My First Car....51 Plymouth...(281)

The first car one owns is usually not the dream car but the opportunity car but still it is a car. Yep back about 1955 my dad got a new 55 Plymouth and he allowed me to purchase from him from my saving account his dark blue 51 Plymouth 4 door sedan. It was exciting as it had 4 wheels and ran down the road pretty good. Gosh I washed and waxed it at least once a week. Added turn signals from Sears that it did not have...added some other stuff too not sure what all, some fender skirts and mud flaps I remember with reflectors on them no less...I think new shock absorbers even though it probably did not need them at all it was fun sticking them on there anyway. Oh and "lowering blocks", with these babies mounted just under your rear leaf springs you could lower the rear of the car maybe 4 inches...wow what an improvement that was I was sure...almost laughable now the stuff we used to do...I remember one kid took a blow torch to his leaf springs in the front and heated them up and then we all jumped on it and lowered the front of the car....road like a log wagon after that...I did not do that, I knew my dad would be real mad if I ever did anything really stupid to my car...lowering blocks were pushing the envelope about far enough...he just shook his head and said looks goofy to me...

It had but a 6 cylinder engine with a manual transmission...not a real hot car but it got me to ball practice and even my first date or two was in this "blue goose" I called it then...I remember some of the others had chevy's and fords with V-8 engines and would leave me in the dust..why they could even make their tires burn a little rubber on take off...Mine would not do that, just not enough engine for the squealing the tires sound....I did finally figure out a way to make the tire squeal though...


If I would put it in reverse and get it going maybe 10 MPH backward and then slip it into low and "drop" the clutch quick I could get a little squeal out of it....but not too long after learning how to do that I did develope a clutch that slipped just a bit....After a bit my backward then forward routine did not work anymore....After a year maybe or so can not remember for sure but I needed an Oldsmobile I was sure...next post moving from the opportunity car to the first dream car...