To The Metal

One day I was driving past my buddy’s house and saw this car hanging out in the back yard. I only saw the rear end but it was unmistakable. A black Buick Regal. Back in the 80s, a black Regal usually meant one thing – turbo V6 power… Was it a Grand National? A GNX?

A quick online chat and I find out its a 1986 Buick Regal T-Type. Essentially it was a Grand National with a different option set. This one had sat for a very, very long time after the previous owner ran it into something and was apparently spooked by its power. $500 later, it’s in my driveway.

I wasn’t exactly rolling in “restore a Buick from the 80s” money, but I always revered stories of the shade tree mechanic, fixing things as best they could with what they had on hand. I began reading up on the model and first things first, I had to get the engine running. Any modern engine needs 3 things to run. Fuel, spark, and air.

All this one needed was fuel, I fired it up and it purred. Now back then, I lived in a 2nd story walk-up apartment in an old farm house, big dirt driveway. The landlord was hesitant but as long as I kept it out of the way, he let me work on it. I really had no clue what I was getting into with this car. In my head I saw drag strip monster…

In reality, the rear main seal on the motor was leaking… the turbo wastegate was disconnected… the interior stank of death… and there were maggots… so many maggots…. in the floorboard carpet, and a fair amount of body damage on the front end. I had a toolbox and tons of pluck.

I was also in my early 20s, and still very, very stupid. One night after I’d gotten the car running, installed new plugs, wires, oil, and new front pads/rotors, I decided to give it a quick test drive. Late one night I pulled out onto the road, drove down to the intersection, turned around, and punched the gas. The car launched like it was possessed.

As I approached my driveway on this quiet road, I pressed the brake to slow down so I could pull in. My big smile rapidly faded as the brake pedal fell to the floor and the car did not slow down. I’d lost my brakes. The e-brake wouldn’t lock, but between downshifting and using the e-brake, I was able to slow the car enough to get it back in my driveway.

I get half way up the driveway, and turn it off. Hands shaking. I checked the brakes, every time I pushed the pedal down, a blast of brake fluid shot out the rear of the car, a brake line’s years of rot finally made it fail under load. Ok, I’ll get it back to its parking spot and worry about it tomorrow, right?

I turn the key – nothing. Car was dead. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!? I reach out to my only gearhead friend in town, and he stops by. Apparently starter motors had a device called a solenoid which actually triggers the motor. Those stick. He looks under the car, smacks the starter solenoid with a hammer, and the car immediately fires up the next attempt.

The next day, I pick up a new starter motor and a length of brake line. These cars are still popular to this day so getting a pre-bent brake line was an option, albeit expensive. I removed the old line, and bent the new one to match. With the car jacked up, I tried for about 2 hours straight to get it installed and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t do it.

After going through multiple lines, I determined that I’d need to drop the rear end on the car (lower the rear axle out of the way to get the new brake line installed) – which I wasn’t ready to do. What I did instead was install a bleed screw where the line was disconnected, bleed the line, and leave the front brakes in charge of keeping the car stopped for now.

Now you might notice (if you’re a fan of the Regal) that the turbo is bypassed from the intake in that photo above. Well, did I mention I really did not know anything about turbo cars earlier? I recalled seeing old Grand Nationals and GNX’s where the driver would press the brake, and press the gas to build boost and the torque would lift the car.

One day I was showing this to my buddy in my driveway (same friend who showed me how to fix a starter) when the turbo went. A cloud of blue smoke shot out of the tailpipe and the turbo itself made a hideous noise. After parking the car, that’s when I discovered what a wastegate was, and that it was disconnected. Without that, the old turbo generated too much boost and died.

Ok – so I need a new turbo (brakes are still shot) so I go online, order a new one, new injectors, and all the trimmings. Pluck is overriding common sense more each day with this car. I tried to swap out the turbo, but the bolts are rusted to the down-pipe. Despite a liberal coating of WD-40 and attempting to use a back-out tool where you drill into the screw and back it out with a special bit… it wasn’t happening.

