Car Art And Photos!!

[Nexolaris]

Shelby Cobra

 

[Nexolaris]

1963 Corvette Sting Ray with split window

 

[BillM]

 

[NCbear]

My driver's education car was a 1986 Chevrolet Caprice Classic just about exactly like this one:

Sky blue, darker blue cloth interior, and an instructor who wouldn't talk fast even if we were about to hit something.

". . . um, Doctor, you might want to slow down a bit . . . . " He called all his male students "Doctor" and female students "Darlin'."

I went to Raleigh and drove on the Beltline (now I-440) the first day of driver's ed. I wasn't sure I'd forgive him, but it helped me get over my fear of driving. (I'd only ridden bicycles and piloted lawn tractors before getting behind the wheel of the Caprice.)

I first learned to drive, really drive, a 1973 Plymouth Sport Suburban 9-passenger wagon almost exactly like this one:

It was E-N-O-R-M-O-U-S. And green, exactly this same color, inside and out. Full vinyl upholstery, rear-facing third seat, back electric window that disappeared into the door/tailgate, and color-matched dash and carpet. Fast as all hell and drank gas much like an alcoholic on a binge swills beer.

Once, a fuse got loose and I lost ALL ELECTRICAL POWER around a curve late one afternoon. The engine died, the dashboard lights flickered out, and I had no power steering or power brakes. Somehow, I muscled this 2.5-ton car to a stop--and then realized I had to push it, by myself, further off the road so I wouldn't hold up traffic. I still have no idea how I did it, but I put it in neutral and, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the open driver's door, pushed the damned huge dinosaur about 100 yards to the next turn-off.

I learned how to drive a stick shift in my father's 1971 Opel 1900 coupe, which was white with dark gray-blue vinyl seats (what they call "cadet blue," in Crayola boxes) and a black dash, console, and gearshift lever.

Below are some sample 1971 Opel 1900s for your delectation. I've always thought they were 5/8-scale Mercedes Benzes, really--without most of the creature comforts the American motoring public deemed necessary (ours had manual windows, no AC, and no radio).

In college and my masters program in NC, my favorite car from among my father's progression of late 1970s Plymouth Volare wagons and early to mid 1980s Honda Civics and Accords was a cute little 1980 Honda Civic wagon, silver with a red interior and manual windows, but a weird 2-speed automatic (Hondamatic?), no AC, and a weak, tinny/buzzy radio:

Once, my favorite brother (I have three, but the one nearest to me in age is also my favorite one) and I went camping in this car in a state forest down east in NC. ("Down east" means "coastal plain," for those who don't know.) Well, despite years of being Boy Scouts, we set up our tent in a slight bowl-shaped area at the bottom of three hills. Lo and behold, in the night it rained.

Boys and girls, this was the first and only time I've ever awakened to the sensation of floating. The tent had flooded and water had gotten under our plastic ground sheet, and damn if it wasn't the most hilarious waterbed--for the first 30 seconds. We quickly realized we were both cold and wet. My brother and I, both six-feet-plus men, slept in that tiny car with the front seats rolled (yes, manually!) all the way back to touch the back seat cushions, and it was a long time before the car stopped smelling faintly like the mud from that campsite.

For my PhD program in Kentucky, my parents loaned me a 1983 Honda Accord hatchback, chestnut brown with a tan interior and a stick (and weak AC and aftermarket radio):

For Christmas that first winter, my parents bought me the widest snow tires that would fit on the car. I said, "It's Kentucky!" Dad said, "Humor me." That January, I had to dig out from over 17 inches of snow in a major metro area; out in the suburbs and countryside, the drifts were 24+ inches. I was happy that I had those snow tires!

The next winter, driving 10 hours home for Thanksgiving through the West Virginia mountains, it started to snow, big wet flakes about the size of a 50-cent piece. Guess who could hang with the truckers? Me and my snow tires. We were the only ones on the road for hours, except for the occasional Jeep or crew cab pickup.

When I came back to NC, my favorite brother bought me a 1990 Toyota Tercel, bright red with a black cloth interior (an automatic). Here's an approximation:

That car lasted only a few months before throwing a rod THROUGH ITS HOOD at over 70 mph on an interstate outside of town. It turned out that my dear, darling, delightful, favorite brother had missed the fact that the college student who'd been the previous owner had never changed the oil. Ever. Never ever ever EVER.

Needless to say, I bought all my cars myself from then on.

