That’s what I thought also. Many times I’ll be watching a show and the have the most annoying car troubleshooting scenes. When one comes on my wife will look at me just to see my eyes roll.
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1930s October vs. 2020s October? Regardez la difference… but there would have been outlier hot days in the 1930s.
@HadrienF - tell us how ‘broken’ the car needs to be - easy to fix, or stuck waiting for a tow to the nearest village for repairs? The radiator/cooling system would be a common source of problems, a broken radiator hose, a stone through the radiator. It could be a blown head gasket with major repair time needed.
Or it could be a simple flat, but the spare’s no good.
Thanks for the info. Sounds like the film is pretty good, now on my viewing list. I’m currently reading the newest “Cussler” release, Dark Vector, written by Grahm Brown. Plot is sort of interesting, but prose tedious, wordy, writer needs more adventure/action writing experience.
Actually, this is a bit more peculiar. We adapted a bit the story because of the nature of the Vapor Lock issue.
He climbs, gets out of the car for like a few minutes. When he goes for a restart, it doesn’t start. He ends out staying overnight on that place because over-watching the scene, a local, offers him an overnight stay: it was late in the day already.
He wanted to stay so he doesn’t try starting the car again. Next morning they both come to the car again and he starts it, no problem. He then admits that most likely it was vapor lock and explains to the other character. Meaning he admits that he knew that a few minutes later it would be ok, but he didn’t want to dismiss the offer. 
After all in the story he is actually an engineering student so he would be aware that indeed vapor lock was probably the cause.
So, the only issue is that this is set in around October. Max temp in that location in October is about 20 celsius , so… I wonder if vapor lock still makes sense. But otherwise it fits the story quite well. We can kinda change to early September, but again max temp is about 22.
Thank you.
From my part I am just trying to add something that makes sense. And I will try to incorporate the fact that the engineering student explains to another character what vapor lock is. I think it makes a nice little dialogue.
The “hold-on” ropes for back seat passengers is quite the nautical touch! Guessing that was in the original design and not added in the last 90 years. What is the black cylinder above the driver? Light? fan? both? Not GPS…
Looks like the wiper motor.
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When I was a kid, after I held onto that type of rope in a neighbor’s Roadmaster sedan, he angrily informed me that they were only for holding lap robes. I’m pretty sure that his car had a heater, but roping on the back of the front seats was still pretty common up through the early '50s, and as I later confirmed, they were indeed intended for lap robes.
I have heard where a leaking head gasket can cause vapor lock.
An interesting sub-plot might be where the main character improvises some emergency fixes for a broken car using only gadgets and material readily available in that era. A MacGyver sort of hero in other words. There’s a thread here from some years ago where posters told of their home brew improvisations, like installing a house bib valve in the instrument panel (like you’d use with your garden hose) to control the passenger compartment heat. Or to prevent no-starting b/c of dew on the spark plug wires, starting some newspaper on fire under the hood (not recommending this btw … lol). OP might be able to find the thread using those clues, and forum search feature, icon upper right on this page.
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There was a time in the middle of nowhere a buds acellerator cable broke. Back when loawnmowers had throttle cables we stopped at a hardware store and I rigged it up for throttle control so we could drive 90 miles through the mountains to get to the next town that had the part. I was the gas pedal more ore less and my bud was the steering and brakes in his winnebago.
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- I undestard what you mean.