I remember hearing a joke back in the 1980s when cars were transitioning from putting the high beam switch on the floor to the turn signal stalk: Did you hear [insert state you want to make fun of] passed a law requiring all cars sold there to have the dimmer switch on the floor? They were having too many accidents caused by drivers getting their foot caught in the steering wheel.
Speaking of different ways of operating the high beams, when did cars switch from “pull the turn signal stalk back to turn the high beams on or off” to “push the stalk forward for high beams, pull it back to the center for low beams, pull it back more to briefly flash the high beams”? When I traded my 1995 Saturn for a 2009 Corolla I actually had to pull out the owner’s manual to figure out how to turn on the high beams. The first I found myself on a rural road at night I tried to turn on the high beams the way I did it on my old car, but they just flashed for a second. So I ended up driving for a while holding the turn signal stalk back because I didn’t know how to make the high beams stay on, until I could find a place to pull over and read the owner’s manual.
Hood ornaments.
Decorative vinyl top.
Shiny chrome bumpers.
Bumper jacks.
Engine-driven radiator fans.
Bench front seat with a big, puffy armrest.
Five digit odometer.
Fuel fill behind the license plate.
Single 2x9" radio speaker in the dash.
No rear defrost.
Ashtrays for days.
Blue tint across the top of the windshield.
Aftermarket stuff:
Curb feelers.
Fender drilled alarm key switch.
Rusty Jones decal.
Drink holder that wedges under the door glass.
I haven’t seen one of those spring loaded coin holders in ages.
Fancy molded or cast dealership plaques.
DIY lead added to fuel.
My 86 was fuel injected. I think all the 13b motors were, which I think you could get as early as 84? Even though the first year for the 2nd gen body was 86.
Leaded gas in general. That wasn’t completely phased out until around the late 1980s. I remember when I was a kid “regular” still meant “leaded”. The three pumps were “regular” (leaded), “unleaded”, and “premium unleaded”. I don’t think “mid-grade” was even a thing until leaded fuel was banned. I always wondered if oil companies just introduced that grade so gas stations would have a use for that third pump.
And I remember cars having an “unleaded fuel only” sticker on the gas cap, and often on the fuel gauge too, to remind you not to put leaded gas in your car. I don’t know when they stopped doing that.
Maybe it’s an American versus Japanese car thing? I had a Buick and a Saturn; both of those were back to switch between high beams and low beams, depending on their current state. The Corolla was the first car I ever drove that was forward for high beams.
The nicest high beam switch I ever had was in my '66 VW Beetle. It was a momentary button switch mounted on the back of the end of the turn signal lever. Tap it, brights on- tap it, brights down. There was a relay somewhere behind the dash and it made quite the satisfying noise.
I always find it interesting to see that Mercedes-Benz still has 4MATIC on the backs of their cars. AWD and traction control are so commonplace now, it just seems strange that they’d use their own name for it.
The second car I remember my parents having was a '57 Chrysler with a pushbutton automatic transmission.
Much later, they had a Renault Dauphine, a model that regularly turns up on ‘world’s worst cars’ lists but that nonetheless had a few moderately charming features, such as a single turn signal indicator light in the dash that didn’t show you which turn signal was on, just that it had been activated; and a horn tone selector that allowed you to choose ‘city’ (a meek ‘bleat bleat’) or ‘country’ (an ear-shattering ‘BLAAATTT’).
One of my early cars (around '74 or so) was a pristine '54 Buick Super. At just over two tons, and with manual steering, drum brakes all around, and single-speed (plus manually-selected low gear) Dynaflow transmission, ‘ponderous’ did not begin to describe it. Rode well, though. It had an ignition key, but that only activated the starter circuit; you actually started the car by pressing down the accelerator pedal.
I’m 51, my first car was older than me, and it didn’t have that; it was a Renault. I think my grandfather’s car did, but it also had the transmission on the axis of the driver’s wheel.
Big news in Spain, in 2018 slightly more automatics were sold than manuals for the first time in our history. This includes all kinds of vehicles, from motorcycles below 50cc to 18-wheelers. Electricals and hybrids are helping drive the shift (pun kind of unavoidable).
My C1 has electric windows but they’re not centralized. I bloody hate not having centralized windows, hadn’t realized they still made cars without that.
Yes: that’s what those big signs in multiple languages, at the side of roads going downhill at important slope values all over Europe, mean by “use your gear braking”.
Never seen that.
Pump the windshield’s stick towards you. It was already like that in the Renault.
Two, and they are labeled; they already were there and labelled in the Renault. The fan is on the center column, it’s part of the…
That’s on the ceiling.
Dear Baby Jesus: thank you for never having encountered that, Volkswagen’s obsession with putting their lights’ controls on a little wheel that for someone my height is hidden behind the driver’s wheel is bad enough. I like having my high/low switch be on the lights’ stick.
Your car isn’t old-school, it’s an antique. I might go oooh and aaaah if I saw it at an antiques meet but I wouldn’t want to drive it, and I’m a 1968 vintage.
Here’s a picture. This one is way over on the right side instead of the left side because it’s a right-hand drive. Same layout as normal country’s cars, but mirror image.
Nah, an antique is something pre-war. It’s old-school.
MG’s motto was ‘Safety Fast’. It’s not all that quick by today’s standards, but it will get up and move. And it handles like it’s reading your mind. It’s a lot of fun, and not at all like Grandpa puttering around 10 mph under the speed limit in his Hudson.
I guess only a few of us know how to use a dwell tach and timing light, right?
I learned to drive in a 1954 Plymouth Plaza. Flathead 6, 3 on the tree and no heater or A/C. (Note: Dad later installed an aftermarket heater which took up half the passenger footwell.) Here is a good approximation of it. A 54 Plymouth Savoy, the slightly upmarket version of the Plaza – nicer and with auto transmission. I went to see this one and toyed with making an offer on it. The museum claims it’s drivable, and probably OK to drive back to Texas. It was tempting.
Can you explain what you mean by “faulty coil”? My Pontiac does the same thing: it’ll get warm in stop-and-go city traffic but on the highway / freeway it’s fine. It seems to be losing a bit of coolant (maybe a quart every 1000 miles) but I cannot for the life of me find where it’s leaking. Additionally, there appears to be a problem with the cooling fans as they will only come on when the AC comes on. So, I leave the AC on (not that I would turn it off in this weather anyway).
Full sentence: ‘Probably a faulty coil, but when it gets hot sitting in traffic, the car stalls.’
The coil doesn’t have anything to do with the car getting hot. The car getting hot seems to be what is causing the coil to overheat and stall the car.
As far as the Pontiac goes, I think I missed it… What year is it? If it’s an old car, I’m guessing it does not have an electric cooling fan like more modern cars. If the fan is belt-driven by the engine, then it’s not providing enough airflow at idle or stop-and-go traffic. At higher, constant, speeds there’s plenty of air flowing through the radiator. One trick I did when driving my first '66 MGB in the Mojave Desert was to turn the heater and fan on in Summer.
No talk of the aux gas tank? I’ve never owned a car with one but my father told me he had one. Was a switch on the floor for when you run out of gas. Motorcycles used to have them too until 15 years or so ago.
I owned a 67 Mustang for a few years so I had some of the items listed, and my parents owned a few cars that had ‘three on the tree’ and even an 8 Track player.
My 13 year old got in to a car with manual windows and had no idea how to work them. :smack:
There’s a bunch of 15-year-olds I see in my neighborhood riding mopeds from the 80s. They may not have grown up in a time when manual chokes and crank windows in cars were commonplace, but they, like all humans, seem to be capable of learning.
