On The Turntable in 1959: 'Sorry (I Ran All The Way Home)' by the Impalas (how could I resist using that song for this car?)

1959 News:
Integrated Circuit is invented. 'Ben Hur' wins 11 Oscars. Russia's 'Luna-2' landed on the moon, the first successful landing by an unmanned craft.

Too bad ol' Ben-Hur didn't have a 1959 Impala with the 348 engine, he could have quickly got ahead of the other chariot and out of the way of those axle biters.

Here's a classic 1959 Chevy Impala presented with some of the popular options of then and now. The dual antennas were real popular in the 50s, as was the dual exhaust setup. However, although we had chrome wheels back then, they were fairly expensive and not often seen. In the northern cities you had to have a backup set of wheels for winter, as the harsh salt and chemicals used on the streets in the winter would seriously ruin the chrome wheels of the day. The low profile tires on this car had not been developed in 1959. You would have seen this car with regular size bias-ply tires with thin whitewalls. Fat whitewalls pretty much had disappeared by the end of the 50s on new cars. This car is lacking fuzzy dice, a requirement for cool cars of the day. I wore out three sets of fuzzy dice in my cars. They got dirty and sun-baked or stolen. I had white dice with black dots to go with my black cars with black and white interiors. Coolness was not an option, it was a necessity.

No, I wasn't old enough to (legally) drive in 1959 but was already a full-fledged car nut and in 1964 I found a nice '59 Impala convertible on a local used car lot and desperately wanted to buy it, but at the time needed my parents' permission (that's how it was in those days) and no matter what I promised (I even tried promising to be nice!) they did not think I needed a convertible. How could they have been so short-sighted? My entire emerging teenage personality development was seriously put at risk by not having a convertible!

Well, OK, you guessed it. I really wanted it for the cool factor and to pick up girls - which was something my friends and I were able to do in those days. I met several of my teenage girlfriends by pulling up to the curb where a pretty girl was walking and offering her a ride. It didn't work all the time, but I was bold enough to try it and surprised enough when one of them actually got in my car.

This was a difficult car to photograph. It was a blazingly bright sunny day and the car was super shiny. I took many shots at many angles and these were the only two that are marginally usable.