There was much fanfare when India introduced its new $2500 car - the Tata Nano. It is a very small car that has a 2 cylinder engine and can hold 5 people tightly. It gets 50 miles per gallon - has no air conditioning - and a miniature wheel and tire on each corner.
It reminds me of a car that Lulu and I bought back in 1972 - a car that was ahead of its time. It was the Honda 600 Sedan.
In 1972 - I had just finished my second year of teaching - and Lulu was entering college. We needed a small car for her 80-mile round trip commute to Kutztown State College.
When I started teaching - I was making about $6000 a year. That June - my school district paid me all my summer salary at once - $1500. We were in hog heaven - we never had that much money before.
Lulu and I went to Philadelphia with the intention of buying a new car. Believe it or not - the first car that Honda marketed in America cost only $1525 - this was even before the Civic.
You guessed it - we plopped down our cash and bought a brand new yellow 1972 Honda 600 Sedan. It was really ahead of its time. It had a 2 cylinder air-cooled engine with 4 speed on the dashboard. It held 5 people and had 10 inch wheels and tires - one pushed all the way to each corner. It only held 6 gallons of gasoline - but one could easily go 300 miles on a tank. At the time you could fill the tank with $1.50.
After getting home from purchasing the first new car we bought together - we realized we were going to have to earn some money to live on for the rest of the summer.
We decided to drive our new car to Miami, Florida - a mere 1300 miles away. We had honeymooned in Miami the year before and planned to re-live that wonderful summer.
It was a hot June day - as we cruised south without air conditioning - but that didn't bother two kids in the spring of their lives - Lulu in March - Me in May.
South Beach was different then - the hotels were run down and occupied by senior citizens paying rents that ranged from $50 to $60 a month. When we tried to get a room there - even though we had newspaper ads in hand - the rooms were not available to newlyweds. We ended up in a small apartment in a home in downtown Miami just off Biscayne Avenue. The landlord wanted $125 but settled for $70 a month. We were Miami residents at least for a month.
Lulu got a job at KMart announcing the Blue Light Specials. I went to the Honda dealer to buy an oil filter - and they offered me a job - selling Hondas. After a month that included attending both the Democratic and Republican Conventions - we got homesick and returned to the Hills. We returned to the Valley richer than we departed. Lulu became a freshman at Kutztown State and I returned to teaching at Panther Valley.
Pictures - the red car is the Tata Nano - the yellow car is the 1972 Honda 600.
Honda stopped selling the Honda 600 the next year - federal safety standards prevented it - so they introduced the Civic.
The Tata was designed to be a car for the masses in India similar to the Model T in America. It is a bare bones car hoping to get people off their bikes and into cars. For that wonderful summer - our Honda 600 got us to Miami on $8.00 of gasoline - 1300 miles away.
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