My life
has revolved around cars, vehicles, and parts. Not so much around boats, I
really don’t have much use for water other than making iced tea with it and
showering in it. Although swimming pools surrounded by beautiful women do have
their allure, I have to admit. Having been born and living most of my life in
Kansas, I really wasn’t exposed to the water much. We did have a farm pond, but
it was more mud than water, and I am not sure that you could sink if you wanted
to, it was that thick. I do remember an early encounter with a swimming pool
where I lost my footing and nearly drowned, or so I thought at the time, this
setting my mistrust of things that I couldn’t walk on top of firmly in my young
mind. Later on, when I was in the Army, I would once again encounter water in a
hostile environment, namely being knocked overboard in the Coronado Bay by a
bunch of very zealous Marines during some Emergency Survival Techniques
training. While I had to admire these gents for their caring enough to want to
teach me these techniques, the fact that I had no ability to swim certainly had
to enter in at some point. Then and there, I decided that any body of water
larger than the local swimming pool was not for me. And they don’t allow boats
in the municipal pool.
Cars, on the
other hand, are one of mankind’s greatest inventions, ranking right up there
with the wheel and Tim Allen, both of whom have given the automobile a great
deal. After all, cars need wheels, and Tim’s need for ‘more power’ has
motivated many people to exceed the speed limit at the greatest rate possible,
not to mention customizing dishwashers and other electrical appliances over the
years for higher performance and dazzling pyrotechnical displays, not to
mention the added boost for the homeowners insurance companies.
Cars can be works
of art, seeking to convey the owner’s feelings on a mobile palette that will be
seen by thousands of people as they go by. They can be loud and gaudy, or sleek
and subdued, chopped and channeled or flamed and marbled. They can have toilets
for seats… or not. Preferably not. They can hop, then slam themselves to the
ground, scraping against the asphalt. No other machine has been taken to heart
like the automobile, and customized, cut and reformed with metal and plastic
and fiberglass. No other machine has gone “back to the future” and still stayed
a part of the family like this machine, intended for everyday transportation
that evolved into a sport, a pastime, a hobby, an investment… and it shows no
sign of slowing down.
From the time
when I first stole my dads car and took it out into the fields when I was only
a lad of 12 or so, cars have always been a big part of my life. I was hooked
from the first time that I cut ‘donuts’ in the grassy field behind the barn,
grass and dirt flinging up from the cleats of the Western Auto mud ‘n’ snow
tires that the old 1963 Ford Galaxie 500 wore, spattering up against the
weather-beaten siding of the old barn that stood between my antics and the
house. Later on, that car would wear my first custom paint job, a 1960’s style
‘panel and flames’ job that would last only a few months till it was on the way
to the junkyard… after I had rolled the car into a ditch sideways at around 80
miles an hour… I was 13 at the time.
From then on, I
always had a car... or two… or three. If I had all of them back right now, I
could have an auction and retire comfortably off the proceeds. I have owned
classics and collectibles, trading them off or selling them to other car nuts
in the area. At one time I had three 1963 Impala SS’s… one a 327 car with a
3speed manual, one a 348 sixpack car with a 4speed, the other a 409 dual
4barrel 4 speed car probably worth in excess of 10 grand today. I have had chevys and fords, mopars and more. My
personal favorites were two… a 1976 Chevy Vega station wagon with a 350LT1
corvette engine that I bought out in California, and probably my favorite, a
1969 Dodge Charger R/T with a 440 engine that was absolutely sweet that I built
from the ground up. But I was never in a financial status where I could keep
these cars, either selling them or trading them for something that was needed.
The Charger was sold for a van… so we could move back out to California. I got
high book value for it, which at the time was just under two thousand dollars.
It went to a high performance car dealer in Kansas City, where it was later
sold for just under 20 grand, he told me when I called to see if he still had
it.
From the time I
was 13, all I ever wanted was to have my own auto shop. I pictured it sort of
like on the old shows on television, where all the guys hung out and we worked
late fixing up old cars and such. And I had it too… for a while. I had people
bring their cars from two states away to have me paint them, based solely on my
reputation for doing good work at a fair price. Every insurance company in the
area sent claims to me, and business was getting better every year. But there
were outside influences at work that laid my dream to rest, and after a few
good years, the doors shut for the last time and the last old car rolled out
and back to its owner looking like new. But they were good years as far as the
car dream went… it was just the other things in my life right then that weren’t
working so well… and couldn’t be fixed with bondo and a few coats of primer.
