1940 Chevrolet

This car was the first one that I knew. Its list price was $765. It was the family car until 1951 when another Chevrolet was purchased. We kept it for a second car because my father judged the trade-in price too low. It was the car that I drove to school in 1953 when I got my school permit at age 14. One of its interesting features was some kind of vacuum assist on the shift. The mechanics at Scotch Ridge disabled that feature at some point when it had been slipping out of gear. This car was pretty much immobilized ca. 1955 when some kids took it for a joy ride while we were in church and ran it through the fields. It also had a heater that was apparently designed to keep you warm enough to function as long as you were dressed warmly enough to stand outside. I remember driving it to high school and having to take 20-30 minutes to warm my fingers up for typing class.

1951 Chevrolet

This car replaced the 1940 Chevy and was one of four purchased by the McKee brothers. In the fall of 1950 Mother and I were at Aunt Mary Ryle’s where I had perhaps my first cup of coffee. Aunt Mary remarked that she thought we should all get cars now before they became unavailable as they had during WWII because we didn’t know what was going to happen in Korea. This was our first car that had a heater than could really keep you warm enough to shed your coat. It came with the fender skirts shown here which I thought were really cool! At the time of its purchase in April 1951, the 1940 Chevrolet had about 90,000 miles. Price, of the 1951 according to the registration certificate was $1600.

1948 Pontiac Coupe

We purchased this car in August 1954 so Mother (& I) would have a way to town for her to work at Simpson. Shortly after purchasing it we had to have a major overhaul that cost almost as much as we'd paid for the car. Daddy bought this on time, perhaps the first time he had done that and was very bothered by that. One innovation over the 1940 Chevy that it replaced was an under seat heater that worked better than the heater in its predecessor. It also was the first car in our immediate family with an automatic transmission.

1950 Ford

This car replaced the 1948 Pontiac whose demise I don’t remember. I was hitchhiking home from practice in ’56 and caught a ride with an Indianola resident who remarked that he was trying to sell his car, the 1950 Ford in which we were riding. The price was right and we bought in time for the rest of my senior year. It had overdrive and seemed to be more comfortable than the Chevrolet which was a model year newer. In fact, it was so comfortable that Mother and I drove it to Missouri Valley where Grandma Reel was experiencing some medical issues. The Ford got better gas mileage than the Chevy because it had overdrive.

1958 Chevrolet

This car was a wedding present from my parents to Mary and me. My father and I picked it out when I was home for spring vacation in 1961. It was a used car with about 30,000 miles which we purchased for $1,200. It was a beautiful automobile with a V-8 engine and 4-barrel carburetor. But it had a number of frustrating mechanical problems. On the way home from Marinette, WI, a wire broke loose on the alternator. Later there were lighting problems; one night after having work done at the local Norwich garage, the headlights went out when Mary pressed the dinner switch. Then at Christmas time as we were driving home from college we experienced repeatedly a starving for gas. Mary’s dad suggested that drilling a hole in the gas cap which he had done on his ’59 Chevy might solve the problem and we drilled the hole. But rather than test it on the way back east, we bought the 1963 Chevy II.

1963 Chevy II

As noted above, this car was purchased partly out of frustration with the continuing problems with the ’58 Chevy. We also felt that with more graduate school in the future, that the value of the car would not be held against us in awarding whatever scholarships might be pursued. In addition, being five years newer would be helpful. We ultimately put 94,000 miles on this car and sold it in 1973 after four years in St. Louis. It was the car that we drove to California pulling a 4x6 U-haul from Vermont and later from California to St. Louis with two small girls and a dog.

1961 Pontiac Bonneville Convertible

When I was at Dartmouth some of my affluent fraternity brothers had new Bonneville convertibles, a car that seemed particularly desirable. When I was working at NASA Ames on my Army assignment, one of the mechanics had a 1961 Bonneville which he sold to me for $500. It provided us with a second car, me with the car that I’d admired so much and an opportunity to begin doing some auto repairs. I replaced the brakes in our driveway and replaced the ball joints in the front suspension at the Navy shop at Moffett Field. I sold it with a leaky water pump after driving it for a little less than two years for $300.

1969 Plymouth Satellite

This car provided several firsts for us. It was our first station wagon. It had a remarkable rear door that could be opened either as a door or with the window down as a tailgate. It was our first car with air conditioning. And it had a remarkable glitch, the windshield wipers didn’t work on cold mornings. We finally got this fixed on a chilly November morning back in Indianola where we purchased the car. Incidentally, the purchase was interesting in itself. I had been reading some Consumer’s Report articles and concluded that one might bargain for a car by negotiating on the price above dealer invoice. I began looking in California and found even for large dealerships in San Francisco, that they wanted $500 or $600 on the car of my interest. So I called a dealer in Indianola and raised the same question for a Satellite Wagon how much do you need? It was about half as much and they took my order without requiring a deposit even though they were ordering a car to my specifications. It proved to be a reliable car which we drove more than 100,000 miles. We did have a few lessons with belted tires. After throwing the treads of two snow tires and two non snow tires all Sears branded, I told the Sears rep who offered to replace all of them that I had no faith in their ability to produce a reliable tire. He offered Michelin steel belted radials as an alternative; I accepted and was able to get more than 50,000 miles without a failure!

