“Closing the deal” required some flexibility.
Doesn’t it always?
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The high school and college years vehicles were, in the following order: ‘63 bug, ‘69 GT6+, ‘78 Flat 128, ‘73 Chevy Chevelle, ‘77 VW Rabbit. Guess which one was my “favorite”?
Gotta be the Chevelle.
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The Corvair. Book was before the Pinto.
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We had an Austin Marina GT ('73, maybe?). It was, ummm, termpermental.
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I believe the Austin Marina - any year, any iteration - is empirically the worst car ever made.
So Limey, have you found any good podcasts?
For RVing? No.
Having driven a few Lada’s in my time in eastern Europe, I would tend to say they take the title. Even worse than a Yugo.
The Lada story is priceless. The Russians put out an RFP with all the major European car manufacturers to build cars for the Russian masses. Fiat won the bid and promptly built factories and massive supply chains to build those millions of cars. As soon as the factories were up and running, the Russians nationalized the entire infrastructure and said to Fiat and the Italians, “whadya gonna do about it, chumps?”. Classic. There’s a reason why Lada’s all look like a Fiat 128 or 131 from the 70’s. Imagine all of the Fiat “quality” from the 1970’s with stale, unchanging Russian manufacturing expertise and graft as the production agent. Yikes.
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If a Lada looks like a box with wheels, I saw them all around the Cuban cities we visited.
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I had a 73 Chevelle Malibu. Built like a tank, second only to my 74ish Monte Carlo. That thing could take a collision with an aircraft carrier and probably come out the winner.
Yep, that is it.
After my brother fried the Fiat 128 engine by forgetting to put oil back in it after the oil change he promised to do for letting him borrow the car, my mom got sympathetic and said she’d buy me a car to replace it as long as I shard it with my twin sister. Hence the '73 Chevelle. She took me to the side and whispered, “sorry honey, it has to be like this for when she crashes it”. Not if, when. Unsurprisingly, my brother crashed it first, sliding and slowly pirouetting over 400m on an ice covered road and into a sign. I was asleep in the passenger seat and the time between his initial “uh oh” and us hitting the sign 1/4 mile away was like 30 seconds. No amount of braking, pumping, steering, flailing wildly, cursing or bracing for impact had any bearing whatsoever on the Chevelle’s intended course towards its ultimate destination; that damn sign. Nothing some duct tape and plastic wrap could not fix to get 'er road worthy again for the next 6 months.
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I’m pretty sure that I ran out of gas once but I don’t remember the details.
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I recognize the sarcastic post, but I remember vividly my running out of gas. I was in the inside lane of the Harbor Freeway after a Dodgers game.
For me it was '68 Buick Wildcat; '70 426 Hemi Charger (Dukes of Hazzard orange); '70 Camaro Z 28 (LT 1 engine, Muncie Rock-Crusher, Holly 4bbl); Chevy Vega GT; then a heavily modified Kawasaki (cruiser style LTD converted to semi-cafe racer) for the next four years until I had to grow up and get a Honda Civic.
I sure wish I still had that 426 Hemi Charger.
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Dude, how long have you been here? We’re all men (people) of a certain age now. My stories will continue to descend into long, rambling diatribes/reminiscences with no point from here on out. And, I’m sure to start repeating the stories any day now. Now get off my lawn.
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Yours are descending to the place where mine began.
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