Heard a distinctive car engine sound from yesteryear a couple of days ago, turned around and saw a now classic from my early childhood, a 1959 Plymouth Roadrunner. Hadn’t seen one in years.
Later when I did the math I realized I’d been admiring a sixty-six year old car. That’s the second time this week I’ve realized I have become “vintage age.” The other is in trying to find a replacement key for a fifty-two year old foot locker that went off to college with me once upon a time. Dang, cuz I’m not done being young yet!
Yup!
When Chrysler introduced that warranty coverage, in 1963, it was much better than what the competition was offering. I remember, with my father’s '63 Plymouth, they included pre-printed postcards that the dealer had to sign-off on, and then the vehicle owner had to mail the cards to Chrysler as proof of proper maintenance.
@Marnet I am the vintage person on this board. I remember going to the Studebaker showroom in the summer of 1946, the yesr I turned 5, with my Dad to see the.new Studebakers-“The first by far with a postwar car”. We then went to the Oldsmobile dealer and my Dad pointed out to me that the car on display didn’t have a clutch pedal and the.driver didn’t shift gears. To me, a modern car back then had the gearshift on the.steering column.
To me, a new car is a car manifactured after WW II.
IMO, the Mopars of that era were very nicely-styled. My first car was a '71 Dodge Charger, and–for its time–it was a very stylish vehicle. It was just like this one, but with a black vinyl roof panel and black leather bucket seats.
I like the styling of classic muscle cars but also have always liked the styling of classic 4-door family sedans.
When car shopping three times in my fifty years driving (first car was hand me down from my parents) I’ve had fun checking out a few sporty models but always end up preferring a mid to full size sedan for daily use. Ease of getting in and out of a sedan, the ride, loading and unloading groceries, etc. spells sedan for short, arthritic folks like me.
(But I do miss the mechanical linkage no-hesitation instant acceleration of the 3.8L engine I had in my 1987 Olds. Driving that was fun!)
The first thing that I did when I got it home was to disconnect the motor that closed the headlight doors. Those purposeless hidden headlights did nothing for me.
Yes! That is its twin–except for the fact that mine always had the headlight doors open.
But, as nice as it looked, it had the typical lousy brakes of American cars of that era. If I had to do hard braking from expressway speeds, severe fade set in by the time that I got it down to ~30 mph, and the last part of the “stop” was somewhat hairy.
I bought a 61 Dodge Dart Phoenix in 1964 with a 318 4 bbl carb. The previous owner had had a brake job done at Sears. They must have sourced their brake linings from Kleenex.
You could not lock a wheel from 60 mph, they would just smoke and shudder all the way down.
I went to a brake reliner in Depew NY called transportation Industries and bought a set of Grey Rock linings all around ( the same brand they used in Nascar ) and it would haul down from 115 smoothly and swiftly.
Actually the speedo said 120 but I think it was a little fast like most cars of that time.
I also had a problemwith the heater in the winter. I got no heat at 85mph or above. It had a long heater box on the passanger side inner fender and the air rushed in so hard carried the heat away.. I just put a sheet metal deflector in front of the box and it worked fine.
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