In my QOTD post two weeks ago, I asked you to share the story of the most unreliable vehicle you’d ever owned. Most of you were quick to point out that I should’ve turned that into several different Questions of the Day, so you could specify different types of unreliable vehicles. The sheer number of comments (over 240 of them) showed me that the B&B love to share a bad story.
I see no reason not to return to form this week, and ask you about your worst childhood automotive memory. Mine involved a GMC Safari — in a situation which was nowhere near as decadent as above.
Tossing this question idea to the TTAC staff on the Slack channel last week triggered immediate memories: Seats in the way-back, hot vinyl on legs, or perhaps an experience with a third-degree burn from a solid metal seat belt buckle. Mostly, I realized through this quick survey that my worst story wasn’t that bad. Anyway, it sticks in my mind so you’re gonna hear about it.
The year was around 1994, and we’d driven in my grandma’s light blue circa ’88 GMC Safari over to the west side of Cincinnati to do some shopping at the Service Merchandise (off of Glenway Avenue, presently vacant). It was one of my favorite stores to visit, for two very distinct reasons: They had electric typewriters I could play with while my family was shopping, and there was entertainment while we waited to check out, via the guys pushing boxes down the conveyor belt. Service Merchandise is the only store I’ve been to in my entire life that combined these two features. My joy was stopped short when we left to go have dinner.
Returning to the Safari with whatever VCRs or other ’90s goods my family purchased, grandma realized she did not have her keys to unlock the van. Peering through the untinted windows, we found it was because the keys were in the ignition. To my recollection, all this happened in the fall, and just about the time we realized we were locked out it got dark and started raining. An adult went back into the store and used a landline telephone to call the police, who put the request into their queue. Sometime later (it seemed ages) a young policeman arrived to our wet and cold location at the back of the parking lot to try and unlock the door. I remember standing there and being freezing for what seemed like hours as the cop used his slim jim on the van.
The policeman was worried that with his lack of experience he might scratch the van’s window in the attempt to get the door open. He suggested that if spare keys existed, it might be a better idea to get them. Someone went back into the store to use the phone again, to call my grandpa and give him the bad news about the rest of his evening. It would take him a half hour to drive over with the keys and let all his soaking wet relatives into the car.
I have questions about this event — questions my family is unable to clarify so many years later. Why didn’t we wait in the store, out of the rain? Why didn’t the cop call for assistance in popping the door open? What ever happened to Service Merchandise?
I suspect I’ll never know the answer to any of these , but perhaps you can console me with your worst automotive-related memory (and keep it PG, please).
[Images: General Motors]
Worst one for me was on a vacation in my late parents RV. We hit a piece of steel,etc in the road causing the two rear wheels to rupture and shear the studs off, loosing the wheels. Slid on the brake drum till we stopped. Fixing that, we continues to our destination. Upon arriving, we hear a strange noise and the engine died. We had broken a connecting rod. Purchasing a car to get home, we ALMOST did, till the wheel bearing seized and sent the car into the center median. Rental car to get home. Went back, picked up the purchased car. Flew back to get the RV, only for the transmission to start going bad when almost home. Thankfully it made it home.
Vacation from hell?! Damn, man.
Only positive…. We purchased our first station wagon, which I was given in high school and still own (and now restored) to this day.
Nice, making lemonade out of lemons. :)
JohnTaurus: I’ve had some of those, mostly involving a motorhome.
We never had a motor home, but dad kept us with fairly new vehicles, and so I don’t have any breakdown horror stories. (Plus they were all Fords, so, um, right…just kidding, yes they were Ford products but don’t think I’m of the opinion that anything with a blue oval is infallible, because I’m not.)
I remember a buddy in 4th (?) grade telling me he and his parents had 6 flat tires on his dad’s VanDURA during their trip to Eastern Wa and back (we lived up above Seattle at the time). Looking back on it, I now realize his family was quite poor, probably buying used tires with a clapped out van that probably chewed em up as quick Oprah chews through a family size bag of Lays.
Oh, I remember now, it was a
Chevy Beauville van they had, not a Vandura.
And after that you still visit a car forum… haha.
I had to reach way back to think of something. But, I think I got a good one.
Going down a mountain pass in our 1990 Ford Aerostar pulling a single axle utility trailer, mom was going a little too fast, and the trailer went to swinging. I can remember the sound of the rear tires squealing as the van was jerked back and forth.
Rant: why is it that when I type two paragraphs (like these above), the “Submit Comment” button disappears?! Very annoying. I have to copy, post, edit and paste. Btw, I am using the mobile version. And I lost a third paragraph in the story above and be damned if I feel like typing it again.
The site is still messed up. On desktop browsers, there are no subscribe buttons (still).
Yeah, none here on this version either, now that you mention it.
This should have been a contest instead of a QOTD
Okay, I’ll try to finish the story. Suffice it to say, we survived. Mom got it under control and we got stopped at the next rest stop to calm down. “Upset” isn’t a big enough word, but “hysterical” is too big, she was somewhere in between (at the time).
I was about twelve at the time, and I remember it vividly. My dad was in front of us in a Ford F-700 Ryder moving truck, towing his 1992 F-150. I can imagine the panic he felt upon seeing his wife and kids in the rear view mirror looking like they’re about to go tumbling down the mountain. I think it was somewhere in Colorado. I know we were well out of Washington (where we were coming from), and I do remember it was one of the steepest downhill grades, according to a trucker at the rest stop.
Without compromising my mom’s privacy, I’ll just say this: the events of that day had a lasting affect on her, and it wasn’t good. I had no idea until it was brought up a year or two later.
Funny, we had two Safaris when I was growing up. One was a ’93 in a dark teal that looked great which was loaded up (in as much as a Safari in 1993 could be). It had separate buckets in the middle row and rear AC in front of the “dutch doors” in back. I really enjoyed that van and if it weren’t revealed to be such a death trap I’d consider having one as a cargo hauler.
At the end of the lease it was replaced by a face-lifted ’96 which was gold and not as nicely optioned. I didn’t care for that one as much.
My worst experience with cars was frequently getting car sick. It’s a miracle I enjoy cars at all.
I was 8 or 9 yo down in Tennessee for Spring Vacation with my parents. We’re stopping here for only a day before going on to Hunting Island is South Carolina.
Out in the sticks someone pulls right out in front of the car in front of us. My dad has to hit the brakes hard! The same time he does this, his arms pops over and pins me to the back seat. This was the days before kids wore seatbelts. We end up hitting the car in front of us while the guy who caused it all takes off. Luckily the damage – B-body Oldsmobile 88 – wasn’t that bad enough to put an end to our vacation.
