Buying my first new car was a lot like losing my virginity: it was unplanned, impulsive and quick. Even though it didn’t turn out exactly as I might have expected, I certainly don’t regret it; it was an inevitable rite of passage. There has to be a first time. At least the glow of satisfaction lasted longer (with the car).

Anyway, there I was, innocently tooling to work, driving past the Ford dealer in Santa Monica, when SHE winked at me: the first 1983 Thunderbird Turbo Coupe in town. She was young and fresh, straight off the trailer. With her long sleek bod, she stood out from the crowded lot of boxy Fords like Keira Knightley at an AARP convention. I knew immediately: we were meant for each other. 

The Thunderbird’s sheetmetal was the harbinger of a mega-tsunami of aero-design about to wash over the automotive industry. Compared to the angular, landau-roofed Detroit iron of the time, compared to equally sharp-edged Benzes and Bimmers, the T-Bird was literally a fresh of breath air.

“I want this car now,” I told the groggy salesman. “I’ll write you a check for it. I need to get to work– in this car.”

The salesman eyed me with suspicious satisfaction, nursing his morning Java. “Want some coffee? How about some rubber mats and protective sealer?”

“No. Just tell me how much it costs so I can get out of here.”

The Maharishi owed me. Since taking over his near-bankrupt LA TV station, I'd canceled the guru’s endless TM lectures and turned KSCI into a Tower of Babel− programming in no less than fifteen Asian and Middle-Eastern languages.I’d made the man some serious money (wired to off-shore accounts).

I called the station's business manager and told him to bring the company check book.

Despite the salesman’s best efforts to add as many options as possible to my impulse purchase, I arrived at work late that morning, with a big grin on my face.

I soon discovered that the Turbo Coupe’s beauty wasn’t just skin deep. The interior was uncharacteristically clean and solid. The multi-adjustable leather seats had inflatable lumbar support, with squeeze-bulbs sourced from a blood-pressure cuff.

Raising most hoods back then was like confronting the convoluted entrails of a freshly-slit pork belly. You were lucky to catch a glimpse of the engine under miles of contorted hoses. The Thunderbird Coupe had bragging rights to the most advanced engine management electronics of its time (EEC-IV). The innovation made popping the Bird’s long beak a visual treat.

The little four-banger sat naked, adorned with some nice alloy. Its 145hp output may seem pathetic today, but what was the alternative? Even BMW was on an economy binge; the only 5-Series available had all of 128hp, and the 3-Series barely harnessed 100 horses (a pricey way to save fuel).

The T-Bird shared Ford’s Fox rear wheel-drive platform with the Mustang. The Bird was anorexic (3000lbs) yet solid. With the little four in the front, decent steering and Michelin TRX wheels/tires, she was light on her feet, a real dancer. Riding her gently yielded thirty mpg.

Just as well. The moment you cranked her above 4000rpm, the mill’s Pinto roots screamed back. (It’s hard to cover up bad family genes.)

The engine lacked palpable boost below 2500rpm; flooring her was an invitation to turbo-hole hell. The fun came in short, intense bursts. Four adults on board with the A/C on was an embarrassment, and had me thinking V8 engine swap.

Once at speed, all was forgiven. Four thousand rpm on the clock corresponded to an effortless 100 mph cruise. After my loathsome Buick Skylark company car, it was a revelation. On our first family trip to Mammoth in the ‘Bird, I set the cruise control at that happy speed. Shooting across the purple Mohave at sunset and up the Owens Valley under a starry sky was cargasmic. 

I had to make regular business trips to San Bernardino. Instead of using I-10, I traversed the whole length of the San Gabriel Mountains via Angeles Crest highway, an all-time peak driving road. I crossed tire-marks with other kindred office escapees eager to work out pent-up competitive urges.

Our fling was short but sweet. Maharishi peddled bliss and tranquility, but working for him induced stress. So I jumped ship, in a long-shot move to buy a TV station. The ‘Bird stayed behind, to be abused by several TM space-cadets sent to replace me. They destroyed it within nine months.

I still buy new cars impulsively; SOME things never change. Fortunately for my bank balance, I keep my cars for eight to fifteen years, or even forever, like my old Ford truck. And I limit my impulsiveness to cars. As my wife of thirty years will tell you, that’s no bad thing.

Mercedes SL’s were as thick on the ground as mascara on an over-the-hill movie star. The teenaged scions of the local glitterati drove brand new BMW 320i’s and VW Cabrios. A red Ferrari 308 GTB was de-rigueur for the up and coming producer. If you simply HAD to have attention or score the prime valet-parking spot, a Rolls Royce Corniche convertible was the winning ticket. And what was I driving down Rodeo Drive? A beat-up 1968 Dodge camper-van. I looked like Jethro in “The Beverly Hillbillies”. Except that I actually was poor.

In 1977, I transferred to my employer’s West LA TV studio. Searching for cheap digs, I stumbled into a sweet deal south of Beverly Hills: a little garage apartment and my landlady’s daughter. We fell in love over Thanksgiving, and married in the first week of January. 

