Perhaps my earlier post about using this Cadillac as a driver’s education car was part whimsical fantasy combined with a heaping helping of organic fertilizer. But most of you figured that out rather quickly.
Credit for this question must be given to CharlieD612 from his suggestion in the other post. So here it is: What was your driver’s education car?
My school had a deal with a Ford-Buick dealer, quite the dynamic contrast of brands in the late 1980s. Located over an hour away in Perryville, Missouri, this dealer coughed up a new car every 2,000 miles. We went through four of them during the school year when I was in driver’s education.
I missed out on the Buick Century. I also seem to remember a J-body Buick in there, too.
As I was one of the youngest ones in my class, I had wheel time toward the end of the year. The first car I navigated was a white Ford Taurus. Equipped with a red interior and a 3.0 V6, I only drove that car once.
Upon the Taurus going away, and the dealer likely not liking the rate at which the school was accumulating mileage, we got a tan 1988 Ford Escort. I still cringe when I think of that car.
So, what about you?
Second-gen Ford Tempo, probably a 1990 or 91. What an awful, awful vehicle, even by driver’s ed car standards.
We also had a 2nd-gen Tempo at our school. My biggest memory was that I got marked down on a drive for not noticing the gas gauge was sitting on empty before we set off and we almost ran dry before we could get to a gas station.
I still did well enough that I was exempted from taking the drive test to get my license and only had to do the written test.
1989 Caprice. What better way to start driving than with a B-Body.
Dodge Aspens and Plymouth Volares. Once we got a firm understanding of the automatic transmission Aspen, we were allowed to move on to the 3+OD, floor-shifted Volare.
Possibly the last era of students required to master the manual transmission before earning the certificate to take down to the DMV.
An Olds Cutlass. Don’t remember the year model. I went to HS from 81-85. It was fairly new. Not a aero back. The school also had a white Citation.
I had drivers Ed in 1998. We had a couple of burgundy over grey 90-91 Chevy Corsicas
They were really ragged out
We went out driving two at a time with a football coach “instructor” who tried to impart wisdom on Honda clutch take-up points while the little Civic wagon bucked around the school parking lot. My fondest memory is of heading straight at the wall of a McDonald’s because my friend Leigh was pressing the clutch and not the brake, screaming, and Coach Roddenberry calmly pulling the handbrake like it was no big deal.
Chevrolet Beretta GT in red, supplied by the local Chevrolet dealer and driven home at night by the football coach, who taught drivers ed, not gym class as you might expect.
By the standards of the late 80’s, a decent car.
The Chev dealer promo + Gym Coach combo was exactly how our High School did it as well. As the “class” would give you a failing credit if you did not pass, I noped that and paid to be trained by a local driving school. A waste of money in retrospect, but I was allowed to take the written course at 14 (!), and thanks to the vastly superior training, was able to breeze thru my driven test in my parents Ford Econoline conversion van.
Watching my sister attempt to learn was a whole other matter. She did go thru the High School program… The day I went to pick her up after her training, I watched her get screamed at by her instructor for being “inattentive” while some other kid played slalom course with the cones set up in the lot. I was not amused.
’06 red Corolla.
White 3rd-gen Chevy Cavalier Sedan…yuck
1990 Buick LeSabre! Fresh from the factory just a few miles over at Buick City in Flint’s north end. It was about as perfect as a “full size” car ever got – great looking, great pickup, decent gas mileage, lots of room, and on J.D. Power & Associates’ “best” list. Decidedly an “old person’s car” in my teenage mind, but more plush and luxurious than anything I would ever be allowed behind the wheel of, otherwise.
Lucky Dog!, That would have spoiled me to whatever POS (as a newbie teen owner) I would have been stuck with after!
I earned my license in Michigan too, in ’07. Was in an Impala. I think taking driver’s ed in school and always having factory fresh cars is a Michigan thing.
I’m envious; grew up in Michigan myself but learned on a Dodge Omni. Slow enough that a mistake didn’t get you in trouble too quickly, I suppose.
That’s cool. I like a car with low “food miles”.
1967 Plymouth Barracuda with a V8 and a linkage to a right-seat brake pedal. The instructor used it more than once.
A late 1990s Chevy Lumina with the obligatory peeling paint…in 2007. It was a clapped-out piece, but I was honestly excited to be driving…anything!
First Drivers Ed car I got to take on the street was a nicely equipped ’77 Cutlass Supreme 2 door. Red with white top. Chicago Public Schools must have gotten a good deal on some.
1976 Malibu colonnade 4dr. Lime green with white top.
1983 Mustang notchback. Very basic car,it was probably a four cylinder.
I learned to drive in the winter, and asked my instructor if we could go to a snowy parking lot and do some skid control and donuts.
He replied “Uh, no. This is actually my car and it’s not paid off..”
Dad actually taught me to drive when I was 15 in our 1974 Vega. Unfortunately by the time I got my licence that car was gone, so I think I only ever drive it in parking lots.
I took it in 2006, a year late, in a silver early ’00s Chevy Malibu. I remember nothing about the car and it was so anonymous that for a while I couldn’t remember if we’d used the Malibu or a second generation Neon. I do remember one of our longer trips taking us past Stephen King’s house.
1988 Buick Century — also a result of our school’s contract with the local Buick dealer.
My most vivid recollection of that car isn’t of driving it, but rather being a passenger when a fellow student (who struggled with driving in general) froze up while approaching an intersection, and the instructor had to apply the passenger-side panic brake. Ever wonder if it’s possible to fail drivers’ ed? It is.
75 Dodge Dart two door hardtop. White over red. Nice car.
Circa 1978, I took DE in two different cars. The first one was a ’77 Ford LTD 4-door in cream with a brown cloth interior. Very nice and pleasant to ride in and drive. The next was a ’78 Ford Granada 4-door. Red with white vinyl top and a 250 cid six with a/t. It handled well, but was a real dog otherwise. Going uphill would almost always result in kickdown to passing gear with much commotion, and very little additional locomotion.
Practice car at home was my brother’s ’70 Plymouth Fury III 2-door. With 383 2-bbl and Torqueflite, it had plenty of get up and go, but the bias ply tires and drum brakes made for some interesting learning in the southeast Ohio hills.
I didn’t take driver’s ed in high school. I actually didn’t learn to drive until out of high school when I took a private course. But the car I learned to drive in was a red 1994ish Ford Focus, which was not at all conducive to my frame.
1968 Impala Sedan. Smooth, light steering, auto trans of course. Two students plus the Instructor on the front bench, three students in the back…and NO talking! Man was that car easy to drive as compared to my ’61 Corvair Monza 4-speed.
’95 Nissan Sentra, white over grey in the Summer of ’96.
Not sure how, but it was rather ratty, even then. I doubt the bombed out roads on the North Shore of MA did it any favors.
After being allowed to drive my future ’69 Dodge Polara around a cemetery by my great grandmother, that Nissan gave me very little confidence in small cars.
New 1970 BelAir 4-dr sedan. Blue with a white top. 4 students & 1 teacher in the car. Drove all over the place and I got good at parallel parking it.
1975 Dodge Royal Monaco, 2 door…I remember under the hood was the 400 cubic inch “lean burn” engine
1977 dark blue dodge monaco and it was *loaded*. the drivers ed instructor was a friend of the dodge dealer and he somehow got this as an instructor car. 2 door, plush seats, great (for the time) sound system, automatic on the floor, etc. cannot now figure out how the instructor’s brake bar went across the transmission tunnel with the console but the point is moot.
first thing we learned to do was donuts on snow in a church parking lot. everyone had to drive to and past the point of traction loss. know what that feels like so you dont recreate it on a road. he certainly had the practical side of drivers ed down cold.
In Europe (at least in Spain, Portugal, France and the Netherlands), getting your driving licence is quite expensive. I got mine in 1993 and it cost me about €1,500
The car I used was a Citroën ZX with a decent 1.9D engine. It was compact (easy for parallel parking), had decent acceleration for a diesel and didn’t stall easily. The latter is important because at the time, you had to drive manual to get your driver’s licence (now in Spain you can get a special one using an automatic).
The ZX was a completely forgetful car – not many survive on the road – but they were competent for the time and I enjoyed driving it about 30 hours before I could take the test
The car was a base model, with no AC. It had double controls in case we did something bad, so the Driving instructor could apply brakes (at the beginning they also pushed the gas).
I recall that the model didn’t have turbo but Wikipedia says that the non-turbo version of the XUD9 engine was never installed in the ZX. It might have been a Spanish-only feature.
Ive seen non turbo ZXs for sale locally, just another mistake Wiki made, there are many.
Wiki— Ancient Hawaiian word meaning: “urban legend”, LOL!
My instructor had a red, late 90s Cavalier coupe. Much to my surprise, it was also her personal car. Guess the school wanted to save overhead. It was, wisely(?), one of the slowest cars I’ve ever driven, beating out a 3 cylinder Metro and the early Mercury Tracer that had trouble making it out of the driveway of the dealer who was selling it. Parallel parking with that was a breeze, which didn’t help when I used my grandmother’s 2000 Taurus for my test. That thing had way more power than I was used to, was too curvy to see where the bumpers were, and had the turning circle of a semi for some odd reason. For two sessions, I rode with her boss. What a piece of work…both him and the car. He drove a Corolla that should not have been able to pass inspection.
The Taurus and my family’s classic 1988 Lincoln Town Car eventually ended up being regular borrows for me. If you can drive those on our country, 1.5 lane roads, you can drive anything anywhere.
I’m pretty sure my High School had an early 80’s J-car – can’t remember the model – but I do remember it was blue. I guess it didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
I actually LEARNED how to drive on my father’s 79 Datsun 510. It was an automatic but had manual steering and brakes. I used it for my driver’s test as well. A nice little car – but it was a ruster.
1973 Dodge Dart Swinger, slant six – on the downtown streets of Toronto
I took drivers ed at my high school over the summer, and we had new cars from the local dealers. Curiously, our “fleet” consisted of about 6 identical 1996 Blazers, and one 1996 Delta 88. My partner and I got the 88. We had both been driving for years (I learned at 11 in a 4 speed Escort wagon), and spent most of the time trying to get the “low trac” light to come on 🙂 I was a little nervous at the start of the training, as I’d never driven an automatic before that. It would be another two years before I drove another one.
03 Taurus and 03 Escape. Our school had a deal with the local Ford dealer as well at the time I attended, I think they eventually purchased a couple circa 2009 Focuses since then though. My assigned car for the course work was the Escape so that’s where I did most of the learning, the three or four on the road tests I did in the Taurus as I recall. Despite my overall preferance towards cars I preferred the Escape, I actually failed one of the on road tests in the Taurus because I was used to the responsiveness the Escape actually had over it, even in braking… I kind of overshot the line at a light and the merge onto freeway test didn’t go super well – retook the same route in the Escape and it was flawless!
Never learned how to drive manual until way later, and I pretty much taught myself. We had a 1 day “simulation” course where we basically fake drive to a screen and operate a clutch and shifter but I got pretty much nothing out of it, in fact the sensor on my machine broke while I was using it so I couldn’t be graded, I couldn’t retake it either so I got a pass. Of all tests in high school THAT had to be the one I got by on on technicality! ugh!