Oddly, it was when my parents finally bought a car with air conditioning. It seemed like it would be awesome to not be trapped in the back seat of a hot car in the summer. However, when we took our first long trip in that car (a ’72 Plymouth Fury III Coupe) I came to realize that being trapped in the backseat of a car with two chain smokers and that the windows would likely never get rolled down again was a special kind of hell. I quickly became nostalgic for the ’68 Satellite or the ’64 Rambler.
OMG. Just…OMG. The suffocation feeling here is vivid. Being old enough to remember cross country seventies land barges, I can imagine the hot vinyl and lack of air. I think I might have clawed a hole in the floor in desperation. Truly the stuff of horror. Millenials have “Saw” the movie, we had road trips.
This. Same experience. Once dad got AC the windows were rolled up half of the year and the chain-smoking continued.
Boy, me too. I remember as a little kid being in the back of a 1940 Buick with a couple of cigar-smoking guys in front. Went right to my head, migraine and vomiting ensued.
There was the time my uncle’s 1937 LaSalle vapor-locked in afternoon rush-hour on the Highway 99 bridge over the Columbia River….
Come to think of it, most of my not-so-hot experiences in cars have involved my not being behind the wheel.
Just curious is anyone ever took up smoking when they got older?
Mine was riding in any of my parents cars. They always bought two doors vehicles. None of them had roll down windows in the back. One had pop out windows.
My mother would go to smoking while driving a steep curvy road where I was likely to already be car sick. Fun combo.
She would barely roll the window down if it was raining. Would complain if I opened the pop-out window b/c it would get cold in the car or she thought the rain would get inside.
When I turned 16 she would try to send me to the grocery store to buy her cigarettes. No, buy your own Mom!
DW and I typically buy four doors. The one convertible we own has roll down windows in the back. Both of us come from families of smokers. Neither of us smoke.
This sounds like the most terrible thing on earth.
During most of my childhood my two parents lived on two different continents, with the result that I took four long international flights a year. This was before smoking was banned on international flights, and I would always feel screwed up when I left the airplane, and smell like an ashtray, just from the secondhand smoke. I can’t imagine how bad it would be in such a confined space.
My parents both smoked when I was a kid. They bought a new 64 Impala and did not order it with AC. After about 6 months they went to the dealer and had a “hang on” AC unit installed. This thing hung down under the center of the dash. It had no fresh air inlet and only recirculated the cooled air in the car. I remember the smoke being almost unbearable in the back seat.
Another problem was engine cooling. On the interstate everything was fine, but in city traffic, the engine would overheat because the radiator and fan was not big enough for the AC system. I remember watching for the “Hot” light to come on (Impala’s also had a green “Cold” light). Once the red temp light came on, the AC was turned off and all windows rolled down. At least that gave some respite from the smoke.
And yet if TTAC published a piece about the pending law in Alabama banning smoking in cars with children we would see pages of posts about govt overreach and the nanny state.
I shall join the club of being tortured in the back seat with cigarettes. I was rolling in an 83 Electra wagon and my mom would spend her summers smoking it up, windows shut with the AC blasting. I f’ing HATED being in the car. Short trips, long trips it was misery. Not only was the smoke bad enough, it was the mid-80s and she listened to horrible radio pop trash and had terrible taste in music. Imagine being stuck in a frigid smoke filled wagon with Bananarama blasting their terrible Venus cover on an 80’s-era Delco tape system.
My only revenge (if you can call it that) was the time that I ended up getting a stomach bug on a trip from VA to OH and proceeded to vomit several times out of the tailgate window all over the bumper (no she did not stop the car). The whole back of the car was coated in dried puke by the time we got home. I certainly wasn’t going to clean it.
Mom always cracked a window when she smoked (she quit in the late 1990s, probably why she just celebrated a birthday well into her 70s), and when the Aerostar mentioned above was traded in, it didn’t even smell like smoke.
My uncle, who died of lung cancer a few years ago, would smoke with the windows up and I remember riding in his mid-90s GMC Z-71’s extended cab and becoming nauseated on a trip to an airport to pick up a family member.
My mother is in her 70s and still smokes. My grandparents smoked into their 80s believe it or not.
Sibling bought a little car one time that had a yellow interior from all the cigarette smoke. It took days to clean.
Cigarette smoke will never come out of the headliner in a car, never. I see people smoking in their car with the windows rolled up, you could cure a ham on the backseat. If you’re in your 80s and still smoking, you may as well keep going with what works.
Way late on this, but my first car, a 1978 Cutlass Salon, was not only used-up, but came with an inch of cigarette ash over everything below the door panels! Plus windows which took the better part of a big multi-pack of paper towels and a half-gallon of window cleaner to clean to my 18-YOA specs!
Unsurprisingly, the aunt who gave me the car was in declining health from lung cancer and alcoholism, and died four months afterward.
I had to ride around in the back of two Chevrolets built before seatbelts (1951 and 1958) and padded anything inside, with lousy drum brakes, vacuum powered wipers, tube AM radio, and no mobile phone to call for help in the event of an accident or breakdown. Looking back I could have easily died a violent death in an accident, and the infotainment options were terrible, but at the time nobody thought about those things because we didn’t know anything better. All I remember is that we never had an accident or breakdown, and I had many pleasant long car trips talking and playing games with my parents and brother, and watching the scenery go by. Yes that is the worst I could come up with – I was blessed to have a fantastic childhood.
My cousin and I drove his 1974ish Chevy Custom C10 today, I was reminded of how far we have come and how much we take for granted. It has lap belts only, exposed metal every-phucking-where, manual steering, the most uncomfortable bench seat I can ever recall being in a vehicle, and the (brand new!) carburetor choke got stuck as we attempted to cross a busy highway (causing the 250 I-6 to stall).
Thank God for safety features, power features, lumbar support, and almost-above-all-else: FUEL INJECTION!
My cousin and I drove his 1974ish Chevy Custom C10 today, I was reminded of how far we have come and how much we take for granted. It has lap belts only, exposed metal every-phucking-where, manual steering, the most uncomfortable bench seat I can ever recall being in a vehicle, and the (brand new!) carburetor choke got stuck as we attempted to cross a busy highway (causing the 250 I-6 to stall).
Thank God for safety features, power features, lumbar support, and almost-above-all-else: FUEL INJECTION!
++++++++ on electronic fuel injection.
+++ on safety.
+ on better seats.
meh on power features.
I was thinking more in terms of power brakes and steering, not windows and seats lol. Shoulda been more clear on that, sorry.
Btw I love the truck, don’t get me wrong, its a classic and he just got it about a year ago. First GM truck of the era (that hasn’t been restored) that I’ve seen in a loooong time with solid rockers and floors. It has minor surface rust, nothing more.
