Big Wheels Keep On Turning
My vehicular ownership over the years has been quite eventful, to say the least.
It all started one day when I was driving around with my Dad, I must have been around 14 years old at the time. It was in the middle of summer and all the old classics and collectibles were out and I soon began to fall in love with the muscle cars from the 1960's. We passed a real nice mid '60's car and I mentioned how I thought it looked real cool. My Dad said he knew where there was one for sale and if I'm serious about wanting to possibly own a car like that one day he'd take me to go see it. Hell yeah! We ended up at his childhood friends house (John) who had a 1965 Ford Fairlane 500 sitting in his garage for the past 18 years or so, it was in REAL rough shape. After looking over the car, which also included having to unbury it from 18 years of storing crap all over and inside of it, I asked John how much he wanted for it. John thought about it for a short minute and then said if I was willing to get it out of his garage that he'd give it to me for free. Looking back I can tell how young I was because when he said "free" the first thing I thought was "cool!!" and not the more mature response of "OK, this bastard is trying to dump this hunk of shit on me".
Anyway, within two weeks we had a flatbed towtruck at his house and we were "dragging" the car out of the old garage.... digging up his lawn at the same time since three out of four wheels were completely seized and all four tires were flat. It took about 5 and half years to get it restored and back on the road again, but I loved it. We painted it Candy Apple Red and I had a nice stereo system installed and put on a set of 1960's type style chrome wheels. The car would be only driven in the summers after that and it was winter stored until a couple years ago when the unthinkable happened. I was driving around town doing some errands when I started to see some smoke come from underneath the dashboard. I quickly pulled over and got out to check under the hood but to my surprise.... found no signs of trouble. As I went to push the hood back down I noticed the cab of the car was completely full of smoke. What the hell? I ran back to the driver's side but I couldn't see anything in the front seat but only my cell phone sitting on the back seat. I grabbed my phone and ran across the street as I was dialing 911. From the other side and while talking to the operator I started to see the flames burning away the headliner and the smoke turned real thick and black. I knew at this point that it was over. Although I was only 5 minutes from my house it was too late for the firetrucks to come and save it now. Over 11 years of work and money burning away right in front of me. I cried.
My first car that I officially got on the road was a 1981 Chevy Citation X-11. I bought it off a co-worker for $575 and the day I was bringing it home it died on the highway. My friend ended up sitting in the Citation while I pushed him down the highway with my Dad's 1980 Suburban. Again, the red flags were waving right in my face but c'mon... the car had cool looking mag wheels, a hood scoop, spoiler, tinted windows and a removable cassette/AM-FM radio!! After some tinkering and a couple trips to the mechanic and back it was ready to go. The only problem was the carburetor had to be primed with gasoline before starting it if you let the car sit for more than two hours. No problem, I filled an old Windex spray bottle full of gasoline and kept it the hatchback. Whenever I'd get out of school or come back from shopping I'd just pop open the hatch, grab the bottle of gasoline, popped the hood, take off the air filter assembly, squirt a few shots of gasoline directly into the carb and try to start it. I quickly learned that one or two squirts would only keep the car running for a few seconds and that six or seven would result in a redneck B-B-Q. Anywhere from three to five squirts did the trick and then I'd re-assemble my car and we'd be cruising again baby!! For some reason I never thought of this procedure as a bad thing..... it was just part of owning a vehicle..... right? Over the years that car was beat on like a rented mule and for all my efforts, it broke down quite a bit. I once went to Firestone for a $19.95 oil change and they wouldn't even allow me to leave without changing the power steering rack and driveshaft because "they were in serious repair and needed immediate replacement". I told them to lower my car from the hoist and to just shut their mouth but, they were pretty insistent. In fact, they took me under the car and physically showed my how my power steering rack was being held on by one bolt and how loose one of the driveshafts were. I still refused and they eventually let me have my car back without doing the repairs. The mechanic stressed quite a bit that I should drive the car VERY gingerly because once that driveshaft goes the car will have to be towed. Anyway, as I was leaving a smokescreen and a 15 foot strip of rubber in their driveway as I was pulling out I thought to myself, "what an asshole". Unfortunately about a week later the powersteering rack practically fell out of the car. A family friend who was a mechanic came over to have a look at the situation and told me that in order to fix it he'd have to pull the engine out of the car. Not good. So instead we spent the entire Saturday afternoon wearing all of my Dad's drill bits down to spoons trying to drill through the firewall and into the engine compartment. Once that was completed he drilled out the old broken bolts and just replaced them from the inside of the car. There, now what was the big problem?? Well, about two weeks after that while trying to race a guy up a hill the driveshaft finally fell out and man.... what a racket. I had to call BCAA once again for a tow truck so I could take it to the shop. The dispatch office at BCAA had a special line for me, with red phone included...lol. It was a good thing my sister works there because whenever I needed a tow truck I was put on priority. I got to meet a lot of good guys who drove those tow trucks.... they even started sending me cards at Christmas. During the "slow" times I'd often get a call at home from the drivers and they would ask if I was planning on going out that day. Sometimes if they were a little short on the rent money for that month I'd say, "Yeah sure, c'mon over and I'll head for the mall". They would come over and follow me around until I broke down. They would also have a pool going most of the time to see when I would have to call for assistance again. I remember this one time when they had a rookie driver come on board and he placed a $5.00 bet that I wouldn't need a roadside assistance call for at least 4 weeks. Ahhhhhh man, all the other drivers and I had a good laugh at the one.
