For readers of a certain age, this item will bring back memories of high school Drivers Education class. It seems old school and very analog today, but for 50+ years, these driver training simulator machines were in high schools and other classrooms across America as well as Europe. Here’s a Mopar version featuring a 70’s-era sporty woodgrain steering wheel, steering column, a 1970 Dodge truck woodgrain instrument cluster, and a seat from a Dodge A100 van. We’ve never featured one of these on Barn Finds before. As close as we’ve come was in 2021 when we featured a super-cool flight simulator for a 1967 Learjet 24D, complete with a custom 22-foot trailer. This most unusual garage or museum piece is located in Fairmount, Georgia, and is for sale here on eBay for $4,800 or best offer. Howard A. deserves an “A” for spotting this classroom classic and sending it to us.
Visually, the simulator appears to be in very good shape as the turquoise paint (I bet these were never painted in racing red) and “youth-oriented” white stripe look great and the black vinyl bucket seat isn’t showing any noticeable wear. All it needs is to have the turquoise carpet cleaned. The seller also tells us that the simulator has both manual and automatic gearshift mechanisms, accelerator, brake, and clutch pedals, a turn signal switch, headlamp switch, emergency flashers, and dual mirrors.
A little online research revealed that the development of driver simulator machines for classroom instruction was the idea of the Aetna Insurance Company. Aetna partnered with Singer (the sewing machine company) to develop and introduce the Drivotrainer in the early 1950’s as shown in the photo above . The goal was to make the simulator experience as real as possible to driving an automobile (with some simulators having engine noises and even a bouncing seat). These stationary simulators faced a large screen at the front of the classroom and students reacted to pre-recorded films of various driving scenarios. The Drivers Education teachers could monitor and record each simulator in real time, so it was in the student’s best interest to sit up straight, pay attention, and keep their eyes on the road, err, screen. People collect all kinds of car memorabilia out there. Who knows, maybe there’s a Mopar fan who’d like this keepsake or a museum out there that would like to display this. So, what do you think? Did you spend time in a driver simulator like this when you were in high school and learning to drive?
3 pedals ✔️ Save the manuals !
Cool find Howard 👍 thanks Ron.
Been listed before and was a no-sale. What we used at our school was these in a mobile home like classroom – there were two rows of about 10 if I remember……did it on summer vacation in maybe 1970….1971 ?
I took Driver’s Ed in a 65 Chevrolet Bel Air. Having learned to drive in an Austin-Healey, I found the Chevy, with its automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes, easy to drive if somewhat intimidating size-wise. This simulator would have been a breeze….
Surprised I remember it, as I was in the class only one day. The instructor thought my driving skills were acceptable, though he wasn’t fond of either trail-braking or powering out of corners, both of which my father taught me.
Wish I could afford this. It’d be a real conversation starter! In a way, it’s also the great-grandaddy of the simulators race drivers use, isn’t it?
Great find Howard and a nice write up Ron ! I remember drivers ed in the parking lot at school but not sure of the simulators. With all the techno stuff around now you could really have fun with this.
leiniedude- I wonder how Fritz the Cat would do on it.
This really needs to be interfaced with a big screen and the video game Crazy Taxi.
AI tells me a set up of these simulators in a classroom in 1971 would cost between $10,000 and $20,000. Since it was far cheaper to just buy a base model 4-door; it’s no wonder most of us just saw the blood and guts training films and took turns driving the divers ed Nova.
AI search engines just steal content from other sites and jumble it all together. I would look for a real source before assuming that number is fact.
There is a lot of wrong information out there, AI won’t help that. The first thing to do, before accepting something you read is true, is ask “does this make sense”. That number doesn’t, maybe for the entire classroom with a dozen simulators, projector and screen, but not what is the subject of the writeup.
This is a cool conversation piece, but hard to see someone paying $4,800 for it.
Steve R
A.I. = Augmented Ignorance
Whatever these cost in the day, the local Chevy dealer donated/loaned the two Driver’s Ed cars in my school’s “fleet.” I suspect by the end of the year, they weren’t in awful shape, except maybe for the brakes and some curb rash on the hubcaps.