(And I realize I must’ve hit “paste” twice on the above post, sorry.)
I was about 4 years old, and getting out of my grandfather’s late 70’s Coupe DeVille, I was in the back seat. My mom had gotten out of the front seat, I tilted that seat forward to exit, and on my way out someone shut the door.. on 4 of out of 5 of my fingers on my right hand. I remember hearing the door shut (it closed all the way mind you) and looking in horror at all 4 of my fingers being “trapped” inside the door jamb..
The hilarious part is the door gaps were so terrible in malaise era GM cars that my fingers were fine. They were bruised, but not even CUT.. lol .. I screamed anyway.
Something similar happend to me. My grandfather had a truck camper that slid into the bed of his half-ton. I was about 6 years old and he was showing the family around his new purchase. I hopped out of the camper, holding onto the door frame to balance myself. A sudden gust of wind slammed the door shut on my fingers.
I lost two fingernails and my middle finger on that hand is a little crooked as a result. Camper doors are a lot more weather-tight, apparently.
Owww.
Same thing today and you’d be fingerless!
Nope, actually my cousin (I know I keep mentioning cousins lol, and no its not all the same one, the one with the Chevy truck above is my age, the one in this story is his mom, my aunt’s daughter) got the door of a 2012 Altima closed on her hand (which was on the “B” pillar). Wasn’t slammed but it was latched. Didn’t break bones nor cut, but I’m sure it hurt like hell given how she screamed. At first we thought she was joking, but, um, no. Lol
I had the same exact experience: same fingers, same age, the same 70s coupe (but not a Cadillac), same scream. My mother’s friend slammed the door on my four fingers. I think they were just scraped and sore.
I have tons of memories that were awful experiences at the time but now mostly funny. I remember yelling at my parents because it took them over an hour to pick me up from karate one day. They had been driving a rwd b-body through a southern snow storm. Needless to say my attitude was not appreciated.
I literally can’t think of a single negative childhood memory related to cars except when I was 8 my parents wouldn’t buy me my own gokart which made me sad. Then 13 I was mad my parents wouldn’t buy me at least a moped.
So my worst memory is not being able to get one?
Fortunately when I was 13 I was determined, so I started my own company (parents wouldn’t let me get a job), and I made enough money to buy 3 mopeds by the time I was 14… as well as a computer server, a plot of land, a bird aviary (yeah I bred birds), a 280z, etc. and the rest is history!
So while that was a huge negative (not being able to have a vehicle from my parents), it ended up being a huge positive, because if they would have given me one,I never would have founded the companies at the ripe age of 13 that ultimately lead me to all the car-nirvana I get today… Porsches, Ferraris, BMWs, Speed boats… all thanks to that “worst childhood memory”. It was so painful I HAD to fix it, and I’m better off now because of it.
Does that make it a bad memory? Or a blessing in disguise?
early 90’s…In back of (what turned out to be a stolen) van, full of hippies on way to rainbow gathering, whole trip was miserable, but being stuck in back of that van for days, lack of ventilation, smell of patchouli and body odor still makes me gag thinking about it. I am not a hippy, was not accepted at rainbow gathering, someone thought it would be fun to give me a massive dose, spent around a day hiding under a bush waiting for it to stop…back in the back of the van
that sounds horrible. Something similar happened to me.
Why did you attend this event??
We used to have an ’83 Chevy 30 conversion van that was fun to take road trips in. Gray outside, navy carpets with navy curtains, and gray bucket seats for the front two rows with a rear bench that folded flat cushion side up. I got locked in it when I was 5 years old in ’96 because I couldn’t find the door handle.
All our other cars had crank windows, up until we bought a new Forester in ’09, but the van had power windows. I had used the door handle in the van before before but had a brain fart because the handle rotates on the plane of the door rather than pulling out from the plane. I thought it was a crank for opening the windows, despite the power window switch being right there above it on the panel. Spent a good 15 minutes there and nobody came out of the house to check for me.
Back in 2009, when I was a teenager, I lost a fight with a Cadillac. I was riding my bicycle across a marked intersection at a light, and the geriatric (87-year-old) driver failed to yield, plowing into me at about 45 miles per hour. All I got was road-rash, fortunately, and I have a cool facial scar that I tell people was from a knife fight, because it’s more badass.
My good friend V makes fun of me because when I called her to tell her what had happened—while in the ambulance truck—I specifically said, “Hey, V, I got hit by a 2000-2005 Cadillac DeVille.” Because I saw it coming, and knew what it was. I just didn’t have time to get out of the way.
eeeks. Thats pretty brutal.
Glad you didn’t get run over fully, because that thing would crush you!
This is an even worse Northstar experience than many owners had. Now I’m gonna go on Facebook and look for your scar.
Joke’s on you; I deactivated my Facebook this morning, for now.
THWARTED
Damn, the Guardian Angel was definitely on the case that day.
Isn’t that such a great part of being a car guy, always remembering/describing a vehicle in detail whereas most people would just shrug or forget. It’s never been a big help to me before, but I’m waiting for the day I can tell the Police the bank robbers made their getaway in a “blue ’94-97 SXV20 Toyota Camry”, instead of “a car”.
I respect anyone who quotes model years in conversation.
– siting in the car at the stop light. Bum! Taxi slams into rear.
– riding big bus that start to slide sideways on slick road. Somehow the driver straightens it back into the road.
– taking tour in the central Europe. The bus driver thinks he can drive a bit more up to mountain. But no. Bus starts to slide back and only because its rear wheel caught a nice rock, it didn’t fall off into the mountain side.
That last one! That coulda really hurt!
My parents owned a 1984 Toyota Corolla. Probably the worst car I’ve driven. New, it would have a hard time going over 60 mph. My 1984 Jetta was a rocket ship compared to that pos corolla.
How fast did you NEED to go – interstate speed limit was 55 mph. ;)
I had an ’81 Moostang with the 3.3L six. 90HP. Performance was similar to your parents’ Toyota. Out of breath above 75 mph as I recall.
Had an ’83 VW Golf 1.8L with 90HP and it would run circles around the Moostang. Had the VW to its max velocity of ~120 mph by the speedo on the dash.
My worst memory is being hit by an early ’50s Pontiac as I was crossing a busy street at dusk in 1965 when I was 11. The force was enough to skitter me down the road a ways even though the car was screeching to a stop. Although I was pretty well bruised and scraped, I was fortunate in not having any broken bones. The older working man who was in the Pontiac got out to help me and I remember seeing the concern and horrible fear in his face. I wanted to go on walking home but he insisted that I stay and wait for the police, who took me to the hospital in the back of a cruiser. A neighbor who happened to pass by shortly after the hit called my parents. I was the focus of attention at school the next day, even though I was terribly sore from the impact. I still have a silver dollar-sized scar on my leg which is devoid of feeling.
