(My grandmother, circa 1949)
Most of you know how I like to bring up my grandfather and his Oldsmobiles, but you may notice how I rarely mention my grandmother when discussing cars. There’s a good reason. My grandmother never owned a car because she never had a driver’s license.
(Their street in Southie, early 1950s)
When my grandparents were first married and living in South Boston, he was teaching her to drive. Unfortunately, one day when my grandfather’s car was parked at the bottom of a hill, a parked truck’s brakes gave out, and it rolled down the hill into my grandfather’s car, severely damaging it. Nana was spooked by the incident and never got behind the wheel of a car again. For the rest of their 53 years of marriage, they were a one-car couple. In addition to raising five children, my grandmother was often working multiple jobs for many of those years. She had to rely on walking, public transportation, and rides from friends and family until she retired from her final job as my great uncle’s secretary in her early sixties.
That didn’t stop Nana from liking cars and having some opinions regarding them. She was not a huge fan of small cars, as she felt that they weren’t as safe or comfortable. She also preferred vehicles that weren’t particularly high or low, as ease of entry was important after her hip replacement. Despite this, there was a yellow Mazda Protege5 we would frequently spot over at Castle Island (a popular walking spot in South Boston) that Nana would always joking say would be her first car. Yellow was her favorite color.
(My grandfather’s actual ’97 Eighty-Eight, in its final years)
Had my grandmother driven, I picture her driving a Buick or Oldsmobile like my grandfather. He and her brother were both GM people, so I assume she would’ve followed. Nana also required cars with lots of storage for her trademark white visor, oversized sunglasses, Family Circle magazines, and the ever accumulating stash of Dunkin’ Donuts napkins (she never had to buy Kleenex!).
I also recall one specific memory in her final years when she was enamored over a car we saw in a parking lot. It happened to be a new Jaguar XF. Nana had expensive tastes!
(c. 1990)
My grandmother passed away four years ago at the age of 86. Her 90th birthday would’ve been today. Although she never drove during my lifetime, I have a lifetime of cherished memories and stories of her, many that took place in cars. So, even though my grandmother didn’t drive, I’m sure most of yours did and I’m curious to know what they drove. Did they like big comfortable cars like mine, or smaller, more economical cars? Or, did they drive something surprising like the little old lady I saw climb up into a ice blue Tahoe the other day?
LeSabre, LeSabre, LeSabre
My paternal grandmother had one of these in blue with the snazzy road wheels. I’ll remember that car forever as I shut one of my fingers in the door as a small boy. Good thing the panel gaps were pretty big back then! It was replaced by an early 80’s Chevy Malibu 4 door and then a Chevy Corsica as her last car. Grandfather kept driving C body Buick’s but grandmother got Chevy’s after he retired.
My other grandmother never learned to drive, which was a big problem when my other grandfather had to stop driving due to his vision. He was an Oldmobile man.
Yes, Buick after Buick after Buick. The last was a ’55 Century, preceded by a ’50 Super, the rest came before I was born.
Same here. The one I remember distinctly was the rusted-out ’78 she bequeathed us when she upgraded to an ’87 Century. It was a horrible, horrible car, and it permanently soured me on Buicks. I can’t look at one without having flashbacks to that peach-colored monstrosity with its beige-ish vinyl roof and the broken grill and the missing hubcaps and the hole rusted into the front passenger floor where the carpet would get soaked right through in a rainstorm and the roof that leaked everywhere, even places that a solid automotive roof has no place leaking and- you know what? That thing was a complete nightmare of a car, and I really wish that it hadn’t been because now that I have a better appreciation for these things I know that it should not have been the way it was.
Okay, the last car she had was a mid-90s Regal in powder blue with a classy blue interior. That one was MUCH nicer. But anyways, Buicks until she stopped driving.
Sorry I can’t help – like yours, both of my grandmas never learned how to drive (even though women drivers in Israel were not such a rare sight even back then (30s – 40s)).
My grandmother had the typical “grandma car” when I was younger (A 1979 Impala), but that was replaced with a Jetta Mk1 Coupe (inherited from my mother, this Jetta was also the first car I went to school in) with a 5 speed she drove until over 200k miles. The Jetta was eventually replaced with a new 2002 Civic sedan (an automatic is easier on her knees), still going strong with just over 30k miles on it after almost 14 years.
