The Superior Express -

Richard Schmeling, a frequent contributor to this newspaper sent a story about his Aunt Freda and slip-on seat covers she installed on her new Pontiac with the expectation when it came time to trade-in the car. it would be worth more.

His story sparked memories of things I have added to my vehicles. I started to do so in grade school when my vehicle was a bicycle. The first thing I added was a rear view mirror so I could see what was behind me without turning my head. I really liked the mirror and was heart broken when I broke it.

I had gotten off the bicycle to pick up a discarded pop bottle. The bike started to fall over and I grabbed to catch it. Instead, I smacked and broke the mirror with the pop bottle. A replacement mirror cost 39 cents which meant I had to find and pickup 20 pop bottles before I had enough money to buy a new mirror. That was a nearly impossible task for my friend Ron scavenged the highway near my home on an almost daily basis. It was a real challenge to beat him to a bottle.

Now it would be impossible for soft drinks no longer come in returnable bottles. Without pop bottles to collect, how do today’s youngsters earn spending money?

I also added tassels to my handle bars and clipped baseball cards to the spokes so my bicycle had “engine noise.” The headlight I added to a bicycle still hangs in my garage. Today’s LED lights are much brighter and easier to power than my old light which quickly drew the “juice” from size D batteries. Because of the battery cost, I seldom used the light. That was probably good because Highway 14 is not a safe place to ride at night and with a working light I may have been tempted.

My father didn’t like seat covers. When his 1949 Ford arrived in Superior, it was the first post-World War II designed Ford to reach the dealership and Floyd Andersen offered to install a free set of seat covers if Dad would let the dealership display the vehicle for a few days.

Dad agreed and the off-white, two-door Ford V-8 was displayed in the building Jeff Guilkey now has his shop in. I remember the night Dad got to drive the Ford home. I was an excited three-year-old when the new Ford was brought up from the basement where the seat covers were installed.

The covers were made of stiff plastic. Cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Dad regretted having accepted the offer and never again added seat covers to a new vehicle, preferring to first wear out the factory covers.

I have never installed seat covers on a vehicle of mine but I helped install covers on customer vehicles at my father’s gasoline station. Many of the covers came with what we called hog rings. They were metal clips that were supposed to anchor the covers in place. Dad had a special tool which bent the clips into place.

I asked about the unusual name for the clip and was told they were only good for putting into a hog’s nose. I can’t attest to that as I was never tempted to put one of the rings in the nose of a hog.

At the gasoline station, we regularly received a catalog of automobile accessories from the Warshawsky Company. I assumed it was a big and successful company because the cover page included a picture of an industrial complex with a water tower. The Warshawsky name appeared to be painted on that tower. that was proof enough for me to consider the Warshawsky to be a great company with good products.

I studied every page and after getting my own automobile ordered items I expected would improve my vehicle.

The old cars I had lacked many of the more modern gadgets found on the more recent vehicles.

For example, my first vehicles didn’t have windshield washers so I ordered kits and installed the third rate washers. A cable ran from the fluid bottle in the engine compartment. I had to drill a hole in the dash and mount a plunger knob. When I wanted to squirt fluid on the windshield, I had to quickly pull the knob in and out with the hope it would create enough pressure to wash the windshield. The system seldom worked.

I thought cars with rear view mirrors mounted on each fender looked cool and would be safer to drive. If big trucks had west coast mirrors, why shouldn’t cars have aet least two fender mirrors?

I drilled the required holes and mounted twin mirrors. I may have had the only vehicle in Superior with three outside mirrors. Two on the fenders and the factory installed mirror on the door.

I wanted cruise control so, I checked the catalog. The first kit was not much more than a throttle. A knob could be adjusted to feed a constant flow of gasoline to the carburetor. When the cruise control was in use, the car accelerated past the speed limit when going down hill and then slowed to a near crawl when going up a steep hill as the amount of fuel reaching the engine was constant.

A later kit had me gluing magnets to the drive shaft. The glue wasn’t much good and when the magnets fell off, I no longer had cruise control.

I liked to fish and trouble keeping minnows alive in the metal pails. so I cut into the line which powered the vacuum windshield wipers and used the vacuum to aerate a minnow bucket which rode on the floor board in front of the passenger seat. The minnows didn’t know to appreciate my addition and in spite of my help they still died.

Wanting to go further was less gasoline, I installed a fuel miser device. It didn’t extend the mileage but it may have increased the vapor lock frequency.

Cool cars came with mud flaps and I installed them. Don’t see many of those today, apparently guys no longer consider mud flaps cool.

One steering wheel spinner wasn’t enough, I installed two spinners so I had one for whichever hand I chose to drive with. I have a spinner taking up space in my desk drawer. I removed the well used spinner from a vehicle before selling it. Expected to reinstall but I’m told spinners are no longer a legal accessory.

Before seat belts were standard, I installed seat belts. In most cases, I had to drill holes in the floor boards and install a plate on the underside of the car through which a bolt was inserted. To my surprise, a 1957 Rambler came with the anchors already installed. I just had to cut though the floor mat, remove a plug and insert the bolt.

Usually seat belts were bought in pairs but once I had only one and installed it in the driver’s position. A girl who sometimes rode with me said if I really cared about her I would have installed a second belt for her.

I didn’t think fast enough to have a good reply but my father suggested I should have told her I was waiting to see where she sat before installing the belt.

When I was in high school, it was common for a guy’s girl friend to snuggle up close making what my mother called a “two headed driver.” Today’s seat belts and bucket seats have put more distance between the guys and their girls.

Once I dressed an automobile by installing chrome strips on the side panels. It was the only car around so dressed.

One evening I encountered a man who was stressed because his automobile wouldn’t start. He asked if I would take a look at. When he pointed out the vehicle, I knew exactly what to do. The unusual chrome was the clue. He was driving my former car.

He offered me the key to the ignition but wanting to have some fun with him I refused. Instead I stuck my pocket knife into the ignition switch, reached under the dash to wiggle a lose wire and then started the vehicle.

In amazement he asked how I knew that trick.

Rather than keep him wondering, I replied I had driven the vehicle more than 100,000 miles and since it frequently refused to start I had learned a few tricks.

While I generally ordered my gizmoes from the Warshawsky company catalog, the J C. Whitney catalog was more common. I have since learned both companies were owned by the same company. After first putting his name on the company, the founder decided the company would do better with a more American sounding name and thus the J. C. Whitney catalog came into being.

Eventually, the company was sold, fell onto hard times and no longer exists.

Part of the hard times may be attributed to changing vehicles. With all their plastic and electronics, I suspect it is harder to accessorize a modern vehicle.