<VV> Wipers, was: English> hardtop thread

[airvair]

My dad once had a '54 Chevy with the standard stovebolt 6, powerslide, 
and vacuum wipers. Talk about a deadly combination! It was the kind of 
car that you had to stand on the gas to pull away from the curb. VW 
beetles could blow its doors off. It only had two throttle positions, 
idle and floorboard. In a rainstorm, the way you got anywhere was to 
stand on the gas til you couldn't see anymore, then let off so the 
wipers would beat furiously, then stand on it some more, etc.

He loved the car so much that he made me drive it to college. I hated 
it. Took me a couple of months to scrape up enough to go buy my first 
Corvair, so maybe it served its purpose.

BTW VW's ran the wipers off the spare tire air pressure. Bazzare!

-Mark

Alan and Clare Wesson wrote:

> And there was no problem with non-functioning wipers with it open (you 
> just peered out through the open gap at the bottom) - and they didn't 
> really function at all, not because they were Lucas, but because they 
> were American Trico vacuum ones like on 50s Chevs etc., with the 
> difference that on 30 hp there was seldom enough vacuum to make them 
> work.
>
> It might seem amazing to you that in the country where Lucas are 
> based, it's American windshield wipers that people joke about - 
> strange, but true.
>
> (;-)
>
> Cheers
>
> Alan