John's first car
This was my first car. (The right hand one.) It was a 1922 Dodge, made by Dodge Brothers before Chrysler bought them out. It had originally been a roadster, but someone had attempted to convert it to a flat bed truck.
I bought it in 1946 for Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. I had to tow it out of a blackberry thicket where it had rested for at least ten years, and when I pumped up the tires, they all blew.
Anyhow, I eventually got it home and finally persuaded it to run. With the help of an old blacksmith who remembered how everything went together.
As you can see, it was a bit short on safety equipment, and wasn't licensed, so we were kind of confined to the back roads.
These images are of my Dad's first car. This was the same make and model as mine, but was a 1923.
They were taken in Montana, when the car was two years old. It looks like he and his girl friend are headed for Canada, across the prairie. Note the chains on the rear wheels. To get you through when there are no roads. By the way, he didn't marry the girl friend.
Incidentally, getting across the Canadian border was a lot easier in those days, without TSA or the Border Patrol. One just drove up to the border, cut the barbed wire fence, (if there was one) and drove across.
These images are of a fully restored 1922 Dodge roadster, same year and model as mine. It was in the 2009 Edmonds car show.
This is the placard that was displayed with the above car. I reproduce it here, because it explains the features of this unique vehicle. Not mentioned is the multiple disc clutch, the grease cups which were used to lubricate the chassis, and the primer cups on the engine, which poured straight gas into the cylinders.
The vacuum tank fuel delivery system was interesting. In lieu of fuel pump, there was about a two quart auxiliary tank on the firewall above the engine. And there was a fuel line from this tank to the engine. When one started the car, a complicated valving system in this tank used engine vacuum to suck gas out of the main tank into it. Then when this auxiliary tank was almost full, the vacuum would be shut off, and the fuel would flow to the updraft carburetor by gravity. This get up was fairly common on cars of this era, and never did work well. That's why Fords had the main tank under the front seat, or on the dash above the engine, using gravity to feed the carburetor.
The starter/generator was also unique. On the left side of the engine there was this electric motor about the size of two gallon paint cans, which was chain driven by the engine. When one hit the starter pedal, the mechanism acted like an electric motor, turning the engine via the chain. Silently, I might add. Then when the engine fired, the thing switched to being a generator, keeping the electrical system running, and the battery charged. It was twelve volt.
Since there were no 12 volt batteries available in 1946, I used two six volt ones under the front seat. And all that electrical switch gear still worked, and never gave me any trouble.
Note the floor mounted gearshift. It is a conventional three speed, but the shift pattern is reversed, putting the lever up against the dash in third, or high gear. The idea was to keep the space in front of the seats clear, but then they stuck the emergency brake handle right there, in the way.
The brakes were real wheel only. The emergency brakes were internal expanding, like today, but the service brakes were external band brakes, like some old bicycles. Needless to say, neither brake worked very well.
The dash was simple. Speedometer, ammeter and oil pressure. And the floor boards were real boards. I remember some of them being missing in my car, so when one drove through any sizable puddle, everyone got a both.
This is the "Dog Bone" cap discussed above. The one on my car had long since disappeared, but a rag stuffed in the filler served the purpose. And when steam started escaping, I knew the engine was overheating.
John's Cars
My first car was a 1922 Dodge, made by Dodge Brothers before Chrysler bought them out. It had originally been a roadster, but someone had attempted to convert it to a flat bed truck. I bought it in 1946 for Two Dollars and Fifty Cents. I had to tow it out of a blackberry thicket where it had rested for at least ten years, and when I pumped up the tires, they all blew. Anyhow, I eventually got it home and finally persuaded it to run. With the help of an old blacksmith who remembered how everything went together. It was a bit short on safety equipment, and wasn't licensed, so we were kind of confined to the back roads. My dad’s first car, incidentally, had been a 1923 Dodge. He used to tell tales from the pulpit about fixing it with baling wire and chewing gum, but in the real world, he turned out not to be too much help.
After the Dodge, while I was still in High School, came a series of 1929 through 1932 Chevrolets. I had several, in various stages of disrepair, and with luck, could usually keep one running. For backup, of course, there was always the school bus, but riding that conveyance was decidedly uncool. I kept the dead clunkers out back of the church, and the place soon resembled a junkyard. As you could imagine, it wasn’t long before my dad got word from the Deacons, to clean that mess up forthwith.