I was in over my head, dumped, depressed, and my self confidence had left the room. The car had more to fix than I could do in my driveway, so I gave up and sold it. Fun fact, when you put one of these up for sale on a message board for this model car – a friendly guy will show up the next day with cash and a flatbed.

Looking back, I should have kept it. There wasn’t anything on that car I couldn’t eventually learn to fix, but the timing wasn’t right, and I was impatient. Partway through the ownership of this Regal, I replaced my Neon with another Intrepid. That’s a chapter I like to call “Don’t buy a Dodge to make someone jealous.”

Don’t let hormones decide your next vehicle purchase.

Back in 2001, I was deeply in love. The kind of blinding, hopeful, unrealistic, hormone driven love that drives a man to make mistakes. My girlfriend at the time had a 1st gen Dodge Neon.

Now up until this point in my life, I’d never driven a small car before. For what it was, the Neon was a great handling car. As long as you ignored the peeling paint and blown head gaskets – there’s a reason it was so popular in ACR and R/T trim. It was nimble, peppy, and good on gas. 3 things I didn’t get out of my Intrepid.

So I traded in a good car in need of a few hundred dollars worth of repair for this:

Now don’t get me wrong, I might make some negative comments but on the whole it was a good and reliable car. It was the first car I really started to put effort into when it came to performance upgrades. It got the usual “Sam” package which was tinted windows and a bass box in the trunk. In addition to that, custom wheels, cold air intake, dual exhaust, and an underdrive pulley. It was also my very first manual transmission car.

My dad taught me to drive stick on his…. 1994 Ford Ranger. I picked it up quickly, and he was right – once you know how to drive manual, it becomes automatic. With this car I stalled it once in the parking spot on delivery, but after that it became automatic. The saleswoman was surprised when I told her I’d never really driven stick before.

Up to about 75mph, the Neon was reasonably quick. Bone stock, it got about 30mpg. After installing all my modifications (and driving it like a normal person) the best I got was 40mpg. Not bad for the time. I tell you though, this car was a 4 wheeled metaphor for my early 20’s. I’m 21, in love, have a good job, my own apartment, within a short time though I’d be alone and horribly depressed.

With 1000 miles on the odometer, driving my ex girlfriend home from an event, a deer ran out in front of my shiny new car from a field of very tall grass and caused $3000 in damage to it. Completely took the wind out of my sails. Remember that body shop I mentioned that did work on my Intrepid? Went back to them. Everything was good until I felt the hood. Was like low grit sandpaper. Apparently they put it out in a dusty parking lot to dry after painting it. I took it right back, they sanded it, polished it, and ensured I’d never go back.

A year later in the same spot, I’d hit another deer. This time they were running from a car leaving the driveway of a wildlife sanctuary. I didn’t report it to insurance, as I didn’t want it to spike, and only the hood was damaged. I ordered a new hood for the car and left it primer black for the rest of the time I owned it. At around 30k miles, I ran over a stepladder in the middle of route 17. At 50k miles, the head gasket blew.\

Me Ta Phor. My 20’s were a roller coaster. Every time I thought I was getting up to speed, another deer ran in my path to throw me off course.

The second time I was ever pulled over for tint was maybe a half mile from my apartment. As I was a young driver in the American equivalent of a beat up Honda, I got my “fix it ticket” and was sent on my way. Essentially the ticket would be dropped if I removed the tint, which I angrily did later that day. Side note – crank the heat in the car so the glass and tint is warm, it should peel off in large sheets. Windex and a rag will remove the adhesive.

Now one time I should have been pulled over, and was not… I was racing another car. I’d seen this beat up old Honda Accord on my way to work one day, 3 kids in the car, and when I approached they flashed their hazard lights at me. I didn’t know at the time, but apparently that was the universal sign for “want to race?” I really didn’t, so I kept going.

A few days later I’m heading back from Middletown on back roads, and in my rearview what do I see approaching rapidly? That crappy Honda again. I floor it. Now my Neon was pretty quick up until about 75mph, once I crossed that, acceleration was still possible but it was much less…satisfying to my 20 year old idiot self.

