My first car looked best when disguised in snow

I remember my first car as clearly as though it were parked in my driveway this very minute. That isn’t to imply that I wish it were in my driveway. If it was, I’d probably kick it! I was 24 years old, and the car was an eight-cylinder 1937 Oldsmobile. That was back in 1946, so this car was already nine years into senility. But it was all that was available during this postwar era, when no cars had been built for several years.

In fact, in that particular period when production lines hadn’t yet resumes, car companies didn’t advertise, you did. To buy a car, you had to place a want ad in the newspaper. When I did, I waited to be chosen by a seller—like an entrant in a sweepstakes. For $500 in 1946 money, I landed this Oldsmobile.

Owning that car and enduring that relationship over the next three years was akin to living with a leeching relative. As a married college student, I was strapped by my tight finances. This car taught me patience, discipline and the ability to operate under stress. I could afford only those repairs directly related to keeping the engine running and the wheels rolling. All other defects, as they occurred, I regarded as terminal and adjusted to them as creatively as I could.

Built Like a Tank

The car was known as a “touring car.” That was a deceitful description. The production line that turned out this car must have been working from blueprints intended for an army tank. The car was heavy and sturdy, built with prewar metal and, although never tested, was probably impervious to bullets.

Proof of the car’s mettle was the day I got into an accident with it. The other driver—in one of those lighter postwar modes—tried to beat me through an intersection, cutting across the front of my car from the right. My Olds suffered only a dimple in the right front fender and a jammed gas pedal, which raced the engine like a behemoth revving up to do further battle. The other driver’s car looked like a sardine can that had fallen off the grocery shelf too often. From left front to rear fender, his car was a mess. Even his hubcaps had to be pounded out.

That sticking gas pedal was to become a chronic condition. There must be any number of drivers still on the road who recall those days at intersections, waiting for the light to change, and being startled out of their reveries by the sound of the racing engine, roaring like a washing machine with its spin cycle totally out of control!

In my case, they were even more jolted when they glanced over and saw no one at the steering wheel. That’s because by then I was already under the dashboard, freeing the gas pedal by hand. I developed quite a karate stroke—a quick chop of the hand, and the gas pedal snapped back and the engine purred contentedly again.

Paint-It-Yourself Project

During that period, when the car and I were still on basically friendly terms, I decided to improve the appearance of the car with a paint job. I spotted an ad that promised a paint job I could do all by myself with only a powder puff. So help me, that’s what the ad said. All I had to do was daub an ordinary powder puff with this special paint and brush it on the car. All for just $3.98, the ad said, and I succumbed.

On a warm and sunny Sunday, my wife and I put a box of powder puffs to work on this cosmetic overhaul. We stroked the gleaming black liquid over the existing drab green color, then waited for it to dry to this same high gloss.

It dried—to a drab, dreary black that looked like the car had survived a fire. Every powder puff stroke was visible. Our Pygmalion attempt had gone sour—we had inflicted the car with instant old age. Incidentally, I never saw that ad again. I shouldn’t wonder.

The car soon began to exhibit other terminal symptoms, such as a dead battery about every other week. In fairness, though, the battery was more a victim than a cause in a string of maladies that engulfed the car like a molecular chain.

What caused the battery to go phfft every other week were the pistons in the engine. They were wearing out, causing the engine to lose compression. (I picked up that bit of jargon from a friend who owned the neighborhood garage—he didn’t start out as my friend, but with this car I hung around there so much he became one.) Translated, it meant the engine’s power was dribbling away. Not only that, he told me, one of the pistons was cursed with a loose connecting rod.

30 mph Top Speed

I first noticed the malfunctioning connecting rod as a muffled clunking noise whenever I drove over 30 mph. My good friend, the garage man, said the clunking was the rod threatening to break loose entirely and zoom through the engine block. That’s the arrow through the heart, he explained unnecessarily; no more engine block, no more car.

I could deal with that—I simply didn’t drive over 30 mph. In a city not yet laced with expressways, this wasn’t too much of a problem. However, the ailing pistons and slow engine speed shortchanged the generator, and it, in turn, didn’t put enough electrical charge back into the battery. Ergo, a phfft battery.

It was a vicious circle that picked up momentum with each passing week. Next, the oil rings began wearing noticeably, which resulted in the car using more oil. Soon, I was feeding it 3 to 4 quarts a week. I started buying oil by the case, and in the heaviest grades I could find. The syrupier the oil, I figured, the slower it would whip past the receding oil rings and out the exhaust. I would have pumped in molasses if I had thought it could hold its own.

As the pistons got sicker, the engine compression became weaker, the generator grew lazier, and the battery began dying once a week. I held back the inevitable by picking up a spare secondhand battery. From then on, I had one expiring in the car while the other was being revived at my friend’s place. Eventually, things got so iffy that on trips beyond the immediate neighborhood, I took the second battery along for insurance, reposed in the trunk waiting to pinch-hit if needed. There were any number of nights, after a visit at a friend’s house, when I would try to start the car only to find the battery was in another coma.

Dressed for the Job

Then I’d whip into my routine. I would dig into a special “mechanic’s wardrobe,” which I had now accumulated through handling various crises. For lesser tasks, like changing a dead battery, I’d don an old jacket. For messier revivals, like changing another flat tire, I’d add a pair of coveralls. Plus, I had boots for pushing the car in the snow and rain, and gloves for all seasons.

