The cars in my life - stories for my grandchildren. Part 1

The early years:

According to popular journalism, the male of the human species maintains a life-long love affair with automobiles. He recalls each one of them with more fondness than that reserved for old girl friends, and if the literature is to be believed, sometimes the current women in his life. I am not that male. It has taken me a while to reconstruct my automobile history, and I'm frankly a little vague about certain years and models. A true auto-aficionado would not be as hesitant as I am.

I was more interested in the auto as a means of independent transportation than I was as an expression of my identity, or manhood, or charisma, and that started at an early age. In those days, a parental word to a friendly magistrate got you a driver's license at age 14. Not a cheater's permit - a full fledged license. You still had to take the driving test, which I did. Twice. But at 14, I was on the road.

The family auto at the time was a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief. It was far and away more auto than my father expected to buy, and he probably would have passed it over for something plainer but for the fact that while he was test driving it, he and five other gentlemen from church were asked to be pall-bearers at a funeral. He and the others all rode together, in air conditioned comfort, from the church to a remote cemetery on a blistering hot Texas afternoon, and by the time he got back, the deal was done. Air conditioning was new, and it was a big deal in those days.

I admit that this auto did help my self image as a fledgling driver; it was big, fancy-looking, and it could take most of my friend's cars in the quarter mile. In theory, at least; I'm neither admitting nor denying anything. It was slow off the line, but the engine was bigger than most, and by the end of the race, I usually overtook all comers. And that big engine made it very fast, if the road was straight and long. Or so I assume. It had bench seats (and no seat belts) so it was a good car for dating, as well. Again, in theory.

 

And yes, it was blue and white - though the blue was more sky blue than this picture shows.

Alas, this was not the only family car. My father acquired an older model Plymouth - probably a 1950 model - with the super-sharp external visor. THIS car became my primary means of transportation. Perhaps because of the alarming number of miles being added to the Pontiac. Surely it couldn't have been the prodigious amount of fuel used; gasoline was only 16 cents a gallon in those days!

The Plymouth needed a ring job, and my father and I did this ourselves. Well, he did it and I fetched. Afterwards, the rings were so tight that the starter could not crank a cold engine, so it was necessary to park the car on a hill so as to get a rolling start. If one parked nose-in, you either had to leave the engine running while you ran your errand, or you had to be back out in mere minutes before the engine cooled.

I learned an important lesson while driving this car. It was common knowledge that if you turned off the engine of an auto and coasted down the hill on East Walker, when you turned the key back on, the car would backfire. Did you know that if you waited a very, very long time to turn the key back on, the resulting backfire was capable of blowing the muffler right off the car? Split that sucker right down the seam and blew fiberglass packing all over the road! Theoretically.

But the car I took to school was a Chevy coupe, painted Bell Grey, with a round shiny spot on each door where the Bell Telephone logo had been rubbed off and the spot painted over. Surplus company cars were auctioned off, and it was common for the men who drove them, and were familiar with them, to buy them at auction.

As you might suspect, there aren't many "Bell Telephone Grey" photos out there. You'll just have to use your imagination!

Next: My First...