We celebrated our budget honeymoon in the van, somewhere in the middle of the desert. There wasn’t another living soul within miles. That suited us just fine– until we got stuck in the sand. We laughed about it then; we laugh about it now.

In one of the earliest manifestations of post-nuptial domestication, I set out to find a more comfortable, citified ride.

When I discovered a ’68 Peugeot 404 for sale, Stephanie and I fell for its Gallic charms. The French four-door had big cushy seats, a sunroof and a pillow-soft ride. Its little four-cylinder mill was smooth as silk, and the four-on-the-tree gearshift was surprisingly slick.

Peugeots (back then) were tough as nails, fully deserving the appellation “the French Mercedes.” They were also Africa’s brand of choice; 404’s still came equipped with an emergency hand crank (which explained the little hole in the front bumper). I never failed to attract bemused attention when I demonstrated this handy device.

Although the 404 wasn’t quick by today’s standards, it cruised comfortably between 75 and 85mph– fast enough to attract the California Highway Patrol, zealous guardians of America’s reviled double-nickel national speed limit.

Late one night, my wife and I were cruising down I-5 somewhere in the middle of nowhere between LA and SF. A cop snuck up on us. Using his bullhorn, the Poncherello clone’s ethereal (though not angelic voice) ordered me to follow him. Then he greedily roared forward to nab a second speeder a ways ahead.

Just then, an unlit farm-road exit appeared. I killed the Peugeot’s headlights, exited, drove over the bridge and headed back the other way. I saw the cop from the bridge, about a quarter of a mile ahead, ticketing his other victim.

I backtracked about twenty miles before I screwed up enough courage to turn around. Thankfully, California’s finest had called it a night.  

We now entered the reproductive era of our life. First, the 404’s multiplied; next thing I knew, I had half a dozen, some running, some not. This was problematic, living in an apartment near the beach in parking-deprived Santa Monica. It got old pushing dead ones around on street-cleaning days.

But I got them all running again, and began a side business selling or renting 404’s to co-workers who needed a cheap ride.

Then Stephanie got in the act. I found her a pristine 404 wagon for $75. All it needed was an engine, which I happened to have handy. I swapped it out in the street. Our apartment manager really loved me.

During my eternal quest for parts, I got an up-close and personal look at the dangers of becoming an old car magnate. A friend hooked me up with a crotchety old guy who had over fifty old Pugs. He was on a mission to save every possible Peugeot from the crusher.

His living room was jammed floor-to-ceiling with shelves of meticulously cataloged parts. Strangely, he wasn’t eager to sell anything; I had to convince him that I was a worthy Peugeot aficionado. Leaving his moldering collection, I felt sorry for his long-suffering wife.

I started liquidating my fleet shortly thereafter, and have avoided that trap ever since. Life is too short.

After our first two kids were born, my automotive priorities changed. The Peugeot 404 wagon became the family truckster, loaded to the gunnels for trips into the Sierras. With just 70hp underhood and an automatic gearbox, ascending the mountains required near-infinite patience, kinda like parenting.

Mercifully, the funky seventies finally came to an end. My peers and I were ready for something new. I cut my shaggy locks short (styled at Vidal Sassoon), voted for Ronald Reagan, stopped driving quirky old French cars, and grubbed for my family’s share of the pie. The me-generation had their eighties-version make-over.

In just a few years, I would be driving a shiny new Benz down Rodeo Drive on my daily commute. Miss Hathaway had worked her charms: Jethro was going native.

I followed the old maxim: “go west young man” to its ultimate conclusion: the California beach. I guess I missed an exit. I was looking for an opportunity to start a career. What I found instead was the clothing-optional Black’s Beach near San Diego. After spending two months watching pelicans skimming the waves and hang-gliders surfing the breeze off the cliff tops, I had a great tan. But I was broke. So for the last time in my life (fingers crossed), I defaulted to driving for a living.

The creaky 1970 Chevy taxi must have had at least a half-million miles on it. Thanks to time-warping fleet purchasing, it bristled with 1940’s technology: straight-six, two-speed Powerglide, manual steering and un-assisted drum brakes. The tired Turbo-Thrift six moaned and groaned like a mortally-wounded cowboy in a spaghetti western.

Time is money in the cab business. My driving style constantly tested the adage's veracity. At 85mph, the yellow Biscayne shook and quivered like an overweight middle-aged belly dancer. The motions made it even harder to read the map that kept this newbie from getting lost in San Diego’s endless canyons.

It’s a good thing I never had to put the drum brakes to the test at speed, though. Stopping for a red light one morning, the right front wheel sheared off. Like a fallen horse with a broken leg, it was quickly dispatched.

The sudden unintended deceleration upgraded me to a fat-boy ‘71, with power brakes and steering. I preferred the old taxi; it was lighter, zippier and the rear-seat lower cushion was actually attached. In the “new” cab, my passengers slid forward on the loose seat whenever I braked. It was funny to watch their heads disappear in the rear-view mirror, but it did nothing to enhance my tip revenue.

