Have you ever wanted to travel back in time? What about for really mundane, terrible reasons? Like, instead of viewing monumental moments of history or making small changes that will cascade to better humankind’s situation overall, you just wanted to go to Boston’s former red-light and general smut district and see what sort of cars were there? If that’s something that’s been a dream of yours, but money or medical issues are preventing you from using one of our nation’s fine bonded and licensed time-travel agencies, then boy, do I have good news for you!
The good news is that there exists a nice chunk of video from 1985, shot originally by Boston’s WGBH-TV station, which you likely remember as the producers of Zoom. In a slight departure from the usual content of shows like Zoom, this bit of footage shows the traffic around an area of Boston known as the “Combat Zone.”
This area of town was once lauded by the Wall Street Journal as being a “sexual Disneyland.” I mean, I assume that was praise?
But we’re here to talk about cars, not imagining what a carnal version of Space Mountain would be like! So let’s check out the footage:
I was first made aware of this footage by our own The Bishop, who noted that the footage really seemed to capture what normal, everyday cars were like in the mid-’80s. And, generally, I think he’s pretty correct: this footage really does seem to capture what the overall carscape was like in the middle of the ’80s, at least on the East Coast.
Things felt a little different out West, with more imports, proportionately, I think. Also, these clips don’t show any old air-cooled Volkswagens, which I remember as being fairly common even well into the ’80s.
Here’s another GBH-shot video, highlighting Boston’s double-parking woes, and it also really captures the overall feeling of mid-’80s traffic:
Let’s take a look at some of the automotive recurring characters of the era! I do want to note that Ford Tempo up in the topshot, because those are all but extinct now, and were once surprisingly common. Now you’re more likely to run into a Sasquatch on the road.
Oh, and speaking of once common and now essentially extinct, that car up there is the poster child for that phenomenon: a first-gen Honda Accord sedan. That one looks like a 1980 (or maybe 1981), the exact same year and color as my mom’s car in that era. That one is a five-speed instead of an automatic like mom’s, but still.
These Accords were wildly popular, a best-selling car that really made the Big Three fearful of Japan, and now they’re pretty much extinct, except in captivity. I see more unrestored old Beetles trundling around than Accords a decade newer. Where did they all go?
Even the second-gen Accords, which arrived in 1982, have all essentially vanished. I dated a woman who had one of these in the late ’90s, so they were still around then, at least.
Cars like this Chevy Celebrity were the water in which we swam; ubiquitous and ignorable, these boxy things were everywhere, a filler like rice in the poke bowl of the automotive landscape, if you’ll permit me some metaphor mixing.
If the Celebrity was rice, this blue Saab 900 was a big chunk of tuna: less common, but tastier. These were interesting cars for people who wanted something a bit less normal, and they got it, starting their cars by reaching down to their key in the floor. That brown Chevy van behind it was another unseen-but-everywhere sort of vehicle, too.
Look, there’s another brown van, this one a Ford Econoline (I was wrong earlier, so thanks to commenters for catching that) lurking at the right edge there, but I want to talk about the Mercedes-Benz SL there, which I think is a 450 SL, with the big 4.5-liter V8. That was a classy ride!
Also, see that Ford Maverick ahead and to the right of the Benz? With the huge dent in the rear quarter panel?
Somehow all Mavericks seemed to be in this general condition throughout the 1980s. They weren’t even all that old when this footage was taken – that car is probably, what, nine or 10 years old? The oldest it could be is 15, which is not that far off from the average age of a car on US roads today. Cars just aged harder back in the day, and didn’t really last as long.
Speaking of aging harder, see that Ford Granada reversing into the spot up there, in front of the Maverick? There’s a detail there that seemed to be part of every single Granada Ford made: the broken reverse light lens:
You can see it on the right there, from the video. And on the left, I have the Granada used in the movie No Country for Old Men, which also has a reverse light lens broken! They all did, for some reason. I think they either came from the factory that way, or Ford was making reverse light lenses out of spun sugar or something like that.
Look at this mass of ’80s iron! There are a couple of interesting specimens up front, a BMW 3-Series, and to its left, what seems to be a 1983 or so Toyota Celica notchback! I always liked the pop-forward lights on those. There’s a Chrysler K-Car parked on the left, too, and what could be the D-pillar of a Volvo 240 wagon?
This has to be the jewel of these bits of footage, though: a second-generation (’81-’83) Dodge Challenger, which was a re-badged Mitsubishi Galant Lambda. This one is particularly fetching in its two-tone red-and-gray paintwork.
If you’re nostalgic for mid-’80s carscapes, I hope this helped. I think if anything, it probably took a bit of luster off your nostalgia?
Anyway, I wonder what’s playing at The Pilgrim today?
Top graphic image: Screen grab, WGBH
JFC, a good number of cars seems to have taken quite a beating!
Living in rural midwest America in the mid ’80s, our carscape was similar, but without the foreign vehicles.
Everybody bought Chevys, Fords, Dodges, AMCs, Buicks, Lincolns, Pontiacs, Oldsmobiles, Mercurys, Plymouths, Chryslers, and GMCs.
You might occasionally see a VW, but all my circle of friends and their parents bought domestic vehicles in the eighties. The rich people in town drove Cadillacs.
