Rolling back time: when cars had character

CALL it age, call it sentimentality, but I’ve always had a soft spot for stories of yesteryear.

- YOGIN DEVAN

My daughter, very much a child of the modern age who lives in a world of streaming playlists, smartphones and instant everything, chides me for too often harking back to the way things were.

“Boring Pa; you’ve told me this story so many times before,” is her recurrent refrain.

But in a fast-paced, often stressful world, looking back offers mea mental escape. Revisiting the past feels safe and familiar compared to the uncertainty of the present. For me there’s something irresistible about recalling the satisfying click-click of a rotary phone, the rhythmic clatter of a typewriter that accompanied my first steps into journalism, or the ritual of rewinding a cassette tape with a pencil.

Recalling these stories aren't just entertainment; they're little time machines that carry us back to moments when life felt slower, warmer and somehow more vivid. They remind us of where we’ve come from, and in doing so, they add richness to where we are today.

Thus, when my friend Jay Naidoo from Melbourne, Down Under, sent me photos of his family’s old cars from decades ago when he lived in Asherville, the inspiration for this column flowed effortlessly. Nostalgia has a way of sneaking in through the smallest details - whitewall tyres, the sweeping fin tails of a Chevy, and gleaming chrome hubcaps — not just car parts, but statements of an era and symbols of pride and personality on four wheels.

Thinking back about cars of yesterday stirs feelings, connects generations and sparks memories of people who have passed on, and places long forgotten. My earliest recollection of a vehicle is a dark green International KB lorry — we never heard the word “truck” then — that was owned by my paternal uncle. It was used to carry bananas from our farm to the market. When I was growing up in Cavendish - a part of old Chatsworth — most farmers owned the International KB series lorries, and almost all were painted a dark green and had a wooden load bin.