1953 Chrysler Windsor Convertible
(first posted 4/24/2016. We don’t usually rerun COAL series, but this one deserves a second run)
When Paul put out the call for COAL submissions, CCer CJC replied that he would only have three weeks worth of cars to write about.
Ah youth, so few cars behind them – so many cars yet to experience.
Or, as a curmudgeon in his 70s might say: “whippersnappers – all of you. Now get off my lawn.”
Well, I resemble the latter remark.
Scientists tell us that the human brain most clearly recalls old memories; it’s the more recent memories that fade quickly. Recent memories such as where I put my car keys, where I parked the car, and the ever more frightening: what car did I park and where is it?
But cars can be memory joggers. If I am asked what I was doing in a specific year, say, 1970, I’d first have to recall where I worked, where I lived, and what car I drove. Maybe also, to whom I was married (more on that later). Once I had those data points, I could determine all the other details of my life.
I clearly remember the old cars that I first started driving (on private property) when I was 12 or 13 years old. And for half of those distances, I drove them in reverse.
Cars, boats, and airplanes have always been fascinating to me. This was facilitated by a family that drove interesting cars, maintained old wooden boats, and by one adventurous brother-in-law who owned a 1969 V-tail Bonanza (more on that much later). The way Curbside Classic focuses on vehicles that were – or could be – normal daily drivers makes this web site more relevant to me than sites that focus on exotic super cars and 0 to 60 times that now reach impossibly low numbers. I’m looking at you Tesla!
I learned to drive cars (especially in reverse) long before I reached the legal age in 1960 for a learner’s permit. Our house had a long gravel driveway with a midpoint squeeze of a brick chimney. My father, who we all called Doc (he was not a doctor), insisted that all cars destined for the back of the driveway and the garage had to be backed in. To this day I always back my current cars into their parking spots or the garage.
His rule made sense. Backing in put the chimney on the driver’s side, which we could easily see and narrowly avoid, by looking backwards through the open window. Pulling into the driveway would have put the chimney on the wrong side endangering the car, the chimney, and worse of all, driving privileges.
By age 12, I could drive the two family cars out to the street end of the driveway and then back them up perfectly past the dreaded chimney and directly into either of the two garage bays. And these cars were big; one was a 1953 Packard 4 door sedan (straight 8 with Ultramatic – 2 speeds plus lockup) and the other was a 1950 Buick 2 door no post Riviera Hardtop (straight 8 with Dynaflow – 1 speed plus a very definitive low gear). Note – Pictures are all from the internet; the pictured Buick is identical to one we had in the 1950s.
Special note for old car techies – Both the Packard and Buick activated the engine starter using the gas pedal. To start, press the gas pedal to the floor (which primed the carburetor) and then press even harder to engage the starter motor. Once the engine was running, engine vacuum positioned a small ball or other object to prevent the starter from engaging if the gas pedal was floored.
1953 Packard Sedan
1950 Buick Riveria
As I was always willing to wash either car and could do that job to the satisfaction of my father, getting the cars out of the garage for the wash and dry, and then back in – with a few runs to the street end and back just for the shear joy of it – was a cherished ritual for me. Car washing included the interior, especially the inside of the windows which was accomplished with old chamois cloths my father kept on a drying rack under an old bathroom medicine cabinet fastened to the garage wall. That may explain why at the age of 71, I have an old medicine cabinet in my condo’s garage. But I use micro fiber towels instead of chamois. Progress, sort of.
Current Garage with Medicine Cabinet near door
Backing up a car is easier if one has experience with tiller steered boats or outboards with manual steering (meaning no steering wheel). A backing car steers like most boats going forward, with the stern swinging out away from the desired direction so that the bow ends up pointing in the desired direction. As a youngster, I had a small planning hull dinghy with a 1958 5 ½ horsepower Johnson outboard; it could do 20 mph. Not fast you say? With only a quarter of an inch of plywood between you and the water, 20 mph felt fast. It probably holds a spot in my heart not unlike that of Charles Foster Kane’s “Rosebud”.
1958 Johnson Outboard (Colors are year specific)
It also helped me learn to drive backwards and avoid the dreaded chimney.