I had to sit through all the “Blood on the Asphalt” films, too. I don’t know what anyone actually learned from them; they didn’t curb my taste for, well, enthusiastic driving. Not even the issues of “California Highway Patrolman” spread on the tables of the local Orange Julius did that, even if they were even more graphic than the films.
In 1977-78 we watched all those films in Saturday Driver’s Ed class: Signal 30, Highways of Agony, The Third Killer…all produced by the Ohio Highway Patrol (featuring their post-accident AID footage).
The problem with being young, dumb & full of cum is: nothing to date has proven that you’re not indestructible, and these films were a good & serious effort to change (or at least put a dent into) that mind-set.
You’re right, though; probably nothing would work if these didn’t at least make you think.
Driver’s Ed kids could wreck a lot of cars for $20,000 in the early 70’s…the school would be money ahead! Not to mention keeping insurance agents, body shop and UAW employees busy…trickle down economics. Of course new driver’s, like myself, that came along in 1977 were much safer….ha, ha.
I used to build driver ed trainers at Singer-Link.
Our school was small, and consequently, our driver training was confined to the farm field/fuel truck, or the family car. The county did eventually ante up with a super plain Valiant car with two driver controls. By that time at least the farm boys had moved on to 3-ton trucks with 2-speed axles (some even ran 5×4) and didn’t pay much attention to the driver’s ed cars. A simulator would’ve been quite a novelty but I’m sure there were some in my age group that could’ve successfully crashed one of these. I do recall a race car simulator at an arcade that I used to take my boys to. I’m somewhat amazed that the boys were actually able to learn to drive, and quite well. My oldest even got his CDL and became a skilled oil field hauler until things went south during the “pandemic”…
Ok, I have two stories to tell about these simulators.
We had them at our high school and I can remember being so excited to finally get to use them. What a disappointment.
So first, I found that I no matter what I did, it was impossible to do well on them. So as a teenage boy, I figured out that if you put the e-brake on and floored it, it would do a steady 45 mph. So this is what I would do and then sleep through the rest of the simulation. I would do as well as if I actually tried.
Second, the other thing I figured out due to boredom was that you could pull off the rubber handle of the e-brake and then you could also pull off the rubber knob on the blinker stalk. You could then put the blinker knob into the e-brake handle and use it like a blow dart and shoot your friends. Within a week, non of the simulators had blinker knobs.
Hi James, I figured someone else would have tried that too. We tried our darndest to “bury the needle”, and aside from a good WHACK, not much worked. We’d try sidestepping the clutch, power shifts, neutral drops, and usually got a stern look, or chewing out from the teacher. If nothing else, it DID teach us how to beat the heck out of dads Oldsmobile,,
My driver’s ed class spent a week in a hot trailer filled with these exact simulators. At the time, you had to have driver’s ed to get a license at 16 in TX, but I think pretty much every kid in my class had been driving illegally for at least a year or three. In the south Texas hill country, folks didn’t worry too much about that sort of thing back then.
Driver education died long ago in Ohio, sure looks like they let any idiot drive now, especially commercial trucks. The Ohio Department of Transportation is heavily invested and focused on automous vehicles now, conducting their own test program on public roads burning up funding supposed to be used to improve safety. Detours, intersections and all the defective makeshift roundabouts seem booby trapped to cause crashes now where I live, because big brother gotta put the blame on drivers for anything and everything now…
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, on the peninsula (the north end of silicone valley) Waymo (partially owned by Google) autonomous taxis are everywhere, most empty, just logging miles. Nearly every tech company has some program, most with drivers. Uber and Lyfts have expiration dates. There are a lot of downsides, but it will help older people live independently longer.
