In A Christmas Story, essayist and storyteller Jean Shepherd included some memorable characters and a few memorable cars as well.

No doubt everyone in America has seen A Christmas Story, the classic 1983 movie that has since become a cable television staple at Christmas time every year. Fewer people know, probably, that its creator, writer and radio personality Jean Shepherd, was a serious car guy. He owned MGs, Porsches, and Morgans, even a Goggomobil. He was an announcer at sports car rallies and a monthly columnist in Car and Driver magazine. A Christmas Story is infused with the Jean Shepherd perspective on the automobile.

Both Shepherd and director Bob Clark were determined to make the movie “amorphously late-’30s, early-’40s”, as Clark put it. No specific year is ever mentioned, and there is no reference to World War II, which would have changed the tone of the movie considerably. So the vehicles in the film were not selected to point to any particular year but simply to set the time and mood. The story unfolds like a favorite reminiscence as told by a friend.

For example, in the scene in which Ralphie’s schoolmate Flick (Scott Schwartz)  accepts a “triple dog dare” and sticks his tongue to the school’s frozen flagpole, the authorities come to his rescue in a 1948 Chevrolet Stylemaster police car and a 1938 Ford LaFrance fire truck (above). The same Ford LaFrance used in the movie still belongs to the Chippawa Volunteers Firefighters Association in Ontario to this day, reportedly, though it was listed for sale at one point.

For the fight scene between Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and neighborhood bully Scut Farkus (Zack Ward) there were two memorable props in the alley near the school: a pair of derelict Ford Model A bodies in red oxide primer. Taking a shortcut, Ralphie walks straight through a Cabriolet body, above, while a Briggs Tudor Sedan body (below) serves as the backdrop for the scuffle.

When Ralphie’s mom (played by Melinda Dillon; we never learn her character’s first name) comes to break up the fight, we see her rush past the distinctive front end of a 1937 Hudson Terraplane, above. It’s interesting to note how many details were left out the movie (and the short story on which is was based) by Shepherd, the master storyteller, who supplied just enough information to propel the tale along.

We never learn the name of Ralphie’s dad, either (played by TV and movie veteran Darren McGavin). But we do learn that “the old man,” as we know him throughout the movie, was a fan of the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis 500, and he drove Oldsmobiles. Specifically: a 1937 Oldsmobile F-37 Six Touring Sedan, above and below. As the adult Ralphie (the voice of Jean Shepherd himself) recalls, “Some men are Baptists; others Catholics. My father was an Oldsmobile man.”