`Good old days' of motoring

May 24, 2008

Special to the Star

I learned to drive when I was 17, taught by my mother on her 1972 Plymouth Valiant Scamp, which later became my first car. It was an interesting lesson; obediently following the wrong turn in her instructions, my second time behind the wheel involved the Gardiner Expressway.

A year after I passed my driving test, the City of Toronto gave me a cab driver's licence, and I spent the next six years in a variety of late-1970s and early-1980s sedans.

I was thinking about those cars recently, when I was assessing a brand-new vehicle and marking against it because it had very few storage cubbies. We've certainly come a long way since the "good old days."

My Plymouth had a glovebox and an ashtray – period. Cars had no door pockets, save for a few that had a vinyl sleeve sewn to the trim panel. You could buy plastic bins that sat on the transmission hump, but since most cars had bench seats, you had to find a place to store it if three people sat up front.

Cars didn't have cupholders. The metal lid of my glovebox had a couple of shallow indentations inside that held a root beer if you ate at A&W. I don't remember many people drinking coffee when they drove. We did in the taxis, because we didn't have time to stop.

Coffee shops used Styrofoam cups, not paper, and we'd wedge them in between the dash and the windshield, or in the instrument cluster. Some guys bought cupholders that hung off the window frame, but they were always more trouble than they were worth. The older drivers taught me the trick of tearing a small hole in the lid, for drinking "on the go," and passengers would comment on such a great idea. Now the cups come with the hole already installed.

When shoulder belts were introduced, they were two-piece affairs – Volvo made today's three-point harness standard in its vehicles in 1959, but it took a while for North America to catch on. You could wear the lap belt alone, or unhook the non-retractable shoulder belt from the clips over the door, and attach it as well. I seldom did, because it was a pain to put it back neatly. Safety was an afterthought; I was young and bulletproof, and there weren't all that many cars on the road. Traffic was almost non-existent outside of rush hour; after midnight, most intersections on the Danforth went to flashing yellows instead of full signals.

Cars came with only one side mirror, and you paid extra if you wanted one on the passenger door as well. If you ordered a rear defogger, it was a blower motor in the parcel shelf, which noisily blew warm air onto the glass. And many featured a vinyl roof, certainly a low point in styling history.

One day, the company assigned me a rare taxi that had air conditioning, power windows and power locks, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.

It was like driving a Cadillac, and that was when the only thing better than a Cadillac was a Rolls-Royce. How time marches on, indeed.

jil@ca.inter.net

Toronto Star