… but they graciously accepted being driven: Grandma 1 (on my father’s side) is just visible behind dad’s Plodge
An LT-1 powered Caprice for over 20 years. Always garage kept and dealer maintained.
… and Grandma 2 tolerated grandpa’s torture of a number of Simcas (and then a Subaru)…
Is that a Simca 1000?
Yep, he had 2 or 3, then one of the FWD 1100s.
I just noticed the visor over the windshield. Adds a little flair. I’ll bet your grandpa loved it. I sure would like to putt around in one today.
My only grandma died 3 years ago (she would have been 99 in April). In my 37 years with her, she only had 3 cars. The first was an Olds Cutlass Supreme. I can’t recall exactly, but I want to say it was a ’71 (could have been any of those ’68-’72). I was VERY young when she had this car and really don’t remember it other than the color was Sherwood Green. Next was a ’76 Cordoba – beautiful car. Dark green with green vinyl top and green plush velour (nope, no Corinthian Leather). 360/4bbl – Gram always said the car really enjoyed being driven about 80mph. The giant coupe doors got to be too heavy for her, so she bought her final car in 1988 – an Olds Cutlass Cierra. It was a fine, reliable vehicle for her that only had 40 some thousand miles on it when she smashed it into the hospital after confusing the brake and gas thus ending her driving career.
My Nana Tina drove a BIG ole Blue ’72 Dodge Polara. Little old red headed Italian lady driving this barge. My Uncle Danny lost the car in the Mississippi river in the mid ’80s when it came out of park and rolled down the cobblestones into the water. He worked on a riverboat (The Tom Sawyer Maybe?) as a bar tender. She was pissed! My Nana bought an ’81 T-bird to replace it.
Gramma drove a succession of little imports – they didn’t need a second car til they moved to Philly in the early 60s (lifelong New Yorkers). First was a 63 or so Bug, then a Peugeot which she always talked about as her favorite car, both were stick. I’d like to imagine it was a 404. When they moved back to the city Gramma didn’t really need a car anymore, and Grampa had a succession of Lincolns, starting with a ’63 and I’m told another in the 70s, then the one I remember most, an ’83 Town Car (I loved sitting in it and playing with the gadgets). At the insistence of Gramma, he traded it on whatever the last year of Volvo 740 had quad headlamps (’90?) – at that point his driving skills got questionable and Gramma started driving again. They sold it in 2000 after Grampa had a bad fall and became bedridden, and neither ever drove again.
Zenith blue 1968 Volkswagen Beetle with Automatic Stickshift.
(not the actual car)
My grandmother never learned to drive an automatic car. My grandfather was always a nash/rambler/amc man.Nana drove a 57 metropolitan hardtop in my early years, a mid 60’s rambler American, and her final car was a 70 amc hornet 2 door. I was given the hornet in 1985. Drove it from Fl to Nj. What a challenge.
What’s to learn on an automatic?
not to push the clutch.
In my RamCharger I often find myself reaching for the 4wd transfer case lever when I want to shift!
I can remember my dad teaching my grandma how to drive an automatic when she traded her ’59 Biscayne 6 stick shift for a 283 four barrel Turboglide Impala. It took her a time to get used to it.
Remembering that the car will creep forward in drive. Parallel parking requires a bit of care if you’re accustomed to a manual gearbox and conventional clutch.
My paternal grandmother died at the age of 99 in 2012. She only learned to drive in the late 1940s, and even then she never really liked driving. The first family car she really talked about was their 1951 Studebaker Champion four-door sedan. They purchased it from my father when he bought a slightly used 1953 Champion Starlight coupe in 1954.
My grandmother never drove the Studebaker much, as it had a manual transmission. When my grandfather died in late 1964, she immediately traded the Studebaker on a 1962 Ford Falcon sedan. Her main motivation was that the Falcon had an automatic transmission.
The Falcon was totaled after being hit from behind in early 1969. She then bought a 1966 Dodge Dart 270, which she had until the summer of 1977. She traded that car on a 1973 Maverick sedan, which she did not like, as it used too much gas. The Maverick was wrecked in 1981 by my aunt. In addition to the gas mileage issue, I remember it as having a really good radio, and a level of interior fit-and-finish that was a cut above other American compacts of that era.
