Autobiography - The Cars in My Life
Cars have always been a big part of a teenagers life. My father provided me access to cars once I got my license. He had a blue Chevy Impala that I never had an opportunity to drive. It was a car insurance issue. I did have access to my mothers Volkswagen Beetle. I managed to roll it over on its roof and back up on its wheels heading in the opposite direction. I was in the back seat when the car stopped. No seat belts in 1967. Fortunately no other cars were around. I skidded on wet leaves. I had my pink slip which is a pre license before you get your real license if you don’t have any accidents or tickets. As I was standing next to car with a crushed roof, broken drivers window and a flat tire, a car stops and the driver is the older brother of one of high school friends. He says I know you are my brothers friend. I see you had an accident and you must be driving on your pink slip. You better get out of here before the police come. By some miracle the car started and I started driving on the flat tire. About a half mile down the road a police car was coming in the opposite direction with lights and siren. I kept driving and they passed by me. I drove home and told my mother. She had the car towed so it would not be in the driveway when my father came home in a few days. The car was totaled. I don’t know if insurance covered the loss. It was never discussed which was fine with me.
My next vehicle was a Willy’s Jeep. My father used it for his engine repair and scuba diving business. His business was called Underwater Salvage and Repair. The Willy’s was a classic that I didn’t appreciate until years later. Next he bought me a Jeep station wagon that had no back seat. I put a rug in the back and my friends sat on the rug. The Jeep was sold and I bought a Mercury Comet for $50.00. Needless to say this car needed everything. My father encouraged me to buy it and he spent months keeping it running. I put bucket seats in it and added a racing stripe across the hood and jacked up the rear end. This four cylinder, two speed automatic transmission car was my race car. I commuted to college in Boston in that car for a year. The engine was so bad that I had to fill the oil and check the gas. I sold that car to an acquaintance from a custodial job. I should have taken it to a junk yard. A year or so later he let me know he knew that car was a lemon. Buyer beware.
My next car was a blue 1967 Mustang with a six cylinder engine and a three speed manual transmission. My father worked out a deal with a sailor that was shipping out for six months and didn’t want to pay to store the car. $400 seemed like great price even with a dent on the drivers side. I commuted to college in the Mustang from Hull and then from my apartment in Dorchester. While parked at my apartment in Dorchester someone stole the battery. I drilled the hood and installed chrome pad locks. No more stolen batteries. When I graduated college I sold the Mustang and my father gave me a Chevy Vega. I only kept the Vega for a year and traded it in on my Rust-Oleum company car, a new 1974 Chevy Malibu with air conditioning and a positraction rear end. Also included were cars that Priscilla owned. The first one was a British racing green 1967 Triumph Spitfire we bought for $350. That was a great car in the summer but was a real problem in the winter because the fuel line would freeze and strand Priscilla in the middle of an intersection in a snow storm. We sold the Spitfire and bought a Chevelle with a big motor from Priscilla’s brother-in-law’s sister. It was a red two door coupe and had lots of dents but ran like a champ in cold weather. That is the history of our cars from 1966 thru 1978. I am sure I will add to the list later in my story. We also had motorcycles which included a Honda 305 Super Hawk and a Honda 450. Priscilla’s other brother-in-law rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He always commented that it was OK to ride a Honda before you buy a real motorcycle.
The infamous VW Bug with the rollover damage.