Writer's Block: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
May. 10th, 2010 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
not_hathor[Error: unknown template qotd]
Cars are just like pets and people; they have quirks and personality and are individuals too.
My first car was shared with my older sister as we were at the same college together. I can't recall the make or model, but our dad bought him used and for some reason there's this notion in my head that Bruce used to be an unmarked police car. We called him BRUCE, because he was green, and bounced (bad shocks?).
Second car was a blue 1967 Chevy Bel Air, purchsed from my college roommate at the end of Senior year, when I needed a car of my own. That was The TANK, because he handled like one (no power steering or brakes, lousy gas mileage)and had survived a collision with a Metrobus with only a dented driver's door panel (previous owner, not me!). He was a good 'un; I drove TANK almost three years before the trunk rusted out and he failed the state safety inspection.
My Third Car was also my first (and so far) totally NEW off the dealer's lot in hock to the bank vehicle -- a snazzy Pewter-Grey and Silver 1981 Mercury Lynx, with a cool red detailing stripe and a Manual transmission. My husband gave me an afternoon's driving lesson in the college parking lot Sunday, and I drove GREY LADY to work the next day. I totally LOVED that car.....GREY lasted nine years before she threw an engine rod while my husband was driving her and went out like a trooper....
Car Number Four was a faded yellow Mercury Monarch we called ECTO. We had ECTO for about a year before his engine caught fire (again, while Husband was driving him to work).
Number 5 - A Silver Honda with manual transmission I named KATO, because the Green Hornet was the Great Nephew of the Lone Ranger (makes perfect sense, yep!) When the engine went bad (guess who was driving?)we were lucky enough to find both a rebuilt engine and someone who could install it. KATO lasted another year after that...
I wish that Lincoln Mercury still made the Lynx, because they were the BEST cars! METHOS was a gold '86 Lynx XL, again like Grey and Kato with manual transmission...poor METHOS got rear-ended TWICE, at the very same intersection, within a year. Both times my husband was able to put him back together so that you could barely tell (the hatchback stuck a bit), but even his genius couldn't repair/replace the broken axle and rusted out chassis....
Oddly enough, I never really settled on a name for the blue '91 Chevy Cavalier... I started out calling him TEAL'C (character from STARGATE SG-1) but it didn't really fit... after the driver's door had to be replaced (got backed into at a stop sign that sat at right angles to a driveway), I called him my Black & Blue Cavalier, or Guilleume, after a historical Re-enactment friend we used to have.... He literally blew his muffler out one morning -- rusty shrapnel everywhere! Our mechanic said it was lucky nothing caught fire.
Which brings us to Car Number Eight: 'Hakkai' in Chinese, after a character in an anime series I was watching in at the time; and 'Buck' because the letter "I" was missing from the '94 'Buick' lettered across the front of the hood. BUCK HAKKAI was a roomy green four-door LeSabre with automatic tramission (took a little gettting used to!) that travelled to St. Paul, Minnesota and back in one marathon road-trip to go camping with some on-line friends (you know how you are, little darlin's), and helped the moving to our new house when Husband was incapacitated with a broken hip. BUCK HAKKAI gave up the ghost at the end of April, just two weeks ago.
I have yet to settle on a name for the gold 2004 Chevy Malibu.... maybe SANZO... maybe DelMAR... we're still getting aquainted at this point.
And those are just MY cars....My husband names his vehicles, too!
Cars are just like pets and people; they have quirks and personality and are individuals too.
My first car was shared with my older sister as we were at the same college together. I can't recall the make or model, but our dad bought him used and for some reason there's this notion in my head that Bruce used to be an unmarked police car. We called him BRUCE, because he was green, and bounced (bad shocks?).
Second car was a blue 1967 Chevy Bel Air, purchsed from my college roommate at the end of Senior year, when I needed a car of my own. That was The TANK, because he handled like one (no power steering or brakes, lousy gas mileage)and had survived a collision with a Metrobus with only a dented driver's door panel (previous owner, not me!). He was a good 'un; I drove TANK almost three years before the trunk rusted out and he failed the state safety inspection.
My Third Car was also my first (and so far) totally NEW off the dealer's lot in hock to the bank vehicle -- a snazzy Pewter-Grey and Silver 1981 Mercury Lynx, with a cool red detailing stripe and a Manual transmission. My husband gave me an afternoon's driving lesson in the college parking lot Sunday, and I drove GREY LADY to work the next day. I totally LOVED that car.....GREY lasted nine years before she threw an engine rod while my husband was driving her and went out like a trooper....
Car Number Four was a faded yellow Mercury Monarch we called ECTO. We had ECTO for about a year before his engine caught fire (again, while Husband was driving him to work).
Number 5 - A Silver Honda with manual transmission I named KATO, because the Green Hornet was the Great Nephew of the Lone Ranger (makes perfect sense, yep!) When the engine went bad (guess who was driving?)we were lucky enough to find both a rebuilt engine and someone who could install it. KATO lasted another year after that...
I wish that Lincoln Mercury still made the Lynx, because they were the BEST cars! METHOS was a gold '86 Lynx XL, again like Grey and Kato with manual transmission...poor METHOS got rear-ended TWICE, at the very same intersection, within a year. Both times my husband was able to put him back together so that you could barely tell (the hatchback stuck a bit), but even his genius couldn't repair/replace the broken axle and rusted out chassis....
Oddly enough, I never really settled on a name for the blue '91 Chevy Cavalier... I started out calling him TEAL'C (character from STARGATE SG-1) but it didn't really fit... after the driver's door had to be replaced (got backed into at a stop sign that sat at right angles to a driveway), I called him my Black & Blue Cavalier, or Guilleume, after a historical Re-enactment friend we used to have.... He literally blew his muffler out one morning -- rusty shrapnel everywhere! Our mechanic said it was lucky nothing caught fire.
Which brings us to Car Number Eight: 'Hakkai' in Chinese, after a character in an anime series I was watching in at the time; and 'Buck' because the letter "I" was missing from the '94 'Buick' lettered across the front of the hood. BUCK HAKKAI was a roomy green four-door LeSabre with automatic tramission (took a little gettting used to!) that travelled to St. Paul, Minnesota and back in one marathon road-trip to go camping with some on-line friends (you know how you are, little darlin's), and helped the moving to our new house when Husband was incapacitated with a broken hip. BUCK HAKKAI gave up the ghost at the end of April, just two weeks ago.
I have yet to settle on a name for the gold 2004 Chevy Malibu.... maybe SANZO... maybe DelMAR... we're still getting aquainted at this point.
And those are just MY cars....My husband names his vehicles, too!
