It's Hard Not to Love Your First Car

Chevrolet has a TV commercial running that invites folks to describe their first cars.  It’s a cute idea, but television is hardly the place for such an important subject. No, blogs and comment sections, that is where we need to talk about first cars and what they meant, how we got ‘em, lost ‘em and replaced ‘em. I guess Count Raoul will start.

Let me say first, that if you ask most men, they cannot say for certain the sequence of girlfriends they may have had in their youth.  But the sequence of cars they drove, not a problem.

Having the good fortune (misfortune, occasionally) of being a featured member of a multiple birth, I turned sixteen at the exact moment that my brother Joe and sister Margaret (Pooh) accomplished the same feat. Waiting for us in the driveway that spring of 1968 was my grandmother’s hand-me-down 1955 Plymouth Savoy. 

Also waiting in the driveway was my older brother Peter, King of Savoy and ruler of all who sat in or even remotely commented upon his kingdom. Four teenagers sharing one car when the oldest was a high school senior (and smoked cigarettes!) was not at all going to be easy.

The Plymouth was a beauty. An ugly green with four doors and an automatic transmission with one of those gear shifts on the dashboard that you actually moved up and down. The tires were bald and the upholstery some sort of plastic.  Radio’s in the day took about an afternoon to warm up and actually play music, but when you were inside this beast all by yourself with your elbow out the window and the radio playing Motown and you cruised through Normal Town on the way to the Varsity....  Well, it was teenage nirvana. I think I got to do it twice.

We may have named our car, and if so, probably picked something popular like the Green Hornet, but if we did name it, the name wasn’t cool enough for me to remember today.  The car never stopped moving.  Pooh had to be at cheerleading practice and Joe had a job. But most importantly, Peter had a girlfriend and the keys, and I was relegated to back-right, wishin’ my siblings were all sick with a fever and wondering if the girls could see me way in the back of this big Plymouth driven by a man-brother but no other adult in sight.

I really don’t remember who wrecked it. But it wasn’t me. Probably Peter, who was a bit wild back then, but, oh, so very cool. I just know that one day the passenger side front fender was a mess. Today, of course, with proper insurance and complicated auto design, this type of collision would require a body shop if you’re lucky and a scrap heap if you’re not.

In 1968, it required a trip to the junk yard, a borrowed wrench or two and four cans of forest green spray paint to cover the white replacement fender we attached with the help of a friend at the Gulf Station. The colors didn’t match, of course, but within a few days we noticed the local telephone trucks all painted the same pea green as our chariot. Sister Pooh worked her magic, procurring a sample from the Bell South garage, and we fixed our blemish with a four inch brush. Perfect.

Fortunately, Brother Peter was also working, and within a few months bought his own ’64 Impala Convertible, which I guarantee you he wishes he still had. 

That brings me to the second thought on this subject. 

First cars are one thing, but first cars you buy yourself are something else entirely. Finally, within the confines of a budget and little else, you could identify yourself by what you chose to drive.  I would not let my opportunity pass without some thought.

After a few more years of sharing Plymouths, I went to college and got a job at Farmer’s Hardware before classes. I decided in the Spring of ’72 that I could afford the $900 asked by a graduate student for his very, very fine-looking, white ‘64 MGB with black interior and spoke wheels and opportunity written all over it.

The details about the transmission failing and the engine never hitting more than two of four cylinders are mere shadows of my memory today. The way I felt as I pulled up to the Kappa House with my car all clean and my self confidence in the red zone does last, however. Cicero said that ‘Freedom is a possession of inestimable value."  No argument here. So long as no one tries to put a value on that day and that time when my car was mine and the top went down with barely a groan.

I may have had a dozen cars since that time; VW Beetles, BMW, Mercedes and Jaguars (see a pattern, Europhobes?). But I also drove Oldsmobiles and Pontiacs and a classic Buick wagon. They all have had their good and bad points. But like a first girlfriend or a first dog, a special place in your heart is saved as the garage for your first car.  Change the oil.