You Had To Be There...

Those much younger than me will never realize the joy, the pure excitement and visceral pleasure, occurring every year when "new car reveal" time rolled around.

That was back in the days of the 1955, '56 and '57 Chevies, and the Skyliner Fords, and the "Letter" series Chryslers, and the Plymouth and Dodge "hemis."  A time when each year brought improvements to the brand.  A time when racing was just getting started and manufacturers were choosing up sides.  A time when you were more or less known by the brand of car that you drove.  I've witnessed many knock down, drag out fights between Chevy and Ford guys, over which was better.  Really.

I was and still am a yuuuuge car guy, and have been since only a little tyke.  Just about the time the whole car revolution began.  About the time "American Grafitti" hit the big screen.  And I was brought up in a town of not-quite 10,000 people, without the Internet, or much in the way of TV.  Our knowledge came from car magazines and the wondrous stuff upon which they reported.

"Car and Driver," and "Sports Car Illustrated," and "Motor Trend" were all delivered to the local bus station each month, and we'd be there like flies on excrement to see what they'd brought.  Drag racing and USCCA racing, and NASCAR, and Le Mans, and Baja, and the Bonneville Salt Flats.  We lived through our imaginations, hoping to get out of our little towns and finally go where all the action was happening.  Like Southern California, the epicenter of the Car Revolution.

Those of you who think SUV's have always been our primary mode of transportation and that cars are innately ugly, need to learn that "back in the day," every car was completely redesigned and restyled each and every year.  

You read that right.  Instead of a basic design lasting 5 or 6 or even 10 years or more (read Tesla), we had newly-designed cars every 12 months.  And the dealerships would cover the floor-to-ceiling windows in their dealerships with brown butcher paper so we couldn't see the new models in the weeks leading up to the day of the Big Reveal!  Usually in the first or second week of September.  We would stand outside their dealerships on the sidewalk and look for any little tears in the paper so we could peek through during the days leading up to the Big Day!  We were among those who believed a car was your ticket out.  Your freedom.  Your expression of personality.  Even sex appeal!  And damn, were some of them gorgeous!  

A completely new car every year.  Front to back, stem to stern.  Because styling back then was everything!

And more horsepower.  Don't forget more horsepower...

Think about that.  The 1958, '58 and '59 Chevrolets, as an example, could not have looked more different, one from the other.  Google them if their styling doesn't come to mind.  And now, more than 60 years later, the "tri-5's" as they're now called are collectors items.  Bringing tens of thousands of $Bucks, 20 or 30 times their original sticker prices, even!  Because they were gorgeous!  And they were unique!  And we'll never see them again.  

And they were an extension of your personality.  I knew a guy in my home town who was homely as a wet mop.  He came from money so they used it to buy him a brand-new 1960 Pontiac Bonneville convertible, 389 cu. in. V-8, 303 hp., three speed "on the tree," mahogany brown with a natural tan "Mirrokide" leather interior, he became a babe magnet.  It was a thing of beauty.  And it rubbed off on him, as he shortly hooked up with a cute blonde and rode off into the sunset.

Ahhh!  Life in yesterday's America!   

Now?  Go to any dealer and you'll see a big box on the showroom floor.  Blecchh!  If you didn't know, SUV's are made from pickup trucks.  They just put on a new suit of clothes, and then charge you out the kazoo for it!  

Doubt me?  A Cadillac Escalade is a Chevy Suburban with a different body stuck on and another $40,000 on the window sticker.  

Nearly all the vehicles in showrooms are SUV's, and all the SUV's look the same.  From 50 feet away you can't tell them apart.  And that look isn't feeding the bulldog.  Nobody buys a car these days because it's beautiful or lifts their spirits.  Or quickens their pulse.  Or makes their heart beat faster.  Or makes them want to roll down all the windows and take a drive down a twisty country road on a sunny Sunday afternoon, for no other reason than to get some wind in your hair.  Unless the masses can afford a costly sports car, they're pretty much limited to massive 7,000 lb. beasts to go collect the groceries and tote the soccer team from place to place.  A huge waste of resources and money.

Yawn...

No wonder people are no longer car-centered.  No wonder many are choosing not to even get a drivers' license, preferring rather to take an Uber.  How sad.  

As a car guy, who also shot a really good game of pool, as in, reeeeeely good, I earned quite a lot of money over a ten year span right outa' high school.  Quite a lot.  And cars were relatively cheap back then.  As in, say $2,500 for a new Chevy convertible.  So I spent most of the money I won over a hot pool table on cars.  And girls, of course, and beer, and poker, but mostly cars.  Like, a new one every 6 months or so.  Because I also raced them semi-professionally.  Which means I beat the crap out of them, destroyed them, used them up, and threw them away.  So I've owned nearly every car folks now lust after at the Barrett-Jackson and Mecum auctions.  And pay enormous sums to own.  Like I did more than 50 years ago.

