HIGH-OCTANE MEMORIES

Ten automotive-connected things that make me feel hopelessly nostalgic:

1. Matchbox cars. The first great indulgence of my obsessive streak. I had hundreds of these things and barely played with anything else. And please–no Hot Wheels. Those were for amped-up sugar junkies who loved to crash things into each other. My Matchbox cars obeyed the speed limit and always used their turn signals. My favorite was a white Ford pickup, ‘73 to ‘77 vintage.
2. Giant 2-door cars. Another 70s excess from which I cannot disassociate myself. I’d love to have a big ol’ 2-door hardtop from my youth. Preferably something avocado green or some other cringe-inducing color, and a vinyl top is not optional. I’ll live with 12 MPG and feeling like I’m driving while sitting in a bathtub. Just give me two doors, a hood the size of a king-size mattress, and eight cylinders driving the rear wheels.
3. The opening of ‘Newhart’. OK, so the car (an early-70s Olds Delta 88) is only peripheral to Newhart’s opening credits. What really matters is that they show this car (ostensibly, Dick Lowden’s) cruising gently along rural Vermont roads on what looks like the most perfect day ever, past a white clapboard church and up a village main street, while the last great TV theme Henry Mancini wrote lolls gently in the background. The opening credits may have had little to do with the inspired craziness which followed, but they were both perfectly unforgettable.
4. The smell of old magazines. It’s summer 1996 and I’m temporarily living in North Dakota. I discover a used-book store on the north side of downtown Fargo, a place that never should’ve passed fire inspection. Stuff was stacked from floor to ceiling, seemingly unsorted, but the owner somehow knew where everything was. I spent a good part of my meager intern’s salary buying up all the back issues of car magazines I could get my hands on. One sunny Saturday morning the owner told me, “You know, I’ve got all kinds of that stuff downstairs in the basement. You catch me on the right day, I might let you dig around and see if there’s anything you want.” I never did ask, though, but I’ve got to wonder: What sort of stuff was in that basement? Talk about a missed opportunity.
5. Hatchbacks. When I was a bite-size car enthusiast, I thought hatchbacks were so cool I could never imagine why anybody bought anything else. Why wouldn’t you want to be able to haul big things around in the back of your car? As it turns out, nobody did, because hatchbacks were cheap, and nobody wanted to be seen driving a Poverty Special. So, car companies stopped selling hatchbacks in America. Remember that next time you’re at the big-box store, trying to fit flat-packed furniture into the trunk of a Taurus.
6. 1979 Toyota Celicas. Some people grew up in Ford families, some in Chevy families; I grew up in a Toyota family. One day in first grade, Dad picked us up from school and drove us the six blocks to the Toyota dealer. He took us into the showroom and asked us which car we thought he should buy. My eyes immediately lit on a bittersweet-orange Celica liftback. I couldn’t wait for us to pull up at school in one of those. Turns out Dad had already signed for a leftover ‘78 Corolla four-door, which served us well over 180,000 miles of driving. But I still wish he would’ve gotten the Celica, even though I know now it only looked sporty.
7. Non-remote keyless entry. Some distant elderly relative of mine had this on a mid-70s Lincoln Mark Something-Or-Other. It was naught more than a keypad mounted above the door handle upon which you entered a secret code, thereby unlocking the door. Nobody would want this now, but back then, it was so James Bond.
8. ‘Euro’ cars. Perhaps the only automotive thing from the mid-1980s worth remembering is the brief fashion for flat-black trim and understated paint colors, qualities usually associated with BMWs and Audis. Such fashion trends eventually found their way onto seriously humble machinery like Ford Escorts, Chevy Celebrities, and Dodge 600s. You may not have been able to afford a yuppie wallet-wagon, but at least you could look like you had similar tastes. Even though the Chevy Celebrity Eurosport was misnamed twice over.
9. Conversion vans. These are still around, so somebody must still be buying them. There’s no better way to travel in bourgeoise style. Great quantities of road are best eaten up with your eyes six feet above the highway and your butt planted on a flocked-velour captain’s chair. Some of the better models even had refrigerators and card tables.
10. Chevettes. I never wanted one of these, but when I was in high school, they frequently contained big-haired girls in college sweatshirts and stirrup pants . . . and maybe we’d just better leave it at that.