Old Car Stories and Life Lessons

I obtained my driver’s license when I turned 16 years of age near the end of 1968. Being in my junior year of high school, I had a motorcycle for transportation but had to borrow one of the two family cars when needed due to weather. My parents had two cars, one a 1957 Chrysler New Yorker that I ended up with later. I usually had access to one or the other but I longed to have my own vehicle.

Not long after getting a job at a Clark station two weeks before my senior year of high school in 1969, my boss, Chuck Oleson, tipped me off to one of his very elderly regular customers who told him that he had decided to quit driving and sell his car. He lived only a couple blocks north of the station on Hopkins and I asked Chuck for a referral to go see the car. Chuck called him and I went over to his house. There sat in the driveway a “really clean” 1955 Plymouth Savoy 4-door sedan with absolutely no rust on it, spotless interior with plastic covers on the bench seats which were like new! Under the hood was a straight 6 cylinder motor and a three-on-the-tree manual transmission. I’m not certain, but I think the mileage on the vehicle was not much more than 50,000. I asked what he wanted for it and he said $50 if I promised to take care of it! I had $50 and the deal was made (with my fingers crossed). I didn’t even ask my parents before bringing the title home because I was too young to own and register it. I begged my dad to come over there and see it. After driving over there, he agreed it was a good deal, and signing off for it, we took it home.

Well, being stupid young me, I’m glad I never saw him again, having to explain what happened shortly after. I bought the car and only had it for a few days. I drove it to Chuck’s station to display my great deal to the guys. Being 16 years old, I decided to show off and do a burn-out by flooring the gas and popping the clutch. Well, all that straight 6 motor would do was squeak the tires. That wasn’t good enough for me, so I put it in reverse, figuring the weight transfer would lighten the load on the back tires, enabling a smoky backward burn out (Randy style).

I blew reverse gear in the transmission!

With pieces of the shattered gear in the transmission I could still drive it in the forward gears but the chucks of metal getting mixed up in the oil would cause a crazy loud bashing as the car was moving forward. I actually drove the car around for about a month with no reverse and wondering when the thing was going to seize up on me. At that time I was young and had no idea of how to fix cars. It wasn’t until the following year that a buddy of mine started showing me how to fix/replace the stuff I blew up on my cars.

I gave my dad some bullshit story about it “just coming apart” when I was backing up. I’m sure he knew what I had done but took mercy on me. He told me it was not worth fixing and followed me to Larry’s junkyard, one of three vehicles that ended upther in their final resting place. Later on I got to know Larry, the junkyard guy, pretty well as I had to buy parts from him to fix future cars.

Life’s lessons!

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