Your Fathers Car., earliest memory. Options

[poorsche914]

My dad had a green Morris Minor. He tells me he rebuilt the engine on the kitchen table! Used the swing set as an engine hoist.
Also had a red Saab and a blue Toyota wagon. This was in the early to mid '60s.

I remember sitting on the floor behind the driver seat (not sure which car) and "shifting gears" with an ice scraper. My dad asked why I had so many gears. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

In later years, he bought a new 1975 Dodge Colt GT - yellow with black racing stripe (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif) ; a '79 Mustang 5.0 Pace Car edition (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif) ; and, finally, a '75 914 1.8 that got me hooked (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

[Michael N]

Dad drove a brown convertible mid 60’s Ford Thunderbird. I am the youngest of 5 kids. I remember freezing my butt off sitting in the back seat of the T-bird in the SF Bay Area. I don’t ever remember the top being up on the car. It was replaced with an early 70’s VW bus.

[Maltese Falcon]

Dad's* 1952 Chevy (sea foam green) business-coupe, with Mom posing in her new dress that she just finished sewing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) * Dad's taking the pic. I recall standing up in the rear interior area...I liked standing versus being seated when out for a drive (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif). Fond memories listening to my Dad sending well wishes in several Euro languages to (bad L.A.) drivers on the road + everyone snacking on Mom's home baked poppyseed cookies (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rolleyes.gif)

[Maltese Falcon]

This was Dad and his DKW somewhere in Germany 1949'ish before coming to the USA. Since I was not born yet...I have no real time memories of the car, but the pic speaks for itself as he always loved the cars that he owned; one of my Faves (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

[worn]

1961 Ford Falcon wagon. With the extra power 170 cid engine. I miss that car! Mostly though, i miss him.

[dax1969]

It so funny to see how different the cars were in Europe and the USA. While at your side BIG and BIGGER was key, on this side cars were small, nimble. Today they even look dangerous small (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
Most of you don't even recognize these cars I guess

Born in 1969 my first memory was this car, a green Simca 1100 (internet pic, not the actual car). I usually sat at the backseat but in between the two front seats. Seatbelts were not present at all



From photo albums I know he had three cars before

A Simca 1000



A Citroen Dyane



A Ford Anglia was his first car



rgds
Dax

[TROJANMAN]

1972

[Montreal914]

I remember lifting up as his white early 70's Citroën GS with red interior would start (hydro-pneumatic suspension). The seats were very comfortable and the fabric was soft, some kind of velour if I recall.

The speedometer was also very cool being this magnifying glass with the number scrolling behind it. They became bigger as passing by the focal point.

I remember him saying; There are probably less than 10 of these in the country (Canada), this is a special car and very ahead of its time! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

Obviously, there were plenty in EU, but we didn't get a lot of that offering in North America then, and still don't.

Not his but same color in and out.

[wonkipop]

@Montreal914

thats cool your father owned a GS. fabulous cars.
there were hundreds of them running around down here in the 80s.
and then they all disappeared off the roads.
the rhd ones did not get the avante garde dashboard with the magnifying prism speedo (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sad.gif)
more conventional dials were used similar to this one i attach photos of for your interest.
a super special GS that comes into our workshop every now and then.
one of the very rare birotors. (comotor wankel). most were crushed by citroen after the rotary program was aborted. this one escaped to live down here.
its a challenge to find the bits for the engine.
even the spark plugs are NLA these days.






i have a 99 XM tucked in the garage and enjoy starting it up.
its fun waiting for it to pick itself up off the floor.
mostly it just sits there about 3 inches off the deck at rest. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[L-Jet914]

I was born in 1987 lol. My first memories of cars were my father's 1974 1.8L 914 and my mother's 1974 Mercury Capri (copper/burnt orange color) 4 cylinder manual transmission. I grew up riding around in both. Before the Capri she had a 1970 VW Beetle Autostick which I never got to see. Then my mother traded in her Capri for a 1990 Toyota Corolla LE 5 speed which I ended up learning how to drive on to go to high school in. Before the Corolla we had a 1986 Plymouth Voyager with the Mitsubishi 3.0L V6 a true mini van back then. My younger brother born in 1990 and I tooled around in the Voyager most of the time. My younger brother and I would sit in the 914 and ride it into the garage when my dad would come home. It was the softest riding van I had ever been in. The 914 is still here to this day and the last vestiges of my father's bachelorhood haha.

[bkrantz]

The oldest family car I remember was our 1959 Chevy wagon, at the end of the era of tail fins. My dad bought this new, so probably in late 1958 when I was 1.

Check out those tail lights.

[Osnabruck914]

My very first memory occurred in one of these (1940 LaSalle), with Dad driving cross-country from San Francisco to Offut Air Force Base Omaha, Nebraska upon the family's return from three years in Okinawa. The car barely made it across the desert and needed a rebuild on arrival.

[Ottomotion]

Not dad's car but his bike.
Would love to find it. It was sold in the Norwalk-LaMirada area in So-Cal in the early 70's.

[flyer86d]

Dad had a 1949 Ford coupe when I was born and in 1955 bought a new 55 Chevy 210 2 door with a V8 and Powerglide. I don’t remember the Ford but my earliest memory is Mom telling us that Dad bellied landed his Lockheed Lodestar at Chicago Midway in October of 1954 one month short of my 2nd birthday. They all walked away and the airplane was repaired. The CEO of the company was onboard and he commented to my dad, “Bill, that was the smoothest landing you have ever made!”

He also had a 1951 Olds Coupe that he would commute to the airport in. He replaced the Olds with a new 1961 VW sunroof which all three of us learned to drive in.

Charlie

[dflesburg]

My Dad's Car. The one that started all this sickness with myself, my brother, my boys and my wife.....

[DaveB]

Here is my Dad and Mom with my cousin and the car I grew up in. This picture was right after they purchased the car at the Long Beach Chevy dealership in 1955. Seamist green, blue-flame six engine, vinyl flooring, all drum brakes.



BTW - I still have it.

DaveB

[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

[flyer86d]

Here is my Dad and Mom with my cousin and the car I grew up in. This picture was right after they purchased the car at the Long Beach Chevy dealership in 1955. Seamist green, blue-flame six engine, vinyl flooring, all drum brakes.



BTW - I still have it.

DaveB

My parents 55 was the same color but with a white top and as I said before, V8 & Powerglide. Carpets, no radio and dog dish hubcaps. They bought it new in Elgin, Illinois but it was pretty rusty when they traded it in for a new 1963 Olds Dynamic 88. Now that was a great car!

Charlie

[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.