It was the 1970s, and my uncle was behind the wheel. His 1969 Cadillac Convertible was a true land yacht. Long and red, it easily carried eight of us through the streets of downtown Detroit.

Not one person noticed us.

Drive down the street today in a 1969 Cadillac Convertible and everyone notices. Do it in downtown Detroit today and you likely won’t make it home.

Cars used to be fun to drive. They had their own identity. And their identity rubbed off on your own.

If a Chrysler came down the road, you knew it was a Chrysler. The same was true for a Ford, Chevy, or Oldsmobile. Now, all cars look the same. Boxes with wheels.

On a hot summer day in 1978, the back half of me was hanging out of the passenger side of my 1972 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, while the front half was wedged under the dash. I’d saved enough to put new 6×9 speakers in the back deck and was hooking them up to my new, in-dash 8-track AM/FM radio.

My sister came out of the house and, for whatever reason, took a picture of me. Whenever I run across it I remember what cars were like then.

In Ashdown, Arkansas, every teenager was known for what they drove. I was an Oldsmobile guy. Doug drove a Pontiac. Scotty had a Ford. Kirk preferred Chevrolets. You spotted each of them from a long way away.

Flashing your lights meant, “Meet me in the Pizza Hut parking lot.” For those who’ve never known a world without a cell phone, there was a time when people found ways to communicate without them. Blinking your headlights was one of those options.

Pasture parties were the preferred way to spend time en masse with friends. Usually, it was a friend’s parents’ out-of-town property, and often they did not know we were using it. Few nefarious things went on. The worst was typically beer and cigarettes.

But the cars of the era were central to this type of American teen activity. Most of the vehicles we drove were over a ton of rolling Detroit steel. So you could recline on your hood and windshield, stare at the stars, and discuss the virtues of the new albums by Led Zeppelin, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, or AC/DC.

Whoever arrived to the party first usually controlled the music. Their choices normally ruled the remainder of the evening.

If you wanted to start an argument, you’d claim your favorite band was the best. Often, the discussion would lead someone to slide off the hood of their car, dig through the tape box in the back seat, and insert a different selection in their tape deck and crank it up.

This is where those 6×9 speakers in the back became important. If their sound system was louder than yours, you lost. They could drown out what you had playing, which meant you lost your dominance, even if you’d arrived first and had been controlling the tunes.

If we were taking a road trip, vehicle selection boiled down to room and comfort. Whoever had inherited their grandmother’s station wagon, Chrysler Imperial, or Mercury Grand Marquis was almost always chosen as the driver. We’d all pitch in on gas, but the larger more comfortable car was the winner.

Sure, we’d have preferred to be seen in a Cutlass, Firebird, Chevelle, or Mustang, but those held fewer friends and, with the exception of the Cutlass, never road as well as a car that was so long and heavy, it almost had to be taken to an airport to turn it around. And, if you’re out of town, you almost never ran into anyone you knew, so you didn’t feel the need to be riding in a cool car.

Summer trips to Lake DeGray for swimming and boating, a drive to Hirsch Coliseum in Shreveport for a concert, or an excursion to the Dallas area to go to Six Flags were common. And the cars we drove were important to where we went.

Few foreign cars, save the occasional Volkswagen, were around. We all worked on our own cars, so even if they’d been available, it’s doubtful any of us would have selected one. They were metric. And all we knew about metric was that our third grade teacher had told us we’d all be using the metric system by the time we were exiting high school.

What did happen is cars have changed. And in my opinion, not for the better. Cars today are small with little identity. You can’t tell one from the other when they’re coming down the road.

But you can a red 1969 Cadillac Convertible. And we still aren’t on the metric system.

 

© 2026 John Moore

John’s new book, Write of Passage: Volume 3, is available on Amazon. Write to John at TheCountryWriter.com.