So many car enthusiasts have stories about how cars influenced their lives while they were growing up. I grew up in the back of minivans and cheap Saturns listening to radio WLS 890 AM. Sure, I didn’t understand what those talking heads were saying, but the memory remains deeply imprinted in my brain. I even learned how to drive a manual in a Saturn SC.
Jason’s son, Otto is off to a great start with so many experiences involving a wide variety of vehicles. Many of them even break down, like Jason’s F-150. DysLexus:
Someday, in that not to distant future, Otto is going to meet somebody special in his life.
Just then it will hit him that not everyone grew up with dad who managed to have them both stranded at least on a semiannual basis. His young life has been shaped by being stranded in a canoe, American pickup, small weird French, Japanese, German and Swedish cars, AND a cartoonish Chinese electric cart. All for the purpose of automotive exploration and enjoyment of a car loving public.
It will make him absolutely unique and special. I reckon he can explain that fully to his therapist or I guess he can use that topic entitled “how I survived my international shitbox childhood” for his prestigious college entrance essay if he is so inclined.
RustyJunkyardClassicFanatic:
Tis the Otto cycle of life…
Tong Thrower:
You meet the nicest people in a shitbox.
TheDrunkenWrench:
It keeps leaving you stranded because you less than half-ass attempt to make it reliable. A quarter ass? Can it even be identified as an ass at this point?
The fixes on this poor thing come on such a lethargic timeline, that it’s like painting the Golden Gate bridge.
By the time you fix the last thing, you’ll have to start back again at the flywheel problem.
That being said, it’s great entertainment for us. So please, continue.
The Car Accumulator (perfect name):
I may be an idiot too, but as an Autopian, being on a first-name basis with your friendly local tow truck driver seems…normal.
Thomas wrote about the Maserati Barchetta. LTDScott had a ridiculously deep cut:
Looks like where Kirk Van Houten sleeps.
Here’s the reference:
Have a great evening, everyone!
My great uncle had a 1977 Lincoln Continental Towncar Coup. The car was as long as the name. It was burnt orange with almost matching leather interior. The pillow top seats were so plush they engulfed me completely, when I sat unbelted, in the front passenger seat, barely at glove box level. One day it broke down. We got out and with my hand in one of his hands and a the perpetual stubby end of a cigar in his other, we walked the rest of the way to the store bought our usual bag of Better Made potato chips and walked home. I loved that car and loved and enjoyed my time with my uncle. As we always say here its not the destination but the journey.
When I was a kid my parents mostly had reliable cars until we got my grandfather’s S-10. It left my dad stranded once, and shut off on me and my mom once. After the new Jasper engine, it threw a rod when he was going to work and stranded him at night for about 6 hours.
I’ve been slightly stranded with my kids before, enough that I can fix it and get going again. The worst might’ve been when I made the bright idea to tow a neon with a caravan and had an axle go up about 3 hours from home. We made it to a parts store after hours. I parked the car, ordered an axle for pickup, and we got a hotel for the night. In the morning we got an uber, I made it to the store, changed the axle while my son watched Spongebob on youtube on my phone, and I was done in maybe 20 minutes. I remember him saying “oh you’re finished? That was fast!”
I said “Buddy we need to get outta here I made a huge mess they’re gonna be pissed”
When I was 7 my dad bought a Winnebago from the mid 1970s that we did vacations in; completely underestimating how unreliable and decrepit even what looked like an immaculately maintained RV from the 1970s (that wasn’t a GM one) could be. Every year there was a new car related smell from a side of the road experience that I had never experienced before. Blown radiator, leaking exhaust (both from the engine and the RV generator), burning oil.
I shudder to think of the idea of RVing without someone who is as mechanically handy as my dad is.
My kid is waaaay more familiar with the smell of hot coolant than the average teen. He definitely uses the weird car stories as emergency conversation topics.
I thought the rest of your sentence was gonna be “more familiar with the smell of hot coolant than hot chocolate…” lol
I spent my formative years seatbeltless, chronically dehydrated and rolling around in the cargo area of a brown, faux wood paneled Pinto Country Squire or our other Pinto wagon (yes we had two) filled with a rich, headache inducing atmosphere of pipe tobacco smoke and leaded exhaust fumes with sometimes only the blare of AM talk radio and my father’s angry rants for entertainment, and the hum of the differential as an auditory salve.
Breakdowns usually resulted in my dad very slowly towing the broken Pinto home with the other using whatever rope shaped object he had available. It could even be an electrical extension cord (we found out the hard way why those make terrible tow ropes). My job was to be in the towed car and operate the brake.
That AM talk radio…. I don’t understand how anyone can listen to that.
I’m not sure FM was an option in at least one of the cars.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/7DkAAOSwyIlepasQ/s-l1600.jpg
My parents were both Honda fans, I can’t say I ever experienced a break-down as a kid. It wasn’t until I was in charge of the cars I drove (and had to pay for their maintenance) that things started to go wrong.
Not me, but our two kids were forced to endure childhoods riding in dodgy cars:
FIAT 850
FIAT 131
FIAT 128
FIAT 124
FIAT Strada
Renault/AMC Encore & Premier
Alfa Giulietta
Audi 100s
Volvo 740 (great car – no local service)
One drives a Prius the other drives a Subaru & a Leaf
COTD! Second bucket list item of the year checked off! Thanks, Mercedes!
BTW, I’d gladly sleep in a Barchetta. Nicer than the car bed I sleep in now!
I grew up in back of a Dodge Monaco Station Wagon. Whenever we went on a road trip my dad would have on WCBS AM news radio, to which I would fall asleep. When I drive back to NY to visit I would tune it in as soon as possible. The station just closed, sad.
My earliest memory was a bunch of MPs with slim jims busting me out of a Lime Green Pinto at the PX in Cape Cod when my dad was in the Coast Guard. Good times.
Hot diggity! Thanks, Mercedes, and the side-splitted, spit-taken rabble that roused themselves to smile at my comment.
I shall use my moment in the spotlight to encourage you all to take a few moments on YerTubes to study the apex of mechanized forestry that is Tong Throwing.
To answer the headline question: not my kids.
Thank you! Thank you DysLexus for the great comment that I could reply to!
Thanks Mercedes!
Both of my kids needed to know how to change a tire before driving it on their own. Neither of them work on anything, and one of them drops by for me to work on. I apparently failed at raising anyone thrifty…
Don’t worry about it. I recently acquired a shitbox, opened the trunk and realized the spare was flat. It still is, but that’s ok, because it didn’t come with a jack or a lug wrench either.
Dad fixes their car for free?
What kid wouldn’t take advantage of that? I’m sure they raid the fridge in the same visit.