Me at School in 1977
This is what I looked like when I was driving my Plymouth to school.
As a kid, my first time behind the wheel was on a David Brown tractor. I wasn’t allowed to go forward until I could back the trailer to the potato patch, which was a little over a kilometre up a winding dirt trail.
This done, I was then allowed behind the wheel of a car. It was an early 1950s Vanguard station wagon. After I could satisfactorily demonstrate that I could manoeuvre around cow pies and scotch thistles without hitting any, I was permitted to shift into 2nd and 3rd gears and go anywhere on the property by myself.
The Vanguard had a three speed column shift, and was great fun to drive across the bumpy paddocks, but I dreamt of a car of my own.
My First Car Was A 1938 Plymouth
An opportunity came up to buy a car in 1972, when I was 12 years old.
My mother’s parents were both in their 80s and they’d decided that they were too old to continue driving. My grandfather told my mother and I that he was going to sell their car, a 1938 Plymouth, to the bloke who owned the local bait shop. The bait shop owner was looking for ‘an old bomb’ he could use to tow his fishing boat to and from the water.
Overhearing this, I asked how much he was selling the car for. Pop or Grandpop, as we called him, said it wasn’t worth much. “Probably about $50,” he said. I turned to my mother and said, “I have $50 in the bank. Can I buy it?”
NOTE:
The purchasing power of $50 in 1972 is the equavilent of $386 in 2025.
“I bought my first car for $50, which may not sound like much today, but that was the asking price and it was all my savings!”
Chris Edwards
After some discussion (some may have called it pleading or badgering), my mother agreed that it was my $50 and I could do whatever I wanted with it. Anyway, long story short, I bought my first car when I was 12 years old.
Photo: Me and my little sister with my mum and my grandparents standing next to my dad’s 1970 VW Kombi.
The Tractor
In retrospect, having to reverse a trailer so far up a winding dirt track before I was allowed to go into 2nd gear was a great way to get a feel for the physics of steering.
From the beginning, I was taught that it was harder to drive slowly than it was to drive fast.
Many times over the years, I have had to reverse trailers, and it has always felt very natural part of driving.
Pictured is the tractor and trailer that I had to reverse to the potato patch.
The first car I ever drove was an early 1950s Vanguard Station Wagon. It looked exactly like this one and had a 3 speed column shift.
1938 Chrysler Plymouth
My first car was a 1938 Plymouth P6 sedan with the standard 202 motor (3.3 litre). It had about 73,000 miles on the clock.
My grandparents first saw the car on display at the York Motors stand at the 1938 Sydney Motor Show.
Pop had bought it as an ex-demonstrator vehicle. The car had been equipped with an overdrive gearbox and a radio. It had about 200 miles on the clock, but pop had the radio removed. He thought a radio was an unnecessary distraction for the driver – and this also brought the price down a bit!
It turned out that the overdrive gearbox wasn’t offered as an option on the Plymouth but only for Chrysler and Dodge brands, so a 1938 Plymouth with overdrive was fairly unique.
Here are a few photos of my first car. I took the black and white shot after I got my P-plates. I had just added the P-plate holders so I could drive to school the next day.
One of the first things I did was add blinkers on the bumpers, because people in the 1970s no longer noticed hand signals.
The colour images of my 1938 Plymouth were both taken in 1984 when I was living in Parramatta. I added the whitewall tyres to make it look smarter.
Learning To Drive
My first drive on a public road with my L plates was in 1976, in my dad’s 1970 1500cc Kombi. (Pictured top – parked behind the Plymouth.)
I climbed behind the wheel of the Kombi for the first time. It felt odd, sitting so high and having no bonnet sticking out in front.
It was just after midnight when we set off from the farm, 20 miles north of Bathurst, and headed to Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains, a two and a half to three-hour drive.
In those days, it was a long and winding road. Dad was awake for the first 20 miles, which was a combination of a hilly dirt road and a single lane bitumen stretch of about 15 miles.
When we got on the highway at Bathurst, he asked me if I was feeling sleepy or okay to drive. I said I was fine, and he reminded me to take it easy and watch out for kangaroos. We didn’t say anything for another 20 minutes. When I next looked over at him, he was soundly asleep.
He woke up as I started going up the winding section of the highway heading up to Mt Lambie and said, “Make sure you watch out for the corners. They can be a bit icy at this time of year.” Then we had a chat about black ice and other hazards.
There was a popular 24hr truck stop at the top of Mt Lambie in those days. It was one of the few places to stop on the highway, so we pulled in to refuel and get a snack at about 2am.
I probably had a Chiko Roll or something similar before we continued on our way past Wallerawang and Lithgow, then up over the Blue Mountains. Dad stayed awake after that. (The Mt Lambie Roadhouse was destroyed by fire in 2012.)
That section of highway has long since been straightened out and most of it is a dual-lane 110km speed zone now. But in 1976, it was a long, slow section of road with many cars and big trucks eager to pass in both directions.
The following year, dad fell asleep at the wheel and rolled the Kombi at about 1:30am roughly 20km further along the same stretch of road, but he was driving in the opposite direction on his way to the farm.
The Kombi was totalled, but he only suffered bruises. He replaced it with a shiny new 1976 Kombi. This one had a powerful 2 litre motor, better suspension and taller gearing, so it was much more comfortable to drive and proved to be a very reliable workhorse on many long trips.
My Second Car
In 1976, I got my P plates and my ‘freedom’!
I mostly drove my 1938 Plymouth to school and back, a distance of 44km per day.
Petrol was very expensive and although my 2 ton ‘yank tank’ was originally advertised as an economical car, it was a thirsty beast by 1976 standards – and I had very little money, so a couple of years later, I bought a more economical 1953 FJ Holden.
Like to Learn to Drive With Chris?
If you are looking for driving lessons in Canberra, I specialise in manual driving instruction with Revolution Driver Training for learners in Central Canberra, Belconnen and Gungahlin.
My 1938 Plymouth and my FJ Holden parked at the back of the boarding house I was staying in at Chatswood in 1978.
