My first car

[Tom Hildreth]

I have unearthed a shot of my first car. Judging by all those I see on the road these days, I was ahead of my time with my bright yellow 1959 Fiat 600. It had a standard shift, most likely a 4-speed, and on a good day it was capable of 45 MPH with the pedal on the floor. Not sure of the fuel economy, maybe around 28 MPG.

The old Fiat lasted maybe 6 months, then, apparently tiring of the early econobox movement, I got a very-used white 1959 Chevy Impala 2-door hardtop with a 283 CID V-8 and Powerslide tranny.

I believe the photo was taken with my first camera, an ANSCO Readyflash that used 620 film in a rectangular format.

[Philip]

Nice car. But I'm a sucker for clothesline pictures and I see a wonderful example in the background!

Tom, I'm not sure what the difference is to stop your picture from showing. Hopefully Mike will come to the rescue.


Philip

[Hoosier Rich]

Nice ride! My first was a '70 F100 pick up with a 289 in it. It ran good ... when it ran. LOL Might be why I'm a Chevy (or Jeep) guy now.

[Bennybee]

[Request for assistance: I fail to understand why I cannot get the image to automatically open when using the img tags above. Please advise what I am doing wrong.[/quote]

I took the liberty to give it a try. I just put the 'img' and '/img' tags on the same line as the pic address.
Nice car Tom. I didn't know they imported these in the States.
kr,
Benny

Ps: I removed the image here since it now succesfully appears on top of the thread

[Tom Hildreth]

Right Benny, that took care of it-thanks!

[Tom Hildreth]

Philip-Good observation on the clothesline. Back then neither my parents or anyone else in the neighborhood had a credit card, so if you needed a clothes dryer you had to save up for it. And in that day of Made in America, an appliance was a major expense. Still, when I take a load of clothes out of the dryer today, the filter has a coating of fibers on it about 1/8" thick-every load! Seems to me drying on a clothesline would be much less damaging to the fabrics. Also, where my dyer exhausts at my house, the snow around it is melted away in a semicircle every year. How come we can't seem to retain that heat-it's so wasteful! Oh, another thing-that dark object under the clothes was probably the "burn barrel". This is where all the burnable trash went, to be incinerated at least once a week right there in the neighborhood (not on laundry day of course). Hard to believe we did that back then.

[Philip]

That is so true! Clothes smell better when they are dried on a line, too.

I've often thought about the hot air and hot water our houses . . excrete. It sure is wasteful.

And, yes, I doubt that burning your household garbage is any worse for the environment than stockpiling it in big dumps, or barging it out to sea. Most of what you would burn is not "fossil" fuel, but stuff, like paper, that is fully sustainable.

I'd like to bring back the burn barrel. It'd sit well next to my current composting piles.

[Julio1fer]

Tom, you should have kept that 600. It could fit inside the trunk of the Chevy anyway.

A high school teacher in my little town had one of those. Five or six of his students lifted the Fiat by hand and set it just inside two large trees, with one inch clearance front and back. The teacher spend about half an hour maneuvering his way out.

The Fiat 600 was a legend, a cult car. There was even a cartoon magazine devoted to it many years ago.

[Tom Hildreth]

I was never aware of the Fiat 600 becoming so popular. Perhaps it happened after I owned mine. I never see original Fiats in this part of the country.

[Julio1fer]

I mean in the Southern Cone, Tom. I did not know that the 600 was sold in the U.S. at all. It is a minimalist job, not a car for your wide roads and long distances.

BTW the car was called "Fitito", affectionately.