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Trivia indeed! But it is a trip down memory lane for me and it's been fun looking back.
My father gave me my first car on Christmas day 1970. I was 17. It certainly was not a Cadillac but for a young man it was perfect! Since then the cars have come and gone. More often than not I've been car-less. Cars are just "things" but they can be important right? I remember a time when nothing meant more to me then being able to get my driver's license so I could have just the chance to drive a car. Now being able to drive is something I probably take too much for granted. But owning a car today is a blessing for sure. Certainly if you are a gigging musician automobiles can be a great help. And like my very first car I feel a sentimental attachment to the one I own today. It's a pleasure for me to look at this car and especially to drive it. Maybe that feeling goes back to my first Chevy! I grew up with cars. All the men folk in my family worked on their own cars. I work on mine in the same way-with determination, good tools, a little blood and lots of cussing. An American thing this love of cars? Quite possibly but from what I've seen over here in Europe, I am not alone. In most instances the pictures that I've found here were the closest I could find on the Internet to the model (if not the color) I owned or drove. (I'd like to thank those folks whose pictures I've used for posting them! I'm guessing they posted those pictures for many of the same reasons that I'm doing so now). Those cars that I did own I paid as little as I could to get the best "runner" I could afford. It's like how I feel about my guitars - it isn't so much how they look as how they run that is important to me. So read on friends if you're interested in this kind of stuff. In the end I've made up this page mostly for myself I guess but I hope you like it. It was meant to be in the spirit of fun. Certainly it says something about my past and me. I've written a little story about each picture just to give you a "taste" of what the vehicle meant for me in those long ago times. Today though I'm concentrating mostly on the music but you know what? Often time brought to you directly by a car. Stay on the 'right side' brothers and sisters! And now....here they are:
My first car. My father gave me this car for my 17th birthday in 1970. He had another, newer car which he drove and so this was a great "hand-me-down" for an American teenager. As you can imagine my whole world changed after I got a car. The responsibility, freedom, mobility, dates, jobs- just the whole world. Gas was super cheap. $2 would last most of the week. The car certainly wasn't new or even very "hot" but I loved this car. This all took place in Yakima, Washington. A city of about 60,000 located in central Washington. I left that city in 1972 in this same car and moved to Seattle.
For those first few years after leaving high school I would periodically have to come back to Washington and find work. I'd save up a bankroll and off I'd go again. Never actually drove a vehicle out of Washington during that time though. Almost always used my thumb and hitchhiked. This truck was a "loaner" from my father and I used it for about 6 months on one of those "returns". This was during the winter of 1974 which I remember because it was also the first time that America experienced a gas shortage. I remember that because, even though gas was still inexpensive, there just wasn't enough to go around. I actually ran out of gas one time waiting in a long line at a station to get some. Pushing this pickup to the pump was not fun! Real heavy American steel in this baby. Anyway, a good, solid truck although a real bear to drive.
In 1975 I was living out on Cape Cod (Eastham I think) having moved there from Portland, Maine. I still had some great friends up in Maine though and would visit periodically. On one of those visits I heard about this car that wasn't working and I could have the thing for $100 but I had to get it running. I hitched up to some small village and found this "boat" sitting in the middle of a field. After some scotch tape, rubber bands and band-aids I got the thing going, filled out the necessary papers and drove away in the first car I'd actually owned in few years. The car was in pretty sad shape though and never did work right. Constant carburation problems. Needed tires, new brakes ect. One time I had a gig in Boston and drove up - 3 hours if I remember right. There was a girl I knew that I was trying to get a date with and asked her to come to the gig with me and that I'd pick her up. Thing was, she wouldn't travel in cars because she said every time she did something bad happened. Well I just scoffed at that notion and convinced her to ride with me. On the way back from the gig the chasses separated from the frame because of bad rusting and the back end of this VERY big car was just bouncing up and down like one of those Los Angeles "funny" cars. Never did see that girl again. Or the car for that matter. I maybe got $10 for it at some junkyard.