The good old days…where the driver stopped to help and showed genuine concern and your parents in turn probably didn’t sue him for everything that he had. Now, showing genuine concern is tantamount to admitting guilt in court.
I carry an umbrella policy in this modern litigious age.
“The good old days…where the driver stopped to help and showed genuine concern and”
did not get car jacked.
About 30 years ago when I was probably six or seven, I honked the horn while my grandfather had his head in the engine bay of his Ford F100. I think he threw his shoe at me as I ran away :)
I mean who throws a shoe, honestly!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_shoeing_incident
My mother used to get angry with us—for good reason—and would pick up and throw whatever was handy: shoes, television remotes, books, cutlery, laptops, furniture, pets, small cars…you know.
To this day, I have very fast reflexes.
I was the same age when I did that to my dad as he was working under the hood of his ’75 Delta 88 Royale. He was tall and hit his head on the hood latch hook that stuck out pretty far. He kicked me into the house after that. I kind of did it because he was complaining that I kept handing him the wrong sized sockets.
My parents had a serious antique-store obsession in the mid-’70s. For some reason, they’d drag me and my two little brothers – who did NOTHING but fight – along for the ride. Of course, they wouldn’t let us shop with them (something about “you break it, you bought it,” as I recall.
So I spent probably two solid weeks of my life stuck in a all-vinyl-seat ’75 Olds Custom Cruiser Wagon with my two kid brothers staging “Wrestlemania ’75” in the back. In St. Louis. In July.
sweaaaaattyyy
And no radio.
(Wilhelm Scream)
I grew up in the late 80’s/90’s and I remember my parents leaving me and my brother in the car for very long periods of time. Frankly, I much preferred it over standing around at the bank for an hour (remember that!?)
From what I hear, doing this today makes you worse than Hitler. Worse than Hitler, Stalin and Mao combined if it’s a dog in question.
I left my kids in the car while I went into the store at the gas station for 1 minute and my wife had an aneurysm. What changed?
Danio,
As a coworker once told me about raising children. “Everything you thought you knew is wrong”.
Nothing’s changed, a minute’s still a minute. But I’m a big reason (during my terrible two’s) why you have to step on the brakes to shift out of park. Yep they left my (2 years older) sister and I in an idling mid ’60s regular cab (bench seat to stand on) long bed GMC parked at the curb.
Actually nobody was hurt, the damage was minor, and the owner of the parked/damaged VW down the street wanted no money, and nothing got reported. My sister was screaming her head off the whole time, and I wanted to go again!
My sister did that trick in the 80’s. 1985 Caprice wagon, she was 3 or 4. Mom had ran back into the house, she walked along the front bench seat and pulled the column shifter down into reverse or neutral. Car rolled down the driveway, across the road and down into the neighbors yard and mowed over the tree in the middle of their yard. If the tree wasn’t there the car would have hit their house.
Mine has to be the summer road trips in the trunk of my parent’s Dodge Aspen. No A/C, very little ventilation, and hours and hours of nothing to do but read books and watch the woods of Wisconsin go by. That, and fight my brother and occasionally getting threatened by my dad!
Too easy…
Riding in the ‘Red Van’. A 77′ Plymouth Voyager full size no AC van with black vinyl bench seats in the summer with my 3 siblings. What made it really special was my dad’s quaint habit of chain smoking Pall Mall straights.
I still can’t breath properly….
Pall Mall had to be the least popular cig brand when I worked at Kroger. Even Viceroy was purchased more often.
I once had an acquaintance who mooched off of his live-in boyfriend instead of getting a job, and who had a habit of smoking Marlboro Lights when his Native American check came every month, and Pall Malls when the check ran out. He definitely reeked worse when smoking the Pall Malls, and it was a good indicator of when his bank account balance had begun to dip precipitously. The whole thing was quietly amusing.
Now I almost want to see what those smell like, to see if I can differentiate from Marlboro Lights. The only one I can tell that’s different now is Camels. They smell worse than other cigs.
I’m sad that I *do* know, because I try to stay away from cigarette smoke.
My dad smoked Pall Mall in the red pack, their slogan was “Where Particular People Congregate”. It’s also the title of an album by indie rockers The Bo-weevils.
Dude. I hade a two-pack a day habit by proxy for the first 13 years of my life. Dad would chain smoke in every car I was in – it was horrid. I too, still can’t breathe right.
I wonder how much all that secondhand smoke shortened your lives. :/
Only two packs a day? Lucky you. For more than half his life, my dad was a 3-pack-plus smoker until he finally quit cold turkey–after watching his equally-heavy-smoker aunt degrade and pass away over the course of about 6 months due to lung cancer. Scared him so bad he quit on the spot and lived another 15 years, passing himself while undergoing treatment for a dime-sized spot of cancer on his lung (which may have been caused more by his ship-building work at the start of WWII than by his smoking.)
I’m convinced I could have been a great athlete except for all the second hand smoke in my childhood years.
Actually I was far too clumsy to be good at anything athletic.
We have a picture taken in my grandparents’ home with the whole family playing cards. The amount of smoke hanging in the air is amazing. Everyone was smoking except us few kids. And really, we were smoking too.
In 1971, when I was 9 years-old, I was backed into by a 1968 Mercury Park Lane 4-door. I walked away with scratches and a bent bicycle. I remember the car because every time ‘Hawaii Five-O’ came on, my mom would say “There’s the car that hit you”. It was a land yacht. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on ‘68 2-door Marauder with the 390, that’s when a car was a car.
Kind of funny how many of us have been hit by cars.
Yep. I got hit by a ginormous Ram pickup about two months ago. She rolled up to a stop sign, and was slowing down, so I walked in front of her. Figured she saw me. She didn’t. Instead, she was f**king around on her phone, and pulled out. She tagged me with the far right corner of her front end.
Thank God, she was only going maybe 3-4 mph or so, but ol’ Sir Isaac took over at that point, and I got thrown a few feet. Landed on my head and got a concussion.
At least the idiot took responsibility.
Unfortunately, I still see that giant-a** chrome crosshair grill coming my way in my dreams, which has killed any faint enthusiasm for the entire Ram brand.
That could have come out a LOT worse for me.
So I’m guessing you’re in favor of the redesigned 2019 Ram front end without the crosshair grille?
My condolences. The combination of crosswalks and cellphone drivers is by far the most dangerous thing I face regularly.