Most of my buddies had Model A Fords, of the same vintage, and it was easy to see why. First, all General Motors cars up to 1937 had wood framed bodies, with the steel panels stretched and tacked over the wood. The wood, of course, was prone to rot, particularly in the damp Northwest climate, so in a few years, there was no framework. This led to sagging doors, and all kinds of other structural problems. The GM cars also all had cloth tops, the company apparently having not figured out how to press an entire top out of steel. And the cloth top, of course, deteriorated even faster than the wood frame.
I solved this problem, kind of, by scrounging a 1933 Studebaker Rockne coupe body, which was all steel, and installing it on the Chev chassis in lieu of the wooden mess discussed above. Only problem was that the Rockne originally had a four cylinder mill, and the Chevy was a six. But that was easily fixed. We just torched out part of the firewall, and the last two cylinders of the Chev engine then happily resided in the passenger compartment. By the way, we called this abortion a “Studelet”, which somehow sounded better than a “Chevybaker”.
The Chev engine left a little to be desired, as well You see, Chevrolet had gone from four cylinders to six in 1929, but had not added any additional main bearings. So the crankshaft, not being properly supported, was kind of “whippy”, which was hard on connecting rod bearings. This situation was exacerbated by the lack of pressure oiling to the rods, lubrication being accomplished, or not accomplished by little scoops fastened to the bottom of the rods, which dipped into the oil in the pan, every time the engine turned over. We solved this problem, sort of, by using leather inserts for rod bearings in lieu of the original Babbitt. These quieted things down a lot, and they would sometimes last 2 or 3 thousand miles.
With these cars, reliability was not their strong suite. They would get us the four miles to school on most days, saving the humiliation of riding the bus. And sometimes they would even make it as far as the next town, but the girls there were usually not impressed. And once in a great while, they might even be good for a camping trip to the nearby mountains.
I finally got rid of the Chevy’s, and became the proud owner of a stable of 1935 and 1936 Ford V8s, one of which was slightly modified. This was my first (but not my last) experience with a hot car, and I was truly hooked. This particular car, incidentally, would actually outrun the ancient paddy wagons driven by the State Patrol. The County Mounties though, had Hudson straight eights, which would really go, and the State cops finally got smart and switched to Olds 88 V8s, and supercharged Frazier Manhattans. You will hear more about hot cars, incidentally, as this tale unfolds.
The Fords did have a couple of problems though. The brakes had mechanical rather than hydraulic linkage, and were so bad as to be practically nonexistent. This led to lots of fun when coming down mountain passes. The other problem was oil consumption. Those old V8s would burn about a quart of oil to a gallon of gas, which got kind of expensive, not to mention the smoke trail stretching out behind. Kind of looked like an old East German Trabant on the Autobahn. We solved the oil problem by scrounging used oil from filling stations, but never found a solution to the bad brakes.
The summer I graduated from High School, I was working in Eastern Washington, while dating a girl from Mount Vernon, and the Ford’s were just not up to the commute. Casting about, I found what looked like an interesting 1938 Pontiac, in good shape, for a reasonable price, so I bought it. This rig was a big car, rode nice, and had lots of power from a big straight six engine. Turned out though, that the only thing on it that was 1938 Pontiac was the grill, the body shell, and the Title. The rest being a conglomeration of GM parts from 1932 to 1941. What I had, I found out, was a car that had been built up during WW II, out of miscellaneous parts. You see, during the war, new cars, and even new replacement parts were non-existent, so mechanics built up cars out of junk parts, and then sold them for fantastic prices. The thing was impossible to keep running and even harder to repair, and I gave up on it when I found a front suspension rod that was Buick on one end and Pontiac on the other, having been fabricated of these two rods welded together, to fit the screwed up front suspension.
Incidentally, when I was working in a Hudson garage right after the war, we did the same thing, scrounging parts and building Hudsons, of indeterminate lineage. So I should have known better. In fact we once built the boss a spanking new 1946 Hudson convertible, which were not produced by the factory that year, by switching the sedan body on a brand new Commodore straight eight, with a 1940 convertible body, then hanging all the 1946 stuff back on. And the boss was proud as a peacock, driving that thing all over Eastern Washington. So I traded this mess, and a bit of cash, to an unsuspecting used car dealer near Fort Lewis, for a 1940 Plymouth coupe. And I suppose the dealer unloaded the Pontiac on some unsuspecting GI.
