Years ago, when I was not yet twenty I drove my brother between my parents’ homes, a distance of five hundred miles each way, with no back-up but a gas card and some loose change. Although the journey passed without incident, it was a nerve-racking experience. My upbringing had taught me that there’s a thin line between farce and tragedy, between going to the ends of the earth and being stranded in the last place on earth.

I absorbed this wisdom during many long-distance family car trips. Various summer vacations saw us driving from Illinois to New England, Florida, and New Orleans. We also moved from Illinois to California and back, and then did the same trip for “fun” three more times.

You might think I’m leading up to a story of mechanical failure and geographical distress. But aside from a cracked radiator hose that required an overnight stay down Florida way, I don’t remember a single example of mechanical failure. But I do remember my parents’ paranoia. They viewed each trip as a kind of necessary gamble: a leap into the great unknown with an inherently suspicious automotive net.

My parents grew up in California, but they attended college in Valparaiso, Indiana. “Valpo” is a small Lutheran college located just west of Notre Dame about 60 miles east of Chicago. At the time, train tickets were a luxury and plane tickets were priced well beyond contemplation.

So they drove to Valpo from their homes in Stockton, California twice a year, for three years. They make the 2000 miles trek (about the same distance as Paris to Moscow, each way) in a collection of beaters, with balding tires (one cheapskate driver went through three (used) spares), no air conditioning and weak heaters.

With that kind of background, it wasn’t surprising that our driving vacations were long on preparation, short on “adventure” and, frequently, room. Road trips ranged from the good (three or four of us in the 6000), to the bad (four in an 80’ Accord hatch), to the ugly (seven in a Ford “Woody” Country Squire later on). 

Despite their travel history, neither of my parents would qualify as “car folk." They were omnivorous car buyers, chasing reliability, value and utility. Although they weren’t the sort to hold a grudge, when it came to cars, their memories were long. My mother would not even look at a Ford because of her Father’s troublesome example back in ‘60’s. Neither went for Chevy after “the Vega incident."

The only real Devil-make-care “car buff” in either family is my first cousin once removed on my maternal side. “Uncle” Gordon grew up riding motorcycles (always BMWs) up and down California. He eventually added cars to his interests– in his own unique fashion. My mother could never quite understand the appeal of having a disassembled 58’ Dodge pickup in your back yard, or why anyone would have three Jaguars at once. 

Gordon indulged in many wide-eyed automotive romances, but the family’s practical gene was still operative. He yanked engines and transmissions on two of his Jags and– sacrilege! — replaced them with Chevy V6’s and autoboxes.  As he explained to my mom, Jaguar’s interiors were to die for, but the running gear showed why England almost lost the War. His V12 cat got to keep its powerplant, and gained a trailer hitch to haul his camper (somewhere, Jeremy Clarkson is vomiting). 

I had my own version of my parents’ paranoia-building experience during my first year in college. I hitched a ride home from a classmate with a Corvette– that had seen better decades. He got me home with a speeding ticket plus a lecture on bald tires. Given how the engine sounded, the ticket was more of a miracle than the fact I got home safely. (Just.) Fortunately, the Vette’ threw a rod before the return trip. 

This may explain my caution during the semester I took our decrepit Escort to college. I drove the arthritic Ford perhaps half-a-dozen times that semester. Partially it was poverty (gas or pizza), partly it was location (go find Kirksville Missouri on the map, then locate “fun” within 100 miles), but mostly it was a suspicion that pushing my luck would leave me stuck in the literal middle of nowhere. 

These days, I’m fortunate to own a Honda CR-V (a vehicle only slightly less reliable than No. 2 pencil). Friends and acquaintances are impressed with my cute ute’s usefulness, but they are often struck speechless at the contents in the “trunk”: blankets, rope, folding shovel, a tire iron and a pile of other gear (I don’t store hardtack in the seat cushions though). They think I’m a little crazy. I just like to think I have a low tolerance for “adventure.”

Buying an automobile from a private seller is risky business. There’s only one guarantee: you have less chance of successful legal compensation than you would trying to recover your $5 tip from a New York City cabbie. On the positive side, you can make out like a bandit. This is especially true for a privately owned collector car. Whether it’s a classic or a street rod, if someone else gets stuck with the time and expense of restoration, you win. 

For some reason, collectors’ imaginations are fired by the proverbial “barn find”: a rare car that time and Aunt Minnie forgot. These sightings are almost as extraordinary as they are undesirable. In the vast majority of cases, the car you’ll find stuffed into someone’s fallen down garage is about as beat as the building. So the best way to find a privately owned collector car is to visit brand-specific car sites and car shows and search through local classified ads.

Generally, the better the car’s condition at the time of sale, the better the buy. That said, there are times when liberating an original owner from an unrestored can pay off. If a collectible car is all original, relatively clean and still runs, it could be a winner. Like antique furniture, an untouched gem can be worth more than a fully restored vehicle. Buy it, love it, leave it be.

Let’s say you’ve found a private seller with a collector car that may or may not need some serious restoration–depending on the vehicle’s condition, your OCD and the time and money you’re prepared to spend on the machine. Time to hit the paper trail.

Most vintage auto owners keep careful records of their car’s restoration expenses and/or upkeep. Begin by asking to see any and all the paperwork, and any pictures documenting restoration. Suggest a cup of coffee, find a comfy spot and take all the time you need to examine the entire portfolio. Ask for explanations– or silence– when required.

Next, have a look at the car’s drive train and engine. Don’t worry if they need work. Provided you’re dealing with a mass-market machine of some kind, plenty of companies will sell vintage vehicle restorers a replacement engine and related parts. Alternatively, you might be able to find mission critical pieces in a vintage auto salvage yard.

Then check the bodywork. Begin with the spaces between body panels. The quality of the sheetmetal alignment will vary according to make, model and manufacturer. The gaps of a 1958 Porsche were uniform and should remain so. On a 1948 Chevrolet, you wouldn’t much care. To ensure consistent panel, insert a nickel into the open spaces at all the critical points. Pay close attention to the doors, the engine (compartment) and hood.