Back in the 80’s me and a buddy of mine did some dirt track racing in stock bodied cars. We were at a track running some heats and my buddy who was the driver came into the pits unexpectedly. At least it was for me, as I was walking across the end of the pit box talking to another crew member (I didn’t see our car come in) when the Dodge clipped me and threw me up the hood of our race car.
Ironically, the reason why he came in unexpectedly is because the brakes were fading on the track. They were also fading in the pit lane, too!
Other than some scratches (those f’in hood pins hurt!), but I learned my lesson not to take anything for granted in the pit box…
Dad used a 60’s something Chevy truck, three on the tree, for his work and I gave up my Saturdays to be with him. Once during a U turn the passenger door flew open and since I was leaning against it headed for the asphalt. Dad in the middle of a shift and lighting a smoke, reached over grabbed my shirt, pulled me in, then finished the shift while pulling a drag on his cigarette. Then effecting a repair, single handily unwound rubber spline used for screens looped a lasso and tied the door shut. Not a word was said during the event and dad continued onto the job site as though these things happen.
I reflect on his calm demeanor which later in life has served me well.
When I was about 10 I opened the rear door on our mid-30s Ford sedan while Dad was driving 10-15 mph. Suicide rear door.
Just about jerked me right out of the car. Luckily I had a good grip on it and was able to hold it until Dad stopped.
Every single moment spent in my dad’ 1975 puke green Chrysler Newport with puke green vinyl interior.
The car was incredibly ugly for starters. It if rained, snowed, or was foggy it wouldn’t start. It had no AC, so the vinyl seats would rip your hide off in the summer, and freeze you to death in the winter.
It was an awful, awful, car.
A/c has got to be about the best thing about modern cars. Well, disc brakes too. And radial tires. And decent seatbelts. And modern suspension. Oh and fuel injection. ;)
…and power steering
I think it had to do with my purchase of a ’67 Beetle in the mid ’80’s. I had heard so much about them, ridden in lots, but came upon and purchased (cheap) the blue devil as winter was closing in. So, as you can imagine, most of my bad memories were scraping the insides of the windscreen to see, and trying to coax some heat out of rusted out air vents and such. Man, I cursed that thing, and despite its good qualities in deep snow, it was a miserable, drafty and uncomfortable POS that sent me back to my land barges for some time to come. The joy of having drunk the VW Kool-Aid was put into proper perspective by the ’70 Buick LeSabre that replaced it.
That, or I think any recollection I have of mom’s ’61 Olds F-85. It ran on the ragged edge of overheating so much we might have owned a British sports car for all the “will we make it?” conversations in that we had.
Siting in the back seat of a Dodge Spirit R/T at a stop sign, when the semi in the left turn lane decided to turn right. The slow crushing noise the K-Car made while be smushed by the trailer will be with me forever.
Well that, or getting puked on in the back of a Mercury Villager and still having to ride back there for six hours.
I used to get terribly car sick…picture the back seat of a 69 Delta 88 4 door hardtop, headed from the west side of Cincinnati, straight down I-75 to Sanibel Island FL. My dad, to this day, hates a/c, says it gives him a headache, and my mom said it was too loud and windy with windows down so we would just sweat, and stick to the green vinyl seats. My mom made a fabric contraption that hung from the front seat headrests, to hold all of our toys and books, etc, to keep us entertained in the back. I puked ALL OVER the toys, books, etc, and we wound up along the side of I-75 cleaning it up. This would have been around 1972 or so.
I don’t remember where Service Merchandise was on Glenway, lived really close to there off Werk Rd but can’t picture where it was.
Address is at 5100 Glencrossing Way. Just a generic strip mall. I think it was a Micheal’s after that, so the frontage has changed.
Oh yeah, now I know where that was.
When I was writing this, I took a Streetview look of the parking lot.
At the time, it seemed so much further from the store to the car than it could’ve possibly been – the parking lot isn’t that long!
Service Merchandise, Best Products, and other such retailers were great!! You could shop for small electronics, jewelry, watches, etc., and actually inspect the stuff and comparison-shop before you plunked down a card! And their prices weren’t all bad!
Nowadays, you take your chances with Amazon or eBay! (And hope that the merchandise is as good as the picture on your phone makes it look!)
So, so many. I should be traumatized. Maybe I am.
A continuous (only food/bio stops) trip to Florida with myself and my 2 brothers (all in our mid to late teens) crammed into the back of Mark IV. The Old Man would occasionally just throw his arm back and connect with whoever was too slow to get out of the way.
On the same trip took the Mark IV out late (7-11?). Locked the keys in the car. While using a coat hanger to ‘jimmy’ the lock felt something cold on my ‘butt cheek’ (yes wearing Magnum style shorts). The nose of a K9 with its attendant officer staring at me with his long gun in his arms and pointed at me. In my memory I still swear that he was wearing one way shades.
A friend losing control, while showing our female friends what a ‘fishtail’ was and the vehicle going down a very large hill that we used to toboggan on. No injuries and no body damage to the car.
A blow out while travelling at ‘just’ above maximum legal speed on the Don Valley Parkway. Not once but twice in a month. In my nearly new Grand Prix with Firestone 500 steel belted radials, which were I believe recalled due to that problem. Have never driven on Firestones since.
Having my keys locked in the Cordoba, the night of Darryl Sittler’s historical 10 point game. Yes, we had tickets. No we could not leave the car because it was running. Have you ever tried to jimmy a Cordoba’s lock with a coat hanger? Large interior plastic bits to stymie your attempt. We could hear the crowd cheering but didn’t know what we were missing until we finally got in, between the 2nd and 3rd periods.
The T-Bird refusing to start at -20 after an outdoor night skating expedition. No cell phones. A 20 minute one way walk to find a phone. Then the walk back. Then a 1 hour wait for the tow truck. That car tried to kill me/us multiple times.
There are, unfortunately, more.
Your memories are very brougham.
I shared with the TTAC staff your hot pants story.
What MY was the T-Bird?
A new MY 1978.
Yes most of my auto memories do appear to involve Brougham style vehicles.
Ah yes, Firestone 500 radials. While on vacation I had one blow out in the middle of Florida on Route 27 heading toward Miami. These had come from the factory on our 74 Gran Torino. By the time I got home two more had bulges in the sidewalls.
I remember the Firestone 500 recall from the late 70’s. I knew someone who had a set on his Mustang which blew out when he was driving and he almost lost the car. I think he received a settlement from them.
I was considering a set for my 70 Mustang because hey Firestone they have to be good. Plus the raised white lettering looked good.
I ended up with a set of Kelly Springfield’s which were more than ok.
Thanks NHTSA
Riding home with the carpool, in the rear facing far back seat of a mid ’60s Buick station wagon, getting carsick.
