@@strawberryhellcat4738 Found another old Imus fan! "I can go a hundred miles an hour, as long as I've got the almighty power, glued up there, by my pair, of fuzzy dice."
The antenna ball also helped you find your car in a parking lot, as long as it was unique and other cars didn't have the same thing. And there were functional antenna balls containing a coil of wire inside that claimed to give you better radio reception, although I've never seen that proven.
I'm 74 and remember most of those items except the air conditioner and the stupid dolls. In 1956 my dad bought a new Pontiac coupe, yellow over white. It had curb feelers and a traffic light prism. We drove from Pittsburgh to Miami the next year and to keep us three boys entertained we had an old cigar box with crayons to draw and color. It was placed on the parcel shelf behind the rear seat and got melted by the sun so bad the entire box stuck to the shelf from the melted wax. Never did get the stain out. Also, as we had no air conditioning the windows were always open. My dad drove with his arm out of the window, like he always did, but forgot about the sun and got a really bad burn on his left arm. Just some family history.
In the mid 1960s my father and his brother did a 5 week touring and camping trip around Tasmania (the little island below the Aussie mainland). Even in the black & white photos you could clearly see one had a much darker left arm compared to the right, and the other had the opposite. Wasn’t hard to figure out who did most of the driving!
@@maximilianmorse9697 yes, I heard that, and it’s understandable. I’m in Australia (so steering wheel on the right) and drive north to work, with the morning sun beating in the side window. In the afternoon heading south I get it again. It’s unbearable in summer. Ceramic window tint dramatically cut the heat from the sun, and I no longer have a darker driving arm. We recently made it a safety rule for all company cars to have ceramic tint, as dark as legally acceptable, to reduce the risk of skin cancers for our staff who spend a lot of time on the road.
The timeout dolls are meant to depict children crying because their inheritance was spent on a show car. That is the explanation I was given. There's really no way to explain those things that doesn't make you wish the trend would die, they're just creepy and depressing. I go to classic car shows to talk to fellow classic car enthusiasts, but I avoid the people with timeout dolls as I can only see it as a red flag.
Maybe they represent kids who are forced to go to their dad’s car show on a Saturday morning when they want to hang out with their friends or play video games?
@@lawnside82 I have seen the ones that are made to look like they are working on the car... at least that comes off a little less creepy.. I guess. sort of... lol.
Antenna balls can help you find your car in a crowded parking lot. My parents had one of those window coolers; the mechanism is generically known as a 'swamp cooler.' They cool you down but blow out a fine mist of water droplets too.
As such, they tend to work better in dry heat. If it's already humid, the water isn't going to evaporate as much, making it less effective. ...Plus it'll just be making the air immediately downwind even _more_ humid. Household versions are rather more common in the dry western US than in the more humid east. And all versions got less-used as actual air conditioners got cheap enough to be common.
@@AaronOfMpls We used them in the Midwest in the heat of the summer before air conditioning came along. You're right, though; unless one was pretty much directly in line with the air, humidified air into an already humid environment wasn't very effective.
The antenna locator isn't a bad idea. I've got a black '18 Silverado, which does have a regular areal antenna, and I've more than once have come out to find one or two identical trucks parked next to or near mine. Most of my vehicles have been so old that is was unlikely to see another one at all. But this truck is very common. My wife has stickers all over her white '17 Silverado, and can be seen a mile away.
@@pohldriver I wish cars still had that antenna style as standard. These shark fins don't pick up for SHIT. My 1971 Chevy C10 with a mid 70s AM/FM/Cassette radio in it picks up the same stations better than my 2014 Challenger does. Definitely isn't the head unit...the Challenger's is miles better on that front...but that whip antenna? Fuck yeah hear the local rock stations loud and proud! Very good idea to make your vehicle distinct these days, what with everything being so samey AND being digital. There's been more than one case of a Tesla owner walking out to the wrong Tesla and having it just open up for them because not only was it the same model, trim, color, etc, but the digital handshake codes for their stupid app were the same! The car thought its rightful owner had arrived. Any keyless entry/keyless start vehicle is susceptible to that and someone might inadvertently steal your truck without realizing it because it's identical to theirs and answers their fob. Not that I have to worry about it though. My 71 C10 is pretty damn unique ain't nobody confusing it with their rig haha
Antenna balls always makes me recall Homer Simpson when he was designing a car. “You know those yellow balls people put on their antennas so they can find their car in a parking lot? Everybody should have one of those!”
I put an antenna ball one time on my 2001 ford focus. it was an 8-ball. After I put it on I kept hearing this bumping sound going down the freeway. couldnt figure it out for a long time... Then One day I took it to the dealer for work that was gonna take several days so I had to drop it off. My mom followed me there and on the freeway she said she figured out the bumping sound... The 8-ball on the antenna was blowing in the wind and bumping the roof every 4 or 5 seconds. well shit. got rid of it and the bumping stopped.
I never knew the origins of the 'fuzzy dice' from being a WW II bomber aircraft 'good luck charm'. Another gimmick you might see is a knob mounted on the steering wheel. This was popular on vehicles that didn't have power steering, had stick shift or for even today for persons that only have one arm or hand to steer with. They were also known as 'necker knobs', as freed your right arm to put around your girlfriend/wife's shoulder when driving in 'bench' seat cars. I agree those dolls are creepy.
My grandparents always called them "spinners," they liked them a lot! But they had some stories of friends with broken fingers, noses, and wrists from the wheel snapping back, and either the wheel or knob caught the victim with force.
They were also known as 'suicide knobs'. I've never been at all clear on how that term came about, but it was in common use in the 50s and 60s; so much so that they were outlawed in a number of states in the 1960s.
Anyone remember the trend of having an 8-ball as a shifter handle? Or if you have a VW bus, you either do a surfing theme, a camping theme, or a picnicking theme. And if you think the fuzzy dice are bad, there are also dice valve stem caps. I won't get into truck nuts, the Carolina squat, or that weird duck thing the modern Jeep crowd are doing now.
Yep. I'm getting a suicide knob for my 71 C10 for the very practical reason of 'it has a manual transmission and a manual steering box and I only have two hands'.
No mention of spot lights, or worse, dummy spot lights, fender skirts, windshield visors, luggage racks on trunk lids, lake pipes, exhaust cutouts and my favorite, the Esso tiger tails.
And the J,C. Whitney fake CB antenna and cell phone antenna. I think there was even a fake call phone handset. In the black Benz limo with the cellular phone I'm calling up the posse it's time to get rippin'
The Esso tiger tails were part of promotion in the USA in the 1960's to promote the 'Extra' premium/higher octane gasoline. You would attach them to the gas filler door.
@@zaptor1514 A brilliant gimmick! Seeing the tail at the trunk-lid reinforced their advertising slogan: "PUT a TIGER in YOUR TANK!" It was fun, unless criminally-minded folks thought it was cereal ad-tiger "Tony" in the trunk, --being taken for a ride...
Yes, I find the Time Out dolls creepy too. As someone who was born in 64 in Southern California I can remember cars having curb feelers. Today you will see then on the really nice low-riders with paint jobs that look miles deep. Also you will get pulled over in California if you have stuff hanging from you mirror while driving. And I miss the Jack in the Box antenna balls. Too bad some executive decided it was not profitable anymore. Keep up the good work, your channel rocks.
> "And I miss the Jack in the Box antenna balls. Too bad some executive decided it was not profitable anymore." They don't even exist in my state, yet I'm not surprised they got in on that after Union 76. Jack in the Box has almost as perfect a logo for it!
I have a small box of Jack-in-the-Box antenna balls. I've only ever used them for decorating a small Christmas tree I had from when I was single. I also used to have a bunch of 76 balls from the various Union, and later Unocal stations I worked at in the greater San Diego county area. Interestingly, Union/UNOCAL 76 is, or was owned by Phillips 66.
The later external plastic louvers of the eighties were a later version of the internal metal venetian shades. Did they gain popularity anywhere else in the world?
In the 60's we lived in upstate New York in the Lake Effect Band. Everyone had orange styrofoam balls on their antennas in the winter. This was so other cars could see you at corners where the snowbanks were high enough to block you from being seen by other cars.
The water in the window unit didn't cool the air. The evaporation of the water did. Essentially they were swamp coolers. You would often see them used in cars that were crossing long distances of desert.