Then scan the entire lower portion of the car’s body for rust. Look inside all the car’s body cavities, around the wheel wells and trunk and, particularly, under the spare tire. Bring a flashlight and don’t be afraid to poke, prod and push. Tap the metal to [try to] discover any filler.

Rust appears as scales, bubbles or rough edges. It tends to start at places where dirt accumulates; moisture clings to sod and starts the rusting process. Check around the trim, lower areas and seams. If the rust infects structural areas of the car, unless you’re buying the car for parts, pass. Bodywork is the exclusive province of expensive experts.

If the collector car’s a runner, run it; and not just around the block. Don’t talk to the owner; listen for any groaning, scraping or whistling sounds. Notice any mechanical hesitation. When you’re done, open the hood and inhale deeply.

When you’re done, leave. Find an expert– preferably a professional car restorer– go back and do it all again. Get an estimate on how much it will cost to put things right— even if you plan on doing it yourself. Then double the amount. And then forget the whole thing and buy a concourse-winning car.

A vintage car needing a comprehensive rebuild can require between a thousand to two thousand hours of labor to put right. A competent auto restoration shop will charge you roughly $50 per hour for the privilege. That’s $50k to $100k, plus parts (which can double the bill). Very few collector cars are worth that much money; the ones that are will cost you the same again to buy in the first place.

Bottom line: restoring decrepit cars is a horrendous investment— at least for the person footing the bill. In contrast, a pristine, fully restored automobile offers a priceless opportunity to buy a bargain. Seriously. While novice collectors are often shocked by the prices of immaculate classics and vintage automobiles, buying the best possible example of a restored model is almost always cheaper than trying to create one.

Over the years, my father’s garage has become an elephant’s graveyard of corroded metal, faded wiring diagrams, desiccated gaskets and other relics of a lifetime of Land Rover ownership. Buried deep somewhere in that automotive salmagundi: an old Punch magazine. Within its yellowed pages, a cartoon shows three British Leyland workers clustered around the company magazine, contemplating a picture of an Austin Mini with its speedometer mounted on the hubcap. The caption reads: “Cock-up of The Month.” Amen. The Land Rover was the far best four by four by far ever built by lazy English Communists.

Not many vehicles are as immediately and inescapably iconic as the Land Rover. Its cheerful boxy shape provokes a strong desire to don knee socks and a pith helmet (or wellies and a Trilby) and go bouncing around the landscape, interfering with the simple quests of Kalihari Bushmen. Alan Quatermain would have driven one. David Attenborough did. It’s British pluck personified, like an all-terrain steak-and-kidney pie.

Perhaps that’s what made Dad buy one: Familiarity. My parents emigrated from Northern Ireland to the Wild West coast of Canada in the late ‘60’s. After a brief dalliance with uncouth colonial pickup trucks, they plumped for the Jeep with a plummy accent.

The Land Rover’s aerodynamics-are-a-bloody-Jerry-plot design gave it the drag-coefficient of a 4’x8’ sheet of plywood. However, its simplicity meant that it could be taken apart like a huge Meccano set. No need for doors? Off they come! Mind you, just try and get the confounded things lined up again when you want to put them back on.

Bolting a tire to the bonnet made (frequent) underhood excursions an exercise in avoiding ending up with Sir Ranulph Fiennes’ fingers, or Charles the First’s haircut. Still, it gave me and my brother, perched on the front fenders, something to hang on to as we hurtled down a potholed logging road.

It’s true: for some reason, the Land Rover brought out the inner eejit in all of its drivers. My mother’s only speeding ticket came at the helm of the 'Rover, which, considering its chelonian turn of speed, was roundly applauded by the rest of the family. My father managed to get it stuck attempting to ford a stream, within twenty feet of a perfectly serviceable bridge.

Performance? Imagine Winston Churchill in a sprint. Cornering? The QEII on wheels. Interior noise? Like being topside in the Blitz. Kit? All your essential mod cons: windows that open and close, black vinyl seats like the surface of the sun in summer, a dashboard that’d literally dash your brains out, and a steering wheel of a diameter not out of place on the deck of a man-o’-war at Trafalgar.

Childhood memories of the Land Rover run the gamut from sheer terror to slight nausea. Whether it was teetering on the edge of a narrow mountain path or nearly bisecting me with the lap belt in the rear-facing back seat, the 'Rover was death on wheels. Countless hours were spent holding the trouble light and passing wrenches to my cursing father. (Dad once asked a teenager wearing a Rage Against The Machine t-shirt whether he too owned a Land Rover.)

After one particularly involved overhaul, we put everything back together– only to be left with a margarine container filled with an assortment of important-looking nuts and bolts. In a fit of genius, my father affixed a masking tape label marked “Spares.” Problem solved.

By the time I got my grubby little paws on it, we were on our second ‘Rover (the first still sits on the driveway, eviscerated to keep the second one mobile). For a developing pistonhead, this was a monumental disappointment. Having been taught to drive in my Dad’s mid-eighties 535i (at the time one of the best-handling sedans you could buy), I was informed that all future solo flights would be at the helm of Rosie the Riveted.

I was to discover that the Land Rover had more Achilles’ Heels than a Greek centipede. For instance, there was the day (late for work), I leaped into my chariot and put the transmission into reverse. Ba-kunk! Off broke a two-foot section of gear lever. Two years later, we were still driving around with a set of vice-grip pliers attached to the stump.

Then, having fixed the throttle linkage’s tendency to fall apart at stoplights with baling wire ('Rover Aspirin), I experienced the joy of having both half-shafts (their ends crystallized to protect the differential) snap and leave me stranded on a rail-crossing.

The big green monster currently resides on gravel at the ancestral manse, where wintertime duties compel it to sally forth and plow the drive. Unfortunately a recent frame-off restoration has resulted in a driver’s-side door that can’t be closed. Chariot of the Gods? The Gods Must Have Been Crazy.

