I had to charge the dead battery on my riding mower today, so I grabbed a very familiar device. And then I remembered that I had bought it for my very first car, a 1963 Corvair Monza. My brother had given it to me in the fall of 1972, when he went off to a stint at Thule AFB as a contractor. By the time the cold Iowa winter of those pre-climate-change days set in, I didn’t use the Corvair very often, as I lived close to downtown. But when I did need it, the battery had gone dead. And it would keep going soft, as there was obviously some continuous drain on it. So I bought this battery charger. And I still have it today. And has it ever been used a lot over the decades.
It has no automatic features, so one has to remember to take it off after some hours, depending on the size of the battery. But it’s still humming away. And I found a couple of other relics for cars #2 and #3.
In 1973, I bought my first VW Beetle; a ’64. Since I was a free spirit and hit the road with all my worldly possessions rather frequently, I bought a factory roof rack, which was a sturdy galvanized thing. Keeping all my things from flying off was a challenge, but then I saw this roof rack bungee-web in the JCWhitney catalog, and ordered it. It’s from France no less, which makes some sense. And it worked great.
I’d just keep tossing stuff up there, and when it was a big pile, I’d throw this over and hook it to the four edge rails of the rack. It’s very flexible (well, it was anyway), so it would cover quite a load.
My Peugeot 404 wagon had a great big factory roof rack, and I used it on it too. Haven’t used it since, but it’s still in my bungee cord bin, just in case.
This is a brake adjusting tool for my Peugeot 404s. As is obvious, it’s pretty necessary unless one happens to have a similar shaped tool to stick into the backing plate of a 404 drum brake. Like so many things on the Peugeots, their adjustment provision was a bit of brilliant engineering, as one just inserted it into the hole and turned it. Much easier than the typical drum brake adjusters, which can be a bit of a pain.
I bought it at the Peugeot dealer in Santa Monica, and have kept it for…just in case. I ground down the polished end of it for some other purpose that I have long forgotten.
Got any relics from your early cars?
Here’s the 1948 DeSoto carburetor I “helped” my dad change when I was knee-high. Logos for both “Carter” and “Ball & Ball mfd. for Chrysler” are cast into the body. My brother found it a couple of years ago when our old family home was being torn down. I had re-discovered it as a teen in 1978 and marked the box with the date and “DeSoto carburetor, do not discard.”
Next to it is the Clymer manual for my ’74 Datsun B-210 hatchback and the Stewart-Warner oil pressure & ammeter I installed in said Datsun. The gauges had been previously installed in my ’71 Pontiac Grandville.
I do have some things leftover from previous cars – the usual window stickers, service records, etc. Lots of old brochures too. For the Japanese cars that came with valet keys (remember those), I think I still have ones from most of the Hondas and Toyotas that I have owned. When I bought the cars I tossed the valet keys in the drawer and always forgot to pull them back out when I sold or traded the car.
At some point in the next year or so I’ll be doing a deep-dive decluttering of the basement and garage. I know I’ll be tossing “in the day” tools and parts such as dwell tach, timing light, feeler gauges, gaskets, filter wrenches, plugs, points, condensers, hoses, etc. Deep in there somewhere are things like a CB radio, an AM/FM/cassette unit with biaxial speakers that were transferred from car to car, CIBI quartz-halogen headlamps, various antennae, license plate brackets, shop manuals for German (i.e., real) Opels and Triumph Spitfires, dealer brochures, windows stickers, outdated antifreeze/brake and power steering fluid, old oil, funnels, drain pans… already gone on too long. Not looking forward to it, but must be done. Wonder how much I won’t manage to part with?
I still have a full hubcap and a metal dealer name plate (was screwed into the trunk lid) from my ’57 Chevy that was old in 1975.
I have these essential items for any classic Mopar owner that have been collecting dust in my stash.
Haha thats great. I still have the Sears low output battery charger I got in the early 70s Use it every spring when I bring my hobby car back to life. I also have the dwell meter that was great for GM points systems that were adjustable while running. Don’t need that anymore but will keep it on the shelf. Also have a timing light of the same vintage. Haven’t used it in a while.
