Many of my cars had the gas filler under the license plate. Just pull the top back. The spare tire stood up on either side in the trunk. All my radios were AM only. Replacement headlights were 88 cents at the discount stores. Gas stations sold bulk oil in glass bottles with a spout. About 25 cents a quart. You just took the bottle out side, poured it in the car, and brought the empty bottle back in. That was for when you had a car that burned oil or leaked bad. I always liked to drive with a suicide knob on the steering wheel. The north end of my town (Flint, Michigan) had gas wars. You could buy gas for as low as 17 cents a gallon in the late 60s.

My 66 Impala had a strange feature; a “Cold” light would light up on the instrument panel until the engine started to warm up. That car had a Powerglide transmission which kept transmission shops busy.

Most of my manual shift cars didn’t have a syncronised first gear, so you had to wait til you stopped to shift into first or you would hear some grinding. Later cars were syncronised and let you shift into first while still rolling.

My Dad was the office manager in a Dodge dealership starting in the 60s. He would bring home Hemi powdered Coronets and Polaras, and later Darts with big horsepower engines. Flint Michigan was one of the muscle car Mecca’s at that time, being the home of Chevrolet and Buick. Detroit was an hour away. Every night in the summer you could find a street race. Hodges Dodges, Ramchargers, big block Ford Falcons and Galaxies, Royal Pontiacs’ tri-power Ponchos, big block models of every brand. General Motors Institute was in Flint. Experimental builds were everywhere. The local drive-ins were full of jacked up cars with headers and strange tires and air scoops, waiting for the next race. The police would ticket you for circling more than once. A great time for car crazy kids.

quote:

Originally posted by greco:
<snip>
Most of my manual shift cars didn’t have a syncronised first gear, so you had to wait til you stopped to shift into first or you would hear some grinding.
<snip>

Or you could double-clutch.

I’ve never seen double clutching work consistently. I prefer using it as it was intended, and I was an automotive engineer for 24+ years.

^^^^^^^^
For sure, double clutching is a skill that must be acquired. Large trucks in those days had many gears, none of which were synchronized. But experienced drivers shifted them flawlessly.

I did pretty well double clutching for first gear.

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
Clutch

Three on the tree.

Double clutch as above. Drove my uncles Crosley pickup with it, definitely takes some getting used to

I had a Chevelle 68 SS396 that when we would drag I could ghost shift from 1 to2 and power shift to up to 4. I do miss that car.

quote:

Originally posted by midwest guy:
I had a Chevelle 68 SS396 that when we would drag I could ghost shift from 1 to2 and power shift to up to 4. I do miss that car.

What’s a “ghost shift?”

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:

quote:

Originally posted by midwest guy:
I had a Chevelle 68 SS396 that when we would drag I could ghost shift from 1 to2 and power shift to up to 4. I do miss that car.

What’s a “ghost shift?”

. We called shifting without the clutch ghost shifting back in the day. I could only do that from first to second if you were very quick. Power shifting is clutching with maximum throttle.

Real hood ornaments

My '52 has most of that list...

My dad worked in a Jeep that had a power wiper on the drivers side and a manuel one on the passenger side We had a station wagon with a left side rear view mirror mounted on the back of a spotlight that was controlled with a sort of joystick.

My 59 Chevy Apache 3200 had no turn signals, and only one tail/brake light. And no factory installed oil filter. I installed an AC brand oil filter that hung from a bracket on the intake manifold and was plumbed into the block through two oil lines. It used a canister filter element and only filtered part of the circulating oil. The master cylinder was under the floor and you added brake fluid thru a hole under the floor mat after removing a rubber plug in the floor.

I remember seeing ads in Popular Mechanics for a canister oil filter that used a roll of toilet paper to filter the oil. And also for add on top-cylinder oil injector set-ups.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris42:

My MGA had a pull knob for the starter. Also, in 1960 it still came with a crank that went through the front bumper to the crankshaft - manual crank for starting.

Anybody know of a more recent car with a standard hand crank for starting?

My 1972 Citroen DS-21 had one. The crank handle had three uses:

• Engine crank
  
  
• Lug nuts
  
  
• The chrome nut that held the rear fender on. The fender had to be removed to change a rear tire.

V-Tail - A 1972! Was there some concern over reliability of the starting system that they STILL thought that was a good idea?

 
Wonder Bar radio. Had one in a '56 Cadilac.

quote:

Originally posted by midwest guy:
We called shifting without the clutch ghost shifting back in the day. I could only do that from first to second if you were very quick. Power shifting is clutching with maximum throttle.

My '68 Cortina's 4-speed was so loose that once under way, I could upshift or downshift with correct throttle manipulation. I think speed shifting is another term used for this.

Rust bucket with Lucas electricals but the 1.6L Dagenham 4-cyl was bombproof.

^^^^^^^
A bitter joke oft-told by classic British sports car fans:

Q: Why do the British drink warm beer?
A: Because they have Lucas refrigerators.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris42:

V-Tail - A 1972! Was there some concern over reliability of the starting system that they STILL thought that was a good idea?

I think that it was there more for a dead battery, than for any other problems.

I never used mine except once, to try it out.

Early VW Beetles had turn signals that extended out from the pillar, like hand signals. It was common for Beetles approaching each other from opposite directions to "wave" to one another.

Beetles also had a lever to activate a "reserve" gasoline supply. Mostly since gas gauges were so unreliable.

Renault had a car (I think it was the Dauphin) that had a "city horn" and a "country horn." My, how that must have been useful.

@midwest guy, I had a '68 El Camino (Chevelle in truck disguise) SS 396. What you call ghost shifting I simply called rev-match shifting. There is a match point to engine RPM to the gear box. Match RPM to the gear and you don't have to use the clutch. Formula 1 racers of the era would do this often (which is where I learned it, working on a formula car team).