So What Did You Learn to Drive In?

[Bronchette]

1974 Datsun B210 manual.

I learned to drive a 4-speed on a '73 Datsun 1200.

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[PonyDriver43]

Practiced in 1953 Oldsmobile. Took license test in 1959 Oldsmobile Super 88. In South Miami, FL in July (HOT). Driving test examiner said let's just skip the parallel parking & drive around a little with A/C on. My Mom's was all white.

 

[Adanac]

68 International stake truck

 

[Warped9]

Beautiful car, as so many of them were then. Yeah, in every age there meh run-of-the-mill designs that are eminently forgettable, but a lot of them then were something to behold. They were styled and designed primarily by hand rather than computer.

There is also a great irony to these old cars. I watched a video the other day exploring how cars back in the day were built compared to how they're built now. As beautiful as they were you really didn't want to be in one in a serious accident. There were no safety features whatsoever and you became a fleshy projectile inside the car if you hit anything, resulting in you getting speared by the steering wheel and/or smashed against the metal dashboard and protruding switchgear. And the car itself, while made of a lot of metal, wasn't that sturdily put together when it came to a serious collision. That and the windshield and glass would just shatter into flying shards and splinters. There were no impact beams in the doors and the hot engine could come barreling into the passenger compartment. Add to that the oversoft suspension not really suited to decent handling at speed to avoid a collision. And drum brakes were largely useless in an emergency.

No vehicle is 100 percent safe, but if you're going to be in an accident you want to be in a modern vehicle--your chances of survival are a lot higher.

 

[jkernitzki]

As beautiful as they were you really didn't want to be in one in a serious accident. There were no safety features whatsoever and you became a fleshy projectile inside the car if you hit anything, resulting in you getting speared by the steering wheel and/or smashed against the metal dashboard and protruding switchgear.

In our '63 Falcon wagon with just steel, Bakelite, and glass in front of our faces, Mom's arm was faster than any airbag.

 

[bronco68halfcab]

I learned on my Grandfathers old corn tractor, then advanced to his 68 Galaxie Country Squire wagon, when I took my road test it was in my mom's 70 Galaxie 500 fastback. I miss those cars.

 

[Escape2Bronco]

In our '63 Falcon wagon with just steel, Bakelite, and glass in front of our faces, Mom's arm was faster than any airbag.

No kidding! We had a late 50’s Plymouth station wagon and my mother could take off her penny loafer and crack us all in the way back for being bad and still stay in her lane! Or atleast that’s how I remembered it!

 

[Meanderthal]

I would say I really learned to drive on mini-bikes and motorcycles when I was really young (50cc up to 125cc). I also raced go-karts for 3-4 years in my early teens. I never took a driver's ed course, nor did I have to have any kind of temporary or supervised type of license. I got my license in Phoenix in 1985 and none of that was required. My mom let me drive her car for the test on that day. I was never allowed to driver her car before or after that day. My first vehicle was actually a very crappy moped that didn't like to run, but was given to me. I only had it for a month or two before buying a Yamaha 400 Special II. The moped was a death trap on the couple of miles of primary street I had to ride to get to work. I remember changing the handlebars to something flatter, as it came with those sort of mini ape hanger style bars that I really didn't like.

 

[Jmuns]

Based on these responses it should have asked what was your favorite AM radio station growing up.

To answer though my Dad bought me a '87 BWW 325 2-door manual (I was born in 83 so this was in 98 that I was learning to drive). Rear wheel drive in NW Pennsylvania and I was born in January so I had studded tires and loaded sand bags in the trunk to weight it down during the winter. I remember down shifting coming to a stop sign and just doing a 360 on the road as I let the clutch out and my father just laughing as we spun. I miss my father. He passed last year from pancreatic cancer but I wouldn't have thought about that moment and smiled if it weren't for this thread.

 

[jkernitzki]

Based on these responses it should have asked what was your favorite AM radio station growing up.

To answer though my Dad bought me a '87 BWW 325 2-door manual (I was born in 83 so this was in 98 that I was learning to drive). Rear wheel drive in NW Pennsylvania and I was born in January so I had studded tires and loaded sand bags in the trunk to weight it down during the winter. I remember down shifting coming to a stop sign and just doing a 360 on the road as I let the clutch out and my father just laughing as we spun. I miss my father. He passed last year from pancreatic cancer but I wouldn't have thought about that moment and smiled if it weren't for this thread.

Hopefully the memories are just of the good times. I lost my dad in 1969, and I still miss him, and all the things he never got to see me accomplish. I just hope he would have been proud of

As to the first thing, KCBQ San Diego. (Even though it’s FM). AM would be KRLA Los Angeles pre-1970.

 

[GJarrett]

1965 Ford Fairlane Station Wagon with 3 on the tree... inherited it from my dad and drove it in high school to the end of my college years. That thing was a tank, my friends nicknamed it "Sherman".

 

[Dannyp56]

Before my Dad had his '73 Mercury he had a very nice '66 Ford Galaxy 2dr. fastback, black with red interior and 289 V8. I was much too young to have learned to drive on that car, but my brother (7 years older) learned to drive on the '66.

Dad’s car was similar to this.

That looks like our driver's ed car.

 

[MJE]

Very typical for the era. Closest internet pics I could find:

Drivers Ed car

family car

 

[Bronchette]

Based on these responses it should have asked what was your favorite AM radio station growing up. . . .

Or maybe we weren't allowed to learn on the newer cars. LOL!!!

 

[Warped9]

Based on these responses it should have asked what was your favorite AM radio station growing up.

1050 CHUM (rock and pop) and 1310 CFGM (country) both out of Toronto. When I was young I listened to rock and pop as well as some country given Dad had the radio in his car tuned always to CFGM. Dad driving his ‘66 Galaxie or ‘73 Meteor while listening to country music is burned into my brain. But country stayed with me and decades later I’ll still listen to some of the music of my youth, but now I listen more to country. But the country I listen to is mostly from the 1960s to the early 2000s. Country music from the past 15 years or so doesn't do it for me. Dad use to say it was “too noisey” and I get what he was trying to say. I like the older vocals, the storytelling, the melodies, the clear and distinct instrumentation. Love that music driving on the highway.

I’ll never forget how I felt the day CFGM 1310 Country went off the air around 1990. I was shocked and so disappointed. When I called the station to try to find out what happened, after hearing rap/hip-hop on the radio rather than country one morning on the way to work, I was irritated when I was told the change in format was to better represent the Greater Toronto population. I immediately called that was nonsense given they had now taken away the one country station Toronto had. From then on to hear country on the radio you had to try to get a station from outside of Toronto or from the U.S. across Lake Ontario.

It wasn’t just the music. When we were kids CFGM had great Christmas music and every Christmas Eve we‘d huddle near the radio listening to the reports of NORAD tracking Santa’s flight from the North Pole. Those were such good days. If you grew up in the 1960s-‘70s we were blessed with best music this world has ever seen.

Dad with his ‘66 Galaxie.

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