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Siblings Slideshow 4 - Sibs in Front of Cars - 1963-76

(click here for the next Slideshow 5 or here for Siblings Main Page )

These photos are of the Christopher Five and Parents in front of various cars we owned from 1963-77. Automobiles go back a long way with the Christophers begin with Eric Bernhard Christopher building his own cars after manufacturing bicycles for many years. His car company was called Christopher Brothers and made the Triumph automobile. The company operated out of 1049 Sheffield Avenue in Chicago until Eric switched to only maintenance and repair. His son Warren Leslie Christopher (Grandpa Warren) learned about automobiles from his father. Grandpa Warren was a mechanic and began to specialize as a car and body man in the 1940s. He would buy damaged cars, repair the bodies and resell the cars. Grandpa Warren also rode along with one of his brothers in an Indianapolis 500 race in the early days of the race in the 1930s as the mechanic (the drivers were required to have a mechanic ride with them from 1930-37). Naturally, Bud (Dad) was around cars his whole life and loved them. His Dad would let him drive the cars that had body damage, so, Dad almost always had a car at his disposal. The last photo in this slideshow is of Mom and Dad on their wedding day in one of those cars (Mom said it had a damaged passenger side door but looked brand new otherwise).

The first car we are introduced to in this slideshow is a 1957 Plymouth Suburban Station Wagon (cream with a gold roof). It is unclear when or where Mom and Dad got the car, but the passenger side floor was rusted out and got much worse as time went by. In 1965, Mom and Dad bought a used 1962 Ford Country Sedan Station Wagon (Rangoon Red) from Ashley Ford in Benton Harbor out on Napier Avenue just east of Fairplain Plaza. On the family vacation pages we will learn more about that purchase and the car breaking down outside of Sparks, Nevada. Mom and Dad kept the '62 wagon until the spring of 1968 when they bought a brand new '68 Ford Country Squire LTD Station Wagon (along with a 16' aluminum boat). That was our primary car until 1970 when Dad bought a used 1968 Ford Mustang (Seafoam Green) with a manual transmission. The station wagon was starting to burn oil and needed repair by 1973 so they bought a "1973" Chevrolet Impala - (two-door, pea green) in 1974 at end of model 1973 model year. Larry rebuilt the engine on the '68 wagon in SJHS shop class during his junior year (1974-75). Mom became ill and we were unable to keep the Impala and the '68 wagon became the family car again in 1976 until it died in 1977.