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Posted on 10/15/2008 5:47:53 PM PDT by AZamericonnie
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Evening Kathy, Hugs.
A very good day to you as well!
Safe trip and watch out for Moose.
Pontiac Fiero.
Every time I was at the junkyard looking for headlight motors (for the Nth time), there was another new one flattened like a pancake!
It was fun to do donuts in the snow, though.
Without a doubt.
No Question.
Nothing else is Close.
It is a slam dunk.
It was a a pale blue, plastic interiored, four door, hatch back 1984 Ford Escort. The WORST. CAR. EVER.
It is a long story...let’s just say some key memories of that car involve driving through the Callahan Tunnel under Boston Harbor at Rush Hour with white, billowing steam and smoke pouring out from under the hood and the engine knocking like mad.
When I still owned $1800 on the car, the engine went after I had spent nearly $1200 getting various things fixed on it...brakes...timing belt...suspension...gas tank an so on. A new engine would have cost me another $800-$1200.
I decided I had enough. I called a junk yard to ask how much they would give me for it.
You know what he told me?
“We don’t pay for them. We call them “throwaway cars”.
I could not believe it. For years after, the simple mention of “Ford” was enough to make my head jerk up from whatever I was doing.
The BEST CAR EVER? Without a doubt...a 1966 Dodge Van colored this aqua color with a white midsection going down both sides. The gearshift was on the dashboard. I don’t think I once ever changed the oil, and that slant six never, ever missed a beat, failed to start or didn’t get that van moving forward.
It was the third vehicle I had been allowed to drive after learning on a Plymouth Cricket (Ha! Car buffs...identify THAT one!) and a wonderful, simply awesome 1972 Chevy Greenbriar Station Wagon with a 351 in it...as a new driver, I could not believe what was, for me, AWESOME power in a car. Interestingly, that car left our family when my 18 year old older brother was attacked by his future brother in law as he sat with his future wife in the car. There was a baseball bat to the windshield, cars in reverse with an arm stuck in a window that had been rolled up on it...you get the idea. Now, these two guys are extremely close friends...:)
I was also a passenger in that car in the first automobile accident I was involved in. We had just moved back to the USA from the Philippines after five years overseas, and my brother were driving down from the Naval Base in Cheltenham, MD to visit our old friends from Fairfax, VA. My brother was 16 with his learners permit, and I was fourteen, maybe fifteen.
It was rush hour, and we were driving into Washington DC on route 95 approaching the Wilson Bridge at maybe 5:00 PM. We were doing maybe 70 mph and came over the top of a hill, and traffic was completely backed up. My brother managed to stop the car without hitting the fellow in front of us, but one of the guys in back of us wasn’t so lucky. The guy directly behind us swerved into the right lane to avoid hitting us and hit the car slightly ahead and to the right of us, who then hit the car in front of him.
The guy right behind him plowed into the back of our Chevy station wagon doing maybe 45-55 mph causing me to smack my face against the windshield on the whiplash. I couldn’t believe the force of it, and as I turned to look out the back window, I said to my brother “Some asshole just hit us...”
When I looked out the back...I couldn’t. it was black. The car behind us had accordioned upwards over our rear window, not even breaking it. That Greenbriar was a damned tough car. We jumped out of the car, with cars still whizzing by in the two high speed lanes to the left, and saw a guy with blood on his face stumble in front of cars doing 70 mph and swerving to avoid this bloody, dazed guy with a nasty laceration on his face. My 16 year old brother ran over and grabbed this guy, as a car screeched to a halt right in front of them. My brother just steered the guy to the side of this stopped car, opened the passenger door and stuck the guy in! He then told the guy to drive him to a hospital, which...the guy then did without any hesitation!
So...there we are. Standing there, looking at this dark green Olds Cutlass with a completely destroyed front end and the engine sitting between its own front seats, when my Dad (a 30 year naval vet who at the time was the XO of the base we were on in Maryland) suddenly appeared right there! Heheh, my brother and I were speechless! How on earth was HE here?
For the first time in my life, I heard my brother say the F-Word right in front of my dad: “Some f*cking guy just hit us!”
And my dad didn’t even notice it.
It was a Sunday, and my dad worked all weekends 0700-1600 usually, but sometimes 0700 to 2300 each day moonlighting as a manager at a GEMS Department Store in Washington, DC. He was just on the way home on an early day, driving his little 1972 Plymouth Cricket, and saw his car on the other side of the highway.
What are the chances of that?
Anyway, my brother and I were unhurt, except for a headache I had and a nasty case of the shakes we both got a few hours later.
One of the most memorable times in my life, though, was in the aftermath of that accident.
It was now nightfall, we had been there for some time as they cleaned things up. Traffic had been completely stopped for some time. This is no lie. We got no medical evaluation, and a highway patrolman gets down under our car with his flashlight. He tells us that our gas tank looks okay (buckled), and the car might be drivable. Would we like to try? We agreed, so...he and I get in the car and drive slowly away. Maybe a hundred yards away, I realize there are no lights, no traffic on the five lane highway in front of us. It is black and empty. In a memory that is a permanent fixture in my brain, I slowly turn in the seat to look back, and I see what looks like miles upon miles of car headlights, snaking over the hills off into the distance. All behind us.
Waiting on us. Boy, that was the most amazing thing. Of course, I know this sounds like BS, but God’s honest truth, that is EXACTLY what they did! Heheh, they just let us drive that car off with not even a cursory medical evaluation. Now, it would have been ambulance and tow truck. Back then...well, it WAS different!
Great thread!
Evening QT pi.
You poor man. You poor, poor man.
Love the gunners hatch comrade.LOL!AWB
I’m not complaining one bit.
Guy I went to college with was on the design team for the Fiero and he even called it a POS.AWB
I had an ‘85. I couldn’t complain a bit about it. Bought it for $4800 new off the lot. Ran like crazy and in seven years never burned a drop of oil until I gave it to my mother. My sister took the truck and totaled it within two months.
That is a menagerie. Do they all get along?
I’ve a stray cat that keeps trying to adopt me...
My one hesitation about taking her in is my Girls...They are kinda rough with each other.
Oh No!!
Wow....such a story...glad you came out ok!
Thanks for posting this rlmorel.
1990 Ford Taurus Wagon, light blue. I learned from that car that you should never try to “drive out the repair” before dumping a lemon. There will always be another repair before you get your money’s worth out of the last one. If you think it’s a lemon, do the minimal repair you can get away with and get rid of the car. Every time Dave Ramsay says what a great deal used cars are, I remember that piece of caca. I buy new.
Best car - my 1993 Honda Accord. 200,000 miles and 13 years, and I hardly did anything to it but change the oil. What a great car! So far my 2004 CHrysler Crossfire is definitely in the running, but does not yet have the longevity to say it’s better than the Accord.
The gunners hatch can come in handy if you need to clear a lane for a lane change in heavy traffic.
Worst car - 1998 Chrysler Seibring
1976 Triumph TR-7.
The head would warp when it got hot. Its been sitting in the garage for the past 25 years.
The four legged animals all get along and the parrots are kept behind a closed door in bird cages. More for the four leggers protection I think than the featherd ones protection.
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