The Good Old Days

Here I'm thinking of the 50s and 60s.

What it was like.
Feel free to join in and tell us what you remember of the glorious years gone by.

 

I'll start with cars.
What it was like to own a 50s or 60s car compared to today.

In the U.S in the 50s there were five major car companies, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, American Motors (Nash-Hudson), and Studebaker-Packard.
Foreign cars were few and far between.
Here's a 55 Chevy Bel Air:

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Owning a 50/60s era car was somewhat different than owning a car today.
First of all they came with pretty much nothing. Here is the list of basic options on that 55 Bel Air:
Turn signals, heater, oil bath air cleaner, two tone paint, oil filter, automatic transmission, over drive, electric windshield wiper, power steering, power windows, power brakes, and air conditioning. No carpets by the way, and the radio, if you had one, had tubes inside of it instead of transistors (or IC chips).. If you bought a truck you may have to option in a radio, passenger sun visor, arm rests, tubeless tires, and reverse lights, in addition to all the car stuff.

They had to be tuned at least twice a year. This meant you had to gap the spark plugs, (replacing those that were shot) time the ignition, gap the points, (replacing them if they were shot) adjust the brakes, grease the tie rod ends, pitman arm, ball joints, etc, adjust the carburetor, free up the automatic choke (if equipped), free up the heat riser, check the exhaust pipe and muffler, clean the battery terminals, free up the emergency brake, and check the voltage regulator. Stuff like that. You might also have to adjust the valve train.

Monthly, or more frequent service included, checking tire pressure, oil level, coolant level, battery level, and brake fluid level as all those things tended to leak. All over the ground, engine, and chassis.
Also you had to make sure the lights and horn still work due to rust.

Common failures included, suspension springs, steering components, brake lines, water pumps, radiators, generators, voltage regulators, heaters, hoses, engine belts, and of course flat tires.

All this sounds like a lot of work, but many people, teens in particular, had a lot of fun meeting at someone's house to work on some car.

Next: we take a ride in an old car.​

 

Time for a drive!

First of all old cars had no computers or even electronic ignition system or fuel injection.
So you can't use your "remote start" to get 'er going while you eat your morning pop tart. You have to walk out, insert your key in the door lock, unlock the door...and before you slide into that nice big bench seat, you might want to walk over to the passenger side and adjust that outside mirror, if you have one.

Now you have to use the correct starting procedure. Pump the gas pedal two or three times to prime the carburetor, as all the gas evaporated out of it last night, turn the key to start (older cars may had had a starter button), and let 'er crank. If you tuned it properly last month she'll fire right up. But if you didn't pump the gas pedal enough, or you pumped it too much you could be in trouble. Smell gasoline? You flooded the carb and now you have to sit and wait until some of the gas evaporates. Don't want to wait so you keep on cranking the starter? Oops! There goes the battery. Hope you have your jumper cables with you and some friendly stranger to help out.

Got her running? Let's take off!
Push in the clutch and put the transmission in first gear. The shifter's on the steering column.

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Ease out the clutch, give her some gas, and if you don't stall, we're off! If you're on a hill...good luck!
(If you don't have a synchromesh transmission, you have to "double clutch"; look it up.)

Let's hop in that classic "hippie" vehicle the Volkswagon "Beetle".

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What was it like?
No power steering, air cooled, so no heat in the winter (and the heater doors always rusted either shut or open), manual transmission, no air conditioning, a whopping 36 horse power (0 to 60 in 36 seconds, top speed was about 70 mph, the van could reach 65 but driving over 50 was, shall we say exciting?), and many drivers used the "georgia overdrive"* to make it up the next hill with a minimum of down shifting.
Hot summer day day? Too bad reach over and "wind down" the passenger window by hand. Also you'll get some cool air off the highway through that hole in the floor.
Cold in the winter? Put on some more clothes, the heater never works. But you'll have to take your mittens off every ten minutes or so to put your nice warm hands on the windshield to defrost it. And don't mind the ice on what's left of the floor from the water coming in that hole. After all the ice seals the hole and stops that cold air from coming in.

