The Wayback Machine

I've kinda been on a roll of late with me blogging. I'm going to try and keep it going!!! I've got a lot of things I could go on about, but for now I'm taking this fork. Something I've wanted to do for a while. All the cars I've owned!!!

I did one post, back in 2009, about the first car I ever purchased, and just today I went back and added web-sourced pictures and another paragraph. Way previous to that, I'd done a tiny little post of my first actual car. Much more could be said there.

Anyway, fast forward a few years from the Dinosaur, and here's the first car I ever owned that would have had two names on the title!!! Would have, mind you, as we were never actually able to get it titled in our name. We bought it for $750 without first having the owner smog check it. I have been wary of doing so ever since, but still haven't let that stop me!!! I'm usually too antsy to jump on a "deal". Took it to a smog check center, and it had three places in the exhaust system that had leaks. Can't smog it if you can't detect anything at the end of the pipe!!! 1975, if I remember the year correctly. Seems to me it had the rear edge of one of the fenders crinkled, as though the door had met it at some point.

Anyway, this was back when we were poor. Probably 1989 or 1990 is when this all went down, and we'd saved up to buy something. I don't remember ever having to use one car between us, so I'm thinking this was while we were using the Gremlin. If you're poor, my advice to you is to stop being poor, it sucks. My wife had ridden in someone's Celica once, and liked it, so the hunt was on to see if we could find one in the price range we could afford. One of my friends growing up had a later fastback, and spun it on the freeway into the guard rail, totaling it. He'd sold the engine from it to someone he knew that had a coupe of the same color as his, swap included, and I helped him swap it. Actually, we both swung the engines (and transmissions) from the one to the other, and he flaked, so I ended up finishing everything off. I believe the girl we were doing it for ended up paying me some amount more than I was expecting, likely stiffing him for the rest of the cost. His was manual and the recipient was automatic. If you've driven an econobox of this vintage with an automatic, you'll likely agree that manual transmissions are the best option. ANyway, I was impressed with some of the innovation of those clever Japanese.

Ours was similar to these web sourced pictures I found, in that it was a red coupe. I preferred the fastback style, in most generations of the Celica, but apparently there were none to be had in our price range. Also, ours had a strange vinyl top, not the decent looking full top black pictured in the first shot, but tan, and only covering the rear half, landau style, and it looked like the color had been refreshed by spray painting. I seem to recall it wasn't fastened to the roof especially well, and would billow up at highway speed. My plan, if I'd ever gotten to it, was to strip off the vinyl, sand down the rust that was likely hiding under it (primary reason I don't like vinyl tops) and getting some black wrinkle finish paint to spray on the area.

Inside, the fun continued with a headliner hanging down. Not long after we got it, I made up an aluminum plate about 2 inches larger than the dome light all the way around, and used that to hold it up a little better. Seems to me it had some strangeness with the electrical system, and I'm pretty sure the air conditioning didn't work.

Mechanically, it had the manual transmission, and if I recall, a leaky clutch master cylinder. I seem to recall at some point filling the reservoir and opening the slave cylinder to do a "gravity bleed". Another time I was heading to my parent's house, and it stalled on the off ramp. I don't think I even opened up the cool forward-flip hood, just took off the mile or so to my parent's house. No one was home there, so I went to Sean's and we took his '68 Mustang with similar red paint and vinyl top, as well as his toolbox, to see if we can figure out what was up. Upon opening the hood, I quickly discovered the hot wire to the coil had broken off, so it was a fairly easy fix. Sean, meanwhile, found the sprinklers along the off ramp had a little plastic sign that said, "WARNING: These premises irrigated with reclaimed waste water", so he removed one and hung it by the sink in his bathroom!!! I remember some wonkiness with the windows, them not quite rolling up all the way. Pretty sure at one point one of the regulators gave out and I opened up the door panel and fashioned a 1x2" piece of wood to hold it in the closed position. I remember in the short time we had it, it rained quite a bit. It had 5-slot mag wheels, the same as my first car had, so we had two cars with the same style rims at the time. I think it had some kind of aftermarket stereo, but don't remember for sure.

It was a fun car, front engine rear drive with a fairly tight suspension, and of course that stick shift!!! Go-kart handling, and while it probably wasn't especially quick, it sure felt like it was.

I can't remember how long we had it, long enough that I remember it pretty well and fondly, but in my head I can't imagine it was more than six months. Certainly a car I kinda wished I still had. If you are able to find any of them anymore, they are either complete junk or are ridiculously priced, or both. So, here's how it ended...