When I was little in the late 50's we lived in El Paso, TX. So we had one of these car coolers for my dad's Plymouth. Before going out on a hot day. My mom or dad would add water to it. There is a cylinder of a cedar shavings mat inside that would rotate fairly slowly as the air blew through it. The bottom of the cylinder would dip into the water Then the water evaporates as the air blows through. Being that El Paso is in the desert. These worked pretty well. My dad never had the water bag on his car. But I saw them a lot on other cars. These always had burlap on the outside that the driver can get wet and the evaporation kept the water fairly cool in the bag. People had these bags for water to add to their car cooler. As well as to have spare water in case your car over heated. A very real problem back then. In summer of '63. My grandparents took me on a trip from Amarillo, TX to L.A. Basically in the desert he whole way. My grandfather had a new 1962 Chrysler 300 that did have air conditioning. But he bought a bag when driving though Nevada and California to keep on front of the car in case his car overheated. I remember it seemed that every car in that area had these bags. One note about air-conditioning in cars in late 50's. In 1961 my parents bought a used 1958 Dodge station wagon. That had an aftermarket air conditioner added to it. There was a console with the fan and vents that sat on the hump under the dash. Every time my mom turned the air conditioner on. For about the first 5-6 seconds. Air would come out with moisture condensed into a cloud. Much as you see on a humid day when you open your freezer. My brother and I would always beg mom to run on the A/C, even when it was cold, so we could see these condensate clouds come flying out of the console vents.
@@61rampy65 It was likely drinking water. The canvas bag wept lightly, and this, in the wind of the car movement, kept the water quite cold. Keep in mind effectively no plastic bottles back then, so needed to keep liquids in cans or bottles. Or in this case, bags.
Good job Ed. I was a kid jn Los Angeles in the 60s & the 76 ball story is 100% accurate. By the 1960s you never saw the fuzzy dice unless it was a hot rod or a custom car. I also always put curb feelers on my Mom's huge Country Squires in the 80s so she would not scrape the white walls. Thanks for the great vid as usual!!
I HATE the dolls ! They are there so that your wife / girlfriend has some input on the 'display' of your classic car. You forgot to bring up the 50's music blaring over a loud speaker; even though the people who listened to this era of music are now in their mid 80's and no longer go to car shows all that much
Yeah the blaring 50's music has got to go...esp the chintzy love ballads and "Rock Around The Clock." Time out dolls are from the 1990s so they really don't belong. And enough already with the life size cut-outs of Elvis, Monroe & James Dean.
@@stevet47 Not trying to be smart but what would an 80's car show be like? All 80's vehicles (I have never been to one of those?) Here in southeast PA most car shows are 'whatever' you can drive there. I got a 71 C-10 and I park it next to a mix of all type of vehicles. My main grip about the music is it being so loud ! Cannot talk to the guy next to you or the guy who owns the car. I personally would rather have no music !!
Nice topic that even has potential for part2, like California blue dots in stop lights, club badges galore on bumpers or some specific car subculture features that gained more common appeal like some 80s radesque elements. Great that though you’re busy now, you manage not to leave the channel completely neglected
Antenna balls are still very much around! There is a restaurant chain in part of America called jack in the box that has a pointy-headed clown as its mascot and you can buy them or occasionally they will just give you one as a surprise with your hamburger and fries. You will see them on lots of cars, new ones on the road not classic ones, the smiling little clown head on their antennas, it's cool! Other people will put a football or basketball with their favorite team's logo on it. I have noticed that bumper stickers have essentially disappeared though, occasionally you will see a sticker on the rear glass but people seem less inclined to share their controversial opinions in fear of their cars getting vandalized I guess.
Here it's the exact opposite. Antenna balls are practically nonexistent, but bumper and window stickers are on at least every other car... usually making you roll your eyes at whatever it says. There is no tasteful minimalism to applyers of bumper stickers, it's never enough to express your controversial opinions once, they feel the need to make their car's entire rear end a stream of consciousness about politics, religion, patriotism, homeschooling, dogs vs cats, real men drive trucks, my exhaust is louder than your mom last night, my other car is a porsche, my other porsche is a Harley, honk if you're horny, honk if you love fishing, I brake for ducks, baby on board, buckle up I want to try something, vote (unintelligible gibberish scratched away by the passing of time) for 2002, I'm a dog mom, (insert unnecessarily long description of a conspiracy theory)... Basically everything you think Facebook is like is what the back of everyone's car looks like here.
I remember the Baby on Board stickers as being yellow plastic shapes (triangles or diamonds) stuck on windows with suction cups, like the window "Garfields", and eventually having messages almost as varied as bumper stickers.
My first car was a 1972 beetle and I lived in Florida. A swamp cooler (the tube on the window) was a must in the summer. If you slammed on the breaks too hard, you would dump the water. My next beetle (73) had factory Air. There is a company called “Light in Sight” that makes a cling lens to see the light above you.
Lucky you lived in Florida. My grandmother owned a Beetle, was her first car, too. She lived in Minnesota though, and the heater wasn't effective at all in the thing.
They need to be made standard on modern cars too. The way they build these things to meet crash ratings and the god-awful styling tastes of today you have the same visibility problem you did 70 years ago when visors were in vogue. Those prisms would be a godsend. Of course today carmakers wouldn't just use a prism in a frame for the task, they'd find a way to complicate it with sensors and LEDs and six microchips and a mountain of software.......
Great video, and it seems like there's plenty of material for a sequel: Hula girls/bobbleheads, spotlights, "necker knobs," car hop trays, fast food order number placards... Also: The last continental kit illustrated was, in fact, factory equipment. So many people complained about the lack of trunk space in the 1955 Thunderbird that, for '56, Ford moved the spare tire out of the trunk and hung it on the rear bumper. For 1957 designers extended the rear overhang to enlarge the T-bird's trunk, so back inside it went.
I had curb feelers on my '92 Bonneville and my '96 Corolla -- absolutely fantastic for finding the curb before the tires and simulated wire wheel hubcaps do.
We had curb feelers on our 1957 Buick. They worked quite well and as a 5-year old I was entertained by the scraping noise as Dad cut sharp turns. In the US, a much required gadget is the cooling canister which shows up wherever vintage Beetles are on display. I'm going to get one for my 64 Bug when it's restoration is complete. Yes, the turn signal prism worked well on Grand Dad's 1950 Pontiac too.
I've never heard of it called "Continental Tire Kit", just "Continental Kit". And the dolls, AFAIK, are called "Crybaby Dolls", not "Time Out Dolls". They are indeed a weird staple at car shows, thankfully becoming less and less common as the demographic that seems to like them fades away. I just wish we could call a halt to the 1950s - early 60s music blasting at each show, as most people at shows are about 30-40 years too young to even remember that stuff when it was fresh and new, and its played to death in movies, tv anyway. But every show I go to, I still have to listen to "Surfing Safari", "Wipe Out", "Hot Rod Lincoln" and "Leader of the Pack" etc. on endless rotation.
The 50's and 60's music is not really my era either but i think it creates the right ambiance to match the era the cars came from, if there are lots of 1950's cars there. Takes you back in time. I think the DJ's need to mix it up a bit though with a wider variety of old songs, maybe less cheesy novelty songs. What irks me is if the car show is full of mostly late-60's and 70's muscle cars or 70's-style hot rods and the wrong music is playing. Should always be 1970's rock playing in the background.
@@matthall8902 Agreed. And there was a lot of good music created in the 1980s and even 1990s too that hardly ever gets played. A recent show I was at, only a very small number of cars were earlier than about 1965, and yet they had the 1950s stuff blasting as usual. Sigh.
Cool! Ed posted today! Hooray! I remember feelers and dice. Does anybody remember the bobble headed dog in the back window with light up eyes when you stepped on the brake? An early version of the third brake light.
Another great (no matter how obscure?) video about "details" of classic car culture, Ed! I beg to disagree, however, with your "eurocentric" car key explanation as to the timing of its appearance. As a born in America (1953 vintage) early on car enthusiast, there was in my childhood neighborhood one (of quite a few nationwide here at the time) Nash Metropolitan that had an oversized car key affixed to its trunk lid. Just one of my family's stories about that time told about how giddy I would get as a 3-year-old toddler whenever we drove past our neighbor's home where that Metropolitan was conspicuously parked in their driveway (always outside of their garage) or the infrequent times when I'd see it driving about our small suburban town just outside of Philadelphia, PA. As I got older, starting at about age 8, I sought out the neighboring humorous married couple to learn more about their "wind-up" car. They told me that their Nash dealer offered and then installed that key when they bought it brand new back in the autumn of 1954. Since those early years, many times over have I heard the same story told only in differing words. It seems certain to me that VW (of which I bought a 1963 Beetle Bug as the 2nd owner in1972) adopted this already established American joke about compact cars, originating back when the average Detroit designed automobile weighed in at a ton and a half at least, and filled almost every road's lane width with their grander than grand proportions. I lived that reality, Ed, and ever so respectfully (because I've had the privilege to reside many times over in beloved by me Het Nederlands since then) your attribution of the car key's origin story is just a few years off, once again ever so respectfully, witty young sir... Oh yeah, by the way, I have longtime known that these "economy car" Metropolitans were British made but marketed as "new" American innovations, many with those car keys available by the American dealerships...