I also had a 1988 Chevy Blazer S-10 that a nightmare on wheels. Everything eventually went on that truck and I put most of those tow truck drivers kids through college. Transmissions, ball joints, rear axles, air conditioning, engine mounts, front suspension, exhaust systems, brake lines, fuel injection and anything else you can think of. My Dad wouldn't allow me to do what I REALLY wanted to do with that truck. I was going to drive myself to the airport when I moved down to the States and just leave the truck at the airport with the keys in it....lol.
When I moved down to the States all I had to drive was Julie's very reliable 1994 Mercury Tracer. She has owned this thing for the last 10 years and has had to put brakes and a muffler on it. What the hell? I'd drive by tow truck drivers and honk and they wouldn't have a clue who the hell I was!. Now, as much as I appreciated having a vehicle to drive (Julie works out of an office at home) it sure was hard on the ego. Imagine being the new guy at work and pulling up in a PURPLE four door Mercury Tracer. Now, I'm just over 6' 2" and about a month away from starving to death, if you know what I mean, and it's hard for me to get in and out of this thing. I need a shoehorn just to get in and the jaws of life just to get out. There were some days that I thought it would probably be easier just to put it ON.... rather than trying to get IN. As if my potential for brutal beatings wasn't high enough, Julie decides to add the sport package to her car. That's right, on top of this Barney colored car is now an attena ball featuring the racing colors of NASCAR's Dale Jarrett. This acts as a little reminder in case there is ever a moment where I feel I have an ounce of manhood left in me. I remember one day while I was out doing job interviews that I was stopped at a red light next to some punk in his little car. The light went green and we both took off, well, as much as a 1.9 liter engine can take off. I beat him to the next set of lights and I was pumped up! Yeah baby.... who da man???
*thump thump thump* What the hell is that?? As it turns out Julie's car has one of those antennas that pull out of the roof and point towards the rear of the car. Also, as it turns out, that once you reach a certain speed the antenna ball is so heavy that it starts bouncing off the top of the car and it sounds like Magic Johnson is dribbling back and forth across the roof of the car.
*sigh* Why Lord? Why must you mock me???
So anyway, now that Julie and I are getting settled in to a routine and now that we are both working full time we went out looking at new cars. We test drove a few cars and ended up buying a 2003 P/T Cruiser. We both fell in love with it as soon as we saw it but we forced ourselves to keep looking at other options and do other test drives.... but it was pointless. I love the P/T Cruiser and it's so much easier and fun to drive and the whole experience of dealing with the salesmen was quite enjoyable as well. This one guy near the end of the test drive was getting so desperate to name features on this one car that as he was walking around the car he pulled open the gas tank lid and said, "and also it has an easy-to-open gas tank". I was like, man this guy is really trying too hard now. We told him that we didn't want to buy the first car we test drove and were going to go look at other options. He says to me, "as far as not buying the first car you test drive.... why not? For instance, if you were to lose your car keys and spent all day looking for them, would you continue to look after you found them? No, you'd stop looking right?" I look at him for a quick sec and then pointed out that that didn't make any sense at all, but he disagreed. The next carlot we went too we were looking at Chevy Impala's and the salesman says to Julie, "The great thing about this car that because there is such a difference in height between you two that you don't need to do much work to re-adjust the settings everytime you guys get in it. See Julie, THIS car comes with POWERSEATS!". Julie quickly responded with, "What's that?"
lol.... poor guy. You could practically see all his enthusiasm deflate right out of him. He was much easier to deal with after that so Julie sure knows how to negotiate with these guys. Knock all the wind out of their sails and then talk business.
At the beginning of May we have our honeymoon planned and we have a four hour drive a head of us in order to get there. It sure will be nice making that trip without having to listen to Magic Johnson.
