The other day one of our friends sent us a You Tube video of cars from the 1950’s. It was fun seeing them in all their pristine glory – they looked better than I had remembered. It even had one of my Dad’s favorite car – a Nash. He had a couple of what they called the “inverted bathtub” model. One thing about them was that they were powerful. They were also roomy. In those days there were bench seats with no big clunky thing in between the driver and the passenger. In a Nash Ambassador, the front width was so big that it looked like the passenger was a block away. Of course with no impediment between the driver and the passenger, a friendly passenger could slide over for a closer conversation. (Naturally, that never happened until I met The Blonde in the house).
The Blonde and I had 50’s cars when we first got married. It should be noted that they were not necessarily in pristine condition when we had them. We has a ’49 Ford (ok one year early), a ’51 Ford, a ‘56 Ford, and a ‘59 Rambler American. In those days lots of the cars had stick shifts in them and ours were in that group. It used to be great fun coordinating the clutch and the brake as you were waiting on a steep hill – especially in a Pennsylvania winter! One later year I determined that I would get a car with an automatic shift, and I did. Well, The Blonde hated that car and longed for the stick shift days. So the next time I bought a car, I went back to the stick shift. After a short time, The Blonde decided that perhaps an automatic shift was a good thing after all. All subsequent cars have had automatic.
We have lived through some great innovations in cars which are rather nostalgic to recall. For instance one of the manufacturers came out with curb feelers. They were wire like things on the side of the car that when you were parallel parking, gave out with a noise that informed you that you were close to the curb. Also, before they buried antennas in the front window or wherever cars had a metal antenna that stuck up from the fender. You were always catching it on something or causing a problem when you went through a car wash. To correct, that one of my Dad’s Nash’s had an antenna where you pushed a button and the antenna went up and down. A marvelous toy! The same car had a button on the floor which if you pushed would change the radio to the next station. Another button was under the accelerator. If you mashed down on it, the car took off like a scalded rabbit.
One thing that I regret is that the cars of today do not have are good old hood ornaments. Most manufacturers stopped them long ago, but when I saw an old car, I thought they were great. Back when I was in college I bought an old ‘41 Studebaker, which did not have a hood ornament either, but I went to a junk yard where I found one (forget what brand it was on originally). I drilled a hole in the hood of the Studebaker and bolted the ornament on. I thought it made a great improvement. I guess today they do not want a hood ornament because it interferes with the wind dynamics that washes over the car and might increase the miles per gallon by a hundredth of a mile. Life is certainly much more difficult than it was back in the good old days!
Yep, when I look back at those great old cars which seem better now than they actually were, I begin to wonder. In fact, I wonder sometimes if The Blonde would like it if our next car had a stick shift.
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com