A true bumper pull hitch

[AlinCal]

Anyone old enough to remember these?

[rmkrum]

Sadly, yes.

And well enough to realize the bracket-like part with the two bolts through it is on there upside down and backwards in the picture. It's supposed to hook into the bottom curve of the bumper above the bolts and clamp the whole thing in place.

This is from the days when cars had big heavy steel battering rams for bumpers...my dad used one exactly like that on the old Ford "Woody wagon" we moved from Chicago to Florida with when I was about 12 years old...

Don't want a hitch like that, but I sure wish he'd kept that now classic car--real wood panels and trim on the body. He got rid of it when the Florida humidity and near daily rainstorms made bracket fungus rapidly grow from the oak trim pieces...he had no garage to keep the car's wood dry in those early days.

[ROBERT CROSS]

There was one in this trunk when we opened it in '76.
Gramma pulled her Scamp to the CG in the Adirondacks.
The marks are still visible up close.

Bob
🇺🇸

[PKI]

Yes, used to have one, but soon upgraded to the version that wrapped a metal bar around the license tag and bolted to the bumper. The draw bar bolted to that loop and extended under the trunk floor to bolt a flat plate that spread the load into the uni-body structure. Used one of those on multiple cars until about 1989 when we purchased one of those fancy receiver hitches for the station wagon.

Oh, the one pictured - it went with the 1955 Chevy when it sold and made the car much more valuable. Pat

[rmkrum]

Yup. and note the two nice big bumper bolts near the center of the bumper to hold the hitch load on there.

Those were solid cars. Could tell it was an old Ford just by the look of the taillights...

Mom drove a two-tone blue and white 1955 Ford station wagon. It had a V-8 police interceptor engine in it and huge exhaust pipes. If she decided to pass someone, it could easily do over 100 MPH. Never did figure out what the cops might have used it for--we bought it second-hand in about 1957-58 or so...our mechanic replaced the fuel pump and the standard one was way too small to fit. The huge one from the Interceptor package was the only one that fit properly!

[DaveP]

My dad had one of those hitches on what I believe was a 1957 Buick Century Estate Wagon to pull our Airstream. All I remember is, that car was huge!!

[aftermath]

We used to jack up cars by the bumper to change tires too. Back then the bumpers were very sturdy, probably weighed as much as two doors and a bumper today. You could clamp a hitch on and still tow safely. Today, you really do need a frame mounted hitch. Bumpers are made of....well... what are they made of?

[Wrangler]

Dad had one of those mounted on the front bumper of his 1950 Ford F-3. For him, it made backing farm wagons easier. For towing, he had a receiver welded to the frame of his Chevrolet Bel Aire.