I still have a 6/12v Montgomery Ward all metal battery charger. It would have been purchased for my first VW in the late 1960’s. I use it for the deep cycle camper batteries now.
Owner manuals for a 1984 Caprice and a 1975 Camaro, Chevrolet name from a 1978 Malibu wagon, DAF nameplate from a 1973 Daf 66 Marathon, a few shopmanuals dor different cars, and a lot of small oarts from various cars over the years.
What a great question. I found: a tobacco can full of VW Beetle hardware, an oil pump puller for said VW, a dwell tachometer (Saves Gas, Time, and Money), a wrench for the fuel filter on the carb of a ’85 Chevy S-10 pickup, and a fan wrench (I think) for a ’91 Ford Explorer with V-6. I also found the glue gun that I lost which means I have two of them now.
Not auto-related, but on my desk at work I still have an intermediate electrode for a hydrogen duoplasmatron used in 1986 (I’m not making that up). I bet nobody has one of THOSE.
I lost several cars to accidents here in Chico, most were parked when hit by cars traveling between 25 and 100 mph. I live on a street that is also a highway, speed limit is 35 mph. But a lot of street racing goes on in early morning hours. My ’62 New Yorker hardtop was in my driveway when hit by a 68 Thunderbird with a 429 CJ engine. Estimated speed at impact 125 mph, broadside into the NY. After knocking the NY out of the way, the T-bird took out 80 feet of landscaping, trees and fence before destroying the neighbors ’57 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.The guy was drunk (the cop said his alcohol content should have killed him), he lived through it. I usually pulled any good parts off as I still hope to find replacement cars. So, I have enough sections of cars to build very different looking cars, also have 25-30 dashboards, many with push buttons. 200+ car keys, usually with marque heads. Front car seats out of my wrecked cars, including swivel Imperial seats. Spare engines, etc. And car related; car magazines from 1949 up, most of Motor Trend, hundreds of other titles, thousands of model cars, with one of most every car I owned. And I have a full #3-4 condition parts car for every car owned except my DeSoto. I only have a spare body for it and some chrome parts. I don’t park in the front driveway anymore, some of the exotics are running 200+ mph now and hoping they can’t take out the three 100+ year old walnut and oak trees protecting the house.
I still have (and use) the very first oil change drain pan I ever bought. I bought it to change the oil of my ’79 Fairmont Futura’s 200 strait six. It’s made of blue plastic and shaped like a triangle to make the used oil easy to pour out into a container. I’d take a picture to share, but it’s now dark out, and the drain pan is out in the shed. I may change the oil in my Mustang tomorrow and I’ll take a picture to share.
I bought it at Salvo Auto Parts in Fullerton, a suburb of northeastern Baltimore County. Around the same time, I bought a blue plastic funnel, and then later, a red spout that screws onto a plastic quart bottle that has a valve you twist to turn the flow on and off when using bottles like that. After nearly 40 years, this thing’s molded threads are finally starting to get weak, so I have to be careful using it anymore. Most of the time, I just use the funnel. It has had a crack in it for about 20 years now, but near the top, so if I don’t fill the funnel all the way, it works just fine. Since the oil I bought for the Mustang this time is in a big 5 quart bottle, I’ll be using the funnel if I do this tomorrow.
The only other relic of note is a pair of brand new still in the box twin tube exhaust tips I got for my ’97 Grand Prix GTP, which was a goodie you could get to make the Grand Prix look like the concept car that debuted in 1995. Yeah, that car is long gone, but those exhaust tips are still out in my shed. Never did get around to installing them.
Ok, I’m a week late with this, but the old relics (still in use) as promised. Oil change day… 9/23/17 @ 174,269 on the clock….
Somewhere I have the hood ornament from my moms 76 park ave
And I think I still have the badge that covered the trunk lock too
And I’m pretty sure I still have the owners manual for my 95 Grand AM
A 17 (?) mm hex key for the transmission fill plug on an ex-gf’s ’65 VW Bus who/which I haven’t seen since ’85 or thereabouts. Anyone interested? Cheap…
Well, I have so many parts, tools, manuals etc from so many vehicles.