Now, this car was of the vintage where the battery was suspended in an open “cage” under the front seat on the driver’s side. To get at it required removing the front seat, and anyone sitting on it. By necessity, I soon developed a nimbleness in shoving the front seat aside, loosening the cables, lifting out the bum battery, then lugging it to the trunk, taking out its recharged clone and reversing the process. I perfected the technique so that I got it down to less than 10 minutes, maybe faster on a cold night.

There were times when the car would go “clunk” at a gas station. I’d go into my nimble act while the attendant was pumping gas. Usually I could replace the battery before he’d finish filling the tank. He was probably slowed by his curiosity, diverted by the sight of a grown man dressing in old clothes in broad public view and playing Chinese checkers with a couple of batteries.

But, it was hardly diverting to my wife, who had to vacate the front seat and stand alongside the car, trying to display a casual air while her husband was whipping back and forth on the other side of the car in some strange kind of rain dance. It was street entertainment that would win a critic’s heart for improvisation, and a heckuva show for anyone watching, especially friends in the back seat along for the ride.

Avoided Night Driving

The car’s ailments began shaping our social life. We became big on things to do during daylight hours when I didn’t need the headlights, and began accepting fewer evening invitations, especially if they were across town. Driving out of town was simply out of the question—until one day my wife informed me that she had lost her head and accepted an invitation for a Friday night at a couple’s home, which called for 30 miles of highway driving!

Putting it mildly, I was incredulous that she would hazard our lives on such an expedition. She knew darn well the car couldn’t hack it, and that we might get stranded somewhere along the highway with a dinosaur that had just died. But I could understand my wife’s frustration at our restricted human contact; she was obviously verging on rebellion. Reluctantly, I consented to making the trip.

That Friday night, we got out on the old two-lane highway with a fresh battery nestling under the front seat and a fully juiced one in the trunk. The only threat to our safety was the possibility of the connecting rod hurtling through the engine block, so I drove my usually cautious speed of 30 mph.

At that speed, on a busy, two-lane road, I was soon leading a parade. Very few managed to pass us, but they all managed to honk their horn. I concluded that night that it was times like those that lead to sayings such as, “Those who lead had better lead fast.”

We made it there and back. But there must have been a lot of people who copied down my license number that night with intent to do malice when and if the opportunity presented itself.

Wipers on the Fritz

Not long after that the windshield wipers quit working. I’d flick the switch, and they pretended not to notice—they just rested on the windshield, motionless. My friend at the garage—now becoming one of my best friends—told me the wiper motor had given up. He showed me where it was installed, in the most Siberian of places way up under the dashboard, where only a midget mechanic could reach it.

I decided that since I was already an expert at swooping under the dashboard to free the gas pedal whenever it acted up, I could include the act of moving the wiper blades back and forth by hand at the same time. Besides, I would only have to do it when it rained.

So, I located the wiper arm under the dash, gauged the length of the swoop and reach, and practiced it a few times. After that, my karate stroke took on an additional dimension—at a stoplight, I dived down and first made a swipe at the gas pedal to calm down the engine, then made a fluid motion toward the wiper arm for two or three quick strokes, and was back in business before the light changed.

That wasn’t the last of my car’s aberrations. The excess oil consumption had finally taken its toll on the exhaust system, my best friend told me. The exhaust pipe had become partially clogged, and it no longer was exhausting all of the oil fumes. Some fumes were taking a shortcut into the car.

Beginning of the End

I convinced him to give it the ol’ garage try before we both gave up on the car. He installed a homemade exhaust that vented to the side of the car, just behind the driver’s door. So I likely had the first and only car with bypass surgery. Unfortunately, the operation was not entirely successful. Some fumes still leaked into the car, and that danger rang the final bell. I decided I had to get another car, and this bomb was going to the dump.

I removed my mechanic’s wardrobe from the trunk, as well as the clone battery, and drove to the nearest junkyard—I wasn’t taking any last chances on the battery, the gas pedal, the wipers or the exhaust. Just a quiet, final, one-way trip.

I parked it at the curb, far enough away to defy close scrutiny, and walked into the shop and confronted the junkyard owner. “How much for that car out there?” I asked.

Obviously a person with an eye for car-flesh, he glanced in the direction of the curb and curtly announced, “Twenty-five dollars.” For a moment, all my agonies of ownership fled and I actually tried to defend that car. It was an insulting offer.

“No thanks,” I said, and walked out. I turned the ignition key, and with an ominous grunt, the car started. The battery sounded good for maybe only one more start, so I knew I’d better make a deal fast.

At the next junkyard, only 50 feet down the street, I greeted the owner with the same “how much?” question. He turned toward the curb slowly and said, “Twenty-five dollars.” He must have been related to the guy next door.

I wasn’t insulted this time. I was realistic. “I’ll take it,” I said. He handed me the money, I handed him the keys, and walked out.

As I passed the car at the curb, I gave it one last look. Maybe, just maybe, I should never have painted it black with powder puffs. I took the bus home…and began thinking about another car.

By Hal Prey
Estero, Florida