It all started with this picture. It had come around with some bit of advertising or another and reminded me – a lot – of a 1950 Chevy my dad drove when I was a little kid. I took the picture to social media to see if anyone could provide a proper year for the picture. The consensus was 1942, before production stopped for the war.

The 40s estimates make perfect sense. The starter is on the floorboard, for one. Dad’s had a chrome button on the dash. Before relays got cheap enough the floor switch was a necessity. Of course, the floor switch was actually a lever arrangement that actuated a ‘Frankenstein’ switch behind the firewall that could handle the amperage needed to run the starter.

So one day dad and I were headed out somewhere. The car was backed into the driveway, facing the street. WTF – or the 3-4 year old me’s equivalent of WTF – I thought, and asked if I could drive. I guess I figured it’d be easy, facing the street and all. Way easier than backing out. To my surprise he said ‘sure’ and dropped the keys in my little hand.

He got out, walked around, got in the passenger side while I scooched over behind the wheel. I could barely reach the pedals, perched on the edge of the seat.

I put the key in the ignition, like I’d seen him do a brazillion times. One hand on the wheel, the other stretched toward the magic starter button on the dash… and pressed.

And nothing happened.

I pressed again and again, but nothing happened. Major disappointment.

He probably said something to the effect that maybe I wasn’t ready quite yet. We switched seats again.

He gave the key a twist, hit the starter button, and the engine fired.

And there I learned that you had to twist the damned key, not just stick it in the slot.

Dad wasn’t worried, and rightly so. There were no safety interlocks or anything of the kind in that car. Anyone competent with a manual transmission knows you always leave it in gear when parked. Had I worked the key properly and hit the button there would have been a jolt of movement that likely would have brought my finger off the button. Even if not, there’s no way the starter motor would’ve been able to fire the engine under load. I didn’t know what a clutch was, I couldn’t hardly reach the pedal, let alone press it to the floor.

I never did get to drive that car. Like I said earlier, I was only around 5 or so when dad got rid of it.