I’m glad I had started to realize the importance of just listening before some of my elders had passed away. As a young adult, I had wanted to speak my voice, be heard, and have my thoughts and feelings validated, but I also realized that I wouldn’t have my grandparents around forever, or even my own father who was much older than my mother. A new practice of just letting my grandpa talk without immediately countering by saying something took some restraint at first. There’s a fine line between interactive listening and simply waiting to talk. I was genuinely interested in what he had to say. At the same time, most young adults have a certain attention span and nobody, regardless of age, wants to feel held hostage to a one-sided conversation.
To be clear, my maternal grandfather wasn’t orating at me, but he seemed to genuinely want me to know about some of the experiences he had lived, especially when he was in his twilight years. After my grandmother had passed, he was alone in their big, newish Lennar home they had built from scratch not even ten years before. I sense that maybe his telling me about trips that he and Grandma had taken, friends they had known and spent time with, stories about my mom, aunts and uncle, and other things were his ways of summarizing how his life had been both impacted and impactful in various ways, and also for his own benefit. I was partially named after him and thus had felt a particular kinship with Grandpa. I wanted to learn as much as I could about who he was and whatever else he wanted to share.
He would occasionally ask me things about my own, young life, and he’d listen as best as I suspect he knew how, and I’m not just talking about his hearing aids. I’ve written here before about some of my own complicated family-of-origin matters, and it was always a tricky thing to navigate when I’d go over to the house as a twenty-something. I’ve observed a general pattern that regardless of what has gone down between parents and their children, the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren seems to be largely immune to the exact same kinds of trauma. In hindsight, my white grandfather treated my Liberian father poorly, as well as my mother for marrying him. For whatever reason, though, my grandpa and I seemed to get along. I wouldn’t say that he and I were exactly chummy, but he wasn’t super-warm with anyone. That was just his personality. I’ve sometimes wondered if he was ever very happy. I digress.
It was fun to look through old family photo albums and to see pictures of everyone in my extended family when they were so much younger. To see my mother and her siblings as children broadened my perception of them, as did seeing pictures of both of my grandparents when they were younger. The young parents in these photographs had fewer wrinkles, different hair and glasses, and they stood more upright, but they also had basically all of the same features with which I was familiar in my grandma and grandpa.
I could see some of myself in pictures of Grandpa as a younger man. Maybe he could recognize something of his former self in my appearance, build, voice (he, my mom, and I all have/had a similar laugh), and/or mannerisms. Conversely, maybe I was appreciated simply as someone to keep him company when I happened to phone ahead and drop by. Ultimately, his and my relationship was a complicated tightrope walk of trying to get to know each other without getting remotely close enough to discuss any hard family truths. I thought my kindness toward him would make him kinder toward my mother, which would in turn make her kinder toward me. None of that happened, though I still consider my time spent with my grandpa to have been of value.
When sitting down to compose this week’s essay, I hadn’t planned on going back to the summer of 2018 to find my featured car, but I’m glad that’s how it played out, as I had nearly forgotten about this ’53 Ford that was parked in the back of a lot in downtown Flint. If I recall correctly, I had photographed this car only with my phone and not my Canon camera as I was with a high school friend I had just picked up in my rental car when we were headed into downtown to meet with others. That’s neither here nor there, but as is usually my custom, I went to find brochure pages to supplement my pictures and discovered an exact ringer for this Ford in the illustrations! Both cars are in the mid-trim Customline range, both four-door sedans, and in exactly the same two-tone green paint scheme, one of three such combinations offered that year.
In contrast to the well-worn condition of the car in the parking lot, the shiny Ford in the brochure was like seeing the picture of my forty-something years-young grandpa sitting high behind the wheel of his tractor. Fifty-three was the year of the “Ford Blitz” when in a quest for top annual sales honors for the brand, Ford had ramped up production, ultimately building 1.2 million cars for the model year and beating Chevrolet (which technically built more cars for the calendar year). Of that number, the Customline “Fordor” (in Ford-speak) was the most popular bodystyle and configuration, with about 374,500 sold, or just under a third of total production at 31%. Next in line was the Customline “Tudor”, with 305,400 units (roughly 25%). The entry-level Mainline series was more popular than the top-shelf Crestline, with the latter including the flossy Victoria hardtop, Sunliner convertible, and Country Squire wagon.
