32 Photos of 1960s Christmas Trees Tied to Car Roofs That Anyone Over 50 Will Remember

Rope through the rear windows, a fir hanging off the back bumper, everyone crammed in shoulder to shoulder because the front seat now smells like sap. That was how the tree came home. Nobody owned a truck. You had the family car, a coil of clothesline, and a dad who swore he tied it tight enough. The scenes below are the ones your memory files under cold hands, warm heater, and one bulb-heavy Fraser fir riding the roof all the way through town.

Please note that some of the images in this article were created with the assistance of AI.

32. The Tree Swallowing the Roof of a Ford Country Squire

The Country Squire always looked like it could carry more than it should, and a nine-foot Fraser fir up top made the wood-grain wagon nearly disappear underneath. Somebody in the family always said it was too big for the living room. Somebody always bought it anyway.

The rope ran through both rows of windows, which meant nobody could roll them up. So you drove home with the heater roaring, a cold draft on your neck, and sap on the headliner that stayed put until spring.

31. A Snow-Dusted Fir on a 1962 Chevrolet Impala

Red Impala, white snow on green needles. That combination is basically a 1962 Christmas card that happened to be moving down the road.

You picked the tree at the lot while your breath fogged and the strings of bare bulbs swung in the wind. The attendant shook the trunk twice, dead needles rained down, and up the whole thing went onto the Impala’s roof while your dad muttered about garage clearance. That car looked good under anything. Under a snow-dusted fir it looked like it was posing.

30. A Douglas Fir Tied to a Volkswagen Beetle

The Beetle should not have been able to carry a tree that size, and that was the whole charm. A Douglas fir on a Bug looked like an ant hauling a leaf ten times its weight, and you loved it for trying.

Rope through both windows, doors that barely shut over the branches, a driver who could see maybe half the windshield. Nobody blinked. Half the fun was watching that little round car putter home under a load it had no business carrying.

29. The Buick LeSabre With Twine Running Through the Windows

Twine, not rope. There’s a difference, and every dad had opinions about it. The LeSabre got the twine treatment — thin, cheap, run through all four windows and knotted so tight the doors groaned.

You sat in the back with a line of twine pressing against your cheek the whole ride home, told not to touch it. That knot was your father’s pride and his liability at once. If the tree shifted on the highway, the whole family knew exactly whose fault it would be.

28. A Ford Falcon With a Crooked Tree on Top

Not every tree rode home straight. The Falcon carried plenty that leaned drunkenly to one side because the knot on the left gave out before the car even left the lot.

You noticed it two blocks in. Everybody in the car noticed it. And nobody wanted to be the one to say pull over, so you rode home with a crooked fir and a driver pretending he didn’t see it in the mirror. That leaning tree is one of the truest images of the season there is.

27. The Mercury Colony Park With Evergreen Branches Overhanging the Windshield

The Colony Park was long enough to carry almost anything, but the tree always seemed to slide forward until the bottom branches drooped over the windshield like green eyebrows. You wiped them off the glass at every stop sign.

Wood-grain wagon, forest-green paint, a fir hanging over the wipers. That was a family that took Christmas seriously and owned exactly one vehicle to prove it. The Mercury handled it the way it handled everything: quietly, and with a slight complaint from the suspension.

26. A Studebaker Lark Wearing a Tree Like a Holiday Hat

Some trees are long. This one was round and short and sat straight up on the Lark’s roof, as if the car had decided to wear a hat to a party. It was the kind of tree that looked friendly.

The Studebaker was already a little offbeat — cream over turquoise, compact and cheerful — and a squat fir up top only pushed it further. You didn’t tie a tree like that on a Cadillac. On a Lark it looked exactly right.

25. The Saab 96 Carrying a Skinny Scandinavian-Style Spruce

Skinny tree, curved little car, a lot of snow. The Saab 96 carried the kind of open-branched spruce that Scandinavian families favored — the sparse ones with room between the limbs for real candles, if you were brave.

The 96 looked like nothing else on the road, all rounded and hunkered down, and a thin spruce riding its roof only added to the impression that this family did the holidays a little differently. Quieter. Less tinsel, more candlelight. There’s a restraint to it that still lands.