Buying a car from a reputable auction house is a “safe” way to add to your collection. Yes, you must compete against equally serious buyers, but auctioneers depend on repeat business for their survival; they don’t stay afloat by ripping people off. And there’s far more legal comeback on a going concern than an individual seller. But buying a collectible car privately can be just as rewarding and much cheaper— if you use common sense, basic psychology and due diligence. First, you gotta know where to look.

Swap meets are a car collector's happy hunting ground. Although these events are populated by shade tree restorers looking to buy or sell ancient intake manifolds, you’ll find plenty of owners with grandpa’s old something-or-other for sale. Pomona, California and Portland, Oregon host two of America’s biggest swap meets. John Sweeney, editor of Cruisin’ News, runs another huge swap meet at Nevada’s Hot August Nights event.

The east coast boasts legendary swap meets in Hershey and Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The Hershey event, known officially as the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) fall meet, began 51 years ago with the usual car club trappings. The event has grown to include roughly 10k vendor spaces spread out over several fields. Along with these mega-swap meets, there are plenty of regional congregations. 

There are two key differences between an auction and the car corral at a swap meet. First, you can drive the car– if it’s drivable– or have it thoroughly inspected by a captive expert. Second, you’re usually face-to-face with the person who restored the car, who’ll tell you every hernia, heartache and foible along the way.

It’s best to scout a car on day one, and then go home and research values via phone (to a restorer, dealer or experienced owner), internet (forums, eBay and auction sites) or various guides. The basic rules of engagement are the same as a Moroccan bazaar: there’s a posted price and there’s the price that takes something home. The savvy collector circles a desired car like a buzzard, waiting for the last hour of the last day of the meet, when prices drop. 

If your idea of a good time isn’t tromping through country fairgrounds or the soggy fields of Hershey PA or the old cattle stalls of Reno NV, try local car shows. That's because restoring cars is an addiction. Otherwise sensible enthusiasts spend thousands of hours and tens of thousands of dollars polishing automotive coal into antique diamonds. These cars will not, can not deliver anything like a reasonable return on their investment, and their owners know it.

Even better (at least from the buyer’s point-of-view), the restorer’s insatiable need to tinker and escape the wife and kids means that the end of one project MUST be followed by the beginning of another. So when a restored car is ready for show, it’s ready for sale– even if the owner doesn't think so.

Liberating these owners from their machines is simple enough. Just fawn over their handiwork a bit, ask what they’re working on now, note the pain their face and then offer them cash. Alternatively, if you don’t know what you’re looking at, tell them you have a friend who loves that model and ask if you can both visit the car later. Take an expert with you for a second viewing. Go away again and THEN come back with an offer. Even if they don’t sell, you’ll have learned a great deal about the obscure object of your desire.

Collector car stores are also a good place to make your bones. As the owners of these establishments readily admit, selling old cars is as more avocation than vocation. Their combination of knowledge, experience and enthusiasm makes most (though not all) stores an excellent starting point for neophytes looking to become a patron of the automotive arts. Also, in stark contrast to the auctioneers credo (as is, where is), they’ll also try to set things straight, such as fixing badly restored panels or swapping out inappropriate mechanical additions.

Much of the time, a vehicle’s asking price is the single best yardstick for measuring its provenance, overall condition and rarity. Again, price guides can help, but remember that dealers use the same booklets. Also keep in mind that “guide” is the operative word; each vehicle is unique and the collector car market is as volatile as Britney Spears on a night out. When you inspect a car, just make certain it is what the dealer says it is.

No matter how and where you find a car, always remember Lyndon Johnson’s advice: “A decision is only as good as the information it’s based on.” And then remember that Johnson was the president who said that picking-up a beagle by its ears doesn't hurt it.

As the New Year dawns, serious car collectors are about to take Horace Greely’s advice. They’re heading into the Arizona and Nevada deserts for the annual automotive auction feeding frenzy. Barrett-Jackson, Kruse International, RM Auctions, Russo & Steele, Silver Auctions— there’s enough action west of the Mississippi to satisfy the most voracious automotive aficionado. But as Public Enemy advised, don’t believe the hype. While the warm weather bidding frenzy appeals to high rollers, the best opportunities to locate a future heirloom at a bargain basement price usually lie within a 50-mile radius of your front door.

To wit: last February, Silver Auctions held a small sale not far from this desk, in the small town of Puyallup, Washington. A fine-looking, clean living 1967 Datsun 1600 roadster sold for $3200 plus the usual “buyer’s fee” (six percent in this case). If the exact same car had rolled up to the podium during the Monterey Historic weekend in August, it would have probably sold for the NADA Classic, Collectible and Special Interest Appraisal Guide estimate, at twice the Puyallup price.

To find local old car auction action, Google “collector car auction companies” with your state and/or your neighboring states’ initials before the word “collector.” Check out the classifieds in your daily papers. Scan enthusiast magazines like Old Cars Weekly and Hemmings Motor News. Keep your eyes open for estate sales or auctions held at salvage yards that are closing up shop. While the cars available at these venues aren’t always running examples, a little due diligence and do-it-yourself can yield significant savings. In general, the more local (i.e. obscure) the auction, the further out into the boonies you travel, the better the potential deal.

The operative word is “potential.” Unless you’re prepared to waste a day on a random fishing expedition, it’s always best to contact the auction company well in advance of sale day for a list of consigned vehicles. It’s also a good idea to chase a particular vehicle, rather than allowing a temporary infatuation with a winsome stranger– stimulated by bucolic boredom– to suck the money straight out of your wallet.

Bone-up on your potential takeover target. Learn where rust lives and which bits are bound to fail. Check out what it will cost to repair the stuff you can’t see– should it prove to be malformed, cancerous or missing. Get to the auction early. Look the car over thoroughly, bottom to top (rust starts low and hides, sometime bubbling through cheapo paint jobs). Open and close doors, play with major and minor controls; poke, prod and ponder.

