie
 
My Aunt Doris bought a Bel Air brand new, either a '53 or '54. It was a two-tone, with the lower color "Surf Green", and the upper "India Ivory". She kept it until 1964.

Back then, many people ordered their cars from the factory, and the choices were nearly limitless. Evidently the customer specified a color code for upper, lower, and insert. One '53 Chevrolet ad showed a car with an all red body, with the trim insert in ivory. Another code specified the interior color.
 
Louis,
The light blue ‘53 Belair in post#98 was one of the most popular colors here in Northern Calif. in the early 50’s.

My little brother Joe and I used to go on walks everyday all over our neighborhood. Once on a Sunday morning in ‘55 when I was 4 1/2 and Joe was 3 we were on one of those walks and about a block from home. We decided that we would see if we could hail a ride home, like my Mom used to sometimes hail a cab when we were downtown without the car. We had no idea that there was money involved, just that Mom would stand at the sidewalk and hold her hand out and a car would stop and pick us up and take us home.

So little Joey and I stood at the corner of the busy street that we lived on, about a block away from home, and I held my hand out to flag a car down for a ride home. Right away a light blue and white ‘53 Chevy Belair pulled up with a lady driving the car. She had on a blue suit, hat and white gloves and she opened the passenger side door. We asked her to drive us to 445 Dimm St., our home address, just like Mom did when we were downtown. The lady said get in. She asked us if our mother knew where we were? I said sure, she knew that we had gone for a walk.

Well this nice lady drove down the block and pulled up in front of our house. Then she said please go get your mother, which I did. Mom came out to this lady’s ‘53 Belair and the lady told her that we were hitchhiking and did she know that we were doing this? Mom said, no and she’d make sure that this didn’t happen again. When we got into the house she told us that we were never to do this again and that we we lucky that this nice lady had picked us up instead of some bad person that may have kidnapped us.

To this day there are still a few ‘53 light blue and white Belair’s right here in town and every time I see one of them on the road I think of little Joey and Eddie’s big adventure in ‘55.

Eddie
 

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