Re: Our Parents' Cars -- Eastchester Message Board

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Subject: Re: Our Parents' Cars

Author:
Anonymous

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Date Posted: 05:18:42 08/27/07 Mon
In reply to: Kathleen 's message, "Our Parents' Cars" on 14:42:47 08/25/07 Sat

My Aunt and Uncle had purchased a 1948 Chevrolet from a priest which soon earned the nickname "The holy lemon." When my parents moved from Brooklyn to Eastchester in 1955 they needed a car so the lemon became ours. I only remember it was black and had a torpedo back body style. General Motots cars at the time often had clocks as large as the speedometer. The glass was missing from the clock (which didn't work) and I can still remember my mother telling me not to play with it as I would spin the hands around. Shortly after we moved to Eastchester my Dad got a black 1950 Dodge Coronet. It's most notable feature was the radio which would stop working every three or four months. My Dad's mother gave up driving so we inherited her 1953 Green Dodge Coronet and sold the holy lemon to Skee who owned the Esso station near the top of Brook Street. Dad got rid of the black Dodge and bought a brown 1960 Ford. Mom got rid of the green Dodge and bought Aunt and Uncle's 1956 4 door two tone (blue and white) Pontiac. In 1967 they replaced both cars within a month of each other. Dad got a 1964 4 door Oldsmobile and Mom got a (wow!) 1965 Buick Riviera. I would learn to drive and take my road test on the Riv. (received my license September 10, 1970) The brakes failed on the Oldsmobile and my brother drove into the White Plains railroad station. Aunt and Uncle came to the resue again and sold us their 1962 Black (with red interior) Grand Prix. Grand Prix's were not available in the US until 1963 but this was a Canadian car and was a real head turner in it's day. It had a 389 four barrel engine but was plagued with the early 60s "slim jim" automatic transmission which had to be replaced twice as I remember. The PNDL had not been standardized and reverse on the floor shifter was below low gear. I found out (luckily) there was a cutoff within the transmission so if you accidently shifted into reverse instead of low it would not engage reverse until you were down to about 5 mph. Although my parents would go on to own other cars I bought my blue and white 1947 Buick in 1971 and was now driving on my own with a more colorful (and dependable) version of our first car, the holy lemon. The greasers (I was a hippie but was on good terms with all the greasers) labeled the car "Lois Lane" because it looked like the type of car you often saw on the old Superman television program. I'm sure there are some on this board who remember the car.

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Our Parents' Cars	Anonymous	13:05:48 08/27/07 Mon
Re: Our Parents' Cars -- Anonymous, 17:42:57 09/08/07 Sat