My grandmother then purchased a used 1973 Dodge Dart Custom, which she really liked, and drove until she gave up driving in the early 1990s. She really liked the Mopar compacts, as they were roomy, easy to enter and exit and easy to park. They also didn’t require many repairs with the Slant Six engine and Torqueflight transmission. She regularly commented on how smooth the engine was.
Because of her, I always think of 1960s and 1970s American compacts with six-cylinder engines and automatic transmissions as “grandma” cars.
My grandmothers, born 1884 and 1890, didn’t drive during my lifetime. It didn’t occur to me to ask if they’d ever driven, much less what kind of car.
Same for me….neither of my Grandmothers (born in 1910 and 1912) ever drove, though both my Grandfathers had cars….maybe partly because they lived in a city…I’m not sure how my one grandmother got to work (guessing someone drove her), the other one ran a mom and pop (or rather grandma and grandpa) store on the ground floor of their house, so she only had to go down the stairs to get to work. What I remember most is that one of my grandmothers thought I drove a sports car (I think because it was an import…maybe she thought all imports were sports cars…though I knew my Datsun 710 was decidedly never close to being a sports car)
My paternal grandmother never drove. She was born in India, where they had drivers to do that.
My maternal grandmother, however, drove for most of her life. She was born in 1907 in the UK, and before she was married she drove a Morris Cowley “Bullnose”. After an accident, she’d had it repaired and resprayed red, which was rare at the time – so the car was known locally as the “Red Peril”.
Between that and when my memory begins, I don’t know much except that she had back problems which had been caused by an accident when crank-starting a car (perhaps the Morris). I imagine she drove various of my grandfather’s cars, which I’m told included a Ford Pilot V8, a Jaguar Mark V, and a Messerschmitt bubblecar.
The earliest car I can remember her driving was a Renault 10 (1100cc) which was later replaced by a 1300cc version. Her last car was a bright blue mid-1970s Mini Clubman which she drove at what seemed like terrifying speeds around the country lanes of Kent.
My grandmother always had either Mopars or Volkswagens – she went from a ’60 Beetle to a ’70 Squareback to a ’78 Horizon to an ’86 Horizon, all purchased new, as she believed that buying used was asking for trouble. All were what you’d call “’80s-equipped” – cloth seats, an automatic, a radio and very little else. In November of ’93 she replaced her beloved ’86 Horizon with a brand-new ’94 Plymouth Sundance; the car in which I was brought home from the hospital as an infant was replaced with the car in which I’d learn to drive. In 2004, my then-80-year-old grandmother replaced the Sundance, which was rusting badly, with the last of the Escorts – a 2002 4-door ex-rental. It was the first used car she’d bought in fifty years and the first ever with air conditioning, though it still had crank windows; she kept the Escort until 2012 when she decided she’d had enough and hung up the car keys for the last time. As it turned out, she had a few more good years left behind the wheel – after crawling up the walls for a month, I was able to get her into a Subaru Forester, which she liked because of the ease of ingress and egress. She decided not to renew her license this past December and voluntarily gave up the keys (for the second time) – but at 91 years young she’s still very much alive and alert. I’m grateful for the many years of good memories I have of her (and if I ever find a two-tone gray Horizon with the corduroy upholstery, I’ve already told my wife not to be surprised when it shows up).
My grandmother (b. 1888 Minsk-Pinsk area, d. 1974 Philadelphia) not only never learned to drive, I can’t even remember or imagine her discussing a car. My mother, (b 1920) who would likely be grandmother to many of the readers here, learned to drive at 16 on Uncle Yankle’s Model ‘A’, first bought a ’33 Chevrolet on her own after the war (no heater). After marriage, she didn’t have her ‘own’ car again ’til the family ’65 Valiant became hers, then a used ’65 Rambler, a used ’67 Beetle, a new ’75 Pinto, and a new ’82 Subaru. Then she and my father again shared the car, ’til we took his keys away two years ago. She’d already stopped driving in her mid-eighties.
