jims69camaro |
09-28-2005 09:50 AM |
when i was a kid of about 10, my next door neighbor's son (17 or 18, a real loser) got ahold of a '69 convertible pace car. it was his daily driver, and i witnessed the car's destruction one day... seems the car was finicky about starting. some days it would, some days it wouldn't. one day, i guess he was really frustrated about it not starting, so he beat the **** out of it with the jack. now, some of you know what an older bumper jack looks like, some don't. it's long, heavy, and swings like a sledge hammer if the jack is at the end of the rail. he had holes in the hood, ripped the top to **** and the car had to be towed away. i cried.
my grandfather was in WWII. he wasn't stationed in hawaii, thank the gods, but he had friends that were and after december 7 were no more. my father was born during the war and he always had a good relationship with my grandfather, so a lot of my grandfather's traits got passed on to him. one of them was a love for american iron. my dad owned several cars, including a white 396 chevelle. after i started living with him, i also began to appreciate cars that went fast. when my dad sold the '65 fairlane, i cried.
the first car i drove was the '72 gran ville. we swapped in a 455 from a trans am because my sister ran it out of oil. the transmission from the TA went into the gran ville, too. it was a sweet ride and it was my first transportation. so, given my appreciation for things fast and my love for american cars, naturally the first car i tried to buy was a camaro. my dad told me if i bought the car that i would have to sleep in it, so i held off on buying a car for a while. in the meantime, i drove his girlfriend's '77 cutlass. it was baby blue with a landau roof, but it moved pretty well. about a year later i did buy a car: an '86 fiero SE. it had a 6 cylinder motor, which was the largest motor you could get from the factory, and it moved pretty well. one day, lined up against a late '80s firebird, i was served. i don't think i ever felt as humiliated as i had on that day, because i thought my car was fast. i think i even cried.
the fiero developed a problem with the air sensor and the exhaust had become a little too loud, so i took it to the dealership because it was still under warranty. or so i thought. the car still had enough value to trade it in, though, and my salesman worked me. he sent me out on a test drive in a stock, v-6 firebird. when i came back, he laughed when i told him the car doesn't move very well (i think the fiero would take it, hands down, in a 1/4 mile). then he sent me out in a base model v-8 bird. i came back, pretty much certain that i would be driving my fiero home, because the 'birds he had sent me out in couldn't get out of their own way. then he sent me out in an '88 formula. now, this is what i call fast (for its time, it was). it had a limited slip rear, 305 efi, 5 speed manual, low profile tires, roll up windows and manual locks. talk about a throw-back to the days of hot rodding... when i signed the loan papers, i think people as far away as ten miles or so could see my smile. the woman i was with was a little older and a little more experienced than i was. when we split up, the formula stayed with her. i had put the car in her name for insurance purposes. i cried a lot.
fast forward a few years later. my mechanic was building an IROC. i liked to call them eye-rot, because everyone and their brother owned one, and they were definitely guido-mobiles (italian, mid-20s, wife beater with gold chains). he said he had a car that i could buy for $800. i looked it over, noticed it was a v-6 car with a 350 swapped into it, the hood didn't match the rest of the car (he bought that car for the hood, which was one of those ugly daytona jobbers), but it was fast. i paid him and took the '87 camaro home to my wife. it was for her, i said, so she could get back and forth to work, i said. she said she wasn't going to drive it because the hood didn't match the car, so i had a new toy. i was so happy, i cried.
a few years later, i was manager of a furniture store. one day i took a wrong turn on my daily trek to the bank. i passed a mechanic's shop that had two '69 camaros in front. one was a black SS, the other was an orange base model. i bought the orange one for cheap and began my long voyage to restoring it. i am not done yet, but i have a car that i have loved since i was 10 years old. about the only thing that would make me cry about this one would be losing it. i am hanging on very tightly. :)
i will not drive a japanese car. or, for that matter, any import. i see guys old enough to have served in WWII and the korean konflict and i wonder how they sleep at night knowing they are supporting those countries' economies. i will not allow anyone close to me drive a jap car. sometimes i win, sometimes i am not so successful (my step-sons). my wife tried to get me to buy her an isuzu or a toyota. i told her she could own one of those right after she divorced me. as long as it was my money, she was going to drive an american (or as close to american as i can get) car. that's why she is driving a Liberty and not a 4Runner or a Rodeo. i kid around sometimes, saying things like in 50 years people will be driving Afghani cars. i am only half-kidding, though, because i know it could happen. and people's memory about our country is oh-so-short. i, for one, will never forget Pearl Harbor or Korea or the World Trade Center. if i am the only one who remembers, then i will stay busy reminding other people about it.
|