Memories from driving in the 70s

JoeThePop

JoeThePop

Brussels Sprout King
Watched this morning as the kid across the street popped the hood on his Bronco and start it with a screwdriver under the hood.
Used to have a screwdriver in the glovebox of our 73 Cuda for just such an emergency.
And my 71 Demon always had a spare ballast resistor in the glovebox. These days if you car doesn’t start, call a tow truck.
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JoeThePop said:
These days if you car doesn’t start, call a tow truck.
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Not even a tow truck. My car must be carried on a flat bed... the good news is that the car calls roadside assistance for you. I found this out when I got a flat. After hitting a pothole, the car not only realized the tire was flat, the display lit up with a message, "calling roadside assistance".

Crazy world we live in.
 
My "Life on Mars," Ford Cortina 2lt GXL. Metallic bronze with black vinyl roof. Like this.

de1d6dd2468f35f853383bebb10355f9.webp

I swopped the radio with which it came, with one of the first radio/cassettes with the "seek" function to find tracks on a cassette.
After a few years, I traded it in for a 2lt Alfa-Romeo 2lt Giulietta, which just rusted away.
 
My Bronco was a little older than that one - and a lot smaller. :p
I don't ever recall it not starting. It had a long and fundamentally pretty dependable life. I think it may still be puttering about somewhere south of Baltimore, actually (albeit after much rust abatement).

At 10 mpg, with a small fuel tank (and no second tank option, unfortunately), the most likely cause of non-starting would have been outta gas.
 
Doghouse Riley said:
My "Life on Mars," Ford Cortina 2lt GXL. Metallic bronze with black vinyl roof. Like this.

View attachment 105133

I swopped the radio with which it came, with one of the first radio/cassettes with the "seek" function to find tracks on a cassette.
After a few years, I traded it in for a 2lt Alfa-Romeo 2lt Giulietta, which just rusted away.
Click to expand...
All us kids swapped out the radios for radio/cassette players in the 70s. Mine had auto revers so you didn’t have to flip the cassette over after one side finished. And of course I had to put Jensen racial speakers in my 71 Dodge Demon.
 
mhardy6647 said:
My Bronco was a little older than that one - and a lot smaller. :p
I don't ever recall it not starting. It had a long and fundamentally pretty dependable life. I think it may still be puttering about somewhere south of Baltimore, actually (albeit after much rust abatement).

At 10 mpg, with a small fuel tank (and no second tank option, unfortunately), the most likely cause of non-starting would have been outta gas.
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License plate says it an 89 FORD
 
JoeThePop said:
All us kids swapped out the radios for radio/cassette players in the 70s. Mine had auto revers so you didn’t have to flip the cassette over after one side finished. And of course I had to put Jensen racial speakers in my 71 Dodge Demon.
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As in Robert Jensen? That fellow was kinda racist, or maybe the speakers themselves were? ;)
 
Doghouse Riley said:
My "Life on Mars," Ford Cortina 2lt GXL. Metallic bronze with black vinyl roof. Like this.

View attachment 105133

I swopped the radio with which it came, with one of the first radio/cassettes with the "seek" function to find tracks on a cassette.
After a few years, I traded it in for a 2lt Alfa-Romeo 2lt Giulietta, which just rusted away.
Click to expand...
hey. I owned one it was 1979 model 1.6 liter automatic, last British production before move the plant to Germany. Was a nice orange color until today my kids remember it. thanks to bring some memories back!
Andre.
 
MrEd said:
I drove a 61 Ford Econline van in high school. 😎
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My father had a '66 -- for decades.
In its waning years it had become, in essence, a garden shed.
It was great to travel in.
It was slightly bizarre to drive -- with driver and passenger seats right above the front axle. Sort of like jockeying a commercial jet airliner up to the jetway. Of course, those guys have a person with a couple of flashlights signalling what to do. :)
 
Bought a 78 Ford Fiesta as my first new car when working at a Cadillac Factory.

It was really nice not to have to constantly be working on the ride.

After about 6 months, it crapped out. It would start with the key in the crank position, but would stall out when the key returned to the run position. Did some probing and found that I did not have power to the coil in the run position. As I needed transportation, I jury-rigged a wire from the coil to an alligator clip that I would connect to the battery B+ to run the car, then disconnect when the car was off.

Worked just fine.

Then, one day, when I was helping my former Auto Shop Teacher with his SCCA race car, he saw my setup and said, “That isn’t right. The wire that failed is a resistive wire, which drops voltage to the coil. You are going to burn something up running straight VBAT to the coil.” So he helped me rig up a Chrysler dropping resistor in the circuit, and we ran a lead to a switch inside the car so I didn’t have to open the hood every time I started or stopped the car.

It worked great, I was golden!

Then one day, while I was sleeping (Second Shift was 4:00 PM ~ 1:30 AM), my dad tried to move the car and it would not start because he didn’t know about the switch. He wakes me up, I show him the switch, and I move the car for him.

The next day, he asks, “Why do you have that switch in there, to try to keep the car from being stolen in Detroit?”

I explained it all to him, then he asked why I didn't take the car back to the dealer to have them fix it under warranty.

It never even dawned on me that the car had a 12/12 warranty.

BTW, that car was a blast.

Looked something like this.

DWP6ezxvbS.webp
 
Olson_jr said:
Bought a 78 Ford Fiesta as my first new car when working at a Cadillac Factory.

It was really nice not to have to constantly be working on the ride.

After about 6 months, it crapped out. It would start with the key in the crank position, but would stall out when the key returned to the run position. Did some probing and found that I did not have power to the coil in the run position. As I needed transportation, I jury-rigged a wire from the coil to an alligator clip that I would connect to the battery B+ to run the car, then disconnect when the car was off.

Worked just fine.

Then, one day, when I was helping my former Auto Shop Teacher with his SCCA race car, he saw my setup and said, “That isn’t right. The wire that failed is a resistive wire, which drops voltage to the coil. You are going to burn something up running straight VBAT to the coil.” So he helped me rig up a Chrysler dropping resistor in the circuit, and we ran a lead to a switch inside the car so I didn’t have to open the hood every time I started or stopped the car.

It worked great, I was golden!

Then one day, while I was sleeping (Second Shift was 4:00 PM ~ 1:30 AM), my dad tried to move the car and it would not start because he didn’t know about the switch. He wakes me up, I show him the switch, and I move the car for him.

The next day, he asks, “Why do you have that switch in there, to try to keep the car from being stolen in Detroit?”

I explained it all to him, then he asked why I didn't take the car back to the dealer to have them fix it under warranty.

It never even dawned on me that the car had a 12/12 warranty.

BTW, that car was a blast.

Looked something like this.

View attachment 105148
Click to expand...
I love the original Fiesta.
 
MrEd said:
I love the original Fiesta.
Click to expand...

I had two. My wife got rear-ended in my original Fiesta when traffic in front of her stopped in heavy fog on an expressway, and the traffic behind her did not stop. She got hit so hard the driver's seat-back broke and the spare tire exploded.

Bought another used 1980 Fiesta that had been run out of oil, swapped my good engine/trans into the '80 and was good to go for a couple of more years.

The guy who sold me the '80 also gave me a set of new Michelin tires on 13" Escort rims, to replace the 12" tires, which totally changed the handling/gearing of the car.
 
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