So we’re on this two lane back road, and in the distance I see a car stopping to pull left. They’re maybe a half a mile a head as I dip out of view, fully expecting them to be gone when I crested it. Well… They weren’t. I don’t know why they were at a dead stop, but there was no oncoming traffic and there they sat.

I’m not certain if they saw me coming, saw me slam on the brakes, or heard the calamity that was headed their way, but they finally moved off the road with a few dozen feet to spare. In my rearview, while this was going on and while I was rapidly slowing, I saw that POS Accord behind me, sideways with at least one wheel locked up.

With the roadblock removed, I sped back up and maybe a half mile down the road, pulled over into a dirt lot. They followed. All 4 of us (remember they had 3 other people in that car) just looked at each other like “did that just happen?” We shared a couple cigarettes, thanked God for our luck in avoiding what could have been an ugly accident, and then the pies de resistance…

The other driver, who had apparently been trying to race anyone with wheels for at least the past week and finally did with me… HAD ABSOLUTELY NO BRAKES LEFT. In a day of stupid, that was the stupidest stupidity I’d stupidly encountered on that stupid freaking day.

Recall back when I said ‘tires wins the race’ then I pointed out how often I went through tires on my Intrepid? Didn’t learn my lesson here, whatsoever. After upgrading the intake, exhaust, and installing the underdrive pulley, I bought the wheels you see above with REALLY WIDE TIRES on them. Even Discount Tire Direct said “LOL ARE YOU SURE.”

I had no clue what I was doing. Sure, they looked great, but they completely threw off the balance of the car and were utterly useless in the snow. That’s why in 2001, I had a perfectly snow worthy FWD sedan with snow chains on it. I wound up ditching those tire in short order for the least expensive set of Good Year tires that I could find. That’s when I learned that skinny tires + manual transmission = beast in the snow.

One storm in the early 2000’s (will add a photo here later) I drove the 10 mile trip from Pine Island to Warwick in a solid 6″ of snow to get pizza from Franks. I passed both trucks and SUV’s that were stuck. I didn’t go over 20mph the entire way, and safely returned home. The main trick was keeping the wheels spinning at the same speed the car was moving.

Now at the time I had the Neon, I was working for a Library system so I would regularly drive between libraries in 4 counties. Bonus points if the work van was unavailable, as I could drive my own car, get reimbursed for the mileage, and instead of driving back to the office when my day was through, I could just go home. That is how in 3 years I put 90k miles on that little Neon and the biggest problem I had with it was a blown head gasket.

Now nearing the end of my ownership of this car, my Neon driving girlfriend and I had parted ways, I was bitter, depressed, and eager to show how well I was doing by buying new shit. Emphasis on the shit. Oh boy. On the upside, trading the Neon in for my next car, a 2000 Dodge Intrepid R/T, taught me how to properly negotiate a car purchase (to my benefit. Before we get there though, we need to discuss my 1986 Buick Regal T-Type…

After a solid 3 years driving my old Plymouth, I felt I was ready for something nicer, something quicker, something without over 200k miles on the odometer. Back then we had a family dealership we bought all our cars from. Stanley Chrysler Plymouth in Warwick, NY. Right now it’s still a dealership / garage, albeit one I got kicked out of the last time I tried buying a car there.

Now at the time, I wasn’t set on a car, I actually wanted a truck. I’d been saving money from my job so that I had a down payment that’d cover roughly 1/4 of the 1998 Chevy S10 flareside with a Vortec V6. The dealer (Country Chevy) had a black extended cab in stock for $20k brand new. So I pull in with my jalopy (my first ever dealership walk-in), and look for someone to help. No immediate bites.

Finally Dan waves me over. He’s on the phone. What happened next is why I cheered when Country Chevy closed for good. I tell him I’d like to check out the truck I mentioned earlier, and ask for a test drive. He’s still on the phone, half paying attention to me. Finally he gets off the phone, looks up the truck, then tells me he has another S10 coming in later, silver with magenta trim, regular cab, 4-cylinder. Not what I wanted. I explain that to him, he suggests I come back later with my dad.

