Childhood Car Memories

Car Lust is about our emotional connection to the automobiles in our lives. Over the course of our writings, we've shared a few misty memories of the cars we saw and rode in when we were small (for example, here, here, here, and here).

Now it's your turn.

What are your earliest automotive memories? Hit the "comments" button and let us know.

--Cookie the Dog's Owner

Comments

[OldCarGuy on December 03, 2008 at 12:37 PM]

My parents traded in their '58 Chevy on a brand new '65 Oldsmobile F-85 wagon: Big Red. Some of my earliest memories are of our family vacations in that car...on the road well before sunrise, heading north, sleeping in the "way-back," stopping for breakfast of donuts and milk (coffee for my parents) at a highway rest area, and eventually arriving at our northern-Michigan destination. "We made good time," Dad would say. I still love road-trips.

[Richard Fagin on December 04, 2008 at 12:43 PM]

Being all of age 3 standing up on the driver's seat in my dad's '56 white on black Bel Air while he let me steer, and pulling on the little spring-loaded lock that released the vent window lock pin to slide back or forth.

A friend of mine bought a '57 Bel Air in 1975. When I got in it and pulled on the vent window lock, I was transported back to 1960 in a flash.

[Rich on December 04, 2008 at 12:46 PM]

My Dad had a '52 Chev coupe in which I could stand up on the floor of the backseat and lean over his shoulder, watching the instrument(s), not crowding anyone. We later gave it to a neighbor kid to hotrod and bought a brand-new '60 Chev Kingswood station wagon in Gawdawful Green. That one had a rear-facing way-back seat with a control for the electric rear window. The most envied seat in the car was next to that control, while other passengers would exhort one to "Bzz it up a little. Too much. Bzz it down some." That lasted until Dad had to disconnect the button, lest he lose some of his sons. It was a six-cylinder, three-on-the-tree shift, which made it helacious to learn to drive. My mom showed up at his office once, to pick him up after work. She had loaded every kid in the neighborhood into that car, with some riding on the lowered tailgate. Since Dad had 5 kids, he had a bit of a reputation with his coworkers. So when he left the building with all of them, there we were, all 12 or 15 of us yelling "Hi Dad." Good times.

He bought a '64 Country Squire next. It had a wood decal on the side and a Police Interceptor 390 c.i. engine. I don't remember much about the suspension, except that the car felt like it would hunker down in the turns, a sensation I felt many times. The engine had a 4-barrel carburetor that would run on two "primaries" for about 2/3 of the throttle travel, then the "secondaries" would open up. Wow.

None of these cars had seatbelts. Maybe the Country Squire did, but we didn't use 'em. Sometimes I wonder how anyone survived.

[Mike Z. on December 04, 2008 at 08:12 PM]

Hope it's ok to post twice -- Rich just reminded me of one of my other favorite car memories. We had a green Plymouth station wagon for a couple of years. I would ride in the rear-facing way-back seat even when the car was otherwise empty. So I could play tailgunner. Green cars were U.S., brown were British, red were Soviets, black/gray/silver were German, yellow were Japanese, blue were Italian. With a friend along you kept score, first one to call out an "enemy" car got the points. Good times. I still grin whenever I see an old station wagon. Best kid's car ever.

[Holly on December 05, 2008 at 04:29 PM]

My father wouldn't drive anything but Chevys or Fords, so my 1st memory is of a '60 Chevy boat, beautiful turquoise color, and my hatred of being stuck in the middle of the back seat (the 3 of us had to take turns, of course, with the window seats, and let me tell you, we never forgot whose turn it was to sit in the middle!)

[JM on January 04, 2009 at 11:36 AM]

1976 Cadillac Seville. My parents bought it new when I was 2 years-old. It had a two-toned paint scheme of metallic midnight blue over silver with a midnight-blue padded vinyl roof. Actually all Sevilles before 1977 came with the padded roof: it was GM's way of hiding the nuts & bolts required to extend the stretched Nova platform on which the Sevilles were based. It had whitewalls but the wheel covers were fairly basic: looked like shiny silver metal plates with a small pattern on the fringes & small Cadillac emblem in the middle. The interior was sky blue leather festooned with buttons pinned all over it covered in the same fabric. There was real wood in the center of the steering wheel, if not on other areas of the dash & doors. I remember most the "doorbell" sound of the seat belt warning chime & the distinctive Cadillac horn (a four-note elegant, orchestral blast). We had that car from new until my parents' divorce in 1981. Years later my dad told me that car stickered for over $12,000 when new... a lot of money for a car in 1976 & the Seville was the most expensive Cadillac one could buy at that time. The vehicle was purchased from Coral Cadillac in Pompano Beach, Florida. The dealership decal was a simple "Coral" affixed to the trunk & the same size & script font as the Cadillac badge.