The EARLIEST car was my Mom's 1958 Impala.. Tu-Tone blue & white, Post.. I thought it was a "Banda-Lay", I took an ink pen & went over the head-liner goin' "Banda Lay ,Banda Lay.." After I did the same on my mom's leather beige Car Coat,I had my crayons/ink pen taken away..Amazin' how that works..(grin)

I started out riding in the back of a black and white '54 Chevy. It got traded in for a '62 Chevy Nova-2. Dad hated that car. That got traded in on the previously mentioned '66 Fury wagon. When it got totaled we got the '69 Custom Suburban. In college I got my own, first car, a '74 Dodge van; it had a 360 with 4 barrel Thermo-quad, headers, Edelbrock manifold, 50 series tires all around (steered like crap with those), and of course all of the college guy stuff such as the "rain roof". That thing went way too fast for a van! Dad got a 77 New Yorker with a 440 and everything else that Mopar could think of to bolt onto a car. My '74 has gone to the great crusher now, and I now drive a '83 Dodge van with a 225 slant 6, 904 automatic, and a teeny-tiny 1 barrel carb. My lawnmower accelerates better, but the van is 30 years old and looks almost like new, and runs great. There have been a few other cars, but my Wife drives those, so they dont really count.

That concludes my automotive history. There will be a quiz on Friday.

But I forgot to take notes!!!!! what did you say????

Those were nice. Especially with the 312 T-Bird V8.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Who produced the most cars in Model Year 1957, Chevrolet, Ford, or Plymouth?

That would have been Ford. They and Chrysler had all brand new bodies when GM vehicles used the 55 body one more year on Chevy and Pontiac. Buick, Olds, and Caddy were new though.

My God. I didn't think anybody drove a Slant Six MoPar anymore as a daily driver. Time for a new ride, maybe?:smoke:

That is correct. Ford, with 1.49 million to Chevrolet's 1.45, was the top seller for Model Year 1957. A surging Plymouth produced 731,001 cars in 1957 to surpass Buick for third place.

Most people think the '57 Chevy was the sales leader. Ford was, in '57 and in 1959.:smoke:

Yeah, they had planned to use the 58 Chevy and Pontiac bodies for 2 years but that spooked them so much that they came out with another brand new body in 59. The 1958 Chevy and Pontiacs are a one year only style.

In hindsight, they may have done better using the original plan. Both Ford and Chrysler stayed with their old bodies for one more year although both were heavily facelifted in all brands. The 59 Chevy would have sold a lot better with different fins and grill as the 1960 proved when they took over the #1 spot again.

Ford had a LOT of trouble w/the '57s, IIRC...They were one of the first cars that were made w/a new "Deep Draw" technique in stamping the body panels, & the metal could be thin in places, & they had a lot of trouble w/rustouts.

Up here with the road salt we use in the winter, the main problem was around the headlight surrounds on the front fenders. They would completely rot out and it was hard to fix and make it not noticeable. The 57's and 58's were the worst. The 59's were much better. The rest of the car wasn't much worse than anything else of the time as I recall.

Yep-Believe it or Nutz, WE use a LOT of salt on the roads here, too. Mud would also pack in 'em, & rot 'em out pretty quick, too..

Not to change the subject or anything, but does anybody remember the Ford (cars and trucks) with the manual 3 speed transmission with OVERDRIVE? They had a handle under the dash that you could use to operate the transmission as a regular 3 speed which was a better choice for driving up and down hills; ESPECIALLY with a load. If you were driving a pickup with a heavy load you had little control on hills if you were in overdrive mode because once you started going down hill it was like you were in neutral until or unless you gave it gas which would not help matters in this scenario. I believe the gods of safety outlawed these transmissions in the 70s for issues like this AND the fact that when parked in overdrive mode the only gear that held the vehicle was reverse; the rest were like neutral! Add this factor to that of human nature and you have (and probably had) disasters in the making.

I have a 1965 Ford Custom Cab with this transmission and I learned quickly that you simply must realize the mechanical nature of the "beast" and you will do fine and get to trip people out who don't believe that you have an extra gear that you shift by letting off the gas for a second. If anyone is interested in owning this truck, PM me. I recently put it up for the "s" word. Don't want to get this whole thread moved to another website! LOL! But since things went this direction I figured I could tell an interesting story along with potentially finding someone interested.

Lots of cars and trucks used overdrive in the 50's and 60's. Ford even had a two speed rear end that they used in the thirties and fourties.

Overdrive allowed use of a higher geared rear end so low powered cars could have some snap, then overdrive allowed decent highway mileage. Some brands such as Studebaker and Nash got very acceptable gas mileage using overdrive and promoted it heavily.

Use dropped because manual transmission sales, even in trucks, dropped to a fraction of what they were. Big commerical trucks continued to use two and three speed rear ends to accomplish the same thing.

I knew a guy in high school who drove a '54 Ford wagon with O'drive and remember how it shifted into O by lifting the right foot.

It's real interesting I think how Ford engineered the manual overdrive. There is a lot more going on there than one might assume. There is a speed sensing device on the extension housing of the transmission that must send a signal to a relay when the proper speed has been achieved in order for the overdrive to function. There is a switch mounted to the gas pedal which is used for more or less a passing gear function. Interestingly, it kills the ignition for a split second to allow slack in the drive-train which is necessary for the planetary gear-set to disengage (or something like that). When I first bought this truck I was a bit weary of all or the quirky aspects of having this setup work properly, or the roll away issue, but after some time I feel very comfortable with the truck and with the price of gasoline I am glad to have it in working order. Inversely, if something goes wrong I can always lock OD out and use what is essentially a normal transmission.