Now this Plymouth coupe was a real car. It had a California Highway Patrol spec Dodge Police Special engine installed, along with twin spotlights, fog lights and all the other bells and whistles, and would go faster than I was willing to drive it. Only problem was that the Seattle cops had almost identical unmarked Dodge coupes, complete with twin spotlights. Of course, everyone figured my ride for a cop car, so would slow down in front of me, pile up behind me, etc etc. Later on, I actually drove a real cop car for awhile, but we’ll get to that story in due time.
Speaking of cop cars, the Town Clown in Cle Elum had a souped up Buick Special coupe which he thought would outrun anything. Anyway, at about 2 AM one morning I cruised down the main drag, which was also Highway 10 at that time, with all six lights blazing and only going a modest 50 MPH or so. Of course the cop took after me, but I kicked in the afterburner, and was half way to Yakima by the time he got out of second gear.
About this time I started at Boeing. And was faced with a forty mile commute, and a new girl friend (Pat) who didn’t particularly like the Plymouth. So I said goodbye to the Plymouth, and upgraded to a 1948 Nash Ambassador. This Ambassador was kind of a sleeper. It looked almost exactly like its sibling, the Nash 600, which had an anemic flat six, and could not get out of its own way, but the Ambassador was heavier, had better suspension and a big overhead valve six cylinder engine. It was one of the three 1948 cars, which, stock, would do an honest 100 MPH, clock, and was more in the Buick Roadmaster or Packard league.
I still had this ride when I joined the Air Force, and took it to California with me, where I was first stationed. Then somehow, while on leave in Seattle, I fell heir to a 1935 Ford sedan. Anyway Pat drove that thing from Seattle to Travis Air Force Base, and since I couldn’t really find a use for it, I donated it to a Squadron raffle. And guess who won the car. The Squadron executive officer.
At Travis I was in the Strategic Air Command. The SAC boss, General Curt Lemay, was an inveterate sport car racer, so any racing activity on the part of the troops was legitimate excused from duty. So I wasted no time in joining a civilian stock car racing team who were racing, you guessed it, Nash Lafayette coupes with contemporary Ambassador engines. I had a lot of fun with this, as well as ducking a lot of duty, and eventually, of course, I stuck one of these racing engines into my Ambassador. I had a disagreement with the guy who helped install the engine, which ended up with him suing me. But when I showed up at court in uniform, with all my buddies in uniform, as well, what could the judge do, but find in my favor.
About this time, I found my way to Germany, and the Nash went up on blocks for the duration. As Intelligence Agents there, we had really nice cars, courtesy of the US government. These were Opel Kapitans, not the Opel crap that was exported to the US, but big solid fast csrs, comparable to a Three liter Jaguar sedan. In fact, the only things which could touch us on the Autobahns were the big BMW V8s or the odd Porche. My partner and I went through more of these cars than I care to remember, and those we didn’t wreck we destroyed mechanically. Cars, incidentally, were kind of considered to be expendable, and nobody got too excited when one got beat up a bit, or even totaled. as this next anecdote will tell.
Our outfit also had a few Volkswagen vans available. They had just come out, and were generally unreliable, if not downright dangerous.
Pat had a 1946 American Ford coupe, which was the envy of all the Germans, and she could have traded it for a Mercedes. This car, though, was a bitch to keep running, as German mechanics didn’t understand it, and getting parts proved to be a real hassle.
Speaking of Mercedes, at one point we lived in a small village very near the Mercedes plant, where the company drivers were using an abandoned Autobahn section for a test track. This led to some interesting drag races, with me in either the Ford or an Opel. I also occasionally exercised a car on the Nurbergring, whidh was not too far away, and could be accessed fairly easily
Later on, we moved to Frankfurt and the American Ford had to live on the street. At this time, American cars were prime targets for car thieves as well as smash and grab artists, and other assorted crooks. The standard method of protection was to remove all valuables, leave the doors unlocked to avoid having the windows broken by people trying to break in, and secure the steering wheel, gearshift, etc. with multiple chains and padlocks. One night, just before Pat and LaRene moved back to the States, I became a bit sloppy with these security arrangements and woke up in the morning to find the American Ford gone. I eventually got it back, none the worse for wear, except for a missing short wave radio, but that is a story for another day.
