Cars Reminiscent of My Past

Every year on the 4th of July in Santa Fe there is a tradition of Pancakes on the Plaza sponsored by the Rotary Club. There are literally lines that you can stand on for hours just to get a rather poor pancake flipped by volunteers including the Governor and Mayor. Like us most Santa Feans, we have done it once! But it is a nice family day.

Along with this tradition is a vintage car show where individuals bring their vehicles to park on a couple of streets around the Plaza. Exceptions to the vintage rule can be made for a truly exceptional car. This year the exception was a Tesla Cyber Truck. I have seen it around town but could not distinguish the front from the back when the truck bed was closed. In the show, it was shown open.

When I was in primary school in New York I was picked up by the school bus. Since I went to a small school they used several station wagons rather than yellow busses. Mine was number 9. Although it was far more luxurious, the 1948 Pontiac station wagon on display was reminiscent of the Woodie I was picked up and brought home in.

I have waxed nostalgic before about my Volkswagen Bug. The first, a used 1959 model, I replaced with a new one in 1962. The Bugs through those years were very much the same. I loved the manual drive with the stick on the floor which I miss to this day. They often fooled mechanics since the engine was in the back and the trunk was in the front. Not much room in there. One of the features that distinguished the vintages of the bugs was the size of the taillights which were extremely small to start with and then got larger over the years. On the 1963 Bug in this display,  the taillights were the next size up from the 1959 version.

Even though drive-in movies began with silent pictures they became ever more popular in the 50’s and 60’s with the baby boomers. By then there were speakers to hang on the window of your car to get the best sound effects. Also, young women would come around to take your food orders. The show had an illustration of this with a 1953 Buick Special fully equipped with a speaker and food tray.

Of course, every teenage kid has his dream car and for me the dream was to own a 1963 Triumph TR3 in British racing green. The closest car I could find in the show was a 1963 TR4, which was obviously larger and in fire engine red. But hey, I will take what I can get!

I did have some runner-ups such as this 1962 MGA 1600 MKII which also had the race car styling. Maybe that’s like comparing a BMW and a Mercedes today.

Then another car I greatly admired in the 1960’s was the Chevy Corvette whose first edition came out in 1953. It is still in production today with the same feeling in style. The example in the show was the 1987 version, which is old if you are younger than me, who finds 1990 to be yesterday!

I have mentioned the cars that caught my eye, but it was interesting to see that other viewers focused on different things. Many admired the engines, the style or the history and seemed excited by everyone else’s enthusiasm.