Rides
I've loved cars ever since I was old enough to know what one was. This is a photo album of some of the 1:1 vehicles that have played a role...
The first car my family owned was a 1948 Ford Deluxe 2 Tudor sedan bought in 1950 when I was four years old. It was black and had huge whitewall tires. It was also a stick shift. At the time my mother didn't drive, and I can remember sitting in the back seat while my dad tried to teach her how to drive a stick shift. He wasn't very successful. He usually took a bus into downtown New Orleans for work, which left the '48 in the driveway most days. Even then I was already a car nut. Some time around 1951, I remember play driving it. I pushed in the clutch pedal and it slowly rolled out of the driveway and into the middle of the street. My mother soon discovered my prank, and was able to start it an pull it back into the driveway. I probably got the seat of my pants warmed for my prank.
This was my folks' first brand new car, a '52 Ford Customline Tudor sedan. The color was Glenmist Green, a very light shade. It replaced the black '48, and stayed in the family until it was replaced by a '55 Ford station wagon. My folks loved to travel when they could and one of the first vacations I remember was a trip to the Smoky mountains.
This is the Mountain Green '55 Ford Customline station wagon that replaced the '52. I loved riding in the rear cargo area. I haven't been able to find a photo of the '61 Ford wagon that replaced it.
Fast forward to the 60s. This is a 1940 Chevrolet that was bought used by my future father-in-law. He sold it to his mother-in-law around 1958 when he upgraded to a '56 Ford sedan. It was gray and she drove it regularly throughout the 60s and into the early 70s. When she passed away it went to my mother-in-law who kept it for a few years but eventually sold it.
I grew up in a Ford family. One of my uncles was a Ford salesman at a dealership in south central Mississippi. Everyone in the family drove Fords for years until another aunt and uncle broke the chain when they bought a '61 Mercury. (At least it was still FoMoCo.) These photos were taken at a family reunion in late 1956. My uncle's brand new '57 Ford Fairlane 500 town sedan demonstrator is the last one on the right.
I became good friends with my future brother-in-law around 1962. He was a few years older than me and drove a dark gray primer '50 Plymouth. A bunch of car guys hung around with him and it wasn't long before we formed a car club. We went in together to buy this 1930 Chevrolet sedan. Our intention was to turn it into a dirt tracker. That never happened.
This '48 Nash coupe was the first car I ever owned. I paid $65 for it in 1963 and it actually ran for a while! But not long enough to get antifreeze in it before winter. We had an unusually cold winter in New Orleans that year, and the result was a cracked block that eventually led to a trip to the junkyard.
My next car after the Nash was this '53 Olds 98 hardtop. Okay, so it didn't have a motor, and the right rear quarter panel was totally trashed. But teenage optimism runs high. At least it did until my folks drew the line and it also wound up on a one-way trip to the junkyard.
This '50 Ford convertible was with us for several years. It originally belonged to the president of our car club, who rescued it from a junkyard. My future brother-in-law bought it for his mom after it lost a battle with a big Chrysler sedan and wound up with a totaled left rear quarter panel. But it was more like community property. This photo shows it after a buddy and I replaced the rear quarter panel with one from a coupe. That was quite a project! Our skills with a welding torch were limited, so we wound up welding it in place and filled the seams with several gallons of body filler. But it served us well, especially after we treated it to a new top.
This was brother-in-law's '59 Corvette. He bought it from the Chevrolet dealer where he had gotten a job as a mechanic. It had the 283 V-8 with dual four-barrel carbs and ran like crazy. He traded it for a '57 Chevy and a '51 Henry J gasser (below). It was originally silver blue, but he had a friend repaint it in a dark metallic blue with silver metalflake in the side coves.
This was the '57 Chevy that replaced the Corvette, and it was a real sleeper. It had a 283 V-8, bored out to 301 cubic inches and a factory fuel injection. We ran many a late night street race in this one, as well as some successful (and legal!) runs at a couple of the area drag strips.
And this was a '51 Henry J called Mr. Wizard, theoretically a B gasser. It came with a hopped up 327 Chevy engine that was never installed. But it didn't stay with us very long...
This was another sleeper, a '57 Ford Custom 300 Club Sedan that belonged to a cousin. Under the hood was a 312 Merc engine. We spent many a night tearing up the back roads in Copiah County, Mississippi in this one.