Actually, I've owned a total of 77 cars, up to and including my present ride.

And yes, I have nightmares over having sold the more valuable ones.  But then I remind myself I wouldn't have had anywhere to store them, or people to look after them, or the money to pay for all that while also starting a business and buying a home and raising a big, family.  Which always gets in the way of expensive hobbies.

But rationalization doesn't help.  I hate myself anyway.

I still get the shivers over a few I lost in the shuffle.  Example?  Sure.  I owned a Mossport green 1966 Corvette coupe, 427 cu. in., 425 horsepower, 4-speed with 3:70-1 posi-traction, dark green leather interior, and extremely rare off-road outside exhausts, steering, brakes and suspension.  All 4.  I think there were 24 made that way.  And only TWO in my color.  Talk about rare?  

It was the quickest and fastest car you could buy back in 1966.  It was so scary fast that if I thought there was even a remote chance I might take a drink, I'd leave my keys at home with my Mother and grab a ride with a friend.  It would make your eyes water it was so fast.  It would drain the blood from your face.  I don't know why they put a radio in it because the 3" outside exhausts emptied just outside and behind the doors, just under my left hip.  And it sang the song we big-inch V-8 lovers love to hear.  A big, deep, rumbly, soul-stirring roar!  It was a coffin-to-be.  It had the personality of a jilted lover, crossed with a Cape buffalo who thinks you wrote him a bad check.  It was sort of like, hit the gas, and pray.  I've never been afraid of a car before or since, except for that one.   

I watched a 'Vette like mine, with only 3 of the 4 super-rare options mine sported, sell at Barrett recently for $120,000.  I paid $6,225 for mine, BTW.  

It would do 12.5's and 120 mph in the 1/4, and top uot at 155 mph at 6,200 rpm, for those who know what all that means.*

Some more?  I had a 1953 Chevy 2 door sedan; a 1958 Nash Metropolitan; a 1960 Rambler American; a 1953 Oldsmobile 88, V-8 with 3-speed on the tree (rare); a 1960 Chev Impala 283 cu. in. convertible; a 1960 Chrysler Saratoga 383 cu. in. convertible; a 1962 Chevrolet 409 cube-409 horse 4-speed Super Sport (while the Beach Boys song was on the charts); a 1963 Plymouth 383 cube, 4-sp. Sport Fury; a 1965 Oldsmobile 442 "4-speed, 4-barrel, dual exhausts;"  And the aforementioned Corvette (boo hoo!).  

And then my uncle, Uncle Sam, invited me, forcefully, to participate in our little democracy building enterprise over in Viet Nam.  

And that just gets me to the U. S. Army, Europe.  Where I bought a couple of dozen cars while there and shipped two home; a 1966 Porsche 911** and a new 1969 Volkswagen ($1,610.00).  

I won't bore you with any of the others.  Suffice it to say from the above that I'm into cars and truly lament the fact that our cars have become nothing more than a means of transportation.  An appliance.  Like an expensive toaster.  What has America become?  No more excitement!  No more visceral joy from firing up the way-oversized V-8 power plant and preparing to tear off for a canyon-carving, interstate-blasting ride. 

BTW, can you drive a car with a standard transmission?  You know, a "stick?"  One with a clutch thingie that you have to use to change gears?  No?  My advice: learn to.  And buy a car with one.  It was recently reported that 9 out of 10 folks out there don't know how to drive a car with a stick.  Could there a better deterrent to carjacking? 

Oh well, this is all my memory, not yours.  Unless you're old, and then, like mine, you wouldn't trade it for anything...

*     I had to sell my lovely, brutally fast Corvette because I was dragged kicking and screaming away from my little fiefdom and off to save your ass from communism.  And as you'll notice, I did.  You're welcome.  My father traded my Corvette as a down payment on a 120 acre farm.  But he was a real estate broker, and I couldn't hold it against him 'cause that's what real estate brokers do...

**   Lovingly restored by a German mechanic with one leg who introduced me to the Italian Formula One Team, with which I spent an exciting and enjoyable and rewarding chunk of one summer as an occasional member of their pit crew.  Visited the Hockenheim Ring, Zandvoort, Belgium, and the Spa, among others, including the 24-hours of Le Mans.  But that's another story I hope I have the opportunity to one day tell.  God willing...