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Happy Mother's Day from #DavesCarIDService!*
*let me get this out of the way, right up front: please, I am begging you, for the love of comedy, take your all your "birthing person" jokes to some other tweet thread
*let me get this out of the way, right up front: please, I am begging you, for the love of comedy, take your all your "birthing person" jokes to some other tweet thread
Yes kids, long before KITT there was My Mother The Car, with Jerry Van Dyke and Ann Southern voicing his mom, reinCARnated as a "1928 Porter."
Even in a sitcom landscape of talking horses and flying nuns and Martian uncles, it proved a premise too far and was quickly canceled.
Even in a sitcom landscape of talking horses and flying nuns and Martian uncles, it proved a premise too far and was quickly canceled.
But the car ID stickler in me is compelled to note Mom is NOT a 1928 Porter; she is a 1923 Ford Model T touring, originally built as a 283 Chevy powered hot rod by my late great pal Norm Grabowski- who also built the iconic "Kookie T" for 77 Sunset Strip.
You can see the early version of the car in such cinematic masterpieces as Sex Kittens Go To College (with Norm as "Woo Woo Grabowski") and Disney's The Monkey's Uncle (with Norm as "Norm"), and on the Les Baxter full dimension stereophonic bongo beat album "Teen Drums"
Anyhoo, in 1965 it was acquired by the show producers and modified into the "1928 Porter" series star car by Norm Breedlove, dad of land speed legend Craig. A second series stunt car was built by George Barris, whose TV cars are too numerous to cite here.
Incidentally, Craig Breedlove is the subject of the Beach Boys song "Spirit of America." FWIW, the Beach Boys also backed Annette Funicello on the title song of "Monkey's Uncle" in the aforementioned Disney flick featuring Norm Grabowski and the earlier version of the "Porter."
I should really charge tuition for this kind of top shelf information, but it's time to get to the car ID requests. I will cheerfully attempt to respond to your requests as long as you respect the guidelines:
No better way to kick off today's IDs than with this brand new mom and daughter, and what looks like a brand new 1963 Dodge Dart 4 door sedan. https://twitter.com/dxturner/status/1391048131656265731
Here's a cool and poignant mother & child photo: mom dreams of escaping the drab Soviet drudgery of her 1980ish Lada 1500 sedan, to do the Super Bowl Shuffle with the Chicago Bears. https://twitter.com/dimaspivak/status/1391016517421109248
Keep On Truckin', Mom! Her retired driver's ed vehicle is a 1926-29 International. https://twitter.com/BL_Abba/status/1388485639113306118
Grandma here (ht @theSUNGlassKid) is relaxing on the running board of a Cleveland-made 1927 Chandler Model 31 roadster. Chandler was actually a fairly popular car pre WW1, but this was one of their last model years before they were merged into Hupmobile. https://twitter.com/BillinPortland/status/1386467672309878790
Awww. Mom's beehive is an absolute marvel of 1960s Aquanette hair engineering; the two visible cars are a 1965 Ford Mustang (L) and a 1962 Chevy Biscayne. https://twitter.com/indiucky/status/1385960697335623688
A bit of a challenge here but as best I can tell, this very fertile mom is loading her offspring into a 1926-27 Buick sedan. https://twitter.com/davan555/status/1388573987777617921
Sadly this seems to have exhausted all the mom-centric ID requests in my queue, but I guess Frank Zappa sorta counts as a Mother; here sitting in a 46-48 Ford Tudor (cc: @ARTofCOOP) https://twitter.com/ConservativeLA/status/1391380201469317126
*confirmed; photo is an outtake from The Monkees TV series episode 57 "The Monkees Blow Their Minds" with guest star Frank Zappa. Here's Zappa & Monkees guitarist Mike Nesmith fixin' to smash up "Travelin' Mood." Note the ginchy window dingo balls.
Here's the complete episode, featuring Zappa as Nesmith and Nesmith as Zappa. The Monkees & Zappa would later appear together in the even stranger Jack Nicholson-produced movie, "Head" (1968) which also featured (wait for it) Annette Funicello.
As long as we're on cosmic connections, Jack Nicholson's "Head" also featured Dennis Hopper with whom he would appear in Easy Rider, and a young Toni Basil with whom he would appear in Five Easy Pieces. You may remember her from the 80s mall anthem "Mickey"
yes, the inside of my skull is sometimes a frightening place
Let's get this thread back on car IDs before it goes completely off the rails. Great photo/story here but afraid I don't have enough visual for any solid IDs except for the circa 1913 Cadillac fire department ladder truck. https://twitter.com/Kenneth_St_Cyr/status/1385964615142625284