Steve R
Autonomous taxis? You mean, like a “Johnny Cab!” That would be okay, as long as you didn’t let Arnold Schwartznegger near it…
Agreed, virtual reality AI hallucination riddles are decades away from being solved. The sooner bogus testing of experimental self drivers on public roads expires, the safer all if us will be and sky rocketing insurance premiums will slow down perhaps…
Here in Washington State, it’s somewhat similar, although now you are required to attend a private driving school (for a nominal fee, of course), then go to the Department of Licensing to pass the written and driving test. It doesn’t seem to be a good deal, seeing that the drivers from those classes come out WORSE than those of us that went through the programs in High School. The CDL process for the truckers and bus drivers just seem to be a money grab – they don’t come out very well and are more dangerous than the ones who went through a correct program. “Meat for the Seat”, as we referred to is as…
What? No airbag?
Hey Jim, in my case, the “air bag” was behind the steering wheel,,:)
These are so cool. I would have really liked trying one out. I remember seeing pictures of these but never got to see one in person. This is a really neat find Howard, thank you, and Ron, great write up and research too.
-Dave
I would have loved to have one of these in the basement, when I was 10-11 years old!
Why list something with only two photos? Seller has close to 9,000 items for sale.
Well, well, wellity, well, guess who got a tip featured. 1st,( well, 2nd actually) thanks to the staff for picking this up, I sent it in for Ms. Rand( ladies 1st) but confident any of the writers would do a great job. For multiple photos one would have to go to FB and not everyone can access that.
For most here, this was a monumental moment in our history. There was Bar Mitzvah, get your license, and graduate HS. Get them from the bicycle seat to the drivers seat, PRONTO! It was practically required, and we even got credit for it. Naturally, I got all A’s, and bolstered my sagging credit rating, as I did poorly in HS. This was a massive undertaking. I read, there were about 25, 352 high schools in the US in 1970. Not every HS had a Dr.Ed. “lab”, but I went to a big HS in Milw. and we had a room with at least 15 of these. I’m sure a smaller HS had the portable one come ’round, but think how many of these were made. I doubt they were $10gs in 1970, but still a lot was put into this program.
The Chrysler one was the most popular, they must have had warehouses full of these parts, I’m amazed someone here actually built them. Our Dr.Ed. program was 2 fold. There was the “classroom” with reading a book, then these trainers, also included driving around the parking lot with donated cars. Ours were supplied by a local AMC dealer, natch. I remember a couple Matadors, a Gremlin, and a Javelin. We would sprint to get the Javelin or Gremlin, but usually “settled” for the Matador, the fastest we ever moved in HS. They took a beating. The 2nd part, was “behind the wheel”, usually after school, and was actually a very comprehensive program. The main idea, get them on the road, and Chrysler had plenty to offer then. What they must have made up in sales more than paid for the program. I don’t recall the “movie”, heard about it, but by the 70s, it was deemed too graphic, and besides, I saw that first hand as a truck driver later on.
I think there was a master control panel the teacher could monitor your mistakes, or blinking lights, for 1970, it must have been quite a marvel to engineer. It was the best thing to experience what you might encounter, and not kill anyone.
Dr.Ed. went the way of common sense when my kids wanted their license around the turn of the century. The high schools left it up to the parents, or a private school. Clearly, I taught my kids, although they had experienced driving when they rode with me in the semi, and saw what no simulator could teach them. They both passed 1st time, and knock on wood, are excellent drivers.
Thanks to all that have or will respond, if you ask me, this is the fun stuff of this site, and while I realize it would be selfish to expect this all the time, I only hope the staff realizes who they are dealing with here. Features that touch just about everyone can only prove how big this can be.
I wanted to post this separately, you know, in case it didn’t take, and this one didn’t, anything with a link usually has to be reviewed, but this commercial really hit home with me. When I say manual transmissions are on the way out, the 1st gal should tell why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZER63EzKd2c
I recall the hot trailer with 10 or so outside the shop class where I like to hang out. The units were very basic but you had to start somewhere and this was it. But there was no relation to my folks 1969 VW bus that I learned in. We had a driveway just long enough to “speed” shift through 3 gears and then back up and do it again. 5 kids all learned on that poor bus.
