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)

[Root_Werks]

1988 I think?

The Bug is my 1966 Oval window'd Bug. The red Vega was my Dad's he bought new in 1973. All us kids learned to drive that Vega. I took my drivers test in it. He also had a 1959 Vert Bug and bunches of other cars I don't have pics of.

[stownsen914]

I don't have a pic handy, but Dad's first car was a 356 believe it or not. Back when Porsches were kooky imports.

[wonkipop]

@Root_Werks

a white "pastie" i can see in the background too?

[Bullethead]

My first automotive memory is seeing high tension power line structures parade past the windows of a '49 Hudson in a sunset thunderstorm... pretty scary. I was probably 3 or 4.
The other is sitting in my dad's lap, steering a '56 Ford Sunliner, two-tone green with a white top. My strongest olfactory memory is of Parliament cigarettes lit on that car's lighter.

When I was six, my dad bought a '50 Willys Jeepster to restore for my older sisters and brother to drive to high school.

I was equipped with a pair of goggles, a bandana to cover my nose and mouth, a scraper, then shoved under the car. "Get to work!". My introduction to auto restoration.

[DaveB]

Charlie

My Dad's 55 is a white top too. This is the 55 today. Come this October it will have been in my family for 68 years. When my Dad was alive I just kept the car going. It runs but I wouldn't drive behind it. Now that my Dad is gone, it's next in line to be brought back after the 914 gets finished. And that is the actual license plate for the 55 in California. My Mom had a great sense of humor.










DaveB

[Root_Werks]

@Root_Werks

a white "pastie" i can see in the background too?

Buddies Fastback at the time. Thunk it was FI and Auto trans?

[Unobtanium-inc]

The late Great Dr. Wright had this, a few will recognize what it is.

[dflesburg]

9014?

[ClayPerrine]

The late Great Dr. Wright had this, a few will recognize what it is.

Diablo 914. I wanted the kit back in the day.


Big article in VW/Porsche magazine. I still have a copy of it.

[DRPHIL914]

The late Great Dr. Wright had this, a few will recognize what it is.

that might be the best looking aftermarket kit ive ever seen on a 914!

[Unobtanium-inc]

The late Great Dr. Wright had this, a few will recognize what it is.

Diablo 914. I wanted the kit back in the day.


Big article in VW/Porsche magazine. I still have a copy of it.

Nope, it was the Eagle GT.

[Puebloswatcop]

I can remember my Dad had a 1964 Pontiac Tempest 4 door. It was a 3 on the tree, wich just wasnt cool back in my days. I remember it had no seatbelts in the back seat, us kids uaed to lay in the back window and wait for dad to hit the brakes so we would fly out and land on the seat ( sometimes the floor). I remember going to the drive-in theater in it. It had no AC....Dad used to tell us it did have 4/75 AC and that was good enough for us. I spent many hours under that car holding the flashlight for dad during oil changes and such (and learning to curse in German).

I used to think that car was "un-cool", he finally sold it in about 1970 to the kid accross the street......Turns out it was a pretty cool car after all, as was my Dad, I just didn't know it. This isnt an actual pic of his car (at least I don't think it is) but it looked exactly like this.

[rhodyguy]

57’ Buick Special. 2 tone green. Similar to a 57’ Chevy. We drove from Seattle to Buffalo in it when I was 5. Then they bought a 67’ Chrysler Newport Custom. It had a 383 and a 2 barrel carb. Dismal MPG. There was nothing custom about it. FPOS car. I pleaded with my dad to buy a Buick Skylark (a 326?} with bucket seats. A baby GTO in the day. Nope.

[flyer86d]

Charlie

My Dad's 55 is a white top too. This is the 55 today. Come this October it will have been in my family for 68 years. When my Dad was alive I just kept the car going. It runs but I wouldn't drive behind it. Now that my Dad is gone, it's next in line to be brought back after the 914 gets finished. And that is the actual license plate for the 55 in California. My Mom had a great sense of humor.










DaveB

That’s what my Dads 55 looked like except yours is in better shape now than Dad’s was in 1963 when he traded it in. Illinois and New Jersey winters take a toll.

[wonkipop]

@DaveB

chev and holden engine bays almost identical! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
even down to the wiper motor.

GM had to think up a new place for the battery in holdens.
right hand drive gear got in the way.
good thing the engine bay was mostly air and you could shift sh$t around.
no worries getting your fat fingers in there to change the plugs.




aussies called them grey motors.
for obvious reasons.
red motors came along in the 1960s. high compression.
fancy!

[ClayPerrine]

@DaveB

chev and holden engine bays almost identical! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
even down to the wiper motor.

GM had to think up a new place for the battery in holdens.
right hand drive gear got in the way.
good thing the engine bay was mostly air and you could shift sh$t around.
no worries getting your fat fingers in there to change the plugs.




aussies called them grey motors.
for obvious reasons.
red motors came along in the 1960s. high compression.
fancy!

My father, Betty and I restored his 55 Bel Air convertible. We found the factory assembly manuals on ebay, and bought them. They referenced the Holden and all of the right hand drive components.

The manuals went when he sold the car.

[wonkipop]

@DaveB

chev and holden engine bays almost identical! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)
even down to the wiper motor.

GM had to think up a new place for the battery in holdens.
right hand drive gear got in the way.
good thing the engine bay was mostly air and you could shift sh$t around.
no worries getting your fat fingers in there to change the plugs.




aussies called them grey motors.
for obvious reasons.
red motors came along in the 1960s. high compression.
fancy!

My father, Betty and I restored his 55 Bel Air convertible. We found the factory assembly manuals on ebay, and bought them. They referenced the Holden and all of the right hand drive components.

The manuals went when he sold the car.

aussies weren't dumb back then mr. p.
(can't speak for their collective intelligence these days but).
they knew where the best gear came from and who had the right stuff.
at least back then.

except the mother country worshippers who flogged their little morris cars along highways and caused traffic jambs of holdens and fords backed up behind them.

GM always had a good product in holdens right through to the late 70s.
they dropped the ball at that point.
decided to use the GM europe platform. what a mistake.

Thats when Ford got the upper hand on them.

Shortly after that though it didn't matter because Toyota was preparing to karate chop the lot of them and did.


EDIT - in reference to the manuals and right hand drive components.
both ford and holden did sell small volumes of the larger american cars as "lux" vehicles.
can't recall if 55 chevs were, but certainly impalas were, right through from late 50s to late 60s.

[mmichalik]

My dad always worked in body shops so, we've been a car family from the beginning. My oldest memory, from 1973 / 74 was sitting in the passengers seat of his 71 Corvette, backing out of the garage.
I remember the black interior and looking up, watching the garage door go by. I was 3 or 4 years old at the time.
Here's pic of a 71 Vette, NOT his actual car though. Man! I wish I had this today.

[DaveB]

@wonkipop If the engine had 72bhp in '56 that's about what the 1.8 had in the 914 20 years later. That's full circle. As I look at the engine bay it's a little more compact and has the radiator on the V8 side for chevy in 55. But, it's the same layout, even the same air filter. That's really cool - thanks for putting them side-by-side.

DaveB