If you can’t afford to bring a pet expert with you, have one teed-up on speed dial. Establish a fair purchase price before entering the heat of battle. At the same time, if you or your proxy aren't thrilled with what's on offer, walk. When it comes to car collecting, you are your own worst enemy, not the seller or a competitive bidder (they’re just allies in your self-inflicted stupidity). Then-– and I know this will sound whack– seek out the auctioneer. Tell him or her you’re interested in a particular vehicle and exactly what you’re prepared to pay for the privilege of exchanging cold cash for old steel.

This is not a scam, nor is it illegal. In fact, such prior disclosure is a tremendous boon for the auctioneer; providing a realistic idea where the bidding should start (somewhere back from your limit). As you observe a car auction, you’ll probably notice the auctioneer pull away from the microphone from time to time to talk to certain steely-eyed individuals. These seeming conspirators are usually collector car dealers doing exactly what you should do before the main event: set a floor for the bidding.

Obviously, the auctioneer won’t stop taking bids when he or she hits your limit. At this juncture, it’s absolutely imperative that the words “it’s only money” or “this can’t go on for much longer” do not find fertile ground inside your mind. Dean Kruse of Kruse International, one of the first auction companies to sell collectible cars, likes to confront buyer’s remorse by saying, “Hey, you didn’t pay too much; you just bought too soon.” If Dean's words sound frightening rather than funny, you’re free to attend without your spouse. Otherwise, I suggest you organize some on-the-spot interventionist or have the words "caveat emptor" tattooed on your forearm the night before the auction.

All that said, it's still possible to scoop-up a deal at a bigger venue— providing you’re willing to go where automotive angels fear to tread. Consider the 1966 Barracuda Formula-S fastback sold during the Hot August Nights auction in Reno, Nevada. The primer finished Plymouth was powered by a 273 cubic-inch V8 hooked-up to a four-speed manual tranny. At $2k, the ‘Cuda was a terrific buy for someone looking for a diamond in the rough. Of course, there are even better ways to buy old cars, but that’ll have to wait ‘til next week.

My friends frequently tease me about my automotive taste. It’s not my passion for stupidly expensive high-performance sports cars, or my weakness for brash, flash, trash. It’s my ongoing affection for supremely ugly yet practical vehicles that triggers their head-shaking scorn. Dude, you like a minivan? Luckily, I have a ready defense that usually shuts them up. I tell them that when I was a kid, our family car was a Microbus. 

Few vehicles are as identified with a particular time and place as the VW type 2 (the Bus’ official name). The Microbus practically screams ‘60’s San Francisco flower power. Ours was from a later era, acquired sometime around 1973 in the heart of the Midwest. My dad bought VW’s people mover after our Chevrolet Vega overheated for the second time in a year. Style was not as high on his list of priorities. He was looking for a sensibly-priced car that could transport a family of four.

It was a run-of-the-mill Bus. (I drooled over the camper-vans in the owner’s manual). Its fabricators blessed the Bus with a dubious creamsicle two-tone white-over-orange that didn’t improve when my brother blew chow down the passenger side outside St. Louis. The interior was finished entirely in the hardwearing black vinyl that's come to define ‘70’s cabins. Although the material resisted all sorts of stains, the seats either scorched your butt– passengers wearing shorts left the Bus looking like they’d been attacked by a waffle iron– or sucked away all body heat.

Yank back the sliding door (a big thing pre-minivan) and you discovered three full rows of seats bolted to the floor. They were only slightly more comfortable than the church pews they resembled, but you could fit six adults in the back (we were drafted for every carpool going). There was even a large square luggage area behind the back seats, roughly level with the rear passengers' heads. (Cargo net? What's a cargo net?) The raised luggage area hid the bus’ Achilles heel: a 1.7-liter, four cylinder engine. In fact, the Microbus was little more than a Beetle with a big box on top. This led to a few “issues”.

Those of you familiar with the Beetle's climate control system know its effectiveness depended entirely on its passengers’ psychological suggestibility. Now imagine the SAME system attempting to warm a Microbus with roughly five times the interior volume. Now imagine that same Bus encased in snow about to face a dark, Midwestern winter’s morning. My mother still speaks venomously of battling frost-bite at the helm. Summer was little better. Mediocre ventilation (only the front windows rolled down) and all that black vinyl made the Bus an oven on wheels.

The VW Microbus earned the "bus" part of its name from its driving position as much as its utility. The machine's steering wheel fed straight into the floor and spread across the driver’s lap in open-spoked glory. Bereft of power steering, driving the beast required a distinctly commercial mindset– and not a small amount of brute strength. I can still see my mother, all five foot nothing of her, wrestling the beast round corners.

Another “bus” feature: the driver and front passenger sat on top of the front wheel-wells. The Car Talk guys have bemoaned the negative safety implications of this seat positioning for years, and they have a point. For the record, we survived our only fender-bender without injury to our knees (the ductwork in front of us took the hit, which didn’t help the nominal heater any).

The Bus’ sloth tended to relegate safety concerns to the back of one’s mind. There was no way to measure the vehicle’s zero to 60 time. Barring a tailwind, there was no way the bus could crack a mile a minute, Richard Nixon’s 55mph speed limit was as unbreakable as the speed of light. When we moved back from California, my eight-year-old brain finally realized the truth. We went over the Sierras and the Rockies hugging the shoulder as cars, trucks, semis, even CAMPERS flew by. Even at such a tender age, I sensed that something was not quite right with a vehicle that couldn't keep up with continental drift.

In [partial] compensation, the Bus got decent mileage: mid to low 20's. It was also one of the most dependable vehicles on the road. (Oh how the Volkswagens have fallen!) Aside from a dead spot on the starter (which led to some entertaining push-starts), Ye Olde Type 2 ran with minimal hassles to 100K before getting seriously cranky.

Our return to the Midwest spelt the end for the bus. My mother finally took matters into her own hands and traded in the Bus on something smaller. I have fond memories of the Bus. I see it as a child, amazed at all the things it could do; rather than as an adult, remembering all it couldn’t. Who says nostalgia isn’t what it used to be?

