Correct Time?

[Bird]

Yep, Pat, I believe my 1955 Cadillac Coupe DeVille had the clock that was periodically wound electrically. Of course that car was 5 years old when I bought it. And as with most automobile clocks of that time, it was highly inaccurate or unreliable. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

[LazyJ_Arabians]

'55 Caddie from Bird's flambouyant years

Chrome baby ...



Fully loaded with A/C, power seats, and hydraulic power windows ... 5,000 lbs

Limited trunk space tho ...

[Bird]

Somebody must have painted it. It used to be white over green (and a different shade of green, at that). Hydraulic power windows? It was the first car I ever owned with air-conditioning (which blew the air from ducts behind the rear seat forward instead of from the dash), power seat, and power windows, but I don't recall any hydraulics.

[Hank]

<font color="purple"> first car I ever owned with air-conditioning </font color>

I owned a '56 Chevy a bit later. I learned then that AC was just coming into Detroit autos around '55 or '56 ('56 in the case of Chevy, it makes sense the luxury line, Caddy, would have had it earlier).

The early AC units were primitive. Chevy's mounted under the dash, and looked like a monstrous afterthought. It resembled some of the add-on units you could buy into the '60's. When it worked, it would freeze you out.

I acquired the original shop manuals for my '56 Chevy. It took two. One was the main manual, and the second was a supplement (several hundred pages) devoted to cooling theory in general, and the Chevy AC unit in particular. If you studied it, you would have the equivalent of a Junior College course in AC theory and operation.

We bought an old clunker '56 Caddy in college (in 1966), and used it for triple dating. The fuel gauge didn't work, so you put gas in when you "checked it out", and hoped. The Wonder Bar radio was amusing; since it was also broken, it would seek forever if pushed the bar.

Probably the most unusual original option I found later on for my '56 Chevy was a vacuum opertated ash-tray cleaner. A vacuum hose attached to the bottom of the ash-tray, and when you pushed the button, it sucked the contents to an under-dash-mounted glass jar.

[Bird]

I'd forgotten about the Wonder Bar radio, but, yep, I had that. Don't recall ever even hearing of that ash tray cleaner, though. Of course, I well remember the '56 Chevys. I liked the '56 better than the '55 myself. But June of '56 was when my Dad bought the first service station, next door to a Chevy dealer. And with the drought in southern Oklahoma that year, farmers were broke, and the Chevy dealer went out of business that Fall. And when putting gas in the '56 Chevy with the filler behind the left taillight, you had to know what you were doing or it would shoot gas way out behind the back of the car (all over you if you were standing in the wrong place). And those early under dash, monstrous air-conditioning units were not only in the way, but cars were notorious for overheating with the a/c condenser in front of the radiator.

I guess it was the '57 Chevys that first came with tubeless tires and a lot of folks just plain didn't trust them, so I had customers bring brand new cars in to get us to put tubes in all the tires.

[Pat]

Bird, I recall the Caddy style a/c vents. Almost looked like plastic ladies hose demo legs on the deck by the rear window and aimed forward. At least that is the way I recall them through the adolescent mind filter in use at the time. I also recall guys out "draggin' Main" with their windows rolled up on a hot day because they thought it would make folks think they had A/C!!!

I recall the dash clock my dad installed in our clockless '56 Studebaker he took over as an oil field work car when he bought my mom the BATMOBILE (black 1959 Buick.) He hung an old manual wind wrist watch from the dash.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Bird]

Yep, Pat, your memory is good on the Caddy a/c vents. I couldn't think of a good way to describe them, but you got it just right. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

Studebaker as an oil field work car? Hadn't heard that before, but it does bring back memories of something a little different. In the early '50s, Dad worked for Johnston Testers in Healdton and Marlow. He was "shop man" which meant he stayed in the shop, answered the phone, unloaded, cleaned, lubricated, etc. the equipment off trucks that came in from jobs, got it all ready for the next job, etc. The trucks were one ton dually pickups with a rack in the floor that the test equipment laid on, and the test equipment was nothing more than a series of pipe, some perforated sections, one section with a big rubber collar that would expand under the weight of the drill stem to "plug" the hole, the perforations let the pressure in to a recording instrument in one section of the pipe. Each of the testers had his own truck, but Dad was also furnished a truck because if all the testers were out on jobs and another call came in, then Dad went and did the job himself. But since his truck wasn't used a lot except to and from the office, he had the oldest truck; a Studebaker. All the others were Fords and Chevys. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] But that old Studebaker was actually a good old truck.

[Pat]

Bird, The Studebaker was a 1956 4 door President with the hugh Packard V-8. The only car I ever had with the underhood volume so packed with engine was the Tiger where a Ford V-8 was stuffed into the space originally intended for a 1725cc 4 banger.

My dad opined that the heavy engine of the Studebaker would beat the front suspension out of the car before too long and he sold it before it happened and bought a 1954 Pontiac straight 8 that was a real tank. I remember that the Studebaker didn't like the class of service it was put into and would tend to oveheat. I went with my dad to work during summer vacation because I got to drive without a lisc when off public roads. We used to park the 2-3 year old Studebaker facing into the wind so it would cool itself. At high speeds on the highway it cooled itself fine but it didn't like the way it was used in the oil fields.

I have seen Studebaker pickups but was never in one. My dad only owned one PU in his life, a 1/2 ton 2x4 Ford, probably a '60 or maybe a '61 with 3 speed column shift. I won a bet one time when I was a senior in HS with that truck. I bet that I could startit up drive it around a prescrtibed course and stop it without ever touching the clutch, including the inital engine starting. I did it.

Pat

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]