Ah, the twilight years. Life way out there on the end of the limb. Boy, have things changed. Life just isn’t as simple as it used to be. Back in my day, I remember whe…

Hey!

What just flew by me in the “don’t dare venture over here unless you’re hitting 80” lane? A brand new AcuLexBuiNisolet? No, no no. It must have been a ForKiMazHonLinToy. Argh! I used to be the champ. I was proud. No four-wheeled mode of transport dared pass me by without fear of immediate identification. I hate to admit defeat, but, for me, the day of the distinctive automobile is gone. The “look” has surrendered to sameness. These days, to recognize what kind of car that is in front of me, I have to slip in behind it like a NASCAR driver and search for the ever-elusive nameplate. Granted, the modern-day automobile is safe and fuel-efficient, and will likely be dependable for a hundred-thousand miles or more, but please, show me something that sets one car apart from another. Tail fin me. Porthole me. At the very least, chrome bumper me.

Let me tell you about some of the cars I have known.

My parents were Pontiac people, so my first car was fated to be a Pontiac. It was their seven-year-old 1955 Star Chief Sedan. My mother named it Firegold. My mother named every family car they ever owned. This one had a two-tone paint job, White Mist over Firegold, hence the nickname. Firegold was long and wide and comfortable and plenty fast enough to land me a ticket for doing seventy on a sixty miles per hour stretch of Texas highway. I never owned Firegold, but it was special because it was the first.

My dad had affection for cars. He always drove his own work car, which he jokingly called his “junk” car, and he had many of them. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, my dad kept a minimum of five one-hundred dollars bills stashed in his wallet at all times. If he spotted a used car he wanted, he was prepared to offer the seller cash on the spot. More often than not, he drove away with the car. My father was a master at paying as little as possible, doing his own repair work, and then selling for profit. These are a few of the memorable “junk” cars he brought home in the 1960’s: a black 1939 Ford Coupe with rumble seat – ooh, I loved to be seen in it; a brown 1954 Hillman Minx – it was dowdy and very British, and I liked to refer to its bonnet, boot, and windscreen; a green and white 1959 Nash Metropolitan – I could reach down and touch the pavement from the driver’s seat; and a Studebaker Champion coupe from the 50’s – I heard “Hey, are you coming or going?” a lot. They were all unique. They had a “look.”

The first car I actually owned was a used turquoise and white 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air two-door sedan. I replaced the taillight lenses with two from a 1956 Buick. Very classy. I put chrome rear view mirrors on top of the front fenders. Not so classy. It never occurred to me that I should position those mirrors on the fenders so the hood would not hit them when opened. Every time I, or any unsuspecting gas station attendant, raised the hood, my customizing buffoonery was on display. The hood scraped loudly against both mirrors and pushed each one to the side at least two inches. That pretty much soured my relationship with the Chevy. My kind father never spoke a critical word and kindly sold the car for me. I moved on to a 1959 Pontiac Star Chief, a big car with a spacious interior. The Star Chief was a true four-door hardtop – it had no roof support pillar between the front and rear doors. With all the windows down, it was the next best thing to driving a convertible. Great…and not so great. While driving back to the house one night, enjoying the openness of my next best thing to a convertible, I, a fledgling smoker, casually flicked a still-burning cigarette butt out into the hot summer darkness. I would have no dirty ashtray in my Pontiac. In the wee hours, long after I had parked the car for the night and slipped into bed, my father awakened me with the bad news that the interior of my big, blue Pontiac had burned up during the night. The airborne butt did not land on the pavement as intended but somehow pulled off an Immelmann maneuver to re-enter and land on the backseat of my true four-door hardtop, where it stealthily smoldered and did its damage under the cover of night. Mercifully, our insurance company took pity on my unfortunate circumstance, so with the pay-off from the unintentionally torched Star Chief, I searched the car lots on Jacksboro Highway.

Birge Motor Company specialized in nice, used imported autos. One afternoon, while checking out the cars on their lot, I was drawn to a little British beauty. It was a 1962 Sunbeam Rapier Mark IIIA two-door hardtop, waiting there just for me. Come here, big boy. Open my door. Slide right in. Nice! Leather-covered bucket seats, very subtle rear fender fins, four-speed synchromesh transmission, and two one-barrel Zenith carburetors riding atop a tight four-cylinder engine. I loved the Rapier’s design and feel, and the interior was snug and plush. Sadly, sadly, it turned out that all those things were merely illusory. Once again, I failed to properly think things through. Several months after I had signed on the dotted line and sped off down the Jacksboro Highway humming “Hail, Britannia”, one of those neat carburetors quit working. It needed a new butterfly valve, but Birge had no butterfly valve.  In fact, they had no Sunbeam Rapier parts of any kind. There was no butterfly valve for my Sunbeam anywhere in the United States of America. The closest one was a costly six-month journey from London, England to the great state of Texas.

I gave up the Rapier for a new 1966 Pontiac LeMans two-door hardtop. It was equipped with a V-8 engine and a floor-mounted, three-speed transmission, but for me, the greatest thing about that car was its Delco radio, equipped with reverb. I loved to roll down the windows, crank up the volume, and broadcast rock and roll music to any overly sensitive country and western music ears within range. Two years later, pure, unabated envy drove me to trade my LeMans for a yellow 1968 MGB convertible. John, my unforgivably handsome fraternity brother, rolled up one day in a bright red Triumph TR5, and, judging from the pretty Gamma Phi sitting beside him, it looked to me like a British two-seater was the fast track to attracting girls. I kept my MGB for three months. It took me that long to figure out that the attraction was John, not his TR5.

I abandoned the cramped confines of the MGB for good old decadent American luxury, in the form of a top-of-the-line 1968 Pontiac Bonneville Brougham two-door hardtop with black Cordova roof. Four years later, I drove it down to the Texas Gulf Coast, where I spent two weeks working at the Manned Spacecraft Center during the Apollo 14 moon mission. Through a mutual friend, I met my future lovely wife on that two-week adventure. Of course, she owned no Chrysler, Ford, or GM product. Hello, bonnet, boot, and windscreen. Hello, British two-seater. Future lovely wife drove a British Racing Green 1972 Triumph Spitfire MkIV. A side note. My large, General Motors Corporation Pontiac had wonderful air-conditioning to overcome the heat and humidity of Houston. British Leyland brooked no such luxury. Spitfires were for the stouthearted.  Quit your whining. Just drop the top and let the wind do its job.

Now, a Volkswagen Squareback, Plymouth Volare, Pontiac Phoenix, Lincoln Continental, three Volvo 240DL’s, and two Toyota Sienna’s later, I still have visions of being out of step with the automotive times. But, those fantasies will have to wait. The “maintenance required” light on my AuJeDodMitsler just came on, and it’s signaling that it’s time for an oil change.