I’ve never had much luck with motors and mechanics, starting with my very first car that had trouble doing just that. Before this first purchase, I drove my dad’s cars in high school, with no interest in motorcycles or scooters. My driver’s test took place in his 1965 Mustang convertible, and I snuck away to California in his Ford Galaxie. The wood-side-paneled Country Squire station wagon was our vacation and go-to-Church car, while I used it a couple of times to cruise Main Street. We packed it up as a family and dropped me off at Albion College where several of my fellow classmates had their own car. Without access to one of my own, I also did some hitchhiking back then, mainly down to Indiana University for weekend getaways. 

I bought my own car in 1972, a brand new, bright red, Triumph GT6 fastback model, with a little help from my parents, after transferring to IU. It looked good on the outside, but the dual carburetors could not handle the icy, Indiana winters. It had trouble starting in the mornings and became a frustrating problem getting to classes on time. I took it into an automotive shop and learned a valuable lesson about buying sports cars that probably saved me thousands over the course of time. I dropped the car off in the evening after spending the day trying to get it going and instructed them to keep it inside for the night. The repair bill included a towing charge because they left it in the lot for the night. I refused to pay and was further infuriated when the mechanic told me that “anybody that can afford a car like this can pay the extra fee.” Going forward in life, all I ever wanted was a car that was reliable and affordable. But first, I wanted to get rid of this one.

The Triumph took me on a memorable drive to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, but after a year of marriage, it continued to give us problems in the winter and severely tested my mechanical ineptness, so I begged Marcia to trade it in on something. She came home with a used Gremlin, proving that her taste in cars wasn’t much better than mine. It was just another lemon, but we soon settled on a Volkswagen Beetle that changed my whole attitude about cars. It got great gas mileage, could get through the snow, and started without fail. We also had a Dodge van that she used for the Hall of Ivy plant business. Despite this streak of carefree motoring, I was able to avoid buying a boat, but I did have some misfortune with a snowmobile that broke down in the woods and was left to rust. 

When I went to work at WTRC Radio, I developed a great relationship with the owner of a Buick dealership and bought several cars from him, including a Skylark and Regal. As I got into management, I was fortunate to drive company-owned cars for most of the remainder of my career, The first was a Jeep, followed by a Honda SUV, and finally a Toyota Camry. I then married a woman that loved driving her reliable Lexus but wanted a convertible, so our second car became a red 2011 Solara that we bought while living in Austin. However, she quickly passed it on to me once she eyed a used 2005 Gold, Lexus SC430, hard-top convertible that we still own in Florida. Just recently, we traded in the Solara for an electric golf cart, hopefully limiting my exposure to automotive problems and all things motorized.