[PRCo] Old vs New Autos

[Dwight Long]

Fred

Interesting that your grandfather went from a Graham Paige to a Kaiser, since the Kaiser-Fraser cars were the direct descendants of the Graham Paige.  True loyalty!

The Graham Paige that I found most interesting was the Hollywood, which was a sort of cobbled up version of a Cord after Cord got out of the car business.  

Gravity fuel delivery does not seem like a good idea for mountainous territory!  But OTOH it might have been superior to Ford fuel pumps of the flat head era, which were noted for their propensity to vapor lock.  The one on my first car, a re-engined 1947 Lincoln, did many times, the most embarrassing being just inside the mouth of the Laurel Hill tunnel on the Turnpike.  What a mess that caused (the tunnels were two lane at the time).

Yes, we sure aren’t driving our grandfather’s Olds any more, to say nothing of his Graham Paige.

Dwight

From: Fred Schneider 
Sent: Friday, 16 May, 2014 13:28
To: Western PA Trolley discussion ; Dwight Long 
Subject: Re: [PRCo] UMW blamed for diesels
Understood.   I think we have to understand that the automobile became an all-weather conveyance once roads were paved.   The lack of paved roads didn't prevent the adventurous from using them for trips in a more primitive era.   

Remember high school physics … you were told that it takes a critical mass of uranium to make a bomb?   I think the term critical mass can be applied to other things such as my conclusion that it also takes a critical mass of motor vehicles to get the politicians to tax everyone to build highways … about 25% of the families … and that happened about 1920.   Of course it took a lot of prodding and cajoling from people like the Good Roads Committee and the U. S. Army.   This book tells a lot about the army's involvement:

http://www.amazon.com/American-Road-Story-Transcontinental-Journey/dp/080506883X

I highly recommend it … great history.   Helps you to understand why Ike was such an easy sell for the Interstate highway legislation. You begin to realize how bad it was in 1919 in the first chapters when you find it took two days to drive from Washington to Pittsburgh and those were some of the best roads in the nation!

We both had grandparents from that era who were pioneers on the highway.   My parents told me several stories after I was old enough to appreciate them (and sadly, after the perpetrators were dead).   

One involved my mother's father driving into some town up near Meadville, Pa., before the highway was paved.   The man did not care to be embarrassed by a dirty car so he stopped outside of town, got out a rag, and dusted the car.   

Another tale involved one of his early cars that had a gravity feed fuel system.   Do not ask me what it was for the oldest cars I remember were his 1937 Graham Paige and the 1949 Kaiser.   At any rate, he had a love for the seashore but getting to Virginia Beach meant driving over the mountains … not through them.   The only way that could be done was turning around and backing up over about eight different ridges.   Can you imagine those who cannot parallel park, backing a car three miles up a winding mountain road and then doing it seven more times?   

You mentioned campgrounds being the Motel 6 of that era.   Well here is luxury.   Adjacent to Fort Bridger in southwestern Wyoming is a restored motel from the 1920s.  The chimneys indicate a coal stove in each room (you better know how to light a fire or you'll freeze your ass in the winter).   Each room had one light bulb powered from the camp battery … no state wide 110 volt power network yet.




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You claim two or four spare tires?  Most touring cars in those days had two spare tire wells in the front fenders.   Two was normal.   Patch a tube?   Well you sand down the tube and then glue the patch on it and then clamp it until the glue dries.   Have not done that in years.   Dad's 1952 Ford was the last car in the family with tubes and it had a nasty tendency to rim cuts (the wheel would cut the tube … after about the 25th time he sold that s.o.b. … I think that was one of those "Better Ideas from Ford."  )   

My father remembered driving from Marietta, Ohio to Cleveland one day in the late 1920s … probably 1927-1928.   Cold day.  Claims it took all day to go up through Cambridge, New Philadelphia, Canton and Akron.   Had to stop every few miles and chip the ice off the windshield.   Remember until about World War II that heaters were an optional extra.   He said he left in the morning and it was late evening when he finally got back to his lodgings in Cleveland.   Those 168 miles on I-77 today would probably take 3 hours at worst.   (Unfortunately he chucked it when he was moving into a retirement home, but he did have a nice picture of a Pennsy D-16 4-4-0 at Marietta on the Cleveland passenger train in the 20s.   It might have been a little faster.)

