Idea courtesy of Old NFO.
The first car I got to drive on a regular basis was my Mom's 1964 Corvair Monza Spyder. Fun little car until my sister got rear-ended by a semi one day. She was OK, but the car was never the same after we got it out of the shop. I learned more than I wanted to know about "Trailing-Throttle Oversteer" in that little guy. It was "Monza Red" with a black interior. It also had one of the neatest radios in it I'd ever seen. It was a Sony MDL-something that had AM, FM, SW, and LW, and it hung under the dash in an accessory bracket that let you pull the radio out, and carry it along as a portable.
I spent many a cold winter night listening to WRVA ("The Lou Dean Show") while laying in bed with the headphones on.
Mom traded that one in for a 1967 Corvair Monza, with the 110 HP engine, and a POWERGLIDE.
Oh, the ignominy of going from a 4-speed to a two-speed AUTOMATIC right when I was getting my driver's license!
The '67 Monza was "Marina Blue", one of the prettiest colors you could ever paint a car.
The next car we got, which was still my Mom's car, was a graduation present for me. We got a 1969 Dodge Charger R/T with the Special Edition package. I was bummed when it came in because the dealer we order it from was a grade school friend of my Mom's, and he checked the "Delete R/T Stripe" on the option box because he didn't think my Mom would like having that big white stripe around the tail. They substituted some chrome and red R/T emblems on the rear fenders, and the thing wound up being a real sleeper. Wit the f-70x14 bias ply tires it wouldn't hook up for sh1t (I could lay rubber for blocks with that thing!) but once it was rolling, hang on!
We kept it for a couple of years, and then the insurance companies came down on "Muscle Cars".....HARD. Even though I was an "A" student, had NO accidents or tickets, and was getting the good driver/good student discount, or insurance went from $186 a year to $483 EVERY SIX MONTHS! The Charger was "T5 Copper Metallic" with a tan interior.
So, we got rid of it, and I moved on to....
A 1971 Ford Capri. It had the 1600 "Kent" engine, with a four speed, and the tiniest one barrel carb I'd ever seen. The "Kent" 1600 was a pretty stout engine (it was the basis for the early Formula Ford cars), but this thing was seriously DE-tuned. It wouldn't pull more than 5000RPM in NEUTRAL! I swear, you could put a brick on the accelerator, walk away for a week, and it would still be running when you came back.
Really a stone, but it handled pretty well, got great mileage, and got me through college in style. It was some kind of non-descript medium blue metallic with a white ( ! ) interior.
I could go on about the cars I've "owned", but these were the ones I was driving during my 'formative years'.
Maybe I'll just do a post listing all the cars I've owned. It covers the gamut, from Corvairs to Jeeps, and Corvettes to El Caminos.....
Admiral Yamamoto infamously said "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a man with a rifle behind every blade of grass."
And so it should be, a nation of riflemen....
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Heh. My first car was a pickup - '65 Ford F100SWB with a 240 six banger and a three on the tree. You could wind it up until the valves floated and it just wouldn't run any faster - but it never died. A fifty cent piece could shut the one barrel carb down. One might think it might just accidentally make a few mpg, but a few was right - about 11 to 12 was all it would do. I put bucket seats, a Hurst shifter, Grant steering wheel, chrome wheels and a JC Whitney AM/FM 8track in it. Lots of memories good and bad wound up in that ol' hunk of metal.
ReplyDeleteThanks for 'chipping in' on the meme- And yeah, trailing throttle oversteer was something you learned rather quickly in a Corvair (especially on gravel roads!!!)... Re the insurance, try $1200/yr for a Corvette in the early 70s!!!
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine what a marina blue color on a car looks like. Anyway, I'm hooked on reading blogs like this. LOL. First cars are the best. These blogs pull you back to the memories of your teen years. :D
ReplyDeleteMarina Blue was kind of a medium blue-silver, almost a "candy" color with a silver undercoat.
ReplyDeleteIt's very pretty when it's applied right.
Here's some pictures of a 1967 Corvette in Marina Blue. It's actually a much prettier color in the sun, and is one of those car colors that's very hard to photograph properly.
http://www.corvetteblog.com/archives/corvette-events-marina-blue-1967-corvette-sting-ray.html