Bonnie and Clyde

7

77Birdman

Senior Member
Saw an interesting documentary about the duo last night. One of the things that caught my eye was an interesting trunk on one of their cars from a period picture. Then I saw the same trunk on a car in a post on this forum today- Post is "Cheap 33" post #4.
Another interesting note was that they would often travel 500 miles in a day, and were known to travel 1000 miles in a 24 hr period.
 
As most are aware, Clyde Barrow wrote a letter to Henry ford about what a great car he made.

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This dirty duo actually lived out of their car. Unlike the Dillinger Gang that stayed in apartments. Bonnie and Clyde would park their stolen car deep in the woods and live there. Some life. Crime really pays. HA
 
77Birdman said:
One of the things that caught my eye was an interesting trunk on one of their cars from a period picture. Then I saw the same trunk on a car in a post on this forum today- Post is "Cheap 33" post #4.
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Actually, the two trunks are quite different. Bonnie & Clyde's car had a "POTTER" Trunk on which the lid opened much differently. Also note the gasoline fill and tail lights on the B & C car are different. In fact the whole mounting scheme is weird on that European (blue) trunk. DD


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FrankWest said:
This dirty duo actually lived out of their car. Unlike the Dillinger Gang that stayed in apartments. Bonnie and Clyde would park their stolen car deep in the woods and live there. Some life. Crime really pays. HA
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Frank, while it is true that they did live in their cars sometimes they also lived in various houses, apartments and motels and camp ground cabins etc. That's why they mostly chose 4 door sedans because there was more room to sleep and carry gear and guns than other body styles. Regards, Kevin.
 
it is a known fact that they basically lived out of their car which was parked out of sight in the woods. The movies shows them living in motels, but that is only the movies and not reality.
They were actually vagabonds petty thieves and murderers. Holding up gas stations and grocery stores and rarely banks. In fact, the movie with Fay Dunaway shows her returning a bank customers money because they only want the banks money. No true. That was John Dillinger that returned a customers money during a bank robbery. John Dillinger returned the money to a frightened farmer who left his money on the bank counter.
The Dillinger gang on the other hand never lived out of their cars. But always had their girl friends lease apartments for them.
 
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its fun stuff the history of these old gangsters. lots of stories around my part of the world that many of them liked to lay low in mpls & st.paul. also, some had cabins in the north woods of minnesota and wisconsin.
 
When I lived in the Twin Cities area in the 1980's and 1990's I had a neighbor 16 years older than me whose aunt (born in 1913) was a "hot young chick" that waitressed in some of the bawdier joints in St.Paul in the 1930's. She was still alive then, and would visit my neighbor from time to time. She claimed to have known Dillinger back in the day and really had a bunch of great stories. Whether they were true or not, I don't know. However, when she passed away in the late '90's, I helped him clean out her house. There were at least 100 cases of beer in the basement, all of it at least 20 years old and SKUNKY. It kind of fits her stories, though.
 
For the Dillinger gang the planning for the getaway was especially important.
They planned the routes out of town and drove them for several days, learning every quirk of the road, especially places where a pursuing vehicle could lose control which they tried to lure the cops into. They would always stash a second car several miles out of town, sometimes with extra gas cans. They practiced the getaway until they could drive it in their sleep.
 
FrankWest said:
For the Dillinger gang the planning for the getaway was especially important.
They planned the routes out of town and drove them for several days.
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Frank...How is it that you became such an expert on the lives and styles of these gangsters of 85 years ago? DD
 
Reading books is the method of learning B&C history. There are 20 plus books out there on the subject. Some authors have spent their lives researching the subject. Regards, Kevin.
 
One of my many interests. I have an extensive collection of newspapers from the Dillinger era. I also did research for the Book, Chasing Dillinger by Ellen Poulsen.
 
Bonnie was ruthless. She killed police officers point blank, sometimes injured and on the ground. Dillinger was way more the people’s criminal. He wanted to take from the rich. Bonnie and Clyde May have started out that way but they went a different path.
 
As one who lost a relative to B&C I can assure you that those two were in it for the thrill and killed indiscriminately. They were never playing Robin Hood.
 
During the great depression vast numbers of banks lost their money thru bad investments.
And many unscrupulous bank executives used this opportunity to abscond with the depositors money. There was no FDIC, so depositors money was just lost. Then many of these same banks foreclosed on the homes and farms of the people that already had lost their savings. It was all very corrupt.
Harry Pierpont Dillinger's associate and gang leader accused the bankers of being the real criminals during his trial.
During several Dillinger bank jobs, The Dillinger gang actually took mortgages and burned them. Many people looked as Dillinger as their instrument of revenge on these corrupt banks.
 

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Yep, my grandfather said "you were LUCKY if u got 10¢ to your dollar back from the bank" in those years.
He kept very little in a bank the rest of his life because of it. Cookie tins and canning jars.
To be truthful, I I like his way of thinking.
 
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