Great video. I never knew the origin of the fuzzy dice. Swamp coolers were often popular add on sat VW car shows I attended in my youth. My daughter worked an internship a few years ago in the summer in New Mexico…a very dry hot climate. Her apartment had a “swamp cooler”. She was amazed, as was I, that this old technology was still used in the present day. Even local radio ads for companies that would service your swamp cooler much like the a/c companies back home in the southeastern USA
Swamp coolers are way cheaper to operate than A/C, and they work very will until the dew point gets over 55 degrees. I had a house with both, and ran the swamp until my couch was soggy! (I live in Phoenix).
I had a Jack N the Box ball called Jack on my antena around 1995. I liked it because of a commercial where one was talking to a kid while he was worried about driving test, saying something like, "you are driving me crazy."
That traffic light mirror is absolutely genius. I might have to get one for my LS430, because I have a few lights around me that are right above my windshield.
It helps to understand that 'Union 76' marketed premium fuels heavily, even to selling 'AVgas' (100+ octane) right at the pumps. It was 'hot-rodder' marketing....
Union 76 may have died out partially because most aviation fuel is leaded, and leaded fuels aren't good for modern emissions systems, however there is a modern avgas that is 100 octane, unleaded, ethanol free, for use in modern General Aviation aircraft with hardened valve seats. I hope it will become more readily available as I will put it in my old car, my gas saver Camry, and my flex fuel Suburban. Do any of them need 100 octane? No, but I despise ethanol as a fuel additive and would rather give the local airport $5-$6 a gallon than Speedway nearly $4 a gallon to get worse gas mileage, water in my gas due to ethanol's tendency to absorb moisture, and cause unnecessary wear on my fuel pump and carburetor gaskets.
Antenna balls were all the rage in the late 90s. I remember how cute the little black Mickey logo balls were, and then Jack in the Box, had their clown mascot, and that went nuts, with them everywhere and with other variants, eventually you started seeing other styles balls. People kept stealing mine. I remember the school paper interviewed someone who admitted to stealing them. They said they were their little trophies.
What about the steering knob, AKA the "suicide knob"? It was a knob thing you'd attach to your steering wheel, in order to steer with one hand, without removing it. I had one on a truck in the 70s, and loved it. They were illegal in a lot of places, but where they were legal, they were extremely common souvenir items sold at fairs, with all sorts of designs and artwork inside, including naked ladies floating in the sky.
I'm old enough to have seen most of these things when they were new. Except for the creepy dolls, never have seen that. The Union 76 balls were absolutely everywhere! I own, but don't use a car cooler, but it fits over the transmission hump, just like a hang-on A/C unit. You put cold water in it and it blows cool air. They are usually found in the southwest or other dry, hot climates. As always, another great video, Ed!
After I bought a new '91 Nissan D21 pickup the first stop I made was to pick up a set of fuzzy dice for luck. I hung them on the rearview, turned them to show "7" to the outside. They lasted 10 years before the string disintegrated after which they went into my vehicle keepsake box. They brought us powerful good luck. 33 years later that little truck is still my daily driver. Trouble free and tough as nails; 227k miles on the original clutch and still going strong.
Back in the late-1940s up to the mid-1950s, many cars in the US had a metal sun visor (usually painted to match the car's color) attached to the leading edge of its roof. Back then, most intersections had a single traffic light suspended in the middle of the intersection that served all four directions. Combining this high mounted, single traffic light with the blindspot of a car's sun visor, one can see just how popular and useful this traffic light viewer could be. By the late- 1950s cars were lower, sleeker and had larger windshields. Signal lights proliferated and became mounted at each of the four corners of the intersection and became easier to see. Soon, that nifty traffic signal viewer became superfluous and obsolete. JJS
And then fast forward to the modern era you have cars with such a long and forward-from-the-seat roof line that they're necessary again. one of the big reasons I replaced my 2014 Challenger with a 1971 Chevy C10 is also one of the driving factors behind the usage of those viewers! The roof came so far forward that, if I was first in line, I couldn't see the fucking traffic light.....
nowadays it's always a damn skull shifter. *bad to the bone riff* They're a red flag that bro who gets out of the car is either a boomer with an entire forest up his ass, or a generally cool dude, or some normal guy who broke his shift knob and put a skull there for the meme. Never in between.
Air conditioning on my 1953 Ford consisted of a pop up vent in front of the windshield and vent windows that you could turn in your direction. Thus the term 60 at 60. Sixty degrees of cooling at sixty miles per hour! 😂
Ed, excellent video! Many of the gimmicks, I've never seen. The faux "Continental Kits," I remember from the 1950s. They look ridiculous now. As for the fuzzy dice, my instinct is to rip them out of an otherwise very nice car, but if they DO harken back to WWll aviators, my feelings have softened. A good friend was a B-24 pilot in Europe. He'll turn 100 in August.
This video checks a lot of boxes in my car experiences! When I was a kid those Union 76 antenna balls were everywhere and also the ones of the Jack-in-the-Box clown head! My favorite childhood movie was Herbie the Lovebug Rides Again and had the taped headlights! Personally I think the windup keys would have better suited the VW Vans because riding in the older ones they almost seemed to have a rubber band motor! Haha! I've actually seen those odd cylindrical air conditions on the outsides of very old cars in "low rider" shows locally in the city streets! My dad got curb feelers for our 67 Buick Wagon but they only lasted a little while until they bugged my mom, I guess! And finally for me yellow lights make a whole lot more sense than those blue LCD kind that shine UNDER the car as it goes by in more recent years! That just seems to be showing off!
Back in the late 70's I had an AH Sprite that I'd tape the headlights with electrical tape as I would "Hill Climb" around town [I lived in the mountains]. Not sure it ever made any difference but it looked cool and to a teenager that was enough! As for Yellow/Amber lights, "in theory" yellow/amber light has a longer wavelength than pure white light and thus is less prone to reflect off of small particles [ie. rain or snowflakes]. At the same time, your brain is much more distracted by little flashes of white light, which is exactly what rain or snow produce under regular headlights so again "in theory" yellow/amber lights should be less taxing on the brain while driving under adverse conditions. When it comes to quirky car things, especially here in America, you could go on for days! Love the work, Ed, thanks to you!
Back in the mid/late 50s we had one of those car coolers! As kids, we enjoyed the light rain in mist that flew into the car from them and also that it actually cooled the car a bit as we drove through deserts. Fun memories.
A traffic light viewer would have been a godsend in my 2014 Challenger for the same reason they're a godsend in a 40s car with a visor. That lack of visibility is part of why I replaced that car with a 1971 Chevy C10, in fact, I HATE not being able to see what I'm doing behind the wheel.
You could increase the number ten-fold with just a J.C. Whitney catalog from back in the days when mail-order catalogs did the job of Amazon, Ebay, and Aliexpress nowadays. Nose-thumbing Jester hood ornaments (illuminated or not), blue dots for your taillights, side mirrors for your fender or door frame, dummy spotlights, "Rolls Royce" grilles and for your Caddilac, spoilers and luggage racks for your trunk lid, all manner of accessory Fog lights, the requisite 'triple gauge' cluster in it's shiny chrome mount for under your dash, tinted vent window and sun visor extensions, 'flower power' stick-on decals, pinstripe kits, "Oohgah" and "Dixie" horns, all manner of shifter knobs, and so much more... along with the usual partial shipments due to back-ordered items. For awhile you could just about build a Jeep or VW with only a rolling chassis and bare engine to start with from their catalogs. You don't see much of this at car shows now, but it was 'period correct' for car accessories back then and those of us who lived through the classic car era remember J.C. Whitney and all the goodies they sold very well indeed.
Back in the 70's I remember seeing lots of regular cars with the orange 76 balls on the antenna. Funny enough I have never seen one at a classic car show. Continental kits only ever look good on some Lincoln's and a few Caddies
Oh my gosh. When I was a kid I found this weird half-circular prism-like device in a box of junk but never quite knew what it was. Thanks to your video I now know it was a traffic light viewer.
I remember watching The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, and Johnny pulled out a hat that he said belonged to Dean Martin. The hat had curb feelers. I also remember seeing one of Dean Martin's cars parked on the street. It was his Stutz Blackhawk with the DRUNKY license plate. Han Solo has a pair of dice hanging in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. I've seen those window coolers on really nice, old low-riders.
Thanks, I've seen all of those except the traffic light viewer, but I didn't know about the origin of the fuzzy dice. Here in Australia, we called the timeout dolls "shame dolls". Foxtails on antennas were popular here. Keep up the good work, I always get a smile when I see you have a new video!
