Don't forget those antenna balls helped snowplows see parked vehicles after major snowstorms! Honorable mention dashboard hula girl!

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.

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.

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.

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!”

Dashboard hula girl should be right up there with fuzzy dice for kitsch interior accessories.

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.

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.

Also the bobble head dog that sits on the packet shelf. And "suicide knobs", like curb feelers, were for practical reasons.

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.

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 😂.

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.

Fluffy Dice not being an option for the Lowriders in GTA Online is a crime.

I like the longhorns Texans would put on their Caddies . Lol

In 90s Australia, nudge bars were everywhere on cars. Also window lourves on the rear window, and plastic tube bull bars.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

Surprised you didn't mention the stuffed tigers in the pontiac g.t.o's. i always see those at car shows

Honorable mention. Tiger tails sticking out of the trunks of GTOs

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....

Love the 76 ball. I miss it at the pit entrance of NASCAR tracks. That Sunoco sign just isn't the same.

Don't forget the 'Plastic Jesus'! 😂

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

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

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.

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.

Forgot the food tray mounted on the window. Those are staples at classic car shows

It's always a great day when Ed comes out with a new video. Bedankt. Danke schon. Domo Arigado. Merci.

ANTENNA BALLS were popular in northern climates- they made it easier to find your car in the snow.

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.

Garlfield window plushies, hula girl on the dash, fake white and black tiger stripe rugs.. we need a part 2.

The doll thing is weird.

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!

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.

Those stoplight viewers have been around since the 1930s and were even available as options from the factory on many vehicles. Good video!

My dad worked for Union 76 doing interstate sales for 30 or so years. We had an endless supply of 76 antenna toppers!

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.

Yes, I agree. Completely unnecessary and trivial but fun and enjoyable all the same. All your videos are fun and enjoyable. 😊

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.

The "car cooler" was called a swamp cooler

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...

Traffic light viewers are also good for classic cars with sunshades from the 40’s, the big ones that would arch over

As always, knew some, learned some, laughed at it all. Thanks Ed!

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

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

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.

You forget the ball in the stereing wheel to help to move because there's no power asisted direction. Greettins from Quilpué, Chile.

Ed's making a list, checking it twice, gonna get this video monetized! Thanks for another excellent video!

Where I live, only Pimpmobiles had curb feelers....

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

I'm mid 40s and live in the USA. I've yet to see a wind up Beetle. Never heard of one till now honestly.

Thanks Ed, another great show. Always look forward to your next installment. Take care.

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! 😂

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.

Blue dot rear lights. Classic 😅

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.

Transparent gear knobs with a flower or a miniature of a carriage embedded inside were also popular in old cars.

The Weinerschnitzel antenna topper was the best. The one where the hot dog was hanging on for dear life.

At 5:04; the "swamp cooler". ;-)

Every item shown in the video was available from JCWhitney.

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!

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.

As for me, 'Continental Kits' are my most hated gimmick on winga-dinga cars.

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!

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.

Here in FInland fuzzy dice have a whole other meaning. You can't just put fuzzy dice up, no. You have to earn them and they're tied to a car. To earn your fuzzy dice you need to have had ""fun"" with another person inside the car. An interesting cultural difference.

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.

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.

Thank you Ed. Entertaining and educational as always.

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.

Thank you Ed for leaving out the other type of balls that for some trailer park reason have become so popular. I hope we'll have repressed that memory in a couple of years, just like the nightmare it is.

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.

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.

Basically it's all crap, and detracts from the cars. Possible exception for the car cooler. Thanks for all the videos Ed.

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…

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 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.

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."

Another thing I remember from car shows in the 70's is that they always had three metal 1 gallon cans painted to match the car and they were each labeled, GAS, OIL, WATER. I always thought those doll were weird too.

I love your channel! Very informative.

INTERESTING AND FUN VIDEO ED!!! THANX!!!

Timeout dolls were once used to publicly show when an owner of the car had broken a minor rule of the car show. It was a subtle way of indicating to the judges that the car was DQ'ed from judged competition.

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.

Excellent video as always Ed!

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.

I have to say, I LOVE these gimmicks, they give the car so much personality.

I'd listen to you reading the dictionary. Great production lad. Just fantastic. Huge thanks.

Luv it! Thanks Ed. ❤👍😊

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.

I love your channel keep up the good work greetings from Michigan

You might not like them, but you should do more top 10 lists😊

Yay! A new video! I hope you have a great day, Ed!

I’ve learned something new today, thank you for that👍🏻

These were real cool. Great video!

I get a kick out of the receiver covers with the little boat propeller that spins when you're moving.

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 👍👍