My first car was a 1950 Studebaker Champion. Dad won it in a raffle in 1959 when I was fifteen. He seldom drove it. It sat in the driveway waiting for me to earn my driver’s license the next year. “Someday that car will be all yours,” my Dad would say. Oh, be still my heart, I would think to myself. The streets were filled with shiny new tail fins and chopped & channeled custom rods. My friends daydreamed about bolting Holly carburetors onto V8 engine blocks and cutting rows of louvers in their hoods. I had nightmares of driving into the student parking lot in what could pass for Flash Gordon’s escape pod. The Studebaker was a design “ahead of it’s time”, in 1950. It featured a big round bullet-nose that looked like the air scoop of a German buzz bomb. The old-fashioned windshield was assembled from two flat panes joined by vertical chrome molding. By contrast, the rear window was a continuous wrap-around wall of glass. The car looked like it was designed to cut through the air at the speed of sound, backwards. Unfortunately, the old Studey was in fine mechanical shape. I abused it at every opportunity, hoping it would die on the side of the road. It did, eventually. A friend and I were on our way to meet two girls for a blind date when the engine threw a rod right through the oil pan. It happened while climbing a steep bridge. I had to back down in the face of oncoming traffic while my friend sat on the trunk lid frantically waving cars around us. It sat beneath the bridge for three weeks until a neighbor helped me tow it home, pulling me behind his pickup with a 12-foot chain at sixty miles an hour. In it’s final year the once-proud old Studebaker sat behind our house, serving as home to a pair of adopted stray dogs. I saw a car just like it recently at an antique auto show. The owner said it was worth thirty thousand dollars; unbelievable.
The first car I chose and bought myself was a used 1963 Volkswagen. What a great car! It was nearly unstoppable, like a Jeep. In the winter I enjoyed driving after the first snow before the plows cleared the roads. With a running start you could punch through a two-foot drift, throwing snow up and over the sloping hood. But, in winter the car’s inadequacies became evident. The six-volt electrical system didn’t have much muscle to turn over the engine in freezing temperatures. You had thirty seconds to get it started. After that, you needed two friends to push you up to speed so you could pop the clutch. Also, the heater and defroster were powered by warm air diverted from the air-cooled engine. It was always cold inside the car in winter. I carried a scraper in the glove compartment to clear ice from the inside of the windshield. I had to breathe through my nose while driving; exhaling onto the windshield caused the glass to instantly frost over.
My first new car was a 1969 Buick GS California, a plain two-door sedan pretending to be a muscle car. I bought it as a gift for my first wife. We walked into the showroom and I said, “What car do you want?” She said “I like that yellow one, it’s pretty.” I told the salesman, “Don’t bother wrapping it, we’ll drive it home.” My wily skills of negotiation were surpassed only by my propensity for being a dork.
The only other new vehicle I ever bought was a 1987 Ford Econoline van. I purchased it at wholesale price and had a friend build it out with a custom interior. It had a straight-six engine and a four-speed manual transmission with a floor shifter. I enjoyed that van. It carried the family all over the country. I wore it out and eventually sold it in North Carolina, replacing it with a 4-wheel drive SUV in preparation for the move north to Pennsylvania.
I drive a Jeep today, a Grand Cherokee, bought used and subsequently upgraded with a replacement engine and rebuilt transmission. It is a good truck and just what is needed in country like this where snow can be significant.
As a boy I had a love affair with cars, like most young men do. But, over time I have come to view them as little more than a means of transportation. All I ask of a car or a truck now is that it be dependable and that its appearance not be embarrassing. Some people seem to view their cars as an extension of self. They select their vehicles to project a personal image or a statement of their values. I wonder how others judge me when they see my car… No, on second thought, I don’t wonder at all. In fact, I don’t care. I am what I am and I drive what I drive. The most significant connection between me and my car is right there in the driver’s seat, where the cushion molds itself to the contour of my bottom.
