Re: anybody ever seen one of these?

Posted by Rusty O\'Toole On 2010/7/23 16:24:41

Tips were rare, but so were Cadillac driving customers who expected a full service with a tank of gas.

Regular was 45.9 cents a gallon, most customers bought $2 worth. Once in a while $5 at a time, on payday and summer weekends you got "fillerups" which might cost $10 or more.

We offered to check oil and clean windshields. Occasionally someone would ask to have the tire pressure checked but usually because one tire was down.

Mr. Cadillac wanted EVERYTHING checked, and the tires carefully inflated to factory specs. It took 20 minutes to sell him a tank of gas.

The only thing he did not want was the windshield cleaned. The windshield was always spotless like the rest of the car.

Once he was assured everything was in good shape and the tank full of gas he would go motoring carefully off the lot and up the hiway at exactly 50 mph.

As I say I only saw the car once or twice a year and only on clear summer days. He must have kept it in the garage because I never saw it parked on the street or in a driveway. I think the owner lived in the old part of town in a neighborhood of 2 story brick houses built around 1880 to 1900. At least that is where I usually saw it.

The sort of neighborhood inhabited by successful businessmen and professionals back in the Model T days. The kind of place you expected to see Buicks and Chryslers more than Cadillacs.