How about an American car? Basically the same except the heater usually worked.
That '55 Chevy, if equipped with a V-8 Plus-Power engine and a 2 speed transmission still took over 10 seconds to reach 60 mph. A six cylinder was much slower.

Lucky enough to have a muscle car?
Maybe '64 GTO?

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Much faster, but you still have to get it started.
In addition the tires weren't that good, you had no traction control, ABS brakes, or dual brake reservoir.
The suspension was terrible and the steering was, let us say bad.

Want to spin the tires and do a "burn out"? Be careful, no traction control so you may end up sideways, or wrapped around a telephone pole.
Want to stop? Good luck, those undersized drum brakes tend to heat up and lose stopping power. Manage to lock the wheels and start skidding? You better know how to counter steer and pump that brake pedal!

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Watch out for that telephone pole!

Next we look at the roads.​

*A georgia overdrive is a trucker's term for coasting down a hill in neutral so the engine doesn't slow you down.

 

Great thread @MeAgain!

I loved my old Beetles... had three of them And yes they rusted out easily in the salty sand roads of the Virgin Islands, but they had the most dependable engines and brakes to be found. Any American car would be either wrapped around a tree at the bottom of a hill when the brakes failed, or dead from a lack of parts. They would surge up the hills with their gears well suited to climbing hills... Who cared about speed when the top speed limit on St Thomas is 35 mph? And the brakes were great. Steering was precise and easy compared to American cars.

Arrived in the states mid-1980s. First car I bought was an Olds Delta 88 with a giant engine. 400 + cubic engines, and it got about 9 miles per gallon in Las Vegas. I grew tired of it and next car was a VW Camper Van... what a winner! Slow going up hills, but a convenient camper. Pop top was nice, and the nice bed in back was comfy. Again, no heat in winter, and in the summer you could not turn off the blast of hot air coming from the engine. Gas mileage was around 25 MPG. Comparable to most cars these days...

Nowadays I drive a Toyota, most reliable car I have ever owned, and the RAV4 is holding up well at 20 years young. It's my third Toyota now...

 

Congrats on the RAV4... I did not know they made a 6 cylinder version. Mine has plenty of power and pep... with 4.

 

In the never ending search for aerodynamics they ultimately all look like bubbles...or jelly beans. Supposedly more efficient. I do recall some models from the 30s and 40s had that streamlined look, but much more stylishly done I have to say.

 

Here's the Golden Rod, one of the most aerodynamic cars ever built with a drag coefficient of 0.1165.
Powered by four Chrysler Hemi engines in 1965 it held the wheel driven land speed record of 409.277 mph for over 49 years.

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It was beaten in 1991 by the supercharged Hemi powered Spirit of '76 at 409.986 mph

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Current record is 414.316 mph held by the Spirit of Rett running a nitrous oxide aspired Chevy engine.

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....back to the roads of the 50s and 60s.

Construction of the interstate highway system didn't begin until 1956 and wasn't completed until 1992 so most of the roads were only two lane common access roads linking towns to other towns or cities, which means speeds were limited and you had to drive though one town, with all it's traffic and traffic lights to get to another town.

In the winter, up north, the roads were rarely cleared of snow, so you had to have snow tires put on in the fall or you weren't going anywhere. Not all season tires, snow tires with very aggressive treads. Then you stored your summer tires until spring when you went back to a gas station and had your snow tires removed and your summer tires remounted.
If you had lots of money you owned an extra set of wheels so you you didn't have to have your tires remounted twice a year.
Getting stuck somewhere in the snow was common.
In the fifties you used tire chains.

Most households owned one car, very few had pickup trucks and if they did they were work trucks, not driveway queens. Very few people owned a four wheel drive vehicle, and if they did it was a Jeep, used for work.
Most driving was limited. Traveling for 20 miles was the exception, most trips to the store or work were under or around 5 miles.