1972 Pontiac Catalina four-door….like this one, but icebox white with a blue vinyl interior. Its one claim to greatness…it had the 455 V8. The other two driver education cars that year were a ’72 Ford Galaxie with a six and a ’72 Chevy Bel Air with a 327. Needless to say, the Pontiac was very popular at Bishop High that fall of ’71.
1980 Malibu 4 door and it did have the brake pedal for the instructor
Took mine in the Summer of ’83 in a white 1982 or 83 Dodge Omni with tan vinyl interior. It was uneventful. The other student I took the course with, a rather nervous girl, couldn’t quite master the level of acceleration required to get the 3-speed-auto-equipped car to climb hills or move with any determination through intersections. When she was driving we were either careening at the edge of control or puttering at a glacial pace. That got old quick. She passed the course, but I sure never would have ridden with her again if I was paid to.
I took driver’s ed in the summer of ’95. My instructor, like some others mentioned, used her personal car, albeit equipped with a passenger-side brake in case anything went awry. Tax write-off perhaps? Anyway, it was a Mustang notchback, late in the Fox generation, likely a ’92 or ’93. Black with tan interior and, interestingly, aftermarket chrome 5-spoke wheels. Being a 4 cylinder, it drove like an economy car, though it did sound good to say “I took driver’s ed in a Mustang!”
One of our days of training she was out sick, and the substitute used one of the cars from the high school’s fleet, an early 90’s Pontiac Sunbird sedan. Teal over gray. Very forgettable driving experience!
After the decent handling, relatively small Mustang, driving the ’79 Malibu back home took some adjustment…
1975 Dodge Dart four-door sedan. It had the extra brake pedal on the right for the instructor to use when necessary. Anybody out there ever seen a Driver’s Ed car with a full set of dual controls, including the steering wheel?
Only seen it in videos, quality job, probably owned by professional driving schools.
BTW heres my current car, Dart sedan since you mentioned one 🙂
We had two dual control cars, both donated by local dealerships. The 1969 Plymouth station wagon had dual steering and brake. The 1967 VW had a complete set of dual pedals. The car was narrow enough so dual steering wheels were not needed. I never got to look under the hood of the Plymouth to see how the steering was done.
1962 Lancer. Dodge’s version of the Plymouth Valiant. Push button transmission. I loved it. But then, as a high school senior I loved every car. Problem was, I had been driving since I was 12, so one turn around the block and one perfect parallel park, and I was then placed in the back seat while my DE classmates white knuckled the car around corners at 9 mph.
Late-sixties High School Driver’s Ed Plymouth Fury with dual brake pedals and separate inside mirror for the instructor. My girlfriend said her instructor always aimed his mirror between the girls’ legs, because they all wore skirts back then. Pants were not allowed on girls, even in Winter.
Dual control Cessna 172… Oh wait… ;o)
All kidding aside, the driver’s school car was dual control, but it was a librarian mobile… Either a Dodge Dart or its successor, the Aspen/Volaré. Army green if I recall correctly.
But the family car in which I took my driver’s test? This car right here!
(Mine had different wheel covers and no cornering lamps, but you get the idea… Parallel Parking in this land yacht was, um, challenging… But I got it in on the first shot on my Maryland MVA driver’s test!)………
My friend’s dad had a dark green one like that. He crashed it into his dads front porch and destroyed the porch 🙂 I remember a local dealership gave one of those away (1972 model) in a contest in 1984. A new LTD that went unsold for 12 years! Last man standing with his hand on the car won it.
My car was a 73 just like the one pictured except for the aforementioned differences. But the 72, yeah, I loved the look of that car, especially the ragtop (only 4260 built). I really wanted one of those, but it was too rich for my blood at the time.
+1 on the Ford LTD. Ours was a 4-door in sort of a Maalox Mint Green. I still don’t know how I passed the parallel parking in that boat.
Like many posters on this thread (and Jason’s April Fools thread), if you learned to drive (and park) in a large car like this, you ultimately can drive anything. My Dad felt that way. While the driver’s ed school liked to use smaller cars to make things easy, my Dad felt you needed skills to drive well, and I was given LOTS of stick time in this LTD before the car eventually became my first car. My subsequent Fairmont Futura was a much easier car to drive, park, and everything… In fact it handled very well, and start me on a long list of “foxes” over the years including many T-Birds. My Dad even woke me up very early one morning to go drive in the snow in that LTD, saying, “They aren’t going to teach you this in Driver’s Ed!”
My Mom’s red ’89 Nissan Sentra 2dr with 4-speed manual. That’s the car I learned to drive a stick on, and had to get good at it before taking my driver’s test.
On a side note: I’ve heard they no longer require a testee (haha) to parallel park. Why is this?!?! No one seems to be able to do it anymore and frankly, my car’s getting scared.
License to Drive = great movie. The Escort pic above reminded me.
Driver’s education? You mean in high school? Never had it.
I got my “driver’s education” in my parents’ 1960 Impala sports sedan! Dad & mom taught me.
That car was a real beast: 283 Powerglide, AM tube radio. That was it! Armstrong steering, unpowered drum brakes – the “power” was on you.
Two rules dad taught me:
1. Always know the width of your car.
2. Never rely on your brakes.
Those rules kept me out of a lot of trouble except when I did something deliberately stupid, of course!
I went to an all male Catholic high school in New York City. There were two drivers ed cars: ’77 Olds Cutlass’ bristling with the appropriate roof and magnetic signage. My groups particular instructor was one of the social studies teachers (and football coach) Mr. McLaughlin. He “didn’t want to be seen in one of those cars with you mugs” so he appropriated an “unmarked” unit used by the priests, a nine passenger ’77 Olds Custom Cruiser station wagon. Fun driving (and parallel parking) in Greenwich Village!
1990-91 Beige Toyota Corolla. Loaded up with five people it was scary trying to merge onto the major deegan expressway but very easy to park.
1968 Mercury Montego. Took driver’s ed when I was 15 and a half, had to wait six months before I could get a temporary permit. My Pittsburgh area cousins said their driver’s ed in the early 60s was with manual transmissions.
My DE class wasin summer of 1989, so i was 15 at the time and already had my permit for several months. Our car was a brand new charcoal grey Buick Skylark sedan, near identical to this one. After plenty of seat time in our ’85 Bronco this was a welcome upgrade. I mean, just look at this beautiful machine! It oozes class and sportiness all at once! It had the powerful iron duke hooked to a 3spd automatic which was unbelievably responsive. The car had so much power that if it werent for the sportscar like handling, youd have to think only a madman would put a teen in charge of a performance machine of this caliber. Even with 4 good sized guys aboard, the Duke was almost TOO powerful. And buttery smooth also. Yeah, we all felt like A-listers tooling around in that chariot. “Some day”, I thought…”some day when I’ve made it, Im gonna buy one of these for myself.” But for that moment Id have to savor just that taste of GM’s excellence just for that too-short week.
Iron Duke too powerful?
Who are you and what have you done with MR74? 😉
Its the truth! I swear, on this day April 1st of the year of our Lord 2016….
Lt. Jim Stanley’s Driving School had me driving a yellow AMC Spirit hatchback with dual controls. My dad was trying to teach me how to drive a manual transmission and went to Al Castrucci AMC on Colerain Avenue, took a new Renault Alliance on a “test drive”, took me to a nearby mall parking lot and let me experiment on the dealer demo. He didn’t want me tearing up his new Nissan Sentra.
Took my driver’s test in my mom’s 82 Olds Cutlass Supreme sedan. Passed the first time, too.
I don’t remember what the Driver’s Ed car was, except that it was not full sized. I drove myself to high school at the time and did take Driver’s Ed. The teacher did let me drive some, but l was far more experienced than most of the others. I do remember in the winter the carburetor was icing at one time. The car I drove was a Buick straight eight.
My school district had a fleet (4 or so) of 1978 B210s, One fastback and 4 sedans. I always scored the fastback. It was OH so cool!!
I really cant think of a less safe vehicle but I guess someone got a nice kickback.
My driver’s ed car was a 1968 Chevrolet Bel Air four door sedan, with the 307 V8 and (presumably) the THM, automatic for sure. It was much nicer than the 1960 Ford that my dad was driving and wasn’t rusty like my grandmother’s 1959 Pontiac. The Bel Air had power steering and power brakes, two items not included on the Ford; it may or may not have had A/C, if it did we never used it. I had obtained enough bootleg seat time that I could at least drive the car without running into things. In my hometown the driver’s test was always on the same route and the key thing was being able to parallel park. I remember that one of my fellow students managed to hit both the car in front and the one behind while trying to park. Fortunately no damage was done.
I spent some time riding in the parents’ 307-powered 68 Bel Air wagon. I remember the 2-speed Powerglide park/neutral whine. Also the groaning drum brakes if Dad had to stop it fast from highway speed. Most Chevies in those years had Powerglide. Wikip says the three-speed Turbo Hydramatic could be ordered with all V-8 engines on the Impala Sport Sedan and Custom coupe.
It may well have had a ‘glide, I just don’t remember.
My dad was not a car guy. Had owned the Bel Air for several years, when one day I said to him, ‘The transmission has only two speeds.’ His reply was along the lines of, ‘What?’ (lol)
My school did not offer driver’s ed. Once you obtained your learner’s permit, you either took it through a local driving school, which got you the license in 4 months, or took it with a “parent or guardian” which got you the license in 6 months. If you took the latter course, as I did, you had to take a “drug and alcohol” class at a driving school anyway.
I started out driving my dad’s 1994 Mazda B2300 pickup. No power steering, no power breaks, stick. We started in a cemetery, graduated to local streets, state highways, and finally the interstate. Dad and I knew I wanted a big car. He supported that. Safety. Mom did not want me to have a car because she hadn’t had one/was cheap.
We bought the ’87 Ford LTD Crown Victoria in secret, and hid it at the local storage yard. I took my driving test in that car (way easier to do the backparking required). Then back into hiding until I got a B or higher in a summer math course I agreed to take at a community college to get into AP Calculus. This was the bargain my father negotiated with my mom. I got a B+. The Crown Vic came home. Mom has never been the wiser.
The driving test was easy. The funny part was the drug and alcohol course from a shady driving school in another town. It involved worn 1970s textbooks and videos with a Burgess Meredith-like narrator. The would-be reckless teens were straight from the late 70s, the actors either looked like Burt Reynolds (parents) or members of Sweet. This was 1999-2000 so I’m afraid we did not take it as seriously as we should have done with all the mullets and moustaches.
In our neck of the woods, when cars were too old and beat up for the county motor pool, they ended up as drivers ed cars. In my case, that meant flabby mid-70s stripper Ford Torinos in refrigerator white. The Better Idea Guys at Ford must have run out of ideas, because those Torinos were dreadful.
The attached, in all its hub-capless splendor, looks just like one of the vehicles we were stuck with.
Starsky loved his.
1978 Pontiac Phoenix 4-door (a dressed up Nova) and it was the Broughamed out luxury version…LJ or LS? Burgundy in/out with very plush velour interior. New cars were loaned from the local dealers with big signs on top advertising the dealer.
1992 Plymouth Acclaim, 2.5, this exact color with a blue interior. I believe it was a three-speed automatic on the column. I passed a speed trap at five over and my instructor just told me to keep going. Good times. 🙂
I can hear it …..”keep goin'”….. Made me smile!
