A driver discount was introduced when I was 19 or 20 so I took course then. But there was no driver ed classes except driving school when I got licensed.
I waited until I was 18 to get my license. I took a class from a private company in order to get the insurance discount. Even after I got my license it was a while before I got my first car. Before then, like many here I bet, I walked to and from work...about 1 1/2 miles each way. I was in better shape before I got behind the wheel.
My brother and I bought a 1946 Pontiac straight 8 in 1955(when I was 17) and when He went into the service in 1956 I bought him out.
A friend found His & Hers 1963 Lincoln Continentals at an estate sale...$1,000 for the pair of them. Cost me $500. He got the fully loaded one.
HEY AL: What a coincidence! I also bought a 1946 Pontiac at around that time! Mine was also the Straight Eight, with the "Torpedo Style" body. It was Beer Bottle Brown. It was my 5th car. I sold it and bought my most favorite car of the 27 I've owned: A 1942 Mercury V8 Club Coupe! Hal
Would anyone be interested in the 27 cars I've owned since 1952? See my earlier thread in this category. I owned 10 cars before getting a model in the 1950's! I learned to drive in this car: A 1938 Studebaker Commander. Hal
@Hal Pollner Following the end of the War, new cars were in short supply in the Chicago area. My Dad had always wanted a Mercury; none were to be had around our suburbs. The Cicero Lincoln-Mercury dealer offered my Dad a new '49 Lincoln for scarcely more than the price of a Mercury; he had a number of them. $3100, had heavy-duty Borg-Warner 3-speed manual with Overdrive. The big flathead was very like the Ford engine, but everything larger-scale. It had 2 waterpumps, as did the venerable Ford flathead, which had been around since 1933. My Dad marveled at the "Balloon" tires; 8.20-15, big sausages. Heavy car, about 4200 lbs as I recall. I was 7 when we got it in 1948. My mother loved how it rode: "like a big boat". Automatic transmission was available, they were bought from GM, Hydra-Matics. Something my Dad did not yet trust. He traded it for a 1955 Mercury in early 1955. Frank EDIT: Many years later, 1960's, I adapted the big Borg-Warner Overdrive to my new, 1965 Mustang's Top-Loader 4-speed. This allowed use of a 4.56 rear gear ratio, and still was economical to drive across the U.S., as we did several times a year. The Top-Loader was Ford's answer to the other major makers who were having serious warranty claim problems with their own 4-speeds, as competition drove them to more powerful engines. Top-Loader was an adaptation from a truck transmission of Ford's own design. They were almost indestructible. The little gizmo sticking out of the front of the tail housing is the governor, which engaged Overdrive Gear automatically. My adapter is the big hunk of aluminum. The left side shows the solenoid which engaged Overdrive, and the funky cable deal I rigged to allow engagement of reverse: without "O/D Lockout" no reverse gear was possible. The lever at extreme right was in the Lincoln connected by cable to a dashboard control, to lock-out O/D when desired.
When I was a teenager, you could get what they called a farm license at 14, which allowed you to drive from field to field on rural roads, but not on highways. The regular age for being eligible for a DL was 16, and driver training was offered in high school.
My first car was a 1929 Buick Sudan that had been cut off to make a pickup truck out of it. I gave twenty-five dollars for it from a junk yard. a place where they burned out cars for the metal and salvaged what they could from the vehicle. I was fourteen. I drove it around the neighborhood and to work on a farm, when i was not in school. When I was fifteen I went to work for Ben E.Keith as soon as school was out. I unloaded boxcars of potatoes, bananas, and pinto Beans, and stacked them in the cold vaught or on the warehouse floor. When i turned sixteen I continued to work for Ben E. Keith. Occasionally I would be asked to stay late and pull orders for delivery to customers in north Texas and/or southern Oklahoma or to come in early and load the trucks. One morning after loading the trucks one driver didn't show up for work. The boss asked if I could drive a truck and i answered sure. Now I had never been in anything larger than a ton and a half pickup but it didn't take long to figure it out and I took off for Oklahoma with almost a dozen stops to make in Texas and Oklahoma. I was on my way back in between Electric, TX and Iowa Park when a Highway Patrol pulled in behind med and pulled me over. He said i pulled you over because I wasn't sure you could see over the dash. Got a drivers license? No sir, I said. Does Ben E. Keith know you don't have a license? No sir, I said. They think I do. He gave me his meanest stare, I felt sure, then he said, I oughta through the book at you. He had his ticket book in his hand. I figured i had had it. Then he asked if I knew where the Department of Public Safety was in Wichita Falls? I said I did. He said, I don't know why I do these things. You follow me to that location. If you get further than fifty yard behind me I'm going to take you to jail. When we got there, he marched me inside, said 'sit right there' went and picked a driving manuel and threw in in my lap, saying, you've got fifteen muiutes to study that manuel then you'll take a test. If you pass it I'll give you a driving test. I passed it, passed the driving test and received a Commercial Operators Licence. I felt like one lucky guy.
I would, Hal, but didn't you do that some time ago? I listed mine including payment method. Remember?