Driving a cab is like being trapped in an endless Fellini movie. The ever-changing cast of eccentric characters occupying the back seat evoked pathos, fear, lust and loathing; sometimes all at once. No wonder I wanted to get lost in California’s deserts and mountain wilderness on weekends.

My ‘68 Dodge camper-van was my Dakar-Rally wanna-be truck. The slant six’s torque rivaled a Farmall tractor. The 90” wheelbase was shorter than a Wrangler, and it had a beam front axle. The only thing missing was four-wheel drive. But that didn’t stop me.

I had big traction tires on the back, and lowered the air pressure heading out across the desert. I carried a shovel and carpet strips to put under the spinning rear wheel if I got stuck in the sand.

Only once, on a breathtakingly clear and starry night in Death Valley, I couldn’t make it up a long, boulder-strewn steep trail. I had to back down a half mile, without any back-up lights. Fortunately, my night-time vision was better than my judgment.

Those nine months in San Diego were laid-back, but taxi driving didn’t offer much of a future. My older brother showed up one day, heading to Los Angeles to put a new TV station on the air. I tagged along.

The station was owned by the Transcendental Meditation (TM) organization, so things were… different. In lots of ways. Like hiring unskilled kids like me and paying us peanuts. Hardly anybody knew what the hell they were doing; it was a perpetual comedy of errors. Instead of broadcasting Maharishi’s endless lectures, we should have turned the cameras on ourselves and invented reality TV. The ratings would certainly have been higher.

I saw opportunity; next thing I knew, I was doing it all, thanks to no unions or job descriptions. My old Dodge got a new career (and paint job) as the station’s news van.

We all lived in a rented a house way up in the mountains by Lake Arrowhead, to get above the San Bernardino smog. It was so thick back then that we’d measure it by how many blocks we could see down the street.

Highway 18 to Lake Arrowhead is a beautifully-engineered road: long switchbacks connected by large-radius hair-pin curves. The now-tired Dodge was burning oil; it would foul its plugs during engine-braking. So I turned off the motor and coasted the entire way down the mountain. The grade was just right to keep the boxy van between 55 and 75 mph. It was a highly stimulating way to greet the day.

I wasn’t the only one coasting. Kids would hitchhike rides up the mountain with their custom-built low-slung bicycles. Then they’d fly down as fast, or faster, than the Dodge. Leave it to California kids to exploit every opportunity for wheeled thrills.

Seeing those fearless teens pass me, knowing I was coasting towards a real career, provided a moment of clarity– and it wasn’t pretty. For the first time in my life, I felt old.

It was the mother of all drifts. Forty feet behind me, the back of the passenger bus was coming around fast, threatening to wipe out a block’s worth of cars parked across the street. By the time I caught the first slide, I had overcompensated. My arms were a whirling dervish on the giant steering wheel, flying back and forth, until the bus straightened out. No need to stop for coffee THAT day; I was wide awake on a triple-shot of adrenalin.

I was always on the lookout for creative ways to entertain myself on pre-dawn (empty) bus runs, but this one caught me off-guard. Midway through the corner, the pavement changed from asphalt to smooth brick cobblestones. As always, I floored it. An imperceptibly-thin sheen of frost on the bricks provided no resistance to the 8V-71 Detroit Diesel out back. All my wintertime Corvair-hooning experience finally paid off.

I had always wanted to be a bus driver. I started preparing early. Aged five, my favorite toy was a highly-detailed toy bus. I would lie on the floor for hours, gazing through the windows, imagining all my (future) passengers and the adventures (drifts?) I would take them on.

In Austria in the fifties, the yellow and black Post-buses were the vital transport link between the villages clinging to the Alpine mountainsides. They looked like a 1940’s school bus: rounded, with a graceful hood out front. There was lots of glass, curving right up into the roof, which had a giant fabric sunroof. On sunny days, the driver rolled it back like sardine can lid, revealing the Alpine scenery in its full splendor.

It’s one of my most joyful childhood memories: sitting on a tan leather seat behind the driver, watching him shift gears and navigate the throbbing Steyr diesel through the blind hair-pin curves, announcing his presence with the four-tone melodic horn: ta-taa, ta-taa.

One day in 1975, I woke up and decided to fulfill my childhood dream– even if there were no alpine hairpin curves in Iowa City. I got the job though my usual technique: pestering. I showed up at the transit company’s office every other day. Within three weeks, I was behind the wheel.

I’d driven big trucks, but piloting my first bus felt a bit strange the first time. I sat right up against the giant bulging front window of a GMC “new look” bus. It was like staring out a living-room picture window of a mobile home. The only major surprise: the steering was un-assisted and, therefore, profoundly slow, as I learned that hair-raising morning.

I took my schedule very seriously. I treated bus-driving as a time-trial rally and drove…briskly.

As a bus driver in a university town, I got few complaints. Some of my youthful passengers actually egged me on. There’s nothing like a little group-hooning to evoke a little winter-morning cheer before classes.

During a particularly heavy snow-storm, I drove like a fiend to stay on schedule. My passengers were not going to get home late. I eventually caught up with the bus that was supposed to be twenty minutes ahead of me. As we passed my less committed colleague, a spontaneous cheer erupted from the back of the bus.

