All my life I have been fascinated with older cars. I bought my first “wheels” when I was 14
years old from a guy who owned a gas station in San Francisco. The 1935 Ford pickup truck sat on the side of
his station, directly across from the southern entrance to Golden Gate Park.
It was beautiful.
It was cheap.
It was a collected pile of rusty parts.
Old cars that I have owned in my life have included that ‘35 Ford
Pickup and a ‘51 Willy’s 4-wheel drive pickup, both a ‘55 Ford and Chevy pickups,
a ‘67 VW Squareback, a ‘68 Ford Mustang, and a ‘70 VW pickup. I have additionally helped rebuild or
maintain a 1924 Doble Steam Car, a 1928 Ford Model A, a ‘60 Ford Thunderbird, a
‘64 VW Bus and a ‘64 Chevy Impala, a ’68 Chevy Camaro, a ‘68 and a ‘69 VW Bug, and
an ‘81 Pontiac Trans Am. And that is
without mentioning the VW Carmen Ghia, the MG, or either of the two Fiberglass
Dune Buggies.
Old cars have cool.
Old cars have panache.
Old cars have character.
Several of the cars I have owned
and worked on were full restorations while others were “keep ‘em rolling” jobs. And while a car certainly doesn’t have a soul;
and they don’t live, or breathe, or feel pain; they do have a “life force” of
their own.
That life force must be considered when working on old cars. You see, every old car I have worked on had one
thing in common.
They were all tired.
Simple jobs, like changing the oil, greasing a bearing, adjusting
valves, are just never simple on old cars.
Full restorations are even harder.
Bolts shear off, gears strip, metal breaks, and fluids leak.
An old car that has been sitting, seems to be happy just sitting. It seems to want to do whatever is needed so
that it can continue to sit. It’s content
to slowly rust and corrode first into a single unified piece of “meta-roleum”. From there, they joyfully slip back into the
earth, leaving behind a bit of an orange and black smudge to mark their
passing.
I, for one, refuse to let them sit quietly in some field; surrounded by
weeds, bearing generations of mice, and crickets, and cobwebs.
Nor am I willing to make them pieces of art; to be carried, coddled,
and hidden away from the elements.
I will be the fountain of youth for their aging frames, and gears,
fluids, and paint.
I will use them as they were intended to be used, rolling down dirt and
asphalt, concrete, and time.
That old “35 of mine had a gritty home-done paint job. But it would blow the doors off a corvette
coming off the line, carry 1500 pounds of oil, or rock, or scrap metal.
The ‘55 Ford; cold blooded beast that had to idle for most of 15
minutes before it would go anywhere, but it could go from 0-60 in less than 4
seconds once it warned up.
The ‘70 VW; a bit of rust, a few dents, but a rolling one man car
show. I can’t count the smiles and waves
I get every time I drive it somewhere.
And I can’t stop driving it without people coming up to talk and take a
picture whether at the beach, the local shopping mall, or the gas station.
And you know, sometimes I feel the cars enjoy it. Dust them off, fire them up, and get them out
and running, and they run longer, repair faster, and breakdown less often.
Kind of like me when you think about it.
Copyright © 2013, Marty Vandermolen, All
Rights Reserved
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