Americans have long been a people defined by four tires and a steering wheel. Cars are more than a mode of "transport" in America. They are a statement, and an extension, of who we are. This is especially true during the days of one's youth - and particularly so for young men.
In modern times, with the existence of hybrids, crossovers, electric cars, and names like, "Volt" and "Prius," the politically correct and, so-called, environmentally conscious pride themselves on being transportation minimalists. One tiny semblance of an automobile in the early 21st Century resembles little more than a, "pimple on wheels." (Side note: If these folks were as genuinely concerned with the environment as they pretend, their idiocy would surely lead them to the age-old "rickshaw" as the truest form of "green" transportation.)
Conversely, in the 1970's, your "ride" was everything.
The very sound of classic muscle machines like a Pontiac GTO (called a "Goat" on the street), or a Chevelle SS 396, or a Dodge Charger/ Roadrunner /Hemi, or a Chevrolet "Vette" was enough to send one's pulse racing. The blast of a pair of, "cherry bomb," or, "glass pack," mufflers could be heard from several blocks away. And, four speed, manual transmissions were the preferred form of shifting from gear to gear. Few ever, "burned rubber," while driving an automatic transmission - not that it couldn't be done, but seldom did it carry the same classiness as someone, "popping a clutch."
When young men finally get their first car, it is a rite of passage. No longer are they forced to bum rides from parents, siblings, or friends. A young man with a car all his own is able to conjure up the courage to ask out girls he formerly avoided. With a sporty set of wheels, he can chauffeur them around town in style.
With his first car, a young buck can go parking with his favorite filly of the week and not be afraid that someone will spot him driving his parents' hearse-like, boat, tank or "bomb" into a darkened cemetery. No sidelines cheer has ever included, "Hey look, there goes so & so...Isn't he cool?...Driving his mother's new Ford Fairlane!"
With a hot set of wheels, a young man is forever able to forge an "identity" - a much cooler way to state his individuality than a face full of piercings or a Facebook page.
Much like a young man's first romantic "conquest" - the memory of his first car never fades. With the passing of a lifetime, he retains vivid memories of the day he bought it, and the day he got rid of it. Respectively, these two events are permanently engraved in his heart and mind, and are found on his monumental list of life's events under the categories of, "Greatest Accomplishments," & "Greatest Regrets."
It was the week between Christmas and New Year's Day in 1972. He was a senior in high school.
He had worked at odd jobs, summer jobs, night jobs, and any other kind of job since he was ten years old. His mother had forced him to bring his paychecks home. He endured the strictest, maternal-driven, money rationing known to man - especially when the withdrawal of cash from the, "First National Bank of Mama," (FNBOM) was for dates or other forms of entertainment. Instead of a smiling teller at the window, at the FNBOM there was only a stingy, miserly-like, accountant, who not only doled out minuscule amounts cash in a begrudging fashion, but was also quick with a stern lecture about the foolishness of throwing money away on girls, movies, concerts, and other frivolous things.
Though many arguments ensued during this period of his life, the head teller at the FNBOM regularly assured him that one day he would be glad.
How right she was!
He spent the first year-and-a-half of his days as a licensed driver tooling around in his mother's seafoam green 1969 Chevrolet Impala. To him, it was like driving a big, green moose. But, his mother eventually solved this problem for him.
When he wrecked this same '69 Impala in 1971, coming home from a trip to the neighborhood grocery store, his mother decided that she no longer wanted a seafoam green moose. Long before the wreck, she had begun to fixate on driving something in a royal blue color. The make and model did not matter. It just had to be a striking, royal blue.
And so, while the Impala was in the body shop, she instructed the car's exterior to be changed to the color of her dreams. Her husband tried to talk her out of it. Her kids tried to talk her out of it. And, even the body shop man tried to talk her out of it. The reason - the car's interior was the same seafoam green as the original exterior. Everyone but her could foresee that royal blue and seafoam green would not mix.
But, when a woman's mind is made up...
The day the family drove home in that loud, now-royal blue, Impala with the seafoam green interior, the mother of this highly-embarrassed brood was in color-clash heaven. The kids stayed scrunched down in the seats and floorboards, hoping that no one in the neighborhood would recognize them. And, the husband/father followed at a distance in HIS seafoam green Chevy pick-up. Never would he make the same royal blue mistake.
After eighteen months of suffering the untold humiliation of driving his mother's royal blue moose around the streets of Atlanta, his parents finally gave in.
For untold weekends thereafter, his family journeyed with him. Like gypsies on a pilgrimage, they showed up and played the car-buying game at most every car lot in north Georgia.
They found nothing.
He looked at GTO's, Z-28 Camaros, and even a Corvette or two. Still, nothing seemed to fit both his taste and his pocketbook. His parents had already explained the facts of life to him - he was going to have to settle for a good, used car. In today's car market, such would be referred to as a, "Certified, Pre-Owned, Vehicle."
Finally, on a cold, windy December afternoon, he and his family braved the shivering temperatures to walk yet another car lot - this time, clear down on the other side of Atlanta. In Chevy Chase's classic movie, "Christmas Vacation," when Clark Griswald and his family finally found the perfect Christmas tree, a light suddenly cascaded down from heaven, and a choir began to sing. There were no heavenly lights or choirs on that frigid car lot in southeast Atlanta, but there was the "perfect" car - at least for him. His long, painful search was finally, and mercifully, over.
This young man's first car would be a 1972 Chevrolet Nova.
It was a one-owner. A professor from the University of Georgia had purchased it new, drove it for about 18,000 miles, and then decided he needed something bigger. It glistened like a shiny new penny with its copper gold paint job. The black vinyl roof was in perfect condition. It had a powerful 350 cubic inch V-8 engine under the hood, with two thin pinstripes down each side of the upper contour of the body. An understated sportiness which, again, was perfect!
The price was also ideal. The money his mother had held hostage for the previous seven years would be sufficient for almost all of the purchase price. With his father's savvy help in negotiating, coupled with this being the week between Christmas & New Year's (THE slowest week of the year for car sales), this young car buyer paid $2,500 cash for his new ride.
Such a memorable experience was this that, now forty years later, this writer can even remember the salesman. He was s short, dumpy white fellow with a huge, frizzy Afro haircut. His name was, "Buzzy Johnson."
For the next six years, this '72 Chevy Nova and its young driver were inseparable. They enjoyed the company of many delightful, young lady passengers. Most really dug the comfortable front bench seat, the red fuzzy dice that hung from the rear-view mirror, and the Craig 8-track tape player.
That incomparable automobile took its young owner everywhere and back. All over Atlanta, trips to Alabama and Florida, and even a few street races here and there. She knew the way to every drive-in theater, every fast-food restaurant and pizza joint, and every concert hall in metro Atlanta. No GPS was needed.
She was with him when he found his first love, and also on the painful Sunday afternoon when that first love ended. She was there for every gig - as he made his mark as a rock guitarist on the Atlanta music scene. She was there when he went parking for the first time. She faithfully and reliably accompanied him on his first trip to see the Atlantic Ocean when he graduated high school.
And, when he sat in on his first professional recording session as studio musician, she waited dutifully for him in the parking lot.
Finally, in the summer of 1978, she waved goodbye to him for the last time. It was the day he traded her in on a brand new hot-rod Z-28 Camaro. He drove away with his new four-wheel mistress for a far-away land called Memphis.
But, as he watched that old '72 Nova disappear from the rear-view mirrors on his snazzy new ride, a big lump formed in his throat. Priceless memories had just been left behind. On a car lot - just like the one on that cold, December afternoon in 1972.
There would never be another like her. And, to this very day, there hasn't been.
Cars. They are really just machines. Tools. Possessions. Material things that depreciate with time.
Or, are they?
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