But topping the list is the rusty hulk of my high-school era, ’61 Mercedes Ponton 180 in my side-yard. And the brand new front bumper for it up in my attic – bought from the Mercedes dealer decades ago, when they had a major mark-down on parts nobody else wanted – and I thought I was going to restore the car someday!
Happy Motoring, Mark
P.S. Today’s CC effect – Just before my return trip from the Winchester Va. area this afternoon, I stopped to admire a roadside 1962 Corvair. Immaculate white coupe, red interior, stick-shift, 55K miles.
Seller claimed all original except carpet and tires. Asking $7900.
For some reason, I have keys for the 70s AMC Concorde my mother drove when I was very little…which was the mid-90s.
I still have this unopened in a closet. The box cover even matches the color of my beloved-and-still-missed 1984 CRX.
I still have (and use) the GMAC key ring I received when I bought my ’84 Cavalier from a Pontiac-Buick dealer in 1988. I also have a spark plug gapping tool in my toolbox that I haven’t used in years, since we do not currently own a car (we rent as needed). There’s also a photo kicking around somewhere of my paternal grandmother in front of our ’61 VW with myself (at 1 year old) and my older sister (same age as the car). It was taken when she came to visit from Scotland in 1964.
My Dad was given this ersatz touch of luxury by the dealer who sold him a new 1979 Audi 5000 S in Denver, CO. He didn’t get around to mounting it on the dash. I think he liked the nameplate, but didn’t feel the need to pretend the car was “built especially for…”.
When Dad died in 2016, I offered it as a totem to place next to him before the lid went down, celebrating his lifelong love of cars—a dash plaque for his “last ride”— but my brother correctly pointed out that the Audi was really just a sidebar in Norm’s motoring life. There were scores of cars he had owned that meant more to him. He only had if for a year before the company gave him a lease car, a 1980 Citation that broke down outside of Salt Lake City at the very beginning of its first vacation trip.
Instead, we buried him with a framed photo of his 1927 Pierce Arrow Model 80 touring car, owned from 1978 – 2000, the one amongst many that gave him and our Mom the most hours of pure pleasure on the road.
Nice.
My ’66 Mustang has one of those on the dash from, what I assume is the original owner. I googled his name but came up with nothing.
My Dad died in 2006 and when cleaning out the house after Mom died in 2009 I kept his Pinto repair manual even though I have never owned one. Dad owned 2 of them plus a Bobcat and really liked them. I also found a steering wheel center cap from his ’62 Olds wagon. It had a broken clip on it, so Dad must have replaced it one of the two times he owned the car, but that is another story. My siblings probably think I am nuts for this, but that Olds was the car my folks loved the most. I am trying to figure out how to mount it on my man cave wall right under his picture and his last licence plate.
I have way too much. My 1972 Maverick was stolen late in its life and was found abandoned and trashed after being used in various crimes. The insurance company had paid off the claim but allowed me to retrieve things from the car as it sat in the salvage yard. So I have a complete file, including the manual and the starting instructions printed on a paper that slipped over the driver’s sun visor. A good reminder of carburetors for some of us who’ve not experienced them in many years.
I still have the number (licence) plate from my first car. Fiat 125S. A Papua New Guinea plate. There can’t be too many of those about.
I’m late to this one, but yes, I still have the spare key to my 1968 Beetle. It looks brand new. I think I still have two oil change gasket sets (“Dichtungssatz fur Oelwechesel”) in a drawer. Amazingly, I still have a nearly full box of Champion L88A plugs from my Sunoco station, which I really must give to someone. I didn’t use them up because, as I recall, Volksies hated Champion plugs for some reason.
Champion used a *slightly* different thread pitch that caused the threads in the cylinder head to strip out necessitating a fairly simple engine in car repair .
Any old VW Mechanic hated those plugs because of this surprise damage ~ you’d discover it during a tune up and have to add to the bill, never a happy thing on economy cars .
-Nate
My first was a 1959 Auto Union – DKW 3=6. I still have the carburetor on a display shelf.
Hello all.
What fun. I have a made in the USSR wrench from a Lada car and a Chiltons Pinto repair book.