Terms Which Have Disappeared

[2jakes]

Dilly dally.

On ocassions I will say it imitating
John Wayne:

"Pilgram....ya can dilly
or ya can dally,
But don't dilly dally....wa ha!"

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Not to be confused with Utes, or Australian utility vehicles

I'm old enough to have seen these if they had been sold in the US, but I don't recall them. I do recall the now-extinct Chevrolet El Camino, popularly known as a "Cowboy Cadillac". It had nearly the same design, but a little sexier.

I think I heard Chevy may be reintroducing the model (car that is) this year.

 

[tonyb]

The Ford Ranchero preceded the Chevy El Camino, didn't it?

 

[tonyb]

^^^^
Although the earliest Rancheros date from '57 (if I ain't mistaken), and were based on the Fairlane. That's a later and other variety from that Aussie example above.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

Tony, Wikipedia confirms that the Ranchero predated the El Camino by two years.

 

[tonyb]

Tony, Wikipedia confirms that the Ranchero predated the El Camino by two years.

Little debate on which was the sexier look, though. Although those earliest Rancheros have gotten better looking the older my eyes get. But those Falcon-based examples, in the early '60s? Give me an El Camino.

 

[tonyb]

As to the "cowboy Cadillac" ...

I know of a metal sculptor -- a fine artist who liked to play around with cars -- who created what came to be called the "El Cadillac," an El Camino-like vehicle made from a then (early '70s) late-model Caddy with extensive body damage to its hind regions.

 

[Stearmen]

Nothing says you have arrived as a Texas Cattle Baron like your very own Rolls Royce Dually!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Where's the giant cow horns on the radiator cap? And the gun rack in the back window?

 

[kaiser]

Don't forget about this one.

 

[vitanola]

Cadillac trucks have been around for a long while, though in the old days the truck body would usually be attached to give a second life to a superannuated luxury car. Truck chassis were very expensive, and low mileage limousines were both very cheap and very heavily built. Here is a '13 Cadillac which had been converted to a wreacker in 1918:

And a 1929 Cadillac similarly converted in 1934, in this case towing a Flxible city bus:

of course, on the other side of the pong they used their own luxury cars for the ourpose. IN fact, many Daimler and Rolls-Royce wreckers which had started out as limousines just before or just after the Great War were in service until the 1960's.

Here we have a pre-war (1910 or 1911) Daimler towing its lesser cousin, a mid-1920's Rolls-Royce.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

Nothing says you have arrived as a Texas Cattle Baron like your very own Rolls Royce Dually!

John D. McDonald's detective Travis McGee drove a Rolls pickup.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Those kinds of conversions would have been excellent ways to make use of used luxury cars that couldn't be given away during the Depression. Reviewing newspaper classifieds from the early and mid 1930s show listing after listing for high-end seven or eight-year-old Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards, Pierce-Arrows and other suchlike cars going for $50 here and $35 there, about what you could expect to pay for a used Ford. A lot of 1920s high-rollers were on their uppers and owning a fancy, high-maintenance car was about as losing a proposition as there was. On the other hand, if you owned a hauling business they were a lot cheaper than buying a regular truck.

 

[SSuperDave]

Those kinds of conversions would have been excellent ways to make use of used luxury cars that couldn't be given away during the Depression. Reviewing newspaper classifieds from the early and mid 1930s show listing after listing for high-end seven or eight-year-old Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards, Pierce-Arrows and other suchlike cars going for $50 here and $35 there, about what you could expect to pay for a used Ford. A lot of 1920s high-rollers were on their uppers and owning a fancy, high-maintenance car was about as losing a proposition as there was. On the other hand, if you owned a hauling business they were a lot cheaper than buying a regular truck.

"On their uppers", now thats a term that has gone by the wayside. I always liked it. The uppers here are the bits that cover the upper part of a boot or shoe. The implication is that the soles have worn out and that the person concerned is reduced to a pair that consists only of uppers — quite useless, of course — and that he or she is too poor to be able to replace them.

 

[Stearmen]

Those kinds of conversions would have been excellent ways to make use of used luxury cars that couldn't be given away during the Depression. Reviewing newspaper classifieds from the early and mid 1930s show listing after listing for high-end seven or eight-year-old Cadillacs, Lincolns, Packards, Pierce-Arrows and other suchlike cars going for $50 here and $35 there, about what you could expect to pay for a used Ford. A lot of 1920s high-rollers were on their uppers and owning a fancy, high-maintenance car was about as losing a proposition as there was. On the other hand, if you owned a hauling business they were a lot cheaper than buying a regular truck.

And add in the expense of fixing the occasional window after a rock came through!

 

[BlueTrain]

The folks in the book "My neck of the woods," which Miss Lizzie is probably familiar with, had a Marmon in the 1940s. It hadn't been converted to a truck (I think) but was what we might call a beater car today. But Marmon did make big trucks, too. And International Harvester did make cars, sort of.

I thought for sure I had asked if anyone had ever used the word "yuke" before, in referring to a type of vehicle. I couldn't find the post if I did and nobody responded anyway. So, in case anyone had been worried about it, a "yuke" was a Euclid truck, all of which were heavy duty earth-moving trucks. Since "yuke" was a short nickname for Euclid, there would be no correct way to spell it and anyway, that's the only way I ever head it spoken. Never heard anyone actually say "Euclid."

 

[kaiser]

My Dad worked in construction in the 50's and 60's, yuke was a term I heard many times when I was growing up. I got to visit some of his job sites and saw those things in real life. They were massive to an eight year old.

 

[BlueTrain]

A totally unrelated word, but does anyone say "yikes!" anymore. Don't think it was ever vulgar. No worse than "My word" or "Strike me blue!"

 

[BobHufford]

A totally unrelated word, but does anyone say "yikes!" anymore.

I do!

 

[tonyb]

A totally unrelated word, but does anyone say "yikes!" anymore. Don't think it was ever vulgar. No worse than "My word" or "Strike me blue!"

Right up there with "egads!"