Vitals

James Garner as Jim Rockford, wisecracking private detective and ex-convict

Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Summer 1974

Series: The Rockford Files
Episodes:
– “Backlash of the Hunter” (Pilot episode, dir. Richard T. Heffron, aired 3/27/1974)
– “In Pursuit of Carol Thorne” (Episode 1.10, dir. Charles S. Dubin, aired 11/8/1974)
Creator: Roy Huggins & Stephen J. Cannell
Costume Designer: Charles Waldo

Background

Our first scene with James Garner’s titular Malibu-based private eye on The Rockford Files catches Jim Rockford after fishing with his father, Joseph “Rocky” Rockford (played by Robert Donley in the pilot, before he would be recast with Noah Beery Jr.). Rocky accompanies his son back to his trailer parked at Paradise Cove, where Jim’s lovely new prospective client Sara Butler (Lindsay Wagner) awaits him. Jim leads Sara into his “cheap, tax-deductible, earthquake-proof” office, where he introduces his now-iconic fee of:

$200 a day, plus expenses.

Writing a check (dated June 6, 1974, precisely dating the setting), Sara then hires Jim to look into his father’s under-investigated murder two months later. In the tradition of great detective fiction, the complexities of the case deepen while Rockford gets knocked around by a few heavies before knocking boots with the gorgeous femme fatale. A break in the case sends Jim and Sara speeding east across the Mojave Desert in his famous bronze Pontiac, resulting in a gunfight with Rockford’s unregistered cookie jar gat.

Since June 18th is annually recognized as National Go Fishing Day, let’s look at how Jim Rockford dressed for that day of fishing in his introductory scene.

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What’d He Wear?

I always appreciated the authenticity of Jim Rockford’s lived-in wardrobe, with his jackets, shirts, and trousers repeating over The Rockford Files‘ six seasons as Jim maintains his standard look of an open-necked shirt tucked into trousers with jackets ranging from sports coats to more utilitarian gear like this sporty beige jacket he clearly wore for fishing in the pilot episode. Always savvy about dressing to fit the context, Jim swaps out the jacket for a checked sports coat when joining Sara to investigate her father’s murder and, later, changing back out of the checked sports coat into this more tactical jacket when a romantic evening becomes an action-packed morning shooting down small aircraft outside Las Vegas.

The shell is a pale stone-beige cloth, likely a waterproof-treated cotton twill or a synthetic blend. The front-zip is entirely white, including the two-way zip pull, the plastic teeth, and the tape flanking it. The underside of the collar is finished in a tobacco-brown suede, matching the pointed-end straps over each cuff that close through one of two buttons. The two squared chest pockets and two box-pleated hip pockets are all covered by a single-button flap. These buttons and those on the ends of each sleeve are flat dark-brown plastic two-hole buttons.

Safari-informed fashions dominated men’s sportswear during the 1970s. While Jim would later wear more specific examples of safari jackets and shirts, this unique outerwear from the pilot episode blends styling queues from both safari gear and classic golf windbreakers like the Baracuta G4 and G9. The latter are represented by the two-button standing collar and the straight-zip front, graphed onto a thigh-length jacket with the quartet of flapped pockets found on most safari jackets, as well as the safari-style straps fastening each cuff.

This hybrid between safari, golf, and more generic casual styles isn’t exactly a fishing jacket, though its comfortable fit, multiple pockets, and water-proofed shell make it appropriate for some afternoon angling.

At the start of the episode, Rockford wears one of several shirts likely made from Qiana, a silky nylon introduced by DuPont in 1968 before its disco-era ubiquity for both plain and printed shirts. This particular navy-blue shirt follows Rockford’s preferred design with a long point collar worn open at the neck, a front placket with low-contrasting plastic buttons, and two-button cuffs.

Jim tucks this shirt into darker navy-blue flat-front trousers with full-top front pockets, button-through back pockets, plain-hemmed bottoms, and wide belt loops for his hefty black leather belt with its shining gold-toned single-prong buckle.

For the final act of the episode that follows Jim and Sara out to Las Vegas and the surrounding desert, Rockford wears another blue Qiana shirt—albeit a much lighter shade of blue—with the same long point collar, front placket, and two-button cuffs.