I could see dice hanging in the windshield of an airplane useful, even just a pair of normal dice hanging on a piece of string. If you're flying in bad weather or at night, something in your field of vision that shows which way is down or if you're not level, without having to look for a display on a crowded instrument panel. Your normal sense of up and down is completely thrown off by the speed, the planes are more distracting, because less stuff is automated, and the stress of the whole situation.
Yellow fog lights are also a good alternative to Driving Lights. They provide a good deal more light than low beam, more to the sides than high beam, and critically they don't blind oncoming traffic.
@@Low760 Not sure what knock off chinese rubbish you have been using, but Fog lights let you see a lot further than 3m, or even 15. When there is no fog, as stated they are superior to low beam although not as bright as high beam and in fog they don't reflect off the fog the way high beam does thus increasing your visible range. They don't light up the road 200m ahead like Driving Lights do, but they make for a nice addition to low beam. Although legally you still have to turn them off for oncoming traffic they are still less blinding, frankly less blinding than some modern cars low beams.
Another thing you often see at car shows are scale models of the cars themselves perched on the air cleaner. Plenty of visors on 40’s and early 50’s cars. Steering wheel knob on the big steering wheels, Mexican blankets on ratty seats, and lots more…
5:26 The AIrTemp grille was more than a badge. In those days, most car air conditioners had the compressor and condenser under the hood, bt the evaporator took up about half the trunk (Nash and Hudson All-Weather Eye had all the components under the hood and dashboard) with all the air ducts coming in through the package shelf and along the C-pillar.
Another rear view mirror 'sign' (from my Dad, b. 1944) Hanging a pair of baby shoes; which meant you were a grown up, and not out looking to race at every stoplight. He hung a pair on his '66 GTO tri-power, which was a 'weekends only' racer....(they were my shoes 😊)
"Dingle balls" hanging around the border of the headliner dangling in the top of the windows were big in the 1950s and are still popular in lowriders today.
Great video, would like to see more stuff that doesn't deal with "just" a car from you, but with stuff surrounding it. As expansion of car culture. Also, love the humour.
I grew up going to classic car shows in the 90s and saw all of these in Colorado. I also used to have a pair of fuzzy dice in my Golf R. Except they were D20s lol. I got them at "Black and Read" in Arvada, CO.
Those window coolers were very common in the mid 50s. I remember them on cars from out of state especially, tourists on a long road trip. They also put screens in front of their grilles, because there were so many bugs. If you drove at night outside a city, your windshield would get coated. You had to stop and clean your windshield more often than to get gas.
Except for the dolls, all of this stuff was on cars when I grew up in 1950s Southern California. Those really were the days…. Our family had a car cooler which worked very well in the low humidity of the Mojave desert.
We used to use antenna balls so we could find our car easier on a parking lot. I have curb feelers on my Honda in an attempt to keep my rims from getting scraped. I have fuzzy dice on my 69 Camaro... just because.
Back in 1967, we took a trip to the west coast by motorcar, and saw the Union 76 balls everywhere; There weren't any of those gas stations on the east coast. There was a rumor that you could win a prize if you were spotted by someone in the company, so we got a ball for ourselves. There was a touch of braggadocio in having it on your parents' car, as in "Look where I've been." I recall seeing ads for the windup key in my dad's auto magazines as far back as the 1950s. The car cooler was often filled with ice. We had curb feelers on our 1953 Hudson, as the front fenders were obscured by the hood. They made a "boinging" sound. I have a clear plastic prism stuck to the top of my windscreen that is a fresnel lens.
In the 1980s, I had a solar powered fan that pulled hot air out of the car and let in cooler ambient temperature air. I liked that it allowed air circulation without allowing anyone with a clothes hanger to get into your car.
I enjoy seeing scale model replicas of the 1/1 cars at shows. My mom made fuzzy dice for me, but i have 6 and 4 visible to let people know the car is from 1964 lol! Good and informative video 👍👍
In Australia, in the 60s Rear venetian blinds were sometimes fitted by old people. Now days at car shoes it seems every second old vehicle has them fitted. I hate them.
In the UK, you can add nodding dogs and also cushions/tartan blankets in the back window. Fashions that only appear now to be ironic. I hate conti kits that seem to appear on every car, and also skirts - fine on ladies, or gents, I suppose - but dreadful on rear wheel arches.
The dice hanging from the rear-view mirror are a play on words to signify the passion of the vehicle: pair of dice, or "Paradise" means 'this vehicle (and the driver) exhibit serious passion and every female should want to take part in this wonder on wheels.
I've got a set of knicker knobs from my grandfather that he used on some of his cars back in the '50s and '60s. One is green with metallic flakes and the other is clear with a nude pinup girl in it. Of course, those had a practical application in the times before power steering.
I have a reasonbly-sized pair of fuzzy dice with the logo of my favorite soccer team in my car which is not a "classic" but a regular modern street car. I love'em of course.
on the note of yellow headlights, the two French brands of lights and rally lights Cibié and SEV Marchal aare particularly well known for their yellow glass.
Don't forget those antenna balls helped snowplows see parked vehicles after major snowstorms!
Honorable mention dashboard hula girl!
Bobble-hipped instead of bobble-headed!
As the song goes: "I don't care if it rains or freezes, long as I've got my plastic Jesus, ridin' on the dashboard of my car." 😂
@@strawberryhellcat4738 Found another old Imus fan! "I can go a hundred miles an hour, as long as I've got the almighty power, glued up there, by my pair, of fuzzy dice."
@@arjaygee Love that!!
The antenna ball also helped you find your car in a parking lot, as long as it was unique and other cars didn't have the same thing. And there were functional antenna balls containing a coil of wire inside that claimed to give you better radio reception, although I've never seen that proven.
I'm 74 and remember most of those items except the air conditioner and the stupid dolls.
In 1956 my dad bought a new Pontiac coupe, yellow over white. It had curb feelers and a traffic light prism.
We drove from Pittsburgh to Miami the next year and to keep us three boys entertained we had an old cigar box with crayons to draw and color.
It was placed on the parcel shelf behind the rear seat and got melted by the sun so bad the entire box stuck to the shelf from the melted wax.
Never did get the stain out.
Also, as we had no air conditioning the windows were always open. My dad drove with his arm out of the window, like he always did, but forgot about the sun and got a really bad burn on his left arm.
Just some family history.
In the mid 1960s my father and his brother did a 5 week touring and camping trip around Tasmania (the little island below the Aussie mainland). Even in the black & white photos you could clearly see one had a much darker left arm compared to the right, and the other had the opposite. Wasn’t hard to figure out who did most of the driving!
Long distance truckers have an increased risk of skin cancer on the left side of their face because of the sun coming through the window
@@maximilianmorse9697 yes, I heard that, and it’s understandable. I’m in Australia (so steering wheel on the right) and drive north to work, with the morning sun beating in the side window. In the afternoon heading south I get it again. It’s unbearable in summer. Ceramic window tint dramatically cut the heat from the sun, and I no longer have a darker driving arm. We recently made it a safety rule for all company cars to have ceramic tint, as dark as legally acceptable, to reduce the risk of skin cancers for our staff who spend a lot of time on the road.
Thank you for sharing! Always interesting to hear about past times
The timeout dolls are meant to depict children crying because their inheritance was spent on a show car. That is the explanation I was given. There's really no way to explain those things that doesn't make you wish the trend would die, they're just creepy and depressing. I go to classic car shows to talk to fellow classic car enthusiasts, but I avoid the people with timeout dolls as I can only see it as a red flag.
Typical Boomer stuff. Who cares about future generations. What about ME, ME, ME!
Maybe they represent kids who are forced to go to their dad’s car show on a Saturday morning when they want to hang out with their friends or play video games?
Maybe they are intended as a red flag.
I thought it was kids working on the car, while dad enjoys it..
@@lawnside82 I have seen the ones that are made to look like they are working on the car... at least that comes off a little less creepy.. I guess. sort of... lol.
Dashboard hula girl should be right up there with fuzzy dice for kitsch interior accessories.
Or a nodding dog figurine
Antenna balls can help you find your car in a crowded parking lot.
My parents had one of those window coolers; the mechanism is generically known as a 'swamp cooler.' They cool you down but blow out a fine mist of water droplets too.
As such, they tend to work better in dry heat. If it's already humid, the water isn't going to evaporate as much, making it less effective. ...Plus it'll just be making the air immediately downwind even _more_ humid.
Household versions are rather more common in the dry western US than in the more humid east. And all versions got less-used as actual air conditioners got cheap enough to be common.
@@AaronOfMpls We used them in the Midwest in the heat of the summer before air conditioning came along. You're right, though; unless one was pretty much directly in line with the air, humidified air into an already humid environment wasn't very effective.
