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Beloved cars are just like family
(by Barbara Christian - September 14, 2012)
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Beloved cars are just like family
It has been said we Americans, like no other people, love our cars. There is good reason for this.
For all the time we spend in and all the money we spend on them, cars become just like members of the family. We worry over their health and their grooming. We hope they represent us well and pray they won’t embarrass us in public.
But for all the hopes and dreams our cars brought with them, they sometimes went astray and became black sheep. These black sheep were almost always used cars. Because the Internet had not yet been invented, there was no way to check the history of a previously owned vehicle. The only thing standing between you and a black sheep was the seller’s word that the mileage gauge was accurate and the engine had not suffered a performance-changing event.
Our family owned some real doozies, and they weren’t all used car. The first new car we ever owned was a metallic gold Corvair. Yes, that Corvair. The same Corvair that made Ralph Nader famous. Ralph was right. Our Corvair was unsafe at any speed. We rolled it twice and on one occasion spent a night in the hospital after it performed a perfect somersault on a mountain road in Oregon.
But of all the problems our cars presented us with, rust was the most daunting.
There was the Volkswagen Beetle, or “beater,” as we came to call it. Also gold in color, it rusted as if by magic immediately upon signing the check for its purchase.
In those days, a little rust on a fender or bumper was not a deal breaker. Rust doesn’t sleep. But the rust on Beetle went above and beyond, taking out the floorboards, which was brought to our attention on a Sunday outing by the kids, who announced from the back seat how they could see the street under their feet. We had owned that car less than a month.
Then there was a VW square-back, whose rear bumper succumbed to rust at the most inopportune time, choosing to fall on the ground at the valet station in front of then new and tony Tanglewood Country Club.
Rust was a common scourge because of the liberal use of road salt. For that reason, the holy grail for used car buyers was to find a “Southern car.” Before climate change, the South did not have snow and the roads in Dixie were not salted like an ear of corn at an August picnic.
In the sodium-rich North, cars began to rust after the first couple of winters with tiny flecks becoming gaping holes in no time. It was often a losing battle, and Bondo patches prevailed in the place of metal.
We next acquired an aged Volvo with cancer of its hood hinges. This made it necessary to secure the bonnet with slide bolts, the kind meant for doors, not cars. We congratulated ourselves on our ingenuity and the sense of “style” it gave the old Volvo. Our pride was short-lived.
It was on Solon Road at the Bentleyville border that air current lifted the front of the hood, ripped out the latch, which also rusted, and tore off the slide bolts. The hood took flight over the top of the car, hit the road behind and skittered along the pavement several feet before coming to rest on the berm. Thank providence, there was no other car on the road at the time.
These days we lease our cars and get a new one every three years. They are worry free, reliable and never rust. They are no longer family members but distant and boring relatives with not a single interesting story to tell.
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