Cars
Longboard cars
The article explores the connection between surfing and "woodies", wooden-panelled cars that became a cultural icon in the 1960s in Southern California.
Surf culture reached the peak of its popularity in the early 1960s in Southern California, influencing music, fashion, literature, and film. But what exactly do “woodies” have to do with surfing?
It was the Beach Boys who sang about the adventures of surfers and their woodies. In 2014, in memory of those magnificent years, the film “Love & Mercy” was released.
In reality, it was simply a random event that transformed woodies into a cultural icon in the 1960s: wooden-panelled cars were being abandoned by the general public because of the growing maintenance costs of the panels themselves, and Californian surfers seized the opportunity to bring them back to life after discovering that they were a cheap way to transport their longboards on their roofs and, why not, to sleep in or turn into comfortable travelling cabins.