We were living in North Long Beach at the time. As is the case, you end up finding short cuts to get home. Ours was to cut through the residential area before where we lived, avoiding a left turn light, then an uncontrolled left across a busy street. There were a couple of cross streets with a stop sign going crosswise to the one we'd be on, but they had deep rain gutters on either side going our way. Hence, a lot of people going our way would come to practically a stop, but we had no such respect for our suspensions, just slow enough to not bottom out. Since most people going our way would be going very slow, a lot of people rolled the stop signs. You can probably see where this is going. One afternoon I come home to my wife talking on the phone to the insurance company. Hmmm, that doesn't sound good... I look out the window into the parking lot, and see the front end basically flat. She gets off the phone and breaks down crying, and for a while I can't understand what she's saying. Come to find out, pretty much exactly what you'd guess from the intro to this paragraph!!! Some guy in a full size van rolled through the stop sign, never suspecting my wife, and she cleanly T-bones him!!! His insurance ends up paying us off to the tune of $1400 or so, if I recall, and we get to retain the hulk of the poor Celica. The cool looking front end was closed up in the middle of the grille, with the hood bent down and the bumper bent up. Since we were having trouble getting it smogged, we were more than happy with the payoff!!! I remember getting a replacement fender from half price day at the pick your part, but don't remember if that was before or after the wreck. Know I never put it on. I also remember pulling the bumper mounts and straightening 'em, but not ever getting it back together. Couldn't find a replacement hood. I'm pretty sure the radiator was leaking afterwards, but somehow I got it to my parent's house and had it in their side yard for a while. Don't remember for how long, but after the wreck I was finally able to get a salvage slip in our name, after clearing up some strangeness with the previous owner's actual name. Ended up selling it off, maybe for $100, maybe for $200, but not before I took the rims off for our next car (bought, of course, with the insurance payoff money!!!) That is, possibly, a story for another day. I've already got the images for it from the 'web!!!

The Deadly Dinosaur

I haven't been very good about blogging recently. Yesterday my parents came up for Easter festivities (normally they would have it at their house, but the rainy season revealed leaks in their roof. They're front room is going to be getting a new ceiling and paint, so all the front room was going to be in the garage... but turns out it isn't yet) and I've got a camera full of some pictures from that. I bought myself a laptop at the end of last year, I think I've made mention of it here, but it could do with an in-depth post. Janice, I finally got running last week, but now begs a question: is it better to have a car that won't start, or one that won't turn off??? Always something. For the first time I used some software to do my taxes online. For the first time, I had my taxes rejected.

THEN, last night I went to the Once Upon A Win website, and here THIS is!!! Another idea I'd had for a series of posts!!! All the cars I've owned....

While this wasn't the first car I ever owned (that honor goes to Mav I), but was the first car I ever purchased. Mine was nowhere near as cherry as this fine specimen, it was missing the grille, and one of the front fenders and the bumper were bent up some. It was a rusty copper color, sprayed over the original quirky AMC purple color. I would have rather had the purple. It had no radio, and the ignition was popped out of it when I bought it. The previous owner won it in a bet. He had bet the other owner that he could get it running cheaply and easily. He did this by putting a toggle switch and push button in place of the ignition switch. I paid $160 for it, if I remember correctly. The 258" six cylinder engine ran rough, having a dead cylinder due to a burnt valve, but other than that it was fine!!!

Shortly after purchasing it, I gutted most of the interior. Carpet, back seat, dash and instrument panel, heater and air conditioner (hell, neither of those worked anyway!!!) all got yanked out and tossed. The front seats stayed, they were out of some other AMC, probably a Hornet and were in great condition, even if they matched nothing else in the car. Also, they folded into what is likely the closest to a bed of just about any car ever!!! I had heard Ramblers and later AMC's were renowned for that feature. Probably around 300 pounds or more of not so pretty fat was quickly removed. Something car makers today could learn from, just losing considerable weight does wonders for performance, handling and mileage!!!

I put in a slick little instrument panel from a Toyota pickup, bought a straight front bumper and pair of front fenders (I don't remember what was wrong with the other side's fender, but I do remember buying two of them... wouldn't have done that for no reason... both replacements were the original purple that mine had started as!!!) and held the pertinent paperwork to the firewall with a magnet!!! On one of the back pillars, I hand painted "The Deadly Dinosaur". Rebuilding the carburetor was the only thing required to get it to pass smog, amazingly, what with the dead cylinder.

I bought this car before I was married. Not long after getting married, my wife's Mustang died from lack of oil. She drove this for a few months while we saved up for another car. While driving home, she got her first speeding ticket doing 80 MPH on the freeway. She also had her first accident, some fool running a red light that she had been in the middle of an intersection to finish her left turn. Put a flat spot on one of the new fender replacements, and completely caved in the side of the little Toyota she'd hit. Probably would have gotten their car fixed up by our insurance, but then they started lying about three extra passengers in the car needing medical assistance (there was just one person in the car, the owner's brother) and I think our insurance company told 'em to pound sand or they'd file insurance fraud against them!!! Good times!!! One night, someone hit and run clipped Dinosaur while she was parked by the corner near our apartment. Made a tiny little dent in the rear bumper and knocked the back end over about a foot, but tore off a big piece of side trim and all kinds of dirt from the underside of the other car. I would have liked to gotten a look at the other guy!!!

After we got another car, my sister wrecked hers, and we loaned this to her. Her dipshit boyfriend managed to destroy the lifetime starter I'd put in it and kill the battery, and I had no place to store it. Ended up junking her, for $100 if I remember correctly. Seems like everyone has some car from their past that they wish they still had, and this is one that's on my list. She was never pretty, but FUN!!! A curb-jumper built like a tank, amazingly good mileage, easy to work on (I think I was able to do an oil change from the top of the engine, without even having to jack her up to fit a drain pan under) and a theft deterrent in itself!!!

*Edited in February 2019, RIP Once Upon a Win, link removed, pictures updated. SOMEWHERE I've got actual photos, but the first image is close to how it could have looked at one point, the second is close to how it looked when I got it. Never had a grille. Also, the rear window when I got it had no latch and just kinda flopped back there. I ran a screw and big washer through it and semi-permanently closed it!!!