The Family Car

At a loss for a better topic this Friday, I’ll fall back on a fairly mundane one: the family motor vehicle. 

Chevelle/Malibu.  This is the earliest one I remember.  It would have been an early 70s model, and NOT an SS, let alone an LS6 454.  I can’t recall the color, or whether it had an inline six or a small V8.  Most likely the former.

Gran Torino.  Made famous by the Clint Eastwood movie more recently, and Starsky & Hutch in the past.  This was a sedan in dark brown.   As with the Chevelle, not sure what engine it had.  The base engine on these was an inline six (most plausible), with a range of V8s starting with 302, 351 Cleveland or Windsor, up to 429.  Since my dad made it a point to mention his ’55 Chevy Belair had a V8, and said nothing about a V8 in the Gran Torino, I’ll say it most likely it had the six cylinder.  My parents didn’t care about performance and never got the top engine as a matter of principle.

Volvo Station Wagon.  Orange, without the rear-facing seats.  We sold this when we moved to Paris in January 1979.  I’m guessing we probably bought it at the Volvo dealer on 355 near Hungerford Drive and the old drive-through movie theater and Hechingers.

Chrysler-Simca.  As noted, we moved to Paris in January 1979.  My father noted that bringing a car overseas is not worth the bother unless it’s really special, which the Volvo wagon was not.  This was a Chrysler model not sold in the US.  It was magenta, a sedan, and of course, stick shift, as so many European cars are.  We took this up to SHAPE a few times.

Peugeot 505.  Our second of two cars in Paris.  This was silver, and manual transmission.  I tried learning to drive, but in Paris traffic AND trying to learn a stick shift at the same time, it’s hopeless.  As a practical matter I taught myself on the Cavalier.

Chevrolet Cavalier.   I started college at University of Maryland in fall 1986.   Although by this time I had my driver’s license (and almost no practical experience driving) the College Park campus had a parking shortage, meaning students couldn’t keep a car on campus until they finished their sophomore year.  I was angling to get a late 70’s Pontiac Firebird Trans Am, ideally a Special Edition with t-tops and Screaming Chicken, but my parents ultimately did me a favor and bought this one:  a 1984 Cavalier, blue-grey sedan with 2.0L four cylinder, an auto-reverse tape deck, and air conditioning.  It got fairly good gas mileage:  round trip to Ocean City from College Park AND Baltimore on a single tank of gas, about 8 hours of highway driving.  By 1991 it was acting up.  My sister totaled it driving it in the local neighborhood in Montgomery Village.

Toyota Tercel.  The Cavalier was replaced by a deep blue 1991 Toyota Tercel sedan with stereo, A/C and automatic transmission – FYI, except for the two cars in Paris, all our cars were automatics.  My parents never considered the marginally superior fuel economy to be worth the hassle of shifting manually, and I share that assessment.   I drove this in law school until finally scoring my own car, a 1992 Pontiac Firebird (base), in November 1992 (fall of third year).  Then Matt inherited the Tercel, which he drove to and from Memphis, Tennessee after graduating from business school in Phoenix, Arizona.  He ultimately replaced it with a 1995 Pontiac Firebird Formula in black, a year after I got my own 1992 Pontiac Firebird Formula 350 in Dark Aqua Metallic – later painted black. 

Nissan Sentra XE.  Shortly after returning from Paris, my parents bought this one.  Dark grey (black was reserved for GXE models like the one Phil had).   I drove it a few times, including my first road trip to Long Island in March 1991, when I got my first speeding ticket – on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Nissan Pulsar.  When my sister finally got her driver’s license, this was the car my parents got for her to drive.  Fairly small but fun.  Gold.  She may have brought it with her when she moved to Arizona back in 1995. 

Honda Accord SE.  A gold model, this replaced the Sentra.  The SE model had all the bells & whistles, except a V6.   I don’t think my parents ever bought a car with the biggest engine available.  I did that with the 1992 Firebird Formula 350, but couldn’t afford the SRT 6.1L V8 in my Charger.  

Cadillacs.  My parents had two of these:  a dark grey model – I’d say Allante except that I know it wasn’t a convertible but was a coupe, in gun metal grey - and a Catera.  Both were used, fairly unreliable and unimpressive.  Neither were the fullsize land yachts. 

Chevrolet HHR.  My dad passed away in 2004.  As of now my mom is driving this.  It’s not bad, and it has a substantial load capacity.  It’s silver.