In 1959 I was still single and working in our local sash and door plant. I loved working there. The smell of cut wood and the easy work pace appealed to me. And, my workmates knew my dad and most of my old uncles. We were nearly all from the south end of my town. In those days, I drove a 1948 Plymouth club coupe, having a back seat. It had been brush painted a robin's egg blue sometime before I got it. It had duel carb's, otherwise was stock. One summer's evening, I attracted the attention of our local police. They had to turn around to give chase. I used that time to put some distance between us. Going over a hill, still in town, put me out of sight for enough time to turn off my lights, turn into a side street, then an alley. As I drove up the alley, I spotted a garage with open doors and no car inside. Quickly, I drove into the garage, closed the doors and waited. Soon, a squad car slowly drove up the alley with it's spotlight sweeping the sides of the alley. I stayed put for another half hour, praying the garage owner wouldn't return. Then, I drove home on back streets. The next day a policeman came by the house and I wound up being fined most of a weeks pay for some traffic violations. The funny part was, an acquaintance of mine, named Bob, owned a 1948 Desoto coupe, also painted a light blue, a shade or two different than mine. The cops came to his house first, before realizing they had the wrong person. Another time, I was out with 3 of my pals. We stopped at a place called "Cheri-Top Drive in". It's still in business, by the way. We all ordered fries or onion rings, but no drinks. We had more than a case of canned beer in the back. So, for the next two hours, we ate fries and onion rings, drank beer, listened to the music blaring from their speakers, watched the car hops and disposed of the empty cans under my car. When it was time to move on, all that remained where we were parked, was a heap of beer cans. "Cheri-Top's" owner was named Walt. Walt saw all the empty cans and threw a fit, yelling at his girls to tell him the next time that blue car show up. Well, friend Bob showed up in his blue Desoto. Walt went storming out to Bob's car and was giving him a good yelling when one of the car hops came to Bob's rescue, convincing Walt he had the wrong guy. One of the car hops got word to me and I couldn't show up there in my own car the rest of the summer. And Bob, he traded his car for another one, different color. In 1960 I married one of the car hops. 1948 Plymouth 1948 Desoto coupe, about the same color as my Plymouth and Bob's Desoto. Cheri-Top drive in, still in business. The car hop I married, with her mom and one of our son's.
My mom and dad had an old Plymouth , too. I think that it was around the same vintage as yours @Ike Willis ; but it was probably a little older because I am only a baby in this picture. Perhaps hers was a '37 instead, or early 1940's ? Here is a picture of the one that my folks owned, and maybe one of you car buffs can tell me what year it is. (note my dad's tall lineman's boots, he was working for the rural electric company, and was probably one of the first lineman that they had at that time.) They had it when we moved to Sandpoint in 1948; and after they got another car, the old Plymouth sat in the garage for years afterwards. My dad must have finally convinced my mother that they needed the garage space; because they eventually sold it. By then we had a 1953 Buick Special, and that was what they drove the whole time that I was growing up.
Never was a Mopar guy, but I did have a 53 Plymouth for awhile. It had the red clutch pedal and if memory serves me, it would shift with or without the clutch. I traded it for a red and white Pontiac convertible.
Grandparents had a '49 Desoto. I drove it quite a bit as we lived close by. The car had what was called "Fluid Drive"... the predecessor of an automatic transmission. You would start moving and when you got to about 25 mph, you let up on the accelerator and the car would shift into drive. The Desoto road like a tank. Heavy with hydraulic shocks. On country roads it would get rocking back and forth and become difficult to handle at high speeds. Woops! I would NEVER had driven ANY car at 'high speed'.......