For the second time in less than two years, I’ve been relegated to rental car Hell. My normal ride is busy recovering from a second rear-end encounter initiated by a young driver in iffy conditions. Previously on “This Is Not Your Beautiful Car,” I sampled one of the last of the great V8 Interceptors– I mean, the Pontiac Bonneville. It was so large– on the outside– that I was constantly checking the rear-view mirror for Tomcats auguring-in for a landing. On the inside, it was plush and chock-full of gadgets. But it was also more cramped than an Olympic swimmer after a seven course meal. This time ‘round I got sentenced to an 05’ Taurus.  

While the Ford is definitely roomier inside than the plastic Pontiac, the Taurus lacks what anyone would call “style.” In fact, to complete the generic motif, it really needs the word “CAR” in black block lettering adorning its hood, roof and doors. Driving-wise, the Ford Taurus is about as close to a Porsche Boxster as a block of cement. The Taurus’ interior is cheap-looking, if hard-wearing (which may or may not be a good thing). But hey, this baby’s got a stereo, cruise-control, power windows and map lights. So, unlike Christina Aguilera, it’s not a complete stripper. And it’s got me thinking: the Taurus would make a great “first car.”

When I was growing up, “kids’ cars” were usually pre-abused sedans from the late ‘60s’ or anytime in the ‘70s’. These battle-weary Yank tanks or plus-sized rice burners were considered a pro-active solution to teenage driving. The reasoning was simple: put as much iron as possible between junior or little missy and whatever solid objects they might strike in some late-braking encounter. While these sofas-on-wheels were less nimble than k-fed after his tenth Long Slow Comfortable Screw Against the Wall, they’d shake off a lot of minor scrapes– especially if they were from the duck-billed 5mph bumper era. They were also dirt cheap to fix.

Of course, there were a few kids whose parents bought them something sexy and brand-new– and a replacement after they’d bent it. And others were forced by financial circumstances to share the family car. The practice was understandable but deeply unnatural; it implied that your money was going toward other things, like college.

Kids who received ratty wheels did what they could to be cool. They tinted the windows and blared the soundtrack from “Shaft” or other proto-hip-hop tunes. Thankfully, there wasn’t much anyone could do about these beaters’ underwhelming performance, save slapping on some serious rubber, and no one thought about tires until they were as bald as Kojak. Any performance-oriented body mod got the derision it deserved.

While it’s an ancient bit of iron (practically unchanged for 10 years), the Taurus is a decent car for post-permit progeny. ASs it's only slightly faster than a power walker, Ye Olde Understeer would never get a rookie driver in trouble. While the Taurus' handling isn’t particularly sharp (as in a butter knife), the car pretty much goes where you aim it. There’s just about enough acceleration to merge into traffic. It’s wide and low enough that rollovers are less likely than a rigged lottery draw. And if something did happen, the Taurus four-star crash protection would see you right.

On the economy front, Taurus mileage is a precocious twenty-something. The jelly mold Ford has never been known for reliability, but parts are cheap. Your kids should be able to keep one in gas, brakes, etc. on burger-flipping money. Forget about depreciation; chances are the Taurus will die in service. You can get a decent 50-60k unit with a few useful toys for less than five figures. Perfectly drivable examples of this rental mainstay cost as little as $3k to $4k. Prozac excepted, peace of mind doesn’t come any cheaper.

The main demerit: the Taurus’ commodious back seat. While I’m not concerned about prurient issues (lust will find a way), the Taurus can haul up to six people. It’s been scientifically proven that a teenager’s stupidity increases in direct proportion to the number of peers in close physical proximity. The sheer inattention and bravado of six teens with one brain between them is too staggering to contemplate. (Some states ban new drivers from carrying cohorts.) At least they won’t be drag-racing; the engine has nowhere near the power to haul 900 pounds of hormones at a non-humiliating speed.

Ending on a positive note, the Taurus is dull and ugly. Ford’s sedan teaches your child that if they don’t study hard and get into a good school, they can look forward to driving this sort of car for the rest of their life. Nothing focuses the mind like the prospect of a life full of rental hacks.  

The day my high school classmate flipped the bird at a Lincoln Continental was the day I learned that handling is more important than horsepower. VINNIE (as proclaimed by his vanity plate) decided that my erstwhile friend’s one finger salute justified our immediate extinction. His black Lincoln rammed the back of my Ford Pinto station wagon as I entered the highway on-ramp. Although I later learned that the Pinto tended to explode in such circumstances, even then I knew I had to drive as if my life depended on it. If only because it did.

If it wasn’t so ridiculous it would have been ludicrous: a gi-normous Lincoln luxobarge (Bill Blass edition?) trying to destroy the sine qua non of shitboxes. Vinnie had literally four times as much horsepower (210hp vs. 54hp) and twice the heft (5264lbs. vs. 2800lbs.). Ah, but I had Pirelli P-Zeros (hey, why not?). I was also blessed with better genetics (a guy named Vinnie driving a Lincoln in Rhode Island?) lots of experience driving at extra legal speeds (so now you know Dad) and all the adrenal acuity of a hunted fox. 

My only chance: cornering. I’d gained a little distance on Vinnie on the 180-degree on-ramp. He caught up with us in the straight and rammed us twice more on the highway, HARD. Luckily, there was an off-ramp only a mile away. I managed to get the Pinto into a residential area just across the river. I started taking corner after corner after corner as fast as I could, four wheel drifting my way around countless city blocks. Vinnie’s barge lost ground. Now all I had to do was… hide.

When I couldn’t see the big Lincoln in the rear view mirror, I looked for an open garage. I drove straight into the first one I saw– at speed. My friend and I ducked down. Vinnie sped past. Mission accomplished. Lesson learned: when push comes to shove, it’s better to be able to shove the accelerator to the carpet in a turn than get pushed into the Seekonk River by a guido in a Lincoln Continental.

