My “first car” wasn’t this sharp, but one can put on the rose-colored glasses.
There can be different definitions of one’s “first car”. It can be the first one you actually purchased, or maybe it was bought for you. It can be your first daily driver, perhaps handed down from an older sibling or extended family member. It can be a daily driver you borrowed for an extended period. But for a lifelong “car guy”, who inexplicably was completely obsessed with cars from the first vague memories and impressions of early childhood, the first family car or the first car you rode in a lot or was parked nearby, the one that actually left significant distinct impressions in your memory, well, that’s your “first car”.
My parents’ carport held two cars in the early ‘60s, and being a “Ford family”, they owned a small Ford sedan and a Ford station wagon. Mom drove a 1960 Falcon two door, three-speed, in white. I spent a lot of time in that car, but true to McNamara’s goal to produce basic, boring transportation, I have few specific memories of the thing, other than the basic look of it. No vivid impressions or significant moments.
This car left no impression on me at all.
The other car, however, made many memories. It was a cream and tan 1958 Ranch Wagon, two-door, V-8, and three-on-the-tree. Cars are large things to tiny people, but the Ranch Wagon was a behemoth, dominating the garage, next to the puny Falcon. It was long, wide, and high. Now, for a young little person, things like road manners, performance figures, economy and repair items, the “hard core” part of the magazine road test, they are not part of the picture. Instead, it is the odd impressions and observations on the margins of the magazine road test that make up the entirety of a little person’s perception of cars. That, and the intoxicating sensations of motion and speed, while riding in cars, that’s what captivates “car guys” in their larval stages.
There were all sorts of visual cues to note on the Ranch Wagon, and a lot of them weren’t all that good, even in the eyes of a little car guy whelp. The rear, in particular, had a lot going on that seemed odd. The twin taillight assemblies on each side were elaborate things, sort of stuck on, way up there above a ton of curved sheet metal. The way the taillight assemblies split in half, when Dad lowered the tailgate (it was too heavy for Mom to do it), was sort of intriguing. So, too was a large, ornate crest on the tailgate latch. That sort of thing was for kings and castles (and later, I realized, on Cadillacs), and having one stuck on this car, in particular, grew to seem a bit odd, in later evaluation. Especially as the car was obviously basic, with what we now call dog dish hubcaps, with a couple of “Ford”s on them, in block letters on a white painted circle. Also little chrome trim, and rubber floor mats in the interior.
Do stripper cars get heraldic crests?
The way the top half of the tailgate swung up to open, with the bottom half turned down, it looked like the car was hungry and wanted to eat something.
No way Mom was going to lift that heavy tailgate. It looks like a giant squid trying to eat small children.
The long side windows, without a metal break from the rear of the front door frame to the rear of the vehicle, somehow looked odd to me. The neighbors had a white Pontiac wagon, four doors and a real beauty. The windows were more regularly spaced and were framed with chrome, and looked a whole lot nicer than ours. The vertical curve of the taillights was gorgeous. The Ford looked very dumpy, next to that Pontiac. Another neighbor had a top-of-the-line Chrysler wagon. It was stylish and swanky in some rather weird ways, but it, too, seemed much nicer than the Ford.
The neighbors had a much cooler station wagon.
So did the other neighbors.
Not all was bad on the Ford. The arch of the speedometer sweep was nice. There was a ton of room for us kids to dive and climb around in it. As a two-door, diving over the front seat back, to get in or out of the back seat, was the preferred method, and a lot of fun. Mom and Dad did not worry about us “hurting” the car. In fact, when it was time to go to 31 Flavors for ice cream, we always went in the wagon. That’s because we could spill our desserts and make a mess, and no one cared. We never went for ice cream in the “good” car.
Nice but minimal dashboard. The steering wheel, not so much.
Both of our cars were two-doors, while the friends’ and neighbors’ wagons were all four-doors. Mom explained that they didn’t want us “falling out the door”. That’s a great way to make a little kid anxious! Every time I rode in the second seat of a neighbor’s four-door, I pushed myself as far to the center of the car as the seat belt and the other passengers would let me. I was sure I was due to be a statistic, at any moment!
A bit too rusty and missing its hubcaps. The sedans didn’t have that big vertical gap between the taillights and the bumper.
The wagon was a bit scruffy, as the tan and cream paint had faded, with the tan part taking on a particularly pinkish hue. I could wipe my hands on it, and get pink dust all over them (along with a dangerous helping of lead particles, most likely). The three-on-the-tree shifter was a bit odd, to my eyes, as the neighbors’ cars had automatics, which appeared to be such a more logical way to go. The shifting looked awkward in action, specifically the “back and up” one (first to second, or second to third?). Mom explained that shift cars had “more power” and didn’t use “slush boxes”. Mmm, sounds like discussion material for conversations with the other “car guys” in school.
No, you are not getting fuzzy eyes from too much station wagoning. That fuzzy shot is exactly the condition and look, being solid and complete, but just a bit faded and scruffy around the edges. 55 year old memories should be allowed to get a bit blurry.
