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Back in the day when you didn't have all the fancy test equipment to tell what was wrong with your engine.
How about this simple spark tester?
Wes

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My how times have changed, junior rides in your lap while driving down the road with a warm bottle ready.
Oh it looks like a 41 dash. PM July 1947
Wes

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Those were the days. I remember as a child my brother standing in the middle of the front seat and I being usually relegated to the back seat, sitting on the arm rest in middle of the rear seat. Usually whoever was driving would reach over to make sure the standing one would not fall forward when a stop was planned. I also remember them neglecting that duty a few times at sudden stops and my brother getting up close and personal with the dash and me with the floor. Should that be tried now the parental units would probably be jailed for child endangerment or neglect.

Howard, I remember laying in the back window, we're talking two adults and four boys in one car.
Wes

I remember me as child sitting in a swivel armchair on an open load bed of a four ton truck while driving on the autobahn.


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A car without power steering and a relaxed mother with no hand at the wheel but the arm deep through the steering wheel spokes make me believe that this picture was taken while having a short break.

Yeah Wes, I too remember that back window 'perch' in my Dad's '53 Merc!! LOL We had a summer cottage in a really small resort town in BC and the gravel road to it was so windy and steep that people would venture over it and be afraid to drive back. I learned to drive on that road sitting in my Dad's lap with him operating the pedals until I got 'long' enough to reach them! Crazy what was 'normal' back then, eh?!?!?!?

I remember driving on my father's lap, steering the 1951 Ford (and later 1957 Ford) while going between my hometown of Vallejo, CA and nearby Benicia. I was a little older than the boy in the photo as I could see out. The rear shelf was for the dog, Nickie, on family trips back and forth between Vallejo and Sacramento after we moved there or to Folsom Lake for skiing on weekends. The 1957 Ford was my car in high school even though I also owned a 1939 Packard Six when I was 16 years old.

Yes, the things we did back in the days,but today with the speeds and so many cars out there. I'm looking forward to the self driving cars since I believe most people can't drive and are in too big of a hurry or maybe it's because the cars are so much easier to drive fast and people get in over their head.
My two cents!
Wes

Careful what you hope for there, Wes - it's like that Lexus ad that shows the guy high-flying in an exotic sports model and then shows him later with gray hair, being transported in a self-driving car, and the slogan is 'do it while you still can'!! I wonder if we'll see a time in our lives when human driving disappears? We'd have to go to some park or private track to 'play' in our vintage vehicles?!!? Heck, procuring gasoline might even become a big deal in our lifetimes, yet! Chris.

Me in '43 with dad stationed in Topeka KS in an office job after passing out from heart failure during basic training. Was a lawyer, but volunteered as many young men did and entered as a private in the Army Air Corps (pre-USAF). Later he applied to OCS, but his heart flunked the physical and he received a medical discharge. 1939 Plymouth 4-door convertible we had until 1948, which went to my cousin Georgie. Note the winter grille cover.

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