Tooling around town in the bus was generally a relaxed affair, with a few notable exceptions.

I was relief-driving one day, and momentarily forgot my route. Rather than finding a suitably enormous space in which to turn the big bus around, I took a shortcut through a several-block-long weedy lot. It turned out to be much rougher than I’d expected.

The old ladies heading to the mall were flabbergasted (and jostled) by our mutual off-road adventure. Worse, the bus almost bogged down in the uneven surface. If I had, I would have been on the news that evening. And out of a job.

Another time, the bus’ 40’ long throttle linkage suddenly stuck wide open– a block away from the high school parking lot on the day of the school’s annual carnival fund-raiser. I also remember sliding down a hill and across an intersection, wheels locked, surfing on a mat of wet, greasy leaves.

Spring arrived and wanderlust struck again. One morning, heading to an office park by I-80, I announced to my passengers that the bus had been hijacked to California. Some chuckled. One or two cheered me on, shouting “do it.”

But there were plenty of icy stares. Sensing a collective failure of enthusiasm, I reluctantly abandoned my plan, and drove them to their cubicles.

I quit and bought my own bus, a 1968 Dodge van. I paneled the inside with birch plywood, built a bed in back and cut in windows. Only one passenger signed-on for the one-way trip to California. But she had plenty of enthusiasm. It was enough.

I was one with the universe. Everything around me was aglow in the summer sunlight, twinkling with a profound luster. I was floating serenely in my VW bug through the time space continuum. My consciousness was wide open. And then, in an instant, everything went black.

I was 22 and deep into Transcendental Meditation. I’d just spent three days meditating at a Cistercian Monastery near Dubuque, Iowa. Out there in the middle of the cornfields, behind the stone walls, I’d discovered a world of quiet, calm and peace. In other words, there wasn’t much to do but meditate. And the free food wasn’t bad either.

I decided to check out Eagle Point Park before heading back to Iowa City. I was cruising down a residential arterial street in my ’63 Beetle in an unfamiliar part of town, entranced by the play of the sunlight on the dappling leaves of the giant elms overhead. 

The last thing, I remember was gliding into an intersection (was that a flash of red on my right?). I remember confronting the profile of a 1969 Ford station wagon dead ahead.

Everything had been so perfect; I couldn’t integrate this highly un-synchronous intrusion into the continuum of my bliss. I momentarily contemplated the possibility that my expansive self would just float through the apparition and re-assemble on the other side of the hulking Ford. Like the shutter of a camera, everything went black.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, the iris of the camera opened again, but only to a pin-point. What had been a seemingly infinite expansion of consciousness outward in every direction was now replaced by the most narrowly focused fragment of awareness I’d ever experienced.

I found myself sprawled on the pavement in the middle of the intersection. A voice screamed inside my head: “Get out of there!” In a rush of adrenaline, I somehow managed to crawl or slither to the nearest curb. I rolled onto my back in the soft grass.

The shutter iris opened slightly wider. Now my back screamed at me; it felt like Hank Aaron had mistaken my spine for a baseball. Another f-stop and I began a rudimentary self-diagnosis. I could see all my limbs. Surprisingly, there wasn’t any blood. But as I worked my way downwards, I realized I couldn’t move or feel my feet.

The idea of spending my life in a wheelchair pressed on my mind like a suffocating weight. I looked up and saw concerned faces staring down. I turned my throbbing head to look at the intersection. I saw the Ford with its crumpled front fender. My VW was nowhere in sight. Had it magically floated though the obstacle and left me behind to confront the Ford?

I remember telling the ambulance crew my concerns about my spine’s health. Once they scooped me up in the clam-shell board and loaded me inside the meat wagon, blackness reclaimed me.

I remember little of the hospital except the on-call radiologist’s annoyance at having his Sunday golf game interrupted. The next thing I (vaguely) knew, I was discharged. I was totally shocked and confused. I needed to stay! Where was my doctor father who always met me at the hospital after childhood accidents and made sure I got proper care?

Feeling had returned to my legs, but my brain was totally scrambled. I was not ready to get kicked out of the hospital.

A cop took me back to the station. I sat dazed in the lobby. I had no idea why I was in Dubuque or how I got there. Holding my aching head, I felt a big lump under my long hair.

I was living out a nightmare. Everything I looked at triggered an intense memory of a prior dream, provoking and endless flood of deja-vu. Or was I actually dreaming while being awake? I couldn’t tell. Acid was nothing compared to this bummer.

Eventually I remembered about the monastery and someone came for me. The monks put me straight to bed. After a couple hours of deep sleep and a plate of home-made cookies and milk, I at least partially returned to the world as I had remembered it. 

I had missed the stop sign. It had been obscured by a parked truck and I was a bit spaced-out from my meditation marathon. When my bug slammed the Ford at a 60 degree angle, I ejected and struck my head on the way out. My back bounced off the wagon, leaving a tell-tale dent (on the car). The Ford was totaled. My VW came to rest in a gas station a block away; surprisingly it only needed new front-end sheet metal.