My family had boats starting in 1952, but the one boat that lasted from 1955 to 1978 was “The Elco”, a 1948 27 foot sport cruiser with a single, salt water cooled L-head Chris Craft engine. Anyone who had tried to maintain an aging wooden boat in a saltwater environment is probably intimate with the smells of marine oil based paints, varnish, gasoline, and mildew. And sandpaper. And paint scrapers. And clogged up exhaust manifolds. I also suspect most people who grew up actually working by hand on aging wooden boats in a saltwater environment with a saltwater cooled engine would never think of getting into boating again, unless the boat was made of fiberglass and had fresh water engine cooling. Or was a sailboat (fiberglass of course). Most would just move too far inland to make boating feasible. Like me.
27 Foot Post War Elco Sport Cruiser
I was very proud of the Elco because it was a direct descendant of WWII PT boats. Elco PT boats were made in Bayonne NJ, tested in the Hudson River, and then transported to wide ranging military locations. They had three 12 cylinder 1200 hp Packard engines that powered them to glamorously rapid speeds (for that time) and JFK made one boat’s designation “PT109” famous in 1960. The center engine faced the stern and drove the prop directly; the port and starboard engines were mounted backwards and used V-drives to send the power to the stern.
During the war John Ford made a movie called “They Were Expendable” and used actual 80 foot Elco PTs to represent earlier 77 foot models based in the Philippines just before and right after Pearl Harbor. If you can get a copy of that B&W movie I think you will enjoy it. Donna Reed was beautiful in it. Frankly, Donna Reed was beautiful in everything.
https://www.tcm.com/video/475633/they-were-expendable-1945-those-are-jap-planes
80 foot Elco PT Boats at speed. These are early models without radar and with the terrible MKVIII torpedos.
Before we get to the to actual COALs, let me take a tangent on parental behavior with respect to driving. Doc was a careful driver. As the guy responsible for the care and feeding of these cars, he knew careful driving meant less need for repairs. On the other hand, my mother liked to go fast. If she had lived long enough to see Talladega Nights she would have loved Will Ferrell’s Ricky Bobby.
One night we found ourselves traveling home in separate cars. Mom and my brother Jeff in her Buick; Doc and me in his Packard. Doc told me the Packard was faster in the long run with more horsepower (150 versus 120) but that “damn Dynaflow low” felt faster off the line. “She will not let up if we race and who knows what will happen if we do” he told me as we came up to a red light that night, side by side on Long Island’s Sunrise Highway. He saw mom put the stubby chrome Dynaflow lever into “L”. At the green one of the Buick’s tires squealed and it sprang forward. Doc slowly accelerated from the light and made no attempt to engage. The Buick owner’s manual (which he read from first page to last) did not recommend the use of low on a regular basis and I am sure Doc wondered how long that transmission would be able to handle those kind of starts. But, to the best of my knowledge, we never had any problems with that Buick.
And neither did the man we sold it to a few years later.
1950 Buick with Dynaflow
We’re talking about 0-60 times in the mid-teens, maybe more. But in the mid 1950s, it felt fast. Today, 4 cylinder economy cars can cut those times in half. Progress, sort of.
In the late 1950s my father lost his job and started working in retail at a lower salary, so my mother took the training for and became a real estate agent. My definition of real estate sales: A business where people, mostly women, must make appointments to meet strangers at night in empty houses.
For this job in real estate mom needed a 4 door car right away, so she sold the Buick and too quickly got a three year old black 1957 Chrysler Windsor single headlight model. Later 57s would have dual headlights – all the rage at that time. Good bye slow dependable Buick, hello fast, sexy, fun-to-drive, and completely unreliable Chrysler.
1957 Chrysler Windsor 4 Door Hardtop. Ours was all black.
Special note for old car techies – To start the 1957 Chrysler, push the torqueflight neutral button (see picture). At least one garage attendant had to call us back as we walked away to ask us how to start the car. Oddly enough, my friend’s 1957 Desoto Fireflite, with the identical push button pattern, started with a twist of the key.
1957 Chrysler Torqueflight Buttons (note “start” under the N)
1957 Desoto Torqueflight Buttons (Neutral with no “Start”)
I know what you’re thinking. These cars are not really COALs; I never owned them. Well, you’re right.
