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In the year 1900 there were only ten miles of paved road in the United States. Today, there are two million miles of paved roads and streets!

Unlike early drivers, you don’t have to consider whether or not a road exists to your destination. You just get out the map, plot your course and take off. You can make a quick trip downtown, head out to the seashore or up to the mountains. Hit the interstate and you can visit your uncle in Kalamazoo, Michigan, see Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, or visit Disney World in Orlando, Florida. You never run out of road!

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Cars are everywhere you look. All kinds of models are available from VW Bugs to sports cars, sedans, station wagons, and limousines. They all come with standard features that we take for granted like a gas gauge. And the colors! You can see a crayon box full of colors ranging from quiet beige or silver all the way to boisterous yellow or screaming lime green.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in the early 1900s when Henry Ford first started producing cars in the United States, he only offered one color, black. His first car was the “Model A” and in 1908 he introduced a new and improved version called the “Model T.” Because Ford used lightweight sheets of metal for the car’s body, the Model T was nicknamed “Tin Lizzie.”

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The First Tow Trucks:

Imagine the year 1915. The Model T Ford is a wonderful new invention. There aren’t very many of them around yet, the roads are still rough and bumpy and drivers aren’t very experienced. You are standing at the edge of Old Byrd’s Mill Road just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, when you see a Tin Lizzie (nickname for the Model T) headed your way.

The driver, John Wiley, jerks the wheel to avoid a bump, but he miscalculates and the car’s new trajectory sends it careening down the opposite bank and into Chickamauga Creek. Stunned, but safe, Mr. Wiley asks you to get help. You know that there is only one auto repair shop in Chattanooga and the owner, Mr. Holmes, is the only mechanic. Fast like the wind, you run to town and back to the river with help in no time flat. Attaching a rope to one end of the car, it takes Holmes and 6 other men, 8 hours to pull the car out of the river!

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Well, the secret is out and Trevor Tow Truck is on the scene! You probably know that Trevor and his tow truck buddies really are everyday heroes! If a car is broken down on the freeway they’ll pull it out of harms way and provide the needed gallon of gas, mount the spare tire or jumpstart the dead battery on the spot. And if they can’t fix the car, they’ll tow it to a repair shop. But that’s not all.

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At the beginning of the 1900s there simply were no fire trucks. The combustion engine hadn’t been invented yet and the only horsepower available was the genuine horse variety. Horses pulled the wagons that carried water barrels and the essential water pump. The fire hoses were on a separate cart pulled by very strong men! Both horses and men ran at top speed to the conflagration!

The first cars came off the assembly line in 1908 and in 1913 the first motorized Fire Engine was created. Now the water, water pump, hoses and firemen could all be speedily transported together to the fire.

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Have you seen the new Chevron Cars ad with the Drive-In Movie Theater? Have you ever been to a Drive-In movie? If you’ve been to one, you know that the family piles into the car on a summer night and heads to the outdoor movie theater.

The screen looms up, huge against the dark night sky and your family pulls the car up to a parking slot. After picking up some popcorn at the concession stand and placing the speakers in the car window, you are ready to sit back and enjoy the movie. Or if it’s really hot, you and your family sit outside the car on the camp chairs you brought along, leaving the speakers on their poles to project the movie sound.

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By now everyone knows about the lovable Chevron Toy Cars. But there are some avid collectors out there that have continually inquired on Chevron’s other toy collection, and this little article is for all of you.

This classic truck collection is manufactured by Lledo of London. The series of models has become more collectible and valuable over the years. The most recent trucks produced are: a 1930 Model A Refinery Bus, a 1935 Ford V-8 Semi Truck and Trailer, and a 1939 Chevrolet Panel Van. You can usually find some of the Lledo Die Cast Chevron Cars at an online auction site such as eBay.