Driving Mr. Iggy

Borrowing a page from the delightful Tooj over at Circling the Square Table, I did a little trip down memory lane and found pictures on the Internet for the cars I either drove a lot, owned, leased or just borrowed from the bank.


I kind of liked my Mom chauffeuring me to places so I was in no hurry to get my driver's license but shortly before going to college, I pulled out the Pennsylvania Drivers Examination material and gave it a quick read before driving for the first time and taking my Mom's bright orange Plymouth Voyager Van over to the driver's testing place where I got my license. Yeah, they really just give them away around here - qualifications? Just don't run over the examiner's foot.

The van in the photo is similar to the "Orange Peel" as my parent's call it. They named all their cars rather unimaginatively after their color. Of course this is the era long before SUVs and my parents did a lot of odd-delivery jobs - so they had 5 or 6 vans like this one (never more than two at a time) while I was growing up.

I hated this particular van. It was built right after the "new emissions control" law was enacted around 1972? 1975? and it ran horribly. Flooring the accelerator would stall it out. I was often left hanging with my backside half out on a busy highway with a locked up steering wheel.


My younger brother, on the other hand, didn't like my Mom's driving, so he got his license a couple days after turning 16. He bought a very used, but much loved and well maintained, 1967 VW Beetle with a manual, no-syncromesh 3-speed on the floor shift. I learned how to drive stick with this car. My brother drove this car throughout his college years and sold it to one of his college professors.

A year later, the Professor was broadsided by someone running a red light and the car was totaled with over 290,000 miles on it. The professor had a broken leg but recovered fully.

I loved this car except for its complete lack of heat and defrosting ability in the winter. This was one very cold car.


My grandfather owned a "satellite white with purple vinyl roof" 1972-ish Plymouth Custom Fury something.. I think III. He sold this to me so I could get around at College. He declared, "I'd buy myself a Mercedes, but I'll never live long enough to wear it out." This was about 1980. He is still alive today at 100 plus years old and from that point in time went on to wear out about five cars! He never did get himself a Mercedes though. He also no longer drives.

I loved the huge V8 engine in this car! It had a three-speed automatic gear selector on the steering wheel - eh, so not cool. I hated the burgundy-purple vinyl top that it had. And I also hated the "on a good day," I got 8 miles to the gallon too! When I started commuting 30 miles one way to work everyday - this car simply had to go.


The one and only brand new car I've ever owned. A 1986-ish Chevrolet Camaro Berlinetta. A black-grey beauty with gold trim number with a more reasonable V6 engine and five-speed "gas saving" manual stick shift. The clutch was so heavy, I frequently said, while driving in the usual for these parts, bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic, that I was being tortured on a rowing machine.

This car was an American quality control and assurance disaster. I think it was recalled at least a dozen times for this, that, and the other thing. It handled atrociously in the snow. I left the snow covered, paved surface of the road more than once (this is a cute way of saying dozens and dozens of times) but with nary a dent.

My love-hate relationship with this car went from one extreme to the other within minutes. It got egged on mischief night and one of the eggs scarred the paint - and that left me near tears - but on the very same day I got the umpteenth recall notice - this one for a potential cracked tailpipe assembly.

Soon after that - I got a new job and the new employer leased a car for me!


Life was good. A 1992 BMW 325is. Sleek German silky magic! "Mine" was jet black with gold wheels. I was often on the road for this employer and I loved driving this machine! The manual shifting was effortless and precise. The clutch was silky smooth. I was, however, responsible for my own gas and all the maintenance costs which ended up being the reason why this car, when the lease was up, went back to the dealership. I think the "routine" 60,000 mile service cost over $1,600!

I had my one and only "bad accident" in this car. No fault of the car though. There was (and is) a sharp curve in the road that I commuted on - and along side the curve was a closed down gas station. When they closed the station, they put steel barrels out at the edge of the driveway and several of them had waste oil in them from oil changes

Time and rust, a rainy day...

I hit an oily, rain dampened spot in this curve in the road doing a breath-taking 25 mph, narrowly missing some children playing on the wet sidewalk in the rain, I found myself still belted in when the dust cleared, teetering on a railroad siding. I took out 4 chain link fence posts and managed to damage every single body panel on the left side of the car as well as sever all the hydraulic lines (controlling the anti-lock brakes) underneath it.

I love State Farm. My single claim cost more than I had paid in insurance payments in ALL the years I had driven to that fateful day. Without fuss, they paid for everything (except the self-soiled pants) and about 2 weeks later I got the car back looking better than new.

But time marched on and the lease expired and the maintenance boogey man overruled my lust for this automobile.


I think I had a testosterone failure the day I went car shopping. I got myself a nice used, green 1995 Subaru Legacy 4 door sedan built in Lafayette, Indiana. I think this is the day I officially "got old".

My Mother had gone from driving a van to a Subaru Legacy wagon - and at that time it had 240,000 miles on it without any servicing beyond the routine. It was also all-wheel drive. I liked how it drove and how it dealt with rain-slicked or snow covered roads. I got one for me - but I wasn't so fuddy-duddy as to get a wagon - yet.

This car was a war horse. It served me well - it finally died of old age after I had it for about 9 years. My Mother's wagon is still out there (no longer hers) and at last report had cleared 310,000 miles without a hiccup. Hey, GM...Ford? This is how you build a car, OK?


Last year, I replace the green sedan with a lightly used 2004 blue and gold Subaru Legacy Wagon. It's now official. I'm a fuddy-duddy old fart.

It has absolutely nothing that would attract the law's eye except the driver waving a solitary upright finger at the oh-so-many (other?) morons on the road. I've come a long way from the days of squealing the rubber and doing burnouts in the "police cruiser".

Thanks Tooj! :)