Car Culture-Lets all go to the Drive-In!

by | Nov 10, 2020 | Uncategorized |

Let’s All Go to the Drive-In!

Welcome to Leon’s Transmissions’ Car Culture. This month we look at Drive-in theatres. The first drive-in theatre was opened Tuesday, June 6th, 1933 in Camden, New Jersey. The price of admission was $.25 cents per car plus $.25 cents per person. The Drive-in was the creation of Richard Hollingshead. He worked at his dad’s “Whiz Auto Products” store. Richard had a hankering to invent something that combined two of his favorite interests: cars and movies. Originally, sound was provided by large speakers mounted around the parking area. Later, in the 1940’s RCA developed smaller speakers that would hang on your car window.

Further inventions were a clip that you would attach to your car antenna allowing sound to play through your car radio. This design accounted for many dead batteries at the end of the movie, and no doubt, a good excuse for teenagers to tell their parents as to why they were late. Soon the drive-in movie theater nickname “Passion Pit” was born! The 1950’s were the height of the drive-in’s popularity. Families would pack the car with kids in pajamas and mom didn’t need to get all dressed up to enjoy a night out. The 1970’s saw the decline of the drive-in. Many became swap meets while others were torn down. Despite claims that drive-ins are making a comeback, 2017 shows only 330 drive-ins in the United States still operating. During their peak in the 1950’s there were over 4,000. Many of us have fond memories of the neon-lit “Van Nuys Drive-in,” “The Reseda Drive-in,” and the“Winnetka 4 Drive-in,” located in Chatsworth.