I recently corresponded with my uncle about my grandparents cars and here’s what he said about his mother’s (my grandmother’s) cars:
Dad and mother were married in April 1936. Prior to their marriage, she had never driven. She alleged that she was too nervous to drive. Dad taught her to drive and bought her a new 1937 Oldsmobile two door sedan.
At the very end of 1941, Dad traded mother’s Oldsmobile for a 1941 Chrysler Windsor Club Coupe which had Chrysler’s semi automatic transmission.
In 1948, Dad traded mother’s 1941 Chrysler Windsor for a 1948 Chrysler Windsor four door sedan.
Then in 1955 the 1948 Chrysler Windsor was replaced by a new Buick Century four door hardtop.
In 1958 the Buick Century was replaced with the first four passenger Thunderbird for mother.
Mother’s 1958 Thunderbird was traded for a 1964 Thunderbird. Subsequently for several years her cars were leased, 1966, 1968, and 1970 Ford LTD four door sedans.
Her final car was a 1977 Ford Granada Ghia.
1981 Renault 5 – 850cc and 4 speed. Her first car since she used to drive her dad’s Sunbeam in the 30s.
Growing up in a working class town in Scotland in the 80s, grandparents who drove were relatively unusual. My grandpa got his first car in the late 70s.
Neither of my grandmothers drove a car nor had a license. Not surprising since one was born in 1907 and the other in 1910. My mother didn’t get her driving license until she was 21 years old in 1954.
My Grandma started driving in 1923. During the 20s she had two Overlands and four Franklins (I wish I knew more about her Franklins — all I know is their colors — red, green, blue, grey). She was very involved in the Eastern Star in New Jersey during that period and she drove all over the state attending meetings. After the depression hit, she switched to Pontiacs. By this time my grandfather had also learned to drive, but neither my mother nor my aunt did (Mom learned to drive at age 58 and was a dedicated Plymouth driver to the end — my brother still runs her 88 Reliant) The first car of Grandma’s that I remember was a 41 Pontiac C bodied coupe with no back seat. After that there was a 42 DeSoto, a 47 Nash 600 and a 51 Plymouth Concord two-door sedan (the short wheelbase fastback). She totalled that one and her mechanic got her a red 51 Dodge Coronet that she drove until 1961 when she felt that driiving conditions were not to her liking — too much traffic and she was leery of driving at night.
I’m another one where my Grandmothers never learned to drive, they were both born in the Netherlands around 1910, and their families never had cars until they emigrated in the early 1950’s.
My paternal Grandmother kept the 1980 Concord for a few years after Grandpa passed away, she liked to be driven in it on her errands.
Mrs DougD’s Grandmother was from Missaukee County MI, and although she has been gone over 10 years I can still hear her say “The best car I had was my 1950 Ford. Goodness that little car had a lot of pep..”
On this page I posted a photo of the 1936 Chevy she had during the war years (apparently not her favourite 🙂
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-american/curbside-classic-1936-chevrolet-master-deluxe-its-too-early-for-a-dubonnet/
Some thirties cars on Long Island, a Motorcycle in England, and a 1937 Dodge round trip from Long Island to the Navajo Nation in 1957. Gramps did not know how to drive and some issue with the Dodge meant it could only get up to 40 MPH on the return trip.
Land Rovers in Kenya including a grey one which the locals mistook for the police and would run away which makes Anthropologic work difficult. Dunno if that one was repainted or sold off. Also had a Crew Cab Toyota Hilux while over there.
In the states she drove Saab’s for 30 years or so until she bought a 2000 Volvo V40 1.8T and now her dementia is terrible so she has not driven in nearly 10 years.
I’ll join in here. My grandmothers were born in 1899 and 1902. From the shtetl to New York City, neither had a reason to learn to drive, as it was the “man’s job”, and one could get along fine in NYC without a car. My paternal grandfather was a Teamster, so he was happy to drive until a stroke debilitated him. My maternal grandfather died long before I was born.
Living in NYC, though, neither commuted by car. Cars were for pleasure use only.
I can name all of the cars my maternal grandmother had during my lifetime, she traded so seldom:
A probably ’74 Ford LTD, a deep green color, then..
