LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART, I'M IN LOVE WITH YOUR AUTOMOBILE

¯ Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with your automobile.

Let me hear you whisper that you’ve gasoline in your machine.

Keep the headlights glowing, and your hands upon the wheel.

Let me call you sweetheart, I’m in love with your automobile. ¯

My husband’s grandmother, Lillian ‘Ross’ (Pringle) Brasier at the wheel of hers & her husband, Harry’s, new car.  Harry was a new car salesman, so they always had the latest in new models.

Here the family poses around yet another new car.

And I believe this is the car in which they drove from Toronto to California round about 1924-25.

A friend of my husband’s decided to get into the ‘antique car’ fun with this beauty.  I belive it’s a Model T, but I’m not sure.  He and my husband are squeezed into it.   I don’t imagine it would be very comfortable on a long trip?

It has a “rumble seat”. J

My youngest sister models my brother’s ’56 Chevy.  I never had a car of my own before I was married, but he let me drive his car for 3 months while he was in Navy ‘boot camp’.  Was a nice car!  Gas was only 37₡ a gallon back then – plus you didn’t have to get out of your car and pump your own gas!  Several guys would come out and pump your gas, clean your windshield & back window, check your oil and your tire pressure.  They weren’t called “gas” stations they were called “service” stations and lived up to the name!  

After I was married I drove this sporty number around – a bright red Karmann Ghia with “four-on-the-floor” which I had to get used to – having always driven automatics.  But it didn’t take me long to get the hang of it and I found it rather fun to shift those gears around.

We pulled our 14’ runabout with it down to the Klamath River on weekends in good weather to zip about for fun, or fish.  But when our first kiddo came along we realized a little two-seater wasn’t going to work very well.  So . . . 

. . . we invested in our first station wagon – a light yellow Datsun wagon seen here ready to cart a Christmas tree home for the holidays.  Unfortunately we only had this vehicle for about 2 ½ years before it was involved in a snowy accident and even though it was repaired it never seemed to drive the same after that, so we traded it in on . . .

. . . this Maverick four-door sedan which was roomy and comfortable.  Too bad it had a basic flaw which took us a while to figure out.  The radiator fan was positioned too close to a water hose.  Each time the car was started the vibration would cause the fan blades to just barely touch the water hose but after a while they’d finally nick a hole in the hose and there would go the water and the need for a new hose.  This happened 3 times before we finally figured out what was happening.  So after 7 ½ years, we traded the Maverick in on a new Silver Honda Accord.

Here’s the Honda ready for a trip home from camping with my teen daughters at Lake Tahoe.  That little car was stuffed to the gills with camp gear, beach stuff, clothes, and all else, but it made it over the mountain!  Other years we had bikes on the back too!  After 8 years, however, we decided we wanted to go back to a station wagon.  So we bought a Subaru Legacy Wagon in bright red the first year Subaru came out with a wagon model, and it was a great car.  We drove it for 12 years before turning it over to our son and his family and buying a new 2001 white Legacy model with a sunroof!

Here I’m, driving our red Sube Legacy wagon through the ‘drive through’ tree in the Tuolumne Grove of Big Trees in Yosemite National Park.  Cars are no longer allowed to drive through the tree or even down into the grove.  Folks must park at the top and walk down into the grove and back.  I’m glad I got to drive through the grove a few times before it was restricted because it was a beautiful drive all the way down through the grove.  Some folks elect a pick-up driver who drops them off at the top to walk the 2 ½ miles down through the grove and be picked up at the bottom – much like “4-mile trail” up to & down from Glacier Point.  But that’s another place in the park.

After driving the red Legacy wagon for 12 years, we bought this white Legacy wagon seen here on a weekend trip home from Lake Tahoe.  We were driving a different route home and weren’t familiar with where the rest stops were along the way and I’ll tell you – we were never so glad to find this one! J  This was the wagon with the sunroof.  We’d never had a sunroof before and it was great fun – except it’s important to know when to open it, and when to keep it closed.  I remember a trip to San Francisco when we had the sunroof open the whole way and it was delightful.  It didn’t occur to me, however, that the sun was slanting in on the front passenger side of the car where I was sitting.  When we got to our motel room and I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror I was rather startled.  The whole left side of my face was red with sunburn, while the right side remained normal skin color.  It was almost perfectly two-tone right down the middle and yes, it caused a few double-takes.  Oops.

We loved the white Legacy wagon but unfortunately, after driving it for 7 years we were T-boned by a young student driver pulling out of a side street just as we were going by on the main road – heading home from a great pre-Christmas family gathering with all our presents stuffed in the back.  Not the best ending to a wonderful day.  Sadly, the car was a total loss, but we weren’t injured.  The amazing thing was how the interior of the car held up.  The damage was extensive on the outside, but from the inside of the car you couldn’t tell anything had happened!  So we had to go shopping for a new car and bought the first of our Subaru Forester models – the first one in red. J  Good car.  We drove it for 10 years before trading it in on a new white Forester which we recently sold and are now driving a silver Forester with . . . wait for it . . . a sunroof! J  (The Subaru folks call them “Moonroofs” but they’re really sunroofs.  Although if you drive around at night with it open I suppose it would actually be a moonroof.

Back in 1972 my husband turned us into a 2-car family with the purchase of a Toyota Land Cruiser seen here being modeled by our two daughters.

It was great for getting around in the snow or over unpaved backroads.  But eventually he decided he really needed a truck.  So he sold the Land Cruiser and bought himself a single cab Ford F-150.

Unfortunately, the new truck ran into a few difficulties.  This boo-boo happened when someone pulled out from a side road directly in front of the truck which then hit a telephone pole trying to swerve out of the way of the intruding car.  Funny thing.  Not knowing what was happening a couple of miles up the road, I was at home when the power blinked for a moment and I wondered “What the heck was that?”  When the truck showed up in the driveway with the right front smashed in, I found out what the heck that was! 

So it was on to another truck – used, but in excellent condition with low mileage and he drove this one for quite a while until . . .

. . . one day it, too, needed some help – this time engine trouble.

So along came this white extended cab Ford F-150 which he held onto for many years.  He recently sold it deciding he really didn’t need a truck anymore.  Besides that, it didn’t fit in the garage or on the driveway of our new home in the ‘old folks’ subdivision.  So now we’re back to being a one-car family and we’re fine with that.  We really don’t need two vehicles any longer which means we pay less car insurance which is great!

Of course, all the kids started needing cars.  Dad and son are checking out son’s first vehicle – a small blue pickup.

Eldest daughter went for a blue Honda Accord with a sunroof!

Younger daughter opted for a red Honda coupe.

We helped them get their first cars, but after that they were on their own. J

:->

La Nightingail