I didn’t take driver’s ed. In my state there’s no need to do so, and the cost for the classes versus the five years of higher insurance wasn’t exactly the best ratio. Anyways, the car I got my license with was an ’07 Nissan Maxima SE. As much as I hated that car having the slow-shifting automatic with the manual touch mode it was actually really nice. Despite how well it drove, I’m not really sure if I miss it that much.
’70 Ambassador. Only in Kenosha.
My middle daughter is taking private drivers ed right now, as our schools long ago quit offering it. They have Civics with the (much needed) passenger brake.
BHS ’78! My classmates got to drive a Pacer. Not me, lousy Granada.
1969 Pontiac Le Mans. All our high school driver training cars were donated by the local Pontiac dealer. In summer 1971, summer school class was with the school coach’s as instructors. Our instructor was always telling the students to drive faster, get it up to the speed limit, especially on twisty mountain roads. The 3 year old car was pretty battered, lots of parking dents. All the driver training cars were pretty beat looking and 2-3 years old. They weren’t changed out very often, they got used up. Ours had about 35k miles on it.
At this time you could get a permit at age 15 and license at 16 only if you took driver education. Otherwise age 18 was the rule back then.
First learned to drive at age 13 in ’66 VW Beetle. That’s the car I took my driving test in. Passed first time out. It then became my first car. All the schools training cars were 8 cylinder air conditioned automatics mid size Pontiacs. As I recall the instructor had a brake pedal on his side as well.
To answer the question, 1993 Mercury Sable. Like most people, I took the test in the car I learned how to drive (and how to parallel park) with. Unlike so many kids today, I had to parallel park on my test (I’m sad to hear it’s been getting dropped from the tests lately), though only behind a car as opposed to between two cars (which is what I would require as a tester – though I wouldn’t dock them points for not making it on the first try, as long as they didn’t hit either of the other two cars and parked it reasonably well within 5 tries I’d pass them).
I got my license in 2001 and I didn’t have to parallel park but I wish I would have had to. I didn’t learn in driver’s ed either. It’s sad how many people my age and younger can’t parallel park. I get so frustrated when I’m downtown riding with someone else who drives around forever trying to find a space to just pull into.
I can do it like a pro but I have to say, my VW Bus is a rather awkward vehicle to parallel park. Especially the Panel Bus I had a few years ago.
In a VW bug it was easy parking downtown if there were 3-5 people. Just find a place that just fit the VW which everyone else had passed up, usually very close to where you wanted to go, pull the VW next to the space, get out of car and lift and slide the rear end of the car into the parking space-do the same with the front. Go do what you were going to do downtown. Only worked with VW’s and other small cars like ’58 Renault Dauphine. Did not work with a ’59 Rambler American, might have worked with a Metropolitan but it was only a two seater so not enough muscle with only two people IMO. All this from first hand experience except for the Metro.
I was briefly a CPA (car park attendant) at a small downtown lot where we parked all the cars with the minimum space around each. If someone came back earlier then expected their car may be 4 cars deep. With little room to jockey cars at midday we learned that with 4 people (3 in a pinch) you could move even a full size big 3 land yacht straight sideways. The secret was to get a person at each wheel well (or one on the bumper with 3 people) and push straight down and release at the same time. In about a minute of bouncing, you could just about dribble that thing anywhere on a flat lot.
My ‘drivers test’, if you can call it that was a total joke. My dad had been grilling me for weeks, based on the test he took as a kid back in NJ. I could parallel park, do a K turn, merge onto a freeway, do hand signals…you name it. What I was subjected to amounted to little more than Han Solo’s ‘maneuvers’ used to escape that Imperial star destroyer….we drifted lazily around a left turn and came back within about 3 minutes. Dad was waiting at the DMV looking pissed thinking I flunked the test. He just laughed when I told him the truth, which was that a monkeys corpse could have passed that ‘test’ with flying colors!
“Man that guy knows some maneuvers!”
Yeah my DMV test was the same way, I took the DMV guy about a block around the building and he said “good job”. It took longer and was more stressful to sign my name and get my picture taken afterwards. Funnily enough it was my high school that overprepared us, as evidenced by the comments in this we actually got taught a lot more than many, I remember the DMV tester asked me during the drive, where I was almost comically thorough in the short little drive, “where are you from?” Roselle I said, and he was like “yeah I can tell” lol. I guess we had a squeaky clean reputation.
Parallel parking wasn’t even part of our curriculum, which I found quite odd. Wasn’t on the test either. Dad had to teach that to me out of class.
It’s a skill that’s come in handy though, considering that I had to do it every day for the 3 years I lived in a downtown apartment building with no off-street parking.
I didn’t take Drivers ED, I drove various relatives cars while “learning” (in the old fashioned way LOL) First car I can remember piloting was a neighbors 1959 Ford 2dr “ranch” wagon (a 6yl/3spd) – I was about 10 or 11 and my “instructor” (it was his dad’s car) was just licensed himself…..We survived without killing ourselves or causing any property damage!
Ah yes, Drivers Ed! Back in the 70’s in New York, you could get a junior license at age 16. It restricted you on hours and some counties ( and all the boroughs of New York City)but allowed you to drive without a licensed driver in the car. By successfully completing a course in drivers Ed, you could change a junior license to a full-fledged regular license, with no restrictions. I had my junior license almost a year when I took Drivers Ed. Our car was a brown 76 Ford Granada 4 door sedan, with that Chamois interior that so many mid 70’s Fords seemed to have. Since I had already had a license and was then driving my 68 Impala Convertible (which I still own to this day), the instructor had a tendency to let me head east on the Southern State Parkway, and he’d promptly fall asleep until one of the other students complained that I got too long of a turn at the wheel. That Granada had only an AM radio and I swear, I think we heard Moonlight, Feels Right by Starbuck, 10,000 times during that summer in that car. That song still reminds me of that car to this day!
1986 Chevrolet 1/2 ton pickup truck. 305, 4 speed automatic. It was a great truck and drove perfectly. Yes, I went to a redneck school.
1978 Chevrolet Nova.
Took drivers ed through a private driving school in 09. We had few mid 90s corollas and Geo Prisms, The “nicer” cars the school had at the time were late 90s Camrys. One of which I took for my road test. Nowadays they still a few Camry and corollas left mixed in with a few mid 2000s Chrysler products.
Years down the line when I took EVOC for the police department there driver training cars were all marked 2011/2012 Impalas and a few mid 2000s ford vans and they all had dual brakes
Never had an official lesson, my Dad taught me. So the first time I drove on the road was in a Peugeot 504 estate, and I also got to drive my brother’s car – an 850cc mini. Both good cars to learn in.
1975 dodge dart swinger 2door ht blue on blue
1978 or 79 Plymouth Volare, baby blue over baby blue. I took drivers ed in the summer of 1980. Good times.
Chevette. With an automatic and what must have been the base engine, definitely the slowest and most bare-bones car that I have ever driven, although those are not bad things in a driver’s ed car.
I challenge anyone to say that they had a worse driver’s ed car than a Chevette! A 1970s Torino was bad too, but in an entirely different way, so I would declare that match a draw.
I took it through a private driving school in an ’80 Toyota Tercel. Later I taught for that same school in an ’84. All the in-car instructors were so-called “independent contractors” to the school, so you provided your own car, but the owner pushed us to use Toyota products as that way you essentially never missed a lesson. We did teach emergency collision avoidance manoeuvres, so they did take a beating.
1976 Ford Granada. It had all of 200 or 250 smog-strangled cubic inches. The unloaded car was too heavy for the power. With 5 aboard, pressing the accelerator pedal gave me… almost nothing. I recall taking the trumpet off-ramp from southbound i-94 to eastbound Wi-158. The exit was marked ’50 mph’, and the right 60 degree bend was taken at 50. Missed the little sharp curve sign and ’30 mph’ suggested for the left 150 degree bend. Tires were squealing as I expertly piloted the leaning ship. Nobody said a word, but my turn was over.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/76-Ford-Granada-Ghia-e1346788773522.jpg
1978 AMC Concord and a 1979 Chevy Nova. The Concord was a much nicer ride.
Concords were a very nice ride. Too bad most people never experienced them.
Going back to 1984, a refrigerator white VW Golf Mk1 diesel with a 4 speed manual.
I clearly remember how utterly easy it was to drive. Once the engine was warm you could put it in first gear, then gently release the clutch pedal and it just rolled down the road at walking speed without ever touching the gas pedal.
That little oil burner really worked flawlessly.
Lucky Europeans, you had to start with a manual. If only American driving classes would take the same attitude.
Legally you’re not allowed to drive a car with a manual if you got your driver’s license in an automatic. The other way around is just fine.
Same here because you dont learn to drive in an automatic you only learn to steer.
My state stopped putting automatic-only restrictions on people who took the test on autos sometime in the ’70s; my Aunt Betty was the last person I knew with that on her license.
It’s not uncommon to buy a manual car and learn to drive it on the way home from the dealer.
I’m sure dealers do a fine business in clutch replacement in such cases …
…and for the sake of public safety I sure hope the dealership is situated at some desolate road. Of course you can always sue the automaker because the car suddenly seemed to have its own will….
In the late 1960’s, most economy cars in the US were still manual. The local VW dealer donated a car for DE. I liked that car so much, I ended up buying one just like it, a ’67 Beetle.
1970 Impala 4 door sedan with 350/THM350. It was brand new and quite a nice driving sedan. Since I had a driven quite a lot before then already (illicetly), I told the instructor a BS story that I had already had my learner’s permit in another state. So he let me skip the initial parking lot first drive, and just let me go drive on the road. A very pleasant drive from Towson High out and around Loch Raven Reservoir….
Still one of my favorite drives Paul… In ANY car. ?
What? No one else was as lucky as I was to have a Fairmont for their driver’s ed car? Mine was a 1982 Ford Fairmont sedan – white – AAA had a fleet of ’em. I thought they drove like a metal box on wheels. I tried to floor it a few times and the instructor laughed!
A “Fox” body ain’t a bad way to start.
I did…1980 Fairmont. Plain white stripper, 3.3 and A/T. It was the car that they used for the freeway part of the testing (the other driver’s ed car, a 1980 Datsun 210 sedan with an automatic was laughably bad around town, let alone wheezing up to speed on I-5).All I ever got from mashing the gas pedal to get on the freeway was pinging instead of acceleration. Oh the joys of driver’s ed cars in the middle-to-late Malaise Era…
I had those same wheel covers on my 79 Futura Coupe!
This. A big bumper era Ford Maverick sedan – in stripper trim. Just to make it blander, it was beige.
The pretty girls in the photo do remind me of one positive, my student driver mate was a pretty girl that I was friends with. I had not thought of her in a long time.
So, yeah, unlikely as it was for me, my stripper Maverick did come with a girl worthy of this photo!
I actually liked that beige they had then.
Its…a Matador! I had only driven a Chevy Monza up to that point. The steering was so slow I almost put it in the weeds a couple times.
My high school (George Washington H.S. In Danville, VA) had an agreement with Wyatt Buick. I mostly took driver’s ed in a ’88 Skylark. But then I switched up with a ’88 Regal coupe (in red!). I took D.E. in summer school and we weren’t allowed to use the air conditioning while on the driving range. I remember one classmate messing up the quarter panel of an ’88 Lesabre by backing into a guardrail. The old driving range (now sadly gone):
’67 Ford Fairlane (or whatever the called the size in between the Galaxie and Falcon) with dual pedals. Best memory is the chick in our driving class, when told to park the car to change drivers, slammed the shifter into park at 45mph.