My first COAL, which I bought in 1960 and helped pay for by selling my beloved Rosebud dinghy and outboard motor, still shows up in my nightmares dreams to this day.
The photo at the top of the story is my first genuine COAL. Let’s get started next week.
Every time I see a 1950 Buick, I get a quiver of lust running through my whole body. Great start and looking forward to more.
What does the 53 Chrysler have to do with anything?
Um… check the last sentence in the piece.
You’re about a decade older than me, but we’re definitely of a generation. I see more than a few parallels in how you were raised, figure that’s just general parental attitude of the time.
Looking forward to future installments. And starting to think that, as I’m planning on retiring in July, maybe I need to start working on my own COAL.
Maybe… definitely.
Yes , Syke. You must!
Yes, I’m looking forward to reading about more motorcycles already!
That 1953 Chrysler is your own genuine COAL? With the satellite dish in the background, the photo suggests that you may still have it. I can hardly wait for the next installment.
Perhaps if I had the same experiences with a boat, I wouldn’t have creased the fender of the first police car I drove, crunching a front fender on a loading dock, six months on the job!
Ha, my Dad always backed in too and taught us to do so. May have been something about having unreliable cars in his younger days that sometimes needed a boost.
When we moved into our current house (15 years ago) I had trouble backing in, because nothing was square. House wasn’t square to the driveway, driveway tapered and wasn’t square to the street. So I quit backing in.
Last year we got our driveway done, now it doesn’t taper and has concrete curbs at the sides and backing in is a piece of cake!
Looking forward to this series….
I’m a “back in” parker as well. Sometimes took longer than pulling in…but makes leaving so much easier. Rear view cameras made it a no brainer. Especially my latest vehicle which has a wide-angle rear view camera allowing me to keep an eye on the port and starboard quarters and not just directly aft.
Years ago, I was reading an article about the US Navy. During the Cold War, when ships made pprt visits to particular “hot spots”, the practice was to back the ship into its berth so that if it had to leave in a hurry, it could do so.
Backing a ship into the pier is called a “med-moor”. The Mediterranean has little or no tide and the ports are mostly ancient and small.
So, more ships can be accommodated by backing them in.
For military ships, fast getaways may play a role as well, but the military ship I was on (26,000 tons) always moored independently or alongside.
Can’t wait for the rest of the series.
Backing into a garage or parking space was common place in Germany. Backing out into traffic was a nightmarish prospect. I actually had to adjust to the American way.
Looking forward to your COALs.
By the way: I couldn’t find anything in your garage!
I am looking forward to your series. You bring back memories of my first house. 40 foot wide lot with a sideways 2 car garage in back and a narrow driveway to the street in front. Backing was the only way to get a big car to make that 90 degree turn in such a narrow space. Glad I had no teenagers trying that.
Per the link below it turns out that backing in to parking spaces and driveways is emblematic of the sort of delayed gratification (In this case the ease of getting out later) associated with economic success. I’m sure that’s why everyone does it at car shows…
Of course, only this week my neighbor commented that I drive like a madman when I back into my driveway but then the faster you back up the less delayed the gratification.
http://www.npr.org/2014/08/27/343623220/parking-behavior-may-reflect-economic-drive
Michael, Thank you for the NPR link. I have radios in every room of my home, including the bathroom, and they’re all tuned to 93.9 FM (WNYC). I must have missed this set. Shankar Vedantam has great pieces on human behavior. When my clock radios (yea, two of them) go off, the first voices I hear each morning are Steve Inskeep, Soterios Johnson, and Renee Montagne.
Delayed gratification, huh? Well, that fits.
A great read and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the story. I’m a sucker for older cars and their character quirks; as far as I know Buicks retained the “starter under the gas pedal” feature through the fifties at least. One of my father’s co-workers served on PT boats in the Pacific; I can remember him telling stories about the night-time battles interdicting Japanese supply barges. Apparently those three V12’s came in handy if a larger ship happened to show up.
Per Wikipedia on the Packard engines: The 5M-2500 introduced in late 1945 had a larger supercharger, aftercooler, and increased power output of 1850 hp. It could push fully loaded boats at 45 to 50 knots (51-57 mph). However, subsequent additions of weaponry offset this potential increase in top speed.
