I am currently culling screen grab images of Mayberry cars and trucks for the Internet Movie Car Database. Someone already donated images from season 4; I've submitted seasons 1 & 2 and part of season 6. Some things I noticed: *We always knew Mayberry was a Blue Oval kind of town, with all the Fords and Mercurys running all over the place, and of course we know why (because the Mt. Pilot Ford-Mercury dealer did a volume business LOL). But what's interesting is, I don't run across very many Maberrians who drive the Ford-made Lincolns. They all seem to come from out of town (the Fosters guy, the man in a hurry, the bookies). *Outside the Ford Family of Fine Cars, the runner up for most heavily owned make appears to be Chevrolet. I'm seeing a surprising number of Chevy cars and trucks, even newer models. *Someone once noticed a '59 Chevy that popped up a lot in the background, sometimes multiple times in the same scene. It was a Biscayne, and there was actually more than one of them. In the episode "The Farmer Takes a Wife," look closely at the scene where Jeff Pruitt is (literally) picking up women on the corner, you'll see one parked across the street as an identical one goes right by in the other direction. I suspect these were studio-owned or network-owned cars driven as "company cars" by mid level executives, and pressed into service as scenery. *I once stated that the episode where Goober's girlfriend worked at the filling station revealed Jud Fletcher to be the owner of the green Ford Falcon we see so much. I was wrong, he owns the orchid-colored '61 Mercury Comet. Some other guy owns the Falcon and Flora talks to him too. *There are actually some foreign cars in Mayberry, ranging from the Renault Dauphine to the MG Midget to the Mercedes convertible owned (for a time) by Jim Lindsey. Keevy Hazelton drives up in a rather extravagant looking car that someone on the IMCDB forum believes to be a Mercedes replica. *For some reason it's very rare that we see a late model or current-day model of any truck, they're usually a few years old. Closest I've seen is a '59 or '60 Ford truck with a camper shell that pops up in the episode "Jailbreak," which aired in '62. A late model Ford pickup also appears in the Founder's Day episode (forgetting actual title?) but we can't see much except for the bed. Most of the rest of the trucks seem heavily used and beaten. Even the city's public works truck that shows up to trim the Taylors' tree appears to be somewhere around 20 years old. *When Andy and Floyd go to see Flora working at the filling station, we see the Comet (two in fact), the green Falcon, a heavily obscured Ford station wagon and a Renault Dauphine, all lined up. When Goober arrives several hours later he finds the exact same cars lined up in the exact same order! Either Flora's painfully slow, or the drivers all used up their gasoline very, very quickly and in unison before their return trips. *There are three consecutive 1962 episodes where Andy drives up to the courthouse, as a Ford Falcon drives by behind him past a parked '58 Mercury. Barney gets out of the car in one of those shots, indicating they weren't just reusing some film, they actually shot it that way multiple times! *We actually get to see Barney "run code" (lights and siren) for a real emergency--when he's gotten a report that Walker's Drug Store has been robbed. The rest of time he did it for ridiculous reasons like heading to work or showing a new girl in town the way to the post office (across the street, probably the funniest sight gag ever involving the squad car). Usually when the car is "running code" for a legitimate reason, Andy is driving. _http://www.imcdb.org/_ (http://www.imcdb.org/) _http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=53479_ (http://www.imcdb.org/movie.php?id=53479) Dixon **************Access 350+ FREE radio stations anytime from anywhere on the web. Get the Radio Toolbar! (http://toolbar.aol.com/aolradio/download.html?ncid=emlweusdown00000035&ncid=emlcntusdown00000002) _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.mayberry.com/tagsrwc/wbmutbb/
