I'm not exactly sure when my love affair with automobiles first started. For as long as I remember, I've been intrigued by not only speed but class, innovation and workmanship. It's hard to say what it is that draws me to a particular automobile. With some cars there is artistry. With some cars there is raw power. With some cars there is beauty and elegance. Some cars have a combination of qualities that are timeless. Automobiles capture a period or time in history.
Automobiles are like music. There are certain songs that instantly transport you back to a time and place that's comfortable, special, warm;
Motown and the Rolling Stones in the 60's, early '70s
Led Zepplin, mid 70's Earth Wind & Fire, Funkadelic, The Ohio Players, Rufus,
The Eagles. I am moved by the memories that certain songs and groups evoke. I find that automobiles have a similar effect; the ability to take me to another time and place.
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| 8 Track |
Remember when cars came with a standard AM radio? I do, my station was
K-D-I-A Lucky 13.What about when FM radio became a standard feature? I remember when I first heard
K-O-M-E Radio and DJ
Dennis Erectus;
"Don't touch that dial, you have KOME on it!" Remember 8 Track tape players? They were cool at the time, except you couldn't rewind the tapes so repeating your favorite song was a real pain in the %$#! I had an 8 track player with a bracket that allowed me to take the player out at night, state of the art security at the time. When cassette players were introduced I thought I had died and gone to heaven. At the time,the "leap" from 8 track to cassette was such a big deal, I couldn't image anything topping that. I certainly couldn't conceive the notion of DVD players.
With each one of these innovations comes memories of the music of the time period. With each one of these innovations comes memories of the automobile(s) I, my parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends owned at the time. I started this blog as a reminder of the good times. A reminder of the fun, the friends and the evolution of technology. A reminder of my own evolution and of what is yet to come.
As kids, we often talked about the future of automobiles. Would there really be
flying cars by the year 2000? Could someone invent a car that runs on
electricity?
How fast will cars of the future be able to travel? We'd talk about our dream cars at the time and about the cars we'd hope to have when we were all grown up.
I grew up during the muscle car era of the 60's and early 70's. This was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because there were so many great cars. Driving around the neighborhood you would see
GTXs,
Road Runners,
Mustangs,
Corvettes,
Z28s,
Chargers,
GTOs any and every muscle car you could possibly imagine. Many of people who didn't have muscle cars would build hot rods out of older rides,
'55-'57 Chevys,
Lincolns and
Cadillacs. It was a curse because it seemed like my family was the only family in the neighborhood that didn't have a muscle car. My dad was a great mechanic. He was an enlisted man in the Navy and he worked on airplanes.(the P3 Orion was his specialty.) Dad could fix anything with a motor, I mean anything; tractors,cars, trucks, airplanes but he couldn't care less about automobiles. To him a car was simply a way to get from point A to point B. He couldn't care less about what he drove as long as it was "
reliable". So, while my next door neighbor was driving a '65 Corvette convertible, my dad was driving a
Ford Galaxy 500. A FOUR DOOR Galaxy 500! There weren't many cool four door cars during the muscle car era. (
The only cool four door built in the 1960s I can recall was the Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors, and those cars were really, really expensive at that time.) While the other kids in the neighborhood were talking about how fast there dad's cars were, I had to stand on the side lines and listen. I guess I could have bragged on how "
reliable" our four door Galaxy was but I didn't want to risk the inevitable ridicule that would follow.
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| 1974 AMC |
I remember the "Dark Ages" of american automobiles from 1974 to about 1988. It started with the gasoline shortage in the mid 70's. Prior to that time no one cared if their car only got 8 miles to the gallon. Come to think of it, I never heard the term
"miles per gallon" until the late 70's. Even during the
gas rationing period in '73-'74 we never thought the shortages would lead to a change in how automobiles were designed and built.
(You'll notice the absence of cars from that era on this blog!) Not only did the cars of the 70's lack power, they lacked style and the ever important
"reliability". I can't think of an interesting american car built after 1972. From my perspective, it all started in 1973 when Chevrolet replaced the front metal bumper on the Corvette with the plastic front end. The was the beginning of the end as far as I'm concerned. The next 10 to 15 years were truly the worst years ever for american automobile companies. Remember the Ford Maverick, Cadillac Cimarron, the
AMC Pacer or Gremlin? All were extremely forgettable. Ford was one of the worst offenders of the day. The Thunder Bird evolved from a
sporty convertible in the 50's to a
overgrown monster in the mid 70s, to a midsize coupe in the late seventies and eventually a
small two door economy coupe in the early 80s. Even the Mustang was disgraced during this time period!
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| 1977 Mustang "Cobra"- Yuck! |
Of course, some will point to the
Trans Am and
Z28s of the late 1970s as examples of desirable american cars of the time. Actually the Trans Am and Z28 of the late 70's weren't bad looking cars. However, if you compare these cars to the cars of the 1950's and 1960's you will see a marked difference in style and workmanship. What we considered cool in 1979 wouldn't stand up to the cars made ten years earlier. It would take another 10 years before the Z28 would return to form. I'm not sure the Trans Am ever recovered.
Seeing the resurgence of the american auto industry during the past decade has been amazing. Once again, american manufacturers are among the most creative, innovative companies on the planet. Cadillac, Chevrolet, Ford and Dodge are building cars that are beautifully designed, reliable, fast and economical.
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2014 Corvette
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