Nostalgic Cars

Remember the cars of our parents? Remember your first car?

I can remember my parents had a Mercury that had a boxy type back window with a large "ledge." (I can't remember what they were called.) It was big enough to lay down on, and we did!

My first car was a 1960's something old (not antique, not nice, not restored) Nash Rambler. It had a push button transmission instead of a gear shift. It was yellow with a black roof (hardtop).

My dad's first car was a Ford Consul. We got it in 1960 but it was probably around a 1958 model. Big and yellow, bench seats front and rear, three speed gearbox with the gear lever on the steering column. We had many family holidays in it, and a drive in the Essex countryside every Sunday morning after mass. I learned to drive on it, and when I was in Sixth form my dad let me take it to school if I dropped him at the tube station in the morning and picked him up in the evening. It suited him as he didn't much like driving and it was often difficult to park at the station. The lads at school called it "Tiger" because it had a throaty roar due to a leaking exhaust pipe. My sister managed to crash it once, but in those days cars were built solidly and it was repairable. My dad never took a driving test. He learned to drive in the army during the war and somehow converted that into a driving licence after the war.

My own first car was a 1963 Ford Anglia which I bought secondhand, I think for about eighty quid, and sold a few years later for fifty five. The starter motor used to keep coming loose and I often found myself having to crawl underneath with a spanner to get it started, come rain or snow.

I still prefer old cars and have had a succession of old Land Rovers and Toyota Land Cruisers. Currently I drive a 22-year old Land Rover Defender, and I reckon it'll probably be the last car I ever buy, as they last for ever and can be constantly repaired and rebuilt. Mine has been re-engined (twice), re-roofed, had new doors, a rebuilt gearbox, new seats, etc, all the "new" parts of course being salvaged second hand parts. They reckon that two thirds of all Land Rovers built since 1948 are still operational.

Mostly I don't care about cars, but I have fond memories of our 1965 Mercury Comet station wagon...

1955 Chevy Belair family car. Green with cream top and tail. Those little vent windows in front Dad opened in winter while he smoked in the car, which was constantly. Always smelled like cigs and mints he kept in the glovebox for when I got carsick (probably because of his smoking).

I am oddly attached to my mom's 2004 Merc Grand Marquis. She died a few years ago, but on a warm day, it still smells like her hair spray and bath salts inside. It has a cassette AND CD player!

193? or 4? Nash is the first I remember, while I struggled to stay awake in the back seat at a drive-in movie. My first car was a 1949 Plymouth with iffy brakes and a hole in the floorboards. Replaced that with a 1952 Chevy that ran great until I could afford to buy my first brand-new car, a white 1968 Chevy Camaro with white interior as well. Loved that car!

My favourite of my parents' cars was a mid-fifties Willys Jeep station wagon, like the green one in the sidebar, except ours was light blue (I think). My father bought it used for our somewhat remote cottage. What made it cool was that it would go almost anywhere, given its four-wheel drive and massive front winch. The transmission had four sticks on the floor. I think I may have been allowed to drive it once twice in the fields. Sadly it rusted out before I was old enough to get my licence and after production had ceased, so it couldn't be replaced.

>7 librorumamans:

I've never driven a jeep. Four gear sticks beats the old Land Rovers, which had only three. Main gear stick, four wheel drive low ratio (red knob) and four wheel drive high ratio (yellow knob). Wonder what the fourth one was? Diff lock, perhaps? More recent Landies (from the 1970s or early '80s) are in permanent four wheel drive with only two sticks, one the main gear lever and the other combining diff lock and low/high ratio. Mine has a good strong winch on the front, which has often been useful. My wife's Landie was in for repair last week and the mechanic broke his finger when it got trapped in the winch.

>8 John5918:

In addition to the main stick, there was a two-wheel/four-wheel drive stick, a high-range/low-range stick, and a fourth to engage the power take-off that powered the front winch (which had its own control at the front that allowed it to be operated from outside the cabin). Oh, and there was a manual throttle on the dashboard so that one person could set the revs on the engine and also manage the winch.

Yes, my father was very cautious with it and generally had me sit in the driver's seat while he was using it for my safety and also his.

There were Warn locking hubs on the front wheels. (You're reminding me of more and more details! Like that before buying the Willys, he seriously considered a Land Rover but felt that it was too small, plus he always had a great suspicion of imported vehicles.)

>9 librorumamans:

The early Series I Land Rovers had a power take off. They were designed to be a cross between a tractor and a small truck, with farmers very much in mind. Later models dispensed with the PTO, and nowadays winches are electric, but the chassis still had holes in it for the PTO shafts until quite recently.

Locking front wheel hubs can still be found on Toyota Land Cruisers, and I've driven a number of cars which still had a manual throttle on the dashboard, again mostly Land Cruisers, including the 70 series if I recall correctly.

I was lucky enough to drive the family's hand-me-down Vista Cruiser station wagon in my mid-70's high school days.

Some of you who really enjoy cars might like this book: My Dad Had That Car

I bought it for my husband for Christmas last year. After we had pored over it, looked up every car we ever owned, and loaned it to a few friends, we donated it to the public library. It's a fun look at American automotive history!

>11 Hope_H: I drove and wrecked my parent's Vista Cruiser! Looks like an interesting book--I'm going to look for that for my hubby for Christmas!

My first car was a Peugeot 403 estate, the same age as me. VNT480, in Peugeot blue; a 1500cc engine in a car weighing over a ton. Taught me to handle a car on winding roads without losing momentum, as well as how to drive without brakes (that's what the engine is for), without an accelerator (you had a choke), without wipers (not so fun), without a clutch (okay except for traffic lights on red) and without a starter (it would push start backwards on a hill). Not all at once, of course ;)

>14 sarahemmm:

When I first arrived in East Africa in the mid-seventies the Peugeot 403 was still widely used, not quite as common as the 404, and the 504 was just starting to appear. Not a Japanese car in sight. Everything you say about the 403 is true!

Anyone outside the US have a Lada? Soviet-made cars I used to see in Canada. Back in the 1980s, they kinda looked like mid-60s Ramblers--a box on four wheels. The idea was that if they would work in Siberia, they'd work in northern Ontario. Wrong.

>15 John5918: I used to take great pride in a sticker in the back window, celebrating 403s winning the East African Safari rally in 1956, 1957 and 1958. My brother travelled through Africa for six months in 1991, driving a Unimog Mercedes that he bought in Harare and fixed up - a somewhat larger equivalent!

This BBC article might fit into this topic:

The classic cars being converted to electric vehicles

Working out of a garage under a railway arch in Vauxhall, the company replaces the combustion engines in classic cars with electric motors and batteries that would otherwise be scrapped...