Pete Philipps —
My first car went to Carnegie Hall—and that’s as far as it went the day I picked it up from the dealer in mid-town Manhattan and headed for home in Queens. What a place for the battery to die and bring the car to come to a complete stop. It explains why I don’t think of my first car the way people of a certain age tend to look back on their first car with a sense of nostalgia, why they remember it the way they remember their first love.
This was in the days—how long ago it was—before cars became ubiquitous, when the acquisition of a new car was a really big deal, when friends and neighbors would come to gawk at it, and the proud owner basked in their admiration. And at least for an initial period, the new car was treated with tender loving care, much like a new-born baby. Nowadays buying a new car is about as exciting as buying a new pair of shoes.
Paradoxically, I keep a framed ad for the car, a four-door 1948 Nash (a make now all but forgotten), for which I paid the then princely sum of $450 in 1951, the entirety of my savings account. In contrast with what I would endure when I bought cars in future years, it was a remarkably hassle-free transaction, without the slightest bit of haggling over price. The salesman merely asked me how much I wanted so spend, I told him I had $450 in the bank, and he said—you guessed it—“I have just the car for you.”
I thought the car looked awesome. Deep red, that is, in the places where any of the original paint was still visible, with white-wall tires, and an abundance of chrome. Compared with the tinny bodies of today’s models, it was built like a tank—and drove like one. It had “the blessing of coil springs on all 4 wheels…and the safety of all an-welded unitized body and frame,” according to the ad. In addition, it boasted “head room and leg room for Texas-size people, and luggage space for a tour across the country.” The ad goes on to say that “With frame and body welded into a single steel-girded unit, it is lighter and immeasurably stronger. 8,500 spot welds eliminate noise-making joints.”
Strangely, the ad makes no mention of two clever features: a passenger seat that folded flat, and a pedal near the clutch that allowed the driver to change radio stations (AM only). How much use I made of these two features I’ll leave for another time.
I wish I could say that the mishap of the dead battery in the middle of busy 57th Street was a one-time incident, as inconvenient as it was humiliating. But there were others, from a leaking radiator and a malfunctioning water pump to flat tires and other disasters too numerous to mention.
I bought the car for two reasons: convenience and spite. Convenience because it was the year I started City College. This required me to take a bus and the subway at eight o’clock five mornings a week. The car allowed to me a little extra sleep in the mornings—and it impressed my classmates. Spite because that also was the year my father’s company transferred him to The Netherlands and, much to my dismay, he had the family car shipped ahead of him. My mother followed shortly thereafter, leaving me to live by myself in the house my parents had only recently purchased. Depriving me of a car was not an unkind act. I’m certain my parents were worried I might get into a serious accident. The reason I’m so sure is that one of the perks that came with my father’s new position was a Mercedes with a personal driver. But I was young and impetuous and wanted to have it my way. Which I did.
Until my mother came home for a visit. She took one look at my Nash and declared, in no uncertain terms, that I was to get rid of it. Immediately. Her principal objection, as far as I could tell, was that the car looked like hell, an old heap that was a disgrace to the family and the neighborhood, Moreover, I had bought the car as an act of defiance.
At five-foot-two (if that) my mother was not to be trifled with, and I quickly went about looking for a way to obey her. Luckily a dear old friend came to my rescue. Harry (not his real name) was looking for a used car to take him to his job in New Jersey. He happily paid me $25 for the car and I was again in my mother’s good graces.
That would have been the end of it if the damn car hadn’t broken down shortly thereafter as Harry was driving to work on the New Jersey Turnpike. It cost him $35 to have the car towed to a garage, which declared the car of no further use.
And so ended what had been a beautiful friendship.