I also remember a ’65 Nova with dual pedals that dad brought home for my mom’s sister (who lived with us) to go out in, as it was decided that she should finally get her driver’s license. Which she did, and then mom and dad (and me, later) went right back to chauffeuring her to her nursing job, just like we’d done for the decade or so before.
LOL! (to the “parking” at 45mph)
You’d be right Our family had a ’67 Fairlane wagon, It was slotted between the “Ford” (Galaxie/LTD) and Falcon.
2000 Ford Escort from Tipton Ford in Nacogdoches, TX. The only reason I remember is because the license plate frame was still on the car and I thought it was weird that Houston Community College would procure their car from outside of Houston. My class was taught by a football coach at my high school and I guess he was also employed by HCC. I was never taught how to parallel park and I’m 31. Our lessons consisted of driving said coach on miscellaneous errands like going through the Wendy’s drive thru or taking his daughter to work. Our final test was driving on the freeway…
Wasn’t parallel parking part of your drivers’ test? It was part of mine in Texas, and I flunked it the first time because I flubbed the parking!
Despite lots of practice in the driver’s ed 88 and at home with my Dad, I still failed parallel parking, I did well enough on everything else that the trooper let me skate by with the minimum passing score.
That’s surprising, I’m a few years younger and parallel parking was one of the things they really grilled into us. We practiced with cones and tested between two other drivers ed cars.
Weirdly I was much better at it then, I always end up two feet from the curb now a days. I wish they taught us about roundabouts, I’ve encountered a few in Wisconsin over the last few years and I basically wing it, other drivers seem to do the same so it’s basically a circle of chaos.
When I got my license in 2000, I didn’t have to do a road test at the DPS, which is why I never learned to parallel park. Apparently the combination of classroom and road time with instructor fulfilled that obligation. I do believe I had to take the written test but no road test. However, I believe this is no longer the case in Texas.
I always got the impression that the troopers at the license offices didn’t exactly graduate in the top….oh let’s say 80th percentile at the DPS Academy. They always had this frustrated scowl on their faces knowing they weren’t good enough to be assigned to the Highway Patrol.
I distinctly remember standing in line with my Dad to take the driving test and him noticing the trooper’s very poorly maintained pistol.
My father taught me to parallel park when teaching me to drive, but Connecticut, in 1999-2000, did not require parallel parking either. Instead, you had to back-park the car into the parking spot. It was a good 20 minute driving test, you had to get on the highway, take a few secondary roads, a bit of stop and go, and then come back to the DMV and back slowly into the parking spot to end the test. A lot of people had trouble with it, one of my friends backed into the parking spot sign. I was driving my box Panther Crown Victoria for the test and after I backed in slowly, the DMV evaluator, a retired state trooper, taught me a few tricks about quickly back-parking a big car using a kind of K-turn maneuver that he had used with his cruiser instead of slowly backing in like everyone else was doing. Still use them today.
We don’t have driver’s ed. (is that just an American/Canadian thing or is it done elsewhere too?)
You can legally drive at 17, so a handful of kids at school had their licence (I went to a sink school so most kids left at 16) but none had cars. The idea of your parents buying you a car was outlandish to us, as was the idea of putting a teenager in anything with an engine bigger than 1.4 litres. My wife’s first car (she’s from Minnesota) was a 4.6 litre Crown Vic. This, and the fact that she informed me of the existence of something called a “Students’ Parking Lot” had my eyes out on stalks. This side of the the Atlantic, the notion of handing a 16 year old a V8 would be considered borderline irresponsible, but I guess the perception there is that big = safe. Here (for young drivers anyway) the attitude is “give them as little horsepower as possible”.
In the UK, (unlike some Euro countries, as this site has taught me) getting a licence isn’t necessarily expensive, there is no mandatory training, you just have to pass the test, however only 40% pass first time, so it’s recommended to get at least a couple of lessons with a professional.
My first attempt to drive was 5 minutes in an industrial estate in my parents’ Fiat Punto, with woolly unassisted steering and hopeless intructor (mum). I then took a lesson with a “professional” instructor who did little to no instructing – this was in a 1 litre, 3 cylinder Vauxhall Corsa. I lost confidence and gave up for a few months, before doing a 1 week intensive course with a good instructor in a late 90s Fiesta, and passing the test. Working at Avis, I discovered those Corsas were the easiest car in the fleet to stall, so maybe not the best choice for BSM. (Britain’s biggest chain of driving schools)
If you take your test in an auto, you get an automatic-only licence.
67″ Beetle… in the driveway initially at age 13. Then later on, in an empty parking lot on an early Sunday morning right after it snowed and learned controlled skids and sliding. After that it was a 64 Country Squire, followed by a 67 Pontiac Catalina. No formal school driver’s ed.
1961 Chevrolet Biscayne 4 door sedan in arbor green, 135 hp 6, 3 on the tree. Seneca High School, Louisville, KY, class of ’63.
p.s. I think it’s really cool we have so many younger readers.
a Biscayne with a 6 and a three speed! Luv it! (How many Biscaynes were “sacrificed” to make “Bel-Airs”, honks me off.)
1967 Plymouth Fury II 4dr. The first time I got behind the wheel the hood seemed to go on forever in comparison to my folk’s 63 Rambler Classic that I had been driving.which was over 2 feet shorter.
See below. Basically, same car I had, only ours were Fury III 4-door hardtops.
A 1992-1995 Taurus. I really liked that car. The odometer was 5 digit, but the instructor said that it was near 300k miles on the clock. In Wyoming, that’s not common, but it’s not rare either.
Perfect way to find out everyone’s age — ask about their drivers ed car! I guess I was lucky (or maybe everyone in the Plano, TX program was). We got a very nicely equipped new 1983 Buick LeSabre Limited sedan, which was right up my alley. I loved it! Later that summer, my parents bought its Olds equivalent, a Delta 88 Royale Brougham.
1972 Plymouth Fury I-in high school Clarkstown NY. Fortunately my class was in the AM and the drivers ed teacher liked to listen to Imus. That’s how long the old goat has been on the air.
A 1972 Triumph Toledo (Mum’s) and a driving school 1978 Ford Fiesta 1.1L. Passed first time of course;-)
First car I moved under its own power was a Chrysler 2 Litre Automatic, in and out of the garage.
Boring old Toyota Corolla in the summer of 2004.
No high school drivers ed here, I learned with our next door neighbour in his work Austin Gipsy on farm tracks and the county back roads, The Gipsy was a BMC competitor to the landrover all steel with optional fibreglass roofs in two lengths, pick up or wagon the one I drove was one of the last a 66 with leaf springs all round instead of the rotoflex? system that tended to promote roll overs, great old truck I loved driving it.
Passed my test first time in a Morris Minor 1000.
After I got my learner’s permit in 1975, my grandmother paid for driving lessons with a local driving school that advertised. 1974 AMC Matador Coupe (!) charcoal grey all decked out with a complete set of right-hand controls. The phlegmatic instructor was non-plussed by my lack of skills, but learned some basic stuff like distance counting and steering. Seemed to have the turning radius of the Titanic. Mom had had enough of parking lot panic trying to teach me in her 1965 Dodge Dart (225 \6 and Torqueflyte–a really reliable car). And I still had to take high school DE with my chemistry teacher, Mr. Green, another man who did not fluster easily, but shared his displeasures early and often. The school car was I think a 1976 Olds Cutlass Supreme (beige / beige with vinyl top) with a panic brake on the passenger side. Fairly new and power everything as I recall. Nice car, but I had more fun driving my grandmother’s 1969 Olds Ninety-Eight with the Rocket 455 4 bbl, and I could parallel park that battleship better than my mom ever could. I learned to drive stick on my dad’s second wife’s MGB after I got my license on the first try (it wasn’t that great a car).
This is the most flattering photo.. ours was green, and we usually had a full load. I remember going on the highway and the instructor telling me to floor it to get up to speed lol.
Took my drivers test in my dads ’85 Eldorado.
A ’78 Plymouth Volare, same color as this one:
1990 or so Mitsubishi Galant. Driver’s test in a ’67 Impala fastback!
Bright blue Triumph Dolomite – very much not a Sprint – courtesy of the British School of Motoring. First car I drove solo was my mother’s Mk I Fiesta Ghia.
Summer 1985.
The range cars were mostly AMC Hornets, but I got one of the 2 Plymouth Volares.
A week later we hit the road in a ’76 Olds 98.
Being an old geezer, we had a 1964 Fairlane 4 dr 6 cyl 3 on the tree. Yes we had a stick. Had to stop while going up a steep hill, parallel park, then pull out without rolling back more than a foot when you were not supposed to. Fun times. The local dealers provided fresh cars every year.
Easy question! Although I’m entering that time of life where brain fade starts to take hold, I remember that car perfectly. A 1969 Pontiac Catalina, 4 door sedan, dark green with green brocade cloth seating, generously provided to the BH School System by Royal Pontiac. I remember the Instructor taking us, 3 students, up to Pontiac for some “downtown” experience. After instructing me three times to “turn left at the intersection”, I finally caught on to the concept of one-way streets…
A white ’95-’96 Toyota Camry in 2007-2008. That car had been put through so much abuse over the years but you couldn’t tell by the way it drove and held up. I’m no Camry guy by any means but time with that car backed up why I thought that generation Camry was the best one, imo.
As mentioned following Jason’s April Fool’s classic, I went through DE during the fall of 1984 in a brand new ’85 Delta 88 Royale sedan. Triple blue, 307, crank windows (but it did have power locks), plain AM/FM stereo, cruise/tilt and wire wheel covers. A classy looking boat to say the least.
For many years in Texas, driver’s ed (especially in large urban/suburban districts) was often contracted out to one of the state’s regional Education Service Centers. The ESCs provided instructors, cars and a simulator trailer in a turnkey package. The cars were supplied by local dealers (in the Houston area it was almost always Olds) and replaced each semester. Once the classroom/simulator portion of the course for the spring semester was complete, the simulator trailer would be hauled off campus until the next fall semester.
Once it was time to start the road portion of the course, the class was divided into groups of four students, each with a designated car and instructor (the instructors got to take the cars home) for the duration. The group I was assigned to had to make do with a mere Royale instead of the Royale Broughams (with the prized cassette player) that some of the other groups had. There were a couple of days when our group got a different car. One day we had a service loaner Cutlass Supreme Brougham sedan, while on another we got the queen of that semester’s fleet at Spring High, a loaded white Royale Brougham coupe with a blue landau top and pillow velour seats straight out of a 98.
The ESCs dropped the driver’s ed program in the early 2000s due to budget cuts and changes in graduation requirements mandating more time for core academics. Enrollment was down to almost none. Most kids go to private driving schools, although many rural districts still offer in-house driver’s ed as they always had.
Here’s an ’84 Royale. Other than the grille it’s identical to the ’85 I drove in DE…..
Sounds like Plano, TX may have used the ESC you speak of as well. We had the trailer with simulators parked in the front drive of the school, and we had an ’83 Buick LeSabre Limited (pretty much the same thing as the Royales you had.) I think some Cutlasses and Regals were used as well, from what I remember.
