My first car was a 1967 Ford Fairlane that must have rolled off the assembly line under a black cloud on Friday the 13th. The first time I drove it I got a ticket for running a stop sign.
Two weeks later, it was sitting in front of the house in a crumpled heap, the result of the first of many crashes that should have killed me, but haven’t yet.
My dad and I put a new engine and transmission in that Fairlane, the major father-son project of my growing up years. It ended abruptly when I dropped a monkey wrench through the engine compartment and squarely onto his forehead.
I eventually replaced the Ford with a 1972 Plymouth Valiant Scamp. It had a sweet 225 Slant Six engine and vinyl roof, was bought new while I was still in high school and paid for with a night job in an auto parts factory. I couldn’t have been prouder of myself.
Cars stick in my memory better than just about anything else. The vintage models rolling down Woodward Avenue this week during the Dream Cruise will reintroduce me to people, places and events that otherwise might stay locked away.
I’ll be looking first for a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air, truly the belle of that decade. My two older cousins, the heroes of my boyhood, pooled their money for a 10-year-old model in decent condition, and would sometimes let me squeeze into the back seat for a Saturday night ride to town. They sold the car when they left for the service during Vietnam.
For me, there’ll always be something lonesome about a ’55 Chevy.
Next on my checklist will be a 1959 Cadillac Coupe de Ville with its rocket ship tail fins. Dad came across one when it was on its last wheels, the only thing close to a luxury vehicle he ever owned. Every family picture taken during that era was posed with the Caddy’s flaring rear-end as the back-drop.
My mother bought a 1970 Pontiac Grand Prix when she went back to work, the model with the cow-catcher grille you either loved or hated. It became a symbol of her new-found independence.
Her Saturday routine was to vacuum the house in the morning and polish the Pontiac in the afternoon — she did the chrome with a tooth brush. Mom was extraordinarily protective of her car. A child with a knot on his noggin wouldn’t have upset her as much as a dent in the Grand Prix’s fender.
She eventually let me drive it to high school dances, but didn’t sleep a wink until it was safely in the garage. Imagine the “I’m toast” feeling that overwhelmed me when a girl I was giving a lift home barfed up a bottle of Boone’s Farm on the upholstery.
I wonder if cars still preoccupy kids the way they did when I was growing up.
Do they still tear photos out of magazines and paste them to their bedroom walls? Do they still count the days until they can get their license and drive their dream out of the showroom?
In this day of sprawling houses and absentee parents, does the back seat still provide a romantic refuge for steamy teen-age rendezvous?
I sure hope so. I hope cars never become as generic as washing machines.
I’d like to think of my kids sitting on Woodward Avenue in years to come saying, “I remember that truck — that’s just like the one Dad wrecked in 1998.”