Back home in Seattle, I still had the Nash, but decided to spring for a Rover 300. This was a 1951 model, and was quite a piece of machinery. It was a real luxury car. A small Rools Royce really. It even had a scaled down Rolls Royce F head six engine. And the English coachwork was something to behold. It had a mostly aluminum body with red leather interior with real walnut trim. And would corner like a pool table on castors. But unfortunately it was a real dog, Badly underpowered, it would barely get out of it’s own way, the dual SU carbs were impossible to keep in sync, and something broke about once a week. And, of course, it was impossible to get parts. One time I had to crank it by hand for two weeks while starter parts came from Canada. At that time I belonged to the Puget Sound Sport Car Club, and I really got the looks when I entered that two ton hunk in a rally. Anyhow, it never seemed to run for Pat, and since I was traveling a lot, and it was impossible to sell, I junked it.
And speaking of Rovers, I really need to spin this tale, even though it is a bit out of sequence. Seems that, years later, there was a real jerk named Andy Barr, whose British company was trying to sell stuff to Boeing. He was playing to our big shots, which kinda pissed me off, but anyway there was eventually this big meeting, which I was invited to attend, and there were introductions all around. When it came my turn, Andy unnecessarily explained to me that he had been the Chairman of Rover. “That’s interesting,” I said. “I once owned a Rover motorcar.” “What did you think of it?” asked Andy, walking right into this one. Well I’ll tell you, I drawled. You can tell the high quality of a Rover motorcar, by the fine British workmanship on the parts that fall off. Needless to say, there was a long silence. So, my boss eventually asked me, on my next trip to Europe, to take a look at Andy's operation, which I did. His driver picked me up at my London hotel and delivered me to the great man. The car was a Rover 900, briefly sold in the US as a Sterling. It was basically a Honda, with Rover coachwork, and had proved to be a real piece of junk. Anyhow, when I was ushered into Andy’s presence, the first thing he said was, “Well John, I see we got you here in a Rover motor car.” I replied, “That’s right Andy, but it had a Honda engine.” That exchange, incidentally, was all over England within a week.
Oh, and I almost forgot, one day, years later, my boss called to announce that he had just purchased a Rover 2000, and asked me what I thought. My advice to him was to immediately buy another, so he would have a fighting chance at having one running. And after a few months of grief, he did just that.
At this point though, I do need to tell you about the ultimate go kart. I built this machine from scratch in our go Kart shop at the Ravenna property, and was it a beauty. It had a 125 cc motorcycle engine, a four speed synchromesh transmission, a differential, just like a car, automobile type controls, gas, clutch, brake, and all, and to top it off, it had sliding pillar independent front suspension, just like an old Morgan sport car, and rack and pinion steering. This Kart was amazing. It would go about fifty MPH, had awesome acceleration, and handled like a racecar. Ill tell you, going into four wheel drifts on the corners of those dirt roads was a real blast. It’s a real wonder that someone didn’t kill himself.
About this time I ended up on temporary duty at Cape Canaveral, where I bought a three year old Mercury, which looked about ten, (sand and salt air, your know) , This car looked totally trashed, but considering everything, it did run OK. Even if the paint was rust streaked. It had large holes rusted in the sides and floor, and the upholstery was in tatters. And of course, being a Florida car, the heater had long since been disconnected and the fresh air vents were rusted open, so in winter, one got a 35 degree gale into the car while driving the twenty miles to the base. Without a coat, I might add. Eventually though, I convinced my employers that I needed a company car, which turned out to be a big improvement. It also had holes rusted in the floor, but at least, the heater worked. In the meantime, I kept the Mercury for Pat to drive around town When this job wound down, we decided to drive home, so we bought a pretty good camping trailer for $400, hooked it to the Mercury, which actually ran pretty good, and started out. For the first 500 miles, people just shook their heads when we told them we were headed for Seattle. After that, they just marveled that we had gotten that far. On the bright side, people felt so sorry for us that they let us stay in their parking lots and hook up to their electricity for free, and when the generator gave out in San Bernardino, the guy fixed us up with a new used one, for practically nothing. We took two weeks to make the trip, taking the southern route from Florida to Palm Springs CA, then up the west coast to Seattle. I Well, we certainly didn’t need that heap in Seattle , so I parked it at a friend of mine’s gas station told him to get what he could for it, and forgot all about it. Till about 8:00AM on a Sunday morning when I got a phone call from a prominent Seattle restaurateur. He was mad as a wet hen, claiming that I had got his son put in jail, and I had better let him out right now. After he had calmed down a bit, I figured out that the cops had nailed his son driving my Mercury. Then I called the sheriff’s auto theft detail, and they told me that they had seen this trashed Mercury with Florida plates, on a country road about 2:00AM, being driven by a kid who couldn’t even see over the steering wheel. A bit unusual, one might think. Anyhow the kid ended up in juvenile hall, and my car in the impound lot. I had visions of a large insurance settlement, hoping the kid had rolled it up into a ball, but to my bad luck, there wasn’t an (additional) scratch on it.