K. I’m 18, making a decent wage, literally had a WAD of cash in my pocket. This guy royally pissed me off. I got up and left, just walked out without saying a word. So I go home, and write an email to Sylvio Pettruci (the owner) about what happened. I get an apology back, and an invite to return. The day I plan on doing so, I see ‘ol Dan walking over to the Sunoco. He sees me in my jalopy, points, and laughs. Ok, I’m done.

I head over to the dealer my family used for years and see what is on the lot. My first choice? A Ford Taurus with a V6. A good friend of mine swore by the things so I decided to check it out. Alas, it was blocked in. What was it blocked in by?

The owner handed me the keys and let me take her out. 214hp. Sport suspension. Leather interior. Bigger, faster, and better handling than the Plymouth. I was in love. A quick negotiation, my down payment, and I was on my way. Yes – I did stop by Country Chevy to thank Dan for suggesting I take my business elsewhere…. I’ve mellowed with age, I swear.

The very night I got the car, my friends and I all piled in and tore up to Middletown at unmentionable speeds. The thing was FAST. I never controlled power like that before. On the way back, they said I was going to miss a turn. Without slowing I cut the wheel. The car cornered like it was on rails. Pretty sure I gave my guardian angels a real workout that night.

Within 2 months of owning the car, the front right fender was torn off by a passing landscaping trailer. Despite the fact I was stopped and the trailer was over-width, town of Wallkill PD still put me at fault. Queue increased insurance rates for 39 months! Also learned that not all body shops are the same, as the one who repaired the car did a decent job at first – a year later as the paint was fading… not so much. Also someone crushed part of my rear quarter panel and left the scene while the car was parked in the Grand Union (now CVS) parking lot in Warwick, NY.

Now the downside to a big, fast car is that the way I drove – things like brakes and tires wore out quickly. I think it had 16″ wheels and tires, sport compound, so generally I’d be dropping near $800 for new tires. Over the course of roughly 100k miles of ownership, I can’t recall how many sets of brakes and tires I went through, and roughly I went through front brakes twice as often as rears. At this point in my life, doing my own brakes was verboten magic.

Some of the first things I did to the car (mods, if you will) – tinted glass, loud stereo, bass cabinet in the trunk, cat-back exhaust, remote start, those headlight blackout things, and high output fog lights. Remember when I set my Plymouth on fire? Yeah, I should have kept that in mind when I installed higher wattage bulbs in my fog lamps to accommodate my blacked out headlights. No fire this time, but it DID melt the multi-function switch on the steering column. Whoops. I tell you that car sounded fantastic at wide open throttle. The only thing besides steel pipe hooked up to the engine’s exhaust was the catalytic converter. I also had 12″ subwoofers in the trunk for some real thump. I tell you, teenage me was the coolest broke kid in the neighborhood!

That remote starter was fun to install. 40 year old me wouldn’t have had the patience that 18 year old me possessed. It involved installing a small box the size of an eyeglass case, carefully splicing wires into the factory harness, and hoping that when all was done the car didn’t turn into a fireball. I probably spent about 6 hour taking the dashboard apart and trying to reversibly splice into the connectors. I pulled it off, and in the winter having a warm car waiting for me was a beautiful thing.

Did I mention tinted glass? First car I ever tinted was my Plymouth. It looked great, but before the advent of backup cameras, made backing the car up at night very stressful. It was also fairly illegal but generally speaking as long as you’re not driving a beat up Honda – nobody’s going to pay attention to a nice looking car with tinted windows… or so I thought. I’m heading back from Palisades mall with a group of friends, driving through Sterling Forest (because the twisties between Sterling & Greenwood lake are great if you have a well handling car)… Of course, we all see and point out the speed trap by the Ren Faire area. As I’m looking to see if he’s pulled out, he nails my drivers side mirror with the spotlight, I panic and cut hard right to pull over. I didn’t notice but I missed a telephone pole by an inch or two.