Fifty knots would be wonderful if you were in a tight spot!
Buick kept the gas-starter through ’61.
The 50-51 Buick was probably the high point of quirkery. Gas starter, keyless ignition, hood opening to both sides, flasher lever on the right side of the column. Lots of “secret knowledge” to generate owner loyalty.
Our 52 Nash Statesman had a little metal plate attached to the top of the clutch pedal. To start the car you turned on the ignition and pushed in the clutch to the point where the plate hit a starter button on the floor. I was always fascinated by this esoteric car stuff when I was a kid. Glad you mentioned the disparity between the key start on the DeSoto and the Neutral button start on the Chrysler. No wonder there was a call for standardization of controls in the next decade. It seems we’re getting back the craziness today with auto transmission controls – conventional shift levers, pushbuttons, wands, rotary knobs, and whatever that shift device is that got FCA in trouble recently.
1950 Studebakers (and probably a lot of other years) also had the starter button on the floor under the clutch pedal, kind of like a second headlight high/low beam button (for the kids, that’s how it was done before that migrated to a steering column wand).
The main reason Chrysler ended push button transmission controls was that Chrysler owners liked them, but a certain percentage of buyers of other brands ruled out buying Chryslers because of them.
And yes, today (six years later) there are all kinds of transmission and other controls. The traditional auto shifter in my Subaru works so well and without looking at it I don’t know why anyone would invent anything else – typical deal, with Low a move to the left from Drive. I did enjoy the two pushbutton Chrysler products I once had though – one first year, one last generation with the buttons in a row and the Park lever (both owned long after the pushbutton era).
Because of the endless easy variations with chip controlled everything I’m sure most people never bother to learn most of the possibilities their cars offer.
I didn’t know any Chrysler pushbutton cars ever incorporated Start on the Neutral button. (The 1957 and 58 Chrysler oldcarbrochures don’t work.) The short lived 1957-58 Mercury pushbuttons did have a N/S button though.
Whoa, I got a mention in CC!
(I’m not all that young– about to turn 40. Still, I will stay off the lawn.)
Fantastic article and looking forward to the next.
Very interesting. My Grandmother’s 50 Buick Special would not squeal tires in low range on dry pavement. As I recall the owner’s manual recommended low range for starting on uphill grades. The Riviera was available on the Super and Roadmaster models, not the Special. So your engine was more powerful.
Great call out to “They were Expendable”, one of the best WWII movies ever made – all the moreso because it actually chronicles a defeat versus a victory. Most of the people in front of and behind the camera were combat veterans, and you can feel it. Truly great, low-key performance by Robert Montgomery, Elizabeth’s father, as the squadron commander based on real life John Buckley.
Robert Swartz, I agree. When John Ford made this movie the war was not going well for the USA. General MacArthur and his staff (and family) had to be evacuated from the Philippines on John Bulkeley’s war torn and by then not very well running PT boats. It was reported that the General got very sea sick.
But, MacArthur did return.
Boats hit home with me. From the time I was 13 I had a 12′ fiberglass boat and a 5 hp Scott-Atwater motor. My dad gave me the boat and the motor was paid for with lawn mowing and other odd jobs income. Yes, I worked from the time I was 9 years old, a thing of the past today but I am sure all the older members here remember doing also. It was not as fast as yours and would get up on the plane between 11-14 mph depending on wind and current with just me in it, add another person it was 8-9mph. But for a kid my age it was liberating as it enabled me to get around the lake by my parent’s beach house to see my friends or to go to town and hang out. Always had a boat(went through 6 or 7)until 1987 when family priorities took money precedence with reduced income and now that I can afford another one I am no longer physically able to do so.
As far as the ’50 Buick with Dynaflow a friend of mine had one in HS in ’68-69. It rode smooth but everyone gave him a bad time because at the bottom of a steep hill which was 2 blocks long(800ft) he was going 35 at the bottom and by the time he reached the top about 3-5 mph with it floored. I had no trouble maintaining 30mph(the speed limit)in my parents ’63 Rambler with a 287 V8 with plenty of pedal to spare at the top. But the ’59 Rambler 6 my parents had would crest the same hill at 25mph but it was pedal to metal also.
