People- well, American people, of a certain age- love their cars. I wrote the other day about the quirky little Nash Metropolitan the family had back in the fifties. I wish we could have kept all the good ones.

A pal who lives Down Under wrote to comment that his “brother has kept his ’67 Pontiac Firebird with Mickey Thompson racing tires, Hurst 4 gear shifter, 450-something macking engine, and (I think) Cherry Bomb muffler…it truly growls. He also put in high performance suspension (a must for that car). I admire him for keeping it since he bought it second-hand in 1972 or ’73 (can’t remember for sure). He now has it in Oceanside, CA. For whatever reason, your story reminded me of the Gremlins.”

That got me going, again. The Rambler people were always a little eccentric.

We owned three Gremlins, a Pacer, a Javelin (my brother and I both broke 120mph in it), drove a host of Ambassador wagons, an American, and the Met. Dad sometimes got a new car every six months and had others for evaluation all the time- my favorite was an Avanti- just saw one on the road the other day and it brought back memories!

A guy who worked for Dad- Jim Alexander- was a big SCCA guy and managed to hook up Dan Gurney and the American Eagle team with some lunatics at AMC. Jim and Dad stayed pals all their lives- he and his wife would bring their camper up and park in the family compound in Up North Michigan each summer. Jim directed “interior design” at AMC, which means he was in charge of the doo-dads on the dash and the upholstery and seats.

It was a crazy world. We were at an AMC rally one year, and on display was the battered corpse of what had been a concept Marlin sedan in a “tropical” theme. Jim laughed and said it was the ugliest thing he had ever worked on- inside and out!

This was what it would have looked like on a better day.

Dad worked for AMC in one way or another from the early fifties to 1975 or so. It was so cool to NOT to have to drive a Rambler Ambassador. We did have a Javelin, though, ’67, and Dad borrowed an AMX for me to drive to the prom. The big wagons were tanks, indeed.

The Met was something special, though. They are still around on the collector’s market, but at this age, who needs that sort of challenge?

This one would be fun, though:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nash-Metropolitan-Convertible-1960-nash-metropolitan-convertible-/181459985175?forcerrptr=true&hash=item2a3fdba317&item=181459985175&pt=US_Cars_Trucks

Wish I could have kept the ’68 Beetle Convertible, the ’73 Chevy Caprice Classic, the ’75 Olds Delta 88 Royale, then nothing for a decade until I bound the ’73 the Mercedes 350SL, loved the 2003 SLK-350 and my soul, such as it is, will always be with the sleek Hubrismobile, the CLK-500 convertible.

This is (one of) my follies. I restored Bomber Pilot Dick’s 1991 GMC Syclone pick-up truck in time to drive it to his funeral service, where this image was taken. My brother to the right. In it’s day, the 1,806 unit production-run turbocharged four-wheel drive truck could outrun a Maserati and was designed to crucify Shelby Cobra Mustangs on Woodward Avenue in Detroit in street combat.

It is still in the barn down in Culpeper. We were car nuts. Dick completed his 25 missions over Europe and never talked about it until he was in his 70s. I think “12 O’Clock High” offended him because he knew what a merciless meat grinder it really was. once he got back from the conflict he never drove a car that wasn’t the fastest in breed: Buicks, early on, the big ones, but later Corvettes and Jags. This was the truck he used to take things to the dump when he needed some cargo capability that could also smoke the split-times in the quarter mile.

I have that one, though, sigh, like my poor aging body, it needs work again. So does the 2004 Crown Vic Police Interceptor (pictured at the Brandy Station battlefield, largest Cavalry engagement in North American history), which is not nearly as nice looking as in the picture these days but I will get to fixing it up- a classic, last of the breed:

The P-71 Police Interceptor is sort of my daily city driver. People don’t mess with me. But more formal occasions- and long distance trips- require the precision and professionalism calls for the Panzer, which thankfully has it’s first dent and I no longer am insane about it. Shown coming back from Up North while the folks were failing, a key reason I bought it:

Can’t help it. I am a car guy. But here is what we rode around in in 1968:

Style is style, right?

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303