So the officer comes to the window, glass tester in hand, and he’s asking why I pulled over like I did, pointing out I nearly hit the phone pole. I explain that it was a reflex after I got blinded by his spotlight (which lit up before his emergency lights). He tested the glass, told me it was illegal, but let me go – likely concerned that if I pointed out how I was stopped with 4 other folks, blinded and nearly run into a telephone pole… might not look good. Of course, being a teenage driver – driving late at night back then – I always had issues with police. The most common thing they’d do back then is tailgate a young driver so that they’d speed up. Once they speed up – boom – you’re pulled over and likely getting a ticket. One time in West Milford, there’s this two lane uphill stretch, I saw the WM cruiser coming so I set my cruise control to 35mph. Still, he sat at my rear quarter panel in the hopes I’d give it a little gas. No luck. That leads me to another interaction I had.

Remember my friend with the fireworks and Pontiac? Well we’d just dropped a friend off at their car in Vernon, NJ around 2am. No sooner did we leave the parking lot than a Vernon cruiser was so close to my rear bumper I could read the officers badge number in my rear view. I signal right, and immediately pull into a bank parking lot and stop. Seriously caught the guy off guard. He pulled in as well, turned on his spotlight, and parked next to me. In my hot-headed 19 year old mind – what I said next made my buddy nearly require his brown pants.

Officer: Why did you pull over?!
Me: I was being tailgated! That’s what I do when someone is tailgating me! I pull over!
Buddy: (seeing how pissed off I am) SAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!
Officer: Where were you coming from!?
Me: You know where I was coming from! You jumped on my ass 2 seconds after I pulled out of the lot!
Officer: Were you there two hours ago?
Me: Yes! We went to a diner!
Officer: Where are you going now!
Me: Home!

I was *HOT*. After I shouted at him that i was going home, he shut off his light and left. That’s something I always did in my early years of driving though, I pulled over. If someone was on my rear end, I didn’t brake check, I pulled aside (or outran them, as I was of course – young and stupid).

Speaking of – again I’m in West Milford, at the other end. Rainy night, heading out to Route 23. I catch up to a Dodge Ram doing 35-40mph in a 50mph zone. Back then that was a mortal sin to me. Nothing bothered me more. So I go to pull out and pass. He speeds up. I finally pass him well over the speed limit and start to slow down. Suddenly the driver who thought 40mph was too fast was on my rear bumper at about 55-60mph. Fine by me, there’s a curve coming up. I start to slowly speed up so he stays on my rear bumper. I take the curve at… a speed his truck couldn’t. I see him slam on the brakes and come to a dead stop, and don’t see him again.

So as the car crossed 100k miles on the odometer, things started to break. I wasn’t rolling in dough either, so I made an effort to repair what I could. Now keep in mind here, I still hadn’t done a brake job yet. That was too difficult. The first task I undertook? Timing belt. I the stock belt in the car was rumored to last about 105k miles, and as my father already lost one on his ’93 Concorde, I didn’t want to wind up stranded if it let go. The belt itself cost about $100 at the time, and according to what I read online it was a 2-3 hour job to complete. The top mechanic at the family dealer gave me a hint on how to speed things up..

Over the course of 4 or 5 hours, I’d removed the radiator fans, timing belt cover, timing belt, installed the new timing belt, set the timing, put it all back together and…. the timing was off. Now in plain English, the timing belt controls when the engine is inhaling fuel and air, when it is exhaling exhaust, and when that lines up with the spark plug firing to ignite the fuel/air mix. If the timing is off – the engine will not run correctly, if it runs at all. In my case, the timing was off just enough that the engine ran, but I knew there was a problem immediately as my mpg dropped to single digits and I could smell unburned gasoline in the exhaust. 3 hours later, all fixed.

