First Car

After reading a friend's posting in which he told of a vintage model vehicle, I started thinking about the first car I owned. I wasn't 21 yet, so had to get insurance in my mother's name. Been using State Farm ever since.

My first car was a 1941 Studebaker sedan. It was one of the last cars made before the war (World War II), and had been stored in a neighbor’s garage for a long time. I bought it in 1952 for $200. What a feeling of freedom! It had a free-wheeling transmission and got over 20 miles per gallon. That free wheeling feature has long since been outlawed for safety reasons, I guess. It did put a lot of stress on the brakes when going downhill. Not long after I bought it, I had it painted green. Why green I don’t remember, but I guess I thought it was cool. It looked better than the old gray color it was before. The headliner was rotten and finally fell down it big patches until I just took it all out. When the door was slammed, it tested one’s ear drums - boinngggg!! There was a leak in the radiator too that I never could get fixed.

That was the car Ann and I honeymooned in. We drove it to Sanibel Island for the weekend. Had to stop several times on the way to add water to the radiator. Think I used a bottle to get water out of a ditch each time. We made it to Sanibel and back. Romantic, huh? Here's a couple of pictures of the car - one at our honeymoon cottage and one taken on the ferry to Sanibel. That dates us for sure. There's a bridge to Sanibel now. It's been there for years.