I eventually got over my undiagnosed concussion, and I backed off on the long meditations. Unaltered consciousness had never looked better.

It was a successful launch, and I was going for the record books. The 534 cubic inch Ford V8 bellowed and roared through the two short pipes exiting under my feet. The wide-open Holley four barrel noisily sucked the cool morning air. The air-scooped hood rose and dropped on the passenger side with each banging shift, a visual testament to massive torque. As my speed approached record territory, I had my hands full keeping the snorting beast under control. I glanced down on the big round speedometer and confirmed my victory: ninety miles per hour.

I was abusing a 1966 Ford F-900 Super Duty dump truck loaded with some 10 tons of gravel down a narrow country road. Normally, the Metro Pavers fleet would top out at sixty-five. But  Number 8 had an erratic engine governor, as well as an Allison six-speed automatic. Every so often, when you first floored it, the governor didn’t engage. And it stayed that way, until you backed off.

These unpredictable moments of Holley-anarchy were the equivalent of turning on a bottle of nitro or a turbo (or both) and an irresistible invitation to explore the true top end capabilities of the giant hot-rod Ford– as long as the engine held together.

The odds of an untrammeled blast were about one in ten; kinda like playing the slots. The random inevitability of a noisy payoff kept me on my toes (literally), and helped break the rapid-growing ennui of hauling gravel all day.

Ford trucks play a recurring theme in my life; from my first truck drive to my most recent (yesterday). My initiation to Ford-truckin’ arrived via the usual baptism by fire.

I was a seventeen-year old car jockey at the local Ford dealer. I had noticed the big F-900 when I came to work after school. A salesman walked in and asked if anyone knew how to drive a truck. Without hesitation, I said yes. The cab looked just like an F-100. How hard could it be?

The salesman imparted his minimalist directions: “follow me”.  I had no idea where we were going or what I was doing. Man, everything sure looked small from way up there. Was that warning alarm ringing away a novice driver detector, or something to do with air pressure?

I found the first of ten gears (a five speed and two speed axle), and released the heavy clutch. A groan and shudder, and then… nothing. The engine stalled. Painfuly. I finally found the air parking-brake release and set off.

The first order of business: keep the big rig in my lane while sorting out the 10 gears. Once I figured out how to stop locking the unloaded rear wheels with the grabby air brakes, people stopped staring at me.

Our route included the busiest and curviest piece of freeway around, followed by surface streets through the heart of downtown Baltimore. I sweated bullets keeping up with him. It was another righteous, riotous rite of passage.

A couple of years later in Iowa City, I grew tired of washing dishes (surprise, surprise) and answered an ad for dump-truck driver. Inexplicably, I was hired without a commercial license. A female state trooper showed up to give me the driving test. There was just one problem: the trucks had no passenger seat.

I found an old rickety wooden chair whose legs I rudely shortened. She gave me a look of disbelief. I gave her my best killer smile. She was a real trooper to perch on that wobbly chair while I drove her around. Mission accomplished.

It was mostly fun driving those gnarly old Ford Super Duty’s (back then that name was reserved for Ford’s biggest commercial trucks). But the day I lost my air brakes wasn’t a lot of laughs.

I had just loaded eight yards of gravel at the quarry. Getting back in the cab, my knee must have hit the air-brake switch. The low air-pressure warning alarm was broken. As I approached the stop at the highway, I realized my predicament. Trees blocked the view in both directions. I seriously considered bailing out. But I stayed with my truck and barreled into the highway, hoping for the best. It’s a good thing traffic was lighter back then.

I still rent a dump truck (Ford, of course) every now and then. Today’s big turbo-diesels have a wonderfully intense but short torque curve. And the transmissions now offer blazing quick clutch-less shifts.

My ’66 Ford pickup with its manual steering, non-power brakes and three speed (plus two speed transmission) keeps my skills in shape. It has the exact same cab as those hoary old Super-Duties, just a whole lot closer to the earth. I’ve even hit 90 with my pickup, but it wasn’t loaded with gravel. So the old record stands.

In my early twenties, I went through jobs like a teenage girl trying on clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch: truck driver, actor, gardener, cook, bus driver, bicycle mechanic, painter. And that was just in the sales rack. My ADD extended to a seemingly endless succession of girlfriends. In fact, the only continuity in my life was my VW bug, a slow and steady anchor in those turbulent times.

I had two identical back-to-back white VW’s, a ’64 and a ’63. Both had the 40hp engine, the one that let you know it needed a tune-up by topping out at 69 mph instead of the usual 72. But I wasn’t in a hurry; I just wanted cheap and reliable wheels. 

Being perpetually between jobs and on the road, fuel economy was important. My gas budget was a penny per mile. If I was running low, I knew how to make it stretch. I drafted trucks– as in ten feet or less. In that sweet spot, I could almost turn the engine off, and average 55 mpg.

If you think about it, the VW was the Prius of the day. And Detroit’s land-yachts were the SUV’s of the time. History, and oil price fluctuation, repeats itself—over and over.

Anyway, the view behind those behemoths left a lot to be desired. So I kept my mind focused by contemplating how to make an extendable tow hook. Seriously; I was going to take hitch-hiking to a whole new level.

