A 1936 Ford. This would be the only new car my Dad ever bought. Back in the day, you paid cash for almost everything, and that included a new automobile.
You could buy furniture on a revolving credit plan, but I am not sure about buying a car. Anyway, Dad bought a 1936 Ford, two-door, with six cylinders and painted a nice shiny black. That is what I remember about it. The picture shows Dad sitting on a front fender, a classic pose of days gone by.
He paid about $600 for it. Imagine that! Nowadays, you pay $25,000 and up. Today, when you buy a new car, it comes complete with built-in heater and radio. Not so, back then.
Dad bought the stripped-down model. A radio was a luxury, not needed in our everyday lives, he said. He could buy one later if he had the money for it. Dad never did.
A heater definitely was needed. It would be powered by the same gas used for the car engine. We ran the heater only when necessary. You could almost watch the gas gauge race toward empty when the heater was going. It had just one setting: hot.
Air conditioning? Open a window. There were little winged side windows on the front door windows. It certainly felt good on a hot summer day to have them cranked wide open, forcing the wind through those vents directly onto your face. In the winter time, that was the warmest place to sit, right over the heater; in summer, the coolest. Did I forget the vents on either side of the dashboard? They opened to blow air on your legs and feet from under the dash.
Dad bought a six cylinder model because that was cheaper. He tried to tell us that it would use less gas than the eight cylinder one with two cylinders less to run. We believed him. After all, Dad was always right. Wasn't your Dad, too?
Automatic shifting hadn't yet arrived on this planet in 1936. Everything was “four on the floor,” unless you bought an expensive car, then there were more gears. I remember when the gear shift moved up to the steering column. That made it easier for three to ride in the front seat. No gear shift to bump your knees on.
What is the oldest car model you remember? I remember our old Essex, but it didn't hold a candle to our spanking new, shiny black, two door, six cylinder, $600 Ford, our first and only new car in my growing-up years.