Dad was also a “car guy” of sorts. Not one who worked much on cars, or modified them. Instead, he liked to drive distinctive or interesting cars. Before he married up and had me, he drove a ‘57 T-Bird. The wagon had the “T-Bird engine” (a Y-block of some size or another?). We lived at the top of a steep hill at the ragged edge of San Diego suburbia. The neighborhood was still mostly empty graded lots, as Convair, the big local employer, had cancelled its commercial passenger jet production, soon after the neighborhood had been started, and the builder went bankrupt as people stopped buying houses. Mostly empty lots meant that there was little danger of kids darting out into the street unseen. Racing the wagon downhill would have been suicide, given the skinny tires and drum brakes. But flooring the throttle up the hill was quite fun, and don’t tell Mom, OK?
Dad sold this car when he started a family. That was a sacrifice! Can there be such a thing as a COAL drawn from prior to your own conception?
One other moment of anxiety surrounded that car. Dad decided to drive up into the empty hills behind the neighborhood, on rough dirt Jeep trails, to collect some large rocks, with which he could landscape our empty, flat yard. He took me along, probably to separate me from my little sister, and give Mom a break from the incessant fighting. On the way out, we saw an inverted Square-Bird, full of bullet holes, and it was only a few years old. I was sure we would roll over and join it, or vigilantes would hijack us, dump the car in the canyon, and shoot us. In the real world, the car was likely either stolen and dumped, or wrecked by the owner, dumped, and then reported stolen. In any case, I was distraught until we were back down on hard asphalt roads again.
As a “car guy”, the wagon was a bit off-spec. Our Falcon and wagon were not going to do for long, if we were going to keep up with the neighbors. Time to trade in the cars for “nicer” ones. Thus sets the stage for one of the three essential COALs of my life. The wagon was sold, for peanuts, to a neighbor kid who put curtains in the back and made a hippie-mobile out of it. He moved away or went off to college or something, and that was the last we saw of it.
My brother took this 1970 Riviera in on trade on a Honda in about 1985. He worked at Empire Olds on East Colfax in Denver, Colorado. He called me to tell me this car was just taken in and he says while the people were still in there making the deal he sees me out in the lot checking this car out. It may not be a COAL, but I’ve had it most of my lifetime.
When I was a child, wagons made up most of the landscape of my memories as nearly all of my 11 aunts and uncles had growing families. My family and my Aunt Teresa and Uncle Bob had 55 Ford wagons. Ours was red and white like the one at the top of the write-up except it was a 4 door Country Sedan while the wagons (2 of them) owned by my uncle were 2 door Ranch Wagons, one black and one a dark, bottle, green. My memories of our car stem mostly from the many (nearly weekly) trips to visit my father’s widowed foster mother. She lived on a farm way out in the country with the last 5 or 6 miles being dirt road. In the summer, riding in the back of that wagon with the rear window open ” blessed ” us with near equal amounts of exhaust fumes and road dust.
I remember riding in my Aunt Teresa’s wagon, because the one trip I took I got to ride in the front seat with just my Aunt. I remember looking at the speedometer a few times and noticing the needle jumping every time we hit a bump. That, and my aunt stopped along the way and bought me candy, something no other adult did outside of my parents and even then it had to be a special occasion.
So, I would become a staunch Ford fan, and it all started in the back seat or ” way back ” of 55 Ford wagons.
I remember Fords always had erratic speedometers – jumping around. Our Pontiacs never did that.
First car I ever drove over here in UK was about 1963, a late ’50s Morris 1000 which was a driving school car as no cars in our family. Up till then I’d ridden motorbikes like most of my generation (the ton-up kids), after passing test I bought my first car – a 1935 Rover 10, so it was nearly 30 years old then. I used to commute from South London to art school in South Kensington , about 24 mile round trip though middle of London, a lot of traffic even back in those days, I’d hate to do it now, so quite a trip for the old girl. Looking it up as of course I’ve forgotten I see that it was 1398cc with syncromesh on 3rd and 4th gears (wow !) and a free wheel device for fuel saving, which I do remember using. Rovers were, right up to few years ago, an above mid range British car , with a staid image usually associated with bank managers but my one was used for transporting sometimes up to 10 friends, 3 in front and 7 or more in the huge almost limousine like rear, occasionally 1 or 2 hanging on the running boards (oh, those were the days…). Lost photos of it years ago (it was classic black) so one here is not mine but a well preserved one from teh web
That sounds quite a load for a Ten, but then with a 105″ wheelbase (just checked, not from memory!) it was bigger than most. And with 1398cc (and 44hp) really more like a Twelve. But Rover had one of them too…..
Premium cars, and worth it.
Oh, the old days before mandatory seat belt laws. Now I’ve always worn them, if available, but it’s a shame you can’t just overload a car with kids or even larger people anymore, assuming they’re willing.
