What’s the connection between a car hood and a madeline?
I recently pedaled past a classic 1960s car on display and, watching a group of guys ogling the chrome-covered engine, I cycled away thinking of the first automobiles I owned. Yep, the open hood triggered memories for me like the French cookie did for Marcel Proust.
My first car, ink still wet on my driver’s license, was a 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix SJ, green like a spring forest with a vinyl roof as black as the night sky.
Although a two-door coupe, there was nothing small about this car. Its hood stretched from the windshield so far in front of you that you planned ahead for a turn and began spinning the giant steering wheel well before you reached the corner. Heave open the huge driver’s door and you could block a lane. Hood ridges angled to the nose, a chrome, oval O filled with grill that cut through the air like the prow of a boat. Taking the Grand Prix out on the highway evoked the sensation of sailing.
Inside, the scooped bucket seats had deep ridges that held my massive bulk comfortably in place. (Great photos in this article.) The rear seat, a bench, just had legroom for children, not that you’d want to ferry them along in this rocket, held in place only with flat lap belts, as this car far predated the shoulder harness. The whole thing was launched through the streets on a giant engine (for the gearheads: V8, 428 cubic inches, four-barrel carburetor, dual exhaust), and it sat so low to the ground that you’d hit a pothole and the back tires would scrape the wheel wells. I had to have the coil springs in the rear suspension lifted and steel spacers inserted. After that, it tilted around corners. Ready about—hard alee! It’s a wonder we didn’t get seasick.
I bought that car in its eighth year, and it had already been driven far and hard. But one test drive out on the bypass highway west of town was all it took. The car delivered a brand new sensation: a light, fluttering feeling in my chest.
In the Grand Prix I would “Drag Main” with all the other high-school idiots, burning plenty of 60-cents-a-gallon gas as we idled south to the train depot, made the turn, and then headed north, jogging west around the park and out onto the “Million Dollar Way,” our town’s north end commercial and industrial strip. There was a drive-in hamburger joint out there, and enough space to put the pedal to the medal, briefly, without attracting official attention. In that regard, my car was only beaten once, by a cute little silver fastback Mustang driven by Les, a cute blond girl in my class. She was a good friend and I took endless ribbing for that, but in my car’s defense, it was a quarter-mile match, and the little Ford sprung away before the lumbering Pontiac could inhale through all eight barrels. I could have taken her in the mile, for sure.
Friends would pile into the car to make a quick escape after the last school bell. I had my first date in that car, chauffeuring Maureen to the movies and then the soda shop. The car possibly saved the life of my best friend, although, to be fair, it was me who nearly did him in. We were headed from his house to mine after school, and as we reached the first intersection, I failed to see the pickup truck barreling in on my right, which soon enough sent my heavy car rocking and spinning around the intersection. When we came to a stop, the giant passenger door was stove in halfway to the shifter, with Dave leaning over nearly into my lap to avoid the crushed metal. Did I mention that he was in a full body cast at the time, suffering through the barbaric treatment for a back ailment called scoliosis? Maybe that plaster cast protected him too.
We drove away from that impact; the pickup was totaled. Score another one for ole GP. Eventually, after living with stretched plastic over the missing window for a few months, I found a used door and had it installed, and the area patched up and painted with grey primer. My buddy (and his mom) forgave my driving lapse, if it was indeed my fault. The truck was coming awfully fast, but also, I recalled that my eyes were watering, possibly from laughing too hard. And Led Zepplin was on loud. We were that type of kids. The other driver did get the ticket. He probably got a second one for not having insurance.
I drove that car through high school and into my first year of college, when I made a boneheaded grease-monkey error. I worked briefly for my brother’s service station, and thought I was learning about fixing cars. I could change the oil! But when I tried a tune up, it turned out to be a tune-out. The darn thing would just sputter and not start. So I removed the platter-sized cover on the air filter, which sat over the carburetor, and sprayed a shot of starter fluid into the maw of the four-barrels. When I turned the key, all hell broke loose. Or rather, the fires of hell shot from the carburetor and ignited the oil-soaked insulation lining the inside of the hood. As flames spread, I ran for a fire extinguisher, but by the time I returned, the insulation had dropped down onto the engine. Luckily, we extinguished the fire, but it had burned through the wiring harnesses, which turned out to be a very costly repair.
My beloved Grand Prix barely fit in our garage, but it was there one winter day when it met its end, at least for me. I had finally made enough after-school money to get new wiring and the car was running again. But one frosty morning I went out to start her up and heard a pop and a zing from under the hood. Upon inspection, I found a bullet-sized hole in the driver’s side fender, and imbedded in the garage wall nearby was a ten-inch steel pin, a part of the piston. The old car had “thrown a rod.” After that, I didn’t have the heart or the money to get it running again, which would have entailed rebuilding the engine. I sold it to a friend, a real mechanic, who rebuilt it and enjoyed the car, eventually making some money on it by selling it.
By then I was heading off across the state to the university and I needed a new ride to cover 350 miles on the straight and narrow Highway 2. I found an Olds Cutlass, a bit like the Grand Prix, but its transmission died on the drive home from the seller’s house. He quickly got the towed car back into his driveway in exchange for returning my money.
Then I lucked into the Caddy. It was pale blue, 1962, as long as a bus, heavy as a buffalo and skimmed the ground like a pregnant cat. Bench seats as wide as your living room couch. Electric windows that whirred, power door locks that thunked. It was the end of the tailfin era, but the car had sleek fins with curved taillights framing its rear end. Tons of miles on it, of course, and another gas-guzzling engine under the rusting hood.
Being a Cadillac, it had advanced features not seen in my friends’ cars. The radio had a “seek” button that would jump from station to station. In the center of the dash was a projectile-shaped sensor pointed over the hood. Its purpose: to automatically dim the headlights when detecting an oncoming car. On the front fenders, chrome piping encased a tiny light the driver could see when the blinker was on. Now, by the time I bought this, maybe other cars were getting these features. But the 18-year-old Caddy was from the Cuban Missile Crisis era.
It was easy to pack the car for college. My stereo, boxes of vinyl records, boxes of books, and oh yeah, a couple of bags stuffed with clothes fit easily into its cavernous trunk and banquette of a back seat. I joked that this was the perfect car to take to the drive-in theater on “carload night,” because you could get eight people in the car (and four more in the trunk). I think it would have been true.
I’ve had a number of cars since those first two, and one pickup, which got me around the state of Washington to report on rural life for a farm-focused newspaper. The cars became more camping- and ski-oriented (read: Subaru) and commuting (read: Toyota). No more winning the green light race. Recently, we replaced our old Prius with an EV, a fully electric car with gee-whiz features and plenty of power under the hood (somewhere). I can, if I want to, beat most cars off the line again. But I won’t. The technology amazes me, but I am not one-tenth as enthralled as with my first rides.
Maybe the EV will be the last car I buy, meeting the future with the promised jet pack (finally!), or just leaving the driving to the bots. Or maybe I’ll pull over at a classic car show and talk one of the grease-monkey tribe out of their late-60s rag-top coupe. Revive the memories of things past and get that fluttering feeling back in my chest.
The Caddy inspired a name that I borrowed from a laid-back funk anthem, which sounded great blasting through the open windows:
Lots of cool cars in this video too. If I squint, I think I can see mine.