Welcome to the DCIDS garage

Howdy, car mystery fans! Welcome to my shameless attempt to monetize you, so I guess I owe you an explanation of what this here site is about, and how it all started.

Some years ago, my lovely pal Melissa C. (@melifix on Twitter) posted some wonderful photos of her dad, a Japanese-American who spent time in the WWII internment camps. The photos featured some of his cars and she was curious about their make and model. Being an aficionado of vintage automobiles, I replied with a identification; I recall it was a 1959 Buick Invicta. That prompted requests from a few more people to ID mystery cars, which I did, and the whole thing sort of eventually snowballed into a twice-weekly #DavesCarIDService hashtag thread of Yours Truly trying my best to ID makes and models of old cars in family album photos, wilderness ravines, parking lots, and the like.

The whole thing has been spectacular fun for me, and a welcome respite from the otherwise dreary, snarky, depressing dumbness of Twitter. But those thousands of car ID request I’ve gotten also made me think that there is a bigger, more important story here. I consider the automobile the single most revolutionary technology of the 20th Century. Yeah, I know, cars were around in the 19th Century, but it wasn’t until the 20th that they truly began revolutionizing everyday people’s everyday lives. Obviously other technologies — like digital computing and birth control pills — can likewise stake a claim to expanding people’s freedom, mobility, and material well being, but the car seems to occupy a special sentimental place in our collective psyche. People name their cars. There are are entire genres of car art and car songs. Kids have been playing with toy cars for over 100 years and counting. They remain an extension and expression of our personal identities and aesthetics. Even people who personally consider driving a chore and cars an appliance can’t help but delight at a surprise antique car in the other lane. Not to get all sociology-y, but the car made the difficult leap from what Emile Durkheim termed the realm of the profane (everyday, common, utilitarian) to the realm of the sacred (imbued with spiritual and emotional meaning).

Nowhere is that more obvious than in all those old family album photos I get every week; people posing with their new cars, perching their babies on the radiators, heading off for honeymoons and road trip adventures. Collectively they write endless stories, which I will collect and curate here — not just stories about the cars, but the people, and the bigger societal context in which they existed. And fair warning, it won’t all be Happy Days nostalgia. It’s pretty hard to sugarcoat photo stories involving the Great Depression, loved ones lost in war, or like Melissa’s dad, being sent to a Japanese-American internment camp. I am unapologetically a fan of vintage cars/ music/ style, but don’t mistake my admiration for 1953 Studebaker Starlights for a desire to return to 1953 America.

In essence this thing here will be a ‘Best Of’ version of Twitter #DavesCarIDService, organized around themes — weddings, beach vacations, Ford V8 flatheads, and so on — with me untethered from a 280 character limit to blather on about them. I will also share some tips and tricks for IDing cars, and occasional photos from my own car adventures around the country. What you won’t find here is anything to do with contemporary politics. Some of you may know me from my satire blog or Twitter snark, but on this little half acre of the internet I will be on my best behavior, and focused on visual stories told by people and their cars — something that I’ve discovered makes people happy regardless of their political leanings.

And now for the small print: while I will make some posts here public, the top shelf stuff will be via subscription newsletter arriving 2-4 times per month. I’ve tried to keep the subscription price low - $5 per month (cancel anytime!) or $40 per year (a great stocking stuffer for that special car nut in your life!). I will also try to figure out freebies for anyone whose photos are used here, and longtime Patreon supporters.

Frankly feel embarrassed to charge anyone for this, because all the family pictures I’ve received from doing my car ID shtick have been a personal source of delight. But I had a few inquiries from publishers about compiling this content into a book, and decided to drop the idea due to the complicated copyright issues. Having it as a somewhat freewheeling Substack just felt more comfortable and compatible with my verbal style. Plus I can make corrections when necessary - contrary to myth, I am not unstumpable or infallible when it comes to vintage car identification, just a relatively competent amateur who tries to get it right.

And for my first ID here, offered to you at absolutely no charge: the fella in the picture up top is my beloved Dad, from whom I inherited my machinery fixation, and his first car, a 1951 Chevy Styleline Deluxe.