My bugs were my home on wheels. I spent more than one cold or rainy night in the back seat, curled up in the full-fetal position. I never owned more stuff than I could throw in the back seat and on the roof-rack. And I still had enough room for a hitchhiker.

I stayed on constant mobility alert. I could say adios to a girlfriend, pack up all my worldly goods and be on the road in an hour. If I was getting help (i.e. if she threw my stuff out a window), twenty minutes would do.

How do I reconcile spending my highest testosterone years driving a 40hp German slug-bug? It was the early seventies. VW’s were cool and sexy. You obviously weren’t trying to compensate by driving one. Besides, driving a low-power vehicle at 10/10ths all the time was fun and challenging.

Caning those little bugs for all they were worth, the road was an amusement-park race track: endless full-throttle racing (at 32mpg). Passing was a carefully calibrated process. I either made my move on a downhill slope, or did a sling-shot maneuver out of a draft. I fought a never-ending battle against lost momentum, and never took my foot off the gas in the middle of a curve.

I had my peak VW driving accomplishment on Highway 36 from Boulder to Estes Park, “blasting” through Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. I navigated the entire uphill, winding road without once shifting down to third (if I had, I would never have gotten back into fourth). It took quite a few tries, as well as advancing the hell out of the timing. Lots of power is for sissies; I was a Spartan.

In WWII, the VW Kübelwagen was Germany’s jeep. Even though my bug was in civvies, I surprised lots of four-by-four drivers on Colorado’s off-road trails. The VW’s suspension could take anything, the body was unshakeable and the motor never complained, even at a crawl. My bug racked up more off-road miles than most Jeep Wranglers will ever see.

Snow never stopped us. There were few experiences I enjoyed more than fooling around on a deserted road after (or during) a blizzard.

One night, I was driving on the Indiana Turnpike in a snowstorm. Following a line of cars behind a snowplow, I lost my patience.  In my infinite wisdom, I decided to pass the plow in the unplowed left lane.

When I got up to the plow, I was surprised to find that its blade was angled left, straight at me. I plunged ahead. The curtain of snow buried my bug. The wipers stalled. I found myself in a windowless (and eerily quiet) igloo in the left lane at 60 mph.

Keeping a cool head (literally), I tore open my side window and stuck my head out into the icy gale to navigate. Reaching out and around with my instantly-frozen left hand, I started clearing snow from the windshield. This incident jumped to the top of my “10 Stupidest Things I’ve Done in a Car” list.

My VW was the perfect companion. She was loyal, low maintenance, easy on the wallet, always ready for a road trip, and never jealous about sharing a good time with a third partner. If my last one hadn’t died, we might still be on the road together.

They were both gorgeous, in that all-American wholesome, sexy, energetic way. Voluptuous, but athletic. Heartland traditional, but ready for a good time. Exhilarating and accelerative. And they were both mine to do with as I pleased. So why was I, a healthy young man, having a problem?

I met Julie at a dance club in Iowa City. She was a student from Burlington, where she’d been a high-school cheerleader. She was everything I dreamed of in a girl when I was in the ninth grade: blonde, bouncy, sexy. She looked like she’d stepped right out of Playboy’s “The Co-eds of 1967” pictorial. Julie drove her Dad’s hand-me-down Buick Wildcat 2-door hardtop.

The ‘67 Wildcat occupied a similar special place in my ninth-grade fantasy life. Its entry into my fantasy life was also prompted by a magazine: spy shots of 1967 Buicks at GM’s testing grounds. The Wildcat, with its endless fastback, fender skirts and super-fluidic lines left me… aroused. GM styling-guru Bill Mitchell had somehow made a big Buick sexy.

Julie was happy to have me to drive the Wildcat (I was car-less at the time). The high-compression 360hp big-block V8 was still in its prime. It could really hustle the twin living-room size vinyl sofas down the road.

The Buick’s accelerative surges could be sustained until they exceeded even my youthful comfort level for the balding white-wall rubber it rode on. But the utterly numb steering, feeble drum brakes and soft suspension meant that driving the big ‘Cat in anything other than a straight line was frustrating and highly unsatisfying. It was a lot like trying to have an intelligent conversation with Julie.

Therein lay the source of my problems– with both of them.

I was in my artistic-intellectual-wannabe phase. Somehow, I had become a professional actor in an experimental theater company at the University. We performed our “avant-garde” pieces in NY and other cities to the artsy-fartsy elite. And even though our theater was more physical than verbal, Julie’s cheerleading background was no help in making my work comprehensible to her.

Outside of our youthful libidos and straight-line thrills in the Buick, Julie and I had nothing in common. When I broke up with her after a month, she said “I could have married you”. By invoking that taboo word, she instantly removed any trace of doubt or regret.

And so it also went with me and GM’s land-yachts in the early seventies. The cracks had started years earlier, but I was still a sucker for a sexy bod– like the exquisite 1970 Camaro. Although I mostly knew better, I couldn’t totally resist the siren lure of GM’s new-car introductions.

