My first car was a 1979 Oldsmobile
Cutlass Supreme. I got it in May of
1999. It has a V8. It was old and needed lots of work. I was still in high school.
When I first brought my car home, I
gave it a good wash. Once insured, I took
it to school the following Monday morning.
It got me to school okay for the first few times. But, old cars will give you shit as they are
wont to do.
Ah yes, the joys of putting it in
neutral and feathering the gas to keep it from stalling at every red
light. And yes, stalling out in front of
the school, in front of a group of cuties.
But fuck it; I had the 3rd oldest car at school, and an
American one to boot. You can keep your
plastic import POS. Also, I had no
working stereo, so I borrowed my dad’s portable stereo to play music while it
sat in the passenger’s seat (all the while consuming D cells by the package). Lastly, I kept a full 5-gallon gas can in the
trunk because the gas gauge didn’t work worth a damn. Just keep this gas can in mind as you read
this.
Let me tell
you, driving a V8-powered machine will show its ugly side when you go to the
gas pump. At the time I was making money
doing auto repair side jobs. I can
remember that gas at that time cost around $1.75 a gallon. Filling up my 17-gallon tank cost $25 – 30. My car could get around 12 MPG. Guess where all my money went? In that fucking gas tank. It was so bad that I made the girlfriend I
had at the time pay her way for movies, food, etc. Hey, I’m old school like that, where I
believe that a man should pay for everything.
Luckily she was cool with it, since she knew my gas tank sucked my
wallet dry. It got to the point where I
was scrounging couch change to put gas in my tank. This is what taught me budgeting, the Greasy
Hot-Rodder way.
Now for the
gas tank…One day after driving around with my girlfriend at the time, my friend
and his girlfriend, I took a hard right turn and skidded around a corner, just
for the hell of it. A few minutes later,
the whole car started smelling like gas.
Turns out, the hard turn I took toppled the gas can in the trunk over and for some reason, the cap
came off (thanks Dad for giving me a gas can with a fucked up cap). Luckily I realized it and pulled over
quickly, so only about a gallon spilled out into the trunk. It wasn’t fun trying to mop up spilled
gasoline in a trunk. For the rest of
that night, my car smelled like gasoline to the point where it got you
high. I saw my imbecile friend about to
light a cigarette in my rear view mirror and I yelled at him “NO!” Damn to think he could have killed us
all. Never again did I carry a gas can
in my trunk. This would come back to
bite me in the ass later.
The
following summer, I got my first steady job at Home Depot as a cart boy. I was then in college at the time. Having already built and dropped in a 350
smallblock, I was tweaking that thing all the time. And, my gas gauge still wasn’t working. The result of my gas gauge not working caused
me to get stranded with an empty tank many times. Also, the fussy 350 left me on the side of
the road quite a few times as well. My
parents booted me off of their AAA membership and made me get my own since I
used up all three tows in a month. I
remember one time while waiting to get towed home (after my MSD 6A ignition box
took a shit), some guy with a flatbed truck stopped across the freeway and
asked me if I wanted a tow. I asked him
how much and he says $80. I told him all
I have is $20. Then he took off. Asshole.
Nice to see you help out a young kid broken down on the side of the
freeway.
My first
year of college saw me again spending lots of dough on gas. I was commuting 20 miles one way to
school. I filled my tank twice a
week. On top of that, I spent a lot of
money on parts for the engine. Thank god
my parents helped me out with some of my school expenses. Also, I was in for a rude awakening when I
found out that no modern girls get turned on by a guy re-jetting his carburetor
in the college parking lot. Talking to
girls about camshaft profiles, porting heads, rear-end gear ratios and how much
I hate import cars got me no play. This
wasn’t like back in the day where the car guys had the cute girls. Even worse was when I changed my major to the
sausage-fest known as Mechanical Engineering.
Eventually, one girl did come around and didn’t mind when I got gas on
one of our first dates and I left her in the car for about ten minutes while I
popped the hood and talked to some random guy who asked about my engine. She was around for a few years until she
turned psycho.
I drove my
Cutlass until my final two years of college, where I bought a new truck with an
inline-5 cylinder engine that gets 20 MPG.
What a difference! I still drove
my Cutlass on weekends and I was now able to modify it and take my time, as
anyone with a project car as a daily driver can attest, you have to get your
car running as soon as possible or else you ain’t got no wheels.
Now, at 33
years old, I look back at all of my experiences being a “car guy”. Once you’re out of college and living the
adult life, shit changes and now women love a guy who’s handy. My oh my, how the tables have turned. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve
seen guys with a flat tire on the side of the road waiting for AAA to come
rescue them. Might as well leave your manhood
on the side of the road, too.
My wife
loves the fact that I keep the cars running and loves to ride in my ’61 GMC hot
rod. She loves the whole Greaser/Hot Rod
culture, and comes to hang out in my shop while I’m wrenching to keep me company. I wouldn’t go back to change anything about
my college years. I had my car and tools
to keep me busy. Besides, a girlfriend
with no interest in cars would’ve led to some awkward silent moments and a
diversion of money for car parts to shoes or some shit.
Time to take the wife tool shopping (after she buys shoes,
of course)!
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