Grandpa, tell me bout the good ole days............

[JethroB]

I started driving my Willys Jeep to school when I was 15 with only a learners permit. Someone complained to the principal so I was banned until I got a full license. So I just parked across the street in the ditch for a few months. Our one and only policeman let me slide as long as I behaved and did not cause him any grief.

 

[npalen]

We were allowed in Kansas to drive to school and work at age 14 with a permit.

 

[California]

The car lot pickup was similar but plain... 3 on the tree, no radio and no trim... sure did a lot of work over the decades...

I remember driving it and hitting a bump... nothing bad but the whole front shimmied... need new king pin bushings and good as new... bushing were cheap... but labor and reamer required...

I put kingpin bushings in my '63 F100 (with the one-piece front axle), just push them in! Simplest vehicle ever!

But its 3-speed had first and reverse gears too tall for a truck. That must have been the passenger car transmission. Backing out of a steep downhill spot was hop-hop-hop instead of just driving backward. Starting uphill with a load was similar, it needed way too much clutch slip to get moving.

Mowed a lot of lawns and painted a lot of fences to buy my first car... just shy of 14...

14 and all my paper route savings. a '36 Chev 4 door for $35! Ancient, exotic, functionally obsolete. Then a '36 Ford Coupe, obviously an Art Deco classic that would be admired forever. I think I traded the Chev and $50 for it. Then when I got my license Dad offered me his '49 Chev 4-door in good decent condition, not obsolete at that time - IF I would get rid of the Ford. I still regret that decision. I see average classic-auction price now for the '36 is over $30k with several over $100k and one over $1.6m ! The timeless beauty of that classic was obvious to me at 14 years old.

After a year I traded the '49 for a '37 Chev coupe with an unfinished 265 (first SBC) install. Put that together and terrorized my HS.

 

[Jstpssng]

Ya, but you could buy 10 trucks for the price if 1 nowdays. Remember when trucks were cheap.

They had to be... they started falling apart almost as soon as they left the dealership. 6-7K for a late '70s pickup which MIGHT go 100K miles with the proper care; oil chnges every 3000 miles or less, points, plugs, condenser every 10K and timing adjusted several times between. Now a comparable truck will run you around 27K yet will go 100K miles with oil changes every 7000 miles, and maybe a brake job. 200K is easily attainable, and many vehicles go 300K or more. Much of that is because they are just built stronger, but also fluids and filters are better than they were 40 years ago.

 

[Oldpath05]

And one of the favorite moonshiners cars was the 1940 Ford coupe, guess it was because easy to soup up......

 

[Jstpssng]

Mowed a lot of lawns and painted a lot of fences to buy my first car... just shy of 14...

And you haven't stopped since! What was that first car, and do you still have it?

 

[JethroB]

Occasionally you would see a tractor in our school parking lot. Usually because someone missed the bus or they had been banned by the bus driver for misbehaving.

 

[Jstpssng]

During deer season I used to grab my rifle instead of heading for the bus. School was only about 3 miles away and I could hunt for an hour then walk to school, rather than spending 2 hours on the bus.
In hindsight I'm not sure why I didn't walk every day.

 

[California]

And one of the favorite moonshiners cars was the 1940 Ford coupe, guess it was because easy to soup up......
View attachment 680770

That one was the absolute classic of that prewar era. Right up there with '32 and '34 for classic looks, and also a decent driver.

Subsequent Fords were just cars. I owned a '49 and a '53 Ford. Definitely just generic cars, and high maintenance to keep them running, too.

 

[goeduck]

Speaking of carburetors; we bought a new Chrysler Cordoba in 1977 (not Corinthian leather) with a 400 cubic inch V8; it had three new carburetors put on it under warranty...and still only got 10MPH around town.

I would have guessed that V8 would be faster than that :shocked: