Our Cars

The Cars, the Chevrolets, the journey

Growing up a rebel in the 60's, doing what your Dad tells you betrayed all things we held as truth. We had our own values, bent values, but our values. Dad was and still is a World War II vet. Fought for his country against the evil tyranny of the Nazi Germans and the cowardly Japanese. He would never have thought of supporting the very people he fought by buying one of their cars.

But his son would. Maybe I was just trying to get his attention. I had three of Germany's best Volkswagens at one point of my life. It was cheap and I could keep them running with my limited knowledge about cars. A couple of instruction books and a screwdriver was all it took to keep them on the road. Safety!! Ha, that was somebody who worked at the school yard crossing. Back in the 60's and 70's no one knew safety. We were all driving around in explosive piles of steel that didn't even have seatbelts. We were brave men.

I bought a brand new Volkswagen Beetle in 1970 that lasted until 1990. I loved that car. It had a name, "Herbie". My daughter named it, after the movie star of course. We put over a hundred and twenty thousand fun filled miles on it. Finally gave it away to a needy family when it succumbed to a rusted out floor.

We supplemented the German giant with a Japanese Gem. The 1982 Honda Accord. Air conditioning, disc brakes, fuel injection. Man we were living large now. Mary Lou drove the Accord while I trucked on with the beetle. The old Accord took us for a ride of 145,000 miles before the northeast salted highways took its toll on the flimsy Japanese steel. By 1992 large holes in the fenders forced us to look for something that might last us forever. Did I mention being a dreamer? We traded the un-named Honda to one of our neighbors for some yard work.

I didn't have anything against American cars. I just didn't know how to fix them.

During my adolescence I had a classic and never knew it. The second car I owned was a 56 Chevy, 283 V8, Hurst three speed on the floor, traction bars, and dual quads pumping that baby down the road. Gas was only .25 cents a gallon. Nobody had ever heard of Opec.

We spent many weekends at the local drive-ins in that car. Its only drawback were the four doors that made it seem like a Ma and Pa car. The stuffed dice hanging from the mirror helped dispel that image.

I kept it until I got drafted into the Army in 1967. My brother would run it around the block to keep the oil from solidifying, but he didn't have his license yet, so a ride around the block never even got it up to operating temperature.

His driving it was scaring the hell out of Mom so I parted with it. The guy who bought it promptly planted it in a tree, totaling it.

When I came home from my stint in the Army I got a Ford. Hey, we all make mistakes.

I got a slightly used 67 Fairlane GTA with a 390 cu. inch engine. It could smoke the rear tires with the best of them.

The only problem was that it couldn't keep the tires on the road. A rain shower would make that thing spin out at the mere thought of acceleration.

We were married in 1969 and the dreaded practicality set in. We did the Beetles and the Honda's, grew our children, saw her marry and leave. We missed the high expense of College and survived child rearing ages with some good old American cash. Its nice to have but I've alway thought it looked better as something other than a number on a bank statement. We went looking for a Street Rod.

We found a 1964 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster in May of 1992 in a newspaper add placed by a gentlemen who ran a car auction. He'd saved the car from the auction and had it in his garage a few years intending to restore it, when he decided his life's calling was a Studebaker, not a Vette. We grabbed it, not knowing what fun was ahead of us.

It was a metallic midnight blue color. Stock, without matching numbers. If your into Corvettes you know what matching numbers means. Our Vette was correct but not matching. What that means is someone blew up the original motor and had a replacement put in. The replacement was a 327 high output fuel injected motor producing 365 HP. The numbers cast on the motor don't match the numbers in the VIN. Even though it is a 1964 motor, this is a sin to a true Corvette collector. What do they know. We didn't buy this as an investment or a show car, we bought it to have fun. Bean counters make me sick.

The "Brute" (named after the champagne) suffered from some neglect. A refueling mishap left the paint on the rear deck blistered, and a crash sometime in its past left some scars on the driver side fender. We drove it for a year before deciding it needed to be red. Actually Mary Lou decided it needed to be red. We found a local paint and body shop that did the honors. It took several months, they stripped all the paint, and put on all new weatherstripping, replaced the damaged fender. It came out great. We topped it off with a new set of Cragers classic style wheels.

They say when you see it, you will know. On a hot summer Sunday in August of '93 we had spent hours shuffling around the Macungie Fairgrounds admiring cars from the muscle car era. Its not a particularly good place to shop for a car. Our '82 Honda Accord had served us well and the harsh winters of the northeast had claimed another victory over the Japanese empire. We needed a replacement! Common sense dictates that most collectors who enter their prized possesions in a show ask top dollar. Replacing a daily driver with a muscle car was not even a remote thought.

We had purchased our collector car, a 64 vette, the previous summer and had only begun to restore it. Satisfied we had seen all the shiny sheet metal we could endure for one day, we headed for our car which was street parked several blocks away.

Immediately outside the fairgrounds we spotted a '67 Chevelle parked on someone's front lawn under a large shade tree. It had a for sale sign in the window. We still had a few frames of film left in our camera so I snapped a couple of the Chevelle. We went our way, but then stopped. I don't know why, but we went back to see what the owner had put on the sign. Must sell, buying new house, $5,000 or best offer, and a phone number. We asked a nearby security guard if he knew anything about the car or its owner, he didn't. We copied the number down, and left.

We called the number and spoke to the owner during the following week and made an appointment with him to check out the Chevelle. He and the car were living in Allentown which was a 50 mile ride. We met him on Saturday morning and went for a ride in it. The owner wanted us to feel the power it still had and drove it fairly hard. He insisted that I drive it as well. He also insisted that I drop the hammer on it to feel how it still had plenty of life in it. We went back to his house and looked it over. The body and interior seemed like they were good.Even though we weren't looking for it, we found it. We made the deal.

After some bargaining, we got him to come down to $4,500. Dealtime! We bought a vintage '67 Chevelle.Eleven years later, we are still cruising in our temporary replacement for the old Honda. It has turned into our very own cup car. We take it to many Nascar races and it certainly enjoys all the attention it gets from the fans. Its got a new GM 350/300hp crate engine in it, American Racing Wheels, Goodyear Eagles and an updated stereo which includes a CD Changer. Still going strong after all these years.