My artist friend Paul and I hit the dealerships and stood in awe (shock?) at the results of Bill Mitchell’s highly-fertile imagination. But now there was cynicism mixed with artistic appreciation of his powers. It had become increasingly difficult to see twenty-foot long coupes as viable transportation devices.

Mitchell’s XXXL-sized 1971 – 72 Buick Riviera epitomized the end of this era (as well as his own– he wasn’t cut out for the OPEC-forced downsizing to come). It was a flamboyant mélange of borrowed elements: the fastback lifted from the Sting Ray, the Classics-era boat-tail and the blatant exploitation of an earlier GM classic, the 1953 Buick Skylark. It all worked brilliantly, as long as you didn’t take it too seriously– a refined George Barris custom from the sixties. But now it was the seventies.

We didn’t just look. We took stacks of brochures home and out came scissors and glue— the photo-shop tools of the pre-digital age. We re-arranged, exaggerated and morphed Mitchell’s dreams into automotive nightmares. Or was it vice-versa?

Bill kept feeding us new raw material. The 1973 (full-size) intermediates were utterly amazing. We had a LOT of fun with redesigning the Pontiac Grand Am Colonnade Coupe. Our version of the giant Olds Custom Cruiser wagon looked like a cross between the space shuttle and a double-decker bus.

We were like kindergarten kids cutting out paper snowflakes, tongues sticking out. Or maybe we were just divining what GM would have built by 1980 if there hadn’t been an energy crisis.

Paul topped all of our paper-snipping with the real thing. I gave him a ride to his hometown Cincinnati, where he showed me the end result of a creative high-school shop project: A 1959 Chevrolet sedan that had been lifted and put on its frame backwards. Imagine looking in your rear-view mirror and seeing that set of bat-wings gaining on you.

The Twilight-Zone Chevy created havoc, traffic jams, and near-accidents on its ass-backwards joy-rides– until the police put a stop to it. I paid tribute to the rusting hulk in a weedy back yard. It was a truly fitting memorial to the death of an era.

On a sunny February morning I left my family behind, hitchhiking west out of Baltimore. By Ohio I was barreling through a night-time blizzard in the cab of a semi. I reached Iowa the following morning. It was ten degrees; I needed to stop and warm up. California would have to wait.

Iowa City offered refuge and comfort to a homeless and penniless kid. From this Midwest base, I hitchhiked all over the country. Back then, thumbing was a joyously unpredictable adventure: an endless chain of new rides, drivers and experiences. I never knew where I would end up– in someone’s warm bed or shivering in a damp sleeping bag.

In 1972, my older brother decided to pursue his ambitions abroad. Out of the blue, he bequeathed me his white ’63 Corvair Monza four door. I was thrilled with the donation– and the fact that the Chevy didn’t have a Powerglide transmission.

The black interior was like new; complete with high-quality vinyl and genuine metal bright-work. (GM’s molded Rubbermaid interiors were still some years away.) It’s only flaws: the ubiquitous rust pin-holes on the headlight “eyebrows” and an ominous knocking sounding coming from the engine. Perhaps that’s why he gave it to me.

Seeing the can of ultra-cheap non-detergent oil in the trunk (my brother is thrifty), I treated the air-cooled six to some quality vital fluids. It purred its appreciation for good oil from then on. It was a sweet ride.

A celebratory road trip was definitely in order. I decided to take the car on a 2500 mile back-roads scenic loop to the Appalachian Mountains. The highlight was Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway, a virtually deserted (at the time) 600 mile driving nirvana. I followed the last fall colors south into the Smoky Mountains, where I lost a staring contest with a bear intent on my dinner.

The Monza was in its element on the endless winding roads. Oversteer was my newfound friend (Ralph Nader just didn’t know how to drive). I felt safe at any speed the ‘Vair could muster. It wasn’t exactly the poor-man’s Porsche some made it out to be. The steering was indirect, the shifter throws were too long, and the power modest. But then I didn’t have a Fitch-prepped Turbo Spyder.

The Corvair’s exaggerated rear-weight bias was a cornucopia of winter amusement. Every blizzard was my cue to cut fresh tracks on deserted streets and indulge in oversteer hi-jinks. Eventually, my endless quest to test the traction limits of the Corvair progressed to the ultimate rear-engine winter thrill/stupidity.

Driving around unplowed park roads by the reservoir, I came across a boat ramp. I shot down the hill to it, hit the ice at about 50, and flicked the steering wheel while giving the emergency brake a good yank. The Monza pirouetted across the reservoir in a crack-the-whip blur. It was just like the Tilt-A-Whirl at the carnival; we strained to keep our heads upright.

One day while diligently practicing for the prospective new Winter Olympic sport of Corvair-curling, I saw a distant figure on the far shore beckoning me to him. Brain scrambled from all the spinning, I drove to him. This easily-avoidable encounter resulted in a death-invoking lecture and my first-ever ticket. I decided never to be more obliging to the law than necessary.

My next Corvair misadventure was straight out of a silent movie. The starter was out– I procrastinated fixing it in the cold– so I parked on hills. Coming home late from a bar, the Monza stalled right on the main-line tracks of a deeply-rutted railroad crossing. All my heaving and swearing wouldn’t free it.

