Out of State Plates

Corvette, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Part of an occasional sub-series for our occasional Motorcar Monday series. This is, obviously, a 1963 license plate from Washington state, with a sticker showing it's last current registration from being just three years later. It's also obviously attached to an old Chevrolet Corvette.

However, that's not the whole story. This is an early, first generation 'Vette, a '54 if I'm not mistaken. It was sold originally in the Spokane area, and lived there most of it's life. There's even a dealer sticker on the back for Century Motors, "The Corvette Center". It's stunningly original and in the rare Corvette Copper color, of which a mere 15 were made.

Ford

Ford, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

The Return Of TtV Tuesday! This is a 1950 Ford coupe, the famous "shoebox". The '49 got this nickname almost as soon as it hit showrooms, because it was FoMoCo's first properly modern-styled car. The '48, a fine looking car in it's own right, was basically a pre-war model with some styling upgrades. The new car, along with the new '49 Mercury, had smooth, all-enveloping bodywork. More importantly, the Shoebox was still a simple design, and practically begged to be chopped, channeled, lowered, hopped up, and metal-flaked. Truly a classic design.

Naturally, I've shown you the very front of a standard Shoebox!

Corvette

Corvette, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Hard to believe, but the Chevrolet Corvette wasn't a successful car when it was introduced in 1953. Rushed into production after making the rounds of various auto shows as a concept, the Corvette received mixed reviews. It looked fantastic, and the first examples sold well, but it soon became apparent that GM's new sports car was more of a cruiser than a racer. It was slower than people expected, and it was beset with quality issues such as water leaks and body panel fit due in part to GM's use of fiberglass for the outer body panels.



These issues were fairly quickly resolved, and the '54 model year cars were better built, and offered more colors to boot. But the Corvette was still a modest performer with it's six cylinder sedan engine, not the sort of powerplant that enthusiasts expected. This changed in 1955, when GM introduced it's new V-8 engine, which naturally found it's way into it's sports car as well. Sales perked up, and did so even more in 1956 when the car gained new styling, roll up windows, and other refinements.

This slightly down at heel example is a '55, with a V-8. I photographed it at a show-it is completely original, having been put in a garage in 1966 and not taken out till recently.

Out of State Plates

Land of the Midnight Sun, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Another one in an occasional series of interesting license plates. Canada's best known for the polar bear shaped plates used in the Northwest Territories (and they're really cool), but this one's from the Yukon. The image of the man panning for gold has been used since the sixties at least.