QOTD: Youthful Recollections of Cool Cars Gone By?
Today we take a little trip down memory lane and consider the cars which impressed us most in our youth. And not the part of youth which contains a driver’s license and costly insurance, but the more formative experiences before that. Let’s talk foundational cool cars.
Think back to an earlier time in your life, when that one awesome car appeared on the television, in a glossy magazine, or perhaps in the neighbor’s driveway across the road. It was just so cool. You probably didn’t know much about it, but that didn’t matter. For whatever reason, it impressed you in a big way; maybe you drew it in your Trapper Keeper (or, for some of you, on a papyrus tablet).
My single-car recollection is a very clear one. It appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and all of the sudden TV marketing was everywhere. It’s the first memory I have of an excited conversation at school about a single car. “They are fast,” Andrew explained, facing backwards at his desk.
Shortly after that, I saw one for sale at the local Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth-Jeep-Eagle-DeSoto dealer as my mom drove us by in the gen-two Grand Voyager, probably on our way to KFC. The Neon had such exciting, fresh marketing. It seemed like an attainable car for a young person, not something super expensive.
They came in two shapes, one of those an even faster Coupe. There were intense paint colors, fun looking wheels, frameless windows, and expressive graphics in the most popular Nineties colors.
The Neon had it all to nine-year-old me. It was modern, fresh, and exciting.
The reality of the Neon’s placement as very cheap economy car didn’t matter. How it drove didn’t come into play, either. It was the first new automotive product to really catch my eye, and I’ve remembered it ever since.
What was that one cool car that really got you excited when you were young?
[Images: Chrysler Corp.]
Interested in lots of cars and their various historical contexts. Started writing articles for TTAC in late 2016, when my first posts were QOTDs. From there I started a few new series like Rare Rides, Buy/Drive/Burn, Abandoned History, and most recently Rare Rides Icons. Operating from a home base in Cincinnati, Ohio, a relative auto journalist dead zone. Many of my articles are prompted by something I'll see on social media that sparks my interest and causes me to research. Finding articles and information from the early days of the internet and beyond that covers the little details lost to time: trim packages, color and wheel choices, interior fabrics. Beyond those, I'm fascinated by automotive industry experiments, both failures and successes. Lately I've taken an interest in AI, and generating "what if" type images for car models long dead. Reincarnating a modern Toyota Paseo, Lincoln Mark IX, or Isuzu Trooper through a text prompt is fun. Fun to post them on Twitter too, and watch people overreact. To that end, the social media I use most is Twitter, @CoreyLewis86. I also contribute pieces for Forbes Wheels and Forbes Home.
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First job around 15 or 16 years of age one of the butchers at the grocery store I worked at had a 78 Olds Cutlass Calais hard top. 260 V8, Bucket seats w/shift console, rally gages and those sexy Olds ralleye wheels! G Bodies were that perfect not too big, not too small size. Better than a Honda or Subarooo!!!!!
I grew up in the Malaise era when size was king and bigger was better. As a Malaise era kid, it was big American land yachts, especially luxury cars of the day, that were the big draw. Anything with a driver's armrest full of switches qualified. My affinity was Cadillacs, especially the big shiny ones driven by all the neighborhood mobsters. So it is strange that the first generation Seville became "The One", in all its compact-sized glory. It had the looks, all the buttons, all the bells and whistles of the big Caddy's, but in a more reasonable size. And an FI engine to boot, even if it wasn't a monstrous 500 big american cubic inches. Yes, I was smitten.