1981 - I turned 16 that year, got my drivers license, and bought a used Ford Mustang II with money I had saved from working in the tobacco fields starting at the age of 10. That car took me a lot of places including college where I initially thought I wanted to be a computer scientist. I guess I migrated back to my roots of working outside in the fresh air. But I still get all I can stand of computers and then some.?ÿ
mine was a wagon too, maroon.?ÿ dad, having a transmission shop, often got hold of cars for next to nothing- the cost of a transmission repair sometimes.?ÿ i don't recall the story with my reliant, only that it had maybe 20K on the odometer and looked like those had been done on a treadmill (it was spotless).?ÿ but that- to this day- is the most gutless car i've ever driven.
my next car after that was a '73 ranchero with a 351 windsor.?ÿ the Kanthithesis.
Mine was a Plymouth Fury II
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That thing was a tank!
..but that- to this day- is the most gutless car i've ever driven.
They were a little under-powered.?ÿ I think mine had the 2.2 L which cranked out a little over 80hp.
I have several "fond" memories of that car, stuffed full of wife, kids and gear, trying to make it over humps like Trail Ridge between Estes and Grand Lake or Slumgullion Pass.?ÿ Then there was the time it vapor-locked on top of Cottonwood Pass with the whole world behind me.?ÿ A compassionate pack of campers with an appropriately equipped vehicle actually towed me across the pass.?ÿ ?ÿI was given instructions to just "coast" down the other side...while not riding the brakes too much.
A couple of years later the movie "Vacation" came out.?ÿ I think it was one of the first VHS tapes we ever owned. My boys loved watching it over and over.?ÿ?ÿ
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@paden-cash ????ÿ
yep.?ÿ funny- that summer- '81- 6 of us (my brothers, my mom, and i in the back seat, grandma and grandpa in the front seat) rode around much of the same roads in grandpa's datsun 210.?ÿ rode the estes park tramway, putted around through RMNP, i know we did a fair number of miles on some unpaved pass somewhere.?ÿ that little datsun just chewed it all up.
and vacation is one of the 3 or 4 movies that i could probably recite line for line all the way through, if pressed.
Took my PLS test in the fall of '81, licensed in early '82. I was driving a '65 Volvo wagon, whose front bumper had been lost or discarded by a previous owner and replaced with?ÿ piece of 4 x 4. With the back seats folded down and a few home-made plywood boxes added, it turned out to be a pretty good survey rig.
I was a freshmen and then a sophomore at SIU Carbondale. ?ÿMy only mode of transportation was a 10 speed bike and all my stuff would fit in a car. ?ÿ