I used to love the rear-facing seat in a wagon… when the wagon had one. Tended to ride the flat floor much more often, along with our three dogs.
In 1968 or so my dad bought a brand new Corvair Greenbriar camper van, and decided to take us camping way up in the Sierras. Hot summer day, 4 passengers plus the built-in kitchenette and sleeping accommodations, and climbing slowly up a curvy one-lane mountain road were too much for the air-cooled 6-cylinder. We had the windows down and the heater going full blast, and had to stop every 20 minutes or so to let the engine cool. Took us forever to get to the campground.
Wasn’t long before he traded the Corvair for a conventional Chevy van with a V8. We went back to that same campground every year, but I’ll never forget that first time.
Running the heater in that Corvair might have been your problem as it diverted some of the engine cooling air flow to push heat into the cabin. Using the heater in cold weather would be no problem b/c the engine would not require as much cooling of course.
Would be better to leave the heater off, and run in a lower gear so the engine had slightly higher rpms so the fan would spin faster.
I’ve owned/restored aircooled VWs, aircooled Fiats, Corvairs and mortocycles/scooters for many years.
As much as I like them, I’m glad watercooling is pretty much universal at this point.
Two incidents really. One that could have been quite disastrous for me and another that wasn’t as bad as initially thought.
When I was maybe two or three, my family had a 1962 Ford Fairlane. My father, middle brother and I were going somewhere and I was sitting on my brother’s lap (he’s six years older than me). As the story goes, my dad was turning at an intersection about the same time I decided to see if the door latch worked, and I was hauled back in by my brother before tragedy struck. Or I struck the road. Either way, I guess I may owe him my life…
The second one was a case of a misunderstood telephone call. My mother was driving our sole family car and it had been damaged badly in an icy church parking lot. Even though both of my parents spoke English pretty well (we’re immigrants), my poor father heard that my MOTHER had been hit badly in the parking lot, not the CAR.
You can imagine the uproar in the house at the time. Dad went to the neighbors who in turn, took him to the church. Much to his relief, mom was fine, but the Montego was toast. Once we at the house got the story straight, everyone calmed down. But that was a pretty awful evening, as we thought it was going to turn out quite differently…
I think my worst both involved GM products that my parents owned.
First there was the Iraqibu that had a vibrating 3 speed transmission, and then it would randomly vapour-lock.
The second was the ’87 Chevy Celebrity that was a piece of crap from the start. Took it to Florida in 1988 and it would randomly blow fuses all the way to Florida. But we somehow made it there.
I remember my dad telling us that the service writer at the local dealer told him with a straight face that “you might have hit a bump”. That was his logic for the fuse problems…
One lap of America road trip to Yellowstone , Grand Canyon, petrified Forest, etc., In a 72 Pinto wagon, light blue, with fake wood on the sides. Anemic four banger with a carb wheezing it’s way into the Rockies while being passed by annoyed truckers. My brother and I fighting in the wee bitty vinyl seats in back. Mom and Dad divorced not long after. I always wondered….
OMG. We had a 74 Pinto woody, but it was strictly for short hauls. Can’t imagine hauling the family around the country in it. The horror….
I had a stepbrother (now, since my dad moved from wife #3 to wife #4, no longer my stepbrother) who was seven months older than me but a good deal bigger and stronger. He loved to torment me. We had a two-door, first-year Land Rover Discovery that we would take on epic road trips in the summer. One year, we had packed a particularly heavy load for some reason, with the result that one position of the back seat was taken up by stuff. I had to sit in the middle jammed next to him, constantly getting poked and kicked, for several days of driving. Never the $*#&% again. Once they’re out of car seats, I’ll always pack the car so that my two boys can each have their own half of the back seat.
When I was a kid we had our own third of the back seat, as my sister and I were out of car seats already when my brother was still a baby – so he went in the middle as dividing wall. We couldn’t fight over that.
Instead we fought over who got to sit on the right side of the back seat.
Edit: My mom didn’t fancy three kids in the back seat for very long, and we got a Grand Voyager shortly afterward to replace the failing Dynasty.
Oh, there was the time I fell out of Larry Lockwood’s 1949 Ford. Making a left turn from a stop sign, he tried to get rubber, and I slid against the passenger door, which opened. I hung onto the top of the door for a second or two, but then my feet came out of the car, I said the hell with it and let go, and windmilled down the road for several revolutions. I think Larry was more traumatized than I was – I just got road rash on my knees, and elbows – we hadn’t been going very fast yet when I fell out. He saw my gyrations on the road in the rear view mirror and was afraid that he’d killed me.
My brother and I exchanging punches in the back seat of Dads 1960 Pontiac Strato Chief . The old man would give us the old ..”if i have to stop this car, you guys aint gonna like it! ” For the most part he was bluffing. Sometimes just taking his foot of the gas would straighten us out.
One day the old man dropped a lit Export A on the seat, creating a nice burn on his , “new to him” car. That particular day the old man was in a foul mood. My brother and I soon found out that when Dad took his foot off the gas this time he wasn’t bluffing. I remember it quite well.
The bumper cover on my Dodge Shadow fell off about three fourths of the way after tapping a guardrail at 3 mpg about 1998/99. It was held in with two screws on either side and adhesive. One of the screws fell out during the bump and evidently the glue decided to quit at the same time. I can’t recall how I fixed this, I want to say superglue. My dog what a awful thing it was.
Somehow the cabin light in my mom’s ’87 Town Car was left on all night and killed the battery, leaving us stranded. With a flight to catch.
There’s also my first car (’87 Nova) suffering transmission failure on the way home from the grocery store and my second car (’95 Skylark) hitting black ice on the way to school one frigid morning and smacking a guardrail…
Oh, I forgot to mention the part where my mom, my sister, and I were trying to get to the airport in secret because she was seriously on the outs with her boyfriend of the time, who if I remember correctly threw us out of his house when we got back.
Just a spicy little detail for y’all.
Worst: 1983 Chevy Malibu wagon that was my dad’s work car (for a very, very brief time). If it was below 45 or above 65 that thing would refuse to start.
Tied for worst: 1988 Escort L wagon. These had a rear impact sensor switch that had a tendency to go flaky, so every once in a while I’d have to kick the rear quarter panel to get the car to start. Once it died entirely, I drove a 1986 Dodge Omni with the Simca 1.6 L. Only one of the 4 door handles worked, the tie rod ends were terrible, so you could change which direction it pulled simply by turning sharply, and there was a leaky fuel line that was dripping gas onto the plug wires. Drove that POS from Chicago to NW Iowa more times than was safe or prudent.
Ahh, college cars….
I remember a similar rear impact sensor no-start incident with my ’87 Taurus! I managed to fix it despite having no mechanical aptitude at the time, so the procedure must have been somewhere prominent in the Chilton book.
