Cars I’ve Loved
I like cars. Specifically, I like fast cars. It goes without saying, therefore, that I’ve never really owned one, because if I did I would be imprison’d and/or dead. But because I’m, frankly, reaching for ideas today (24 hours until GO BABY), here is a list of cars that I’ve had. (Not necessarily owned, but cars for which I have been the primary driver.)
- 1972 Pontiac Grand Ville. This was my “first,” the car I drove almost exclusively after I got my license in 1994. We called it “The Barge,” because it is quite literally the largest sedan I’ve ever seen. It handled like a sponge, but had a HUGE engine and could hustle. It lasted until early 1996, my senior year, when the engine problems finally killed it, and my dad sold it to a guy who wanted to take the massive 454 engine block, rebuild it, and put it in a GTO. I still have dreams in which I’m driving this car.
The Barge
- 1983 Mercedes Benz 240D. After The Barge died, I got to drive The Benz, off-and-on, until the end of senior year. It was a nice car, built like a tank, but it had a diesel engine with all the acceleration of a mule. Gas mileage was good, but the car would not go faster than 83 miles per hour, and it took like 3 minutes to get there. Had a nice Benz suspension, though, so it handled nice. It met a sad end in the summer of ’96, not long before I went off to college, when my sister bounced it off another car and a rock.
The Benzo
- 1996 Saturn SL2. My mom purchased this while I was away on Senior week in 1996, for the simple reason that I had the Benz in Rehoboth, my dad had his white Saab 9000, and Mom needed wheels. Also my sister was getting her license, so they really needed a third car again, even with me going off to school. After my 2 year sentence at Peabody Conservatory, I transferred to UD and needed a car to get to jobs/rehearsals/gigs, and my sister went off to college herself, so the Saturn was transferred to me. It was my faithful ride through three years of college, until I traded it in on my truck.
The Saturn
- 2002 Ford F150. Another vehicle I dream of at least once a month; I loved this truck. I had just graduated and had my first real job, so I felt I deserved a high-end automobile; to that end, I went to the Ford dealership and had mine custom-designed. Mostly this was because I wouldn’t drive one with an automatic transmission, and apparently no dealer in the country had a V8 available with a stick, but this meant I was able to pick every option I wanted, down to the hot stereo, 4×4, color, and pimpin’ alloy wheels. It was a fantastic truck, but after a while, gas prices were going way up, and my wife was having to drive all over the state for her job in a rapidly aging Mazda. So, we traded in the truck for a brand-new Honda Accord, and I started driving Sarah’s old car.
Mine was black.
- 1998 Mazda Protege. This car served us well for 10 years, by far the longest of any car we’ve had. Sarah got it in late 1997 when she was driving down to see me at Peabody every few weeks, and continued to be the primary driver until I took it over in 2005. It was cramped, underpowered, automatic transmission’d, and handled like a lawnmower. Sarah was sad to see it go, but when I got my hands on the Saab, we gave it to a car donation company, who sold it and gave the proceeds to the Choir School.
Izzy
- 1997 Saab 9000 CSE Turbo. Actually an older car than the Mazda I gave up for it, but manifestly bigger, and faster. Also safer; it’s got airbags all over the place, and weighs nearly as much as my truck did. Plus it’s a stick-shift, so I feel like a man again. I managed to acquire it through the benevolence of my father; he bought my mom a new car a while back, but wasn’t offered a significant amount in trade-in, so he kept both his Saabs, the 9000 as the daily commuter, and the 900 convertible as his “man about town” car. When he started working from home, he no longer needed a commuter car, and donated it to, um, me. EPIC WIN!
Current Whip
Those are my cars. What do you be drivin’?
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