Rockford Cars

Well, as anyone knows, a family travels in its car. We were no exception. Dad loved his cars and kept them in tip top shape. If you couldn't find dad in the house, he was always under the hood of a car.

Our early Buick became a family art project (far left). When the body needed a "freshen up", dad rented a power sprayer, blue and white auto paint and plenty of masking tape. The paint scheme created was unlike anything else on the road, white below the trim line and roof and blue above. To top it all off, we painted whitewalls on the tires. Dad may have been the catalyst for the single color cars and blackwall tires of today.

I will leave the Corvair legends to RJ and DJ, but the family trukster was always a 9 passenger station wagon (center). Every year, it was a family event to cruise dealers and crawl though, over and under all the new models of cars. Of course, when the year hit that we needed a new car, we got really serious. Brochures and active talk about the best one-we all knew it would be a Chevy so who were we trying to kid?

The rear seat on the 9 passenger looked back and was a bit smaller than the front and middle, but boy it was cool. You could roll down the ELECTRIC back window while driving, yell or throw all sorts of stuff at the cars behind and then make a face like it was a total accident... and you were sorry. Mom and dad would be none the wiser. Heck, they were miles away in the front seat looking forward!

The tail would flip down and was great when you needed a lift to deliver papers. RJ, DJ and KJ all had paper routes at one time or another in Rockford. But, I digress. You would stack the papers on the floor, sit on the tailgate, dangle your feet over the tailgate and toss papers indescriminately (but within a short and healthy walking distance from the subscriber's front door or a nice opportunity to get to know your shrubbery) until out of ammo while mom cruised your route. Again, clueless of the winged messages flying from the back of her car like ducks off a lake.

DJ comment: Yes, the '52 Buick straight-8 with 3 on the column was a tank!  RJ and I both learned to drive in that car and we learned to drive stick by gliding up and back in the driveway in Springfield. I think KJ learned to drive stick on a Ford Fiesta somewhere in Wales :)