#Car August 17

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Today’s 30 Day Daily #Coach4adayChallenge prompt is to identify the first CAR you drove or owned.

Millions of vehicles have been on the American highways over the past 125 years. We have seen Ford, Chevy, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, Oldsmobile, and Lincoln cruise down the road. None of them was the first CAR sold.

It was a Winton and was bought by Robert Allison in 1898 who lived in the small town of Port Carbon outside of Pottsville, PA. Yes, the Winton Motor Company was the first company to sell a standard American-made, gasoline-powered automobile; its price was $1,000. The company was founded and owned by Alexander Winton. Winton used a road trip to promote his business. In 1897 he drove one of his automobiles to New York City, which stimulated investment in the company. Shortly after that he sold the first car. Today the car is in the Smithsonian Museum.

My First Car

In 1970 my uncle Eugene V. Kenney (11/27/1910-10/7/1985) from Hawthorne NJ gave my dad a car he wasn’t driving any more. It was a 1961 Black Corvair and it became my first car. There were probably plenty of good reasons why he wasn’t driving it any more.

That car taught me a few things. One that air-cooled engines that were in the Corvair were hard on fan belts and oil. My dad’s penchant for being prepared had me traveling with an extra fan belt and a quart of oil at all times. I had to replace the fan belt more than once.

The Corvair also taught me that there was no way I was going to compete with the muscle cars of the late 1960’s when I got on the road. I was dealing with the reality I wasn’t driving a GTO, Chevelle SS, Dodge Charger, or Plymouth Duster. Never the less I was ecstatic to have access to a car and I appreciate what my Uncle Gene did for us.

The Corvair also had one of the least sexy dashboards any teenager could ever imagine.  If you look at photo below you will see a small lever to the right of the ignition keys. Yes my friends that is how you shifted the Corvair with its rocking Corvair Powerglide 2 Speed Transmission

This 2nd photo below gives you a feel for the spartan like instrument panel that the Corvair featured. Please tell me what could distract you driving this car? The lights, wiper, and of course the cigarette lighter! The glove box was bigger than the instrument panel.

Ralph Nadar

In 1965 a book called Unsafe at Any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile by Ralph Nader really blasted the Corvair. Many articles list it as one of the 10 most dangerous cars to drive EVER!!

Somehow I survived the Corvair and eventually upgraded (if you call it that) to a 1964 Plymouth Valiant WITH NO radio. It was a three speed on the column that my friends called the GLIDER because the car had no RADIO. A car with a radio was an accessory that cost extra.

What memory do you have of your first CAR?