Your Fathers Car., earliest memory. Options

[wonkipop]

i had a big afternoon of meetings getting a headache listening to net ball australia's special requirements for a girls netball facility.

got home at 7.00pm with a headache.
opened the fridge.
no beer.
ah - sh#t. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)

wander out the door, down the lane to the cellar shop to pick up a 6 pack of J beer.
and whats propped on the curb at the end of the lane.

holden fc. 1956-58.
my father's first car (not the actual one but similar - same two tone color, same interior).
my first childhood memory of a car is this one.
would have been 1964/5. sitting in the back seat of one of these little aussie numbers.
sometimes in the front seat. i specifically remember going to the bakery with him to get the bread.

he did have a car before that. a whippet. but i have no memory of that.

anyway this one was there.
completely original. no restoration.
on full plates too. not historic plates.
i have not seen an unrestored one of these for at least 3 decades.
this one was completely intact.
over 65 years old.
the aussie car.
actually a GM product and a kind of shrunken poor cousin north antarctica chevrolet!
but a great car.
these things could survive even a nuclear attack let alone australian roads back then.
ford falcons fell to pieces from the front end back under assault from australian pseudo tarmac. but not these babies.




it blew me away to run into something older than me, and with no plastic surgery. memories came back.

who else has run into their first family car they can remember?
and confronted them again in the street.

post them up. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/beerchug.gif)

[wonkipop]

that 55 is cool @DaveB

takes topic full circle on the cars.

50s aus holdens were basically chevs put on a diet and fed a GM straight 6.
(aussies got the fancy wrap around windscreen update in 1960 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) ).
(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)



the cabin turrets on holdens were tall so you could wear your hat while driving.
not kidding. everybody wore a hat permanently glued to their head in australia until the mid 1960s.

[DaveB]

the cabin turrets on holdens were tall so you could wear your hat while driving.
not kidding. everybody wore a hat permanently glued to their head in australia until the mid 1960s.

@wonkipop Funny, growing up in the US in the 60's my image of Australians was they wore shorts and a slouch hat 24/7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) . BTW - Did the holden also have a 2 speed powerglide?

My Mom was 4" 10" or 150cm. The steering wheel in the 55 is huge. So when she drove it she barely touched the pedals and almost cleared the top of steering wheel. It looked like a ghost car from behind.


DaveB

[wonkipop]

the cabin turrets on holdens were tall so you could wear your hat while driving.
not kidding. everybody wore a hat permanently glued to their head in australia until the mid 1960s.

@wonkipop Funny, growing up in the US in the 60's my image of Australians was they wore shorts and a slouch hat 24/7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) . BTW - Did the holden also have a 2 speed powerglide?

My Mom was 4" 10" or 150cm. The steering wheel in the 55 is huge. So when she drove it she barely touched the pedals and almost cleared the top of steering wheel. It looked like a ghost car from behind.


DaveB

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
like the monty python "bruce" sketch.

shorts and slouch hat is true of the working man australian from WW2 on.
until the recent era where every body on work sites wears fluoro reflective gear and full skin coverings for out door work. low ozone content in southern hemisphere atmosphere. high skin cancer rates.

but australia was a very formal place in middle class ciricles.
very british.
full suit and tie with a hat on.
even when it was 100F and a north wind blowing with bushfire smoke swirling through town. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

it only really relaxed from the late 60s on.
now no one wears tie, not even politicians.
but hats are back in big time.

yep holdens had two speed powerglide but i have to think when auto trans came in.i
i don't think it was offered on aussie cars until some time in the 60s.
ford and chrysler had the autos earlier.
holden then had the trimatic auto box. think that came along in late 60s.
my dad was strictly a stick shift man.
but it wasn't on the floor.
"three on the tree" as it was known. lever on the steering column.
front seats were always bench.
often with a kid between mum and dad.
thats where i used to sit a lot until i got too big.
these days you would be accused of child cruelty if you even dared to let a kid get in the front seat of a car until they are 10 years old. no fun for the modern aussie kid.