1973 Dodge Dart

This car replaced the Chevy II. It cost only about $300 more than the Chevy II had in 1963. The slant six engine was particularly liked by Consumer’s Reports and never gave any problems. After we moved to Texas we had an air conditioner installed which made the Texas heat bearable. In St. Louis, my commute to work took place before the temperature had really climbed. On days when I drove our car pool, I usually took the air-conditioned Satellite in the summer time.

1977 Chevrolet Impala Wagon

This car in a burnt orange color that we thought represented UT colors became our family car until I received a Frito-Lay company car in 1980 when it became the car that Margaret & Laura used to get to school and for their other transportation. It was the car that protected Laura when she was broadsided in 1983 after Margaret had left for the Naval Academy. Our most memorable adventure was on Rabbit Ears Pass in Colorado as we were descending to Steamboat Springs to join our friends, the Benjamins. On ice, we spun around 540 degrees and ended up headed into the ditch on the right side which was definitely preferable to the left side where the ditch fell off into a ravine that appeared bottomless. We were pulled out by a passing driver with a pickup and

1979 Toyota Celica

I suppose this was my mid-life crisis car designed to put some verve in my life compared to the Dodge Dart. It was fun to drive and became Laura’s car after the Station Wagon was totaled. As she began her sophomore year at Swarthmore, she lobbied to take the car back assuring us that it was allowed by the College. These plans became questionable when she was rear ended a week before her scheduled return to Swarthmore. The body shop was able to complete repairs in exactly 168 hours from the crash but we felt that this would put extra stress on Laura so I drove with her to Washington, DC where she dropped me off close to Dulles Airport. She got to Swarthmore without incident but I suffered a scratched eyeball when a person trying to be helpful holding an elevator door swiped his hand across my face. Toward the end of the school year, Laura told us happily that now, since she had agreed to drive students to the infirmary, she was going to be allowed to park on-campus. This car did have a few mechanical issues. Duane & Vera Dowell borrowed the car one summer for several weeks and replaced the clutch which failed. Laura had to have major repairs while working in California and staying with Jon & Pegge Kosek. But the car endured and was still waiting for her at Margaret’s when she returned from the Peace Corps.

1980 Buick Lesabre

This was my first company car. It was unremarkable, but a very comfortable auto. One disturbing issue was that it quit on the bypass as I was going home on the night that Laura was leaving for the Richardson H.S. Orchestra trip to Austria. I left it there expecting to deal with the problem the next morning. Unfortunately, someone thought that it was a good source of spare parts. They broke the driver’s side window in order to access the hood release and stole the battery. To make matters worse, it rained that night and soaked the seat through the broken window.

1982 Oldsmobile

My second company car was this Oldsmobile whose lines I liked better than the current Buick. Like the Buick it also stopped on the road but fortunately it was in the morning and I now knew to immediately have it towed to the dealer.

1984 Oldsmobile

Another comfortable Olds company car. The most memorable event was having the car, in a carwash, battered by a previous auto’s radio aerial which had been broken off by the rotating brush and retained in the brush to attack us. It took quite a bit of persuasion to convince the carwash owner that their damage disclaimer pertained to a properly functioning carwash, not one that was malfunctioning.

1984 Toyota Supra

This was the most sporty car we ever had and it became Mary’s car. Since we lived at the bottom of a steep hill in Cedar Rapids that was very slippery whenever it snowed, I put 600 pounds of sand in the rear to provide ballast for the extremely light rear end to hold the driving wheel down. One day while having some work done in the Sears auto shop, Mary was paged over the loud speaker to come to the shop. When she got there, she was subjected to a tirade from the foreman for subjecting her beautiful car to such abuse as carrying such weight. (I had verified the weight rating of car & tires before loading it up and didn’t think there was a problem.)

1987 Ford Taurus

This was my Cherry-Burrell company car. Since I was the V.P. of Engineering, I thought that I should have a vehicle that had the greatest innovations and this car had an electronic dash. Unfortunately, these features had apparently not been adequately tested because one day the digital speedometer just quit and I had to estimate my speed by monitoring the seconds between mileage markers. Later, the digital controls on the air conditioning system failed, requiring the entire dash to be pulled out to access the circuit board in question.

1990 Ford Taurus

This was my Brown Printing company car and the first of three cars that were purchased from Gary Deml whose dealership was directly north across the highway from the Brown Printing plant. The cars provided a little softening of Gary’s antagonism of Brown. He felt that the effluent from Brown which he contended condensed on and damaged his inventory was a bigger problem than we at Brown believed.