*thump thump thump*
It all started one day when I was driving around with my Dad, I must have been around 14 years old at the time. It was in the middle of summer and all the old classics and collectibles were out and I soon began to fall in love with the muscle cars from the 1960's. We passed a real nice mid '60's car and I mentioned how I thought it looked real cool. My Dad said he knew where there was one for sale and if I'm serious about wanting to possibly own a car like that one day he'd take me to go see it. Hell yeah! We ended up at his childhood friends house (John) who had a 1965 Ford Fairlane 500 sitting in his garage for the past 18 years or so, it was in REAL rough shape. After looking over the car, which also included having to unbury it from 18 years of storing crap all over and inside of it, I asked John how much he wanted for it. John thought about it for a short minute and then said if I was willing to get it out of his garage that he'd give it to me for free. Looking back I can tell how young I was because when he said "free" the first thing I thought was "cool!!" and not the more mature response of "OK, this bastard is trying to dump this hunk of shit on me".
Anyway, within two weeks we had a flatbed towtruck at his house and we were "dragging" the car out of the old garage.... digging up his lawn at the same time since three out of four wheels were completely seized and all four tires were flat. It took about 5 and half years to get it restored and back on the road again, but I loved it. We painted it Candy Apple Red and I had a nice stereo system installed and put on a set of 1960's type style chrome wheels. The car would be only driven in the summers after that and it was winter stored until a couple years ago when the unthinkable happened. I was driving around town doing some errands when I started to see some smoke come from underneath the dashboard. I quickly pulled over and got out to check under the hood but to my surprise.... found no signs of trouble. As I went to push the hood back down I noticed the cab of the car was completely full of smoke. What the hell? I ran back to the driver's side but I couldn't see anything in the front seat but only my cell phone sitting on the back seat. I grabbed my phone and ran across the street as I was dialing 911. From the other side and while talking to the operator I started to see the flames burning away the headliner and the smoke turned real thick and black. I knew at this point that it was over. Although I was only 5 minutes from my house it was too late for the firetrucks to come and save it now. Over 11 years of work and money burning away right in front of me. I cried.
My first car that I officially got on the road was a 1981 Chevy Citation X-11. I bought it off a co-worker for $575 and the day I was bringing it home it died on the highway. My friend ended up sitting in the Citation while I pushed him down the highway with my Dad's 1980 Suburban. Again, the red flags were waving right in my face but c'mon... the car had cool looking mag wheels, a hood scoop, spoiler, tinted windows and a removable cassette/AM-FM radio!! After some tinkering and a couple trips to the mechanic and back it was ready to go. The only problem was the carburetor had to be primed with gasoline before starting it if you let the car sit for more than two hours. No problem, I filled an old Windex spray bottle full of gasoline and kept it the hatchback. Whenever I'd get out of school or come back from shopping I'd just pop open the hatch, grab the bottle of gasoline, popped the hood, take off the air filter assembly, squirt a few shots of gasoline directly into the carb and try to start it. I quickly learned that one or two squirts would only keep the car running for a few seconds and that six or seven would result in a redneck B-B-Q. Anywhere from three to five squirts did the trick and then I'd re-assemble my car and we'd be cruising again baby!! For some reason I never thought of this procedure as a bad thing..... it was just part of owning a vehicle..... right? Over the years that car was beat on like a rented mule and for all my efforts, it broke down quite a bit. I once went to Firestone for a $19.95 oil change and they wouldn't even allow me to leave without changing the power steering rack and driveshaft because "they were in serious repair and needed immediate replacement". I told them to lower my car from the hoist and to just shut their mouth but, they were pretty insistent. In fact, they took me under the car and physically showed my how my power steering rack was being held on by one bolt and how loose one of the driveshafts were. I still refused and they eventually let me have my car back without doing the repairs. The mechanic stressed quite a bit that I should drive the car VERY gingerly because once that driveshaft goes the car will have to be towed. Anyway, as I was leaving a smokescreen and a 15 foot strip of rubber in their driveway as I was pulling out I thought to myself, "what an asshole". Unfortunately about a week later the powersteering rack practically fell out of the car. A family friend who was a mechanic came over to have a look at the situation and told me that in order to fix it he'd have to pull the engine out of the car. Not good. So instead we spent the entire Saturday afternoon wearing all of my Dad's drill bits down to spoons trying to drill through the firewall and into the engine compartment. Once that was completed he drilled out the old broken bolts and just replaced them from the inside of the car. There, now what was the big problem?? Well, about two weeks after that while trying to race a guy up a hill the driveshaft finally fell out and man.... what a racket. I had to call BCAA once again for a tow truck so I could take it to the shop. The dispatch office at BCAA had a special line for me, with red phone included...lol. It was a good thing my sister works there because whenever I needed a tow truck I was put on priority. I got to meet a lot of good guys who drove those tow trucks.... they even started sending me cards at Christmas. During the "slow" times I'd often get a call at home from the drivers and they would ask if I was planning on going out that day. Sometimes if they were a little short on the rent money for that month I'd say, "Yeah sure, c'mon over and I'll head for the mall". They would come over and follow me around until I broke down. They would also have a pool going most of the time to see when I would have to call for assistance again. I remember this one time when they had a rookie driver come on board and he placed a $5.00 bet that I wouldn't need a roadside assistance call for at least 4 weeks. Ahhhhhh man, all the other drivers and I had a good laugh at the one.
