First Car
The radio didn't work, but the antenna went up and down with a push button.
My first car cost $75. And she was a beauty, in my eyes. I was 19 years old, and in need of transportation to my job at Foster’s Freeze. My husband and I spotted my 1955 Oldsmobile Holiday98, parked at the Castro Brothers’ Gas Station in Soquel, California. It was a maroon and white car, with hand-painted green vines crawling up the trunk. Electric everything! Steering, brakes, push-button transmission! The radio didn’t work, but the antenna went up and down, with a push-button, as well. I liked to listen to music while driving, so I taped my transistor radio to the dashboard. I was set!
After about a year, the car started having an issue. It would make a grinding noise, every so often, and then it would be okay for a bit. I knew it needed help, but we had to wait until Ben’s day off. Ben advised me not to drive it until we could get it in for a check up.
As misfortune would have it, my sister needed help with my little niece and nephew, as she and her family, were getting ready to move into a new place . She lived only a few miles away, so I assumed my car would be okay. However, just about a mile from my house, it started grinding loud! It was in trouble! Something went “clunk” and fell out of the car, right in the road. Now I was in trouble! I coasted to the side of the road, and put the part that fell out, next to the car. zI walked to a pay phone (no cell phones in 1971), and called a friend to give me a ride to my sister’s. I later called Ben for a ride home, and explained the situation. “Yeah,” he said, “I noticed the car on the side of the road, with the drive shaft lying next to it.”
As it turns out, The fix was a $20 U joint, and I was back on the road again. The following year, we moved over the hill to San Jose, and the car was not in shape for the drive. I said good-bye to it, and it was sold to my brother-in-law, to be used in a demolition derby. I was heart-broken, but I moved on to my next car. A 1971 Opal Cadet station wagon! I was moving up in the world!
A 1955 Olds 88, hard-top with two - tone paint and wide white sidewall tires . Now you're talking, kid! All it needed was to be lowered about three inches and enhanced with very subtle pin-striping on the fenders and trunk lid. Man! Couldn't get any better than that. That was pure mid-century style! You know - for those of us from the 1900s.
Great story! I think many of us have special memories of that first car. I got to use my brother's '52 Buick while he spent a year in Hawaii. I would drive 7 or 8 friends to football games... no seatbelts, sometimes sitting on the floor in the back was plenty roomy! Everyone would chip in a quarter for gas... the car's name was Seymour!