Ode to Audacity: An Absurd Family Car History

One day I plan on having a nice car.  I’m not even talking about a luxury car or a car that catches people’s eyes.  I just want a car that is mildly shiny, has a good stereo system inside, gets good gas mileage, and needs very little maintenance.  I don’t think that this is too much to ask.  However, after living in London for 5+ years and having absolutely no need for a car along with having no permanent job here in Washington, D.C., saving up to purchase a new car has fallen to the very bottom of my personal priority list.  

I have had the good fortune to always have a car in the family since it is almost required that you have one as long as you live in the United States.  However, the list of cars that we have had since I was born in 1982 is quite a shocking one which perhaps reflects my minimum amount of requirements for any car I may get in the future.  The first couple of cars that I can recall my family owning was a Cutlass Cruiser and a Ford Pinto.  For those of you that are not car fans – for the sake of full disclosure, I am not – here are two pictures that I have found on the internet of these beautiful machines. 

The Cutlass Cruiser

...and the Ford Pinto.

The Cutlass was not so much of a car as it was a ‘road boat’.  I feel like it could have come with an optional mast complete with a lookout point on top.  The only thing that I remember about this vehicle was that the seats were leather-ish and it was impossible to sit in after it had been parked in the sun or else you would suffer second degree burns to the back of your legs.  Even our dog couldn’t stand it.  Also, it had a bumper sticker on the back that had a panda on it that said ‘FONZ’ (Friends of the National Zoo).  The previous hippie who had owned this car had put the sticker on – not us – but we kept it on there so it would make our car more readily identifiable.  Why we needed a sticker to do this is still beyond me.  

The Ford Pinto’s reputation precedes itself.  I think it is rated something like the worst car ever made in the history of mankind.  I wouldn’t disagree with this claim.  However, we didn’t have it for very long because my mother hit a telephone pole while she was taking my then 5-year-old sister to ballet class and it collapsed like a house of cards.  

The next car we had we actually got for free from a friend of my mother who wanted the car ‘to go to a good home’.  The car that she was speaking of was a 1978 Nissan Datsun.  If the Pinto is ranked the worst car of all time then the Datsun cannot be far behind.  Here she is in all her glory (just imagine it in a dull grey color with half of the back right side above the wheel totally rusted off). 

Check out this dream machine!

 To make matters even worse, the only radio station that my mother ever wanted to listen to was Oldies 100.  Just imagine how cool we looked driving around town blasting ‘Big Girls Don’t Cry’ out of the tinny radio speakers.  I just remember sitting in the back seat behind my mother trying to sink down into my seat as much as I possibly could to avoid being seen by anybody.  Eventually my sister and I convinced her that Mix 107.3 was something that she should try as well and this became the next available option if the music on Oldies 100 wasn’t good enough (because driving around blasting Sinead O’Connor or UB40 is equally as cool).  

Then, right before I learned to drive, we somehow procured the car to end all cars: The 1986 Nissan Stanza.  Never heard of it?  I don’t blame you.  But you’ve seen it and you have laughed at it.  You may have seen it on the road but, more likely, you have seen it in a comic entitled ‘Calvin & Hobbes’.  It was the blue car that was shaped like a box that Calvin’s family owned.  Don’t know what I am talking about?  Here she is in action.  

This was the car that I learned to drive on and this was the car that I drove to school everyday and because of this, it is the first car that I fell in love with.  Much like the rest of the cars we had growing up, this car is simply disgusting.  There was almost nothing redeemable about this vehicle other than the fact that it was what I first got to drive around town in.  I remember going to McDonalds when I was 16 and stealing one of those enormous window vinyls and actually sticking it to the side of the car.  The sign advertised McDonald’s Christmas special on Chicken McNuggets – 6 for 99 cents.  I don’t know if I did them a favor with the free advertising or if it was a detriment to their local establishments but I can guarantee you that my car was the only car this window vinyl would have fit on out of all of my friends in high school.  I beat that car to death too.  I hit a car in a Safeway parking lot.  I ran it off the road and hit a mud bank after hitting an oil slick on the way to school.  I drove it through a huge mud pit on a rainy day on our high school campus.  But the car lasted.  It would go to the shop, get all nice and fixed up, and before you know it the car was as good as new again.  The previous owner had actually gone to the extent of fixing it up with a pretty decent stereo system of which we were the eventual benefactor and it was the crown jewel of the car.  It was a very sad day when we had to put her out to pasture and I will never forget her (or probably ever see one on the road again).  

I now drive a pretty standard 1991 Honda Accord and my mother drives a 2004 Honda Civic so we at least look like normal people now.  Even though it wasn’t always easy – and sometimes even embarrassing – to be seen in these beasts shown above, there was something really fun and eccentric about all of them.  What they lacked in style, comfort, design, and general safety, they definitely made up in character and personality.  What’s more is that they were ours and in spite of the laughing and pointing they were a part of our family and always will be.  

RIP Cutlass, Pinto, Datsun, and Stanza.  You are sorely missed.