OK so TK has started the ball rolling and since I am feeling a little nostalgic today, I will fill in the details.
Mind you now - we never TK and I never "owned" these vehicles. Our parents did, we just got to drive them, but Mom and Dad never really drove them again.
So first off, yes, "The Tank" was a special car. TK has stretched it out a little - but here is what I tell people:
It was 1974 Buick Electra Four Door Sedan and it was 17 1/2 feet long, 8 feet wide with a 455, dual exhaust and a 4 barrel carb. instead of the speedometer to see how fast you were going. It had the good old "E-Z glide suspension" and you would roll like It had an auto trans so you could only do 0-60 in about 17 seconds but 60 to 120+ in about 6. When you kicked in the passing gear and the 4 barrel you could feel your head being forced against the seat and you started watching the gas guage the waves in the ocean when you hit a bump. You could fit 4 in the front seat, six in the back and 3 in the trunk. You did have to pay per person to get in to the lake so that came in handy a time or two when we went cliff jumping at Red Fleet. It had a short in the electrical system so the wipers didn't work half the time, unfortunately it was always the half that was snowing. It wasn't baby poop yellow either. The official color was "Sand" but the years had faded it out a little. We would park it under the basketball hoop in our front drive get a running start, jump off the front bumper and use the suspension to boost us up to dunk the ball. I carved my name in the hood with a pocket knife, but that was after it got the "machine gun" holes in the hood from a little run in with a mail box that was setting on a steel grate. (It was unintentional - my little brother and I were fighting over a tin of Grandma's fudge and since I had to wrestle the fudge away from him, I momentarily took my hands off the wheel and when I looked up BOOM! Mailbox city. I will never forget how he took off like a shot once we got out of the car and made sure we were OK - he ran a full speed dead sprint all the way back to Grandma's house and that is saying a lot because that boy hates to run)
That car helped me prove both physics and common local belief wrong one night by showing that you can take both the Maeser corner and Valora's corner at over 80 mph. You just can't do it by staying in one lane which is especially annyoing to the cars you are racing and the oncoming traffic, I think they both made it out of the ditch OK though.
Ok so on to the 'Vette. Ahh yes, another magnificent specimen of Detroit steel as well. A 1985 Powder Blue 4 door hatchback Chevette that had the exact opposite motor proportions as "The Tank". That little bad boy couldn't do 80 going down hill with a 90 mph tail wind, though one Wyoming Highway Patrolman did try and prove it to me one day when I was coming back all alone from a wrestling camp in Laramie. I paid the $5 fine to him in cash and hoped he would forget it, but of course he didn't so it did cost nearly 100 points off of my license. This car had very little room but in the beginning the doors opened pretty easily, which was good on the day that TK was driving with me (before she turned 16 and got her license) and we got got rammed by a little old granny doing a U-Turn on 1st South, so we jumped out, she threw me the keys and switched places before the old lady noticed.
There was enough room however to hide bottle rockets. TK found this out one Halloween night when we were shooting them off in a residential neighborhood at a cop's house (the guy was a big crooked phony jerk and had a son who was worse than him) and one of his fellow officers ran us off the road in his personal truck and made us forfeit the bottle rockets, except of course for the ones that TK stuffed under the seat.
It became TK's posession once she went off to college and yes she did put oil in it, but as she learned that once every two years just isn't enough, it did have its resulting share of mechanical problems. When I returned home from my mission Dad bought her a Grand Am (which got T-boned about two weeks later) and I got the 'Vette. I drove it because I knew about it's quirks and also because I was too poor to complain. It got me down to Cedar City and around town so I was OK with it.
I really impressed the girls in that car too! Boy let me tell you I had them crawling. OK so maybe some were crawling away, but down there you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a single over 21 yr old girl who desperately wanted to date an RM (return missionary) with a car. I had my share of rocking institute dance dates in that 'Vette, and it did have a casette player so I was never out of great tunes.