Not exactly sure of the year of the one I drove but they were pretty much all the same during this period (says an amateur!). The first woman I ever lived with ( East Orleans, Massachusetts) had a car very much like this one although hers was a yellow color. We named the car "El Dee" as it had loose doors because of the every present rust that many New England cars have (they use a lot of salt on the icy winter roads!). The first show I ever did as a solo act was in Brattleboro, Vermont at the Chelsea House Café and Folklore Center. I drove this "bug" up there, which was probably something like a 5-hour drive. I guess I maybe earned $25 for the show but I really thought I was on my way to the top of the music world. I'll never forget that first gig either! Over the years I've actually driven 2 or 3 beetles. Great cars that get down the road well. Harder then hell to heat up in those cold-ass east coast winters. Brrrrrr… I would always get a backache from sitting in them too long though. Bad seat design for my body type I guess. I can tell you though that there is just enough room in the back seat for a guitar case to lay flat!
This is the one car I wish I still had. Fun to drive, good looking (don't you think?) and quite a lot of room actually. They are worth quite a bit of money these days as collector's cars. The one I had wasn't this good looking though. I had been working hard as a carpenter since my arrival in Chicago to get out of there. It's a great city but too bloody cold for my Texas bones! I answered a newspaper add based on the price more than the car but fell in love with this automobile when I saw it. The Malibu I found had a damaged right fender and bumper but otherwise was in perfect condition. The owner told me his wife was mad at him for having the wreck and she wanted him to get rid of it. He let me have it for $450, which was great price for a 10-year-old car. I knocked the fender back into shape and it was mine. Becca, her 2 kids and I left Chicago and headed west for Colorado with everything we owned packed in tight. I drove this car for a couple of years before selling it down in Texas for about the same money as I bought it for. This car had an 8-cylinder engine and an automatic transmission. I still think about this car and who knows, maybe one day I will get another one.
This a late 70's version of what I'd owned earlier. I bought this from one of my uncles. Never did own it too long though. Much to expensive to drive around in the city. This particular car was quite popular on the NASCAR circuit and is still for demolition derbies! Big and very heavy! Often times called "a boat".
Sorry for this picture but it's the best one I could find that replicated what I had... I know the exact date that I bought this truck: September 15th, 1977. And I know this because this was the date my daughter was born. I'd been looking for something bigger to drive as there would now be 5 in our family and the Malibu just wouldn't be big enough anymore. I also needed something sturdy as I was doing carpentry work then and some kind of van would be perfect. I saw a newspaper ad in the Austin (Texas) Chronicle which I called about and they said that, yes the truck was indeed for sale but that there had been quite a few calls regarding it and that if I really wanted to have it I had better get over there right away. First come, first served and all that. I don't remember exactly what city (Buda?) he was located in but if I remember right it was 15-20 miles south. Well, Becca had started her labor that morning but things were moving slow and it didn't seem like there was any crises or anything. The midwives had been called (we were having the baby at home) and everything was all ready. Well this truck was exactly what I had been looking for and at a good price ($600?) so I figured I had time to get down there and back before the baby came. Everything seemed to be cool so we called our friends Chuck and Debbie (who were going to be with us at the birthing anyway) to come on over. I grabbed Chuck and off we flew down I-35. We found the place, I test drove the truck, liked it, agreed on the price, gave the guy a couple hundred with the promise to come back in a day or two ("I'm having a baby"!) with the rest of the money and back up the road we raced. I do remember stopping off at the supermarket and picking up a couple (?) bottles of champagne and then getting home. I guess this would have been about 18H00 or so… There we found all 3 midwives! Becca was lying up on the bed and had started her contractions in earnest. "I bought a truck", I said with a smile. "Arghhh", she replied! 90 minutes after I arrived Liza Lee popped out into the world. I was the proud father of a beautiful baby girl and also the owner of what proved to be a not very pretty but very reliable truck. This was vehicle we all left Texas in I might add which was a year or so later…