A 1975 dark blue Mercury Marquis sedan, the car she and my grandpa bought right before he died–she kept that car for years, and then…
A late-80s B-body Buick Century, that she kept until she died in 2005 at 94.
They had a Torino before that, I think, probably a ’71 or so. My mother’s family were Ford people for years.
I’m a little hazy on my paternal grandmother’s cars, probably because she and my grandfather lived out of state, I didn’t see them as often, and he tended to dominate the car-purchasing process (and she didn’t survive him by as much). He had Fords in the ’70s, then had a couple of Cadillacs in the ’80s and ’90s, and that’s what I saw them driving, when I saw them (and it was always him driving).
My maternal grandmother never drove, my grandfather was an itinerant preacher and was constantly going from place to place. My paternal grandmother did most of the driving for her and my grandfather as he had suffered a stroke about the time I was born and he was not comfortable behind the wheel. When I was growing up they had a 1952 Dodge sedan (grandma was born in 1903). After my grandfather died my grandmother moved in with my uncle’s family for some years and didn’t own a car. When she came back to our hometown she purchased a 1959 Pontiac Star Chief; she had this when I first got my driver’s license and it was much nicer than my Ford. When the Chief got too rusty to keep on the road it was replaced with another Pontiac, a 1963 Catalina. Eventually this gave way to a (full size) 1972 Ford sedan. As you can tell, my grandmother was partial to big, solid Detroit iron.
My paternal grandmother had quit driving by the time I came along. My maternal grandmother drove Buicks. Her last car was a 1968 Buick LeSabre that neither my brother nor I took upon her death. I wish I had!
The one Grandmother that drove had a charming little blue Mini for many years.
My paternal grandmother never drove she was born prior to the motoring age and never learned, My maternal grandmother OTOH learned at age 60 when widowed and drove a pink 1956 Morris Minor untill it died then a blue 1968 Vauxhall Viva HB two door until she could no longer pass her test in her late 80s.
One grandmother never drove since she lived in Brooklyn until my grandfather retired and they moved to New Jersey. She took one driving lesson after he died and gave it up as too scary.
My other grandmother drove Oldsmobiles, a late 60s Cutlass Supreme and a Colonnade Cutlass sedan are what I remember although there may have been another car after the Cutlass.
My Grandmother on my Mom’s side from her first husband that died in his early 30’s due to radiation from being a WW2 radar operator drove a 68 Camero convertible (Green with green interior, white top, 350 auto with buckets, floor shift and AC). She died around 1970. Can’t remember what she drove before that. I don’t think my Grandmother on my fathers side drove. My Grandmother from my Mom’s step parent’s (it’s complicated) may have driven my Grandfathers 65 Bonneville convertible, she was ill in the hospital for many years and died there around 1969. (Beige w/white leather interior, white top, bench seat 389 auto w/AC). He only put the top down once, and that was so he could take a picture of it to show people what it looked like with the top down. After he passed in 1972 (broke his hip after hitting a softball I pitched to him) I drove it a few times with the top down before Mom sold it to a used car dealer. Beautiful car. The car before the Pontiac was I believe a 61 Tempest hardtop with the aluminum V8 and auto trans, it always used coolent and he was told it had a cracked block. Typical of the 215 engine. He was an engineer and said he always drove Pontiac’s because they had a stronger frame
Neither one of my grandmothers, born in 1882 and 1887 respectively, ever learned to drive, and had no interest in cars. For that matter, I think my grandfathers drove very little. I know that one of them briefly owned an Oakland, and I’d love to find a photo of it.
Paternal grandma – never drove. Ever.
Maternal grandma:
59 Impala
63 Impala
67 Impala
70 Impala
73 Impala(may have been a Caprice)
When grandpa passed:
78 280Z(manual!) I kid you not.
No memories here either. Dad was an orphan, and the Nana I knew (b.1882) never drove. Papa (b.1872) had a couple of mid-’20s Chev Fours on the farm, but by the time I knew him he was past driving.
Grandma had a 1970 Olds Delta 88 Holiday Coupe, Rocket 455 and all. Other grandma had a ’66 Chevelle 4 door sedan. Think that one had a 283 in it.