24. The Volvo Amazon With a Fresh Fir Secured to Its Rain Gutters

The Amazon had those chrome rain gutters running the length of the roof, and to a careful driver that meant a real anchor point. No twine through the windows here. This tree got tied down properly, level and centered, and it wasn’t going anywhere.

You could tell a lot about a family by how the tree rode. The Volvo folks checked every knot twice, drove exactly the speed limit, and arrived home with the fir sitting as straight as it left the lot. Solid people. Solid car.

23. The Ford Galaxie With a Tree on a Metal Roof Rack

A roof rack meant you’d graduated. No rope through the windows, no twine biting into anybody’s cheek in the back seat. The Galaxie’s chrome rack held the fir up off the paint and gave the whole operation an air of competence.

You still tied it down. You still lost a few needles into the slush at the lot. But the tree rode home a few inches above the roof, level and dignified, and everyone got to roll the windows all the way up.

That was the good ride home. Heater on, radio playing carols, a fir sitting proud on the rack, the smell of it filling the car clear to the driveway. Some memories don’t need improving.

22. The Plymouth Valiant With Its Tree Wrapped in Rough Burlap

Before the plastic mesh chutes showed up at every lot, burlap was the original tree-netting. The guy at the stand wrapped the fir, cinched it with twine, and handed you the whole bundle like a rolled rug.

The Valiant was the sensible choice — the car you bought when you weren’t trying to impress anybody. Slant-six under the hood, ran forever, and the roof was flat enough to take a six-footer without complaint. Dad would run the rope through both windows, which meant nobody could roll them up until the tree came off in the driveway. Small price for family duty.

21. The Buick Special With Its Fir Pointing Forward

Somebody always argued about which way the tree should point. Trunk forward meant the tip whipped in the slipstream all the way home, shedding needles down the back window like green confetti.

The Buick Special wore its portholes like a badge and rode softer than anything else on the block. When the fir went up top you could feel the whole car settle. Cotton clothesline did the tying — the same line that held dungarees all summer, borrowed off the backyard poles for the December run.

20. An AMC Rebel Bringing Home the Tallest Tree on the Lot

There’s a kind of dad who walks a tree lot hunting for the biggest one they’ve got, and every family had one. He’d pace past the reasonable trees, find something meant for a church lobby, and announce it would “fit fine” once it was up.

The Rebel took it in stride. AMC built honest cars for honest budgets, and this one carried a spruce that overhung the trunk by a good yard. The attendant tied it off, gave the rope a doubtful tug, and waved them into the dusk.

19. The Corvair Monza With Pine Needles Scattered Across Its White Roof

Needles on a white roof read like fingerprints. You could tell a family had made the tree run just from that green trail across the paint, needles wedged in the gutter seam where they’d sit until the spring wash.

Now here’s the odd duck of the bunch. The Corvair had its engine in the back, air-cooled, styled like nothing else Chevy made. It wasn’t built for hauling. But a small Scotch pine tied with twine rode up top just fine on the way home from the lot, and that was that.

18. A Ford LTD Carrying a Tree Through Heavy Lake-Effect Snow

Anybody who grew up downwind of a Great Lake knows the drive. Lake-effect snow doesn’t drift in politely — it dumps, and the tree run turned into a slow crawl with the wipers slapping and the defroster roaring at full blast.

The LTD was Ford’s quiet-riding cruiser, big and heavy, the kind of car that felt planted when the roads went white. The fir picked up an inch of snow on the way home and had to be shaken out on the porch before it came inside. A small blizzard on the doormat, every year.

17. A Dodge Polara With Red-and-White Clothesline Holding the Tree Down

Braided clothesline, the red-and-white kind, held down more Christmas trees in the 60s than any rope ever sold for the purpose. It lived coiled on a nail in the garage and got pressed into service every December.

The Polara carried it well — turquoise paint, modest fins, the kind of Mopar built to soak up a decade of family duty. Dad would double the line over the roof, knot it off inside the door, and swear up and down the tree wasn’t going anywhere. It never did.

The rope that dried the laundry in July held the tree in December. Nobody bought a strap when the clothesline was right there.

16. A Mercury Comet With a Child Watching Through the Rear Window

Best seat for the tree run was the back seat — face pressed to the cold rear glass, watching the fir tip bounce along inches above your head. You could smell it through the window seals before you ever got it in the door, that sharp green balsam.

