jaunty75

The story: my brother gathered up our family's old Super 8 color film taken during family vacations back in the '60s and '70s and had it all converted to DVD format, and then he gave us all copies. In going through the videos, I discovered some footage of the 1973 Custom Cruiser we owned back then. It's the car I learned to drive on and what motivated me to get one back in 2010.

I managed to get a reasonable screenshot of the wagon from the old footage (left image below), and I put it side-by-side with the '73 I own now (on the right). As I've said elsewhere, I really like any car with a vintage two-tone color scheme, and I always really liked the white-over-maroon color of the wagon we had back then.

This image was taken at a rest area we had stopped at on a trip in April 1973, shortly after my father had purchased the car, so that's why there's actually luggage in the luggage rack. If you look carefully at this image, you can see something sticking out of the top edge of the passenger side rear door window. That was a window-mountable TV antenna. We had a small (5-inch screen) TV that could be plugged into a cigarette lighter, and the antenna made for better reception. Had to keep us kids quiet somehow!

I've seen a number of '73 Custom Cruisers in recent years (mostly as photos), including some that are the same red as the car we had. But those cars were red all over. I've never seen one with the white-over-red scheme of our original '73.





My father traded-in the wagon in 1976 (for a Cadillac Sedan De Ville). I have no idea where it is now. It probably no longer exists.

Fullsizelover

Great story Jaunty, I can only imagine what it's been like as a kid growing up in these cars so that's why I bought one too.
Haven't heard any complaints so far
Olds1.jpg

jaunty75

Good photo!

We had three wagons, all Oldsmobiles, all bought new, when I was growing up. A '67 Vista Cruiser, a '71 Custom Cruiser, and then this '73. After that, my father never bought another one, unless you count the 2008 Toyota Highlander he has now. That's a station wagon-ish type vehicle.

MDchanic

Not so unusual.
I grew up with a '63 ChevyII wagon (3 on the tree, 150-six) (the only one bought new), a '67 Farlane wagon (3 on the tree, 289 - better to tow the tiny camping trailer), a '68 Poncho wagon (TH350, SB), a '62 VW bus (infinite legroom, but still narrow enough for "He's on my side!"), a '72 VW bus, and a '75 top-optioned Suburban (finally no more "He's on my side!"), with a CB, an air horn, and a tape deck.

These things were literally everywhere, and darned near every family had one.

- Eric

jaunty75

I was able to snag a couple of screen shots of the '67 from the same DVD. These are from June 1968. They're not terribly good, but things are what they are. My father never held the camera still very long, so these freeze-frames are always a bit blurred, and even when the camera wasn't moving, the resolution is only so good.


Anyway, these two are from Yellowstone National Park. We had gone on a three-week vacation west (we lived in upstate New York), and one stop was here. It was unusually (or maybe not so unusually) cold there for early June, and we had some snow one day. My father grabbed a quick shot of the car.







This one is from earlier in the trip, a rest area somewhere in Nevada or Utah, I think.

MDchanic

Those were the days...

loudmouthaussie

cool pic jaunty. I have a set of rabbits ears and a sony TV. had it in my Lincoln. ive tried the rabbits ears on the olds but the framed windows make it too tight to fit properly

loudmouthaussie

friend of mine coming over and were putting 3" blocks in the rear of my wagon gotta get that lowrider look. ill post before and afters. nothing too drastic.

oldolds88

that follows my childhood, dad started with a 58 fiesta wagon,then a used 65 vista,(we took that out we on vacation), few years later he bought a new 69 vista,(also to yellowstone for vaction),then a used 70 vista,75 vista,and finally he bought a little cierra wagon. i went on to own a few wagons,my 76 98,3 79 malibu wagons and an 83 cutlass wagon. maybe one day ill get another. glad others are keeping them nice