Motor vehicles and personalities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the March 31, 2021 meeting of the Pioneer Toastmasters Club our Toastmaster, Melissa Towers, picked the theme What Do Vehicles Say About Our Personalities? Tons of articles have been written on that topic. As shown above, a red convertible sports car like the Jaguar E-type almost screams male midlife crisis.

 

Questions for Table Topics (the impromptu speaking section) also were about cars. One participant was asked what driving a hearse said about your personality. At the end of the meeting I commented it might only say you were very practical. Neil Young described that in his 2015 book, Special Deluxe: A Memoir of Life and Cars.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Winnipeg Neil and three other guys were in a rock band called the Squires. They started out borrowing his mother’s Standard Ensign four-door sedan to get to their gigs, but barely could fit. Then in the summer of 1963 Neil bought a 1948 Buick Roadmaster hearse he named Mortimer Hearseburg (or just Mort), similar to the 1951 model shown above. It had rollers meant for the coffins to slide in and out, that also worked well for loading their amplifiers and speakers. Driving around in Mort gave the Squires an identity which set them apart from other bands. Later on in Toronto he bought a 1953 Pontiac hearse which he drove to California with Bruce Palmer. Neil and Bruce wound up in a successful folk-rock band called the Buffalo Springfield.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How about a Cadillac limousine? My parents owned a black 1956 eight-passenger Series 75 (as shown above) back when my grandma was living with us in Pittsburgh. I have two brothers and two sisters, so eventually we outgrew our 1955 Chevy sedan. Mom was looking at getting an eight or nine passenger Chevy station wagon. But Dad saw an ad in the Sunday paper for a used Cadillac limo. He joked that mom should look at that instead. They did, and decided (like Neil’s hearse) it was a practical vehicle for us. The limo originally had belonged to General Matthew Ridgway. We were its fifth owner.  

 

Most of Mom’s sisters lived near Cincinnati, so we often did that ~300 mile drive. We typically stopped for gas southwest of Columbus, at Washington Court House. One time we heard locals, who assumed a black limousine meant a funeral, whispering Who Just Died?

 

When I was in sixth grade our elementary school science club was going to visit the Buhl Planetarium across town. One of the mothers had to cancel at the last minute. Mom just told the other six kids who would have rode with her to join us, and we crammed twelve into the limo.