190909 September 9, 2019

 Musings of a Car Guy

Don Wynn

LHS '67

    I am one of those old guys that you see walking around car shows taking time in front of every car no matter what it is.  If it has wheels, I am interested in it.  Shiny paint, wheels and engines are fine but I like old rusty cars too.  The more unique a car is, the better I like it.  I am guessing that many of our classmates suffer from the same affliction.

    In high school, we dreamed of girls most of the time but when we were not doing that, we dreamed of cars.  Car Guys can describe in detail the first car they ever owned including specs about the car that nobody else cares about; other than maybe another Car Guy.   Over time, our memories of that first car have probably taken on mystical features.  Even memories that were initially negative become positive over time.  For example, Steve Campbell’s (Class of '66) dad had a 50’s vintage Mercury that he let Steve use sometimes.  We spent a lot of time in that car. It would over-heat especially in warm months.  The heat under the hood caused the gas in the fuel lines to vaporize making the car inoperable until it cooled down. Unless accelerated somehow, that cooling process usually took a few hours.  Being creative guys, we learned that we could shorten the process by putting ice on the fuel lines near the carb. Ice wasn’t always available so we sometimes had to just sit and wait. Looking back, that was an adventure but at the time, it was really irritating.

    In our memories, a window that leaked or that wouldn’t roll up is just one of those attributes that made a car almost beautiful.  At one point, I had a 1962 Buick Special. It was originally red but over time, the paint faded to a dull pink.  The car had a few other eccentricities that also have endeared it into my memory over all these years.  Reverse gear didn’t work all the time and I never knew when it was going to stop working.  With this knowledge, I tried to park in places where I would not have to backup but couldn’t always do that.   A gear-head friend of mine told me how to temporarily fix the problem by removing the transmission, then an inspection plate.  With that plate off, I could push a bearing back into place with my finger.  That usually fixed the problem for a few days.  With all the practice I got, I could take the transmission completely out of the car, push the bearing back into place and reinstall it in the car in about 30 minutes.  Looking back now, I loved that car but not so much at the time!

    Some people even named their cars.  My favorite car name has always been “the Blue Goose”.   My brother Collins Wynn (Class of '64) ran around with a bunch of guys including  Milton (Jim) Shelton (Class of 64).  They took turns driving but they were most often in the Shelton family car.  I think it was a a mid to late '50s white over blue two door Mercury coup.  Somehow, these guys decided to name that car “Blue Goose”.  Quite naturally, they named themselves the “Blue Goose Boys.”  The guys who hung out together also had nicknames for each other.  Collins was “Fuzzy”, Walt Thomas was “Droop”, Mike Chisholm ('64) was “Chis”.  To cap it all off, they called Milton “Goose”.   That car was a prominent feature in many of the adventures that those guys had at Lee.  If the “Blue Goose” could talk, it would have some great stories to tell.  On second thought, it is probably better that it can’t talk even if the statute of limitations has expired by now.

    TV shows and movies added to the mystique for car guys by featuring cars in their programming.  In Thunder Road, Robert Mitchem drove a souped up '55 Chevrolet to deliver moonshine.  Tom Selleck drove a red Ferrari in Magnum PI.  Edd Byrnes drove a 1923 Ford Bucket in 77 Sunset Strip.  Martin Milner drove a Corvette Convertible in Route 66.   He also drove a cop car in Adam 12.  Steve McQueen drove a Mustang GT in Bullitt and the bad guy drove a black Dodge Charger.  Together, those two cars were in the greatest chase scene in movie history.  Herman Munster drove two different custom cars.  One was called the Munster Coach.  The entire Munster Family could ride in that one.  The other was a dragster made from a coffin. It was called Drag U La.  James Bond drove an Aston Martin DB5 that had rocket launchers and an ejection seat.  Batman had his own custom car and you can go back to the future in a DeLorean. The Blues Brothers even made old cop cars cool and redefined what going to the mall meant.

    Cars were in music too.   Car Guys can hear the melodies and words to Little Deuce Coup; 409; The Little Old Lady from Pasadena; Hey Little Cobra; Fun, Fun, Fun; and many others.  Musical Groups are closely associated with specific cars.  Elvis had his Cadillacs and ZZ Top had their red coupe.  

    Cars are just a part of the DNA of our era.  All of this is in the memories of old car guys.  We can describe our first car, our favorite of all the cars we’ve ever owned and our dream car that we have always wanted to own.

    My first car: 1965 Plymouth Barracuda (273 cu in V8 engine, 235 horsepower, 4 speed manual transmission, cream color with two gold stripes)

    My favorite car:  1931 Ford Street Rod named Woodrow (350 cu in, Chevy V8, about 300 hp, chopped top)

    My fantasy car: 1964 Shelby 427 AC Cobra (Aluminum English AC Body, 427 cu in, Ford V8, at least 500 hp, 0 to 100 and stop again in 14 seconds)

    My brother Collins was really lucky as far as cars are concerned because his first car, his favorite car and his fantasy car were all the same.  He bought a 1965 GTO just after graduation and drove it hard for several years before insanity and marriage forced the sale.  It had a 389 cu in V8, 335 hp, 4 speed, and bucket seats.  This car was one of the first cars in the muscle cars era.