The Crown

NEW CAR DAY

There was a time when all cars did not look the same. 
In the 1950s and 1960s the day the new model year car was revealed was something all car enthuiasts anticipated.  

We lived about 3 blocks from the Ford dealership in Texas City on 13th street.   Mom taught school. I went to Mrs. Hudnall’s to daycare except on the weeks that Dad worked the 3 pm to 11 pm shift at Union Carbide.  That week, each month I got to spend the days with my dad. 

Dad and I walked down our street, across a vacant lot, then passed by the ice cream shop called “The Spa” to Oleander Ford Dealership on 6th street.  

Each year, before the new car models were revealed, they would sit in the dealership window with a cover over them.  Everyone would look at the cover and try to imagine what incredible detail the new model would behold.  Dad was no different and in fact, probably anticipated it more than most. If possible, he and I would be there on the day the covers were pulled off.  With lots of ohhs and ahhs, people would swarm around the new model to see the latest features.  Kids that were there....like me.....would get a detailed plastic model of the car to take home....and I had many. Dad’s  cousin in Shawnee, Oklahoma had a Ford Dealership too. He would save the models to give me when we visited.

In 1955 the Ford Fairlane Crown Victoria was an especially fine car.  I was three and a half and  Dad had gone to see the new model without me.  So on the first day of our week together we walked down to the Ford place so I could see it.  It was two tone black and white, with black on the bottom, white on top. There was a slick silver strip that went over the roof from behind the driver seat to the other side behind the passenger seat.  It had fender skirts that almost covered the back wheels.  The inside was all red and white.  An air conditioner had been installed that sat on the hump in the middle of the front floor board.  There was a fold-down arm rest in the center of the front seat.  When Dad and I sat in the car, he folded down the arm rest, let me sit on it, and told me that could be my seat.  I thought it had been put there just for a kid, like me.

We got out of the car and and looked at several other cars in the showroom, but none were as pretty at that one.  When we were through looking he said, 

The Crown in front ot the cabin we stayed in at Lake George, Colorado in 1955.

“Janny I tell you what, you pick out the car you want and I will get it for you.”  I walked over to the Crown and said,

“This is the one I want.” 

“Okay then, we’ll get it.” He held up the keys, opened the door,  I climbed in, in front of him.  The guy at the dealership smiled big at us,  opened the two wide, side doors of the showroom.  Dad started the engine.  We drove it out the door, down the ramp and home.  It was magic...and that started my love affair with cars.

I think I was fifteen before I realized it was all set up....I didn’t really pick it out, Dad had already bought the car and arranged to pick it up that day. In my mind it will always be just the way I remembered it.

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