My First Car

…was a 1984 Chevrolet Cavalier.

 I had learned to drive during the summer of 1986, when I was 17 years old and about to start at the University of Maryland, College Park.  I was going to live on campus, as I did for the entire 4 years of college.  UMCP had a parking situation such that freshmen and sophomores living on campus were not permitted to park cars on campus, so I had to wait until I finished my sophomore year in May 1988 to look for a car.  I had $2000 saved up from summer jobs and my parents told me they’d match it dollar for dollar, so my “budget” was in fact $4,000.   For this amount of money, I was told, I could purchase a late 70’s Trans Am in excellent condition (not a rusted out basket case).  I set about looking for prospects and was going to have my uncle bring the candidates to mechanics to verify their roadworthiness.

 Alas, I never reached that point.  After 10 days without a phone in between spring semester housing (Talbot Hall) and summer housing (New Leonardtown), and without a way to do my car search, during that time, I finally had my phone hooked up again and called my parents.  Their response: “Oh, don’t bother looking for a car.  We bought you one.”

 Not a Trans Am, a 1984 Chevy Cavalier.  Blue/grey, four door sedan, automatic, with A/C and a tape deck (auto reverse).  It had 49,000 miles on it.  Recall this is 1988, so the car was 4 years old at this point.  It was not a Type 10, a coupe, convertible, nor a Z24 (SCCA Cavalier?  I don’t think so!) – simply the sedan.  It was fairly clean, and the paint was OK.  The tape deck still worked, and even the A/C worked too.  For a car to tool around in, it was actually pretty good.  I recall the engine was “2.0L EFI”, though since I knew little about cars I rarely popped open the hood.  It was probably throttle-body injected. 

 The major pluses of this car were space and mileage.  The largest single item I had in college, which had to be moved into storage during the summer (except ’88, when I simply took it to summer housing) was my 4 cubic foot fridge.  This JUST fit in the back seat of the Cavalier; I can’t imagine it would fit anyway, anyhow, into a ’70-81 Trans Am.  We had a storage unit over by GMU main campus.  As for mileage, Phil and I drove to Ocean City (3 hours), back (3 hours), Greenbelt (5 minutes each way) and Baltimore (30 minutes each way) (Hammerjacks, to see Honor Among Thieves) all on ONE tank of gas.  Unbelievable.  Again, a feat inconceivable in a V8 muscle car, least of all one with a carburetor.    

 In retrospect, I didn’t know nearly enough about cars to have the correct discernment on Trans Ams anyway.  By 1992 I had purchased my first new car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird (base model), and then learned all about Firebirds from 1967 to then – and by that time the 4^th generation (1993-2002) weren’t even in the showrooms.  What I learned was that black Trans Ams were only made from 1976-81, but by that point the performance had taken a nose dive.  The best Trans Ams were ’71-74 with the 455 cubic inch V8 (7.5L).  ’71-72 455 HO T/As were either white with a thick blue stripe down the middle, or blue with a white stripe, not the best color choice.  ’73-74 Super Duty T/As came in white, red, and either dark green (’73) or dark blue (’74) but by this time the much revered/reviled “Screaming Chicken” hood bird had finally made its debut.   I can’t imagine, as I write this today, that even had I known all this about Trans Ams back in summer 1988, that my $4000 budget would allow me to buy an early ‘70s T/A in decent shape.  However, it may have been sufficient for a ’67-68 Firebird 400 hardtop in good condition, had I been well-informed enough to search for one.  I was vaguely aware of them at that time: one of the guys who used to live on my floor in Hagerstown Hall appeared to have moved to Old Leonardtown and had a ’67-68 Firebird.  These cars have a much different body style (first generation F-Body) and that remarkably OLD Indian style bird.  As of now, I’d rather have a ’67-68 Firebird 400 than any Trans Am, aside from – possibly – a ’74 Super Duty T/A in blue.  Forget the Bandit T/As (Special Editions) of ’77-81, to me a ’74 SD T/A in blue is the ultimate Trans Am. 

 ** In October 1995 my friend Phil and I drove up to Flint, Michigan, in an attempt to buy a 1968 Pontiac Firebird 400 hardtop.  Despite the owner’s earlier claim, the car was not roadworthy, and I could not get a tow truck to get it back home.  This was even more frustrating as it was a California car with no rust.  I wonder where it is now.

 I also had to relearn how to drive, that summer of 1988.  What I knew to survive the driving test at the MVA in July 1986 was basically how to do a three point turn, parallel park, come to complete stops, and use turn signals.  This was well below spec to drive a car on the Beltway at highway speed, or at night.  Fortunately during the summer, campus at UMCP is almost dead, so there were few enough people to run into.  I worked my way to driving on Route 1, then took the Beltway all the way around to Burke, VA.  This gave me confidence and essentially began my driving experience.  I even had my first accident, a minor crash with a UMCP utility truck (“don’t worry, we won’t be filing a claim,” explained the driver). 

 In August 1991 my sister began learning to drive, in the same 1984 Cavalier, which by then had about 100k and was beginning to fall apart.  What had been working fine in 1988 was anything but.  She crashed it into a parked car 1000 yards from our house in Gaithersburg – boom, it’s totalled.  We replaced it with a 1991 Toyota Tercel.  RIP Cavalier.

 While I’m at it, I might as well share my early memories of my family’s cars.  Despite growing up in the US in the 1970s, I was too young and inexperienced to take in what was undoubtedly a plethora (si, El Guapo) of 70s muscle cars.  Now I have to look back the pictures without being able to actually be there.  Anyhow.

1.         Early 70s Chevy Malibu (can’t remember the color).  This was not a Chevelle SS.  My mom laughed when I mentioned that.  “You kids would have stayed at home and not eaten.  We couldn’t afford any SS car backthen.”  Since my dad was never a “car guy” he would have ignored the Chevy guy had he tried to sell us anything with a V8 under the hood.  His last V8 experience was his ’55 Belair he bought new in 1955 as a priest.  It was black.

2.         Mid 70s Ford Gran Torino (poo brown).  Think “Starsky and Hutch” but brown and four doors.  Somewhat less cool.  I imagine this had a six cylinder and not a 460.  Again, my parents were not car people.  I can’t remember why my parents bought this car, but I’m fairly certain “Starsky and Hutch” had nothing to do with their decision.

3.         Late 70s Volvo station wagon (orange).  This did not have the flip up seat in the back (sorry). 

4.         Chrysler-Simca.  When we moved to Paris, we had to get a car (my parents: “it’s not worth the bother shipping the Volvo overseas”).  This was one of those weird American-European cars, like Opels.  This was a burgundy color.  I can’t even remember the model.

5.         Peugeot 505.  The driving age in Paris is 18, unlike 16 for the US.  Also, 99% of European cars – at least at that time – were manual transmission.  It’s bad enough trying to learn how to drive, let alone trying to master a manual trans at the same time.  My dad and I drove around the block in this, as much trying not to stall out as avoiding other cars.  The car itself was fairly decent.

6.         Mazda 323.  When we returned to the US for summer 1986, we borrowed our relatives’ Mazda to drive around.  Imagine a family of 5 in this small vehicle with no A/C - in DC in July and August.  And it was stick shift, so we could barely learn to drive on it.  Only by the end of the summer was I informed about “play” in the clutch, a little detail which greatly facilitates correctly letting out the clutch on a manual trans car. 

 Having exhausted my readers’ patience by now, I’ll pass on descriptions of the Tercel, Sentra, Pulsar, Catera, Cadillac, or even the base Firebird.  The Neon and Formula have already gotten enough publicity.  Amen.