The next repair I had to complete so my car would pass inspection. A week before, the dreaded Check Engine Light illuminated, the error code indicated that the PCV valve (part of the emissions system) was bad. This valve was hidden deep behind the engine, in a very crowded 6 inch gap between the rear of the engine block and the firewall. Still, I was bent on completing this repair. So there I was, hood up in dark 25F temperatures, physically kneeling on the intake manifold (my full body was under the hood and ON the engine). I think it took about an hour, and a full set of shredded knuckles, but the PCV was swapped and my car passed inspection.

Now up until this point, I wasn’t really the type to feather the throttle. When I needed to move, I hit the gas. When I needed to stop, I hit the brakes. The boss at my 2nd job gave me some paradigm shifting advice that nobody had shared before. If I ease onto the gas, my mileage will improve. It did, I went from a slot250 miles per tank to over 350 miles per tank. Not to mention, going easier on my brakes kept me from having to replace them as often. Learning to properly corner (from a video game, Gran Turismo to be exact) – slowed down the rate at which I went through tires.

Something else I learned from video games, how to properly steer into a skid. One time speeding along on some back roads when the rear end caught some gravel and the car started to come around. Instinctively I steered into the skid and quickly regained control. Both my gf and I looked at each other ‘did that just happen?’ Video games people. Love them. I also pulled a 360 once in that car. Driving through Harriman State Park (great driving road btw, just don’t get caught speeding) – about a half inch of snow on the road, I’m doing 15-20mph, and coming around a curve where one side is a rock wall and the other is the reservoir… The rear of the car comes around. I was along for the ride this time, as the rear end swung 180 degrees and hit the snow bank on my side of the road, the momentum (and steering into the skid) managed to get the car spun 360 degrees driving along like nothing had happened.

My first recall was a fun one. One day I’m driving the car, and I start to smell gasoline through the vents. Turned out the rubber o-rings on the fuel rails (metal tubes on the engine that deliver fuel to the fuel injectors) were defective. A recall just came out that week, but it hadn’t reached the dealer yet. The dealer wanted to charge me for the repair. Thanks to allpar.com, I got the recall number and was able to get the dealer to fix it for free.

Now the last time I got tires on the car, the shop (which is now long out of business, thank goodness) – managed to MELT my wheel. No offer to repair or replace it. Just a “well, if a lug gets stuck we use heat, sorry about your wheel.” A replacement cost $500, and none of the nearby junk yards had any, so I ran around on 4 lugs until i sold it. Also, the intake manifold gasket was leaking. that lead to a telltale “hiss” on acceleration. I’d already been nailed with a $300 charge to replace the automatic climate control console… so with the car paid off and me frustrated with having to fix things, I decided it was time to move on. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have kept the car. I’m sure with some basic repairs – I could have easily gotten another 50 to 100k miles out of it.

Instead, with a wad of cash burning a hole in my pocket I moved on… to a Dodge Neon (aka don’t let hormones decide your next vehicle purchase).

I’ve been driving since I was 16. Despite my parents protests, I got my permit, and my license before I was 17. My first car was a 1992 Plymouth Acclaim that my father had used as a daily driver, and gave to me so he could pick up a 1993 Chrysler Concorde. Since that first car, I have owned 12 others and two motorcycles. That’s a lot of cars.

Growing up, I think over the course of my first 16 years my folks went through 3 each. My mom had a ’79 Rabbit, an ’84 Escort, and a ’90 Acclaim. My dad had a ’78 F100, an ’85 S10, and that ’92 Acclaim. If I ever doubt that my vehicular passions were a little obsessed, I look back at what I’ve driven over the past 24 years.