On the one side of my family, my grandparents were a one-car family since I was a kid, but my grandmother did drive and after my grandfather passed she continued to drive up until around age 92 when a motorcyclist T-boned her (not her fault). It was a malaise-era LTD if I remember correctly. The motorcyclist was OK and felt so bad that he came around and did odd chores for her after the crash (she lived alone until age 96 and survived to 104).
On the other side, my grandparents always had a “nice” car and a pickup (grandpa was a geologist/prospector). The cars Grandma drove since my birth I can remember well: a ’66 Chrysler New Yorker (which I now own), then a ’79 Cadillac Eldorado, and after my grandfather passed she surprised us all by ‘downgrading’ to a ’89 Buick Regal when the Eldo’s rear frame rusted out (shows who pushed the ‘luxury’ car purchases, huh?). She stopped driving in the mid 1990’s at around age 84.
Well my grandmother never drove as she and my grandfather lived in Taiwan, where he was a government minister – so he always had a car with a driver, and mostly American ones. First time I remember visiting them he had a 1958 Chevy Bel-Air, then a 1964 Chevrolet Chevelle Malibu (in 1970). In the early 1980s he was driven around in a locally-assembled Nissan Cedric 330 (called a Yue Loong), and then a Chevrolet Caprice Classic B-Body.
He also tooled around in Buick Park Avenues, both the RWD version and the C-body FWD one, a 1988 model.
Mama (Maw-maw in southern Louisiana) owned only two cars in her entire life (1913-1984) and probably drove only one other. My grandfather courted her in a 1933 Chevrolet Master coupe. That car lasted through WW II until it was replaced with a 1948 Buick Special. My grandparents lived behind the drug store they owned and operated and my grandfather spent much of the war years in Australia so the Chevy probably didn’t see too many miles in its 15 years with the family. I think it is a given though that she drove it sometime during the war. She lived in Houston and most of her family was in Louisiana.
The Buick was HER CAR and she was rightly proud of it. In fact, she was a bit disappointed when, in 1957, her sons (my father and uncle) with their father’s permission, traded it for a new Pontiac Super Chief two-door hardtop; white over coral pink with a gray an white interior. It had the 347 V8, naturally, and 4-speed Hydramatic.
There was no air conditioning (very expensive option) and no power steering. In her son’s view those would only slow the car.
My father and uncle knew what they were getting with the Pontiac. My grandmother did not. She accumulated quite a few speeding tickets. One of my first memories as a small child was Mama getting pulled over by the local po-po with me aboard and her admonishment not to tell Papa or my daddy.
When she died in 1984 the twenty-seven year old Super Chief had only 51,000 miles showing. She really did drive it only to church and the grocery store. The car was in very good condition for its age. She kept it garaged at home (she and my grandfather moved into a house several blocks from the store after the war) and under a carport while at work. My uncle took the Pontiac as part of his portion of her estate. He had it repainted and rebuilt the transmission (he has as much to do with it needing a rebuild as anyone – he or my father would street race it when ever they could.) Uncle owns it to this day and still takes it to local shows occasionally.
The last car my grandma drove was a silver on black 1976 Olds Cutlass Supreme coupe with the anemic 260 V-8. I remember that by this time, she wasn’t supposed to drive us kids around in the car with her (my parents were worried that would not be a good idea). Nevertheless, I have memories of sitting in the back seat, no car seat of course, out of view beneath the small opera windows, which were over my head anyway. She had this habit of hitting the gas, coasting, hitting the gas, coasting. . . all the way to the grocery store and gas station. Before that, she had a blue 1970 Olds Cutlass S coupe with the much more potent 350 Rocket; had that car painted yellow, which looked sharp with the white vinyl top and interior. That ended up being passed down to my parents as their first family car to haul us around in. Before I came along, dad reports that she had a 1963 Mercury Comet, and a 1949 Nash. Not sure what preceded those two cars; she was born in 1907 so there must have been others. . .
To my knowledge, none of my grandparents on either side drove. My dad said there was always excellent bus and train service in the UK, so his parents (in Glasgow) never needed to drive. My mom’s parents in Windsor, Ontario always walked or took the bus, and used the train for longer trips. My mom learned to drive in the early Fifties from a friend who was a truck driver, and her first car was a ’38 Plymouth. She kept it until just before I was born in 1963, and it was apparently still a good car. She still drives at 86 – a 2010 Honda CRV.