My first car was a 1950 Studebaker Champion. Dad won it in a raffle in 1959 when I was fifteen. He seldom drove it. It sat in the driveway waiting for me to earn my driver’s license the next year. “Someday that car will be all yours,” my Dad would say. Oh, be still my heart, I would think to myself. The streets were filled with shiny new tail fins and chopped & channeled custom rods. My friends daydreamed about bolting Holly carburetors onto V8 engine blocks and cutting rows of louvers in their hoods. I had nightmares of driving into the student parking lot in what could pass for Flash Gordon’s escape pod. The Studebaker was a design “ahead of it’s time”, in 1950. It featured a big round bullet-nose that looked like the air scoop of a German buzz bomb. The old-fashioned windshield was assembled from two flat panes joined by vertical chrome molding. By contrast, the rear window was a continuous wrap-around wall of glass. The car looked like it was designed to cut through the air at the speed of sound, backwards. Unfortunately, the old Studey was in fine mechanical shape. I abused it at every opportunity, hoping it would die on the side of the road. It did, eventually. A friend and I were on our way to meet two girls for a blind date when the engine threw a rod right through the oil pan. It happened while climbing a steep bridge. I had to back down in the face of oncoming traffic while my friend sat on the trunk lid frantically waving cars around us. It sat beneath the bridge for three weeks until a neighbor helped me tow it home, pulling me behind his pickup with a 12-foot chain at sixty miles an hour. In it’s final year the once-proud old Studebaker sat behind our house, serving as home to a pair of adopted stray dogs. I saw a car just like it recently at an antique auto show. The owner said it was worth thirty thousand dollars; unbelievable.
The first car I chose and bought myself was a used 1963 Volkswagen. What a great car! It was nearly unstoppable, like a Jeep. In the winter I enjoyed driving after the first snow before the plows cleared the roads. With a running start you could punch through a two-foot drift, throwing snow up and over the sloping hood. But, in winter the car’s inadequacies became evident. The six-volt electrical system didn’t have much muscle to turn over the engine in freezing temperatures. You had thirty seconds to get it started. After that, you needed two friends to push you up to speed so you could pop the clutch. Also, the heater and defroster were powered by warm air diverted from the air-cooled engine. It was always cold inside the car in winter. I carried a scraper in the glove compartment to clear ice from the inside of the windshield. I had to breathe through my nose while driving; exhaling onto the windshield caused the glass to instantly frost over.
My first new car was a 1969 Buick GS California, a plain two-door sedan pretending to be a muscle car. I bought it as a gift for my first wife. We walked into the showroom and I said, “What car do you want?” She said “I like that yellow one, it’s pretty.” I told the salesman, “Don’t bother wrapping it, we’ll drive it home.” My wily skills of negotiation were surpassed only by my propensity for being a dork.
The only other new vehicle I ever bought was a 1987 Ford Econoline van. I purchased it at wholesale price and had a friend build it out with a custom interior. It had a straight-six engine and a four-speed manual transmission with a floor shifter. I enjoyed that van. It carried the family all over the country. I wore it out and eventually sold it in North Carolina, replacing it with a 4-wheel drive SUV in preparation for the move north to Pennsylvania.
I drive a Jeep today, a Grand Cherokee, bought used and subsequently upgraded with a replacement engine and rebuilt transmission. It is a good truck and just what is needed in country like this where snow can be significant.
As a boy I had a love affair with cars, like most young men do. But, over time I have come to view them as little more than a means of transportation. All I ask of a car or a truck now is that it be dependable and that its appearance not be embarrassing. Some people seem to view their cars as an extension of self. They select their vehicles to project a personal image or a statement of their values. I wonder how others judge me when they see my car… No, on second thought, I don’t wonder at all. In fact, I don’t care. I am what I am and I drive what I drive. The most significant connection between me and my car is right there in the driver’s seat, where the cushion molds itself to the contour of my bottom.
2 comments:
I can’t help but wonder at the discoveries you are surly making at reviewing your own history. How much of our life is forgotten by us. Sometimes this is to help protect our fragile ego, but sometimes it’s just because we don’t have (take) time to think about so many snippets of time; so many SMALL things which make us who we are. Are you finding answers, or more questions, I wonder? And isn’t the answer usually one with the question. How similar the giants of our childhood are to us now that we are grown. We tap the idol, and it is hollow; to leave us realizing that our giants (and ghosts) were simply other people doing their best to do their best. Lo and behold, we are not the center of the world, nor are we alone. How amazing! Namaste!
The process of posting these stories has awakened many memories. I don't know if I am learning anything new about myself, but I am learning to look at myself in a new way. I am able to recall events without being overcome with emotion. For instance, when I write now about the fear and insecurity I felt as a boy, I do not feel obliged to relive those feelings of fear and insecurity. Instead, I can acknowledge that those feelings were appropriate and undstandable for a boy of that age and in those circumstances. I now recognize that some feelings I have today may originate more from past traumas rather than current events. Also, I am learning to laugh at myself and to find humor rather than embarrassment in my foolishness and niavete. Thanks, Anon, for your comment.
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