NOT YOUR EVERYDAY COLLECTOR CARS

April 3, 2017

NOT YOUR EVERYDAY COLLECTOR CARS —
A Facebook page for the other guys

by Jim Corbran

If you’re reading this at all I assume you’re a car guy or gal.

And if you’re also the type to go to summer cruise nights, you may have seen me passing-by the ’57 Chevys, two-seat T-Birds, and myriad of Mustangs and Corvettes as I search for the oddball survivors — the everyday family cars of my youth which somehow survived all of these years.

Some of them may have been barn finds, while others may have been obtained from the estate of one of those folks who bought a new Chevy sedan back in the fifties and just hung on to it.

Whatever the reason, I celebrate them all. And a while back I started a Facebook page for just that reason, because I assumed it wasn’t just me, there must be others out there who also enjoy this sort of thing.

So I decided to call it LuvTheCheapies, and focused on not only the oddball non-collector sort, but those cars which were at or near the bottom-of-the nameplate-ladder. Your Dad may have bought a nice flashy 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 two-door hardtop back in the day, but our driveway had the much cheaper Ford Galaxie (the non-500) four-door sedan proudly parked in it; straight six, three-on-the-tree, and no radio (in beige, no less). A friend of the family went one further and bought the even cheaper Ford 300. This is what we’re talking about here!

Ford 300s, Chevy Biscaynes, Plymouth Plazas and Savoys — this was the stuff that was bought not only by cheap — er, thrifty parents, but by most police departments and taxi cab companies. And they’re difficult to find today. Many of them were used as parts cars to restore the higher-end Galaxies, Impalas, and Furys. So I spend (waste? Lol) a lot of my spare time searching out these old gems on the internet and posting them to LuvTheCheapies. What started out as a Lark (get it?) on my part now has almost 3,700 followers from all over the world, many of whom also post their own finds.

Of course, some of them still don’t quite grasp what the page is all about, and they try and post pictures of the Lincoln or Cadillac they bought for a bargain price. It’s not about cars you bought cheaply, it’s about cheap cars! For that reason, I started a second FB page, MomAndDadCars, which is for those cars which are still not the usual cruise night-type, but maybe a little fancier than the Cheapies – like your Grandpa’s Ford LTD or maybe Aunt Tilly’s Pontiac Bonneville.
If this is the kind of stuff that interests you, check out the pages. Maybe join up and post a photo or two.

Just remember to follow the guidelines!