Originally from Wyoming had one for our house we used in the summer. It was quite nice. Probably helps that Wyoming has basically no humidity
The antenna locator isn't a bad idea. I've got a black '18 Silverado, which does have a regular areal antenna, and I've more than once have come out to find one or two identical trucks parked next to or near mine. Most of my vehicles have been so old that is was unlikely to see another one at all. But this truck is very common. My wife has stickers all over her white '17 Silverado, and can be seen a mile away.
@@pohldriver I wish cars still had that antenna style as standard. These shark fins don't pick up for SHIT. My 1971 Chevy C10 with a mid 70s AM/FM/Cassette radio in it picks up the same stations better than my 2014 Challenger does. Definitely isn't the head unit...the Challenger's is miles better on that front...but that whip antenna? Fuck yeah hear the local rock stations loud and proud!
Very good idea to make your vehicle distinct these days, what with everything being so samey AND being digital. There's been more than one case of a Tesla owner walking out to the wrong Tesla and having it just open up for them because not only was it the same model, trim, color, etc, but the digital handshake codes for their stupid app were the same! The car thought its rightful owner had arrived. Any keyless entry/keyless start vehicle is susceptible to that and someone might inadvertently steal your truck without realizing it because it's identical to theirs and answers their fob.
Not that I have to worry about it though. My 71 C10 is pretty damn unique ain't nobody confusing it with their rig haha
Antenna balls always makes me recall Homer Simpson when he was designing a car. “You know those yellow balls people put on their antennas so they can find their car in a parking lot? Everybody should have one of those!”
I put an antenna ball one time on my 2001 ford focus. it was an 8-ball. After I put it on I kept hearing this bumping sound going down the freeway. couldnt figure it out for a long time... Then One day I took it to the dealer for work that was gonna take several days so I had to drop it off. My mom followed me there and on the freeway she said she figured out the bumping sound... The 8-ball on the antenna was blowing in the wind and bumping the roof every 4 or 5 seconds. well shit. got rid of it and the bumping stopped.
I never knew the origins of the 'fuzzy dice' from being a WW II bomber aircraft 'good luck charm'.
Another gimmick you might see is a knob mounted on the steering wheel. This was popular on vehicles that didn't have power steering, had stick shift or for even today for persons that only have one arm or hand to steer with. They were also known as 'necker knobs', as freed your right arm to put around your girlfriend/wife's shoulder when driving in 'bench' seat cars.
I agree those dolls are creepy.
Truck drivers who turn constantly fit them too. Plus forklifts.
My grandparents always called them "spinners," they liked them a lot! But they had some stories of friends with broken fingers, noses, and wrists from the wheel snapping back, and either the wheel or knob caught the victim with force.
They were also known as 'suicide knobs'. I've never been at all clear on how that term came about, but it was in common use in the 50s and 60s; so much so that they were outlawed in a number of states in the 1960s.
I always thought they were just for old guys who couldn't turn the steering wheel any longer because of arthritis.
@@lwiltonProbably because they were liable to come off in heavy cornering if you didn't clamp it down properly.
One thing I've seen at classic car shows in the past is the fake body part (usually an arm or a leg) sticking out of the trunk.
I came to the comments to see if anyone else noticed this trend.
Anyone remember the trend of having an 8-ball as a shifter handle? Or if you have a VW bus, you either do a surfing theme, a camping theme, or a picnicking theme. And if you think the fuzzy dice are bad, there are also dice valve stem caps. I won't get into truck nuts, the Carolina squat, or that weird duck thing the modern Jeep crowd are doing now.
Oh good Lord, I moved to Virginia, near the NC state line. The Carolina squat is so ri-DIC-u-lous, it's unbelievable.
I have an 8-ball as shifter knob, haha
I use an old beer tap handle as a shifter ball and i have one on my oil dipstick as well
Shift knobs are still very much a thing and they've even evolved a bit to include hoodies for PRNDLs.
I've put 8 balls on the gearshifter for decades on almost all my vehicles.
Also the bobble head dog that sits on the packet shelf. And "suicide knobs", like curb feelers, were for practical reasons.
And, illegal in some places.
Most were Chihuahuas but later on you saw poodles and other breeds too.
@@P_RO_ Don't forget hula girls.
Yep. I'm getting a suicide knob for my 71 C10 for the very practical reason of 'it has a manual transmission and a manual steering box and I only have two hands'.
No mention of spot lights, or worse, dummy spot lights, fender skirts, windshield visors, luggage racks on trunk lids, lake pipes, exhaust cutouts and my favorite, the Esso tiger tails.
And the J,C. Whitney fake CB antenna and cell phone antenna. I think there was even a fake call phone handset. In the black Benz limo with the cellular phone
I'm calling up the posse it's time to get rippin'
I have an ESSO tiger tail on my wiper lever control. It’s from 1993 when ESSO renewed the campaign. I had several from the 70’s too.
In the US it's only an ESSO Tiger tail if your car is prior to 1972. After that it's an Exxon Tiger Tail.
The Esso tiger tails were part of promotion in the USA in the 1960's to promote the 'Extra' premium/higher octane gasoline. You would attach them to the gas filler door.
@@zaptor1514 A brilliant gimmick! Seeing the tail at the trunk-lid reinforced their advertising slogan: "PUT a TIGER in YOUR TANK!" It was fun, unless criminally-minded folks thought it was cereal ad-tiger "Tony" in the trunk, --being taken for a ride...
Yes, I find the Time Out dolls creepy too. As someone who was born in 64 in Southern California I can remember cars having curb feelers. Today you will see then on the really nice low-riders with paint jobs that look miles deep. Also you will get pulled over in California if you have stuff hanging from you mirror while driving.
And I miss the Jack in the Box antenna balls. Too bad some executive decided it was not profitable anymore.
Keep up the good work, your channel rocks.
> "And I miss the Jack in the Box antenna balls. Too bad some executive decided it was not profitable anymore."
They don't even exist in my state, yet I'm not surprised they got in on that after Union 76. Jack in the Box has almost as perfect a logo for it!
I have a small box of Jack-in-the-Box antenna balls. I've only ever used them for decorating a small Christmas tree I had from when I was single.
I also used to have a bunch of 76 balls from the various Union, and later Unocal stations I worked at in the greater San Diego county area.
Interestingly, Union/UNOCAL 76 is, or was owned by Phillips 66.
@@AaronOfMpls Nobody wants the Jack in the Box antenna balls. Modern cars don't have mast antennas any longer.
@@billolsen4360I had one on my S10 Blazer until the wind ripped off his hat and wore off his face until he was just a plain white ball.
In 90s Australia, nudge bars were everywhere on cars. Also window lourves on the rear window, and plastic tube bull bars.
The later external plastic louvers of the eighties were a later version of the internal metal venetian shades. Did they gain popularity anywhere else in the world?
External louvres were a thing in Europe in the seventies and eighties.
External louvres are an excellent simple solution. I wish you could still get them
Fluffy Dice not being an option for the Lowriders in GTA Online is a crime.
It isn't? I could've swore it was
I like the longhorns Texans would put on their Caddies . Lol
love your avatar- my favorite cartoon character. (I heard he started using a deodorant and now has much better luck with the girls)
You can put 'em on an early 60s Continental, too. Look great on those.
What about on a Pontiac T-1000 (Chevy Chevette) ?
Along with *EVERY* hood ornament known to man !
Looked like a J.C. Whitney's catalog threw up on it
In the 60's we lived in upstate New York in the Lake Effect Band. Everyone had orange styrofoam balls on their antennas in the winter. This was so other cars could see you at corners where the snowbanks were high enough to block you from being seen by other cars.
It was also 76 gasoline's marketing at the time.
The water in the window unit didn't cool the air. The evaporation of the water did. Essentially they were swamp coolers. You would often see them used in cars that were crossing long distances of desert.
Yeah and like other swamp coolers, they didn't work in humid weather.
And, you used to see cars with a water bag hanging from the hood ornament. Not sure if it was for the radiator or a swamp cooler. Maybe both.
When I was little in the late 50's we lived in El Paso, TX. So we had one of these car coolers for my dad's Plymouth. Before going out on a hot day. My mom or dad would add water to it. There is a cylinder of a cedar shavings mat inside that would rotate fairly slowly as the air blew through it. The bottom of the cylinder would dip into the water Then the water evaporates as the air blows through. Being that El Paso is in the desert. These worked pretty well. My dad never had the water bag on his car. But I saw them a lot on other cars. These always had burlap on the outside that the driver can get wet and the evaporation kept the water fairly cool in the bag. People had these bags for water to add to their car cooler. As well as to have spare water in case your car over heated. A very real problem back then. In summer of '63. My grandparents took me on a trip from Amarillo, TX to L.A. Basically in the desert he whole way. My grandfather had a new 1962 Chrysler 300 that did have air conditioning. But he bought a bag when driving though Nevada and California to keep on front of the car in case his car overheated. I remember it seemed that every car in that area had these bags.
