CARS 12/1/06

The other day, I found to my disgust that replacing a failed part in my car would cost 1K. I elected to do without as the car would still run and pass inspection without it. That evening, I talked to my dad who told me that because my old car has more than 100,000 miles on it, any large-ticket fixing is just not worth it.

Later that evening, a young woman from the car place called advising that her manager has authorized her to offer me 1K trade-in for my car. I was lured into making an appointment by her offer.

At the car place, I looked at several cars and test-drove two of them. Because there were no sticker prices on any of the cars in the lot, I left without consummating a deal. During the test-drive, I did remember some car campaigns of the past.

My dad had been in cars for many years when I was growing up. He started off as a salesman and worked six days a week. If it snowed on Saturday nights, on Sundays he would operate the plow to clear the car lot. When the dealership got a guard dog, my dad was the one who volunteered to feed the dog every night [including Sundays]. My dad worked hard and it paid off. In short order he was made a general manager. Later on, he bought into a dealership as a vp and a couple of years later owned two dealerships. After retirement, he went back to work part-time as a loan officer for a dealership.

Chryslers, Plymouths, and Dodges. [And briefly, Fiats]. Those were the cars that filled our conversations, that we rode around in. When I was a real little kid, my dad asked me what kind of car I wanted. "A Volkswagon Beetle," I told him. Herbie the Love-bug figured prominently in my dreams of driving. "No," he explained to me. And thus was the beginning of my education in cars.

I remember a couple of the campaigns. One was for Rusty Jones which was some glop that the dealerships wanted to coat cars with to the tune of 2 or 3 hundred bucks extra. My dad told me about the old man he had sold a car to and was carefully explaining all of the Rusty Jones stuff to.
At the end of the explanation, the old man said, "I don't want any of that crap on my car!"

There was also a campaign involving white pressed styrofoam hats with red-white-and-blue paper bands around them. And the Calm Down campaign. The voice on the radio would come one and say, "Calm down. Calm down. Calm down." There was a big white button with electric blue letters that said, "Calm down" that went with that campaign and I did indeed own one.

My high school drivers ed teacher with the computer-like voice was inept at teaching me any driving skills. I remember driving around a snowy block at her direction three times and getting stuck in the same sewer grating each time. [Being stoned did not help the matter]. She would tell me to rock the car back and forth and several minutes later, I was off only to get stuck in the same grating again. My dad came to the rescue, putting me in various sizes of cars and exposing me to various road driving conditions. It is because of his careful patient instruction that I was able to get a driver's license. The computer-voice instructor had just caused my natural state of anxiety to heighten. The first driving lesson with my dad took place in a mall parking lot where I had to avoid the parking spaces lines. Every time I hit some lines, my dad would tell me how many "cars" I had just wiped out. I learned how to judge distances, how to drive on little streets and highways, how to keep up with traffic, how to parallel park, how to use a larger car to bump a smaller car that had squeezed me into a parking space. He was a great teacher.

My first car was a shiny red Dodge with a sunroof. Driving it was a blast. Dad declined to have a turbo-engine installed though. That was probably a wise decision. I'd been to the Pocono Raceway with him and I'd been enamored of the whole speeding crashing car thing.

Dad loved Lee Iacocca and gave me a copy of his autobiography. It was not the greatest written book nor the most objective. But Lee Iacocca was my dad's hero. I read it out of respect for him more than any other reason. One of the things that my dad had failed to mention [and from my recollection the book failed to mention] was that the Chrysler Corporation was saved by a government bail-out. I don't much care for the idea of government bail-outs now but I digress.

Eventually my dad retired and then went back to work part-time for a dealership as a loan officer. Only recently did he re-retire.

Odd how after all these years, I can still hear car commercials playing in my head-- both of the cars my dad sold and of the rival ones. Off I go now with "Wouldn't you really want to have a Buick...this year" playing in mad juxtaposition against the decending cresendo of "Calm down" and the theme song to Herbie the Love Bug in stereo.

As for me, I am still very much a Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth sort of driver. Those were the cars I grew up with and what I still drive today.

sapphoq on life