Every Car Chris T.'s Ever Owned, Pt. II

After a detour into General Motors products I decided a return to Mopar was in order. Once again I scoured the Newsday classifieds (back then there was no craigslist, no eBay and - for all I know - nothing that remotely resembled the Internet) and before too long found a 1972 Plymouth Fury. It was a two-door, metallic brown with matching vinyl roof and a 360 under the hood. Six days after buying the car I was sitting at a red light at Jackson Avenue in Queens with my friend Paul when I was rear-ended by a Checker cab. I was knocked unconscious and if not for Paul's quick thinking - from the passenger side he reached over with his left foot and hit the brakes, while grabbing the steering wheel -  we probably would've both been killed. We crawled out the passenger door, falling into a spreading puddle of gas (good thing neither of us smoked!), shaking glass from our hair. The Checker must've been doing 80, considering the damage done to the Fury. I sued the cab company, eventually garnering roughly $6,000, part of which I used to buy a...

...1968 Chrysler New Yorker for sale a few towns over. I grabbed a set of old license plates, a stack of $100 bills and harangued my Aunt Isabel into giving me a lift to my potential new set of wheels. I took the New Yorker for a test drive and the owner made a point of cautioning me about the car's brutish acceleration and somewhat inadequate brakes. I loved the car's rakish yet classy styling - a two-door fastback, white with black vinyl roof, black vinyl interior, bucket seats, center console shift and power everything - so I peeled off $1000 and peeled away. It was like the Caddy but way cooler... and way faster. Ironically, I moved to New Jersey in that car and had lots of fun cruising all over the state, including a high-speed run out Route 80 to Waterloo, New Jersey to see Johnny Cash. I was on Route 80 again about a year later when the New Yorker's engine threw a rod. Not willing to spend what it would cost to get it fixed, I regretfully let it go and prepared to replace it quickly. Which is how I ended up with...

...a 1974 Chevy Nova. If I had time to shop around I probably would've bought something else. But I was commuting back and forth to a new job and couldn't afford to miss a day. The Nova was available locally and cheap at $700. Compared to the New Yorker it was bare bones transportation with a bench seat, column shift, power nothing and hideous maroon paint job. It did, however, have a 350 under the hood and moved even faster than the New Yorker, due to its lighter weight. I left rubber all over New Jersey in that Nova and only sold it (for $700, what I paid for it) when a friend of mine offered me a high-mileage 1979 Jeep Wagoneer for free. I'm still not sure why she

The Wagoneer featured the short-lived Quadra-Trac four-wheel drive system (I still don't know exactly how it worked) was a cool two-tone blue and had a nasty habit of shattering rear windows if you closed the tailgate improperly. I probably replaced three or four windows on that beast before finally giving up on it a few years later in 1989.

I wanted another four-wheel drive vehicle and realized it was time to buy something new, rather than the rusted-out shit-boxes to which I'd grown accustomed. I arranged a bank loan and again took to the classifieds, locating a 1987 Jeep Wrangler in the northwest corner of New Jersey. It was a first-year model, Colorado Red with black interior, hard and soft tops and 31,000 miles on it, being sold by a young woman returning to college for her sophomore year. I paid roughly $8,000 for it, more than all the cars I'd previously purchased combined. I drove that Jeep for fourteen years, sinking ungodly amounts of money into it and finally letting it go after it caught fire on Route 1 & 9 Southbound, just over the Pulaski Skyway. I sold it on eBay and got a respectable $3,500 for it from a used car dealer in Scottsdale, Arizona (they shipped it out on in a railroad container).

After the rough ride and handling of the Jeep I was ready for something more civilized. A friend owned a Mercedes Benz 300D Turbo-Diesel that I'd borrow when my Jeep was in the shop for extended periods (which it too often was). I liked the way the 300D handled, the layout of the interior and its compact size do I decided to find one for myself - which I did, on eBay. It's a 1983 (300D Turbo-Diesels were produced from 1981 to 1985) and my winning bid came in at $3,000. I took a train and two buses down to Deptford, New Jersey, slapped on my old Jeep plates and headed for the nearest motor vehicle office to make things legal.

About six months after buying the Mercedes I was involved in an accident while on my way to WFMU to do Aerial View. A young woman in a Isuzu Rodeo made a left in front of me and I caught the rear corner of her bumper with the right front quarter of my car. I went through an uphill battle with the insurance company but eventually got them to pay off properly. My mechanic said I should get the car fixed, that the engine and drivetrain were in great shape, so I did. I'm still driving it today and hope to hang on to it for many more years.

Comments

[craig]

might i suggest next car be a volvo wagon, wrapped in bubble foam and filled with packing peanuts?

that, or take the 'HIT ME' bumper sticker off the car.......

[bob]

A lot of us at FMU recall the Jeep Wrangler. I rode in it when it was driving pretty (Get outta the way, fools!) & a couple of times when you had to call up supernatural spirits to bring it to life just so we could go a few blocks in East Orange for burgers or beer.

[Dale Hazelton]

My first car was a 1974 AMC Hornet. It was three years old when I got it and it began to rust out imediately. Serious rust holes in the tops of the fenders and in the rear quarters. It was my summer ritual to buy a gallon of cheap bondo at the Twin Fair department store and give it a half-assed paint job. The front shock towers rusted so badly it was unsafe to drive, and I could only make left hand turns without the tires grinding into the finder lips. It went through a couple of starters, exhaust systems, alternators, shocks, new springs, I rebuilt the carberator a few times etc. I think it was just good old American union-mentality craftsmanship, both at the car companies and at the aftermarket parts companies. It was all junk, and no one cared. Still, it was my car through college, so I have a lot of memories of it.