Of course, I wasn’t entirely horsepower aversive. It’s just that I’d learned to associate hugely powerful cars with boat-like handling. Even my father’s Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3 conformed to the basic principle that you steer big engined cars with your right foot. For me, handling was all. (Well, that and beauty.) So when the moment finally arrived when I could finally afford something more like an automotive athlete– and less like a tubercular coal miner– I opted for a Mazda RX7.

As you probably know, to get the [first gen] RX7 to speed you had to wind up the pint-sized Waring blender (a.k.a. rotary engine) sitting in its nose to approximately one million rpm. Even then, you relied on The Big Mo (momentum) to fully exploit the genius of its wonderfully balanced chassis and superb (for its time) suspension. For a Pinto refugee? No problem. In fact, the only problem was that I soon developed a taste for street racing. Obviously, I’m not talking about drag racing. The RX7 only offered 46 more horses than my original FoMoCo “stallion.” It sewing machined from zero to sixty in 8.5 seconds (with the AC off). I’m talking about racing through highway traffic.

I realize this concept is about as politically correct as lighting up a stogie in a children’s cancer ward. But hey, that’s the way it was. We even developed names for maneuvers: the three lane Charlie (cutting across three lanes in one move), two lane Ralph (passing a car in the middle lane before the “hole” closed) and the ‘Frig (letting a car try to pass you on the right, then closing the hole; named after William “The Refrigerator” Perry). This unconscionable “sport” appealed to me because winning required tactics, timing and courage more than brute power.

I left the game in Atlanta. I was racing a Z28 on a six lane undivided highway. I was in the left lane. I’d boxed the Z in but good. To my horror he cut behind me and INTO THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC. He went to the left of two cars coming straight at him, missing a head on collision by feet, then cut back right ahead of me. I was done.

While I was OK with taking risks with my own driving, I hadn’t realized that my actions could cause other people to take innocent lives. If the Z28 had taken out one of those cars in the opposite lane, it would have been my fault, and I knew I couldn’t live with that. I learned that car control and self-control go hand-in-hand.

As a six-year-old growing up in the rich farmlands of northern Illinois, I spent my days playing in the creeks that meandered along and across Flansberg and Orangeville roads. One day, I was ambling home when a thunderous roar jolted me from my reverie. A black car came out of the curve behind me and sped past. The passenger waved. Convinced that I’d seen not one but two ghosts (restless souls at that), I ran home. 

I told my tale of the phantoms of Flansberg road. My father listened, and then explained my sighting in less paranormal terms. “Some crazy people aren’t happy using an automobile to get them from here to there. They think it needs to look different and move faster. It’s as foolish as standing around with a hot rod in your bare hands. Now eat your dinner and do your chores.” But the image and sound of that car never faded from my mind.

Forty-four years later, Kurt Flannery called to tell me he was building a Ford Speedster. When I said I’d never heard of such a thing, my old friend clued me in. At the beginning of the last century, amateur enthusiasts would buy a Model T or Model A and take it back to their shed or garage. They’d strip the car, soup-up the engine, lower it by a foot or so and retrofit it with aerodynamic bodywork (or leave it bare). These “speedsters” were the world's first hotrods, patterned after Henry Ford’s early efforts (including a 91.37mph land speed record on a cindered frozen lake just outside of Detroit.)

A couple years later, I went to see Kurt’s finished speedster. As the door slowly swung upward, I saw a ghost. It was the exact same car I’d seen along the Flansberg Road. It had the same sleek appearance, the same tall white steel wheels and same long, low, predator posture. And it was beautiful: a boat tailed speedster worthy of a master builder. In the dim light of the garage, Kurt’s creation lay motionless, like a monster not to be awakened. 

My friend handed me a white jacket, chrome goggles, black racing gloves and a soft white helmet. The speedster’s four banger cranked into a low throaty idle. When Kurt cranked the revs, the sound transported me back through time, back a half of a century, to a dusty road just outside of town.

The speedster was fast. I felt like I was riding on the outside of a rocket, sitting beside a steely-eyed missile man in full and unfettered control. We raced past huge trees, casting ever-lengthening shadows in our path. Every bump in the road, every twitch of the ancient chassis had me glancing over at my old friend for reassurance. Each time, he smiled and gave me a thumbs-up. On and on we sped…

I don’t think it even dawned on me when Kurt slowed just enough to straighten out the turn that would put us onto Flansberg road. The sun had just slipped beneath the trees to the left as we sped north. Kurt literally screamed over the exhaust noise that there was a set of curves just up ahead that he enjoyed at speed.

When we emerged from the last bend, there was a young boy walking along side the road with a fishing pole over his shoulder, bathed in the red of a fiery sunset. As he came into our view, he turned sharply to see what was overtaking him. He was startled by our quick arrival, and the specter of two men in strange suits, helmets and goggles. I smiled and waved.  

When we pulled into the drive, it was dark enough for headlights. They died at the same moment as the engine. The monster was once again sleeping. The silence was painful. Gone was the “ten on the Richter scale” noise, the immense vibration, the cool wind in our face and the fleeting intense beauty of the moment itself.

I now find myself seventy-five years of age. Whenever I get back to the Midwest, I make time to stroll in the countryside where I grew up, just for old times' sake. Sometimes I look around and find that, after all these years, it looks the same as it did back then. And when I’m walking out there during sunset, and the wind lulls momentarily, and the rustling leaves settle to a whisper, I swear I can hear the faraway distant thunder of the phantoms of Flansberg road, moving quickly out of earshot. Of course, it’s only my imagination. But then, everything worth doing starts somewhere in the imagination.     

A genius named Vinnie Cilurzo in Santa Rosa, California makes a beer called “Pliny the Elder.” I will never forget the first time it passed through my lips; it was as if the Victoria’s Secret angels were lap-dancing on my tongue. Even after thirteen years of home brewing, even after qualifying as a Certified beer judge, nothing had prepared me for my first taste of Vinnie’s magnificent brew. And no beer I would drink after that would ever taste the same. I’d had a beer epiphany. As a pistonhead, my first automotive epiphany occurred, oddly enough, in a Jeep Cherokee.

