My first wife went to the University of Maryland in College Park for several years as a graduate student and a commuter. We were married with children at the time and it was a very long ride on a regular basis.
She had a Datsun 510 sedan which was great on gas mileage, which she used for the trip.
We purchased the car when we moved to Kansas City for a year, as the result of our VW bus needing too much repair work to make it sensible to take to Missouri with us. So I am guessing it was a 1974 Model.
One night she was returning home, a trip of close to 40 miles, when the gauges showed she was overheating. Now, I loved the fact we had gauges in that car as opposed to little lights, because I had an actual picture of what was going on inside the engine.
What I didn’t know was she would have responded better to the little lights, the thing I found out about too late.
As she entered the highway she noticed the engine was running hot. Her immediate reaction was to drive fast down then highway making the cold air rush over the hot engine and cooling it off. This of course, in hindsight, was a big mistake. She talked about it afterward and explained that if we had little lights she would have stopped.
In those days before cell phones, it was much more difficult to stop as there was no way of knowing that some “normal” person would stop and help you.
She continued until she reached the city and stopped at the first service station she saw.
The car was fried! The radiator, it turned out, had melted it’s welds and the engine finally seized. It was hot beyond hot and it was amazing she made it that far.
I had a friend from teaching who was involved with the shop areas of a high school, and the car took a trip to a local high school, and after a few weeks it came back repaired at a reasonable cost.
I am not clear on all the details; it was just a matter of those little lights….
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