This was my first car — a 1963 Chevy Biscayne. I bought it for 300 bucks. I took Jill Ziemer to the prom in this car. It was a three-on-the-tree and I couldn’t get the stupid thing in reverse. Jill saved the day by climbing in the driver seat and finding the gear for me. Admittedly, it was kind of embarrassing.
I traded out my Biscayne and a couple hundred dollars for a 1967 Dodge Charger. It had a 383 under the hood and 440 Interceptor shift-kit. I out ran the CHP in it a couple of times. Shame on me! Because I tended to drive too fast in this car, my parents refused to let me take Connie Harper to prom in it. Instead I had to drive their 1971 Opel Cadet. It wasn’t a very sexy look!
While stationed at Warren AFB, in Cheyenne, Wyoming, I spent 1200 dollars on a 1976 Datsun 610 Wagon. I did my best to drive that thing to death by taking it camping, with my friends Dave Barber and Linda Alverson and on long road trips. It was a piece of crap — but it got me from there to here and back again. Even my friend Linda Bottazzo, who was also stationed at Warren and owned one, says they were crappy, but reliable.
I had a 1977 Triumph Spitfire for a few months. I ended up with after I sued an employer to get my back pay. Unfortunately, since it was owned by that same employer, I had to surrender it to get paid. Sometimes I think I should have jus’ hung on to the car and forgone the check. It was a chick-magnet. Hind-sight is 20/20, huh?
I didn’t own a working vehicle for nearly two-years after giving up the Spitfire. I bought a 1974 VW Superbeetle, completely rebuilt with a 9-11 Porsche engine, for $3,500. The day I got it anew paint job, my friend Beth Wachter stuck a bag full of gummy bears to it. So much for the paint job as I removed them one-by-one. It didn’t look like much, but add a few bags of sand in the front trunk to weigh it down and whammo — that little Bug could do near 60 mph in second gear. I sold back a number of pink slips, making my rent because of this.
My first real old-timer was a 1937 Pontiac six 4-door Touring Sedan. I traded for it with a biker named Russ, who wanted my leather jacket. Since it didn’t run very well and a hole in the gas tank, I left it parked on the far-side of the apartment complex from where I lived. I should have kept my eye on it as within a couple of weeks, somebody stripped it down to its chassis. They even stole the seats, which were in pretty good shape. All I could do was file a police report and hope. Nothing was ever recovered. Dirty bastards!
After blowing the engine for a second time, I figured it was time to part with the Bug. And for the first in my life I decided to buy a brand-new vehicle. I drove my 1988 Hyundai Excel for 14-years until it caught fire on I-80 one morning and burned to the ground. The sad part about this is I had jus’ put anew water pump and radiator in the damned thing. I was also arrested for arson because the police thought I’d set the fire. They dropped the charges after the fire marshal found an electrical short at the point of the fires origin.
For some reason I got a bug up my butt and decided to buy myself a “classic truck,” in this case a 1959 Chevy Apache Fleetside pick-up, that I named “Big Red.” I never could get the speedometer to work properly, having been over three times, though never cited, for going over the speed limit by 10 mph. I had a friend named Ray who was a mechanic and a race car driver, who was going to fix it up for me, so I moved it to his garage, unfortunately he and his wife split the sheets and she absconded with my truck and his two race cars. She is from Arizona, so I suspect the truck is sitting someplace on one of the many Reservations in that state. Whadda shame.
Shortly after moving into our new home, I had what I call a mid-life crisis spending $4,000 on a Chevy 3100 Series step side truck. After five years of ownership I concluded “Little Blue,” deserved better TLC and feeding than I was giving her, so I sold it to my friend Paul Hinen’s son for 500-bucks. Happily, I see him zooming around town in the truck from time to time, so I think I got a good deal out of the sale.
After the Hyundai went up in flames, I needed a vehicle. I looked at all sorts of cars and trucks. I knew what I wanted and needed so I set about to find something that would solve both. That solution was a 1998 Ford Ranger XLT. I purchased it used for $12-thousand, which was about 1K more than I’d hoped to pay — but it has been worth every dime spent. I’ve crossed the western part of the U.S. twice in it, travelled up and down Nevada and California too many times to count in this truck and I continue to drive the hell out of it today.
Honestly — I had no idea I’d owned so many vehicles in my lifetime.
The Old Blog in the Desert 
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