MY FATHER’S COMPANY CARS

My dad was a salesman, but by the time he finished his 50 year stint with an allied chemical company, he was many things. This includes consultant, technologist, tech chemist, and branch manager of a territory about the size of western Europe. He traveled in a car about 35,000 miles a year. That is a lot of miles, and it was over at first gravel. Later it was nearly all interstate cement. When he came home there were small pitted areas of rocks that crashed into the car. Later, all that was gone. Further, most of early cars had a small window in front of a larger window. That small window would bring in outside air and deflect minor objects in  the highway debris. That was gone too when he got air conditioning.

Additionally, snow tires had to be put on after October. In the back end of the car was room for chains that fit on the backfires of the car. Further, one needed an instrument to push the car upwards to change a flat tire, called a “jack.” That was replaced with a chemical that re-inflated the tire. Now tires are tougher and can be on the car all the year around. For a while cars had studs, but it tore up the surface of the streets and interstates.

Driving on the highway can be irritating with the various wind sounds, but the air conditioning  helped all that. AM radio provided country and big band hits. Talk radio where announcer gets angry and calls various people with nasty derisions was few and far between. Later, FM, as well as tape and CD was added so your inside car could be free of politics.

The early cars were made of thicker and harder metal and the bumpers really did their job. As time went on American cars turned to junk and are now improving again. They are usually safer. Air bags and safety straps make the car generally safer. The padding over the instrumentation have saved many people from several facial lacerations.

My father would sometimes take me to watch him negotiate with a salesman. My dad’s job was to get the lowest split between his trade in and the next new car. Although he usually put on many miles, those miles were not as hard on a car that stops and starts in traffic. In other words, highway miles is not as difficult a stressor as city miles.

So the dickering began and my dad would let the salesman (now women) give a price minus the value of his trade-in. Then the drama would begin. My father felt just terrible at the original  price and the salesman would suffer pain of what it cost to make a car. Further, this model was in big demand. My dad was surprised. He began to leave the showroom when the salesman lowered the price. All of this was play acting, but that is what it took. Today, my wife and I go into the car dealer and pay the price. She hates confrontations. So we pay probably top dollar. However, before she took control, I would go through all the theatrics necessary to buy the car. Then she called to  it a stop. Her nerves could not  handle it and we could pay the higher retail price.

So now we begin. This is my best memories of the cars that he bought in which his company paid for.

1948 Oldsmobile. It was a dark blue swept back or fast back with some wood paneling in side. The back seat was very secluded. I used to look out the two little portholes that were the back windows. This was the car that my family would drive in, over to Grandma Snell’s on Sunday afternoon. Those were some of the best days of my life. We generally had pudding for the desert. I called it imagination as it was a metaphor for what brains might look like. It took me years to see that linkage and leap.

1950 Buick Special A green 4 door, this 4 door also had a tan top. Not much in the way of memories, but it paved the way to the 1952 Buick Special. It was a 4 door and stripped of some of the luxuries of the 50’s. Painted a light Blue, this Buick seemed more oriented to the front. It had fewer appointments. This is the car that I got behind the wheel, let out the brake, and the car rolled out into the street where my father and brother ran to the car before it would travel down the road. I think that I was 7 or 8. That was my last experience for a long while with cars.

By 1955, my dad was salesman of the year. His car was a 55′ Pontiac with every gadget on it that was possible. It was bronze and a light tan, 4 door, and a big boat. Now he was in the money, because for about the same amount, he could get a near new car used as a model in a dealership outside Omaha. I still recall when my father picked me up after a girl-boy dance party and all the girls sighed. I thought that it was a nice car, but this boat with tiny fins was a very big deal. So, I really began to understand the impact of cars on special people.

The 1957 Oldsmobile was a very  pretty, red and white car,  It was a first class dog. My father would return the car to the dealer over and over. My dad was like 5’7″ and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. However, one time he lost his temper and challenged the dealer to a fight. I don’t know how big the other guy was, but dad would get red in the face and swirl his weight around. The dealer of course did not want to fight. He knew that GM was now going for looks rather than integrity and safety of a car. The dealer probably had a number of incidence that replicated that moment.

The 1959 Mercury was a boat with fins. The instrumentation was space age and a 4 speaker AM radio with air conditioning. Dad looked lost in it. Imagine a short, but good man with a fedora on and a cigar in his mouth, and in a neatly pressed shirt and pants. Off he wandered in his space car, we took it on vacation into the southwest , and barely made it to a gas station where the car stayed for a few days until it got fixed. On my 50th birthday, my youngest son drove me first to small inlet on the Rio Grande and them to the top of the Sandia’s near Albuquerque.  When I saw the gas station all those memories came back.

By 61′ he had hit the top with a white Chrysler. Wow.. It had it all. By then I was in college and my own cars took precedence over my father’s cars. Most of them were built badly, but by the time the Japanese took over the market, American cars got better. However, that story would be twenty years into the future. My father’s last car was a yellow Chevrolet with a white leather top. I don’t know if any of the above got over 20 miles per gallon, but gas was 29.9 cents a gallon even in the late 60’s.

Father died in 1990. My mother bought an econo car but that was toward Y2K. What I did experience were cars that looked nice, but as time went the flash was lost to ability to have a dependable car. There are still some big boats around, but they are called Limo’s. The car that I drive now a Scion IQ has room for three adults and one little person or a pet. My wife drives a big tank that is very attractive. I don’t drive as much, but my little car cannot match my father’s cars. Further, I am not him, nor was he like me.

We went  from a merry Oldsmobile to my little Scion in less than a number of decades. We were lucky and unlike myself, my father loved to drive his car to many places that I have never been.

Prof. Joel Snell

Kirkwood College