1988 Ford Tempo, June of 1988 exactly like this one. Brand new car 100 miles on the clock, on loan from local dealer. Passenger side brake pedal was the only modification. My instructor (H.S. basketball coach) did not like me at all. One day the other 2 students (girls) missed the same day so I drove the whole session that day. I had to take him through mcdonalds drive thru and get his breakfast. Offered me nothing. Then next class we were back together he made it a point to tell me he bought the girls mcdonalds the day they made up for the missed day. They got A+ for the course, I got a C. I was tasked with fueling the car also. I accidentally dinged the sheet metal with the gas nozzle once.
Our simulators were on their retirement year in 1988. They were straight out of the early 70’s with the basic fleet style horizontal speedometer. The simulation film was shot from a full size fuselage era Chrysler. Bottom 1/4 of the screen was the hood with fender mounted turn signal indicators visible.
I took Driver’s Ed at San Rafael High in the summer of 1975. In our group (some driving experience) we had; 1975 Buick Century Station Wagon and for stick shift, a 1974 Chevy Nova Sedan (350 V-8).
High Schools here in BC don’t, and never have to my knowledge, teach kids to drive. My Dad taught me starting from about 14 in whatever he happened to be driving. My brother ended up going to a driving school the following year after he and Dad damn near came to blows though.
There was a ’68 Olds 88 with a 455 4 barrel, a ’74 Corolla with a 4 speed and finally whatever demonstrator from the Chev-Olds emporium he happened to be driving. A ’74 Z-28 with a 4 speed that was traded in was memorable. He also used his fishing buddy’s ’50 or ’51 3/4 ton Chevy pickup for a little “toughening”. I got a pretty good cross section.
I’m curious about something though, in the US it sounds like you could take Driver’s Ed, pass and the state would issue a license from that in some places. Is that really how it worked?
After you completed and passed driver training, you would have to go to the local DMV office and take a driving test with a DMV employee. If you passed that test then you would then be issued a license at the office. If you failed you could retake the test until you passed. This is how it worked in California, most if not all states are the same.
I already was taught to drive by my Dad at age 13, but could only get a license at age 16 by taking the driving class. If 18 or older, no drivers ed class was required. You just took your learners permit to the DMV. Then you took the driving test and if the tester riding with you passed you, you got your license the same day.
OK Thanks. We had the same type of test, and sadly the hardest part was the dreaded parallel park. In those days if you passed you walked out of the courthouse 20 minutes later with a license. Now it takes a couple of years to get fully licensed.
My Dad made sure I knew how to drive before he ever let me take the test, but I was lucky. Not everyone’s Dad did.
My family was lucky in that our high school was on the way to where my dad worked. All 4 of us kids spent a year driving 6 miles to school with him in the passenger seat and taking the bus home before he let us drive alone routinely.
My driver’s ed car was a new white ’63 Fairlane 500 four door with 260 V8, auto, and instructor side extra brake pedal. Once while riding in the back and a girl driving, I was horrified when she took her hands off the wheel to cover her eyes while driving down the highway. It had just rained and since it was summer and the car had no AC we had the windows down. A passing semi sprayed a little mist in the window and she panicked. The instructor quickly reached over and grabbed the wheel to keep us on the road and out of opposing traffic. She got a good lecture from him.
I took my drivers test in my Dad’s ’62 Olds 88 wagon. Parallel parking was not easy, especially since I had never done it with that particular car, but I made it. When I took our youngest daughter to take her test we used my ’95 Ranger since it was the shortest vehicle we owned. However, she was not asked to parallel park it.
From what I remember, our local school system had 1970 Chevrolets at the time I took Driver’s Ed – mostly automatic -equipped Chevelles but some Impalas and Novas too. The Chevelles stick most in my memory.
Started driver training in the dead of February 1975 in a new Malibu Classic 2-door, dark blue over light blue, just like the car on the right but with the plain wheel covers of the car on the left. After spring thaw, I did my highway driving in a white ’75 Olds Delta 88 Royale.
I took driver’s ed during the summer of ’79, and we had an aeroback Olds Cutlass on loan from the local dealer (Coleman Oldsmobile).
The dashboards and steering wheels in the simulation trailer (which we, being teenaged boys with our minds in the gutter, called the “stimulation trailer”) were from a Chevy II.
1980 VW Rabbit. I took the summer course which was taught on stick, while the spring and fall sessions were automatics – Volares and downsized Malibus as I recall. The Rabbit had round headlights, so we must have still been getting German built cars in Canada, rather than Westmoreland ones with the rectangular lamps.
We didn’t have driver training in schools in Australia, I learned on a 1975 Valiant Galant wagon 4 speed ( probably Dodge Colt in the US.)
I’d driven tractors before, but my first time on the road, Dad could see I was having trouble on the bends. He said don’t just look at the front of the car, look up the road further (Duh….) I was fine after that.
Passed my test Ist go in a 1976? Toyota Corolla, and boy was I glad to finally jump in my 318 Valiant Hardtop and start driving on my own.
Mitsubishi Colt over here four headlight front instead of the Valiantesque grille Aussie had.
IIRC the four-headlight face was the original, the facelift (full reskin for the coupes) got single headlights (with inset, foglight-esque turn signals in the grille on US cars).
We had 1973-1974 Caprices. Stripper models 4 door, v8 and AC. Multi Chevrolet in Union NJ provided them. The gym teacher doubled as the driver education teacher and he was a lush. He would fall asleep as soon as you left the parking lot. Legend has it that one particular juvenile delinquent stopped at a liquor store to buy beer during his instruction. The Caprice was parked in front with the teacher asleep in the passenger seat. When the proprietor asked for ID, the student told him that it was for his dad who was asleep in the car.
Private driving school, 1982 as well as 1984 Toyota Corolla’s. Both in white.
Summer of 1967, summer school Driver’s Training class at Venice High School. (Already went through the 1/3 semester Driver’s Education course). SOP for the Driver’s Training class is classroom instruction with those funky ‘driving simulators’ set up in a trailer. Then, the instructor would take as many kids out as possible, all at once, then you would get maybe 20 minutes behind the wheel on a 2-hour drive around town. Soooo the cars were big. We had a fleet of white, ’67 Plymouth Fury III 4-door hardtops, 2 in the front, 3 in the back.
Wow, that’s my school, too! Driver Training in the spring of 1963, with those silly simulators in a trailer, it was sponsored by Aetna at the time. Driver’s Ed was a classroom course taken the year before, as I recall. For whatever reason, I was assigned to a beater ’57 Ford Custom, while others got to use the newer ’63 Studebakers. Same setup with the students, one in front with the instructor, and three in back. I still vividly recall one of the girls freezing up driving along Venice Boulevard, the instructor had to hit the dual brake, throwing all of us in the back seat into the backside of the front seat. Pretty scary, no seatbelts, either. Amazing that we lived to tell the tale with all these mishaps.
An ’81 Malibu Classic with a V6/automatic. Barely tolerable around town with three students and the instructor, but scary on the highway. It was just too slow, and I don’t know how GM got away with it for so long. The car I took my test in (our ’78 Gutless Cutlass) was no better, but I suppose our teachers and parents were content to let us take potluck. For myself, I didn’t really care. I got my licence and that was all that mattered.
1997 Ford Taurus SE Bright Blue.
The real fun car was the one I was able to accumulate my hours on. 1986 Cimarron V6 w/ the D’Oro package. That was a nightmare to drive and it caught fire when I was coming home from my high school job at Sbarro Pizza!!
The local Chrysler Plymouth dealer used to supply the school board with new Drivers Ed cars every couple of years. My class had two 73 Plymouth Satellite sedans. One gold and one light metallic green. I already had my license when I took the class and used to piss off Mr. Kunkle because I didn’t like keeping my hands at 10 and 2
The school used Buick Century
At home I practiced with Mom’s Buick Century
I took the test in a rented Chevy Cavalier
I was in driver’s ed in 2001 and it was an early 90’s Chevy Lumina. What a terribly uninspiring vehicle. It pretty much taught me nothing.
Learning to drive my ’71 Beetle and my Dad’s 1970 F-100 were what really taught me how to drive.
Our school had a ’94-ish Plymouth Sundance in light green aqua metallic with the seperate brake. Lots of fun practicing winter driving.
in the mid 90’s the only cars I remember being used for driver’s ed was a late 80’s/early 90’s Chevy Corsica and a Mercury Topaz of the same vintage, I remember them being blue in color
1998 Ford Taurus, white
Our school had a deal with the Chevy dealer. Learned in a ’66 Chevy wagon with no ac. Fifty years later I still remember the teacher had a thing about merging at full freeway speed. Spent plenty of time going down ramps with the loud pedal nailed to the floor. Steve
Our driver’s ed car was a tan 72 Chevy Vega wagon with the 2.3 liter standard engine (90 gross HP?) and Powerglide to make it “go” (I use the term loosely), and very touchy brakes to make it stop. The instructor always kept the A/C on max. As the A/C was one of the few things that was over-engineered in the Vega, I learned to always bring a sweater to DE drives, even in the summer.
The A/C helped make a slow car a rolling hazard. There were many exciting “unintended non-acceleration” moments when making left turns on busy US 1 and merging onto I-95, but the most challenging by far was entering the Merritt Parkway. It was one of the first limited-access highways in the U.S., built in the 1930’s with a design speed of 40 MPH, and very little in the way of acceleration/deceleration zones. Thirty years later people started to use it as an I-95 alternative, and actual speeds were probably 55-60 by the time I started driving. The only safe way to merge was to floor it, the earlier the better. I wonder if the instructor intended to teach us racing techniques so early on our driving careers.
1992 Chevy Beretta in 1992.
Hey, I’m still alive! I’m still around! Anyways, my driver’s ed classes took place both in my high school and in a second-generation Ford Taurus. It was white with a red interior, the most interesting interior color of any car I’ve ever driven. Too bad carmakers shy away from putting anything unique in their commuter lease specials these days.
1980 dodge diplomat sedan, slant six in that godawful green Chrysler had at that time.
also had dual brake pedals which I thought was wonderful as one of the other boys had a tendency to freeze at traffic lights.
that was in the fall of 79 and when I graduated in june of 81 he still did not have his license. let us hope he moved to a city with good public transit! 😉
76 Ford Gran Torino. NO. not Clint’s firebreather. but the strangled later model Murilee Martin called the “Malaisiest of the Malaise era”. ours had a partial vinyl roof and all that 70s ford badness that was part and parcel of the times. still, it was better than anything my family drove. and would be until my own first new car purchase of an 89 Mazda B2600i ext.cab truck.
A first generation white Ford Tempo with passenger side steering and pedals. I took a private driver’s ed course. It was my first time driving a Ford and the dashboard and plastics in the interior looked rubbery and cheap. The surface of the steering wheel was smooth and shined like linoleum from being worn down and smelled like French fries. I got yelled at for taking too long to release the ignition when turning on the car. I was used to holding the key in the Start position until the engine fired up – Ford ignitions fire up instantly at the twist of the ignition, which I did not know about.
A 1968 Dodge Dart sedan in October 1969.
My province and I think most of Canada does not have public school driving lessons, private is the only option and is not mandatory. I went through a driving school last year (money well spent) they had a late 2000’s Honda Civic sedan, the digital dash was super helpful during my time behind the wheel (I did my test in that car). They recently switched to a fleet of gray base model Fits, look pretty unispiring.