But by the 1930s the roads were mostly all paved … some exceptions.   The only way from Allentown to Harrisburg was still through Reading.   Route 22 had not been shortened yet.   I think route 8 from Pittsburgh to Erie was still dirt in 1930.   But mostly it was a state of paved roads.   We'll not talk about Nevada or Utah … they might have still had a lot of miles of sand and sagebrush.  

And by 1930 my Dad remembered a trip from Wheeling to Pittsburgh to see his intended bride.   Now you understand all 23-year-olds are a little more reckless than 73-year-olds.  He took his landlady along to the big city and he said he "scared her half to death driving her back to Wheeling at 60 mph" after dark.  Hey guys … that was 60 mph when the limit was probably 40 on crowned macadam roads with non-sealed-beam headlights and with mechanical instead of hydraulic brakes .   Flat out in a Model A Ford!   No Interstate highways.   No expressways.   The concrete highway from Pittsburgh to Washington through Thompsonville was not built until about 1940.   He was driving the old road through Carnegie, Bridgeville, Morganza, Canonsburg and Houston and then the old winding route 40 through Claysville and Elm Grove.   Truth be known … he probably knew the road … probably drove it with some regularity.   Horny guys do that.   :<)

I just looked up sealed beam headlights in Wikipedia … introduced 1939; became mandatory in 1940.   I remember my father replacing the original reflectors and bulbs in his 1939 Chevy with sealed beams once the glass and reflectors became cloudy and he was having trouble seeing at night … huge difference.  

In researching brakes, I find that Duesenberg was the first to use hydraulic brakes in 1915 and Ford, in 1939, was the last.   The first to use power assist as a 1928 Pierce-Arrow.   Anti-lock systems go back to the 1966 in Great Britain and 1969 on a Lincoln Continental Mark III.   

When did we begin making synchromesh transmissions for cars?   I find one reference that claims Cadillac was the first in 1928.  Naturally the lower priced cars came later.  I suspect Chevy got them by 1936 judging by this advertising film.   Now we have so many people who cannot drive straight shift in any form that we are building truck tractors with automatic trannys.   

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFvj6RQOLtM

Yes, Dwight it was a different era.    And the kids of today have no recollection.   Today we plot out a trip, look at the interstates … 360 miles … OK that's 6 hours plus stops … perhaps a little less.   The kids today don't understand that as recently as the 1950s, a trip with a muscle car with a big throbbing V-8 engine only averaged 30 miles per hour.   Maybe 35.  The car might do 75 or 80 or more but the roads were not up to it.    I guess if you were crossing Utah or Wyoming or Nebraska, you might push that average up to 45.   Speed limits were lower.   Tires were a lot more fragile.   Brakes were not as good as today.  

Just one example to hammer it home.   In 1955 we left the grandparents in Marietta, Ohio about 9 a.m. one day and pulled into a model in Wytheville, Virginia around 7 p.m.   Wytheville is where US route 11 crossed US route 19.   Took the whole freaking day and by then they had a modern convenience called the West Virginia Turnpike.   Now the comparison.   The end of April, this year, I left Ed Lybarger's home in Washington County, Pa in the morning, passed through Wytheville after lunch and holed up at Bruce Bente's home in Hendersonville, NC for dinner.   That's close to 300 miles more than the long day in 1955 and I started the more recent trip on ice and snow!  Now the admission … we did pause on the 1955 trip to photograph the Powhattan Arrow coming through Bluefield as well as the Virginian's day local.  (Dad was easy to convince.)

Frankly, Dwight and the rest of you guys, I think I would just like to go back for a month and see what the 1920s was like.   

On May 15, 2014, at 9:52 PM, Dwight Long wrote:

> I got a chuckle out of your comment about being able to use cars once the roads were paved, since my grandfather traveled all over the USA in the 1920s in an open touring car in order to take photos which were converted to lantern slides (some members of this list will have to ask their parents or grandparents what they were) for educational purposes in the Kansas City Public School district.  He took his wife and my mother;  they sometimes stayed in tents--campgrounds were the Motel 6s of the era--and sometimes in the early "tourist courts."  Carried at least two and sometimes four spares, air pump and patches and was well versed on how to patch a tire tube (again, ask your parents).  Paved roads were for wusses!  But they sure got the masses into motoring.




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