1991 Mercury Sable LS

This was the second vehicle purchased from Deml. The purchase was primarily a safety issue, providing an auto with front wheel drive and better behavior on slippery roads than the sporty Supra that it replaced. It survived hitting a deer and had no icy collisions. Mary did have to have major transmission repairs in Butler, MO. She was on the way to visit her mother in Indianola; left the car in Butler on the way north, rented a car, and picked up the Sable on her return.

1993 Ford Taurus

My second Brown company car. I kept this car when I left Brown and continued to drive it in Missouri as I worked at Sunbeam. It had about 95,000 miles when we traded it in on the Mercury Grand Marquis.

1995 Toyota Avalon

This car with about 50,000 miles replaced the Sable wagon which had about 95,000 miles. We had no problem with this car except that on day Mary noticed that whenever she ran the blower, the AC emitted loud noises. She took it to a shop in Gravette for repair. When she returned, the mechanics could not hold in their laughter. They showed her a pile of acorns that they had removed from the heater duct. The acorns had been placed there by some industrious chipmunks.

1997 Mercury Grand Marquis

We purchased this car at Jimmy Michel Motors in Aurora, MO on December 14, 1996 the day after I had been terminated at Sunbeam Outdoor Products by Chainsaw Al Dunlap, a notable Friday the 13th. It was probably the most comfortable cruising car we have owned. We broke it in with a round trip through Washington, DC coming back through Florence, AL where we stayed with the parents of our Fentriss neighbor in Waseca. Florence was the site of one of the companies where I interviewed after leaving Sunbeam and before we joined Edward Jones.

1999 Toyota Avalon

This was our second Avalon purchased with about 30,000 miles. It was a beautiful car but tire mileage was a problem. The original tires had already been replaced when we bought it and those replacement tires also wore out in about 30,000 miles despite having a four-wheel alignment.

2003 Dodge Durango SXT

This was our first auto with engageable four-wheel drive. The four-wheel option was used only a few times but in both snow and mud it proved quite useful. The SXT version had several features that were very desirable, including a running board (useful when we were posting Rotary flags) an AC that had separate passenger controls, and a top rack. We drove this machine one year too long. One day as we were traveling to our couples golf event, the engine began to overheat. It was low on water and despite adding water from our water bottles, it really didn’t cool down. By the time that it got to the repair shop, a minor repair grew each time they opened up another cavity until we had a choice of finishing the job or just walking away from it. We finished and judged that the next year without a car payment was a breakeven proposition.

2006 Hyundai Azera

This was the first of two Azeras and we purchased it at a time when Mary said she didn’t want a new car that wasn’t an Avalon. This was the time when Hyundai was really breaking into the U.S. market and the Azera with even more features than the comparable Avalon was about $5,000 less. It even had powered rear view mirrors! (A feature not included on its successor Azera.) I should note that Mary came to be very pleased with both Azeras. Our purchasing arrangement was a bit different for this car. I sent a request for quotes to every Hyundai dealer from Tulsa to St. Joseph, MO to Little Rock. Only one dealer responded and he called me within a few minutes from St. Joseph and, noting that he didn’t have precisely what I had requested, convinced me that what he did have would be suitable. I met his delivery guys in a Dairy Queen in Lamar, MO and I drove it home to Bella Vista never having seen either the salesman or the dealership.

2011 Hyundai Azera

This Azera was very much like the first but with slightly fewer features although it was the same model. Purchased from a dealer in Bentonville where the earlier Azera had been serviced it was our family car and Mary’s car.

2014 VW Passat

This was our “green” car. Purchased specifically in an effort to be more environmentally sensitive and thinking the diesel, which would not need a battery replacement, might have a longer life. In fact, we got 47 miles/gallon on one of our trips from Bella Vista to Madison, WI. However, in September 2015, news reports said that VW had falsified emission reports; in fact, software had been modified to perform differently when the emission tests were performed than in normal operation. As a result of this flagrant violation, VW was forced to recall all their diesel vehicles. The terms of the recall turned out to be very beneficial for us. We were paid the blue book value as of September 2015 when the news reports appeared plus a $700 penalty. In addition, we got to drive the car until December 2016 when we had determined that we would be reducing our fleet to one car for our life in Chicago.

2015 Subaru Outback

I had been looking for a replacement for the Dodge Durango for some time and became very interested in the Subaru Outback for several reasons. First, Kenny Fowler, the husband of one of our Rotary friends was a salesman at the nearest Subaru dealer. Second, Consumer Reports had given the Subaru Forrester its highest mark and the Outback received good marks as well. Finally, we found their support of KUAF, the local NPR station a positive. When Kenny gave me a test drive and showed me the Eyesight feature, I was blown away. Eyesight provides a cruise control that tracks the car ahead of you; if it slows, so does your car; if it stops, so do you. In addition, if it spots an obstacle like a deer ahead, it will stop the car. At this writing, it has about 30,000 miles and has had no serious repairs other than a new battery whose timing may have been accelerated by one too many total discharges of the original equipment.