I was in the market for a new car. I needed an inexpensive vehicle capable of hauling a recently purchased upright bass. Out went my safe, reliable, comfortable and endlessly dull Nissan Sentra. In came one of the most remarkable vehicles ever produced. Now you might think my moment of revelation occurred on a broken trail or eighteen-inches of mud. And I’m proud to report that this particular Cherokee– and the one I purchased afterwards– saw plenty of off-road action. But the big moment arrived on plain old asphalt.

I was heading back from my parent’s home in Los Angeles (where my bass had been stored) to my home in San Francisco. I was driving the Cherokee down California’s numbingly straight main vehicular artery, Interstate 5. It was a weekday morning; there were neither cars nor constables visible in any direction. The Jeep was humming along happily at 85mph. And then, for reasons lost in the mists of time, I buried the throttle. The Cherokee’s 4.0-liter straight-six came alive and the needle climbed higher and then higher still.

Now I’ve passengered at more than 200 miles an hour in a NASCAR race car. I can say with some authority that the Jeep’s 120mph terminal velocity was not an objectively impressive feat. But it was the first time in my life I’d ever driven fast. To say I was hooked is a monumental understatement, and I have the insurance premiums to prove it. Of course, going fast in a single line may be the be-all end-all for muscle car or drag racing aficionados, left / right action is where it’s at. As I discovered during my second epiphany, on a test drive of an Audi A4 1.8 Turbo.

After the dotcom bubble burst, I returned to my native Los Angeles. After two car-free years in Manhattan I wanted a set of wheels so bad I could almost pay for them. The cheapest Audi’s AWD turboness appealed to me– though I really had no notion why. With the dealer in situ, I gave it a go. I will never forget taking the vehicle’s speed into and through a corner. The g-force joy unleashed by Ingolstadt’s engineers was indescribably delicious, like joining the mile high club, only down to earth.  I was hooked X 2.

About a year later, I dated an exotically beautiful woman (it is hard to argue against Scottish/Vietnamese hybrids) who owned a BMW 540i. On our very first date, I asked if I could drive the mid-sized, V8-powered German luxury car. Let it never be said that I have my priorities straight; the Bimmer’s throttle response, seamless gearbox, faultless chassis control and sublime ride quality suddenly became much more appealing to me than the stunning sexpot seated to my right. Cars like this existed? I believe my political affiliation changed from Nadar-socialist to confirmed-capitalist in 1320 feet.

One of the things I love most about my job is my job. Case in point: on a junket to Skip Barber’s High Performance Driving School I managed to overheat a BMW M3 and shred the tire off a Porsche 911. My third automotive epiphany arrived on the second day of the class in the form of a red Dodge Viper. That’s 8.3 liters, 505hp and 550lbs. feet of torque and a cabin temperature north 150 degrees. It was terrifying. Everything I did was wrong, wrong, stupid, dangerous and wrong. Cones ran for their lives, wheels smoked and more often than not, the big bad Dodge found itself going backwards. I was hopeless.

But then, suddenly, for about one-quarter of one of my twelve laps, I did everything right. Hard on the throttle. Pick the perfect line. Light braking to redistribute the weight. Late steering input to the apex. Nail the gas and blast out of the turn. Sadly, I performed a scary, pupil-dilating 720 afterwards to, uh, celebrate. And yet, for the most fleeting of moments, I was Fangio: calm, deliberate and in control.

Now, whenever I test a car, no matter how humble or exotic, I wonder if a paradigm shift awaits. Mind you, I don’t need another epiphany. I just want one.

I remember my Dad carrying me out to a little greenish-yellow station wagon when I was two. We had that car a little more than a year and that’s my only memory of it. This puts me in rare company: one of the few Americans with a positive memory of a Chevy Vega. My parents would not be in that group. One rear end collision and one melted engine, and the Vega was gone. If I missed out on the joy of picking rust scabs, at least I got to sample the full majesty of the Chevette. Was it a bad car? Was it a match for the Vega? To steal a line from “Bloom County,” it wasn’t that bad, but Lord it wasn’t good.

The car in question was a blue Chevette hatch, my bud Joe's family car. Joe’s parents weren't poor as much as they were deeply frugal. When it was time to join the growing ranks of the “two car family,” they added a posh red Chevette to their stable. I became very (not to say over) familiar with the blue Chevette. At first, I rode shotgun. After I got my driving license, I became the Chevette’s wheelman. Joe didn’t get any kick out of driving (understandably); he was perfectly happy handing that job on me. He also palmed-off testing his home-built rocket-launchers on me, but I digress.

Aside from its unabashed expression of its owners and manufacturers’ penny-pinching, there was nothing particularly “wrong” about the Chevette’s interior. Speedometer, gas gauge, idiot lights and a glove box with no lock. Done. The seats were made of vinyl specifically designed to sear beachgoers' skin. The gear change was a mess and you had to use your whole hand to flick the turn signal. We referred to the back seat as the torture chamber and, by God, it was.

Driving the Chevette was like a dream. The car liberated us from our families, blessing us with the freedom that all young drivers feel when they first set sail for the big wide world. Not that it was pleasant. The Chevette looked and drove like a slightly jumped-up pedal car. There was none of the gliding heft of The General’s larger vehicles. Nor was there any of the sure feedback of other hatchbacks. Our Accord was getting on, and was never all that fast, but it felt like a car, not a toy. It was as if GM execs created the Chevette simply to justify their disdain for “those tinny foreign cars.”

The Chevette’s utter lack of get-up-and-go was remarkable. You could floor the 1.4-liter four and get nothing more than a slightly louder rattle. It wasn’t THAT slow (we had a VW MicroBus), but there was no power reserve. The Chevette’s anemic power delivery and iffy feedback (despite lacking power steering) made for careful driving. As for top end, the little Chevy might hit 60– downhill with a tailwind. Since we mostly stayed in town, the lack of top speed wasn’t much of a factor.