My next car was a 63 Mercury Colony Park station wagon I paid $600 for, presently in my garage awaiting some restoration. It has a 390 cid and could go like hell on the Parkway, but like you point out, pray you don't have to stop in a hurry.

Then I had an 88 Wrangler for, yes, 14 years! Great for parking where I lived in Brooklyn. The long stroke six was a great motor, but the Ford Motorcraft ignition system was crap and needed constant troubleshooting (I still remember jiggling ignition wires on the side of the Prospect Expressway at 5 am in 20 degree weather), the vacuum hoses were routed on top of the exhaust manifold and burned out constantly making it run rougher than a cob, the windshield leaked horribly requiring copious amounts of silicone. With the soft top on the flapping sound was deafening at highway speed. I finally got tired of spending every other Saturday at the auto parts store and by 2003 when I got rid of it the frame was just starting to rust out. I recently spotted it locally, with probably about 3 grand worth of tires, wheels and jacked up suspension, but they never bothered to repair the frame.

Now my 47 year old ass is happy in (gasp!) a Chrysler Town & Country minivan. Don't gag until you try one. There are tons of them out there so they are pretty cheap preowned, they're quiet, comfortable, safe, fairly fuel-efficient, and pull out the third seat and you have a ton of room for camping, flea marketing, whatever.

Chris, too bad none of us had time machines, now your big block family cruisers are starting to command good money in Hemmings Motor News. But at the time, they were just "wheels" , and a means to get out and find some fun.

[detroitsuperfly]

My 1st car was a 1969 Mercury Cyclone with a 428 Cobra Jet. I only drove it for a year until I took it up to 145 MPH on a 4 land h-way in Detroit. At 145, the intense torque of the motor cracked the transmission off the bell housing and engine, filling the car with smoke and locking the rear wheels. Lucky for me, it was a posi-traction rear end and skidded straight to a stop. I got out of the car to assess the damage. As soon as I got out of the car, my Dad drive by. He saw the whole thing and screamed a whole in my head. I had the car for 5 more years stored in the garage with no motor or trans. I ended up selling it to a midget in Quelph Ontario through Hemmings motor news for $2000 more than I paid for it.

My next car was a 76 Cougar that I had for a week before I drove to to and from Toledo to Detroit to get fireworks... with no oil.

[detroitsuperfly]

My 1st car was a 1969 Mercury Cyclone with a 428 Cobra Jet. I only drove it for a year until I took it up to 145 MPH on a 4 lane h-way in Detroit. At 145, the intense torque of the motor cracked the transmission off the bell housing and engine, filling the car with smoke and locking the rear wheels. Lucky for me, it was a posi-traction rear end and skidded straight to a stop. I got out of the car to assess the damage. As soon as I got out of the car, my Dad drive by. He saw the whole thing and screamed a hole in my head. I had the car for 5 more years stored in the garage with no motor or trans. I ended up selling it to a midget in Quelph Ontario through Hemmings motor news for $2000 more than I paid for it.

My next car was a 76 Cougar that I had for a week before I drove to to and from Toledo to Detroit to get fireworks... with no oil.

[yaw eno]

a friend of ours had a Checker Marathon, they were built to go a zillion miles & of pretty thick gauge sheet metal, which is certainly a factor in why it mushed your car so bad. when my buddy would pick us up in that thing, to bust balls we'd only sit in the back & bark out adresses or NYC landmarks.
my first car was a '67 GTO, 8 miles a gallon of leaded hi-test just in time for the 70's gas shortages. sold it for $100 bucks, which wasn't the only stupid thing i did with it, there was the dramatic 120-ish m.p.h. front tire blow-out. plenty exciting!
working for a large company(think monopoly), i've had the pleasure to beat the piss out of many vehicles as a form of revenge against my employer. K-cars & Omni's fell apart so fast, it wasn't even fun, on the other hand you couldn't kill some vans or pick-ups.
Okay, liked the car love/hate stories, later

[EmD]

My first car was a '92 Geo Prizm, a real fighter that I nicknamed Dennis. It took untold amounts of abuse. Once, I didn't slam the hood hard enough, and it flew up on I-40, covering the windshield. Another time, I busted a grape in traffic and pounded the horn so hard that it stuck. For months, it fired at unpredictable intervals until I finally got it fixed. (One one occasion, as I was crusing 'cross the countryside, I passed a police car, and the horn toot-tooted without provocation. I was pulled over and searched.) After five long years, Dennis finally crapped out on I-85 outside Atlanta, belching black smoke. I got $50 for his remains.

The next and only other car was a silver Toyota with a better engine, better features and lot less character. I owned it for a little over two years and sold it to finance a trip to Europe. When I got back, I moved to Chicago. Despite the profound shittiness of the CTA, I've enjoyed not having a car.

[Dale Hazelton]

The "drywall" thread garnered more interest than this (!). Don't people have a relationship with their cars anymore?

OK, here's one -- my wife's first, and only car was a 1980 Chevy Monza named "Flipper", after the band. It also went fast and fishtailed, hence another"flipper" reference...It had been handed down from her brothers and pretty much used up by then - the hood had been run over by the tailgate of her father's moving truck and the rear quarter was damaged from a hit-and-run in her High School parking lot. I remember her picking me up in it to drive to Buffalo to see an Elvis Hitler concert. There was a "Beware of Dog" sign on the dashboard and handcuffs hanging from the rearview window.
The headliner was hanging down and grazing the top of my head and it, the dashboard, and doors had been written on in chalk with song lyrics and crazy punk phrases. She had various band stickers on the dash pad and rear fender, and a few skulls and crossbones here and there....The suspension was shot and it sat pretty low. I remember keeping the window open so the exhaust gasses wouldn't get the better of me. I was petrified . She loved it.