Thinking about my late Mom on Mother's Day and the cars she drove. My mom passed away almost 30 years ago, and I am reminiscing about her today. Mom was born in Manhattan and then lived in the Bronx, so in the early part of her life she never had a driver's license or a car. Mom and Dad lived in the Bronx when they first married, then decided to move to the suburbs of Queens in the fifties. Dad put a deposit down on a Hudson, but never took delivery due to a post-war car shortage. However, he eventually they got a 1950 Plymouth Mayflower sedan with a three on the tree. It was on this car that my mother learned to drive. She passed her road test the first time. I still remember her sometimes reciting to herself what gear to be in as she was driving, low, second, high. The car had a cane emergency brake, bench seats and of course no seat belts. In 1957 my dad came home with a slightly used 57 Chevy Station Wagon. My mom drove that everywhere. And it had powerglide with a weird shift pattern on the steering column. The steering wheel was so big, I think my mom looked out at the road through the steering wheel. No AC naturally. She drove my brother to college in upstate New York in that car, doing 75 with all the windows and vents open and lots of shimmying. The big hill as you come into Ithaca was a challenge to the brakes. Eventually that car got so rusty we had pieces of wood to cover the holes in the floor. In 1961 we got a Corvair and she would drive that. I remember her losing control coming down a hill in a snowstorm, then catching the slide. That car used to eat rear tires due to the extreme camber. And fan belts. Next we started buying Fords. We had two Country Squires. My mom chauffeured all of us to whatever schools, lessons, horse shows, track meets, you name it. In her old age, she drove a Pontiac Bonneville, by far the nicest ride she ever had.
After my dad passed away Mom would drive 8 hours to visit my sister and brother in Virginia all by herself. I don't know how she did it, but she did that for years.
What kinds of cars did other readers Mom's drive?
After my dad passed away Mom would drive 8 hours to visit my sister and brother in Virginia all by herself. I don't know how she did it, but she did that for years.
What kinds of cars did other readers Mom's drive?