There were just two engines available: the 101-horsepower “Mileage Maker” inline six which displaced 215.3 cubic inches, and the 239.4 c.i. flathead V8 with 110 hp. The six would have been standard in our featured car with the V8 as an option, as the latter was standard in only the wagons and the Crestline series. In the current climate of multiple niche vehicles sold by the same make, it’s fascinating to me to think of just one basic car in several bodystyles and trim levels being sold as the entire Ford passenger vehicle lineup.
Sharing parts of my life’s story has been almost like a form of therapy for me, though with each passing year and phase of my life, it has become even more important to me to also learn from others who have had more life experience than me. There’s no way for me to avoid restating the cliche that those who ignore history are destined to repeat it, because that’s exactly how I feel. I look at a car like “Old Henry” (I love that this car’s name is on a banner in the back window) and think about everything that has transpired in the world since he was new. It’s somehow comforting to see that depiction of the ’53 Customline in the brochure and being able to draw a straight line of continuity to the car that was in that downtown Flint parking lot that day. We should all be as fortunate to arrive at some point in the future with as many visible signs of a life well-lived.
Downtown Flint, Michigan.
Saturday, August 18, 2018.
For some factual reading on the ’53 Ford, here’s a link to a 2011 essay by Paul Niedermeyer.
Brochure pages were sourced from www.oldcarbrochures.org.
Ah yes, the trouble of relating to our elders. It’s especially poignant when we’re a bit older, and we realise what we missed out on.
I never knew my paternal grandparents, they were killed decades before I was born (Spanish Flu, and mine cave-in). My mother’s father died when I was seven; my main memory of him is how hard it was to understand his speech (a combination of a thick German accent and no teeth). However in my younger days I was pretty much the spitting image of him; he too had the drive to learn things, teaching himself Latin and shorthand after a day’s work on the farm. He was also very handy with a pocket knife, carving a triple-interlinked chain out of a single piece of wood. I’ve got it around here somewhere – there’s a job for me tomorrow: find it! Probably with their photo albums.
But my grandmother – she told the most amazing stories of growing up in our state’s capital fifty years after first white settlement in the area. I’ve made sure to pass those tales on to my daughter. My son’s heard them too; my history-loving daughter’s sure to remember.
Talking to most people for me is like hitting a tennis ball back over the net. I’m okay at responding, sometimes, but sometimes my mind runs around all over the place trying to find an appropriate assemblage of verbiage to lob back at the other person, and I miss paying attention to what they’re actually saying. No problem with Nanna though.
Enough from me. I’ll just park my green ’53 here, and go quietly…
Peter thank you for sharing these memories of your grandparents. In recounting their memory, they stay alive in some form and there’s value in that, regardless of whatever warts might have existed
Where social stuff is concerned, I find my pendulum swinging back toward the middle. I’m trying to be mindful of learning to be comfortable with being slightly uncomfortable in some scenarios and just giving myself grace when I feel that way. I believe that some forms of emotional trauma can “make” an introvert out of someone who’s naturally extroverted. I can see both in myself. I’m still learning who I am absent being reactive for years.
Beautiful ’53, but now I’m just parroting what I always say. 🙂
I remember a gray-blue “Mainliner” two door with tobacco spit stains decorating the driver door like a white trash flame job.
At the time the term “mainliner” was still common referring to someone who self-injected Heroin.
Sam, the heroin context did actually cross my mind. There should have been just a little more research put into naming that trim level, even then.
Likewise, shooting-up was the first thing “Mainline” made me think of. I thought perhaps this was another instance of the predominant meaning of a word changing since it was used on a car, like the Hudson Pacemaker or Dodge Dart Swinger, but apparently the verb “mainline” meant in 1953 exactly what it does today.
The wonders of grandparents. I do realize how lucky I am that of the three who were around the day I was born (dad’s dad died about six years prior), the first of those three died when I was 45 and the last at 48. I’m the oldest of two first-borns, my grandparents were young when my parents were born (my mom on her mom’s 20th birthday), and their life span ranged from 10 days short of 91 to six weeks past 100. So, my grandparents were in my life for a very long time.
March 14th would have been #101 for my maternal grandfather and #104 for my paternal grandmother.
I very much miss talking to them, especially my grandfather. My sister and I have joked about us finding ourselves channeling (things both good and bad) our maternal grandparents. There are certainly worse things one could do.
Thankfully, I have captured some of my experiences with them on these pages, so those stories will be around for posterity.
It’s good to see others referencing their grandparents. Grandparents can be tricky in some ways but they can also be rewarding. It is definitely less of a minefield to navigate with them than it is with one’s parents.