Great article! I was in shock when I read “Sunrise Highway”. I actually just got off there not even thirty minutes ago. I sure that it’s an entirely different experience now than it was back then.
Yeah, Sunrise has changed! I hit it pretty much every couple of days running errands. And I’m old enough to remember when it ended in Oakdale/Great River.
That 40-50’s Dynaflow must be the ruggedest auto trans ever made. I’ ve seen people engage reverse while riding ahead at some 25 mph (never had the guts to do likewise). Also, know for sure of a guy who did the same at 50 mph when his brakes failed.
That was the reason that the Dynaflow transmission was so very slow accelerating to speed. You basically has direct-drive from the engine to the differential through the transmission going forward in DRIVE and the gear reduction of the forward LOW gear ratio when shifted into REVERSE going backwards, with a very primitive ‘fluid coupling’ between the transmission and the engine.
So when you shifted from forward, even at 50 MPH, you just dicconnected the forward clutch pack and engaged the reverse clutch pack, the fluid drive unit took all the load and because of all the slippage in the fluid, it just slowed the car gradually and then reversed direction..
The above explanation was made as simple as I could, sort of like 2 electric fans facing one another, one is turned on to max speed, the ‘other’ is turned off and it’s blades are rotating in reverse. When you turn on the ‘other’ to high and switch off the first. The first will slow down rotation gradually and its blades will reverse direction.
with a very primitive ‘fluid coupling’ between the transmission and the engine.
It was a torque converter, not a fluid coupling. And since it did not start in Low, the torque converter had to provide all of the necessary effective gear reduction to accelerate the car. A fluid coupling does not provide any effective gear reduction, therefore it would not have worked in this transmission. The Hydramatic had four gears for that exact reason, since its fluid coupling could not provide any effective gear reduction.
The early Dynaflow was essentially configured to be just a torque converter drive, with no “gears” in the usual sense (a “one-speed” automatic, you could say). Low gear had to be manually engaged.
“Good bye slow dependable Buick, hello fast, sexy, fun-to-drive, and completely unreliable Chrysler.”
Great sentence. Pretty much sums up an experience I had with a Buick that preceded a Dodge – being younger, both were a couple decades newer than your family’s cars, and yet they still fit this description to a tee. Your ’53 Windsor must have been a very unique first COAL – it will be fun to read the next installment.
Seems like you’ve had some fun and interesting automotive experiences–can’t wait to read more!
I am looking forward to your next posts. You jogged some old memories:
One of my HS buddies lived in Lynnbrook a few blocks off Sunrise. Many times we would hang out at the “mall” , can’t remember the name now. Later I dated a girl who lived in Baldwin. Once again not far from Sunrise. Many fun memories from those days.
I watched ‘They Were Expendable’ a few times because back in the sixties channel 5, in NY would show it often. Back then NYC had 3 independent channels that played all the “old” classics during the weekends and nights.
My father had a 1953 Studebaker Commander with the starter on the floor. The clutch pedal had a protruding lip that would engage the starter when the clutch pedal was pressed all the way to the floor. At some point in his ownership he had a push button starter on the dash installed and an overdrive transmission. BTW this was the very first car I drove. One day out of the blue my father took me out for a ride out in the country and gave me my first driving lesson. I was 9 years old.
Oh boy, we get to read this series again!
I can return to your articles, Mr Plaut, countless times.
And it reminds me, sadly, how fast the time flies (my own unfinished COAL article will be 2 years old this summer, if I don’t manage to finish it on time!).
RLP, I dig your stories.
One thing:
It wasn’t an early/late deal, it was a matter of which state any given car was first sold in. Details in this comment subthread; this post, and this other post.
I got in to this COAL series when it was first out, but only after a few installments. Now I can read it from the beginning.
If anyone hasn’t read this series yet, it comes highly recommended. Enjoy, I know I will, again.
So tell me, what does COAL really mean?
Cars Of A Lifetime.
I learn something new every day. ( even though I’ve wondered about the term for years )
Dear RLP, did your father ever work in Rockland County selling furniture?