I remember back in ’72 I think it was, my roommate had promised to take the neighborhood to a LA Dodgers game. But his car, a ~65 Fairlane came up lame, so it fell to me and my 57 Bug to chauffeur all 7 of us to the game and back. Yeah it was crowded, yeah it was noisy, but everyone had fun and there were no fatalities. Dodgers even won IIRC.
Truly an earlier era for 3 or 4 neighborhood Moms/Dads to trust a couple of single guys in college with their kids for 3 or 4 hours.
I grew up with the big brother to this model – a 1958 Mercury Voyager 2 door wagon. It was a hardtop, not a sedan, and it’s 122 inch wheelbase made it look less frumpy than the ranch wagon. Your COAL reminded me of how heavy the tailgate was, and the tailgate glass retracted into the tailgate instead of flipping up like the ranch wagon.
Great memories traveling cross country in that one!
The 2-door wagon is my favorite body style (as impractical as it may be) but make mine a ’64-65 Chevelle 300 with a 283 and a 4-speed.
When I bought my first new car, I almost bought the last 2-door wagon sold in the US, the 1990 VW Fox wagon. I was completely enamored of the physical design but had (probably well-founded) concerns about the quality of vehicles built by VW do Brasil.
This reminds me of the mystery Ford station wagon my parents had for a short time before I was born. I never got much information on it, and seems to have been purchased as the result of a marital fight. From what I could piece together, my mother was insisting on a station wagon and my father thought the idea silly, but bought a Ford station wagon, possibly used, without so much as a test drive. I always imagined it to have been a 57 or 58, but it may have been newer. Years after their eventual divorce, my mother remembered that it was nothing but problems and my father remembered that she wanted a wagon, but when he brought one home she wasn’t happy with it. And thus it was lost down the memory hole. I am quite sure that I would have loved it as a kid, though.
The first car I remember my parents having was a ’66 Chevelle 4-door, already a rust-bucket by the time I came along.
I was 11 when my dad bought his first new car, a 1957 Ranch Wagon. Black, 3 on the tree and a heater. No other options! The “air conditioning” consisted of opening both vent windows in front as well as the rear tailgate window. The car always seemed to have an overheating problem, kept in control by driving around with the rear-opening hood opened to the first hood latch.
Memories!
My fixation on Cadillac started when I was in fifth grade and used to walk to school. A block from my house were two Cadillacs parked at the curb. They were already five or six years old, a ’59 and a ’60 model. But the car’s were immaculate and obviously prized by their owners. As I walked past I would gaze into the interior, so plush looking and fancy, with the brocade cloth and all that chrome. I would let my finger trace the chrome trimmed outline of each car’s tail fin as I walked past it. Yeah, that left a mark!
Back seat.
My first driving experience was in my dad’s 1958 Country Sedan. It had an “Interceptor” engine and a “honeycomb” grille. Still remember the “honeycomb” jingle based on a popular contemporary tune.
Ah, the jewellery used on late fifties/early sixties Fords, the heraldic crest, the…. 🙂
When I was a boy, Dad bought an XL Falcon; ours was an early production ’62. The trunk lock not only had a small form of the heraldic crest, there was also a little gold-tone flip-up cover that said FORD, with a white background. I was fascinated by this as a kid; it seemed so special, so much better than all the other cars with their exposed keyholes. 🙂 Then there were the swivelling covers over the keyholes on the doors, the faux air scoop on the hood, the Ford oval against a silver rectangular background on the lower front passenger-side fender.
So many nice little touches I noticed when I washed it every weekend…..
Our Ranch Wagon had those swiveling keyhole doors as well. I had forgotten all about them, and yes, they fascinated me way back when. I believe our Falcon may have had them as well, but, for some reason, I thought it proper to completely ignore the Falcon. So I cannot recall for certain, as to the Falcon.
Ah, yes–those Ford keyhole covers. I always thought that was such a beautiful, flowing design. I think Ford used them from ’49 up thru ’63? I know that our ’62 Comet had them.
A lovely piece, and not something the bean counters would let you get away with nowadays.
I had forgotten all about those days when two door cars were considered safer with kids. At some point, even pre-car seat legislation, four doors became family cars … until four doors became ubiquitous and pretty much the standard (Camry, Accord, etc). I’m pretty sure our 2015 Golf was one of the last two door, non-coupe, versions of a standard passenger car sold in the US.
Mine would be the 1940 Ford Standard 4 door sedan that Dad drove when I was small. When I was a toddler I can still remember my Dad letting me “help” brush paint it blue. Mom once told me that was how they got me to give up the bottle. I always say I was weaned on a ’40 Ford. Maybe that’s why the ’40 has always been one of my favorites. That was not the first car I rode in. According to Mom it was a 1937 Ford four door. I don’t remember it but we have some pictures with it in them. The only picture with the ’40 in it was lost when my workshop burned two years ago.
I had two Fords with that key lock door and I remember my grandpa’s ’50 pickup having those. I hadn’t thought about those for years.
A good looking wagon to me .
I really loved the similar dashboard on my ’62 Ranch Wagon .
These were not fast nor good handling cars but they were study and well built .
-Nate