As he hasn’t changed anything but his jackets from the previous evening, he still wears it tucked into brown flat-front slacks that maintain the trendy ’70s design of full-top front pockets supplementing his button-through back pockets and plain-hemmed bottoms. He again harmonizes his belt to his trousers by now wearing a smooth brown leather belt that closes with a gold-toned single-prong buckle.

Even though The Rockford Files was produced in the 1970s, before home video and streaming made costume-related continuity errors more evident to nitpicking style bloggers like myself, the series maintains impressive continuity even as Jim switches his jackets between scenes. When his day evolves from fishing to investigating, Jim swaps out his safari-style casual jacket for the aforementioned checked sports coat, but he continues wearing the more casual sneakers that made sense with his fishing outfit. These are CVO-style deck sneakers with navy-blue canvas uppers, flat white woven laces, and clean white rubber outsoles, worn with plain white tube socks.

Before the final act, we saw him switching his sports coat for the safari jacket again, naturally without taking the time to swap shoes. So when he’s pursuing the leisure-suited baddies through the Mojave Desert, he’s still wearing the brown leather plain-toe oxfords from the previous evening.

Though primarily seen in the feature-length pilot episode, Rockford’s stone-beige jacket briefly returns toward the end of the tenth episode, “In Pursuit of Carol Thorne”, when he layers it over a bright-red Qiana shirt tucked into the same brown trousers.

Rockford keeps his accessories simple, wearing only a thin gold necklace under his shirt and James Garner’s own 1960s-era Heuer Carrera 3647N watch. This racing chronograph has a stainless steel 36mm case, black leather strap, and a black dial with the stock silver-toned hour indices and twin sub-registers at 3 and 9 o’clock, as well as “JAMES GARNER” inscribed in white just below them.

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The Car

We first see Jim Rockford’s famous “Sierra Gold” 1974 Pontiac Firebird Esprit parked in front of his trailer when Sara Butler calls on him at the start of the two-part pilot episode. By the final act, she’s sitting beside him in the “Camel Tan” leather interior as the two speed east to Las Vegas by daybreak.

Three years after its introduction, Pontiac evolved its popular Firebird pony car into the second-generation model that rejected the first generation’s “Coke bottle” curves in favor of Bill Porter’s smoother new design shared with the Chevrolet Camaro. Launched on February 26, 1970, the second-generation Firebird also debuted the new Esprit and Formula trims in addition to the already-popular Trans Am performance package.

A motorsports enthusiast in real life who honed his skills under racer Bob Bondurant while filming Grand Prix (1966), James Garner personally had a hand in selecting the Pontiac Firebird Esprit as Rockford’s wheels, liking the Firebird’s power and agility for performing nimble stunts like Rockford’s famous reverse “J-turn”. He specifically liked the Esprit trim as an alternative to the more upscale Formula and Trans Am, as this would be more suitable for Rockford’s budget.

“I’ve been asked why he didn’t have a Trans Am instead,” Garner addressed in his memoir, The Garner Files. “Well, he would’ve liked one—it’s much sexier—but I didn’t think he could afford it. The Firebird was more of a blue-collar car, a stripped-down version of the Trans Am, with a sticker price of about $3,000 for the 1970 model. And I thought it handled better than the Trans Am.”

Garner also confirmed that the screen-used Firebirds were powered by GM’s 400 cubic-inch Pontiac V8, mated to an automatic transmission. “Which was fine for our purposes… the only modification we made was to stouten up the suspension to handle all the stunts.”

His California license plate “853 OKG” may have been selected in tribute to “Oklahoma Garner”, though the actor wasn’t sure where “853” originated. Evidently, the showrunners weren’t tied to this number either, as Firebirds in the first few episodes—including the pilot—actually had registration plates reading “835 OKG”.

