We got stuck in the mud on our way up to Expo-67 and spent the night there...lost our brakes coming down Pike's Peak, and my dad had to use the emergency brake to stop the car.
We shipped the car to Japan, and were driving down a highway in Yokohama when we forced our mom to stop the care and pick up a stray kitten whom we named Chi-Chi.
When we moved to Subic Bay, we shipped the car there ahead of us.
What a beast of a car.
It was white, red leather interior, push-button automatic transmission (it had no gear shift or selector)
We usually had dad driving, mom the passenger seat (unless someone was acting up and had to go sit between them) three in the back seat, usually me between my older brothers who both tortured me, one of us often sat in the small space between the back seat and the absolutely desirable way back seat that that faced backwards.
That car had a 400 cubic inch engine, and the car would have easily gone well over 100 mph.
I know this because, when we were acting up and my dad was at sea, my mother would take the car up to to nearly 100 mph, her hair standing on end as she screamed at us she would not slow down until we stopped misbehaving.
It worked-we usually stopped!
Here is a link to a story my dad wrote for the US Navy's "All Hands" magazine where he recounts our experience at "Join the Navy and See The World".
LINK: All Hands Magaine: "Odyssey of A Navy Family"
Sadly, when my father got orders home from Subic Bay, we didn't ship that car home, and left it for some happy family. But my dad took us Space Available on the Military Airlift Command, and we flew on a C-141 Starlifter from Clark AFB, stopping in Saigon, Bangkok, New Delhi, Saudi Arabia, and then Madrid.
Then my Dad rented a VW bus, and we camped through Europe for a few weeks. Here my brothers and I are setting up the tent as we did each night, first going across America, then going through Europe!
