I’m so glad the photographer of this 1965 image was using color film. Otherwise we might never have known that 1960 Chevrolet Impala zooming past the Theme building at Los Angeles International Airport (which had opened in 1961) was such a vibrant red. Whenever I see cars like that, I wonder how the heck the driver pulled off parallel parking. Lots (and lots) of practice, I suppose.
Rob D. says: “The paint on the Impala is called Roman Red.”
I’m not sure why the most recent image captured by Google Maps Streetview dates all the way back to August 2015 (security reasons?) but this is how the Theme building looked back then. These days, the Encounter restaurant and the observation deck are closed, but the Bob Hope USO at LAX can be found there.
I always wondered if the design creators of The Jetsons used this building as inspiration!
I used to own a 1968 Olds 98, which was bigger than my college dorm room. I always enjoyed parallel parking in it, but I was a lot younger then!
The first thing humans left on the moon was a junkyard. If you took all those cars today and parked them in the same place, someone would no doubt classify this as the same. Others might say “Classic Car Show”. And yet it was just another day in the week for those who were there. “No starts” were expected occasionally too.
Such a missed opportunity to renovate this historic building as a fine restaurant, considering the thousands of travelers who pass through LAX
on a daily basis!
I regret never visiting it when it WAS open…
Oh man! It was WONDERFUL! Everything you’d hope it would be. It wasn’t easy to get to, but I REALLY wish it was still there.
The main problem with the restaurant is that after 9/11 and more restrictive security, anyone who wanted to go there had to pass through those lengthy security lines twice, and who wants to do that? Also, no one really goes to the airport unless they’re picking someone up, or leaving them off, and when they do either they’re looking to spend as little time as possible there! I was only there once and glad to have been. I’ve usually just thought of that building as something great to look at, like the Hollywood sign.
Yes, it was inconvenient, but I would take people there if I was seeing them off at LAX. I’d take them early before they went through security.
GM originally planned for the 1959-60 hardtop coupes to have brushed stainless-steel roofs which proved too costly to do even on the Cadillac. That’s why the pillars are entirely chromed, with no painted areas – the top of the roof wasn’t supposed to be painted either. It’s surprising the cheaper solution of two-toning with the roof painted silver to get the desired look wasn’t more widely used.
Ah, but this look is so Fireball XL-5 that you just wouldn’t want to mess with it. Leave the stainless steel sheet look to Santa Fe and their Warbonnet scheme where it was more appropriately applied to GM products.