Most retail stores closed by 5:00 pm during the week, 7 or 9 on Fridays and Saturdays and becasue of Blue Laws almost all stores were closed on Sundays. Gas stations closed by 7 pm, with very few remaining open during the night. This made it easy to drive into a closed station at night to get free gasoline by draining the pump hoses of residual gas into a 5 gallon can. Not that I ever did that.
A few local diners would be open till 1 am or so.

This means the roads were virtually empty after 7 at night. That's when the teens would come out to play at the local "strip" or burger joint. Adults were few and far between so it was the perfect time for cruising for girls, street racing, back woods keg parties, or the occasional tussle when someone from a neighboring town invaded another town's turf.

If you missed the 50s and 60s and haven't watched American Graffiti.
Watch it.

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Where was I?

Transportation.
Let's forget about cars for a minute.
Except for street cars. We still had 'em.

Here's the Jolly Trolley also called the Golly Trolley, in Pittsburgh.

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They were still running in 1972.

Here's one coming down a hill in Dusquene Heights in 1965, note the brick street and Bell Telephone public phone sign.

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Those brick streets were noisy and slippery when wet!
I still know three ways to get a free call on a public phone...if I could find one.

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I used to know where there was a public phone that only charged a nickel.
Before I found out how to get a free phone call I used to put dimes in my Penny Loafers for emergencies.

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Of course if you didn't have a car, or money for a bus ticket or trolley ride you could always hitchhike.

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Which reminds me back in 1974 we took a trip to Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks to camp at the seashore in our old Toyota Corona Mark II

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At that time the Outer Banks looked more like this

than this


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Anyway the water pump gave out on the car and had to be fixed. So we found a pay phone, the only one near the campground, "let our fingers do the walking" through the yellow pages and found a garage up in Kitty Hawk I believe. Which is about an hour and a half drive away.
So I threw a jug of water in the car and headed north to the garage. Made it there and had them order a water pump as no one on the entire island had a water pump for a Toyota. Then I found out I had to pay for the pump, the install, and a bus ticket for the pump to get it to the island!
I hitchhiked back to the campground, called every few days to see if it was fixed, and after about four days hitchhiked back up to get it.

See how I tied the car, pay phone, bus, and hitchhiking all together?
They didn't have any street cars or I would'a worked that I too.

 

More about Hitchhiking.
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"Why did people hitchhike so much back in the good old days", you ask?
Good question.

Because they had no money.
Or no car.
Or no one they knew was going where they wanted to go.

Hitchhikers were everywhere, except on interstate highways or turnpikes as most states outlaw it on those roads.
So hikers would stand on the entry/exit ramps, many times with signs that said East, West, North, South, etc.
During the Vietnam War ramps had lots of guys in uniform trying to get somewhere on leave.

Girls were also frequently seen hitchhiking. My wife, before we were married, did it all the time, as she was too young to drive. She never had a problem.

Hitchhiking Techniques.
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Don't bother looking on the internet. Not much of value there.
There are two main theories.
The Stationary Theory of and the Theory of Alternative Roads.

The Stationary Theory is simple. You stand in one spot and stick out your thumb until someone picks you up. It could be in a few minutes, or a few hours, or who knows how long?
The Theory of Alternative Roads is based on the premise that if you stand in one spot a certain number of cars will pass you by based on how much traffic is on the road you are standing beside. However if you walk in the direction you want to go either frontwards or back wards while you "thumb", you will eventually pass alternative side roads, parking lots, and drive ways that may feed additional cars onto the road in front of you; as you pass those alternative roads.
Thus increasing your chances of being picked up.

While I'm Thinking of It.
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There is also the theory of Convergent Realities. I made that name up as I forget what it's really called, but you know what it is.
What happens is there you are standing along side the road and a car is approaching you from the north, and another from the south.
Which car will reach you first?
Trick question, they both arrive at the same time, in a direct line beside you. Not always, but enough to rule out chance
Same thing happens when you're driving down some country road. Car stopped on the berm, another traveling toward you?
Everyone meets at the same time.
Why is that?

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