Looking back: my favorite car.

My daughter asked me this question:

"Dad, what was your favorite car?"

Well, when you ask someone in their Mid Seventies, that question, it comes with a ton of memories. And here are mine:

Cars. Cars. Cars. When I was born in 1951 Cars were …well, diverse. A Pontiac did not look like a Chevy. Nor did a Studebaker look like an Oldsmobile. And Cadilacs? A status symbol with a Lincoln Continental merely a hen’s tooth behind in both style and prestige.

Plymouth and Ford made beautiful cars too. Ford made a car named “Edsel”. It was a super advanced car for its time. And it failed spectacularly. I hated the way it looked, and apparently, I was not alone!

So many memories come back when I think about cars. Hands down my favorite car was a 1957 Chevy Bell Air, with a two tone paint job (Aqua Marine, and White) with an interior made out of White Naugahyde. Oh My. I had several models I made of that car. They weren’t very pretty because I couldn’t paint very well, and I had glue all over my fingers and table. So doors that were supposed to open and close on the model, were often glued shut. And the tires…well, they are never coming off. LOL

The first car I remember was Dad’s 1955 Cadillac Sedan. It was a very deep blue, with bench seats, and it let everyone know Dad was doing well. The next year he had a heart attack, and spent 18 months in the hospital. We went from Upper Middle Class (I mean we owned a CADILLAC for crying out loud.) to the bottom of the barrel- over night. Ten kids, a wife, and no income will do that to you. Luckily, I was a kid back then…and didn’t realize the impact at all.

One of the things we did as a Family several times during the summer, was to go for a Summer drive. Dad would pile us all in the car. Mom would put on her Sunday going to Church dress, Dad would wear a Sport Jacket, and off we would go. Driving through the Rich Neighborhoods to marvel at the Mansions. And Cleveland had a lot of those. (NOTE: For two decades in the 1800’s Cleveland was known as: “The Richest City in America.” Oh how the mighty have fallen.)

When the Ohio Turnpike opened in 1955 - 241 miles from Erie in the East, all the way to Toledo in the West we would hop in the car and do the entire loop! Believe me, that was a wonderful Sunday Drive. We would drive from Cleveland to Toledo, then drive all the way to Erie PA (which is just a tad over the Ohio Border) turn around and go back home. We made only a few stops. One was at Stuckey’s. That is where we got our grilled cheese sandwiches and fries. Mom got her Pecan Roll (and often a few spare Pecan Rolls for my Aunts and Older Sisters).

There was no AC in cars back then. So on a summer day, the windows were all rolled down, the wind blew in your face, and you sped along at Seventy to eighty miles an hour with no red lights, stop signs, or corners. Everyone showed up at the car when Dad announced a Sunday Drive. It was a simple pleasure.

Back then, when a sign said: “City limits.” That is what it meant. There were no suburbs…yet. So when you left the city, it was all farms and fields. Everyone smoked, but I wasn’t big enough (yet) to force my way to a window to ride “shotgun”. But at eighty miles an hour …smoke doesn’t stand a chance with the windows down.

Another big treat was to pile into the car and go to Berea Quarries and swim. I never even knew it was called: “Wallace Lake” until I was in High School. I always thought it was just the Berea Quarries. It used to be a rock Quarry until some poor bulldozer hit an underground stream. It filled the Quarry up so fast, that the bulldozer is still down at the bottom under hundreds of feet of water. The driver had to run, then swim to get away. Or so the legend has it.

We all got sunburns, no matter how careful Mom was smearing Coppertone all over us. There were no UV sunblocks back then. Only tanning lotions or oils. Nobody knew about the dangers of skin cancer. Tans were in (they still are remarkably) But when you have almost 100% Irish Heritage, well, turning pink, then red, then angry strawberry colored, was the price you played for a day in the water.

It wasn’t unusual for one of us to burn so bad we got quarter sized blisters that Dad would drain later with a sterilized sewing needle. We almost always wore T-shirts in a vane attempt to fight off the sun. And swimming with a wet shirt was like wading through a washing machine. But we didn’t care. It was fun.

But the day would end. And it was always a day long event to go there. It was almost an hour drive from our house - way out in the country. LOL We ate both lunch and supper picnic meals, and when the Park/Lake closed at sunset, we all piled back into our cars and drove home.

Cars had transmission humps in them back then. And if you were a tiny boy or girl, well, you just curled up on the floor and used that hump as a pillow. You could fit two kids on the floor, one on the passenger side, and one on the drivers side. The older kids took the giant bench seat and used it like a lounge chair.

Once you got home, well, the Adult Males and some of the Mom’s would lug a still sleeping child into the house and right up to bed. We barely even noticed. We were exhausted. I remember being carried up stairs by Dad, having dried off on the way home from the wind and heat. Only to wake up in the morning to find a couple of brothers and sisters, still in their bathing suits headed down to breakfast.

Then High School hit. I didn’t own a car in High School until my Senior Year. My best friend Eddie Hudak had a 1963 Chevy Impala with three on the column. NOTE: Until 1968 every car anyone in my family or circle of friends had, was stick shift. Either on the Column, or on the Floor. Automatics were rare, expensive, and frankly, frowned upon. That would change fast. LOL

And most cars, with the exception of Corvettes, and some Foreign cars, had bench seats. Lovely wide living room comfortable bench seats that stretched from door to door in what were arguable “land yachts.” You could squeeze four, and even five of your friends on one of them.

(side story: When I did get my first car, a huge 1963 Chrysler Newport with a trunk so big you could rent it out as an apartment!) I showed my girlfriend’s parents that we could both lay on the back seat and not touch either door! It took me quite a while and much later in life to figure out what they were worried about. After all, I was raised Catholic, and had no idea what cars and hormones could do to Teen’s Future. But I digress.)

Eddie drove us to school most days, and since I was dating his sister, almost every weekend we double dated to Drive in Movies. Surprisingly, we did watch most of the Movies. Not all, but enough to ensure we could tell the Parents about the movie when we got home.

And yes, falling asleep in the car after a hot petting session was a common experience. Almost every teen from my era had an embarrassing story about finding themselves the only car left in a Drive Inn Movie lot. They even made a song about it.

But my dream car was the original question. And that I can answer easily …because I bought it! The year was 1977. I was stationed in the Army over in Hawaii. I had saved up some money. As there was little financing of cars back then…and Credit Cards were rare things. Gas Cards were the closest thing most folks had to one of those.

I paid cash for my car. A tad over five grand. It was lovely - and I did post a picture of it with this story. It was red with a landau roof, velour interior, and every option that was available back then. Including a cassette player, Air Conditioning, and Automatic super smooth transmission.

I called it: “My poor man’s Cadillac.” It rode like you were on a cloud, and you could speed up to eighty or ninety miles an hour and not even realize you were speeding. It is the car I had when I married my Kathy. And she loved it as much as I did. It was pure luxury…and the best car I ever owned.

Since I finally answered the question, I guess I should stop here.