Good hair day *and* the borrowed car both started *and* neither crashed nor conked out on the way to work, what more could a man ask for?
My father-in-law, the greatest FIL of all, fixed the car we borrowed from my wife’s aunt after a lady crashed into my wife’s car a while back, “totalling” it. The borrowed car, a diesel, had been really hard to start. After fixing it, he told me, “I was amazed you were able to start it at all.” I told him I’d driven my share of beaters, was all.
That’s one nice thing about getting older, I thought this morning while driving that little red Fiat piece of crap (like the little cars at the circus where clowns start climbing out, and more and more clowns keep climbing out, more and more and more clowns, clowns everywhere; except this morning only one clown climbed out) to work. Maybe you get older, but the cars get better. More storage space, they start even on cold mornings, maybe air conditioning or power steering or anti-skid systems and other doodads.
Cause it doesn’t start out that way for some of us. My first car was a 1958 Chevrolet Apache half-ton pickup truck, a beautiful, beautiful vehicle. I fixed a rusted-out exhaust system on it with a tin orange juice can and two pipe clamps; my dad and I replaced a blown gasket in own carport with, like, a wrench. It had the bad habit of veering sharply to the right when you applied the brakes forcefully, so after the first time you learned to counter-steer when you slammed them on.
Then there was the Volkswagen Rabbit where the alternator burned up the day after I’d paid $500 to have the fucking alternator rebuilt and my wife, who at that time was my girlfriend and I had to hitchhike back to civilization, and Swiss tourists laughed at us.
Beaters continued long into my adulthood. Japan was nice, I had a one-speed bicycle there.
But here in Austria. There was the little green Peugeot 102, I think, or 104. 103?Something like that. On damp days we had to spray something into the distributor to get it to start. I knew it was time for a new car the morning I looked into the back seat and saw Beta, then about 4, folding her hands in prayer as I tried to start it.
There was the other Peugeot, bigger, better, I wrecked that mother good. Twice, my fault both times. The last time, I drove it home from the wreck site but don’t ask me how. The other guy nailed me soundly in the passenger side, the car was C-shaped. Driving straight ahead the car was positioned diagonally on the lane.
The Mazda after that wasn’t too bad. It went good. Radio worked. Sold it, bought the Dobl
For years, my dad drove a Rabbit like that. He must have replaced the alternator six times. Then there was the Ford Tempo that needed three new fuel pumps. Me, I drive a ’92 Corolla whose pistons fused to the cylinders four months after I bought it.
Jesus, pistons fused to the cylinders — what do you have to spray into that to get it started?
Well, mostly it just sits there now.
By the way, I think my neighbor drives the same model clown car you’re borrowing: a sort of rust-red Fiat, ’59, I believe. It’s small enough that he parks it sideways in his distinctly one-car garage.
God I miss my ’66 Chevy truck… it must have been shortly after that when General Motors realized there was no future for them in selling bulletproof tanks to the general consumer. My first car on the other hand, was a (then) 4 year-old ’71 Fiat 124 Spyder (convertible). The ‘Sunset Orange’ factory paint color betrayed my stealthy 16 year-old driving hijinx and looked even sillier when it was roadside after frequent electrical system failures. Still, even at 42, I’m all about a kickin’ car stereo.
I’ve only owned 4 vehicles in my entire life. One of them, a Rambler of some sort, was so buried under snow in Chicago for so long I kind of forgot about it. When I went looking for it finally, it was gone. Guys from the City Department of Crushing had hauled it away and, well, crushed it. I was plenty steamed.