The Steering Column: The road trip then vs. now
During my travels, countless Chevy Suburban and Ford Expedition SUVs blast by, their darkened windows pierced by the soft glowing light from multiple video screens.
Seeing this always makes me wonder: do kids even talk to each other when traveling these days? Do they play the same games and feel the same excitement I did? Would the average teen even get into a car without rear air conditioning vents, a Wi-Fi connection, power windows or captain’s chair seating? At 62, I still have fond memories of family road trips. I wonder how a technologically advanced generation would take to traveling without headphones, iPads and rear-seat entertainment systems.
Games people play
Every road trip begins with excitement and anticipation when you are a kid. Then, about a half-hour into the journey, the reality of the situation sinks in: you are stuck in a car with three or four siblings and nothing to do but stare out the window for hours on end. Long before Gameboys and iPads, kids had to find other ways to pass the time. Do you remember playing any road trip games, and would they still work today? These are just some of the games we played.
- Highway bingo: If your parents had the cash for power windows and cruise control, you were probably part of the lucky affluent who also got travel board games to take along on the trip. Auto Bingo, still available today, uses a card with 25 windows featuring pictures of everyday sights such as a barn, a police car or a gas station. Once in motion, the driver calls out items they spot. The players then find the corresponding picture on their board and mark it by closing a see-through red plastic slide. Prizes in our day could range from a Hershey bar with almonds to front seat privileges on the trip back.
- License plate game: The name is self-explanatory: find all 50 state plates, and you win. However, the game is not as easy as it first appears, as Hawaii and Alaska tend to be nearly impossible to find in the lower 48. The only thing worse is if you’re playing while traveling through Alaska and Hawaii, in which case the other 48 states are tough to find.
- Punch buggy: Bordering on sibling abuse by today’s standards, this popular game from the ‘60s and ‘70s requires only three things: an authentic Volkswagen Beetle (Fastback and Karmann Ghia models do not count), a closed fist and an unsuspecting sibling sitting within arm’s reach. The rules are simple. When you spot a VW bug, you gently punch an opposing player in the arm while shouting, “Punch buggy, no punchbacks.” The second part of the sentence is crucial to avoid a rapid counter punch using the same car as justification. A VW New Beetle might work as a substitute for today’s kids, or something like a Tesla Cybertruck might fill in.
- Alphabet game: The challenge with this game is finding all the alphabet letters using only road signs or billboards. No car names or license plates are allowed. The game usually hums along quickly until it requires harder-to-find consonants like X, Z and Q. East Coast kids have it easy thanks to bridges like the Tappan Zee and Verrazzano-Narrows just over the horizon. Still, mystified parents unfamiliar with the game might wonder why the back seat population keeps asking, “Are we getting close to New Mexico yet? I need an X!” Thankfully, Dairy Queen’s numerous billboards can fulfill the Q quotient, but the luckiest kids are those traveling out of Southern California on I-15, where they will pass an exit sign for a little town called Zzyzx.
That’s entertainment
Long before satellite radio, the only way to hear music while driving was either the car’s radio or a parent unsuccessfully attempting to re-create Frank Sinatra’s greatest hits. Back seat prisoners were subject to the whims of the driver and front passenger for both volume and content. Imagine how that would go down today: the kids wanting to hear Taylor Swift or Benson Boone, and all they get is Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand.
For those who could afford to splurge, an 8-track or cassette tape player allowed for more choice, although it was usually still mom and dad’s choice. And, before you go thinking, “Who couldn’t afford a tape deck in a car?” let me enlighten you about the realities of the times. In 1977, the typical cost of a GM factory cassette radio was around $350. That’s nearly $1,800 in today’s dollars when adjusted for inflation. The Greatest Generation didn’t get that way by splurging, so either music from the FM band accompanied most road trips or talk radio on AM. AM signals travel much farther than FM, so for trips of 300 or more miles, tuning to an AM station required less hunting around. The FM stations were a different story. Often, new cars came with a radio owner’s manual listing major radio stations in each state. This feature made it easy for the front-seat passenger, usually mom, to turn into the official tuning knob spinner as one station began to fade and another came in range. It was just one of the many titles afforded to her, alongside food distributor, exact-change toll coin preparer, map reader and referee. Try getting all that from Siri or Alexa.
Roadside attractions and other indignities
Long before fast food joints littered the highways, roadside attractions were the No. 2 reason for Dad to pull over and take a break (number one being the first). Spots like South of the Border, Wall Drug, Stuckey’s and Howard Johnson’s offered a place to get a meal, do a little shopping or maybe stay the night. Although many such places have disappeared, a few persist and are even making a comeback.
Thanks to the growing presence of chains like Buc-ee’s, today’s youth can still share one commonality with their parents and grandparents: a place to load up the car with junk food and knickknacks.
NASA, we have liftoff!
Big American cars from the past had super soft suspensions, so much so that encountering even the slightest bump or dip in the road resulted in a funhouse-like bounce that went on for a few seconds. Dads of the day knew how to optimize this engineering oversight and quickly thrill the family. All that was required was a wavy country road and the ability to head for the hill with the biggest drop. A few seconds of zero-g and a propensity never to wear back seat lap belts turned the family County Squire Wagon into an Apollo space capsule, if only for a few seconds.
Comfort takes a back seat
We take power windows and air conditioning for granted today, but there was a time when both were considered luxury items, even on full-size family cars. Anyone who remembers the pain of crawling into a car baking in the hot August sun wearing Levi’s shorts and a tank top will tell you it wasn’t pretty.
Only a descendant of Torquemada would design a family wagon without air conditioning, apply no tint to the acres of glass and adorn all three rows of bench seating with vinyl upholstery. Even more puzzling, what kind of sadistic parents would buy such a car?
If you were lucky enough to have AC, only the front-seat passengers could enjoy it. That’s because old cars did not have rear-seat air vents. Ill-informed parents of the day simply compensated for the lack of cooling by lowering the rear tailgate window, exposing the rear-facing occupants to a healthy dose of exhaust fumes. Maybe that’s why long road trips were also so quiet.
Joe Tralongo is an automotive writer for Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, based in Missoula, Montana. He has been covering the automotive industry since 2000.
The Steering Column is a weekly consumer auto column from Cox Automotive. Cox Automotive and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution are owned by parent company, Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises.
