Return to “Anyone interested in a "Your first car" thread?”
When I was a little boy, my dad drove a '53 Merc. Looked just like this one:chasfm11 wrote:Purplehood's post brought back memories. I learned to drive on a '53 Merc - 3 speed on the column with overdrive. It was the first car that I worked on - put a new muffler and a new clutch in it without many tools.
I have a nice scar on my left forehead acquired while riding shotgun in an Austin Healey 3000.Oldgringo wrote:I looked, but couldn't find a picture of a black 1960 Austin Healy 3000 that I could copy and paste. I bought it in 1962 with my own money when I was 20. My new wife of 5 days and I worked on opposite sides of Nashville in 1963. I was on my way from Old Hickory to Hillsborough to pick her up after work when a '56 Chevy coupe pulled out in front of me on Shelby Avenue. I T-boned the Chevy and totaled my Healy.
(How can I remember these details when I can't remember what, or if, I had lunch today?)
You're darn tootin' it could fly. It was burly and really fast....a genuine factory hotrod. During my freshman year of college at UTEP, there was a guy in my calculus class who lived on the NE side of town, like I did, and he had the 1956 homologation special Buick (same body style as the 56 Chevy, but slightly different trim), with a 347 V8 with a 6-pack. His car was a little quicker out of the hole, but mine was better on the top end. We used to race each other home practically every day.OldGrumpy wrote:The Annoyed Man wrote:Previously posted here: viewtopic.php?p=584222#p584222" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A 1956 Dodge Cornet Lancer with the D-550-1 Daytona homologation special motor. The motor was a 315 cubic inch hemi with 2 giant 4 barrel carbs mounted over a cross-ram intake, with tuned race headers and dual exhaust terminating in 36" glass packs. It was homologated for Daytona. It was a truly fast car. Mine looked exactly like this one:
[ Image ]
The original owner was my ex-FIL's father, who drove it to church on Sundays....or something like that. When he died, my FIL inherited it with 40,000 original miles on it. My FIL worked at White Sands Missile Range, and this was the car he commuted in from El Paso to White Sands, as I recall about a 90 mile round trip. But it was all highway miles, and this car would just lope along nice and easy at highway speeds. The car had 90-some thousand miles on it when he sold it to me (for $100), and something over 100K on it when I sold it back to him a few years later. He later gave or sold it to my ex-BIL, and I have no idea what has happened to it since.
It ran tight and leaked nothing, was comfortable, and strong like a bull. I loved that car. Hard to believe that, until then, I had never actually owned my own car. I always used someone else's.
Hey Annoyed, my Dad bought the same model when they came out in late 55. His was Coral Pink and Charcoal Gray which if you lived in the 50s you know how popular those colors were. Man would that thing fly!
1
