only in white
only in white
My parents helped me buy my first car during my senior year in High School. I had saved enough money to buy a used 1957 Ford convertible hardtop but my parents thought it was too ratty so they gave me a little extra money and ask me to buy a newer cleaner car.
I found a low mileage used 1958 Ford Fairlane 4-door hardtop with 352 police interceptor V-8/4 barrel carb at the local Ford dealership. It was Palomino tan and lots of chrome. The first thing I did was to have the seats rolled and pleated with matching tan/white stripes. It was a cool car but needed a few additional modifications.
It had factory air (under dash), an AM radio to which I later added rear speakers & a reverb box (BTW listened to KLIF Dallas top forty hits while cruising), power brakes and steering. I added dual exhausts with glass packs and it sounded really awesome in it’s day. I wanted to add lakers but it was too heavy for drag racing. In fact, when you hit the accelerator it was like stepping on a plum. It was slow but it had class and it was a cool machine.
It got 11 mpg in town, and up to 17 mpg on the road. Gas cost 18 cents a gallon. A dollar and we (me and the other guys of similar social standing) could cruise from 7 to 11 pm on Friday or Saturday nights. We had 1 Dairy Queen, 3 Texan Hamburger, and 1 A&W Root Beer drive-ins in our Podunk town for meeting and socializing. And we cruised all evening and night between these places to see and be seen.
A cool car did make a difference. My social standing with the girls improved significantly that senior year. My acne started clearing up and my voice became a little deeper (baritone). I joined a high school singing group and we started singing doo-wop at assemblies and parties. We were really cool with the teachers and student body.
Yes, I was eighteen, cool, and becoming a man. It was a different world, I had never heard of “white privilege”. I had never heard of “Vietnam” either.