My dad had a ’80 Malibu as a company car as well. Brought brand new by his company and delivered with like 10 miles on it. He put 10,000 highway miles on it, then the engine exploded like it was a bad weekend at Pocono.
Both of mine are results of cruelty to my younger brother as children (sorry Brad!).
1. Racing to our Mom’s ’84 Cutlass Supreme Coupe with the 12′ long doors to claim the front passenger’s seat. I got there and went to close the door with his fingers still clasped to the door. A little blood, but GM panel gaps saved his digits. Mom was pissed.
2. Mom’s ’86 Trans Am. Waiting in the car at the school for some reason with the car off. Brilliant GM made the stereos in those cars with the volume knobs active even with the stereo turned off. I had been dicking around with the knobs on the stereo and left them turned all the way clockwise I guess. My brother got in the backseat (the one with speakers right next to your head) and promptly got his ears half blowed up when she turned the car on. Mom was pissed.
Ah yes, old cars used to have radios with rheostat volume knobs. I remember f*cking with those and pissing off adults.
I remember that happening at the electronics stores (back when there were electronics stores and they had a wall of radios and speakers activated with push buttons) all the time. My dumb self would hit a button to play with a stereo before checking the volume and the whole store would get blasted with whatever 80’s crap the radio was tuned to.
Here are my childhood auto memories that I generally lump into the category of “wouldn’t happen with a modern car…mostly.”
1. Burning my legs off on the vinyl seats of my mom’s ’71 Ford Galaxy.
2. My dad spending an entire snowy day and 2 cans of starter fluid trying to get that same ’71 Ford started.
3. Riding with my dad early on a Sunday morning in his ’78 LTD II with a broken transmission. It would only go in reverse, and he didn’t want to pay for a tow on top of the sure-to-be-expensive transmission repair. Drove backwards the entire way, and it felt like it took forever.
4. My mom shoving a rolled up newspaper in the choke of her ’82 Chevy Celebrity to get it to start. She forbade cussing, and wasn’t prone to it, but I could hear her through the windshield.
5. My grandmother’s garage constantly reeking of gasoline. Thank you 1976 Plymouth Valiant. It also had a driver’s door that would sometimes swing open in turns. The only car that got my grandmother to regularly wear a seat belt.
After reading this list, I shouldn’t be surprised that they’ve bought nothing but Hondas since 1987.
Hah…parents had a 1983 Plymouth Reliant that my mom would have to occasionally hold the choke open with a clothespin to get it to start. Also not prone to swearing but I definitely heard some from her. Brings fond, metallic baby blue memories.
When I was a kid my dad had a mid 80s Escort wagon with a manual transmission. I remember the starter died on it when I had to be about 7 years old. Our driveway out of the garage had a down slope, so for a week straight when we would go to leave he would have 7 year old me push the car out of the garage so it would start rolling and he could pop the clutch to get it started. I don’t know how I did it. I guess that’s a testament how light those 80’s crapboxes were.
If you ever had an MG, you always parked on a slope backed in so you could pop start
Mid 60’s so I was a young lad. We had a 58 Plymouth Belvedere and were coming home one Sunday evening from relatives. One of the front torsion bars broke but the car was still drivable with the front was lowered and the rear was up in the air like it had leaf spring shackles or air shocks. I sat back there in my kid seat bewildered but not quite scared since the handling seemed wayward.
My dad fixed the car and kept it a couple of more years before he sold it to a neighbor who used it for a few more.
Burned the back of my legs on the exhaust of my uncle’s Lotus (Super?) Seven while exiting. The pipes were strung along the side of the body tub. I was about 9 and did not heed my uncle’s warning. I was wearing shorts like most English boys at the time. Painful end to an otherwise fun ride.
Not really a childhood memory as much as a teenaged memory…drank WAY too many screwdrivers at a high school dance, riding home after a hotel party in the back of a friend’s mother’s early-80s Malibu wagon, had to puke RIGHT NOW. Someone popped up the tailgate glass and I chucked all over the back of the silver car. Apparently it left stains that etched the paint.
Fast-forward to a different friend’s daughter’s high school graduation party last summer, 30+ years later. Someone introduced me to a woman who said “you knew my brother in high school…aren’t you the kid that puked in my mom’s car and it ruined the paint?” What are the chances?!?
I don’t recall any negative stories about vehicles as a child since we tend to see things differently. I recall a family trip across Canada where a gas station chain had a promotion where they gave kids a whistle. The idea was to summon the gas jockey. Those whistles somehow disappeared during the trip. I’m sure that my brother and I drove my parents nuts with those things.
Summer 1999, I was about 13, my parents and me were heading out to eat in my Dad’s ‘94 S-10 Blazer. My mom was about 5 or 6 months pregnant with my little brother at the time. We came to a stop in traffic and a mid 80’s Cadillac Coupe DeVille ran into the back of us at about 30mph. That generation Blazer didn’t have headrests in the back seat, so I got to experience whiplash for the first time that day. We all ended up being okay. The Blazer suffered a crumpled tailgate, rear bumper and left rear quarter panel, but was still drivable. The Cadillac wasn’t drivable and ultimately ended up getting totaled. We ended up eating dinner and then took my mom to the ER to make sure the baby was okay, which he was. The Blazer spent about a month in the shop getting fixed and my dad drove it for about 2 years after that before trading it in for a new Malibu in ‘02.
We had a 1987 Chevrolet Astro. That’s the bad memory.
I had a 1994 which my mom allowed me to borrow on occasion. I remember one time removing the seats and having about 10 friends back there being generally goofy. Ran that thing out of oil and it kept chugging
My worst automotive memory involves a 1978 Buick Skyhawk. My dad, my brothers and I were heading to my grandmother’s on a Saturday in June of 1992. The backseat cushion wasn’t attached to the car anymore and the seatbelts no longer latched properly, but hey the car was paid for and that was all that mattered to my dad. Did I mention the door latches were wonky?
Anywho, we all load up in the car and begin the 30 minute drive to my granna’s and my 7 year old brother and me were fighting, per normal. I squish up to the door (this was a 3 door hatchback with LONG doors) to get out of hitting range. Still unbuckled on a seat that’s no longer technically part of the car. We’re going 55 mph up an onramp near the Mall of America; the traffic is pretty heavy as people go about their Saturday shopping. Right about the time I’m out of hitting range the latch let’s loose and now I’m hitting the pavement and spinning in circles at 55mph. This ramp is on a bridge that’s maybe 2 cars wide if you include the shoulders. Cars are swerving out of the way as much as possible, but there’s nowhere to go. Finally one person comes to a full stop and makes sure traffic ain’t moving. He or she (can’t remember which as it’s been 26 years) pulls some towels out of his or her trunk to get me mostly cleaned up. Dad, instead of allowing an ambulance to be summoned, stuffs me in his car and continues along the last 5 miles to granna’s where he calls my mom (15 minutes further away) to have her bring me to the hospital.
