The black 1949 Chevy!
Pre-seat-belt and safety-seat of course, I could roll from one side to the other cranking open the main windows and wedging the small triangular windows, or sling my wrists through the soft side-straps or poke at the fabric covering the ceiling. If memory serves, the direction signals were small reflector flaps that rose up from flat grooves on the left and right sides of the car. And the Chevy was black. All Chevies of that vintage were black. In fact most cars on the road in Geneva were black.
The upholstery was very soft, there was a radio that didn't work, a speedometer that waggled between 0 and 85, but I was the back-seat princess in my big black limo.
Car number two, the Vauxhall. I believe we had a new 1955 model in light gray, a change from black, and we loved it. Smaller than the Chevy, but more modern, it served us well. I identified with it because it looked like it was wearing braces like me.
But we crossed the ocean several times, and when we returned we needed a second car, and it was.......
A 1957 Austin Baby A! My father was proud to have purchased a demonstration vehicle, new but at a used price. It had cream seats and a little parp-parp horn, and seemed perpetually cheerful. So were we --no way you could be broody in a Baby A. Look at that cute little snoot. It was dark green and adorable.
The next 'big' car was a used Humber Hawk, which lasted about a year. It needed repairs often, not a real winner, but it reminded us of the Vauxhall.
This was replaced by a short-lived older Humber Super-Snipe. We adored its cushy leather seats and back-seat fold-out trays in polished burl that were oh so luxurious. But it was always in the shop, a real albatross (who was my father's car dealer?)
At some point there was a Simca, then another. And possibly a Renault Dauphine for about five minutes. Here's the 1961 Simca Aronde, but I must check facts with both brothers to get the complete institutional memory. I recall learning to drive on a small Simca with snapping gearshift that slipped backwards on moderate hills. Terrible gears. Oh well.
Back to the US for a year's sabbatical, my father borrowed a spare car from his brother who owned Franklin Auto Glass in Philadelphia:
a Chrysler, 1951 or perhaps even a bit older than that. two-toned cream and maroon. A bit creaky but fun with white-wall tires and lots of chrome.
Ah, and then the Riley!
My dad went retro with a 1949 model-- dark green with a sticky beige rubber roof. It was a sprawling, low-slung car and not unobtrusive. It had a sort of roar that cleared animals from the road before we'd rounded the bend. It had dark ivory seats and the heavenly smell of good leather.
However there was a defective muffler, and for about half a year we inhaled noxious fumes and had to keep the windows open all winter. We all loved the Riley, but the garagiste couldn't repair the toxic leak. We couldn't inhale leather minus the fumes. We had to sacrifice style for health.
Another Simca. Bor-ing.
I moved to the US, got my driver's license at age 21 and ended up sharing a
BMW 2002, a spiffy car which I totalled on the Baltimore-Washington Expressway :--(( ........
.......and then buying my very own car:
A 1970 Fiat 850 Spider, convertible, red, sporty and dangerous! Powered by a sewing-machine engine, it made a great fuss of doing fifty, but fun!
Back to Europe in 1978 and it was a shared 1968 red VW Beetle that had already done too many kilometers, then a green VW Beetle on loan from a friend,
and then a used gray Datsun, a used red Honda Civic, a new gray Austin Mini-Metro that gave up the ghost before it was four years old,
a used Toyota,
a used dark green Nissan Almera (both great cars)...............
And today I have my 2010 Nissan Micra Lolita Lempicka
with all her little bells and whistles:
bluetooth look-ma-no-hands phone, GPS, leather seats, automatic transmission.
I guess I grew into it.
* * *
Post-Scriptum
The Bugatti in a Box
What I haven't mentioned is the Bugatti that we didn't own.
A black pre-World War II Bugatti, probably the same 1934 vintage as the above, was locked away in a garage on the grounds of the rental property we lived in for twelve years in St. Maurice, outside Geneva, from 1954 to 1966. It was mouldering away for years before we children found the keys up in the attic of the house and pried opened the door of the garage/box. There it was, in its very faded splendor: neglected? forgotten? Of course we showed it off to friends and acquaintances and acquaintances of acquaintances who loved cars. Then one day it wasn't there. Disappeared.
Bye-bye Bugatti. Hello cruel world.
Chastened, we continued driving our used Simca and kept our eyes on the road.