Mercury’s compact was a tidy car for a young family just starting out, and kids stayed quiet the whole way home on tree night, mesmerized by the branches swaying overhead. Already thinking about the ornament box down in the basement.

15. The Chrysler Town & Country With a Tree Above Its Faux-Wood Siding

The wood-paneled wagon was the family workhorse, and the tree rack came factory-installed for exactly this errand. No rope through the windows, no borrowed clothesline — just the fir strapped to the chrome rails and cinched down proper.

Chrysler’s Town & Country was the long, low land yacht of the driveway. Faux-wood siding ran door to door, and the tailgate folded flat for groceries and kids and the tree stand alike. It swallowed a full-size fir and still had room for three kids and a dog in the way-back.

14. A Renault Dauphine Nearly Hidden Beneath an Oversized Fir

The economy imports were just starting to trickle in, and the Dauphine was about as small as a car got on an American street. Perch a full fir on top and the whole thing looked like a beetle carrying a leaf.

And it worked, somehow. The little Renault putted home with its oversized cargo, cord run through both tiny doors, engine buzzing away in the back. Buying a big tree for a small car took a certain optimism — and December ran on optimism.

13. The Pontiac Bonneville Returning From a Rural Tree Farm

Cut-your-own tree farms were the real event. You drove out past the last stoplight, past the town, until the fields opened up and the rows of planted firs marched over the hill. Somebody handed you a bow saw and pointed you at the acreage.

The Bonneville made the drive worth taking. Pontiac’s big cruiser rode like a couch on the county roads, and the fresh fir on the roof still smelled of sawdust and cold ground the whole way home. You’d stop for cider at the farm stand and let the heater tick as the sun dropped behind the barn.

12. A Ford Fairlane With a Tree Tied Over a Plaid Picnic Blanket

The plaid blanket came out of the trunk, where it had lived since the last summer picnic. Mom insisted on it. The roof paint was not going to get scratched by some fir from the lot down the road, and that was the end of the discussion.

So the Fairlane came home in two-tone dress, pale green body and a red tartan cap, with rope looped through the windows and knotted at the back bumper. By the time it reached the driveway, a little trail of needles had dropped onto the snow. The blanket came back out of the trunk every December after that, smelling faintly of pine and potato salad.

11. A Plymouth Barracuda Carrying a Fir Above Its Wraparound Rear Glass

That rear window was the whole point of the early Barracuda. A great curved sheet of glass swept down the fastback, and it gave you a perfect view of the fir’s branches bouncing overhead the whole way home from the tree farm.

The Barracuda was Plymouth’s sporty compact, built off the Valiant, and nobody bought one with tree hauling in mind. Didn’t matter. The rope went through the front windows, the trunk end hung off the windshield, and the bright red fastback rolled out between rows of snow-covered spruce looking like the most festive car in the county.

10. An Opel Kadett With a Tiny Tabletop Tree on Its Roof

Not every family needed a nine-footer. In plenty of European towns, apartments were small and the tree went on a table, and the Opel Kadett was exactly the right car to carry one. A little powder-blue two-door, a bit of twine, and a tree that barely cleared the roofline.

The Kadett was Opel’s small car of the early sixties, built in Germany for families who wanted something practical and affordable. Picture it parked on cobblestones beside shuttered windows, a shop front strung with colored lights, a dusting of snow on the hood. The tree is modest, sure. Small car, small tree, and exactly enough Christmas for everyone involved.

9. The Lincoln Continental With a Carefully Bundled Blue Spruce

Some families did nothing halfway, and the tree run was no exception. The blue spruce came wrapped tight in netting, laid over folded moving blankets so not one needle would scratch the black paint. The Continental’s finish was the kind you could check your hat in.

Blue spruce has gorgeous silvery color and needles sharp enough to make you regret hugging it, which is part of why it arrived bundled like a package. Rope ran through the windows of that long, slab-sided sedan, and the whole thing pulled up in front of a white colonial with a wreath on the door. Even the tree looked like it had dressed for dinner.

8. A Dodge Coronet Beside a Family in Matching Winter Coats

Before anybody hauled the tree inside, somebody went for the camera. Mom and Dad in matching green wool coats, the boys in identical red toggle coats and knit caps, everyone lined up beside the Coronet while the fir waited on the roof under a gray blanket.

