The 8008 646
TOliver Remarkable coincidence. My very first car that was entirely my own was a '58 Anglia, white...
Back about 1958, English Ford attempted to sell models through franchised US dealers (the sort of guys who also sold Renault or other less than highly marketable marques.
Dad settled a fee, and settled the settlement a '58 "Anglia" (I believe), a little square white tudor with red vinyl seats, the front two of which pivoted on their forward moorings to allow access to the back seat, on me. Aside from a very low price (but not low enough to threaten the hordes of VW about to arrive), non-American acceleration, an electrical system that combined all the worst of Lucas and Dagenham - the headlights frequently simply faded from view, sharp and rough edges throughout as if it had been buttembled by folks for whom welding was a new trade, a wheel on the left (right!) side and four wheel independent braking (the brakes applied at a different time on each wheel, predictable but apparently incurable), it was an astoundingly bad car in an era of bad cars. I drove it through a year of collitch and it prevented me from getting laid on easily dozens of occasions. How thankful I was to unload it on an unsuspecting freshman girl.
....and then to aggravate my father - in a gas economy mode - even further, buying the great '52 Hudson Bathtub bodied step-down-into, back seat compartment the size of a dorm room, legendary performance on the stock car track, and capable of hauling 20-30 cases of beer into dry West Texas with visible spring-dampening aft, a dark Panzer Gree, a great metal sunshade over-hanging the windshield and a spotlight, the ultimate machine for watching "Thunder Road" at the drive (in un-airconditioned slippery splendor) with some dirty-legged** girl and a couple of six packs of Pearl....
**Dirty-legged - implied a certain willingness to thresh about mightily and if not willing to allow actual love to possess a sound repertoire of mutually satisfying simulations.
Other auto memories.....
The side by side Isetta, the tandem (one behind another) was it Henckel (?) or Messerschmitt (?) or both?
Of course, the Topolino, never many in the US, but favored in cinepics. The soft top version was the choice of the lot. simply the regular tudor without the sheet metal top, with bows and canvas stretched over the door and back window framing.
TM "Road King" Oliver
Alt Folklore Computers from Newsgroups