Teaching someone to drive a 55 Pat.

Posted by Craig Hendrickson On 2016/2/27 16:35:54

Background:
I have a female roomate/friend/ex-wife#3 living with me now. She moved out to NV from TX in mid-Sept 2015 without incident driving a U-Haul truck the 1,100Mi distance over 3 days. Unfortunately, 12 hours after safely arriving, she broke her left ankle (distal ends of the tibia & fibula). You don't ever want to do this if you value your mobility. She was in the hospital in Vegas for two weeks and a rehab facility in Vegas for four weeks, finally getting her cast off 2 months after her injury. It's taken her another six weeks to get good mobility back. She also finally got her NV DL.

Current situation:
I'm tired of driving her around in my 55 Pat (only car I have currently derivable), even though it's not that often. So, I agreed to let her drive Pat on her own if she was properly instructed and practiced. Her attitude was "Hey, it's just a car, how hard can it be? I've been driving for XX years." We all know that mid-50s cars are not the same as modern cars, particularly Packards. The earlier you go, the more difference there is. Besides, as I told her: "A Packard is not merely a car (essentially an appliance), it is an AUTOMOBILE."

So today I gave her lesson #1 which was a "classroom" situation. This lesson was given by me while she was siting in the driver side front seat. You can imagine how that went, particularly discussion about Packard-unique controls like the T-L switch (also a manual control in my case) or unique things on my Pat like the re-positioned brake pedal. I also gave her a genuine 1955 Packard "Owner's Manual" for a reading assignment. There will be a verbal quiz later with lesson #2 tomorrow.

This may seem pedantic and perhaps extreme to some, but it's the way I'm doing it. She doesn't mind because the reward is large enough for her to put up with any perceived BS by me.

My question for you guys is: What have you done when teaching someone how to drive your Packard?

Craig