Seeing the control light change, I switched to plan B. I retrieved a screwdriver from the trunk, removed the plates and hid nearby. A distant train whistle triggered a surge of adrenaline. Without thinking, I jumped from the bushes and gave the car one final push. She left the tracks and started downhill. I just managed to dive in before it rolled away.

I had to drop the engine out of it twice to fix a noise from the flywheel– alone, in a barn, with one scissors jack, some blocks of wood and a John Mayall album playing over and over. It dampened my enthusiasm for the little Chevy and Mr. Mayall.

Like most first cars, thinking of the Corvair brings back a flood of memories– good and bad. Driving to the quarry on summer days to go skinny-dipping with girlfriends.  Walking five miles down a frozen moon-lit country road at one in the morning, lugging its heavy flywheel.  Watching the sun sparkle on the freshly waxed hood. Reluctantly saying goodbye to it.

And most of all, knowing then that I should have found a barn to save it for my middle age.

At seventeen, I finally joined the ranks of legally sanctioned drivers. I could have taught the drivers-ed class by then, including certain advanced techniques well outside the usual curriculum. Speaking of which, as part of this rite of passage, I retired the implements I’d used for hot-wiring the family Dodges. More importantly, I got a job where I could indulge my love of driving and get paid for the pleasure.

I went to work for my local Ford dealer. I became what’s known in the biz as a “car jockey.” My job: shuttle the dealer’s cars to and from various storage lots, and back to mother showroom. The scope for unauthorized amusement was… epic.

Ferrying Fords, I adhered religiously to the factory’s engine break-in guidelines. Well, one part. I took their recommendation to “avoid driving steadily” straight to heart.

In my defense, throttle stomping served an important quality control function. Factory fresh or no, Ford’s “Total Performance” 1971 models rarely ran properly. Remember: these were the UAW and Detroit’s “glory years.” If the manufacturer could get a vehicle on a transporter, it was good enough for rock and roll.

In fact, the dealer employed a full-time mechanic to tune-up and look over every car before delivery. All too often, new cars ended up at the body shop. Lucky for me, the body shop was miles away; the route included a tightly-winding road along Jones Falls.

My adrenal adventures were all-too-often thwarted by side-wall shredding understeer. Plowing LTD’s and Torinos through the tight curves was like shooting pool with a 2 x 4.

The Mustang Mach 1 HO raised the fun factor substantially– on the straights. But it was horribly nose-heavy. The steering was numb, the rear axle stamped and stuttered and the chassis flexed. It ripped and snorted but tripped all over itself in the twisties.

Surprisingly, a bare-bones Pinto was just the ticket. The early Pinto was essentially a European Ford with a goofy body. The German 2.0-liter engine pulled, the English four-speed was slick and the Euro-Escort rack and pinion steering was tight. It was light, squirtable and tossable– as long as the road was smooth. Smog controls, five mph bumpers, slush-boxes and dead power steering quickly turned the Pinto into another mid-70’s joke.

The Maverick– that recycled old Falcon disguised in bell-bottoms– was the punchline. With its feeble six and slush-box, throttle stomping was a given. Taking delivery of one from the transporter, I got in and floored it. One of the skinny little tires went up in a cloud of smoke.

A look under the hood revealed a surprise: a 302 V8. Even I, the auto know-it-all, was caught off guard; the V8 option wouldn’t be announced for some time. It sat around for months, but I kept it exercised.

On slow days I burned time (and tires) pulling doughnuts in a distant parking lot. Ironically, an old lady eventually bought it, oblivious to the chewed-up rear tires.  Or maybe she didn’t care.

A service customer’s plushed-out ’69 LTD sedan was the oddest car I ever encountered. It had the optional 390 V8, three-on-the-tree column-shift(!), and manual steering(!!). I thought for sure he was in for a new power steering pump. The burly owner obviously wasn’t thinking about resale value when he custom-ordered it.

A metallic-brown ‘70 LTD two-door hardtop was my summer ride, though not exactly through legitimate means. The service department kept a couple of loaners. I pocketed the key before I left, grabbed a Coke next door and came back for it after everyone was gone.

I unhooked the speedometer cable (I was an expert by then), and took it home for the night or weekend. My boss was always happy to see me at work in the morning, long before anyone else arrived. He knew a highly motivated employee when he saw one.

I spent that summer cruising around and hunting swimming holes with three girls from my neighborhood. All four of us always sat up front, across the front bench seat. Ford’s designers must have had us in mind when they made the LTD so ridiculously wide. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to test any alternative theories.

Summer fun gave way to winter bleakness. I still worked at the Ford dealer after school. The problem was that I didn’t go to school very often. Baltimore had (finally) cultivated a hip street scene that was much more compelling than algebra.

I was a full grade behind in school. I wasn’t going to graduate that spring. And my parents didn’t have a clue.

On a February morning shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I packed my backpack and hitchhiked west– without saying goodbye to my parents. I had no fixed itinerary. Like lots of kids, I was California dreamin’ on a winter’s day.