Need help in determining the year this photo was taken!

Hello

I need some help in determining the year this photo was taken, and I think you experts could come up with a 'range of years' of when that was.

All we know it was taken in the 30's or 40's, that is shown on the back of the photo. Also on the photo is the date with a question mark : 1947?

Any help would be appreciated.

1947 looks close to the photos,the black car to the right on your first photo seems to be a Kaiser-Frazer 1946-1947.Sorry about the bad photo!

Leif in Sweden.

In the second photo the two newest cars I see are at the far left. The one at what appears to be a gas station and the car by the power pole (49 Ford ?), they both look to be post war Models.

Hi Leif. Thanks for putting me on the right trail. It sure does look like the car you are showing. My only though is the text above the license plate. On your photo it’s a line of text and on mines a round emblem. I have looked on the net because of your tip, and for 1947's only saw a line of text. For 1946 I could not find a photo of the back end. It seems that just like photos of a nice girl model people only take photos of the front and side and forget the back end. (ha ha). Could be that the man in my photo changed the emblem to the one that they put later on the steering wheel, it was round, but came later.

But everything else points to the car in your photo, it really looks the same. Many cars back then looked alike; I guess they spied much on the competition. The Oldsmobile from 1947 sure looks a lot like it too.

Do you have any ideas about the emblem?

Olds 47 ------------------------------- Steering wheel emblem ------------------- 1947 Frazer 4 door sedan ----------------------- My photo

The black car on the right in the first photo is a 1947 or 1948 Kaiser.  

In the three photos with the Oldsmobile on the right, the emblem in the centre is from a Frazer while the car on the left is also a Frazer.

From the rear, the easiest way to tell a 1947-48 Kaiser from a 1947-48 Frazer is by the bumper.  The Kaiser, being a lower priced car, has a simpler bumper.  The more expensive Frazer has the heavier, more complex, rear bumper.

In the photo with the service station on the left and Safeway on the right, the light coloured car in front of the service station appears to be another 1947-48 Kaiser.  There's a 1941 or 1942 Willys Americar parked in front of the Safeway.

The 1947 Kaiser and Frazer cars were introduced in 1946, so it would be hard to pinpoint the exact year, but I would lean more toward 1947 due to the white trim rings on the black Kaiser.  Whitewall tires were hard to come by in 1946-47 and auto makers offered those white trim rings to give the appearance, sort of, of whitewalls. 

My guess would be 1947 or early 1948.

There is one car in the picture that is definitely brand new; the Pontiac on the billboard.  Date that, and one has the year the photo was taken.

Pontiacs didn’t change that much, and when blown up the picture becomes blurry, so it is hard to tell the year.

But…

Most Pontiacs were sold with the optional rear fender skirts in place, and most advertisements reflect that. In 1947/1948, however, there was a drawn advertisement that showed a convertible with open wheels. Is this the picture in the billboard? If so, it is 1948 car, probably advertised in late '47.

That '37 Plymouth coming toward us, isn't it a ute? Or possibly a homemade truck conversion...or maybe it's just the picture.