One note about air-conditioning in cars in late 50's. In 1961 my parents bought a used 1958 Dodge station wagon. That had an aftermarket air conditioner added to it. There was a console with the fan and vents that sat on the hump under the dash. Every time my mom turned the air conditioner on. For about the first 5-6 seconds. Air would come out with moisture condensed into a cloud. Much as you see on a humid day when you open your freezer. My brother and I would always beg mom to run on the A/C, even when it was cold, so we could see these condensate clouds come flying out of the console vents.
@@61rampy65 It was likely drinking water. The canvas bag wept lightly, and this, in the wind of the car movement, kept the water quite cold. Keep in mind effectively no plastic bottles back then, so needed to keep liquids in cans or bottles. Or in this case, bags.
@@61rampy65 We had one for keeping drinking water cool.
Honorable mention. Tiger tails sticking out of the trunks of GTOs
Isn't it supposed to stick out of the hood?
I've been going to car shows since I was a kid in the early 90's. If I hear the Big Bopper and see those dolls one more time, I'm slashing tires 😂.
It would be more age appropriate to be playing Steely Dan, Aerosmith and the Doobie Brothers.
Ain't got nothing against the Big Bopper but the dolls are just weird and unnecessary.
What happens if the doll is wearing Chantilly lace?
Good job Ed. I was a kid jn Los Angeles in the 60s & the 76 ball story is 100% accurate.
By the 1960s you never saw the fuzzy dice unless it was a hot rod or a custom car.
I also always put curb feelers on my Mom's huge Country Squires in the 80s so she would not scrape the white walls.
Thanks for the great vid as usual!!
The doll thing is weird.
I HATE the dolls ! They are there so that your wife / girlfriend has some input on the 'display' of your classic car. You forgot to bring up the 50's music blaring over a loud speaker; even though the people who listened to this era of music are now in their mid 80's and no longer go to car shows all that much
Yeah the blaring 50's music has got to go...esp the chintzy love ballads and "Rock Around The Clock." Time out dolls are from the 1990s so they really don't belong. And enough already with the life size cut-outs of Elvis, Monroe & James Dean.
What’s wrong with period-correct music? I mean, don’t blare 50s music at at 80s car show, but if it’s period-correct, what’s the issue?
My thoughts exactly on those stupid dolls. Many a picture has been ruined by those dumb things against the bumper.
@@stevet47 Not trying to be smart but what would an 80's car show be like? All 80's vehicles (I have never been to one of those?) Here in southeast PA most car shows are 'whatever' you can drive there. I got a 71 C-10 and I park it next to a mix of all type of vehicles. My main grip about the music is it being so loud ! Cannot talk to the guy next to you or the guy who owns the car. I personally would rather have no music !!
@@bbo40I hear you on the volume, no arguments there.
Nice topic that even has potential for part2, like California blue dots in stop lights, club badges galore on bumpers or some specific car subculture features that gained more common appeal like some 80s radesque elements. Great that though you’re busy now, you manage not to leave the channel completely neglected
Oooh, yeah. Would love to hear of the origin of the blue dots.
Antenna balls are still very much around!
There is a restaurant chain in part of America called jack in the box that has a pointy-headed clown as its mascot and you can buy them or occasionally they will just give you one as a surprise with your hamburger and fries.
You will see them on lots of cars, new ones on the road not classic ones, the smiling little clown head on their antennas, it's cool!
Other people will put a football or basketball with their favorite team's logo on it.
I have noticed that bumper stickers have essentially disappeared though, occasionally you will see a sticker on the rear glass but people seem less inclined to share their controversial opinions in fear of their cars getting vandalized I guess.
Here it's the exact opposite. Antenna balls are practically nonexistent, but bumper and window stickers are on at least every other car... usually making you roll your eyes at whatever it says. There is no tasteful minimalism to applyers of bumper stickers, it's never enough to express your controversial opinions once, they feel the need to make their car's entire rear end a stream of consciousness about politics, religion, patriotism, homeschooling, dogs vs cats, real men drive trucks, my exhaust is louder than your mom last night, my other car is a porsche, my other porsche is a Harley, honk if you're horny, honk if you love fishing, I brake for ducks, baby on board, buckle up I want to try something, vote (unintelligible gibberish scratched away by the passing of time) for 2002, I'm a dog mom, (insert unnecessarily long description of a conspiracy theory)...
Basically everything you think Facebook is like is what the back of everyone's car looks like here.
Jack in the box?
I remember the Baby on Board stickers as being yellow plastic shapes (triangles or diamonds) stuck on windows with suction cups, like the window "Garfields", and eventually having messages almost as varied as bumper stickers.
The only antenna ball I ever had!
@@Thinginator agree, I haven't seen an antenna ball in ages
Love the 76 ball. I miss it at the pit entrance of NASCAR tracks. That Sunoco sign just isn't the same.
My first car was a 1972 beetle and I lived in Florida. A swamp cooler (the tube on the window) was a must in the summer. If you slammed on the breaks too hard, you would dump the water. My next beetle (73) had factory Air. There is a company called “Light in Sight” that makes a cling lens to see the light above you.
Lucky you lived in Florida. My grandmother owned a Beetle, was her first car, too. She lived in Minnesota though, and the heater wasn't effective at all in the thing.
Those stoplight viewers have been around since the 1930s and were even available as options from the factory on many vehicles. Good video!
They need to be made standard on modern cars too. The way they build these things to meet crash ratings and the god-awful styling tastes of today you have the same visibility problem you did 70 years ago when visors were in vogue. Those prisms would be a godsend.
Of course today carmakers wouldn't just use a prism in a frame for the task, they'd find a way to complicate it with sensors and LEDs and six microchips and a mountain of software.......
Great video, and it seems like there's plenty of material for a sequel: Hula girls/bobbleheads, spotlights, "necker knobs," car hop trays, fast food order number placards...
Also: The last continental kit illustrated was, in fact, factory equipment. So many people complained about the lack of trunk space in the 1955 Thunderbird that, for '56, Ford moved the spare tire out of the trunk and hung it on the rear bumper. For 1957 designers extended the rear overhang to enlarge the T-bird's trunk, so back inside it went.
I had curb feelers on my '92 Bonneville and my '96 Corolla -- absolutely fantastic for finding the curb before the tires and simulated wire wheel hubcaps do.
My dad worked for Union 76 doing interstate sales for 30 or so years. We had an endless supply of 76 antenna toppers!
It's always a great day when Ed comes out with a new video. Bedankt. Danke schon. Domo Arigado. Merci.
We had curb feelers on our 1957 Buick. They worked quite well and as a 5-year old I was entertained by the scraping noise as Dad cut sharp turns. In the US, a much required gadget is the cooling canister which shows up wherever vintage Beetles are on display. I'm going to get one for my 64 Bug when it's restoration is complete. Yes, the turn signal prism worked well on Grand Dad's 1950 Pontiac too.
I've never heard of it called "Continental Tire Kit", just "Continental Kit". And the dolls, AFAIK, are called "Crybaby Dolls", not "Time Out Dolls". They are indeed a weird staple at car shows, thankfully becoming less and less common as the demographic that seems to like them fades away. I just wish we could call a halt to the 1950s - early 60s music blasting at each show, as most people at shows are about 30-40 years too young to even remember that stuff when it was fresh and new, and its played to death in movies, tv anyway. But every show I go to, I still have to listen to "Surfing Safari", "Wipe Out", "Hot Rod Lincoln" and "Leader of the Pack" etc. on endless rotation.
The 50's and 60's music is not really my era either but i think it creates the right ambiance to match the era the cars came from, if there are lots of 1950's cars there. Takes you back in time. I think the DJ's need to mix it up a bit though with a wider variety of old songs, maybe less cheesy novelty songs. What irks me is if the car show is full of mostly late-60's and 70's muscle cars or 70's-style hot rods and the wrong music is playing. Should always be 1970's rock playing in the background.
@@matthall8902 Agreed. And there was a lot of good music created in the 1980s and even 1990s too that hardly ever gets played. A recent show I was at, only a very small number of cars were earlier than about 1965, and yet they had the 1950s stuff blasting as usual. Sigh.
Cool! Ed posted today! Hooray! I remember feelers and dice. Does anybody remember the bobble headed dog in the back window with light up eyes when you stepped on the brake? An early version of the third brake light.
