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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 and 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 Turroplane, 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 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 luck 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 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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