As for the Ford…looks like the rocker panels have retired, so that’s less the old flathead has to haul around. But that just makes it a Michigan car! Something tells me it was good mechanical condition.
Jason, I have always really enjoyed reading about your extended family as woven into your essays, back in the days when you had pseudonyms for all of them. I felt like I could sit down on the porch with “Albert” and “Iris” with a glass of lemonade and just listen.
My relationship with my grandparents, particularly with my beloved grandma, was a bright light in my life.
Your last paragraph thought about everything that has happened in the world since that Ford was new, and yet here it still is, is something that I reflect upon regularly. More often, I have similar feelings about objects in nature (e.g., trees…as most of those that are of noticeable size to humans are much older than the average human), but the same thing happens with very old manufactured objects like old buildings and old cars.
I know that it’s irrational to think of inanimate objects (that certainly applies to cars and buildings) as being…animate. Still, I can’t help feeling that things that have been around long enough need human respect. Perhaps giving that 1953 Ford a human name for anyone who looks to know was simply the acknowledgement of whoever drives it that the Ford is now a thing to be respected, and a thing which has “seen” a lot of history. And maybe, the more we can learn how to treat the “things” around us with respect, some of that will transfer to more and similar actions with the animate objects around us. I donno…that’s what I think.
Jeff, I don’t think this is an irrational idea at all. Just this morning as I was walking from the train to my office, I was looking at this gargantuan, gorgeous buildings in downtown Chicago that have been standing for decades prior to my existence snd marveled that just a simple act like going to work is like wandering ancient ruins… except that they’re very much *alive*.
Chicago’s respect for its history, especially its architectural one, is more evidence that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
I’m also fascinated by trees as living things and everything they live through and endure.
I took a moment to self reflect about my Grandparents. I was somewhat judgemental of the silliest things of them until their deaths in my mid 40’s, to my now great regret.
Their modest mid century concrete block S FL house was such a tasteless collection of souvenir spoons, old issues of National Geographic, with the giant wood Magnavox stereo always softly playing easy listening and parakeets twittering away. And my Granddad:s favorite restaurant was Sizzler and favorite beer was the brand on special. And he wore Fred Mertz pants to boot. They never even used the dang answering machine I gave them, as if it’s really that important they’ll call back. I’d often say to myself, “don’t get old, too-” when I’d leave.
Now, I’m old. And I’d do anything to go back there again.
Thank you for this reflection, and it’s one I think many can identify with from one time or another. I did go through a thing when I hadn’t even tried to hide my disdain from the things my grandparents liked, like big “boat” like cars, easy listening music, and Sanka. Later, though, things they liked became comforting touchstones for me when my own world seemed a lot less certain. Hopefully in your case, the sight of “Fred Mertz” pants now makes you think of positive things you remember about your grandparents.
Joseph, your reflections on your grandfather are precious. I knew both sets of grandparents and one great-grandmother. My maternal grandparents were physically and spiritually close to me. We lived in an apartment house in The Bronx. I would go to see my grandparents, two flights up (who would take the elevator?) after dinner. First, I would sit with my Grandpa Pete and converse with him as he ate his meal and downed three shots of his homemade Armenian brandy, distilled from raisins and flavored with anise. It is within you to seek out grandparents, which you did. Thus, you benefitted from knowing your grandfather. Grandparents are treasures whose hearts open when asked. My maternal grandmother died when I was forty years of age. In her remaining seven years, she lived in her two-story log cabin in The Adirondack Mountains where I would visit her monthly. Until I got married, then it would be bi-monthly, but as her last year was nigh, Meline and I would go monthly. She was using a walker. Yet, when she was past 76, she made an apple pie for me, a fabulous apple pie, because I was coming to visit. So, we give our love and they return it many times over. Love the ’53 Ford, too. I remember when the ’52 came out that we were shocked by the bright taillights. To wit, taillights were not so bright prior to then. As for “Mainline,” the term was not in use for drug injection at the time of the Ford Mainline. An interesting remark from a friend of my brother when we traveled a distance in his dad’s ’54 Ford Country Sedan in the 1960’s was that the Ford will fall apart but the heater will still work great.
Thomas, this is all such a great portrait of a different time and place. Thank you for taking the time to share this. I’m sure you savored every bite of your grandma’s apple pie. No one’s fried chicken will ever come close to my grandma’s.
Your musings today hit home with me.
