MY DADS CARS

                                                       

My father never placed as much emphasis on his automobiles as I do-- or most of us do for that matter. They were a means to get you where you wanted to go and the more modern you got, the more it cost you to buy it and keep it running. As a young boy in the early 1950’s, my father drove a 1928 Model A Ford. I guess that would be akin today, to someone driving an early 1990’s car in 2017, although a lot of the early 90’s cars had most of the accessories you get in new cars today, minus the Bluetooth Technology.  In comparisons, there was a world of difference between a 1953 Ford back then and the Model A from 1928. The model A was the car that old Henry Ford built that revolutionized automobile manufacturing and made Henry a rich man. The one thing I do remember about them was the simplicity of the car. The gas tank sat high under the hood with a gravity feed system for fueling the car, negating a fuel pump. The engine was a four cylinder, which through the years in later model cars with Ford, changed to a six cylinder and then a flathead v eight and then even a ten-cylinder engine. Today on a lot of modern cars we are back to the four cylinder engines. Albeit a much peppier and more economical one.

 The car was pretty basic and if you were outside standing next to it while it was running or inside sitting in the drivers seat the noise level was about the same. In the winter heat was largely absent and before today’s driving-gloves-- we had driving-mittens. We had things called frost shields on the windows that kept your breath from freezing on the glass but visibility through them was still kind of like looking at someone through a fruit jar. The windshield wipers were vacuum operated, so when you stepped on the gas they quit working and then when you left off the gas, they went like crazy.

The Model A’s had no turn signals and if memory serves me right they had just one tail light on the left side. You used hand signals for signaling your turns, which necessitated rolling down the driver’s window to put your arm out, much to the chagrin of the kids in the back seat in the winter. By the way, that back seat and the front one were about 60% as wide as today’s car seats. At this time there were six kids in our family so you do the math.

The car rode very rough and being high and boxy the wind blew it around a lot, although 45 mph was pretty much the pedal to the metal. On longer trips, which thankfully weren’t many, things could occasionally boil over including the car radiator or the kids in the back seat. You usually carried extra water along for the car and a coffee can for the kids for whatever. My father was an avid cigar smoker so that added to the uncomforting level. The trip to grandpa and grandmas was about 200 miles, so roughly an eight-hour trip. About three and half hours today.

I sometimes talk about the good old days. I think when it comes to the way we treated people and how we acted back then, there is some merit for that kind of talk. But a long ride in a Model A Ford?---Good old days?—Ah not so much.