This '54 Olds Starfire convertible was another real beauty that belonged to my future brother-in-law. At this time he was also driving the '57 Chevy (above) and we had a great deal worked out. I kept both cars washed and waxed, and had the use of whichever one he wasn't driving.
This was my folks' '64 Ford Country Sedan. I didn't get to drive it much. I think they were in touch with my leadfoot tendancies back then.
My All Time Favorite Car - 1958 DeSoto
In the fall of 1956 Chrysler Corporation introduced their completely new lineup, Plymouth, Dodge, DeSoto, Chrysler and Imperial. And they stood Detroit on its ear. The slogan for Plymouth was "Suddenly it's 1960!" and that pretty much summed everything up. Chrysler had managed to scoop their competitors with styling that made every other 1957 car look stodgy and old fashioned.
My parents were loyal fans of Groucho Marx's "You Bet Your Life" television show. I remember lying on the den floor in front of the TV when Groucho came on to introduce the all new 1957 DeSoto. My 10 year old self was totally stunned! It was the most beautiful car I had ever seen, especially those fins! I was sure that there could never be anything that beat it in looks. Until 1958.
The '58 DeSoto had fundamentally the same styling as the '57. But there were some subtle refinements that made the beautiful '57 even more spectacular for 1958. The differences that made it stand out to me was the refined grille/bumper and small "dimples" in the upper surface of the exhaust pipes. I was hooked for life!
A couple of weeks after high school graduation in 1964 I finally got my first real car. You guessed it ... a '58 DeSoto Firedome convertible. It only had about 53,000 miles on the odometer, and I paid $400 for it. Ah...the good old days! I was in hot rod heaven. I spent that summer cruising with the top down and the Beach Boys' "I Get Around" blaring on the radio.
Unfortunately, Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans in the fall of 1965, and the area where I lived flooded badly. The DeSoto was submerged for several days to about six inches above the dashboard. Although my friends and I managed to get it running again, it was never quite the same. I finally had to let it go in late 1969. They guy who bought it from me for $90 (!) said he was going to tow it to Florida. I've always wondered what finally happened to it.
For years I kept a watchful eye on car sale ads, and from time to time one would pop up, but never at a price that I could afford. I was admittedly picky. The '58 DeSoto was offered in four versions, Firesweep, Firedome, Fireflite and Adventurer. I dismissed the Firesweep out of hand. The front clip borrowed heavily from Dodge, and to my eye just didn't look right. Firedomes and Fireflites were a possibility but I knew I would never be able to afford one of the rare and expensive Adventurers.
1958 was a historically bad year for the automotive industry. A recession, rising unemployment and a decrease in consumer spending all contributed to record low sales for the year. A number of years later I was doing some general automotive research and came across production figures for the '58 DeSoto convertible. The Firesweep accounted for 700, Firedome 519, Fireflite 474 and Adventurer 82. So that meant my Firedome was one of only 519. That explains why in 2023 a fully restored '58 Firedome convertible sold for almost $200,000! Way too expensive for my budget...
As the mid-sixties took hold on the nation and flower power became the buzz words, brother-in-law's taste transformed from screaming hot rods to sports cars. This was his '57 Austin Healy 100-Six. We had a lot of fun with it, even taking it out multiple times with two in the front bucket seats and two more in the "back seats" which was a highly optimistic moniker, especially with the top up! It met its demise while parked on a side street in the form of a Chrysler New Yorker in the hands of a drunk driver.
In the fall of 1967, I joined the New Orleans Fire Department. Once regular paychecks started coming in it was time for a new ride. I replaced the '57 Ford sedan I had been driving with this '65 Galaxie 500 convertible. It was dark green with black interior. In late 1968 I blew a radiator hose and the engine overheated badly, which caused some serious damage. I traded it in on a new '68 Mustang coupe, which I kept for about a year. The Mustang got traded in for a '68 500XL convertible.
This '68 Galaxie 500 XL was probably the hottest car I ever owned, thanks to the 390 V-8. I kept it for a year or so...until the payments and gas started having a crucial impact on my budget.