When I was a little kid, I lived with my grandmother. I’m not quite sure why that happened, but I suspect that grandmom, who was recently widowed, enjoyed having me around, and I preferred the quiet of her apartment to my own house with my (annoying) older sister. Consequently, I was very close to grandmom for the rest of my childhood.
Years later, after I got my drivers license, I found that I enjoyed driving to her apartment, and just spending afternoons with her. By that time, I realized that her upbringing (she’d emigrated from Russia as a teenager) was fascinating to me, so I enjoyed asking her questions and listening to her stories. Many of those stories were things even my mom had never heard.
We all make good and bad decisions in life, and spending time with grandmom as a teenager is a memory I’ve come to cherish. She passed away when I was 17, so if I hadn’t spent the time with her then, I never would have been able to.
Incidentally, my grandfather passed away shortly before I was born. Like your grandpa, many folks commented that I resembled him in build, voice and mannerisms. Though I never met him, one of the things I associate with him was his car, which, incidentally, was a Ford. In the late 1960s, he bought a green Galaxie 500 – after a lifetime of hard work, he was proud of that car. I can just picture him (or me, if I was around in 1967) behind the wheel. After he passed away, my mom inherited the Galaxie – it was demolished when a drunk driver hit it while it was parked in front of our house. Mom was devastated to lose such a tangible connection to her father.
Thanks for today’s essay – certainly brightened my day.
Your time with your grandma, both when you were younger and later when you drove there, sound like great times. And you know now how key it was for you to be there before she passed when you were a teenager. I’m also fascinated and so pleasantly surprised to read in the comments at CC just how many of us are a generation or two removed from other countries, on one or both sides. I absolutely love that.
Great storytelling, and sharing of thoughts, Joseph. Just a casual observation, but I would describe you, as a very thoughtful, and empathetic person. And both those qualities, I feel you have developed through time spent with older people, that meant a lot to you.
This Ford may appear, a little sad and tired today. But its styling, and role in 1953, would have been very purposeful. Thanks to CC, I now have a strong respect and appeal, for domestic cars of the early ’50’s. Low on pretense. High on integrity.
Thanks for this!
Thanks so much, Daniel. I count my empathy among my best qualities, even when I have to temper it with seriousness. “Low on pretense and high on utility” sound like great qualities for a car or anything.
I loved this essay. As a kid, I enjoyed listening to the old folks. I got to spend time with 3 of my 4 natural grandparents, and 2 step-grandparents. I loved listening to what their lives had been like in former times and came to appreciate the value of some of those lessons, whether offered purposely or not.
This Ford really does look like an old grandparent, ready to impart some wisdom about driving or repair from the old days. It also reminds me of the 52 Ford hardtop my Aunt Norma and Uncle John were still driving in the early 60s. The navy over ivory Victoria had been their first new car, after a couple of ancient Ford hand-me-downs in their first 3 years of marriage.
I guess that’s why I like my old cars in stock form instead of as resto mods. One is about me letting the old car impart its wisdom to me, the other is about me trying to do all of the talking and none of the listening.
Thanks, JP, and framed within the context of stock versus restomod as you’ve explained it, I totally get it. I still about my deceased relatives from time to time and what they’d do in certain scenarios. I have a fridge magnet of my grandma and me of a photo I’ve used in a previous essay here at CC. She used to tell me to remember who I am. That resonates more with me as an adult probably than it ever did when I was a kid.
I never met my paternal grandparents; both died in Europe in WW2 (as civilians). My maternal grandfather lived on the other side of the country and I only met him a few times, though as a teen I spent two summers with him. He seemed more interested in learning about me, and getting to know me, than I was in his past life. Now of course I wish I had asked and listened more. By the way, he drove a Dart Swinger, and as an older person (born in 1900) and immigrant, I’m not sure he knew all the connotations of the name. Perhaps it made him feel youthful, as he always called it his Swinger and not his Dart.
I think it’s a wonderful thing that you got to spend those two summers with him. And yeah, the “Swinger” name from late ’60s Chrysler. They seemed to select very counterculture leaning things in their advertisements, even if some of it was unintentional. “Join the Dodge Rebellion!” etc. I’ve got mad love for Chrysler Corporation products from that era, though.