I sold blinds out of that car with my buddy Aaron in the summer of '94 but by then the doors weren't working all that well, especially the passenger door, and that became a problem when the "Road Rage" incident occurred. You see, I got mad at this car that was trying to pass me on the right on a residential street, then on the left over a double yellow and flashing and honking, so when we got to the next stop sign I threw it in to park and jumped out ready to throw down. Aaron couldn't get the door opened and by the time he had crawled half way out the driver's side to come and assist I was already on my way back to the car because it turned out it was just a couple of 16 year old girls who didn't really want to fight and were crying. Sheepishly, I listened as Aaron laughed and told me not to do that again unless the window was rolled down so he could open the door from the outside.
The AC worked well, but the transmission started going out and the heater went out shortly before Thanksgiving that year. That was ok because it appears that I had been swinging a dead cat and had acquired one of those over 21 year old single girls who were desperately seeking an RM with a car girlfriend at about this time. She had a much nicer car so most of the time we just used hers. Our relationship was just starting to get pretty heated then and I didn't realize it at the time because her Prozac prescription hadn't run out yet but her manic depression was beginning to stifle me just a little. I guess I should have seen it when she got all upset that I hadn't proposed after only three weeks of dating. This all became crystal clear a little later when I finally did find out she was on Prozac, but only because she ran out of it.
Anyway, I was planning on returing home to Vernal, UT from Cedar City, UT (about a 6 hr drive normally) for Thanksgiving. TK had already left with our cousin Brandy but because I had classes and work and a date with the Psycho (let's not mention any names here) I was a day or so behind. The heater wasn't working but Dad and I planned on fixing it over the long weekend so I bundled up and prepared for the journey. I left Cedar at high noon the day before Thanksgiving. "No problem" I thought, "I will be home at 6PM, just in time to get ready to leave for the Bookcliffs."
Well, about 15 miles outside of Cedar, just past Paragonah, I noticed that my little car had topped out on the speed. "Hmmmm", I thought, "that's odd, I haven't really started climbing yet." Then as I did start to climb, the speedometer began to fall, and fall and fall and I had to put it in 1st gear just to make it to Beaver, which I did in precisely 1 hour and 45 minutes, normally a 50 minute drive. Finally, beginning to feel the cold and really annoyed at the mighty 15 MPH I was able to register going over the pass, I pulled in to a service station and checked the ATF - sure enough, almost bone dry. So I bought another quart and filled it up. I took it for a test run up the frontage road, felt a little kick and sure enough, I had my transmission back.
"Wheh" I said to myself. "At least I will be able to make it back to Cedar." And then, I found myself at the biggest crossroad of my life. I knew if I were to continue that I would be fighting the transmission and the cold the whole way home and I had at least 5 hours left. Or, waiting in Cedar was my Psycho girlfriend and I guess I could have Thanksgiving at her house, but then it wouldn't be the same, and she would be bugging me and there I sat with a big decision. It was a seminal moment in my life. If I turn right, it is all down hill to Cedar and I can try and get the transmission fixed, what I probably should have done. If I turn left, it is towards home, Thanksgiving in the Bookcliffs and my family. So I thought about it for another split second and then I turned left.
The trasmission began to give out again a few miles out of Beaver but I kept on pushing forward. At 4:23 I pulled in to Fillmore, got more transmission fluid and kept on going. At 7 I finally reached Nephi and my hands were numb from the cold. I got more transmission fluid and kept on going. Finally, the leak stopped and I was able to continue driving at a regular speed. At about 8PM I was freezing so I pulled into the Currant Creek Cafe, now gone, and asked if it was OK if I warmed up by their fire. They let me and even brought me a piece of peach pie a la mode. From there I made it to Duchesnse where I stopped again to warm up and from there I made it home at 9:40, almost 10 hours in to an easy 6 hour drive I (which I did in 4 1/2 in the Grand Am a little while later - got another ticket that night too - almost got thrown in jail and had the car impounded).
We never did find the leak in the transmission. It continued to run OK for about another year and a half, as long as you kept it full of ATF regularly and didn't mind being cold. I finally sold it for $200 and kind of felt like I had over priced it. No doubt about it, we got our money out of that car for sure.
UTROY
Proverbs 21:19 (why I hunt!)
