BZ’s first car, only it was white.

[Sorry, no politics until Monday.  Perhaps not even then.  Just depends.]

This time of year makes me wistful, thoughtful, comtemplative.  Out of the blue I thought of the first car I’d ever purchased.

My first car was a used 1966 Ford Fairlane sedan, with a white exterior and blue interior.  It had cloth seat inserts, if I recall correctly.  It actually had air conditioning.  It was the first car I purchased with money I had actually saved, for $500.  I bought it in Ohio, when I was living in Kettering, in 1972.

The car was in great shape for its years, thought it already had 70,000 miles and the front shock towers squeaked like crazy.  It had a small block 289 CI V-8 and the mileage was, well, let’s just say it’s a good thing gas was 35¢ a gallon.  It came from the era when, if you opened the hood, you could easily see a lot of ground underneath the engine.

1966 Ford Fairlane dashboard.  BZ’s car had a blue interior and a column shift precisely like this one.

The car had a bench front seat.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term (as there is no such thing as a bench seat produced any more, with the exception of rather bare-bones pickup trucks), this is what a beach seat looks like.

Fairlane bench seat like BZ’s car. Blue interior just like the GrungeMobile. “Wood grain” on the door was simply an sticky decal applique.

Though the air conditioner was sub-par, the heater kicked butt.  It had to, in freezing Ohio winters.  I can still remember when a neighbor couldn’t open his door one early morning until he had poured cold water over it; he slammed it shut a minute later and the hinges cracked.

On the other hand, when the defroster or air conditioner was activated, there was a terrible metallic grinding and clangour under the hood.  It was never enough to bother or concern me.  I wasn’t mechanically inclined at all, though my father had a shop/garage in the back of the house where he would repair all the family cars as well as refurbish the cars he bought and sold over the years in the 60s.

My first car was significant on a number of levels.  It was the car in which my first steady girlfriend and I would commute to high school.  It was the car where I first learned to drive in the snow and on the ice.  I remember I would purposely take it into the empty Kroger’s supermarket parking lot at night and do doughnuts, trying to avoid the concrete light poles.  I learned how to properly countersteer in those situations and how to threshold brake when appropriate.  This early training would serve me well when I because an EVOC instructor in the late 70s for law enforcement.

It was also the vehicle into which I was introduced to vehicular sex.  For obvious reasons and under obvious young and enthusiastic circumstances.

Ah, memories.

So tell me: what was your first car, and what do you associate with it?  What year, what make, and how much did you pay for it?  What was gas per gallon when you bought it?

BZ