1974 Pontiac Firebird Esprit

Body Style: 2-door sports coupe

Layout: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

Engine: 400 cu. in. (6.6 L) Pontiac V8 with Rochester 2-barrel carburetor

Power: 175 hp (130.5 kW; 177 PS) @ 3600 RPM

Torque: 315 lb·ft (427 N·m) @ 2000 RPM

Transmission: 3-speed Turbo Hydra-matic automatic

Wheelbase: 108 inches (2743 mm)

Length: 196 inches (4978 mm)

Width: 73.4 inches (1864 mm)

Height: 49.2 inches (1250 mm)

The production sourced three Firebirds per season, updating the model each year except for the final season when Garner opted to continue driving a 1978 model as he disliked the 1979 Firebird’s restyled front end. Also, after using authentic Firebird Esprits during the first season, the production reportedly shifted to the Formula trim in subsequent seasons—but without the twin-scoop hood and rebadged to resemble the lower-tier Esprit. This is evident in some sequences where the Firebird’s dual exhaust is visible, as even the largest engines in the Esprit trim were mated to a single exhaust.

The second-generation Firebird didn’t last much longer than The Rockford Files, discontinued after the 1981 model year. By this point, the 400 and even 350 cubic-inch V8 engines were a distant memory, replaced by a 265, 305, and 301 lineup—with at least a 210-horsepower turbo option for the latter. Of the nearly 1.2 million Firebirds produced from 1970 to 1981, approximately ¼ were Esprits.

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The Gun

Rockford ends an intimate fireside cuddle with Sara Butler to “pick up something at my place,” which turns out to be the snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 19 he keeps in his cookie jar, as he doesn’t have a permit to carry it.

Sara: What’s that?
Rockford: It’s my gat.

The classic image of a gumshoe with a snub-nosed revolver dates to classic detective fiction from film noir to the novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. Given his lack of permit and general dislike of firearms, Rockford doesn’t always keep his snub holstered to a shoulder rig, but he makes sure that—if he needs a gun—it’s going to do the job. Rather than a traditional .38 Special like the Colt Detective Special or Smith & Wesson Model 36, he powers up with a blued steel Model 19 chambered in .357 Magnum.

Smith & Wesson developed the .357 in the mid-1930s as the first mainstream “magnum” cartridge, based on the earlier .38 Special but with higher chamber pressure. Two decades later, Smith & Wesson built a K-frame revolver envisioned by veteran lawman, Marine, and firearms expert Bill Jordan as a “peace officer’s dream”; it was unveiled as the Smith & Wesson .357 Combat Magnum in November 1955, less than two years before the company switched to numbering its revolvers and it was rechristened the Model 19.

Debuted with a four-inch barrel to align with service revolver standards, the Model 19 gained a longer six-inch barrel in 1963, followed by the shorter 2.5″ barrel as a standard option by 1966. Though briefly discontinued in 1999, the Model 19 re-entered Smith & Wesson’s catalog in 2018 and—alongside its stainless steel variant, the Model 66—remains a popular, venerable sidearm from one of America’s foremost firearms manufacturers.

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How to Get the Look

The pilot episode features a unique hybrid of a safari-informed Harrington jacket as a slightly more tactical alternative to Jim Rockford’s signature sports coats, worn with his usual open-neck shirts, solid slacks, and James Garner’s own Heuer Carrera chronograph—nodding to the actor’s own motorsports passion that translated onto the screen via the character’s nimble gold Firebirds.

• Stone-beige cotton safari-informed thigh-length jacket with two-button standing collar, white straight front zip, two chest pockets with single-button flaps, two box-pleated hip pockets with single-button flaps, and pointed-end tobacco-brown single-button cuff-tabs
• Blue Qiana nylon long-sleeved shirt with long point collar, front placket, and two-button cuffs
• Navy or brown flat-front trousers with belt loops, full-top front pockets, button-through back pockets, and plain-hemmed bottoms
• Black or brown leather belt with gold-toned single-prong buckle
• CVO-style deck sneakers with navy canvas uppers, flat white woven laces, and white rubber outsoles
• White cotton V-neck short-sleeve undershirt
• Gold necklace
• Heuer Carrera 3647N racing chronograph watch with steel case, black dial (with two sub-dials), and black leather strap

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Do Yourself a Favor and…

Check out the series. I also recommend the actor’s honest and entertaining memoir, The Garner Files, co-written by James Garner and Jon Winokur.