1989 or 90 Ford Escort, with their unique extra-annoying version of motorized mouse belts and that last butt-tuck the very late firstgen Escorts got that just made the car seem even more dated. Took the test on mom’s ’86 Plymouth Horizon.
Fun times and how could we forget the details when getting a license was the most important thing?
Drivers training in the summer of 1965 in a small town Midwestern high school. Local dealers supplied two cars, a new burgundy Impala four door hardtop with A/C and a new white Plymouth Fury III four door sedan without A/C. IIRC the Impala had the 283 and I’m guessing the Fury III had the 318. I was assigned to the Plymouth.
It was a hot, humid summer and we all envied the kids who got to drive and ride comfortably in the more stylish and air-conditioned Impala. The Plymouth was a perfectly decent car with a V8 and the great Torqueflite auto but it suffered from a number of obvious assembly defects common to a new model, including a poor alignment of the shift pointer and the transmission quadrant.
I passed the course (did anyone fail? I think one kid did and deservedly so – another story) and passed my state driver’s test a few months later and got my license at age 16+one month, state law at the time. Without D/T, you had to wait an additional five months to try for a license.
I did most of my learning to drive in a black with white vinyl topped ’73 Dodge Dart “Swinger”. 318 auto with A/C. The driving school my parents used had a bunch of them. One in particular ran much better, almost like it had a 340 in it, and I was always happy when I got that one, which was most of the time, since the owner was my instructor. Just before I got my license, I started driver’s ed in school, and they had an older Chevy Caprice, but just before I took my test, they got a brand new blue ’73 Caprice, which went to the body shop almost immediately when one of the girls in my group sideswiped the passenger side mirror off on a bridge. Almost as soon as it came back, it went to the body shop again when a tiny headed kid named Bobby spun out on a side street near school and did a pretty bad amount of damage going 25MPH.
The two above drivers were still trying to pass their road test over a year later. The girl did eventually get hers, but I always wondered if Bobby ever got his license.
Summer school 1980 – Seattle
Plymouth Volare and a VW Rabbit for stickshift practice
I wish they still instructed us in manuals when I took it in ’95, but it was sadly long gone by then. We didn’t have one in the family either at the time, so it was two more years before I learned (mostly) to drive a stickshift.
1980 Chevy Malibu Wagon. With the Small block V8 and the extra brake. Not to bad of way to start. Took my test in my Dad’s 74 Dart. It was a government car, other than the auto, had absolutely nothing for options. Back then, Dad’s philosophy was a/c and power options were just something more to break. LOL
The first couple of times I went out on the road, a very plain jane Pontiac Ventura sedan. Then, one day the Pontiac dealer swapped it out for a very nice ’75 LeMans Sport Coupe, with console and floor shifter even! That was a kick, as the car was absolutely brand new. I think I drove it before the teacher did.
1973 Malibu colonnade two-door, no vinyl roof – a very basic Malibu of that year, although it might have had air conditioning. It and its predecessors were parked at the rear of the Sophomore Choir homeroom.
1949 G M C 1/2 ton straight 6 w 4 speed long box. Dad took us out on dirt roads thru sagebrush on marginal land grant property in central Oregon. We had to go in reverse with gas petal pushed to floor and keep truck on the trail. When accomplished we could drive forward back to home. Very educational and it didn’t take long to master driving in reverse then going forward was fun and easy.
Ahhh. 2004. Our 1800-ish student body had a choice between 3 cars in driver’s ed: The Chevrolet Cavalier (base 4 dr), Ford Focus (LX Sedan), and Chrysler Sebring (base sedan). Never had a chance to pilot the Focus, but the Sebring certainly proved more tossable. It also came across as a more upscale driving experience than the Cavalier – at least it did in my 15 y.o. mind. About a year later, my first car ended up being a 2003 Cavalier LS Sport Coupe. It being a tad nicer than the sedan I experienced in driver’s ed, I had no complaints.
A brown ’75 2-door Monarch with a gutless 302 that would momentarily cut-out in certain part-throttle conditons. I remember thinking how our ’72 Comet 4-door LDO with the same engine could have spanked it.
First of three Granada-Monarchs I had wheel time in.
Got a unrelated question for you. Did your Comet LDO come with bias belted tires or the DR78-14 radials. I have some contradictory dealer info that shows the first three months of LDO option production, they came with C78-14 bias belted tires. In Whitewall of course. Do you remember the production date of yours?
Our school had a fleet of 1975 Chevy Novas that had brakes on both sides of the front cabin. Our typing teacher Mr. Weldon also taught driving and was a very patient man. At that time in the mid-seventies our local cops also drove Novas, which always seemed a bit weird to me. Even today, I crouch down or flinch whenever I see one of those two-headlight Novas!
A new 1971 Chevy Belair Sedan. These two cars are Impalas, but I wanted to post a photo of one that looked like the one I took Driver’s Ed classes in. The bronze one at the top is the right color. It was a really nice driving car.
’74 Plymouth Satellite. Stripped down 4 door, 318, auto, AM radio. Got it up to 80 doing passing drills, the instructor was real pissed.
1984 VW Jetta diesel, manual of course.
I took my driver’s training in the spring of 1980, which was the same year I graduated HS (early). I had been driving since I was 13 or so, obviously quite illegally. In Ohio we still had school sponsored driver’s ed and they usually had an arrangement going with a local car dealer of some kind. We were in deep GM territory (Lordstown was 20 miles to the west) so they were usually some GM car.
I had a 1979 Nova sedan (similar to the one pictured but in brown), a fairly low optioned model but it did have air conditioning. I think the drivetrain was a 250 ci six with the three speed autobox. We usually had all the seats filled during our drives, I was 6’0″ and 180 lbs., at the time. Stuck in the back seat with two other kids roughly my size and weight we were VERY thankful for the strong A/C.
However, with a full passenger load and the A/C on in the car we nicknamed the Nova-caine, it was a slow ride. It did make it up and down the hills of Northeast Ohio, but not very rapidly. IIRC I passed my test on the second try and got my license about a month before I graduated high school.
In addition to the school Plymouth and VW, which I mentioned above, we had a trailer full of driving “simulators”. This was the space age 1960’s after all. The dash looked like a ’57 Ford. A film of driving displayed on a large projector screen in front of the room with about a dozen 15 year-olds. When a basketball rolled into the street, we all hit the gas instead of the brake as the instructor yelled at us from the back of the room.
1987 Olds Cutlass Ciera. The school had two of them, blue and maroon, because there were two drivers ed teachers and one was assigned to each. I had the maroon one. Brougham trim and 3.8 V6, so it was a pretty quick car for a family sedan at the time.
We went out in groups of three, 90 minute lessons where each of us had a half hour drive time. Whoever was driving got to pick the radio station. I was in with two girls – my cousin and one of her friends. I think the instructor liked it better when I was driving, not because I was a great driver (I wasn’t) but because I always put a baseball game on the radio instead of the pop music the girls preferred. The lessons were on Wednesday afternoons, which then as now often had day games on getaway day.
I remember having to ask if it was okay to brake on the freeway, because I’d come down the onramp so fast I’d gotten it up to 70 (!) at a time when the speed limit was 55. He told me it was.
I had driver’s ed in the fall of ’85. A Cutlass Ciera supplied by the Olds-Honda-Saab dealer was probably the newest and nicest car we had on the driver’s ed range. It was used for evaluations on our first day of range driving. Although it was a new car, I still remember that the bench seat was an issue. It was designed so that the driver could pull a lever on the left base of the seat that unlatched the seat position lock on both sides of the car so the seat could be moved forward and back. The slave side of the equation had gone on strike. As a result, the right side of the seat slid forward and back, crashing into the ends of its travel whenever a new driver struggled to get the hang of power brakes and smooth throttle applications. Naturally, in the right front seat was the short-tempered, power-tripping, abusive driver’s ed instructor. He singled out people for ridicule on that first day of driving and stood by his judgement throughout the course. Lucky for me, I’d been driving for years by the time I turned fifteen. It wasn’t so lucky for the kids who hadn’t operated anything that required more physical dexterity than a soccer ball.
My assigned range car after acing the pre-evaluation portion of driver’s ed was a 1976 Pontiac LeMans Enforcer sedan, a pretty fast decommissioned police cruiser. I remember that its dashboard was covered in GM-applied badges signifying its calibrated speedometer, large capacity oil cooler, heavy duty transmission, heavy duty 4-wheel disc brakes, 455-4 barrel Pontiac V8, etc. The only thing I needed to do was throw out the ashtray to turn it into a GM emulation of the Bluesmobile, although it was dark blue or brown instead of black and white. For some reason I can picture it in both blue and brown. Maybe I’m confusing it with Buford T Justice’ ride when it comes to the color. Looking back, it should have seemed REALLY fast compared to other cars I was driving at the time, but it didn’t. During passing exercises, I could pass any of the other students even when they tried to resist, and it did awesome smokey burnouts in reverse during ‘T-maneuver’ practice, but it really didn’t make an impression as being really powerful the way many cars do.
That’s pretty funny with the Ciera’s seat.
I guess I was pretty lucky that we had brand new cars. Ours were in perfect working order.
A ’76 455 wouldn’t have any power. Just lots of torque.
Heh. The Ciera was a brand new car loaned by the dealer!
Driver’s Ed?? I’m feeling very old. In mid-1960’s Nova Scotia, your parents were usually your teachers, and had to subject themselves to long Sunday drives with eager 16 year-olds, when they would likely have much preferred napping in front of the TV watching Championship Bridge or All Star Golf.
For me that usually meant my mother, in her ’64 Rambler American. It was a few months before I was allowed to take out my father’s 390 cu. in. ’65 Galaxie. Even for a confident 16 year-old the Galaxie was an enormous, overpowered, floaty beast, almost too wide for the local two-lane highways of the era. The Galaxie of course became my wheels of choice later on, but the American was in some respects more fun to drive, especially on winding gravel back roads.
The times are different now in many ways. By the age of 16 I already had several summers of informal driving experience, thanks to a semi-private dirt road we shared with 4 other families in the summer. I passed my test in the Rambler and got my full license about a month after my 16th birthday.
1976 Malibu Classic, donated for a year by the local Chevy dealer. This beauty had a second brake pedal on the passenger side that our instructor could and did use in a panic stop. Since we went out in groups we usually would tease the girls mercilessly and giggle when they made driving errors that required the use of the auxiliary brake. I can still remember the ice cold R12 A/C on those hot sunny days blowing on my nervously perspiring face hoping I didn’t shame myself in front of my buddies in the back seat. One word of advice from my Driver’s Ed instructor I remember and use to this day was: “never back up further than you have to” and “never ever back up without looking out the back glass”. The latter has made it impossible to use the backup cameras in modern cars, I still crane my head around to look out the back.
Lotta good memories in this thread.