A shiny new grey with red upholstery Hillman Minx Series V or VI Automatic. Nana came late to driving, being aged over 60 at the time. The story goes she drove to church where she prayed that nobody would be hit on the return journey. I guess prayer worked, the car was unscathed when she died a few years later. Why the Hillman? My mother had bought a new Series IIIc earlier. Also grey.
Both of my grandmothers died in their early 70s when I was 11 (about six months apart), so I don’t have a lot of memories of them. Dad’s mother never drove, his father always had a Buick or Oldsmobile sedan and a Dodge or Chevy pickup.
Mom’s mom was a third grade teacher and did drive. The only car I remember is her last one, a yellow over brown Mustang II (Ghia, iirc). I’m sure she had others, as she taught for many years. Her father had many different domestic cars, the ones I remember were a ’76 Gran Fury coupe, a 87 Somerset Limited, a 94 Cutlass Supreme LS sedan, and a 01 Malibu base sedan.
My grandmother never learned how to drive, she claimed that she would be “too nervous behind the wheel.” However,my grandfather-a retired detective had some interesting cars that I remember vividly.He had a `49 Pontiac sedan that my mother won in a church raffle but couldn`t drive because she had no license at the time. Next, he had `54 Olds sedan-can`t remember the model, a `59 Impala coupe with a 283,a`62 Chrysler 300 four door hardtop sedan, a `64 Dodge Polara coupe with a 383, and finally a `78 Plymouth Fury four door, an upmarket 318 version.He gave theChevy to my father when my family was between cars.I was about 14 years old, and I wanted that Chevy when I got my license, but it wasn`t to be. Engine siezed up, wasn`t worth fixing , but the body and interior were nice.
Never knew my maternal grandmother, so I haven’t a clue. My paternal grandmother never had a license, after my paternal grandfather died she lived with my spinster great aunt Marny, who liked gold Chevy II’s. The ones I remember were a ’62, a ,67, and a ’70, all four doors. The ’70 was here last car, she stopped driving sometime around 1980.
I have only one fragmentary memory of what my (paternal) grandmother probably drove. I recall as a child (in the 1970’s) a number of permanently parked cars around their house, and among these was a pair of early Falcons- the tiny ones- one red and one white. I slightly recall being told one was my grandmother’s and the other my grandfather’s. They were ancient even then- were they alive they would be 110 years old.
My maternal grandmother never learned to drive. As the story goes, on her first and only driving lesson with Grandpa, she ran the truck into a telephone pole or some other resolutely stationary object.
Dad’s Mom was totally different. She loved to drive, and had a big, beautiful 1967 Bonnevile station wagon with a rear-facing third seat. I’ve got a lot of happy memories of riding in that back seat with my brother, making faces at the people unlucky enough to be driving behind us. Memories of that car are partly why I later got myself a 1966 Catalina 4-door.
My Paternal Grandma I’m not sure, she passed away when I was only 10 or so and I vaguely recall a beige GM B body in their garage in my early years. My Maternal Grandma doesn’t drive much anymore, in the early 90s she had a first gen Acura Integra(my Grandpa had a matching Legend) and she ended up getting the Legend when My Grandpa got his Sienna and a Infinity G20 replaced the Legend thereafter. Before my time, according to my Mom, she had a Beetle and an Opel Kadett in the 60s/70s. She’s pretty short and has a hard time with visibility in larger cars, .
She couldn’t drive but was driven in something like this:
None of my grandparents drove, but my great-grandfather was a railway engine driver!
My grandmothers were born in 1887 and 1888. Neither drove but one had a Packard and driver through 1946 when she left georgia to live with my parents in Arkansas.
My maternal grandfather drove a schoolbus for a living and my maternal grandmother did not apparently drive until after his death. I guess she tired of having to call a cab when she went anywhere, so she bought a 1960 Ford Falcon new. It was robin’s egg blue on the outside and had a blue interior. Power was by the base 144 in. six. with the auto trans.
As I recall, she drove it exactly once a week to go to the grocery store, putting maybe seven miles a trip on the odometer. When she died in 1973, her car had less than 20,000 miles on the clock and still smelled new inside.