Man and Car: Father’s Day Love Story

In honor of Father’s Day, I thought a column about cars, the second true love of many men, was appropriate. Of the men in my life, most of them, if not all, love their cars. “It’s a guy thing,” my sons have said to me when I question their need for another car, or truck.

But it was my father whose love of cars revved up his ambition. An entrepreneurial type, he could never settle down in one job and over the years started and drove into the ground a number of businesses, but the one constant was automobiles.

He always seemed to have a new one, the latest model. I remember his excitement when he got a Corvette, one of the first American sports cars. He took me for a ride in the two-seater and squeezed my knee in his delight over his car.

While he was shifting his new toy, I was watching him like a hawk. Not being naturally detail oriented, driving looked easy to me. I don’t know if I wanted to be him, or to get his attention, but one day, when I was about 12, I took his keys off the table, got in his car and managed to drive it back and forth in the parking space without hitting the car in front or in back.

One of the neighbors saw me and snitched me out. My father was not happy with me, but I think both parents were grateful that I wasn’t hurt.

At one period in his life, my father sold American cars in Europe and Cuba. My sister thinks he sold Buicks, but I remember Pontiacs. He often told the story of being in Havana in 1959 on the day that President Battista was ousted and Fidel Castro took over.

He said that all of the Americans were told that they had to leave immediately, so my father got a cab, but on his way to the airport the cab was stopped and the driver was pulled out of the cab and severely beaten. Frightened to death, my father was able to jump in another cab and get to the airport, driving past armed men with fear and loathing in their eyes.

A few years ago, I caught a video about American cars in Cuba and felt a connection to my father who had already passed away. Any one of them could have been driving a car that my father had sold to a pre-revolution Cuban.

There are a number of videos on the subject of vintage American cars in Cuba, some independently made, (Yank Tanks) and others (Classic American Cars of Cuba) are professionally produced. But each of the videos that I watched on YouTube was entertaining and nostalgic.

Besides showcasing the old cars, they also depict how a man engages with his car. The way they felt about their cars was expressed by many of the Cuban men. One, an artist, said of his 1954 Plymouth, “It is alive. It transmits energy and I transmit energy to it.”

Another man, a master mechanic who found a way to develop a good business making chrome parts, said that he has always owned Cadillacs. “I’m a Cadillac man,” he said.  “I’m in love with my car,” another man said.

The Cadillac is one of an estimated 60,000 pre-1960 American cars driven in Cuba. About 150,000 existed at the time of the 1959 revolution, shortly after which the Detroit auto giants and all American manufacturers were forced to stop sending goods to Cuba to conform to the United States' embargo.

Movies like Buena Vista Social Club turn the jalopies into objects of nostalgia. But there is also a feeling that they are a lot of trouble because it is impossible to get parts for them when they break down. So a whole industry has sprung up of mechanics who, through initiative and desperation, fabricate parts for the over 45-year-old cars.

Cars have changed over the years and many of the most well known names have disappeared.

In the archives of the Red Bank Register, a Chevrolet dealer in Middletown advertised Monza Town Coupes in 1975, with colors like metallic bronze with a white vinyl roof and white vinyl bucket seats for a list price of $3,587.

According to one ad, the four cylinder car got 34 mpg and was made in the U.S.A. It came with a 60,000-mile, five-year warantee. What I find interesting about this ad, is that this car got 34 mpg in 1975 and a similar car today probably gets at best 25 mpg. Shouldn’t the technology have improved?

Buick advertised its sport touring car: "Every line of its beautiful appearance, every sparkle of its luxurious fittings, reflects the spirit of summer days with their many social enjoyments. And the Buick Sport Touring car is more than a playtime motor car. It is suited to business and other every day motoring because it is a Buick — with all the traditional Buick dependable performance, ability and stamina.”

In the same issue, June 1923, Studebaker advertised that "You Can Buy More Weight — But You Won't Find a Better Car" than the Studebaker Big Six.

The ad becomes a bit convoluted when it tries to tally up the advantages:

"The Big-Six Touring 13: a seven-passenger car with a seven-passenger motor and seven-passenger dimensions throughout. It distinctly is not a seven passenger body mounted on a five passenger chassis."

In June of 1920, as advertised in the Register, the Ford Model T One-Ton Truck was the first low priced truck to carry the worm-drive … "That tremendous power delivering mechanism has previously been an exclusive feature with high priced motor trucks. In the Ford Truck, however, you get the worm drive of manganese bronze material, absolute in strength and positive in the delivery of power, at a very low price. Come in and let us point out the many superior merits of the Ford One- Ton Truck-, because you need one in your work ..."

During the middle years of the 20^th century, the convertible was the car for adventurous, fun-loving drivers and the Cadillac Seville was the height of luxury and styling. For families, the Chrysler station wagon was the van of the times.

As for fuel, Standard Oil advertised that it was the best because it provided uniform, dependable power. "This is what Standard, the balanced gasoline is delivering in hundreds of thousands of motors every day," a Register advertisement said. "But power is only one of the many points in which Standard excels. Standard motor gasoline gives instant starting, leaves less carbon and delivers all the mileage you can possibly get out of a motor …"

And then there were the accessories. An ad for bumpers in the June 1923 issue of the Registerproclaimed: "When you bump, you must do it with our bumpers. They stand the shock and will protect the front of your car in a collision or accident. Furthermore, our Lyon bumpers are an ornament to any car, being made of flexible tempered steel and finished in a high class manner in nickel finish."

In addition, the well turned-out driver could purchase auto apparel like caps and gloves for 25 cents to $2.50.

"Our father, who art ..." in Florida for the last 20 years of his life, retired from his position as vice president of an executive car leasing company with a new Cadillac every two years. After retirement, he took a part-time job driving leased cars from one rental office to another. At one time, he was the oldest car courier in Florida.

I’d like to believe that the affinity for cars skipped me, but the reason I was attracted to the man who was to become the father of my children is because he drove the hottest car in all of Brooklyn and Queens at the time.

It was a 1949 chopped Ford, with four on the floor, a muskrat fur seat cover, an "OooooooGah" horn, and it was painted steel gray with lots of chrome. I was 16, standing on the street corner with my friends when he drove by in his hot rod.

We waved and he turned around and pulled up beside us. He was with a friend who knew my friend, so the boys got out and the car and we hung out. The rest is her story, mine, and it has less to do with the car than with the romance. His story of that time would probably have more to do with the car than the girl he met.    

So you might say a driving relationship with cars is in my sons’ blood. It stretches from their grandfather and through their father. I have no doubt that my youngest son will pass it down to his three boys.

But I hope, by then, they will be driving electric cars, or some other form of less polluting automobile like the Chevrolet Volt, a four-passenger, five-door compact hatchback plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

According to the ads, for the first 40 miles, the vehicle drives gas- and tailpipe-emissions-free using electricity stored in its lithium-ion battery. When the Volt's battery runs low, a gas-powered, engine/generator seamlessly operates to extend the driving range another 300 miles on a full tank.

How cool is that?