While the Chevette was stable to the point of catatonia in normal driving conditions, the rare occasions when I drove it in the rain were nigh-on religious experiences. Trying to guide an underpowered, numb feeling, lightweight rear wheel-drive car sitting on narrow tires while keeping track of other drivers without an effective window defrosting system evoked all the terror beloved of slasher movie audiences. I don’t think I ever drove the Chevette in the snow. If I had, I’m sure I would have remembered it. On the plus side, the Chevette proved to be a fairly reliable ride that withstood teenage abuse and neglect. 

Looking back, I don’t think the Chevette deserves to be lumped-in with that era’s epic failures: the Ford Pinto and the Chevette's immediate predecessor, the Chevy Vega. No question: the Chevette was never the best car in its class (Dodge Omni, VW Rabbit, AMC Gremlin, Toyota Tercel, Renault Encore), nor was it the cheapest (especially if you added the options other cars offered as standard). The Chevette stayed in production as long as it did (1976 – 1987) to fill a “hole” in GM’s line-up, and then prop up CAFE ratings. 

The Chevette wasn’t a failure for what it was. It was a failure for what it could have been. The Vega was horrible, but it was a start. Its replacement (Chevette and the Monza) didn’t move the game forward on any level other than reliability (and only relative to the Vega). No front wheel-drive, no style, no aluminum engine, no disc brakes– nothing that said small and inexpensive can be beautiful. In fact, the Chevette marks the point where the imports started to run away from the domestics, as Detroit turned their back on small vehicles and once again stuffed their pockets with cash from larger ones. Now there’s a memory for you.

Automotive history is littered with titanic failures. For every hot-selling Mustang, there’s a hatful (hateful?) of Vegas, Pintos, Excels, Yugos, Edsels and, of course, Azteks. From its introduction until its timely demise some four years later, the Pontiac Aztek SUV was the subject of journalistic dog-piling and a thousand weak jokes. But really, does it belong in this infamous company? The answer is a bit complicated; the Aztek was certainly a failure, but not exactly in the way you might expect.

First, let’s look at the Aztek’s indisputable failure: sales. Pontiac aimed to sell 75k Azteks a year. In its first model year (2001), GM shipped less than 10k Azteks to private buyers, dumped quite a few thousand on unfortunate middle-managers and sent the rest to the rental fleets. After an emergency re-style, a price-cut and deep discounts, sales climbed to around 25 – 27k units per year, and stayed there until the car’s demise. 

The Aztek may have been a car lot pariah, but it was no Chevy Vega. There were no major recalls or horror stories involving melting engines. The model was as reliable as any GM vehicle of its time, cutting edge in many ways (CAD-CAM designed, red light dash, optional heads-up display), outdoorsy (could be converted into a camper, complete with built-in air compressor for your air mattress), lifestyle-oriented (racks for bikes, canoes, kayaks, etc.) and beloved (high scores on “CSI" owner surveys). Despite abuse from all quarters, the Aztek earned itself a group of passionate devotees.  

Even so, it bombed. So who exactly gets the blame for this so-called fiasco? Again, there's no denying that the engineers didn’t make it pretty, but they made it well. The UAW also gets a pass; GM built the Aztek (and Buick Rendezvous) in Mexico’s Ramos Arizpe plant. No, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of GM's bean counters. That’s because the Aztek’s biggest problem wasn’t its confused looks (though they didn’t help). It was price.

The Aztek was designed for younger couples and families who didn’t want a great honking SUV. Pontiac priced the Aztek in the region of $25k to $30k. Unfortunately, the price was well into premium minivan and three-row SUV territory. The Aztek offered Versatrak all-wheel drive and a lot (a LOT) of cladding, but it fooled no one. The vehicle its makers labeled “quite possibly the most versatile vehicle on the planet” was priced at least $5k above its logical, non-SUV competition. 

Given that most of the Aztek’s technology was off-the-shelf, and south-of-the-UAW labor costs were low, why was the initial asking price so high? When the Aztek was designed, Pontiac had no high profit SUV’s. When their line finally got an SUV (ok, a proto-crossover), Pontiac’s brass were hungry for big profit margins, despite the fact that the Aztek was a more-expensive unitary design. So GM cut production costs as deeply as possible and then set the retail price to deliver big profits while still undercutting Chevy’s mid-sized SUVs (Trailblazer). Great in theory, poison in practice.

Even so, why did GM/Pontiac think they could sell 75k Azteks? Of course, missing a sales target is hardly a novelty in the car industry, especially at General Motors. Even though the domestic automaker pays thousands of researchers huge amounts of money to find out how many people want (or think they want) what, no one has quite cracked that particular nut. The market research leading to the Aztek is locked away, deep inside GM's vaults. Did they ask the wrong questions, or simply draw the wrong conclusions? 

GM certainly was on to something with the Aztek's manufacturing system. Like Honda's Odyssey/Ridgeline twins, the Mexican plant could switch between Azteks and Rendezvous. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough demand for either vehicle to make the so-called "flexible" system work. In fact, GM has had some terrible luck with plants capable of making limited production runs, such as the now-closed Lansing facility (Reatta, EV1, SSR). As a result, the majority of GM's business is still built on big runs, with the “extra” (i.e. surplus to retail demand) units going to fleets. The company is still not set up to profit on small volumes for niche markets. Which is exactly what today's fragmenting market demands.

Now that it’s gone, many want to write off the Aztek as one of the great all-time automotive disasters. On the face of it (should you be able to look), it was. But in many important ways, it wasn’t. Again, the model broke new ground in many areas. The epitaph should not be “GM’s Edsel”. Or maybe it should. Edsel Ford was hounded by his famous father and ruined by the stress of holding a disintegrating company together. The Aztek died because it was forced to carry the hopes and dreams of an entire division, when it was just a decent, homely little people-carrier.