1992 Plymouth Acclaim
1995 Dodge Intrepid ES
2001 Dodge Neon
1986 Buick Regal T-Type
2000 Dodge Intrepid R/T
2005 Volkswagen GTI
1989 Chevy 1500
2009 Subaru Legacy
2016 Volkswagen Golf R
2017 GMC Sierra 1500
2018 Honda Civic Si
2008 Chevy Silverado 1500
2019 Honda Civic Type R

Over this next series of posts, I’m going to revisit those rides. What I liked, what I disliked, the stupid things I did, and why I chose a new car payment instead of a repair. I don’t really think my father’s sage advice back when I was 18 really hit home until now. Back when I was ready to sell off the Acclaim, he said “repair is always cheaper than payments.” Here’s hoping that my quest for new toys in the driveway has finally been quenched with my latest aquisition:

Before we get there though, we need to start at the beginning…

When I finally got my driver’s license, my father gave me my first car. The only caviat was that I had to pay my own car insurance. I had a decent job working for a local ISP, so the $1200/y for minimum coverage on a ’92 Plymouth with 200k miles wasn’t a huge deal. It was my first car! It’s also the car I learned to drive in. My folks both had Acclaims (my Mother’s 1990 was sold 10 years later with 20k miles on the odometer, and summarily smashed to pieces by its next owner within months).

The Acclaim was the replacement for the veritable K car, the Omni/Reliant/Ares/Caravan platform that bailed Chrysler out from the brink of bankruptcy. I’m honestly not sure what the gas mileage was, but fuel was about $.90 a gallon for regular back then, so I honestly didn’t care. I’d gotten it over 100mph more than once, but it definitely was NOT designed for the wreckless driving on my youth. Keeping the steering wheel straight at those speeds was a better upper body workout than any pair of battle ropes.

Later in this series I refer to my first real car accident. It wasn’t my first fender bender though. I guess the difference between the two is that my first accident, with this car, no cops, other driver was ok, and it was actually my fault. There’s this turn out in Chester, NY with a yield sign (no, I didn’t hit it). Slowly traffic is proceeding through as it’s down to me and a Honda Accord ahead of me. They stop, look, and proceed. I stop, look, and pro… BANG. They stopped again and I wasn’t looking, I just assumed they had pulled out. For a split second I considered making a run for it. That’s not how I was raised. I messed up, and I’ll take responsibility. They were ok, I was ok, both cars were jalopies, so we went our separate ways. Here’s the punchline though. Looking at my car after the collision, something was missing. My front license plate had fallen off and was sitting in the middle of the intersection. Thank God I was raised right, otherwise I would have been really in trouble.

My first experience with beefing up a car stereo was with the Acclaim. I’d quickly replaced the stock Mopar unit with a Pioneer from Wal-Mart. I can’t recall if I swapped the crappy door speakers out, but what I did do was build an insulated speaker box from scratch with high end (for a16 year old making $12 an hour) speakers in it. At full trot they were obnoxiously LOUD as they were meant to be. Quality didn’t really matter, the goal was making sure everyone knew that I had a stereo to be reckoned with.

One night, a couple of buddies decided to mess with me a bit and came running up on me quickly. I didn’t know what was going on at the time, so I took off. Heading back towards my house I made an attempt to spin the car around (note – do not attempt a low speed J turn uphill on light gravel, you will ram into a yield sign). To this day I haven’t lived that one down.

Another valuable lesson I learned in that car – “tires is what wins the race.” (Days of Thunder quote, it’s Top Gun with race cars, you should go watch it). In my case, tires is what’ll get you out of your girlfriend’s driveway without turning it into a mud pit. I can’t even recall what the argument was about, but I was aggravated and decided to leave. I hop into my trusty steed, go to turn around on the lawn that has been rained on for more than a few days, and proceed to spin the tires. I think it took me a good10 minutes to get the car free. I will say whatever teenage angst incited that one man mud race was completely lost as my gf and her mom, and myself, had a good laugh at my idiocy.

One of my friends had gotten a line on a 1982 Pontiac Firebird (KITT). It was parked in the next town over, I think he paid maybe $200 for it. Anyhow, he was afraid to drive an uninsured car the 20 minutes or so back to his place, so thats when I volunteered. Who cares if 3 of the 4 wheels brakes didn’t work, or that 2 of the 4 carburetor barrels were clogged. It was KITT. So we’re driving back, he’s ahead in my Plymouth, the previous owner is behind, blocking me in just in case we past an inquisitive local cop. Once we hit the black dirt region, I decided I was going to have some fun. I stand on the gas, and the mighty V8 roars to life as I try to pass my Plymouth. He sees me coming, punches the gas. KITT was annihilated by a family car. The shame. Last I heard, KITT was brought to a family friend for repair and was never seen again.