My school was like a lot of the ones above, the local dealer provided new cars for us to drive. In my case we had two brand-spankin’ new Buick Park Avenues (this would be 1986 BTW) a red one and a light green one. Our “teacher” would load the car up with us kids, direct us out onto the highway, and promptly fall asleep. One time, we ended up in Illinos (I grew up in southern WI), one time we ended up in Milwaukee, where we ran out of gas, and none of us on board had any cash on us to buy some… I remember liking the cars we got, they were quiet, rode very smoothly and seemed easy enough to drive. Especially compared to the manual everything pickup my dad drove, and the 10-year old Malibu (with 4-speed manual) my mom drove… On one occasion we got a brand new GMC S-15 pickup for learning stick shift on. Neither of my parents had ever owned a car with an auto, so I could drive OK, but one of my fellow students drove the truck right thru the garage door to the auto shop area…
I’ve toyed with the idea of finding one of the Park Ave’s now, but I’m sure a 30-year-old one won’t be as nice as the ones we had. I remember being kind of sad, seeing less than 10 miles on these very nice, luxurious cars (considering the worn out, 10 and 15 year old beaters I was used to driving) and knowing they were gonna be abused by a bunch of inexperienced teenagers (and our teacher, who we suspected of living in the cars when we weren’t using them)
I remember the car like it was yesterday….powder blue 1973 Ford Grand Torino.
The drivers ed teacher that was doing my behind the wheel training was also my Shop teacher in high school.
Two strong memories of my behind the wheel was that 15 minutes into my first lesson he looked over smiled and said “You have been driving for quite a while already haven’t you?”
Yes Guilty as charged 🙂
Then on my third lesson while merging onto the freeway he reached his leg over and stomped his foot over mine that was on the accelerator.
There were no dual controls then, and he was trying to cure me of what still seems to be a Minnesota drivers affliction.
Merging onto a Freeway at no more than 45mph.
Stomping on one of those doesn’t result in much more forward motion anyway, unless it had a 429.
Wow, it was a LONG time ago. I think it was a ’73 Buick Century, or whatever the mid-sized 4-door sedan from Buick was called that year.
1965 (or so) Chevy Biscayne. Big ass long wide vehicule had a hood that disappeared into the distance. 4dr, 6cyl, perhaps 2 speed automatic, std steering – about 80 turns lock to lock , std brakes – which stopped eventually…Land yacht that made you appreciate just how tenuous life could be.
Our High school had a Chevy dealer for a sponsor. My dad had already taught me how to drive in parking lots in his ’68 SAAB 96, but a school sponsored drivers ed course was required to get a learners permit before you turned 17. The year I took drivers ed (75/76) I found the Novas were by far the best of a bad lot (Vega, Malibu, Impala and Novas). The first over the road drive with the instructor I put the instructor on the dashboard* as I learned that the tank like Impala had massive power brakes, and did not need the stomping the assist-less disc brakes the SAAB did to stop.
Funny thing 2 years later my sister (Dads 96’s clutch had by then taught 4 people to drive a manual so she learned to drive in my moms new Subaru GF, all 1.2 liters of it) Sprayed gravel all around in her first turn in the Impala as she discovered that an automatic on a big V8 did not need to be pegged in order to not stall starting on a hill. Maybe by then Mr Doepner had at least learned to wear a shoulder belt.
*(I was wearing belts, he was not)
Is this post on the way to the most comments posted about it on Curbside Classic? At 204 and rising it is the most I have seen. Maybe there are older posts that I am not aware of that have more comments. Inquiring minds would like to know. If not which one is?
576 is our record: https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/qotd-whats-in-your-fleet-the-great-cc-check-in/
We’ve had some others go over 300 and 200 is not that uncommon. But the sheer numbers of comments seems to be a bit less these days since I stopped writing GM Deadly Sins. It’s about time for another…..
I don’t remember what kind of car was used in actual driver’s ed class, which for me was a very small component of learning to drive. The first car on which I learned to drive was a beige 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit with a four-speed manual transmission and no options whatsoever (no power steering, no radio).
Learning to drive with a manual car made for a much steeper initial learning curve. Just when you’re trying to get the hang of steering and accelerating, you have:
“Okay, now you need to shift to second.”
“I need to what now?”
The car didn’t have a tachometer either, just some little dots on the speedometer and an upshift light that would come on if you opened the throttle more than a hair and glared at you disapprovingly until you finally shifted at some profligate speed like 2,500 rpm. (Which is to say that it was not completely useless, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.)
It was fun to drive, for all that, and it made driving automatic cars (which I’ve done only occasionally) seem very strange. However, to disillusion all of you who love the idea of driving a complete stripper with no extras to break, it was never that reliable, suffered several persistent and very annoying chronic issues that long mystified a very reputable mechanic, and was alarmingly expensive to repair even at independent shops. Also, I hope to never again have to deal with a car lacking even the most basic of radios.
I recall the upshift lights coming on for not opening the throttle far enough. They were connected to vacuum sensors in the intake manifold, so they could tell when you were accelerating more slowly than you would in next gear for a given throttle opening.
I learned to operate a manual gearbox on small motorcycles, so it was easy to transition to a car. The principles are the same, even if the shift pattern is different. Steering was learned on peddle-cars, go-karts and lawn tractors. Although I drove my first manual car at a very young age, I didn’t drive one on the range during driver’s ed. I saw driver’s ed as a formality. It was more important to complete the course with minimal irritation than to show off what I could do in a Chevette with a burned out clutch among the students with well-intentioned but misguided fathers who thought they should learn on a manual at the hands of a grumpy public servant. The range’s Chevette stank like a San Francisco cable car, such was slippage experienced by its clutch. I have memories of it jerking between stalls while its terrified drivers were screamed at from the tower over one-way radios we all had to listen to in our own range cars, but none of it circulating the range.
I’m not entirely sure if the Rabbit’s upshift light was triggered based on manifold pressure or what (and I certainly didn’t know back then), but in any event, its function was not to guide you to more efficient throttle settings, but rather to nag you to upshift at absurdly low engine speeds in whatever gear you happened to be in. Without a tach or a chart of speeds in gears, I couldn’t tell you precisely what shift point it recommended, but my guess would be around 2,000 rpm.
An actual vacuum gauge, or even a vacuum warning light that operated on the principle of “drive to keep the light off as much as possible for greater efficiency,” might have been genuinely useful, which this was not. Its main effect was to train you to shift twice before you cleared the intersection.
I’ve never driven a motorcycle and I didn’t even learn to ride a multi-speed bicycle until after learning to drive, so that wasn’t much help!
I remember VWs upshift lights as being horrendously unreliable.
I had 2 different VWs, an 82 Rabbit, and an 85 Jetta. The Rabbit bought almost new as a demo. The Upshift light quit a month after I bought it. Dealer fixed it, quit again, never bothered to fix it.
I bought the Jetta used, and didn’t even know it had one until it flashed on one day. Never came on again. So in 6 years of ownership, it came on once.
It worked in this particular car, although one of the other warning sensors (the low oil pressure warning buzzer) turned out to be the culprit in two of the car’s most persistent and annoying recurrent problems.
http://tech.bentleypublishers.com/thread.jspa?threadID=43872&tstart=-1
If it was me I would have installed a mechanical oil pressure gauge and disconnected all the other pony show bells and whistles. Forget about a light to tell you when to shift, IMHO if you can’t figure that out for yourself you have no business being behind the wheel of an automobile. Although somewhere in all my junk-err priceless vintage auto stash I have a NOS vacuum “Mileage Minder Light”.
Most cars back then didn’t have a tachometer, nor upshift-lights. Which was just fine, the sooner shifting gears became an all natural process, in any car with a manual you had to drive.
Ultra-strippo base models didn’t, certainly. A tachometer was typically optional, though, at a cost of around $60 U.S. (Since I haven’t gone in for base models, I’ve never owned a car without a tach, although I’ve also never owned a car without a radio, cruise control, or air conditioning.)
The upshift light, to be clear, was mostly about optimizing fuel economy on the contemporary EPA cycle, which is presumably why it was standard equipment even on an otherwise option-free Rabbit.
I think the first car I drove with a tachometer was my own 1995 Ford Escort 1.8i GT with a 5 speed manual.
By now all cars have those upshift lights. Even in cars with small naturally aspirated gasoline engines they tell you to upshift at ridiculously low revs, resulting in driving 50 to 60 km/h in 5th gear. You just feel and hear that the poor lil’ engine does not agree with that kind of nonsense. “Give me more revs please, more revs”.
Circa 1985: “in car” on actual streets was a beige Chevy Citation II with red velour. A scary, scary vehicle to merge onto I-40 in when you have been driving for about 10 minutes. “Range” driving for a few hours in a huge parking lot with painted intersections, RR tracks, fake pedestrians that pop up, etc., came before that. As I recall it was all Pontiacs. I lucked out and got a 6000, the most “normal” car there. A very small, petite female classmate got a Parisienne so she flunked the parallel parking test miserably! I think she re-did the test in a T-1000 and was fine.
My 16 & 17 y.o. kids report it’s now all older Taureses (Taurii?), the body before the current body, on the Range. In-car are W body Impalas.
Hello CC… long time listener, first time caller.
Very surprised to see no Chrysler K-cars represented here yet, considering their numbers. My Driver’s Ed car in 1983 was a Plymouth Reliant K wagon.
After perusing some brochures and online info to refresh memory, it was a fairly well optioned ’81 SE, brown metallic paint and tan interior. No power windows or locks or seats, but it did have A/C, AM/FM stereo, 14″ road wheels, cloth seats and DI-NOC delete. It also had the optional Mitsubishi 2.6 plant, which makes for a funny anecdote…
My main memories of DE were:
– The Reliant being a pleasant little beast, compared to the ’73 Super Beetle and ’78 Cutlass Supreme coupe I was cutting my teeth on at home (though I loved the Beetle, which was handed down to me eventually as my first car – and was too young to realize just what a dog the Cutlass was with its 260).
– I have no recollection of the other DE cars, other than there were 4 or maybe 5 in total, but the Reliant was the only Chrysler product, the newest of the bunch, and the only wagon. I never was in any of the other cars. I do remember that none of the cars had a manual transmission.
– All of our DE cars came from the local Chevrolet dealer’s used car lot, as was the case since our HS opened in 1966, and changed yearly. None of the cars had secondary brakes – at least mine didn’t.
– There were no memorable mishaps or shenanigans during DE – everyone was on their game. At least in my class.
– I’ve read in the comments of 4 or 5 kids to a car plus the instructor, but in my class, it was always student behind the wheel, instructor shotgun, and 3 students in the back seat.
– (This is how I determined after all these years the Reliant was an ’81) – While we were out in the high school parking lot being introduced to the range and the cars, a friend and I were goofing on the “HEMI 2.6” badges on the Reliant (which only appeared on the ’81 Ks with the 2.6) and verbally hoping we would get it to drive. Mind that this was during the Days of Malaise, and “That thing got a HEMI in it?” wasn’t a thing yet – but we were aware of Chrysler’s leveraging of the name based on the past.
Both my friend and I were confirmed bookworms, known (and disparaged) by the instructor, your typical manly man’s man football/basketball/Phys Ed coach – indeed, this guy had it in for me as I was second tallest in my class, and never went out for basketball. But now, here he was discovering we were gearheads – and both friend and I got a verbal warning about pulling any stunts (like a K car is capable of any). “I don’t need any lead foots ruining my day”, or something to that effect.
You’d think that Mr. Coach wouldn’t do anything to remind or encourage us – my friend did get assigned to a different car, but I got the Reliant, and Mr. Coach always addressed me as “Leadfoot” when it was my turn behind the wheel.