In the late fifties we got into camping, so we needed a camping rig. And what could have been more fitting than a big 3/4 ton GMC pickup. Now this thing was really a chunk of iron. It weighed close to three tons, and had seventeen inch wheels with tires the size of small tractor tires, with each tire and wheel set weighing about 80 pounds. It had a four speed transmission, with a Granny, (first) gear, which had such a low ratio, it could be used to pull stumps or climb trees. Only a two wheel drive, but it never never got stuck. No power steering, but a steering wheel about 30 inches in diameter, which you wrestled around. Driving on dirt roads was a real trick, as you had to hold the wheel with both hands, manage the gearshift, and hang on to keep your head from hitting the roof, all at the same time. I finally solved part of the problem, by liberating a pair of seat belts out of a DC-6 cockpit and installing them in the truck. Then at least you didn’t bounce. That, by the way, was in the days before anyone had heard of automotive seat belts, so this get up caused quite a stir. It had a big ol’ overhead valve 6 cylinder engine, and on a good day could get 7 miles per gallon. So, when going off road for any distance, one needed to carry several five gallon cans of gas in the back. But we drove that rig all over the Canadian North, without a hint of trouble. Except one day, our old dog Otnot was sitting on the rear fender while we navigated an old railroad grade. Well, an alder branch came by, brushed him right off, and somehow his tail got under the rear wheel, which kinda mangled it. The tail, that is, not the wheel.
The ol' GMC on the Trans Canada Highway circa 1960
Note one lane wooden bridge over the Columbia River
To make our camping a bit more comfortable we found a plywood camper and mounted it on back. Now this was in the days before campers, so we called it a truck house. It was two thicknesses of marine plywood, then fiberglassed like a boat, and when provisioned, the whole outfit tipped the scales at something over 8000 pounds. In fact there got to be so much weight in back, that I had to bolt a 300 pound chunk of iron under the front bumper, to keep the front tires on the road. All in all, an awesome rig.
When the family grew a bit though, we traded it for an International Travelall, the forerunner of today’s sport utilities. We outfitted it with bucket seats in front. Then two rows of bench seats in back. So it was mom and dad up front, the boys in the second row, and the girls way in back. The bucket seats effectively eliminated any arguments about which kid would sit in front.
Usually we pulled a 15 foot camping trailer, which we managed to bed everyone down into as well. And we actually went through two of these Travelalls before finally going back to a pickup. We had junked the Rover, and traded off the Nash, so our car was a 1954 Chev sedan which we bought brand new in 1961. Yes, you heard me right, brand new. It seemed a soldier had bought a new Chev in 1954 then put it in storage, and shipped out overseas. The car than languished in the warehouse till I rescued it in 1961. It did, though require a lot of work to get in shape, including a new fuel system, new tires and a new paint job.
Our next car was a brand new Pinto station wagon, a car which we drove the wheels off till son Whalen caught it on fire and burned it up. Although not a particularly good road car, I was using it in my frequent commutes to Portland OR and Vancouver BC.
For our next wheels, we really switched gears. The truck was a neat little Ford F 100 pickup, fire engine red, rode like a car, and would cruise all day at 90MPH. Our car was a bright yellow 1965 Karmann Ghia convertible. And after I worked over the engine, and suspension, I had another car that would go faster than I wanted to drive it. It was certainly economical though. Pat and I once drove from Seattle to San Francisco on $ 10 worth of gas. Neither of these rides were too great for a family with four kids, so when we needed to travel with everyone, we rented a station wagon from the Budget Rent a Car guy just down the street.
