Sorry to rain on your parade guys, but I owned one of Detroit's finest for my first car.
If they made cars half as well today as they did then, the skies would be blue and rivers would flow fine French wine.
The car????
A 1971 Chevy Vega station wagon. Yessir, you heard that right.
At the tender age of just 16 years old, I became the proud 6th-12th owner (unknown how many people actually owned it but I did hear at one time a guy that knew a guy that I knew used it to deliver pizza's) but that just means that the prior owners wanted to share the love that this car exuded.
It had the standard factory rust option, was some sort of green but had been expertly upgraded with a shake and shoot R5 primer coating.
It had the upgraded El-Cheapo nylon seat covers and a standard 4-speed high performance transmission to back up all the HP that the standard 140 CI aluminum sleeved (also lovingly called "oil burner") engine delivered.
Gentlemen, I kid you not when I tell you that on a good day, if the wind was right and humidity low that baby would easily do 30 seconds in the quarter mile and reach 0-60 in a mere 19 seconds.
Unfortunately it was not meant to be.
One day as yours truly was driving down Alameda to my job as a dish cleansing consultant the battery fell through it's holding apparatus on the fender well (no doubt weakened by the factory applied rust treatment), somehow got in front of the front wheel (which I subsequently rolled over and shattered into an acid infused road orgy) and there, she died.
I cried for a bit (not really but makes for a good story), thought about pulling the plates off and just leaving it there but I couldn't. Our bond was strong my friends.
I managed to get her home and through many hours of bondo, fiberglass work and baling wire she was as good as new. Really, she was better than the day she was in the showroom.
I sold her for, brace yourselves - $450. Yep. I actually found somebody that, as I did, could see the beauty that was the 1971 Chevy Vega station wagon.
So, the next time you want to post up about the vehicle that has given you the LEAST amount of problems - understand that there are those of out there - the outcasts - that laugh and mock you.
Oh yeah, it blew a head gasket AFTER I had just gotten done doing my first clutch replacement in the drive-thru of Burger King and was spewing a sweet, stinky white smoke out of the exhaust just in time for the hottest girl in my high school to come out the front door of said Burger King and look directly at me.
I rest my case.