The local Ford dealer had a "push, pull, or tow and it's worth $500" ad on the TV. I called and asked whether that was correct. They assured me, yes, I could indeed tow my Tercel in and have it valued as a $500 trade-in/down payment.

That helped me buy my first car I'd ever bought by myself, an (automatic) 2000 Ford Focus ZX3 hatchback:

Mine had manual windows and locks but it had an automatic--because that was all my ex could drive. (After he and I broke up during Labor Day weekend 2002, the first thing I did was replace this car with an identical Focus hatchback with power everything and a stick. It didn't make me like the Focus better, but it sure as hell helped me get rid of my "I'm still pissed off that I had to drive an automatic for 2 years for this worthless SOB" feelings.)

This was the car in which I was pulled for going 93 mph and let off with a warning because (1) I explained that I was trying to get home before it rained and (2) the highway patrolman told me I'd been driving more smoothly than anyone he'd seen, at that speed, barring professional racing drivers. I kept that warning for a while, but then my husband accidentally threw it out with a lot of other papers when he was cleaning up one day.

After kicking my ex to the curb for asking me to buy him a car (a 1990 Jeep) that he then used to meet other men for unprotected sex, I then met my husband, who said years later that in my 2002 Focus I'd looked like Mr. Incredible in his little car:

Yes, I'm a big guy, and yes, I suppose I did look like I didn't quite fit my car.

Well, in 2003 my salary doubled and in 2006 I got another raise, so I thought about getting a car that was more like me. I found this amazing Mazda6 i hatchback--a 2.3-liter, 4-cylinder, 5-speed, red with a black interior, midsized hatchback. It was 99% perfect. The headlights weren't as strong as they should be, but just about everything else was damned near perfect.

It was the "Sport Value" model and it had a 6-CD stereo in the dash with a subwoofer nestled within the spare tire in the back. It even had a 2-position sunroof! I didn't care that it had a cloth interior, it had moves.

This is the car in which I got pulled, Thanksgiving weekend 2014, after having slowed down from 140 mph on I-540 around Raleigh, my husband sleeping in the passenger seat. I was following a line of Maryland-plate cars, nice and smooth, until a car door opened on the side of the road and a red laser tagged me. Given that mine was the only red car with a spoiler, I knew it was me, so I just slowed down and waited on the side of the road. "Honey, wake up," I said. "We're about to get a ticket."

Fortunately, I'd slowed down to ~100 before being caught, so I kept my license and wasn't either carried off in a squad car or told to walk home. But I heard an earful, in three languages, after the police let me go!

It's quite a car, but now it's sitting and waiting to be sold to someplace for parts because (a) it needs a $2300 ABS control module that's backordered nationally without any date by which it might be available and (b) it has a mystery noise in the right rear of the car that could be a differential or something else wildly expensive. So my baby is going, going, gone, because it's become a money pit. AIGHH.

A week and a half ago, I replaced it with a 2019 Honda Accord Sport 2.0T:

This is about 95% of what I want in a car. It's got speed, comfortable seats, all the new bells and whistles, a sunroof, Bluetooth, and a stick--but the handbrake is electric, the steering is numb (no road feel), there's no hatch (and no rear wiper), the damned car is too big, and that marvelously smooth, supple, athletic ride of my Mazda has been replaced with Honda marketers' view of what stick-shift drivers want: 19-inch wheels and low-profile tires. Ka-chunk ka-CHUNK over every little flaw in the road. I'm already thinking of replacing the wheels and tires with 17-inch ones from non-Sport models.

So there you have it: my automotive history.

NCbear (who applauds you if you've reached the end of my saga)

 

[BillM]

1953 Chevrolet Corvette !! One of 300 made that year with 5,800 miles!!

 

[BillM]

1932 Lincoln KB !!

 

[BillM]

1963 Studebaker Avanti R2 !!

 

[BillM]

1968 Chevrolet Chevelle SS !!

 

[basque9]

1953 Olds 98 Starfire

 

[BillM]

 

[BillM]

1960 Lincoln Continental !!

 

[BillM]

1995 Porsche 928 GTS !!

 

[BillM]

1960 Chevrolet Corvette !!

 

[BillM]

 

[bwhip1011]

Cher in Excalibur 1967

 

[BillM]

 

[boatnik]

1948 Norman Timbs Special

 

[Nexolaris]

 

[boatnik]

1956 Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet

 

[bwhip1011]

The Dolorean DMC 12