I believe that’s a Chevrolet under all that snow, but this story concerns a Chrysler, and the same snow storm.
The photo is from 1947, when more than 26 inches of snow fell on New York City December 26 and 27. Not too different from what happened this week, on December 26 and 27.
But in 1947 my father was a pilot for Pan American World Airways, flying a European route out of Laguardia Field (that’s what the airport was called in those days) that kept him away for weeks at a time. He returned the day after the storm, to find the city buried in snow. Similarly, his 1936 Chrysler Imperial Airflow was buried as well, in the airport’s parking lot.
The radically-styled Chrysler Airflow came in a number of models of differing size, and the Imperial was the biggest – and heaviest – of them all. The car’s immense size was my father’s only clue to finding the car among the many snow-covered automobiles in the parking lot. He chose a large object near where he remembered parking, and began to brush snow away from the area of the driver’s door. It proved to be his car.
So he got in, and started it up. Remarkably, the 6-volt electrical system delivered a good start, and more remarkably, my father simply backed the huge car out of the snow. He did not dig it out or otherwise clear a path. He just rumbled out onto the plowed aisleway.
He then brushed the snow from the windows and drove home to Glen Rock, New Jersey, to enjoy a belated Christmas with his family (which did not yet include me).
Today we are all convinced that we need four-wheel-drive if there is a flurry. But in the record-breaking storm of 1947, all that was necessary was a big old Chrysler.
The photo is from 1947, when more than 26 inches of snow fell on New York City December 26 and 27. Not too different from what happened this week, on December 26 and 27.
But in 1947 my father was a pilot for Pan American World Airways, flying a European route out of Laguardia Field (that’s what the airport was called in those days) that kept him away for weeks at a time. He returned the day after the storm, to find the city buried in snow. Similarly, his 1936 Chrysler Imperial Airflow was buried as well, in the airport’s parking lot.
The radically-styled Chrysler Airflow came in a number of models of differing size, and the Imperial was the biggest – and heaviest – of them all. The car’s immense size was my father’s only clue to finding the car among the many snow-covered automobiles in the parking lot. He chose a large object near where he remembered parking, and began to brush snow away from the area of the driver’s door. It proved to be his car.
So he got in, and started it up. Remarkably, the 6-volt electrical system delivered a good start, and more remarkably, my father simply backed the huge car out of the snow. He did not dig it out or otherwise clear a path. He just rumbled out onto the plowed aisleway.
He then brushed the snow from the windows and drove home to Glen Rock, New Jersey, to enjoy a belated Christmas with his family (which did not yet include me).
Today we are all convinced that we need four-wheel-drive if there is a flurry. But in the record-breaking storm of 1947, all that was necessary was a big old Chrysler.