I also had a 1988 Chevy Blazer S-10 that a nightmare on wheels. Everything eventually went on that truck and I put most of those tow truck drivers kids through college. Transmissions, ball joints, rear axles, air conditioning, engine mounts, front suspension, exhaust systems, brake lines, fuel injection and anything else you can think of. My Dad wouldn't allow me to do what I REALLY wanted to do with that truck. I was going to drive myself to the airport when I moved down to the States and just leave the truck at the airport with the keys in it....lol.
When I moved down to the States all I had to drive was Julie's very reliable 1994 Mercury Tracer. She has owned this thing for the last 10 years and has had to put brakes and a muffler on it. What the hell? I'd drive by tow truck drivers and honk and they wouldn't have a clue who the hell I was!. Now, as much as I appreciated having a vehicle to drive (Julie works out of an office at home) it sure was hard on the ego. Imagine being the new guy at work and pulling up in a PURPLE four door Mercury Tracer. Now, I'm just over 6' 2" and about a month away from starving to death, if you know what I mean, and it's hard for me to get in and out of this thing. I need a shoehorn just to get in and the jaws of life just to get out. There were some days that I thought it would probably be easier just to put it ON.... rather than trying to get IN. As if my potential for brutal beatings wasn't high enough, Julie decides to add the sport package to her car. That's right, on top of this Barney colored car is now an attena ball featuring the racing colors of NASCAR's Dale Jarrett. This acts as a little reminder in case there is ever a moment where I feel I have an ounce of manhood left in me. I remember one day while I was out doing job interviews that I was stopped at a red light next to some punk in his little car. The light went green and we both took off, well, as much as a 1.9 liter engine can take off. I beat him to the next set of lights and I was pumped up! Yeah baby.... who da man???
*thump thump thump* What the hell is that?? As it turns out Julie's car has one of those antennas that pull out of the roof and point towards the rear of the car. Also, as it turns out, that once you reach a certain speed the antenna ball is so heavy that it starts bouncing off the top of the car and it sounds like Magic Johnson is dribbling back and forth across the roof of the car.
*sigh* Why Lord? Why must you mock me???
So anyway, now that Julie and I are getting settled in to a routine and now that we are both working full time we went out looking at new cars. We test drove a few cars and ended up buying a 2003 P/T Cruiser. We both fell in love with it as soon as we saw it but we forced ourselves to keep looking at other options and do other test drives.... but it was pointless. I love the P/T Cruiser and it's so much easier and fun to drive and the whole experience of dealing with the salesmen was quite enjoyable as well. This one guy near the end of the test drive was getting so desperate to name features on this one car that as he was walking around the car he pulled open the gas tank lid and said, "and also it has an easy-to-open gas tank". I was like, man this guy is really trying too hard now. We told him that we didn't want to buy the first car we test drove and were going to go look at other options. He says to me, "as far as not buying the first car you test drive.... why not? For instance, if you were to lose your car keys and spent all day looking for them, would you continue to look after you found them? No, you'd stop looking right?" I look at him for a quick sec and then pointed out that that didn't make any sense at all, but he disagreed. The next carlot we went too we were looking at Chevy Impala's and the salesman says to Julie, "The great thing about this car that because there is such a difference in height between you two that you don't need to do much work to re-adjust the settings everytime you guys get in it. See Julie, THIS car comes with POWERSEATS!". Julie quickly responded with, "What's that?"
lol.... poor guy. You could practically see all his enthusiasm deflate right out of him. He was much easier to deal with after that so Julie sure knows how to negotiate with these guys. Knock all the wind out of their sails and then talk business.
At the beginning of May we have our honeymoon planned and we have a four hour drive a head of us in order to get there. It sure will be nice making that trip without having to listen to Magic Johnson.
*thump thump thump*