Same friend, summer time, we get the bright idea to drive deep into PA for fireworks. Everything was illegal in NY at the time. He didn’t want to carry them in his car (are we seeing a pattern here yet) so we took the Plymouth. On the way out of town, I’m smoking one of my wonderful plastic tipped cigars and toss it out the window. Behind me? State trooper in a Camaro. My friend got nervous, I got nervous, after getting a good talking to about the dangers of littering, the officer let me go with a warning. What a way to start out! So we decide to stay over across the border and head out in the morning. I think I bought sparklers. My friend? Trunk completely packed. We were safe though, because we draped a beach towel over the contraband (my teenage brilliance never failed to shine). Did I mention my cigars? We’re heading back, and I decide to light one up. “SAMMMMMMMMMM!!!” The look on his face was priceless.

Oh! The bees! So after I’d owned the car for a couple years, I decided to start fixing it up. Part of this involved removing the rust and rot from below the doors, using some body filler to smooth it out, then paint it and make it look all nice. I had absolutely NO clue what I was doing. So I decide to take a break from painting and have a seat in the car. Apparently the fumes from the paint had angered bees, who were now swarming around the car. I jump out of the car and swat at the bees. They left me oddly enough, but then I hear the sound of gravel crunching behind me. I turn to see my Plymouth rolling out of the driveway. I had no chance of catching it, so I stood helpless as it left my driveway, crossed the street, took out a rotten split-rail fence, and smashed into a tree. I guess technically that was my first car accident? I got the car out of the woods, spoke to the neighbor, and fixed the fence. It turned out in my flailing to escape, I smacked the car into Neutral. Whoops. I did manage to pull the bumper back out by tying it to a tree and backing up. Eventually I replaced the bent white hood with the black hood from a Dodge Spirit. I was ahead of my time!

A couple other valuable lessons – do not neutral drop a car. Especially do not neutral drop a car with over 200k miles on the original transmission. Neutral dropping involves flooring the accelerator on a car while in neutral, and shifting into drive. If the transmission doesn’t immediately grenade itself, you will create an exceptional cloud of tire smoke. Pretty sure I dropped $2000 at AAMCO for that mistake. There are plenty of less destructive ways to accomplish wheelspin.

Last but not least, the time I set the car on fire while driving. I was on a foglight kick. Wal-Mart sold some nice ones, I’d mount them below my front bumper, and enjoy them for a month or so before I drove into, or slid into, something that snapped them right off. Eventually I had a half dozen of these things. With zero electrical knowledge, I mounted them to a pine plank and bolted that blank to the top of my front bumper. I can’t recall how I wired them up, but the end result was a switch mounted to the dash that brought my 18 year old mind’s equivalent of daylight streaming from the front of the car. I quickly learned that it was too bright to use while driving, but still used it on occasion. One night I’m driving up into Jersey with them on, and go to turn them off for oncoming traffic. I hit the switch, and nothing happens. I flip it rapidly and the lights start flashing. Oncoming flashes in response. Then from under the dash right up over the top of the wheel, the insulation started to smoke. As I’m swatting the smoldering mess I went right into a ditch. that’s the last time I ever put accessory lights on a car.

I kept the car for a short time longer before trading up for my next ride. TBH besides it being a beater, I can’t recall why I decided to sell it. I had the aforementioned experiences, and many, many more in that car. The last time I saw it, it was up on blocks at the local pick and pull junk yard. I’m not afraid to say I ugly cried when I saw that. It was like seeing an old friend die… but one thing was sure, I had a near supernatural bond with whatever I was driving, and that old Plymouth will always hold a special place in my heart. Up next? A land-yacht on rails… my ’95 Dodge Intrepid ES.