I do remember the drivers ed course was a good place to meet pretty HS girls. Of course you couldn’t date them unless you had a car. Which required a job. And responsibility. That dynamic is broken today and one of the biggest reasons young men are so worthless.
I never thought I would look at the ’70 pre-computer age as being such a perfect time to grow up.
We were fortunate.
In the end I married the prettiest girl in the school, still have the love of my life.
My sister would find a way to get in a accident with it
My wife would run into her!
I want that 3-spoke optional Mopar steering wheel!
I remember using simulator in drivers ed. One time on the simulator the screen had us pulling into a driveway up to a garage and I had my speedometer at 80 before the instructor told me to knock it off
I remember using one of these in the 70″s. In the film we were following a 58 Corvette with the trunk chrome thru a deep snow covered street. In later years, I was running a junk yard and the school district asked to dump all those simulators. Gladly said yes, and sold all the perfect Mopar wood steering wheels to Mopar guys. Crushed the rest.
This article brought back a lot of fond and scary moments for me! My Driver’s Ed class was taken during the hot months in Summer School! No simulators were used. Just an automatic compact car with no air conditioning, and some fun times! There were two guys, two girls, and the instructor in a cramped car. The one guy goofed around too much while driving and the teacher expelled him! This gave the rest of us more time at the wheel!
The lady instructor was great and had a sense of humor! She would have us drive on the highway, and say, “See that car up in the distance? Catch up to them and pass them on their left!” We would speed up to 70+ mph to catch up and practice passing cars! She would also make us practice driving and rolling down the drivers window at the same time, to test our coordination! She made the experience a lot of fun!
We were a poor agricultural high school. O simulators for us. We had the real thing. (Most manufacturers have a driver’s ed program. When the local dealer “loans” a car to a high school for drivers ed..The factory reimburses a set amount so that the car can be sold at a profit later. Our drivers Ed car was a new Impala with a 4 barrel and dual exhaust. I found out much to the “delight’ of our instructor that it would spin the wheels in the rain accelerating up an on ramp. He was too scared to say anything as the back end was a little sideways. Once rolling down the interstate ( this was my second day driving as I was pushed up through the process since had been driving since I was 9 y.o.) he mentioned that I might take it a bit easier next time. My kids ran through the “school taught” driver’s education program as it is a requirement in the state of NV. But being an ex ice racer and pro rally guy I considered that a minimum. (I now volunteer as a coach on the Street Survival Program) During Christmas break when my daughter still had her learners permit..We had a snow storm and the high school parking lot was almost too deep for Mom’s Subaru. We spent several hours driving a course that I laid out. I had her increase the speed to where the car would want to slow down because the tail end was getting sideways in the “untracked” part of the course. But she had to keep the speed up and still stay on track. She got pretty good at the control and then we started with braking and avoidance. That’s when the “neighbors” across the street from the school thought we were having too much fun and called the police. They showed up, with all the lights flashing, but would not drive into the unloved parking lot. I got out and walked over to the patrol car. He asked what we were doing and I explained winter driving lessons. All he said was CARRY ON! When we got home my daughter exclaimed the “we had so much fun that the police came!” She is now in her late thirties and has never had an accident or caused any damage to her car.
In the early 60s, I was an engineer at Rockwell in Syracuse. I worked on the redesign of the Aetna Drivotrainer, a classroom simulation and training system, mostly for high school classrooms.
That Is very cool, I admit it is drivers ed before my time, But I truly think old school is AWAYS better to learn from.
Boy, did this little jewel stimulate some interesting conversation! This is so Avant Gard cool that if I had a “man cave” (which I don’t) and $4500 laying around just gathering dust (which I also fail to possess) I would buy it in a hot New York minute!
How many miles per gallon does it get?
Hey! That thing got a Hemi in it?
The University that I work for, had a room full of about 12 of these that were mid 60’s vintage. Being state property, they weren’t allowed to sell these during renovations… they had to be sent to “surplus property”… :(
I think my high school had only one or two of these, because Driver Education was not a class per se; if you had a study hall period, you could sign up on a first come, first served basis. Seems to me I saw these things in a small classroom, but they were not working.