Matching coats were a whole thing back then. They made the snapshot look like a Christmas card, and they made it easy to find your kids at the tree lot. The Dodge sat right there in the frame, a sensible family sedan with a tree strapped on top. Somebody always blinked, and the picture went in the album anyway.

7. The AMC Ambassador With Its Tree Tag Still Flapping

Nobody ever remembered to tear off the tag. The paper tag from the lot rode all the way home, snapping in the wind off the tip of the tree, and it usually stayed on until someone found it while stringing the lights.

The Ambassador was AMC’s biggest, most comfortable car, and the wagon version with its wood-grain sides was built for exactly this kind of errand. The tree sat on the roof rack, tied down with rope while a fellow in overalls swept up around the lot. A burn barrel smoked by the fence, sawdust lay on the gravel, and the car smelled like fresh-cut spruce for a week.

6. The Ford Mustang Bringing Home a Surprisingly Full Spruce

The Mustang was not built for this. It was built for drive-ins and Saturday nights. But when the only car in the driveway is a pony car and the tree on the lot is a big, bushy spruce, you make it work.

A plaid blanket went down first, the rope went through the windows, and the branches spread so far past the edges of that small roof that the car nearly vanished underneath. Then came the moment every dad knows: standing in the driveway, hands on hips, one glove dropped in the snow, trying to figure out how this thing is getting through the front door.

5. A Pontiac GTO With a Fir Secured Above Its Vinyl Roof

The vinyl top was the owner’s pride, and nobody was about to let a rough fir trunk rub through it. So a padded moving blanket went down first, then the tree, then rope pulled tight and wrapped clear around the back bumper.

The GTO was Pontiac’s muscle car, the kind of machine meant for stoplights, not tree lots. But December comes for everybody. There’s something perfect about that dark green coupe with its redline tires and black vinyl roof, idling at the curb with a fir lashed on top while its owner checks the knots one last time. Even the fast cars had to go home for Christmas.

4. The International Travelall Carrying a Family-Sized Christmas Tree

Some families went bigger, and the Travelall was the vehicle for it. International Harvester built it on truck underpinnings, with room for the whole family inside and a roof rack strong enough for whatever came off the farm.

Choose-and-cut farms were an adventure. You walked the rows in plaid jackets, argued over the right tree, and took turns with the bow saw. Then the fir went up on the rack, roped down at three points, while the kids eyed the sled leaning against the fence. The two-tone paint usually wore a coat of mud on the way back out the farm lane.

3. A Checker Marathon Taxi Delivering a Tree to a City Brownstone

No car? No problem, if you lived in the city. You flagged a Checker, talked the driver into it, and rode back to the brownstone with a fir tied across the roof right in front of the taxi light.

The Checker was built tough for city work, roomy and square, made in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Cabbies had seen everything, and a Christmas tree was just one more fare. Pull up out front, snow falling, wreaths on the doors and lights strung over the corner deli, and the driver hefts the trunk end down toward the stoop. That was a tree run with a meter running.

2. A Cadillac Sedan DeVille Bringing Home a Modest Little Fir

The car cost as much as the house, and the tree cost three dollars at the Lions Club lot. That contrast is the whole picture.

You could park a Cadillac Sedan DeVille and still have roof left over, so the little balsam looked almost apologetic up there — a runt riding first class. Nobody who could afford the DeVille needed a big tree. They had the room. What they wanted was the one that fit in the corner by the window, twine cinched through the vent windows so the fenders never took a scratch.

There’s something honest about it. The money was in the driveway, not on the roof.

1. The Station Wagon Backing Into the Garage With the Tree Still Attached

Every family had this moment. The tree comes home fine — the trouble starts at the garage.

Someone forgot to untie it. The wagon eases back, everyone’s watching the mirrors, and then the top of the Scotch pine catches the door frame and the whole car just stops dead. Now Dad’s out in the cold, standing on the bumper, working a knot that swelled up tight in the wet snow while his fingers go numb and the kids narrate the whole disaster from the doorway.

The Country Squire made it worse, honestly. Longer than a rowboat, wood-grain sides, that roof rack sitting up high. Beautiful car. Terrible clearance judgment at six in the evening with the kids yelling and the snow coming down.

And every single year, the tree came off in the driveway. Right where it should have come off in the first place.