From one extreme to another: I made the move to economy in 1969, trading in the 500XL on this Volkswagen sedan. It was beige with a red interior, and I really didn't like it at first. But it wasn't long before I grew to love the little bug. It stayed in the family for over ten years, and in 1971 I added a bright orange VW convertible to the stable. The last we heard, it was still chugging along.
In the spring of 1973 I became the Public Information Officer for the New Orleans Fire Department. This was my official car, a '67 Ford sedan.
I bought this '65 Cadillac deVille convertible in 1974 for $400. It was in good shape except for some body damage on the driver's side. This was a project I played around with for a number of years, gradually getting body work done. Installing a new top was a real challenge! In 1983 I sold the Caddy and bought a '75 Olds Delta 88 convertible to play with.
My folks also joined the new car parade when they traded in their '64 Galaxie on a new '69 Ford wagon.
They replaced the '69 with a new dark green '72 Country Sedan.
The next new car to enter the picture was this '76 Chrysler Cordoba. It's on the heels of my '58 DeSoto in the favorite category. I thought the styling was superior.
My folks continued their pattern of a new Ford wagon every few years. This time the '72 was replaced by this '78 in a dark brown metallic. I inherited the '72 and wound up selling it to a firefighter friend.
My next fire department car was this '74 Ford. It came along in 1978 also.
This little '63 Ford Econoline van was a bit of a legend in our family. It was an ex telephone company vehicle that my brother-in-law acquired around 1970. He traveled all over the west in it, and it was still around in 1980 when he passed it along to me.
By the time 1981 rolled around, I was needing a new vehicle. One of the local Chevy dealers had a closeout sale going on some leftover brand new vans. I got this one for $5,600. It was a real plain jane model, six cylinder, stick shift, no windows, no radio...I had them add factory air to it. Then I spent the next few months adding a killer sound system, along with carpeting and other goodies to the interior. It saw many a camping trip over the next few years.
My old Cadillac developed a major engine problem, so around 1984 I bought this '75 Olds convertible from a friend. I enjoyed it for several years, and brought it with me when I moved to northwest Arkansas in 1988.
I fell in love with the Chevy Blazer in 1986, and finally got this '87 model shortly before retiring from the New Orleans Fire Department and moving to the Ozark Mountains in 1988. Here it is under it's first snowfall.
The Blazer was two wheel drive, so it wasn't very practical for winter driving in the Ozarks. I traded it in on this front wheel drive '89 Toyota Tercel.
I had bought the '78 LTD wagon from my folks shortly after moving to Arkansas. I used it for several years before swapping it for this '77 Chrysler New Yorker coupe. What a car this was! It was huge, with an interior that looked like a Victorian parlor and a 440 V-8 that could really move the big beast.
I worked for a few years as a traveling photographer in a '92 Dodge Caravan minivan. It had over 120,000 miles on it by the time I quit that job. I traded it in on this brand new '95 Mustang. My friends referred to it as my baby Lincoln.
The '98 LTD wagon was my folks' last wagon. They bought a new '89 Crown Vic and came to visit me in Arkansas in it quite regularly. On one of those trips in 1999 my dad decided he wanted a new vehicle, so we drove into the Ford dealer in Harrison, Arkansas. They wound up with this '99 Ford Windstar.
I was quite happy with my '95 Mustang coupe. Until I saw this '35th anniversary '99 Mustang convertible sitting at a local dealer, just begging to go home with me. I kept the little ragtop for more than ten years before I finally realized that I just couldn't comfortably fold myself up enough to get in and drive anymore! The perils of senior citizenship! But it went to a good home.
I left Arkansas and moved down to southwest Mississippi in 2001. In the spring of 2008 the old Windstar van I inherited from my folks was getting a bit long in the tooth. Time for a pickup; my first one! Got a great deal on this Ford Ranger.
I really liked the Ranger, and it was a great little truck. But by the spring of 2012, with a little help of arthritic hips, it was time to look for something easier on the ol' bod. In 2012 I picked up this slightly used 2011 Mercury Mariner, a year after Ford ceased Mercury production.
I had this 2009 Chevrolet Silverado for a few months in 2015. It came in handy out here in the country, but it wasn't very economical.
So in early 2016 I traded both the Mariner and the Silverado in on this spanking new 2016 Kia Sorento. I have never been happier with a car. Aside from the fact that, for my taste, the Sorento was about the only acceptable design I could live with, it was a terrific value.