I never knew three of my grandparents, two who died before I was born and the other (maternal granddad) when I was 3 and have no recollection of him. My maternal grandmother though lived to be 96, at which time I was 31. My family made the trip from the DC area up to Montreal to see her and the rest of my mom’s family every summer, and she often visited us until she wasn’t healthy enough for the long trip. Nearly all my conversations with my grandma were about catching up with how she and her family were doing. While that’s most of what I want to talk about when I visit relatives in another country, I do wish now that I’d also asked her about other things. I think back now and realize she was born in 1900 and put her life on a timeline: when she was a baby girl the airplane hadn’t been invented yet and horse-drawn carriages were the predominant form of longer-distance travel. She was a 12-year-old when the Titanic sank, a teenager when World War 1 broke out, well into her 20s when radio and sound movies arrived, and in her 40s during WW2. Firsthand recollections of these and other historic events from my grandmother would have been interesting.
While it may seem dull that all ’53 Fords were just body-style and trim variations of the same basic car rather than the dozen or so distinct models a mainstream brand sells today, the flip side was that there was tremendous variation on how you could equip that one car, with typically 50+ a la carte options you could mix and match from. It wasn’t uncommon to have about 6 engine choices, 3 transmissions, different seating styles, power assists for steering/brakes/windows/doors/seats, different rooflines, convenience features, axle ratios, suspension enhancements, and a whole lot more. This was the norm for American cars well into the 1980s, nothing at all like today when your only choice is which of three immutable trim/equipment groupings you want, and which shade of grey the paint is. The huge menu of options I could pick and choose from is what I most miss about old cars.
When did Ford last refer to 2-door and 4-door cars as “Tudor” and “Fordor”? I don’t remember ever seeing those terms in mid-70s or later brochures.
A word of advice to anyone who wants to pass old photos to their kids and family: label them with who’s in the picture, where it was, and at what event. I have boxes full of old photos from my aunts and uncles, but nobody living today knows who most of the people in them are.
There’s a lot of great stuff here – thank you. The historical timeline through which your maternal grandmother had lived contained so many noteworthy historical things within the context of what many of us have learned about.
It’s also a great point about the *a la carte* approach to options on cars, which seems largely extinct.
One of my aunts had given me a large box of family photos, with very few of those pictures labeled in terms of who those individuals were, or what they would be to me. They’re fascinating documents, but that’s all they are now without knowing who those people are. I may still pay to have them scanned, much like I’d see vintage photos at resale shops.
Nice article! My maternal grandfather (1877 – 1965) had a similar green 1953 Fordor Mainline. His wife died in 1952, and the next year he bought the new car, and he and an elderly brother took a “road trip” from Western Illinois to visit Yellowstone National Park; it was the farthest he ever traveled in his life…
He used to tell me about his visit to the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair – he marvelled at the giant Ferris Wheel and all the dazzling electric lights; it was the first time he saw electric lights…
Born in tiny rural Buffalo Prairie IL, he eventually became a State Farm Insurance agent, and one of the first agents in the area to sell vehicle insurance in the early 1920’s…
1877! He was born into a rural world of isolation, back – breaking work, and darkness. Life was a struggle – no plumbing, electricity, dirt paths for roads, school schedules were arranged around harvest times as kids were needed for farm work. The germ theory of disease, not to mention cars, planes, radio/TV, modern mass production, etc. were still in the future. ..
The house he was born in still stands. Nearby is a cellphone tower, and now farmers have hi – tech means to assist them in their work (air – conditioned tractors, GPS, computers…); they fly to Aruba, Hawaii, Europe for vacations and retire to Arizona or Florida…
Life changed more during Grandpa Merton’s 1877 – 1965
lifespan than during many previous centuries… amazing!
This is fascinating. See, it’s accounts like this that put so much into perspective in terms of what my little speck of time here is like relative to everything else. This realization is part of why I’ve tried to incorporate more intentionality around my choices these days and living life more fully. Doing things that could be more impactful. That kind of stuff.
