Posted on 06/14/2018 12:27:34 PM PDT by NRx
A glimpse in the rear view mirror at the land and cars of long ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtu.be ...
I bought a 58 Ford station Wagon (Country Sedan). I swore to never buy
another Ford product. I’m now 84 and I have kept my promise.
Thanks. The Caddy I drove was black, but looked just like those in your photos.
At one time, I drove a 55 Ford wagon. The fake woody model. The next Ford I bought was a 2003 Escape. Had nothing but problems with it.
I would have made your memory more accurate
Let me guess, it didn't have red interior. 8>)
Forty-Two years ago yesterday, on June 13th, 1976, my two brothers and I and a friend of ours went cruising in Detroit, where we lived, in my brother Randy’s 1957 Cadillac Fleetwood. My brother Dave was driving, while our buddy Barry was riding Shotgun. I was riding in the backseat with Randy while we cruised down Woodward Avenue into downtown Detroit. Oh, did I mention that we had a case of Stroh’s Beer with us? We went downtown and ended up on Belle Isle, which for those of you not from Detroit would know that It’s a 640 acre island park in the Detroit River designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. We went to the front of the Scott Fountain and took several pictures there that I still possess today. It was a great, memorable day.
Absolutely had the red interior.
Serendipity was achieved then. 8>)
It's an homage to the 1957, '58, and '59 Chevys.
Great stuff, dude. Thanks.
What cars ought to look like today instead of derivative, banal crap.
Yes, only solid blue, not two-tone - not with a cream-white room. He lived at home for awhile after her returned from the air force and I used to help him wash the Caddy in the front yard. I went with a drive in it with him a few times before he moved into a place of his own.
Then, sad to say, he had an accident, totaled the Caddy and shortly afterward bought a Corvair (OMG!!! from a Caddy to a Corvair!!!!) and moved 700 miles away.
Corvair Spyder
Imagine though if they had come out with a model that followed the concept version:
We would all want to have one for sure.
BTW, the name Corvair is a mixture of the Corvette & Bel Air.
That’s sweet. 8>)
My family over the course of time had two Corvairs. My dad eventually got my older brother’s Corvair when my brother failed to make payments on it, and my dad had co-signed for the loan - so he went and took the car. It was always trying to fix oil leaks with it. One sister and her husband also had one for a few years. I don’t rember what happened to it.
My very first car - a 1948 “Woody”, Willys Jeep, I had for less than three days. My brotherinlaw helped me get my money back on it after the engine totally conked out the morning of the second day I had it. We won the argument with the father and son that sold to me that my brotherinlaw’s mechanic was right in believing they had to have known how bad it wss when they sold it to me, and were just trying to dump it off on me. We may actually have been wrong, but they caved and gave me my $250 dollars back.
My brotherinlaw and I agreed we would demand any other car I considered would be looked at by his mechanic before we agreed to buy it; and we did.
I was not, for $250 dollars, looking for any particular car and not what a young college kid my think of an ideal college kid’s car. For that little money - all I could afford, I only cared about its condition, particularly its mechanical condition. I needed a car that to take me back from northern California to southern California and get me around for work and school for the next few years.
What I did get as by 2nd “first” car was a 1955 Pontiac Chieftan. Exterior (not a spec of rust) and interior were super clean and original. Engine was in great condtion. It drove beautifully and loved the highway. It even had the Chief Pontiac hood ornament that lit up as soon as you pulled out the headlight switch just enough to engage the parking lights.
I put tons of miles on the car over the next few years, and it not only ferried me between home, work, school and church, it took me and many friends back and forth to the southern California beaches many times, skining in the mountains, in and out to L.A. many times and a number of trips up to and back from my sister and brotherinlaw’s place in northern California. All that in spite of how little maintenance I could afford to get done on it.
Later when I was heading overseas to Korea I sold it for the same $250 I had paid for it, with the buyer knowing it then needed a new transmission.
If I’d win the Lotto and could afford to indulge in “collecting” any old cars, for sentimental reasons I’d get a restored 1955 Pontiac Chieftan. Yea, sure, it’s not the classic most seek, but its personal with me.
“What cars ought to look like today instead of derivative, banal crap.”
I agree, but most of us can’t afford it. The recipe for this starts with “bring a donor C6 Corvette...”
Sounds like you got yourself a real deal there for sure. 8>)
I was in the Atlanta area earlier today and passed an early 50’s Caddy convertible that looked like it was in mint condition. Had a dark gray paint job, with a red interior.
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