The “combat zone” was named such partly due to the many soldiers and sailors who were likely to frequent the area. Even at its peak it was not all that much – this video probably captured 70% of it. It has now been all but completely gentrified, including a residential tower that seems to be empty because international rich people used it to park some cash and it is two blocks from the edge of where the zone used to be. Providence has long taken over the adult entertainment in the area.
Double parking remains a problem in various parts of the city, although not so much where that film was shot.
Note all the dents in the cars – my family kept a “city car” specifically for trips into town – it had a couple of dents which were never repaired both to scare off other aggressive drivers and so you would be less annoyed by the addition of another dent.
An era when it was physically impossible to create a window surround without chroming it fully.
I don’t understand why that’s still popular on current models; it feels so old.
The van in the shot with the Benz is a Ford, shockingly shiny for being a 1968-74 model.
Boston is particularly hard on cars, with its’ combination of all the automotive indignities of city life (look at all those dents!) with all the northern ones (almost every one of them is coated in salty slush). No wonder Torch remembers seeing more older cars in the comparatively gentle traffic and “winters” of Greensboro, NC.
Wandered through the Combat Zone in 81 on a visit to a Bostonian friend. It was much friendlier and safer feeling than its Berlin equivalent which I’d explored 6 months previously.
I had forgotten just how grungy and old even new cars looked back then.
I think I know WGBH best for This Old House and its various spinoffs. I didn’t realize they did Zoom too. Unless the ’90s reboot was done by someone else.
In what may be a further public media connection, there’s a nonzero chance that at least one of those cars visited the Magliozzi brothers’ garage. They more commonly known as Click and Clack to the rest of us.
I had my eye out for their Dodge Dart but there are surprisingly few pre-K Mopars. Even the freshly washed Challenger’s really a Mitsubishi.
Don’t be too hard on (no pun intended) the old Combat Zone. Arguably the most famous carnoisseur in America, Jay Leno, got his start right there in places like The Pilgrim. It was about 10 years earlier than this film, but no less seedy. I used to take the train into Boston and sneak into clubs (they didn’t really try to keep anyone out) to see, um, young comedians try out their material when I was in high school. It was an education.
Huh, the Porno Theater tag is disappointingly but unsurprisingly light on posts. Somebody get on that!
Missing from that experience is the smell. Traffic used to reek! Same era as the LA smog.
I miss the smell of hydrocarbons and burning ozone in the morning.
That raw unburnt fuel.
That sweet, sweet smell of atomized lead.
And the indoor spaces all stunk of cigarettes, stale or otherwise. Pick your poison.
The broken reverse-light lenses are weird. It seems very specific to have just the middle lens broken like that.
I suggest making a purchase from the insurance machine while you’re there. Then if you are unable to return to the present because you created a cause-effect disturbance in the timeline which makes you not exist now, then your kin (if they do exist) can collect a time-death benefit.
Protip: don’t list your kids as beneficiaries.
On the one hand that possibility is highly overstated and the timeline’s more resilient than we’ve been led to think.
On the other, someone should get some really preppy clothes to Otto and convince him that it’s worth waiting months for a buzzcut to grow back out just to prank his dad.
Teenager just starting to drive in the mid 1980’s. no nostalgia, lots of bad memories.
I like to watch the tv series from the 70’s and 80’s rerun on streaming channels for cars and trucks spotting. Streets of San Fransisco is the the best.
McMillan and Wife is also some good car spotting – including Commissioner McMillan’s Fuselage Imperial and 1972 Lincoln Continental.
Another “mystery wheel” show from that group that has some cool rides – Bannechek. Even though he’s usually chauffeured around in a Rolls convertible, every now and again, Bannechek will drive his bright yellow De Tomasso Pantera!
Adam-12 is great for the cars.
Kids! Do you want to know what U.S. auto malaise was?
If you want to see it in a fictionalized form, forgotten but cool 80s detective show Spenser: For Hire was filmed on location in Boston for its 3 season run. It’s all this plus Spenser’s ’65 Mustang fastback, Hawk’s succession of rare BMW coupes, and all the Chevy Caprice cop cars you can stand. Plus a bonus Merkur Scorpio that Susan drives in the later episodes.
That Saab is a rarity in the US, a five-door 900. Those were only sold here in 1979 and ’80 before being replaced by the four-door notchback for ’81. If we could see its rear end, we could say definitively which year it is, as the taillights widened onto the tailgate for 1980. Maybe that’s visible in the video, I haven’t watched it.
That SL is indeed a 450, and we can pinpoint its vintage, too, to 1973, as it lacks the battering ram bumpers fitted from ’74 on. The R107 was also imported in 1972, but badged as a 350SL, despite carrying the 4.5-liter V8.
Good Eyes – Yes, that is indeed a ’73 350SL which has had it’s badge updated to 450SL
There was actually a recall of sorts for that – you’d bring your new-ish 350SL into the dealer for maintenance and it would magically come out as a 450SL…
These Saabs were well liked by old-Boston wealthy people – until fairly recently it was not unusual to see even these low-volume versions around town.
I was last in Boston 20 years ago, and I remember at one point being in a part of town—Bunker Hill, maybe?—where it seemed like we had suddenly entered a Saab wonderland. 900s and 9000s and 9-3s as far as the eye could see!