Forgot the food tray mounted on the window. Those are staples at classic car shows
Another great (no matter how obscure?) video about "details" of classic car culture, Ed! I beg to disagree, however, with your "eurocentric" car key explanation as to the timing of its appearance. As a born in America (1953 vintage) early on car enthusiast, there was in my childhood neighborhood one (of quite a few nationwide here at the time) Nash Metropolitan that had an oversized car key affixed to its trunk lid. Just one of my family's stories about that time told about how giddy I would get as a 3-year-old toddler whenever we drove past our neighbor's home where that Metropolitan was conspicuously parked in their driveway (always outside of their garage) or the infrequent times when I'd see it driving about our small suburban town just outside of Philadelphia, PA. As I got older, starting at about age 8, I sought out the neighboring humorous married couple to learn more about their "wind-up" car. They told me that their Nash dealer offered and then installed that key when they bought it brand new back in the autumn of 1954. Since those early years, many times over have I heard the same story told only in differing words. It seems certain to me that VW (of which I bought a 1963 Beetle Bug as the 2nd owner in1972) adopted this already established American joke about compact cars, originating back when the average Detroit designed automobile weighed in at a ton and a half at least, and filled almost every road's lane width with their grander than grand proportions. I lived that reality, Ed, and ever so respectfully (because I've had the privilege to reside many times over in beloved by me Het Nederlands since then) your attribution of the car key's origin story is just a few years off, once again ever so respectfully, witty young sir... Oh yeah, by the way, I have longtime known that these "economy car" Metropolitans were British made but marketed as "new" American innovations, many with those car keys available by the American dealerships...
Yes, I agree. Completely unnecessary and trivial but fun and enjoyable all the same. All your videos are fun and enjoyable. 😊
Great video. I never knew the origin of the fuzzy dice. Swamp coolers were often popular add on sat VW car shows I attended in my youth. My daughter worked an internship a few years ago in the summer in New Mexico…a very dry hot climate. Her apartment had a “swamp cooler”. She was amazed, as was I, that this old technology was still used in the present day. Even local radio ads for companies that would service your swamp cooler much like the a/c companies back home in the southeastern USA
Swamp coolers are way cheaper to operate than A/C, and they work very will until the dew point gets over 55 degrees. I had a house with both, and ran the swamp until my couch was soggy! (I live in Phoenix).
I had a Jack N the Box ball called Jack on my antena around 1995. I liked it because of a commercial where one was talking to a kid while he was worried about driving test, saying something like, "you are driving me crazy."
That traffic light mirror is absolutely genius. I might have to get one for my LS430, because I have a few lights around me that are right above my windshield.
Excellent video as always. There's the blue dots to put on tail lights, dice or skull valve stem caps... so many items to add to the classic car
Our family car, a 1956 Buick, in the 1960's, had one of those window evaporative air cooler. It was much appreciated in the Arizona summer heat.
Those "continental" kits that extend the bumper out a couple of feet, has to be the ugliest thing ever.
ANTENNA BALLS were popular in northern climates- they made it easier to find your car in the snow.
It helps to understand that 'Union 76' marketed premium fuels heavily, even to selling 'AVgas' (100+ octane) right at the pumps. It was 'hot-rodder' marketing....
Union 76 may have died out partially because most aviation fuel is leaded, and leaded fuels aren't good for modern emissions systems, however there is a modern avgas that is 100 octane, unleaded, ethanol free, for use in modern General Aviation aircraft with hardened valve seats. I hope it will become more readily available as I will put it in my old car, my gas saver Camry, and my flex fuel Suburban. Do any of them need 100 octane? No, but I despise ethanol as a fuel additive and would rather give the local airport $5-$6 a gallon than Speedway nearly $4 a gallon to get worse gas mileage, water in my gas due to ethanol's tendency to absorb moisture, and cause unnecessary wear on my fuel pump and carburetor gaskets.
Antenna balls were all the rage in the late 90s. I remember how cute the little black Mickey logo balls were, and then Jack in the Box, had their clown mascot, and that went nuts, with them everywhere and with other variants, eventually you started seeing other styles balls. People kept stealing mine. I remember the school paper interviewed someone who admitted to stealing them. They said they were their little trophies.
What about the steering knob, AKA the "suicide knob"? It was a knob thing you'd attach to your steering wheel, in order to steer with one hand, without removing it. I had one on a truck in the 70s, and loved it. They were illegal in a lot of places, but where they were legal, they were extremely common souvenir items sold at fairs, with all sorts of designs and artwork inside, including naked ladies floating in the sky.
Necker's knob.
Like a Magritte Tuba painting?
I'm old enough to have seen most of these things when they were new. Except for the creepy dolls, never have seen that. The Union 76 balls were absolutely everywhere! I own, but don't use a car cooler, but it fits over the transmission hump, just like a hang-on A/C unit. You put cold water in it and it blows cool air. They are usually found in the southwest or other dry, hot climates. As always, another great video, Ed!
After I bought a new '91 Nissan D21 pickup the first stop I made was to pick up a set of fuzzy dice for luck. I hung them on the rearview, turned them to show "7" to the outside.
They lasted 10 years before the string disintegrated after which they went into my vehicle keepsake box.
They brought us powerful good luck. 33 years later that little truck is still my daily driver. Trouble free and tough as nails; 227k miles on the original clutch and still going strong.
As always, knew some, learned some, laughed at it all. Thanks Ed!
Every item shown in the video was available from JCWhitney.
Back in the late-1940s up to the mid-1950s, many cars in the US had a metal sun visor (usually painted to match the car's color) attached to the leading edge of its roof. Back then, most intersections had a single traffic light suspended in the middle of the intersection that served all four directions. Combining this high mounted, single traffic light with the blindspot of a car's sun visor, one can see just how popular and useful this traffic light viewer could be. By the late- 1950s cars were lower, sleeker and had larger windshields. Signal lights proliferated and became mounted at each of the four corners of the intersection and became easier to see. Soon, that nifty traffic signal viewer became superfluous and obsolete. JJS
And then fast forward to the modern era you have cars with such a long and forward-from-the-seat roof line that they're necessary again. one of the big reasons I replaced my 2014 Challenger with a 1971 Chevy C10 is also one of the driving factors behind the usage of those viewers! The roof came so far forward that, if I was first in line, I couldn't see the fucking traffic light.....
plus once they started tinting the windshield the metal sun visors were no longer needed
Thanks Ed, another great show. Always look forward to your next installment. Take care.
Ed's making a list, checking it twice, gonna get this video monetized! Thanks for another excellent video!
Transparent gear knobs with a flower or a miniature of a carriage embedded inside were also popular in old cars.
nowadays it's always a damn skull shifter. *bad to the bone riff*
They're a red flag that bro who gets out of the car is either a boomer with an entire forest up his ass, or a generally cool dude, or some normal guy who broke his shift knob and put a skull there for the meme. Never in between.
Air conditioning on my 1953 Ford consisted of a pop up vent in front of the windshield and vent windows that you could turn in your direction.
Thus the term 60 at 60. Sixty degrees of cooling at sixty miles per hour!
😂
Ed, excellent video! Many of the gimmicks, I've never seen. The faux "Continental Kits," I remember from the 1950s. They look ridiculous now. As for the fuzzy dice, my instinct is to rip them out of an otherwise very nice car, but if they DO harken back to WWll aviators, my feelings have softened. A good friend was a B-24 pilot in Europe. He'll turn 100 in August.
Garlfield window plushies, hula girl on the dash, fake white and black tiger stripe rugs.. we need a part 2.
the cat on the rear package tray with the eyes that light up with the brake lights
My mom had a Window Garfield in her 89 buick lol I forgot about it until I read this comment.
also, the jack in the box food chain's mascot is an antenna ball in which was also served with a meal at the time.
This video checks a lot of boxes in my car experiences! When I was a kid those Union 76 antenna balls were everywhere and also the ones of the Jack-in-the-Box clown head! My favorite childhood movie was Herbie the Lovebug Rides Again and had the taped headlights! Personally I think the windup keys would have better suited the VW Vans because riding in the older ones they almost seemed to have a rubber band motor! Haha! I've actually seen those odd cylindrical air conditions on the outsides of very old cars in "low rider" shows locally in the city streets! My dad got curb feelers for our 67 Buick Wagon but they only lasted a little while until they bugged my mom, I guess! And finally for me yellow lights make a whole lot more sense than those blue LCD kind that shine UNDER the car as it goes by in more recent years! That just seems to be showing off!
Yeah, I also cannot fathom the creepy car dolls.
Don't forget the 'Plastic Jesus'! 😂
… I don’t care if rains and freezes ………..😎
Back in the late 70's I had an AH Sprite that I'd tape the headlights with electrical tape as I would "Hill Climb" around town [I lived in the mountains]. Not sure it ever made any difference but it looked cool and to a teenager that was enough! As for Yellow/Amber lights, "in theory" yellow/amber light has a longer wavelength than pure white light and thus is less prone to reflect off of small particles [ie. rain or snowflakes]. At the same time, your brain is much more distracted by little flashes of white light, which is exactly what rain or snow produce under regular headlights so again "in theory" yellow/amber lights should be less taxing on the brain while driving under adverse conditions. When it comes to quirky car things, especially here in America, you could go on for days! Love the work, Ed, thanks to you!