You have to read the story about my new CD album title "Shotgun Pillowcase" to understand a little bit of this story. I bought this beast up in Lansing, Michigan for $1200 (I think). They wanted maybe $400 down payment and I only had $350. The guy at the car lot asked me if I had anything I could trade to make up the difference. The only thing "extra" that I had was (you guessed it) that breakdown 16-gauge, single barrel shotgun. I mentioned it and the guy told me to bring it in and he'd take a look at it. I did, he kinda groaned but said "ok" and after signing the papers I drove this baby home. He kept the shotgun (sorry Bill!). It was a big truck and I felt like the king of the road in this monster - especially after driving that old Chevy Carryall around for so long. This thing got horrible gas mileage and it cost a lot to run even back in the early 80's when gas was relatively cheap! In fact it even had 2 big gas tanks as the truck was originally designed to carry a camper. It had a big V-8 engine, automatic transmission, power steering and power breaks. I used to carry my guitar right behind the bench seat. We either loaded the kids in the front with us or packed em in the back as I had built a wood shell for protection. One day I was out shopping and there was big windstorm (this was in Denver, Colorado BTW). I came out of the store and saw the truck but not the shell. "What the hell…?". The wind had picked that shell up off the back of the truck and it had landed 100 meters away in the middle of a busy 4 lane road. It was all smashed to hell. I guess it never hit anything because nobody was stopped. I ran out there, pulled it off to the side of the road, loaded the pieces into the back and drove away. I ended up selling this thing to some cowboy from Wyoming who was happy as hell to have it. Only Ford I ever owned. (Joke: know what Ford stands for? Found On Road Dead).
My first introduction to small cars and with a rotary engine to! Actually this was quite a good little car. It was also time to get out of driving big vehicles for sure. Gas was becoming more expensive and we figured we'd be in Denver for a while. The kids were in school and it was time to slow the long distance traveling down a bit. I was working with a guy who's Dad had a Mazda garage. He had this one sitting in the back and didn't really want to sell it but I'm glad he did. It was a smooth runner, very quick and handled great. I don't know what ever happened to the rotary engines but I had one anyway. Mine was red in color. I sold this when I left Denver headed for Mexico. So much for slowing down…
1984-1996 with one exception, for all the time I lived in Seattle I owned and drove these mid-70's Datsun's. I started with the orange 510 sedan and after that the 510 wagon and then I went to the 610 sedan and then 610 wagon. I'm not sure how intentional this sequence was but it's just the way it worked out. I never paid more than $600 for any one of these cars and drove them until they dropped dead. The ones I owned were never pretty but they ran forever and with very little maintenance. They are small cars but are perfect for city driving. The insurance, spare parts, tires and the rest are not so expensive. The engines are simple (4 cylinders- 4-speed) and easy to work on. Really, these things would just keep going and going. Usually the body would fall apart before the engine would. Now these cars are pretty much collector's items I think. Datsun turned into Nissan and the world moves on…
Believe it or not this is the car that I always wanted. Ok, a 2006 might be better but hey… I mean not only is it a good looking machine, it is a great example of solid German engineering and construction. This auto is the perfect size for a touring musician like myself. All of my guitars and gear fit quite nicely into the back of this baby. In fact I did one Euro-tour with a drummer and bass player, all of our gear and suitcases stowed neatly inside! Yeah, the car is a few years old now and maybe she needs a little extra TLC but 'she' runs great and gets down the road at a nice clip. These cars are very well designed both for mechanical soundness and safety AND driver comfort. 6 hours behind the wheel doesn't leave you exhausted. Economic diesel engine helps with gasoline prices currently priced at 1.08€/liter (1 gallon = 3.78 L) this summer of 2006. Replacement car parts are expensive for a BMW but you do get what you pay for here. I like this car! See ya down the road-beep beep! |