When I finally made it to the hospital I needed to be knocked out on morphine so they could scrub the tar and rocks out of my side. The doctors said I had the equivalent of 3rd degree burns, the road rash was so bad.
To this day I get uneasy sitting behind the driver of any car.
Mid-60s England going over a hump back bridge in a Rover P4 too fast. Sat in the back, no belts 5-6 years old. Hit my head hard on the roof bounced like a friggin tennis ball.
Couple years later left unattended in a Renault 4 CV with sis. She releases parking brake not knowing what it was. Car rolls downhill, passerby jumps in and pulls parking brake…
I’m gonna have to go with the time when I was 11 that my mom was having a stroke and needed to be rushed to the hospital, 25 years ago last September 12th. Particularly a moment about 4 miles out from the hospital when my sister’s efforts at CPR in the back seat were clearly not succeeding, while dad already had been driving the car (’83 Buick Century T-type 3.0L) at wide-open throttle for 11 miles and it was sustaining its power/aero-limited top speed of about 110 MPH, and all I could do in the right front seat was watch.
Mom survived and came home around Christmas time that year… I’m not sure she would have survived if my dad hadn’t second-guessed his initial idea to call 911 and wait for an ambulance to trundle out to the farm.
That story gave me shivers. Glad everyone one is okay.
No real childhood memories for me, but in my teens three of my friends and I decided we wanted to go on a roadtrip, so we picked Nebraska. No, I don’t know why. I plotted us a course from Alabama to the absolute closest corner of Nebraska we could hit and off we went in my buddy’s early 90’s Sentra, which had just been bought and had some unspecified transmission work done by my friend’s father’s acquaintance.
Four guys, no change of clothes and not enough money to do anything but buy fuel and food. We made it all the way to the Sac and Fox Indian Reservation that straddles the KS/NE border when his automatic decided it did not want to shift out of first gear anymore. We drove on into Falls City looking for a mechanic, and at least two different places told us they didn’t work on “furrin” cars and wouldn’t even touch it. We drove, in first gear, from Falls City, Nebraska up through Mound City, Missouri, where yet another mechanic said there was nothing they could do to help us. Then it was on to St. Joseph, Missouri — a distance of about 65 miles — crawling along back roads at about 10 miles per hour. It was NOT fun. From there we forced the only one of us with his dad’s credit card (!) to get us a cheap flea motel for a night, where I drew the short straw and slept on the roach-infested floor. The next day, he rented a U-Haul with trailer and we took that damned infernal machine back to Alabama, because it was becoming apparent that no one in the midwest was able to work on a Nissan for some reason that probably had to do with the war.
Somehow we made it back home in the U-Haul without killing ourselves, four guys wedged into the bench seat and sweating profusely because the A/C didn’t work.
Epilogue: The way my friend tells it, when the mechanic came back around to fix the broken tranny, all he did was hit it with a broomstick and came unstuck. It never gave him any more trouble, either.
Riding in the fold-down back seats of Dad’s new 1981? Datsun king cab pickup. My little sister rode in the seat across from me. For some reason we went on a trip across the state in it. She got carsick, which set me off immediately, and it went back and forth a few times. The smell in that little cab for the rest of the trip was pure torture.
A first car that I didn’t want, bought with money I’d specifically saved up for MY pick of vehicle and then had to have the engine block replaced within one week of purchase as it literally drank (not burned) oil due to a cracked cylinder wall pumping oil into the water jacket. This was the result of a parent who liked their own copy of that car and thought it would be an ideal first car for their kid who knew more about cars than they did. I wanted a ’59 black Impala 2-door but said parent said, “It’s too big for you; you’d get lost in that car.” One problem: I STILL want that black, ’59 2-door Impala, 45 years later.
That Impala is still out there. You ought to buy one.
When our 1980 Chevette broke down at the entrance to Yorktown Mall in Lombard, IL. I was 3 or 4 years old at the time and absolutely freaked out.
1st Gen Moostang had brake failure twice on me.
The car suffered from being a Dukes of Hazard surrogate – bashed oil pan, bashed gas tank, bashed floor boards. The previous owner(s) really wailed on that poor pony.
Everything was worn out on that car. Including the brake drums. Drums were worn oversize and the brake shoes would wear funny and get twisted around in the drums. Single circuit hydraulics. If one wheel cylinder came apart then the whole system lost pressure.
Mountain roads, inexperienced driver (me), and morning traffic. Oh – and a three speed manual with worn syncros. Couldn’t shift down very easily and even if I did the engine’s low compression wouldn’t slow me down much.
Twice. Managed to get down the mountain without hitting anyone.
Same car’s suspension was worn out as you might imagine. Had a terrible case of snap-oversteer caused by bad shocks, worn bushings, and cheap tires.
Other memories: no a/c living in the south as previously mentioned. Parent smoker. Car sickness. Old cars (even then) that leaked in the rain. Vacuum wipers. 6-volt electrics. Mechanical brakes. Tires that had plenty of tread but still no wet road traction (hard compound). Rear windows that wouldn’t roll down.
Thinking of this thread when I climbed in to our modern car at lunch with all the whistles and bells and then some – it is amazing how nice a modern car is by comparison.
I still own several vintage cars. To me they are a lesson in history of engineering and marketing.
Way late, but the ignition-relay key buzzer in my Mom’s 1971 Cutlass!
The sound like “a hillside full of nauseous goats” (as stated by the arguable father of the road test, “Uncle” Tom McCahill, in a Mechanix Illustrated from 1968 in my Dad’s stack) absolutely terrified me like nothing else! (Well, at least until my Dad brought home a GE Home Sentry Smoke Alarm back in the mid-‘70s, with the electromechanical horn! I still have problems dealing with loud or startling noises to this day!) Adding insult to injury, the ignition switch developed a problem where the pressure switch would short without the key in the switch, so I’d be scared every time my Mom would open the door!
Any car buzzer would scare the $hit out of me, so it was a Godsend when my Dad got his 1983 Regal that had a tone generator and not a buzzer! (I cannot figure out why GM put a key buzzer in their late-‘70s and later which could wake an entire cemetery, and yet the seat belt warning was barely audible even to my over sensitive ears! And in the ‘80s J-Bodies, at least, there was a single buzzer for keys and belts which wasn’t overly loud, the first buzzer I honestly could say didn’t bother me!)