Tiring of the Karmann convertible, as a work car, I went through an Olds station wagon, a Plymouth K car station wagon and a Ford Fairlane sedan in that order. I finally ended up with a really nice Ford Tauris, with all the bells and whistles, which I kept till I retired. The Olds has an interesting story. It was a nice looking and running car, which was owned by neighbor across the back fence. Well he had to leave town suddenly, so he sold me the car for $3000 or so, which was all in small bills, handed over that same beck fence. Anyhow, the guy had barely cleared the County line when the transmission on the Olds blew, so I was stuck with an expensive repair, right out of the box. We eventually traded the red pickup in in on a new Ford Explorer when they came out. And I have driven an Explorer ever since.
And speaking of retirement, my accumulated vacation pay, was just enough to buy a spanking new Thunderbird V8. A big chunk of iron, but one of the best freeway cruisers ever built. And that car resides in my Edmonds garage, yet today.
I mentioned the company cars I drove in Germany and at Cape Canaveral, but at this point I should talk about a few others. Some of the cars I used on the job, were interesting in themselves. At one extreme was a surplus Army Weapons carrier we had in Alaska. Since everything around those parts was tundra, our two principal means of transportation, in and around the village, were an old airplane with wings and tail removed and large tires fitted, and an ancient army surplus weapons carrier equipped with wheels and tires salvaged from DC-3 airplanes. And at the other extreme was an old V12 Jag that a supplier loaned me when I was working in England. What a motor car!! 125 MPH on the Motorway, and it just floated along, purring like a contented cat. And of course, we can’t forget the Golf cart, but that comes later.
When working on St. John, in the West Indies, I had some interesting rides as well. I started with an old Jeep CJ5, a cast off from the Rockefeller resort where I was working. It was a typical island car. It had holes rusted in the floor, springs sticking out of the seats, and the top in tatters. But it ran, and it did have some character, as the following anecdote will explain.
Seems the president of Boeing, Mal Stamper, along with his charming wife Maria, decided to visit my job site. Probably because he could then charge his whole West Indies boondoggle off to business. But who was I to complain. So when the Stampers arrived, I introduced them to our transportation, which of course was my beat up old Jeep. I had considered borrowing more suitable transportation for these exalted visitors, but none was readily available, so we made do. This turned to be a good move, because Maria fell in love with that jeep. The dashing young French Foreign Legion officer also proved to be a big hit with her, and the two of them spent the entire visit roaming around the island in the jeep. The Foreign Legion officer incidentally was my superintendent. He had been kicked out of the Legion ‘cause he took the wrong side in the Algerian rebellion.
A Mini Moke just like mine, but in much better shape
The next car, a Mini Moke, incidentally, was the successor to the old jeep you read about above. It was a kind of Austin Mini, with no body, only seats bolted to the floor pan. It was produced in Australia, and was not allowed in the US, since it would not meet government safety requirements. Be that as it may, it rivaled the Citroen 2-CV as the vehicle of choice in the backwaters of the world. Inexpensive, reliable, and simple. But I really wanted a nice Jeep. And it had to be four cylinder, Don’t ask me why, but those were the only Jeep engine parts they stocked on the islands. I looked high, and low, but there were no decent four cylinder Jeeps to be had, anywhere in the West Indies or the US east coast, new or used. But I finally struck pay dirt. The Jeep dealer in West Palm Beach FL had a Jeep shop truck, 4 cylinder, loaded with all the bells, whistles, and chrome knobs one could wish for, and in great shape, to boot. Of course, he wouldn’t part with it, but after offering him an obscene amount of cash , it was mine. So I put it on a boat for the islands Upon arrival, my task was was to get it through customs and locally registered. Probably a formnable task, I thought. But boy was I wrong. When I drove up to the office, the official asked me who owned the jeep, and I answered “me”. “OK”, he said and without further ado, and without a scrap of documentation from me, he waived the duty, sat down to his battered Underwood, and typed me up a new car title. After signing it and affixing his seal, he handed it to me, and we were done. He looked tuckered out by all this activity, which was more work than he had done in the previous week, so I stood him for a couple of drinks at the local watering hole, and incidentally, made a friend for life.
In the 70’s I was doing a lot of US domestic traveling for one reason or other, so I could always rent one of the latest and best cars for my personal evaluation. My tastes during that era kind of ran to Chev Monte Carlos, with the Plymouth Fury being a strong runner up.
In the ‘80s Boeing was so flush that they decided that some of us Senior Managers could have company cars. Wow!! We could hardly wait. But the reality was that we got cast off Chev Caprice junkers, which the big shots wouldn’t be caught dead in, and were really too long in the tooth for even pool car service. Turned out they weren’t worth the trouble, and aside from a couple we kept around for plant tours, we got rid of them.