Coach Wear was the driving instructor, but probably shouldn’t have been. I think he was well past prime, which was why he wasn’t the football coach any more. I do remember that we had a school car for DE, but what it was is a bit fuzzy. It could have been a 1979 Nova, but it just as easily could have been anything else, as the Dodge dealer was a lot closer than the Chevy dealer was.
Great find, and it brought back some fond (if imagined) memories.
Our Driver’s Ed class was a single semester, & we had a room full of some very similar to these, but pretty sure a different brand. For me, this was the fall semester, 10th grade 1976. The simulators only worked about half the time or less, but do remember the crash films being very graphic for the time & at least a couple of them had some audio too. Our Driver’s Ed cars were a 1976 Ford Granada & Chevy Impala that I remember (two others don’t remember the make). Right front seat floorboard had a brake pedal rigged up for the teacher to use if necessary.
It’s funny that you mentioned “Coach” as the 3 teachers for Driver’s Ed were all men & also coaches. Back then, around here male teachers were maybe 1 out of 10 through the whole high school. Guessing they were qualified for the biology/chemistry classes!!
Does anyone know what purpose the mirrors serve?
The mirrors, behind the seat, were aimed at the screen and were used when reversing.
Thanks Ken!
In 1982 our Drivers Ed instructor, Mrs. Street,, (No BS) would throw a handful of metal film reel containers down the center isle of the simulator trailer to add sound effects to the accident that played out on the screen during our class.
Thanks to all who responded, we can all agree getting our drivers license was a huge event in our lives. It enabled us to see the world outside of 73rd and Capitol Dr., and for some, like me, made a career out of it( and vorched about it the whole time) I don’t mean to admonish younger folks, but I do, and will these young people have the same memories that we had? The driver trainer was pre-computer and was all wired and probably some thanks to the space program, but in a bigger sense, a portal to the world around us. Today it’s at the touch of a few buttons, and somehow doesn’t have the zing of a V8 1970 Javelin and brushing a few curbs.
The HS I went to was big, maybe 4-4500 students,( Jr. & Sr) my graduating class alone( 1972) was over 1400 kids, and there were maybe 10 big schools in Milwaukee, and that’s a lot of future drivers. I remember most the time, the classes were “taught” by one of the football coaches, the then most honored of the teacher staff, and could handle the hooligans.
Thanks again to the staff and all who responded.
I still remember killing it repeatedly every single time I tried to use the manual transmission. It seems odd to me that my first car, a ’67 Beetle, had a manual. That’s what I actually learned on. Poor thing.
For me it was a ‘49 Ford F-3 with flathead V8 and T-9 crash box. My practice area was a stubble field. I was the ripe old age of 10. I used to stay at a farm a few miles away from ours and I will always be indebted to the farmer’s wife for teaching me to drive and even learn to load grain from the combine on the go…
Hi Geo, dr.ed. to a country kid was just an easy way to boost the GPA, as many already had many miles under their belt. Why, I myself logged many a mile up and down my parents 100ft driveway in an array of different vehicles. I could get the 4CV into 3rd for a brief shining moment before mashing the feeble brakes into the garage. The road test, to me, was breeze, left arm out the window,,not really, it was pretty tense, I mean, this person next to you held the key. Passing 1st time was paramount. I still say, the examiner was more impressed with my old mans Lincoln, which was actually a very easy car to drive. He could tell I knew what I was doing.
Isn’t this an anti theft device secret that needs to be kept secret? :-)
Oh does this simulator bring back memories. Ours were in a trailer brought on site and my real car to drive in Driver Ed was a brand new 1967 Ford Galaxie sedan with a 390, Dark metallic green. I’ve looked forever to find its’ twin, just because.
It was Fall going into Winter and the occasional light snow made that 390 spin its’ bias ply whitewall tires like crazy.
I feel for the kids today as nearly every facet of a broad education gets stripped away. Drivers education is needed but as more young people forgo driving, I wonder who would attend.
So glad I grew up when I did.