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Americans have a love affair with their cars. We didn’t invent the gasoline vehicle, but we sure have put it to use. History credits N.A. Otto with coming up
with the first gasoline powered engine in 1876 and Rudolph Diesel with the first
oil or diesel engine in 1892. Both
were Germans. But it took American
Henry Ford to bring a rich man’s toy within reach of everyone.
With his assembly line and the then unheard of factory wage of $5 a day,
the Model T began to roll out in mass quantities. The old “tin lizzie” could be bought for $260 in 1925.
Once the problem of rutted, dirt roads began to be solved, Americans were
on the move. They haven’t slowed
down since. A youngster can’t wait to learn to
drive, pleading with anyone available to be the tutor. The dream of getting a
driver’s license was tantalizing. Most
of us remember with affection our first car.
We probably gave it a name, and talked to it as if it were human. My first car was named Floyd, a name
which came with the purchase. A
companion AP Wirephoto operator in Richmond, Va., talked to me on station break
and we concluded the agreement. It
cost me $60. The name was
appropriate, as it was the same model gangster Pretty Boy Floyd used in his
crime spree of the Thirties. It was
a 1933 Essex Terroplane, last of the series manufactured in the name before
being absorbed by the Hudson Motor Company. A clutch and long gear shift from the
floor motivated the engine which was more powerful than the rest of the vehicle.
Brakes were mechanical and you could never hope for a quick stop, just a
gradual slowing. The horn didn’t
work and I bought a small, toy squeeze horn which I mounted on the window.
In a tight place, I could only squeeze the air know fiercely and pray.
After a couple of years I yearned for something more modern and sold it
for what I paid--$60. As a classic,
that model would be worth a fortune today. In the late Forties, Ford was the hot
vehicle still. The Forty Ford was a
favorite particularly of bootleggers. I
bought a 1949 Ford for $500 in 1952, and performed the usual reckless driving of
a teenager. A guardian angel has to
have a tender place for kids still wet behind the ears thrusting a couple of
thousand pounds of metal across the landscape. Maybe we never grow up when it comes to cars. In 1959, I went to Fayetteville, NC, to publish the Fort Bragg “Paraglide” weekly newspaper for the 82nd Airborne. On an ego trip I bought a 1959 Impala Chevrolet Super Stock for $3600. A baby Cadillac cost the same amount that year. My car had a Corvette transmission, a three-quarter race cam, solid lifters and three two-barrel carburetors. With it’s four speed forward and “dynamite shifting,” keeping the gas on the floorboard and hitting the clutch and rapidly changing gears, it would turn 110 miles per hour on the quarter mile drag strip at Fayetteville. Most of us were overage juvenile delinquents at one time. With luck, we grow up. But we all remember.
Get a few people together and mention a favorite car story and everyone
has one to offer. Maybe it’s
about how lucky they were to survive their own driving mistakes. Maybe it’s about how the family went out riding around
together. Maybe it’s about the
first date when you were trusted with the family car. With modern production and sales methods,
almost everyone has a car or access to one.
Roads are constantly being improved and expanded at the frustration of travelers. Gone are the days when a couple of
dollars bought enough gas to last a week. With
today’s prices, two dollars gets little more than waving the gas nozzle over
the fuel tank. And it looks to get
worse. That won’t slow down Americans. Some other sacrifice will have to be made.
The car has to be on the move. And
the young drivers on the road now will one day be recalling their own favorite
car and story.
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