Exactly, Joseph! Grandpa frew up in the gaslight and horse – and – buggy age, and he lived until the Space Age, with atomic power, computers, easy jet transportation to anywhere in the world, modern sanitation and medical care… not to mention major health advances that increased the quality and span of our lives…
OTOH, we today have been living in the “Modern World” all our lives, even those of us who are older…
BTW, after that 1953 Ford, his two subsequent cars were a light green ’57 Ford Custom, and another dark blue ’64 Custom. Although he had a good income, these were all 6 – cylinder strippers, the only options being an automatic, radio, and heater – very typical for older rural folks in that era…
A funny thing – in the summer of 1962 we were all went to Grandpa’s house to watch the tirst Telstar live satellite TV broadcasts between the US and Europe*. To my eight – year old self, this was an exciting miracle! When we were watching those first grainy live B/W scenes on the Admiral console TV, Grandpa said, “Well, this is boring – I’d rather be watching the Miss America Pageant”. lol…!!! He was relatively nonplussed by all this “progress”, he took all in stride…
[ * I am 70, and this is still the most amazing “technological” thing I’ve seen in my life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telstar
“Telstar 1 relayed its first, and non-public, television pictures—a flag outside Andover Earth Station—to Pleumeur-Bodou on July 11, 1962…
Almost two weeks later, on Monday, July 23, at 3:00 p.m. EDT, it relayed the first publicly available live transatlantic television signal. The broadcast was shown in Europe by Eurovision and in North America by NBC, CBS, ABC, and the CBC. The first public broadcast featured CBS’s Walter Cronkite and NBC’s Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels…
The first pictures were the Statue of Liberty in New York and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The first broadcast was to have included remarks by President John F. Kennedy, but the signal was acquired before the president was ready, so engineers filled the lead-in time with a short segment of a televised game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. From there, the video switched first to Washington, DC; then to Cape Canaveral, Florida; to the Seattle World’s Fair; then to Quebec and finally to Stratford, Ontario…” ]
Conversations with Grandparents, and even our own parents, can be difficult at certain ages. As little kids we don’t ask many questions about their past, and as we get older we often don’t listen very closely to what they are telling us. After they are gone, we find ourselves with a lot of unanswered questions.
If you prepare a list of questions, they have to be asked delicately, as a lot of people don’t like to be interviewed, as it feels like an interrogation. In my situation with my Grandfolks, there were language barriers that made it hard to communicate. It was easier with my parents, I had always spent a lot of time talking with my Mother as we were pretty close. My Dad was more reserved and I didn’t really get real close to him until after my Mom died. I would visit once a week and we would spend hours talking about a wide range of subjects, though not a lot about his youth. he didn’t like to dwell on the past. I still have a few gaps in my understanding of events in his life.
I realized that my own kids, now in their 30’s, might someday want to know about my history. I got a Father’s Day journal, one with a series of questions about my life, and a space to write the responses down. Those spaces were ridiculously small, so I bought a couple of lined journals and answered the questions to my satisfaction in those. I have given my kids the opportunity to read these journals. Yes, go through old photos and identify the people, dates, events, and locations before it’s too late.
I just bought my first real antique car from the ’40’s, it’s an older restoration, (40+ years at least) and all stock. When I look at, and drive that car I feel a real connection to a pivotal era in not only American history, but also in my family’s story, as my Mom was born in 1930 and lived through the trauma of the WWII era and it’s impact on our family and all our society. Old cars have a story to tell. Original cars can tell the story more honestly.
Jose, I have liked that you referenced creation of your own “dad book” in which to pass along some key information. These are ideas that I wish had been about back before the health of the elders in my family that I felt close to had health that had deteriorated and it was too late.
And yay for your newest acquisition! I hope we get to read about it here.
I had a lot of time with my maternal grandmother in Innsbruck, as she lived below us. She was a real gem, and her obvious love and affection were treasured.
Given the lack of a V8 emblem on the front fender this has the ohv six, actually a better choice than the elderly flathead V8, in objective terms.
We had a ’54 sedan as our first car in the US. I have fond memories of it. It seemed so big at the time, coming from Austria.
Paul, thanks for the tip on the lack of V8. This is exactly the kind of thing that I have learned here at CC on various makes and models. Sometimes, I don’t learn until I post something with a question mark.
I just happen to have a model of both this basic car and a 1918 Ford Model T Runabout advertising the Model T Ford Club of America on its sides; I found these at an antique store. ERTL made the “T” and I figured out the model year by reading the information on the bottom of it. Although hard to make out, it also commemorates the 30th Anniversary of the Model T Club (1965-1995) and is apparently the 3rd one to collect that during that time. This model will be 30 years old this year!
I believe the red car is in fact a 1953 Customline Fordor; no idea who made this one but the inside of it is hollow and the rear axle has a gear in it so it must have been a friction or pull-back motor unit when it was new. Again, it’s hard to make out from the picture alone (magnifying it doesn’t really help), but when looking closely at the fenders I could make out the “Customline” script and a V8 emblem. The hood ornament is clearly visible, though.
Regal Motors in Louisiana has a very similar real-life counterpart to my model, with a bit more detail of course!