For all the hassle I endured from him (and that’s a longass story in itself), I think it was his way of offering an olive branch. I passed easily, and my visit to the DMV for the written and road test were non-eventful as well.
I’m not usually an online poster, but I have been following CC for a while now, and thinking about offering my services. I’ve only owned 13 cars since I started driving in 1983, but I did write about one of them here many moons ago, to serve as an example. Please forgive that it’s on the wacky vwvortex site – you’ll notice I only posted the one time. Also the formatting – vwvortex has been upgraded several times since I posted that, and it’s lost some paragraph breaks. (page 3 post #65 from drmcd if linky no worky.)
I have very much minutiae stored over the years – my grandfather was a mechanic and service manager for a Nash-turned-AMC dealership, my older brothers campaigned a couple drag cars in the 70s, and I was born in 1967 – so I’ve got a pretty expansive view on things automotive over the years.
I figured this CC topic was a good place to start posting – where else to start but about when I started to drive? But alas, it got long – Ima finish this beer and call it a night. Thanks for reading.
An Audi Q5 with a 2.O TDI and a manual gearbox.
Depends who the driving instructor was. John had a mid-aughts Pontiac Vibe, Lorrice had a Toyota Yaris sedan, Ronnie had a Ford Focus sedan (2nd Gen, US), and Mike had an early-mid-aughts Chevy Malibu/Classic (I can’t remember if it was pre-2004 or post-2004. The ‘Bu was by far the worst car of the bunch. It smelled like stale cigarettes (although that was probably the instructor’s fault), and the steering wheel shook like a Chihuahua when the car was stopped. All had automatic transmissions, as is expected in ‘Murican drivers ed circa 2014.
1963 full size Chevy 3-speed manual supplied by local dealer. Formal training wasn’t required in those days and I already had my license when I took the class to get a discount on insurance. The car was also used by the athletic department for hauling stuff to and from practice fields and I actually drove the car quite a bit before graduation. Extension bars allowed clutch and brake to be operated from the passenger side which enabled lots of fun pranks when two students were alone in the car.
I learned to drive in the pasture at home in a 1947 Studebaker Pickup when I was 10. The car I took drivers ed in when I was 15 was a 1962 Ford Galaxie with a 289 and three on the tree that was donated by Old Capitol Ford.
I reckon both were my driver ed vehicles.
1989 Plymouth Reliant LE America four door sedan. I still remember the first time I put my nervous hands on that steering wheel being able to legally drive on the streets finally.
If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I would choose the K in a heartbeat. With it’s boxy design and low trunk height, the visibility in that car was amazing and it really helped in taking out the horror of parallel parking. Also, that was the last year of that car design, so most of the kinks had been worked out by then (says my present self in hindsight) and the fuel injected 2.2 was quite a nice little muted growler.
I can’t profess enough love for the K-car. When my parents first bought that three year lease return, I rolled my 14 y/o eyes as my stomach churned. After it had proven its reliability and ability in the snow, as well as its comfortable velour seats with almost as much room as the M body it replaced, and its ability to drag a blown out tire for miles down the highway unnoticed (the tire got fixed by plugging the hole and we were back in business), I understood why some people considered the K-car a smashing success for Chrysler. I was hooked by then and had developed a fondness for a car that I never would have expected to.
I really do miss my Reliant that my parents eventually handed down to me, but also realize that it was what it was for the times and that in this day and age, to drive one would be — to me — like making a weird statement of oppositional defiance done in vain when “better” cars are widely available with no fundamental purpose in saving a company.
I still would like to drive a nice maroon late model LE with a balance shaft 2.5, A/C, floor shift, console dash, “loaded” version Reliant, however….
Yep, as Bryce said, no driver’s ed in New Zealand (although the idea was being discussed last week); most Kiwis are taught, for better or worse, by family/friends/independent instructors.
My first drive was in 1988 in my parents’ 1983 Ford Cortina – but it was traded on a 1985 Ford Sierra before I drove it a second time. Both the Cortina and Sierra were manual transmission, but I did some learning in my grandparents’ 1986 Ford Fairmont auto around the same time (I discovered the Fairmont’s speedo worked in reverse gear and commenced learning reverse slaloms through the thistles in the paddock outside the dining room window…oddly the Fairmont was excluded from my future learning experiences…)
There are some parts of the US that have “driver’s ed” before driver’s ed. Specifically in my home state of Michigan, parents will take their kids out on a dirt road (no cops) to “get a feel” for driving. The parent or parents will have the child start doing this around age 13-14, and the driving will be done in the parent’s DD. The parents will eventually have the kid do one or two drives a month until actual driver’s ed starts. I am speaking from experience from this one, and will readily tell you that everyone around here does this with their kids, even the licensed instructors themselves.
My “family” DE was my brother’s 67 Mercury Cougar (302 V8), 3 on the floor, hell of a clutch at 5AM in City Park (New Orleans). By this time, the love birds were gone and the NOPD was a snoozing.
Phase II was my sister’s Karman Ghia (40 HP) refining the art of the”California stop” (i.e.: rolling thru stop signs in order to maintain what little momentum was available).
Formal DE was a 83 Pontiac Catalina with 400 cid, 3 speed automatic. Being used to the stick shift, I nearly put the instructor and fellow riders thru the windshield when I attempt to shift to second gear and mistaken the brake pedal as the clutch!!! Needless to say, I was regulated to the back seat for the remainder of the program.
In Warren, PA 1961, our driver ed car was a 1961 Ford Falcon 4 door sedan. Automatic transmission of course with the anemic Ford 6 cyl engine. I was already used to driving our family 1956 Ford Ranch wagon with stick and Thunderbird V8 so the Falcon was no thrill for me but it was fun tooling around town during school hours with the teacher and two other students. The Falcon did seem a pretty solid smaller car if somewhat slow.
Oof, AAA driver’s ed! Mr. Brady (who had been the art teacher at my elementary school) taught in the classroom, and probably out on the roads as well, but I drew Mrs. Wilmoth and a thoroughly disagreeable Chevrolet Cadavalier for my on-road instruction time. That didn’t stop me taking my license test in my father’s (now my) ’62 Dodge, which dad had let me drive around the big, empty parking lot at Bonneville Dam in the middle of a road trip we took in it when I was 14 or so.
The year was 1998 (which makes me feel a little young) when I had received my learner’s permit. Driver’s ed at my high school was originally about $300, consisting of about 25 hours in class lessons and at least 10 hours behind the wheel. My instructor drove in from about an hour away from Barrie to Toronto. Our vehicle was a fully loaded 1998 Plymouth Voyager minivan- yes a minivan! It looked blue or was probably a color called Deep Amethyst Pearl. It had a column shifter and a foot pedal operated parking brake.
My first time behind the wheel was out on the road when it was dark outside and I never felt much of a difference between day and night thanks to this experience. Our classes were after school and it felt relaxing driving at night with the extra brake pedal that my instructor had installed on the passenger side. Later, since it was about Winter time, it got a bit trickier when there were huge snow banks on the sides of the road, along with slush at every turn. We even practiced doing an emergency parking brake stop in a snow covered parking lot. Drivers in Toronto appear to be a lot more careless now.
The van was hard to park and I was at a huge disadvantage because unlike the rest of the class, my dad wouldn’t allow me to practice driving with him until I had learned something from the course. More experienced drivers flew by the course, but in the end I just managed to get by. Of course I had even taken a few driving school classes in a black Mazda 323 which felt like a toy car in comparison. Later I had done most of my driving practice in my dad’s old two tone burgundy with silver bumpers V6 ’90 Pontiac Tempest (Canadian Chevy Corsica clone).
I learned to drive in a a early-2000ish Taurus in driver’s ed. At home I drove my mom’s 1998 Grand Voyager, the 2002 ML320 or my dad’s 2005 Taurus.
I drove the Voyager the most, since it was a few years old by then and wasn’t used by my mom as much. I was worried about getting into expensive fender bender on the Mercedes, especially at first. Dad’s Taurus (or the identical Taurus I used in driver’s ed) was a little small for my taste as someone who was (and is) big and tall.
Ironically, my first car was a 1997 Chrysler Concorde. It felt a bit more roomier (and more comfortable) than the Taurus even though they’re roughly of similar size.
Two cars: first one was a 2003 Chevrolet Cavalier two door, which I despised, and then a Ford Taurus at the same timeframe. Later, because I let my permit lapse, I had to retake the road test (can’t remember why) but I retook at in a 2005 Chevrolet Malibu.
The Malibu made me hate that generation forever. Horrible steering, awful dash texture, and being a 2.2 probably didn’t help anything. Made my first roadworthy vehicle seem like a speed demon, and I wouldn’t exactly call a 1991 Ford Explorer fast.
I got to train on a Chevy Nova (the boring Toyota Corolla version). Being even then a lover of old American cars, the bigger the better, I was a teenaged quiver of competing emotions: excitement to be driving vs dislike for the Japanese interloper hiding behind an American nameplate.
The driver’s ed films we watched in class were pretty cool, though. They were made by Shell and Ford in the 70’s and had all sorts of beastly cars featured.
Adult perspective has made me grudgingly appreciate the practical qualities of Corollas and their NUMMI brethren, but just thinking about them practically puts me to sleep!
A mauve ’96 Hyundai Excel (Accent in US).
The car was only about four years old at the time, but the manual shifter was that flogged out it was like using a wooden spoon in a mixing bowl to find gears.
Otherwise, I mostly learned in my Dad’s blue ’82 Holden VH Commodore, my Mum’s blue ’79 Ford XD Falcon or my mum’s partner’s fawn ’77 Mazda 323 (GLC); the latter later became my first car.
In the spring of ’77, we got a brand spanking new Pontiac Phoenix (nee Nova) 2-door sedan, orange with a tan painted top/interior. It was delivered to us for use without the Drivers Education signage, and we were finished with it before the signs even showed up. I went to a very small school in the country, and we were all very glad of that fact. I’d already been practicing on large cars (’67 Monaco, ’76 Grand Marquis, ’73 Lincoln Continental) for a while, so driving the Phoenix was a breeze. It was equipped with a V-8 (Pontiac or Chevrolet, I can’t recall) and a fair smattering of options — somewhere between a stripper and a loaded car. It helped make the learning experience an easy one.
Somewhere in the historical section of this site I did a post about my learning to drive it was in something most of you will have never seen live, A 1966 Austin Gipsy 4×4 SWB Hardtop pickup manual naturally.
Oh wow I’m going to piss off some Torino fans here, I’m sorry. It was a 1975 Gran Torino 4 door. I loathed that car. I know you could get handing packages and whatever to make them better but nobody did the in the midwest US. Going straight at 45 to 55 mph it was a smooth ride but it was a wallowing pig for braking and cornering. One weekend my instructor pulled up in a 75 Plymouth Gran Fury. It was a bigger car but the ergonomics, visibility and around town handling were worlds better. I really liked that car. Apparently the Torino was in for service or something. I think my instructor liked the Torino better. My heart sunk when it came back the next Saturday. Oh well, I had a ’65 Corvair Monza 4 door waiting for me at home when I got my license. Bonus!
Took driver’s ed in 1980 in a powder blue Plymouth Volare.
New 1987 Pontiac Grand Am sedan in black.
With the gorgeous blonde “T” as a driving partner,
I wanted the class to last forever.