Never Get It Off The Ground
Automobile production and sales were suspended right after Pearl Harbor as industry shifted to wartime, tanks and trucks and army ambulances and armored vehicles. There were few 1942 year model cars, my parents getting, they told me, a car from the last shipment of new Chevrolets to arrive at Nelson Chevrolet in Panama City. It was a 1942 Fleetline aerosedan. There were two, a dark blue one and a two-tone tan and cream one and my mother chose the blue one. Blacksidewall tires, no radio and no heater. It was the first car I drove.
Soon after my twelfth birthday the whole family took a Sunday afternoon drive out US98 to the far west end of Bay County, a woodsy area at the beach where we used to go hunting for Christmas trees, and my first driving lesson was on the dirt roads back there. My father was calm, my mother very nervous as I learned to shift and drove slowly along the winding road among scrub oaks and pines. My first drive on a highway began with a jerking start and turning right onto US98 and driving a mile or less until another car drove up behind us and my mother told my father to have me stop.
As the war wound to a close in 1945 there was talk of helicopters replacing cars. Some memories stick in the mind, and my mind holds the memory of asking my mother if we would get one. She said, “Of course we will.” The family helicopter never got off the ground though.
This came to mind while reading the NYT Automobile section this morning, a picture of the Terrafugia Transition flying car that was shown at the New York auto show in April, not the first time a flying car has been floated.
Good slide show:
Before learning to drive the ’42 Chevy, as both it and I aged, the chrome (real metal in those days, no plastic bumpers and front grills) started to corrode and it was my job to keep the front grill clean and shiny, using bon-ami and car-nu. The corrosion always had the victory, totally tearing up whatever cloth was used for the job. In May 1948 the Chevy was traded in for a new Dodge Custom sedan -- which eight years later was given to me to take to UFla my senior year, and it was the first car Linda and I had together.
TW