Concerning your question about brakes:
Hydraulic drum brakes (standard equipment from the mid-1930's on) worked very well most of the time. These brakes WOULD lock up in panic situations. The two biggest drawbacks to drum brakes then (and now) were fading with lots of continual use (the drums do not dissipate heat as quickly as discs) and failure to work well (if at all) when wet.
It may be a surprise to younger or urban readers, but driving through water as late as the 1970's was a rural fact of life. Lots of "low water bridges" (these were simply areas of concrete placed in the bed of a stream) and streams flowing over the road with every hard rain. After driving through water, it was necessary to keep one foot on the brake petal and another on the footfeed for a couple of hundred feet to dry the brakes. The first vehicle I owned with front discs was a mid-1960's Corvette. After demonstrating the brakes in water to a number of rural Missouri neighbors, LOTS of new cars were sold in that area of Missouri with OPTIONAL disc brakes just because of the water.
But other than these two issues, brakes worked very well, although some of the early versions that required adjusting were somewhat of a pain. Once the self-adjusting brakes were standard, they worked, for the most part, as well as discs.
Jon.