You forget the ball in the stereing wheel to help to move because there's no power asisted direction. Greettins from Quilpué, Chile.
Back in the mid/late 50s we had one of those car coolers! As kids, we enjoyed the light rain in mist that flew into the car from them and also that it actually cooled the car a bit as we drove through deserts. Fun memories.
Traffic light viewers are also good for classic cars with sunshades from the 40’s, the big ones that would arch over
A traffic light viewer would have been a godsend in my 2014 Challenger for the same reason they're a godsend in a 40s car with a visor. That lack of visibility is part of why I replaced that car with a 1971 Chevy C10, in fact, I HATE not being able to see what I'm doing behind the wheel.
You could increase the number ten-fold with just a J.C. Whitney catalog from back in the days when mail-order catalogs did the job of Amazon, Ebay, and Aliexpress nowadays. Nose-thumbing Jester hood ornaments (illuminated or not), blue dots for your taillights, side mirrors for your fender or door frame, dummy spotlights, "Rolls Royce" grilles and for your Caddilac, spoilers and luggage racks for your trunk lid, all manner of accessory Fog lights, the requisite 'triple gauge' cluster in it's shiny chrome mount for under your dash, tinted vent window and sun visor extensions, 'flower power' stick-on decals, pinstripe kits, "Oohgah" and "Dixie" horns, all manner of shifter knobs, and so much more... along with the usual partial shipments due to back-ordered items. For awhile you could just about build a Jeep or VW with only a rolling chassis and bare engine to start with from their catalogs. You don't see much of this at car shows now, but it was 'period correct' for car accessories back then and those of us who lived through the classic car era remember J.C. Whitney and all the goodies they sold very well indeed.
Back in the 70's I remember seeing lots of regular cars with the orange 76 balls on the antenna. Funny enough I have never seen one at a classic car show. Continental kits only ever look good on some Lincoln's and a few Caddies
How about the chrome half moons that covered headlights Great channel Ed
I believe those are for mountain driving to keep the upper glare down. I've only seen those in other States. I live in flatland Florida.
Where I live, only Pimpmobiles had curb feelers....
Oh my gosh. When I was a kid I found this weird half-circular prism-like device in a box of junk but never quite knew what it was. Thanks to your video I now know it was a traffic light viewer.
I remember watching The Tonight Show With Johnny Carson, and Johnny pulled out a hat that he said belonged to Dean Martin.
The hat had curb feelers.
I also remember seeing one of Dean Martin's cars parked on the street. It was his Stutz Blackhawk with the DRUNKY license plate.
Han Solo has a pair of dice hanging in the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon.
I've seen those window coolers on really nice, old low-riders.
Thanks, I've seen all of those except the traffic light viewer, but I didn't know about the origin of the fuzzy dice. Here in Australia, we called the timeout dolls "shame dolls". Foxtails on antennas were popular here. Keep up the good work, I always get a smile when I see you have a new video!
I could see dice hanging in the windshield of an airplane useful, even just a pair of normal dice hanging on a piece of string.
If you're flying in bad weather or at night, something in your field of vision that shows which way is down or if you're not level, without having to look for a display on a crowded instrument panel. Your normal sense of up and down is completely thrown off by the speed, the planes are more distracting, because less stuff is automated, and the stress of the whole situation.
Yellow fog lights are also a good alternative to Driving Lights. They provide a good deal more light than low beam, more to the sides than high beam, and critically they don't blind oncoming traffic.
Except they are for fog and you don't really need to see 3m in front of you if it can see 15m away.
@@Low760 Not sure what knock off chinese rubbish you have been using, but Fog lights let you see a lot further than 3m, or even 15.
When there is no fog, as stated they are superior to low beam although not as bright as high beam and in fog they don't reflect off the fog the way high beam does thus increasing your visible range.
They don't light up the road 200m ahead like Driving Lights do, but they make for a nice addition to low beam.
Although legally you still have to turn them off for oncoming traffic they are still less blinding, frankly less blinding than some modern cars low beams.
Another thing you often see at car shows are scale models of the cars themselves perched on the air cleaner. Plenty of visors on 40’s and early 50’s cars. Steering wheel knob on the big steering wheels, Mexican blankets on ratty seats, and lots more…
I do miss traditional antennas and antenna balls. Sometimes you can still get them at the fast food restaurant Jack on the Box
I'd listen to you reading the dictionary. Great production lad. Just fantastic. Huge thanks.
5:26 The AIrTemp grille was more than a badge. In those days, most car air conditioners had the compressor and condenser under the hood, bt the evaporator took up about half the trunk (Nash and Hudson All-Weather Eye had all the components under the hood and dashboard) with all the air ducts coming in through the package shelf and along the C-pillar.
Another rear view mirror 'sign' (from my Dad, b. 1944) Hanging a pair of baby shoes; which meant you were a grown up, and not out looking to race at every stoplight.
He hung a pair on his '66 GTO tri-power, which was a 'weekends only' racer....(they were my shoes 😊)
"Dingle balls" hanging around the border of the headliner dangling in the top of the windows were big in the 1950s and are still popular in lowriders today.
Great video, would like to see more stuff that doesn't deal with "just" a car from you, but with stuff surrounding it. As expansion of car culture. Also, love the humour.
I grew up going to classic car shows in the 90s and saw all of these in Colorado.
I also used to have a pair of fuzzy dice in my Golf R. Except they were D20s lol. I got them at "Black and Read" in Arvada, CO.
Those window coolers were very common in the mid 50s. I remember them on cars from out of state especially, tourists on a long road trip. They also put screens in front of their grilles, because there were so many bugs. If you drove at night outside a city, your windshield would get coated. You had to stop and clean your windshield more often than to get gas.
Except for the dolls, all of this stuff was on cars when I grew up in 1950s Southern California. Those really were the days…. Our family had a car cooler which worked very well in the low humidity of the Mojave desert.
The "car cooler" was called a swamp cooler
What about all the headlight treatments like the 1/2 chrome covered, the eyelid, the cat's eye and like that?
We used to use antenna balls so we could find our car easier on a parking lot. I have curb feelers on my Honda in an attempt to keep my rims from getting scraped. I have fuzzy dice on my 69 Camaro... just because.
Back in 1967, we took a trip to the west coast by motorcar, and saw the Union 76 balls everywhere; There weren't any of those gas stations on the east coast. There was a rumor that you could win a prize if you were spotted by someone in the company, so we got a ball for ourselves. There was a touch of braggadocio in having it on your parents' car, as in "Look where I've been."
I recall seeing ads for the windup key in my dad's auto magazines as far back as the 1950s. The car cooler was often filled with ice. We had curb feelers on our 1953 Hudson, as the front fenders were obscured by the hood. They made a "boinging" sound. I have a clear plastic prism stuck to the top of my windscreen that is a fresnel lens.
In the 1980s, I had a solar powered fan that pulled hot air out of the car and let in cooler ambient temperature air. I liked that it allowed air circulation without allowing anyone with a clothes hanger to get into your car.
I enjoy seeing scale model replicas of the 1/1 cars at shows. My mom made fuzzy dice for me, but i have 6 and 4 visible to let people know the car is from 1964 lol! Good and informative video 👍👍
In Australia, in the 60s Rear venetian blinds were sometimes fitted by old people. Now days at car shoes it seems every second old vehicle has them fitted. I hate them.
I get a kick out of the receiver covers with the little boat propeller that spins when you're moving.
In the UK, you can add nodding dogs and also cushions/tartan blankets in the back window. Fashions that only appear now to be ironic.
I hate conti kits that seem to appear on every car, and also skirts - fine on ladies, or gents, I suppose - but dreadful on rear wheel arches.
Yes, what's with the nodding headed dogs? I've seen them here in the States, too.
My mum's 2005 Hyundi Matrix has a tartan blanket it's been in every car from the early 90s lol.
One of my pet peeves is fender skirts on cars that were NOT designed to have fender skirts. It looks tacky.
Thank you Ed. Entertaining and educational as always.
The dice hanging from the rear-view mirror are a play on words to signify the passion of the vehicle: pair of dice, or "Paradise" means 'this vehicle (and the driver) exhibit serious passion and every female should want to take part in this wonder on wheels.
I've got a set of knicker knobs from my grandfather that he used on some of his cars back in the '50s and '60s. One is green with metallic flakes and the other is clear with a nude pinup girl in it. Of course, those had a practical application in the times before power steering.
I have a reasonbly-sized pair of fuzzy dice with the logo of my favorite soccer team in my car which is not a "classic" but a regular modern street car. I love'em of course.
on the note of yellow headlights, the two French brands of lights and rally lights Cibié and SEV Marchal aare particularly well known for their yellow glass.