And once, I had for wheels, a real live Police car. This was when we were equipping the Portland OR police fleet with MDTs, a kind of computer. Well we needed a test rig, so we borrowed a squad car, complete with sireen, lights and all the other neat accruements of a cop car, We then experimented with our computer installation with this car, checking out various technical and operational problems, but did manage to use it a bit on personal business, as well. But I’ll tell you, the thing was really a pain. If one adhered to the 35 MPH speed limit on a busy arterial, cars would pile up behind for blocks. But if one dared to drive even a bit over the speed limit, the dispatch center would be deluged with calls from concerned citizens saying that a cop car, with our number was speeding. So what was a guy to do? Ya couldn’t win.
And I certainly should mention the Thunderbird, which I bought new in 1995 and drove for 17 years.
And I certainly should mention the Thunderbird, which I bought new in 1995 and drove for 17 years.
And I shold mention the golf cart. Seems like when I was President of the Homeowners Assn, one of the Board members found a gas Yamaha golf cart cheap, and bought it for the HOA. And since we didn’t have any immediate use for the cart, it became my company car, used to scoot around the golf course, and whatever. Incidentally, in Palm Desert using a golf cart on the streets, within limits, was legal But because the only place I could garage it was up by the office, almost a mile from our house, the hassle wasn’t worth it, so after a few months, I gave it up.
I always wanted to restore an old car, and in the early 1990’s I got my chance. Seems that son Whalen owed me some money, so I took this really beat Volkswagen off his hands in payment. This thing was really trashed. Dents all over, and they had given it a psychedelic spray job at some drunken party. The upholstery was gone and springs were sticking up thru the seats, etc, etc. But it was a 1972 Super Beetle, a really rare model, and it had a brand new, slightly modified engine. Son Mark, the body man, also owed me some money, and I allowed he could work it off by helping restore this monstrosity. Anyway we worked on it for about three years, and it ended up being a modified custom. Ya know, dechromed, marker lights gone, new taillights, custom running boards, etc etc, and painted Porsche Guards Red. It turned out to be a really classy looking car.
I finally got tired of it sitting in the carport at Everett just rusting away, so I drove it to Palm Desert and used it as a kind of oversized golf cart around the Country Club. But eventually the new wore off, and quite frankly, it was getting to be a bore trying to drive this relic, which had first been designed in 1937, and had 30+ hard years on it. If anyone had any doubts about the progress of automotive engineering in the thirty years between 1972 and 2002, all he had to do was to drive that VW around the block, and he or she would become a believer. Anyway, this trusty steed and I finally parted ways, with me selling it at a custom car auction in 2002.
Its replacement was a Ford Mustang GT V8 convertible with some Bullitt modifications. Which not only was a welcome change, but seemed to be appropriate for the Southern California scene. This GT pumped out three hundred horsepower, and would do an honest 140 MPH. To tell the truth though, it scares me to death to drive it over 125. Must be getting old.
At the moment, am the proud owner of three Fords, all with 4.6 litre V8s. But V8s are getting to be a thing of the past, and these cars are getting a bit long in the tooth, so it looks like I will have to go for a Ford Taurus, with a 360 hp V6 but then again, the 2011 Mustang GT with a 420 hp 5.0 liter V8 sounds interesting…
August 2010 Update:
Finding that the real TRUCK Explorers were to be phased out in 2011 in favor of some wimpy front wheel drive minivan on a car platform, but bearing the same name, I took the plunge and decided to go for a 2010. But alas there were none to be found, new or used, in the entire Western US. So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one, complete with 310 HP V8, six speed tranny, and all the bells and whistles. Well they must have been running out of parts, as it took two months to build it, and it was actually one of the last few 2010s off the line. And Pat can actually coax 22 MPG out of it on a trip. It is a great truck, required no warranty work, at all, and should last for 10 years.
Incidentally, I bought one of the first Explorers, a 1991, which the family put 160 thousand miles on before it fell apart, another in 2002, and finally one of the last, a 2010. So we rode that wave all the way.
I probably missed a few cars somewhere in this narrative, but you get the point. I 've had a lot of cars, and some of those being interesting rides indeed. And I will leave you with these words from my old friend Len Ronkin, “They don’t make ‘em (cars) like they used to. Thank goodness.”
