WOMEN AND CARS

 I am a woman who as been passionately attached to her cars. My first car was a 1971 red Chevy Vega. Dad got it off the lot for only $400, since the Vega, right from the get go, was not a very popular model. Here’s a description from Hagerty Media: “the Vega was not really a bad car, it was a breakthrough domestic small car that was sadly cost-cut, poorly executed, under-developed and hurriedly launched to a sorry result, well beyond Chevrolet’s and GM’s ability to save it”. Put another way, the Vega was a dog, it had as bad a reputation as the Edsel for unreliability. But still, I loved that car. I would come out from my first job in TV, to the parking lot, and there would often be a red rose thrown across the hood, from my very romantic boyfriend Ted. The rose looked so good on that little red sports car. If the rose wasn’t on the hood, it would be splayed across the windshield or inside on the dash.  Vega lasted for several years, a lot longer than Ted actually. Our last trip (me and Vega’s) was a four and a half hour drive home to see my parents, which I often did, but this night the car conked out as we were coming down Oxford St. in Sydney. We coasted to Cottage Rd, I turned right and then left into our driveway. The Vega never started again, but it got me home safely. Even in its final moments, it had taken care of me. The Vega was my first… we learned together, so I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for it. It had an undeserved bad reputation, just like the wild looking boyfriend who you’re not allowed to date when you’re a teenager, even though he’s so good to you….if the Vega ever comes back, I will be the first, and probably the only one, in line to buy it…                           

My second car was an ungodly lime green coloured Volkswagen Beetle. Semi automatic, shift but no clutch, it was fun to drive and it always started, even on the most bitterly cold days. When much better cars weren’t able to turn over, the Beetle hummed, never with heat, mind you, as I don’t think the heater ever worked. And the Blaupunkt radio never functioned either, but the sound would have been really great, if it had, I was told, so that made me feel better. I bought that car for around $500 and painted it a bright yellow. I sold it to an Air Canada stewardess, as we called them back then, who paid me a lofty $850 for it. I got a call from her a few months later, telling me that she was stopped by the police in Toronto, and when she showed them her ownership, it said Vega. Oops. The police weren’t worried though, she was a really cute flight attendant, so they helped get her a new ownership slip.

 Things changed after I got married and my husband John brought me home a gift. It was a brown car. With our relationship as passionate as it was, I asked, “Why would you get me a brown car?” 

“Did you notice what kind of car it is?”, he asked. 

“Of course”, I told him,  “it’s brown”. 

“It’s a Mercedes Benz”, he said. It was a 1984, 500 SEC coupe to be exact. List price was $57,100 US, in today’s dollars, about $174,000 US. 

“But why brown?”, I persisted. John rolled his eyes. A few days later, he was off to the Keeneland horse sale in Kentucky, and I decided to give him a surprise when he got back. 

 I picked him up at the airport a couple of days later (this was when you could pull up at the curb to wait for a passenger), and when he came out, he looked around and said, “Where’s the Benz?”

“What do you mean, ‘where’s the Benz’?”, I asked, “it’s right here in front of you”, I gesticulated towards the now gold colored car. “I had it painted when you were away to surprise you”, I added. He stopped in his tracks.

“Are you surprised?”, I asked.

“Help me to the car”, he said weakly, “I don’t feel well”.  He wasn’t kidding, he was trembling and a little ashen. 

“Don’t you like the color?”, I asked, disappointed, “I call it Goldfinger”. John raised his hand, “just let me rest”, he said, closing his eyes. John was quiet as I drove home, but by the end of the trip, he had almost regained his composure, and, trying to accept the new reality, he asked optimistically, “at least they used Mercedes Benz paint, right?”

“Mercedes has their own paint?”, I asked. Who knew?

 I stayed with Benz, but never bought new and that brings me to my all time favoured car. The steady, and some might say boring, C230. I picked it up on Christmas Eve 2009 after closing on my home, a deal that included all of the furniture and my then current old Benz.  My new car, the 2007 Silver C230 cost me $23 thousand and had only twenty thousand miles on it. 

 This car and I had a lot in common. We were both kind of cheap and run of the mill, but we were definitely better than our reputations, and we were very reliable. We looked pretty good, as long as you didn’t get too close. And although we both got a bit beaten down and weathered over the years,  we still ran just fine. My sons would make fun of Silver, as I called him,”first you put tape on the fender grill, and now the grill is gone”, Luke accused. “A friend of mine pulled it off, it looks better without the tape”, I insisted. Getting it fixed didn’t even dawn on me. “Get rid of that old thing”, Jay would say. 

“How dare you”, I countered, adding, “Is that what you’ll be saying about me one day? ‘Get rid of that old thing?’” 

 I stayed completely loyal to that car, as it did to me. Oh, I would occasionally eye other cars, but never, ever would I consider making a trade. I didn’t care if another car was faster, sexier, or sleeker, no one was taking me from ol’ Silver. I have never been so loyal in my life. Maybe I should have chosen men the same way I chose that car – steady and boring, with a good pedigree… but alas, I never did. Silver made me understand how people can stay in long term marriages. He was so true, so reliable, so damn good to me, I could never stray. 

In 2022, disaster struck when a deer ran onto the road and leaped onto the hood of Silver. I was fine, the deer was fine, at least I think it was, it ran back into the woods, but the Benz, although it limped home, was a goner, it was totalled. 

“It saved your life”, the cops told me, saying that without the sturdy Benz hood, the deer likely would have landed on my lap, flailing about, and that could have been a really bad scene. Ol’ Silver and I were together for almost fourteen years. It was the longest and best relationship of my life, hands down. Teary eyed, I flew back to Toronto after its death and headed to my mechanic Bobby, who also fixes and sells Benz’s. “I have one I think you’ll like”, he said. I shook my head, no one could replace Silver. But lo and behold, there in his garage was what seemed to be my old car back from the dead. I couldn’t believe it! 

“Just like your Ol’ Silver ”, Bobby said proudly.

I got in the driver’s seat and turned the key, it hummed nicely. Then the engine light lit up.

I turned to Bobby, amazed. “Bobby, is the engine light going to stay on?”

I asked.

He smiled and nodded. “Just like your old car”. 

I sighed, and with misty eyes, told him, “I’ll take it!!”

By the way, you might notice that I’m not the best parker in the world. 

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